Donald MacLeod Piobaireachd Tutorials vol. 1 part 1.
The King's Taxes is believed to have been composed by Ronald MacDougall in the 19th century.
The Pentatonic scale is: G-A-B-D-E
Metre: 3 lines 4:4:4 (1st line is repeated) Quadruple-Simple time
Believed to be composed for when taxes were first imposed in Scotland.
The beginning of The King's Taxes reminds me a lot of The Groat. The first line, which is 4 measures, is repeated. I really like that the first line begins on Low G and ends on High G. This makes for an interesting beginning, many composers think that music should end the same way it begins. While I've been playing through the first line of this tune, in my head I have been composing something for organ that would work really well with this piece.
Ground-1st line (Aug. 2, 2010)
I just about have the first line memorized. When I first started playing the piece with Donald MacLeod, I was finding myself either not holding notes long enough or holding other notes too long. However, I've started playing the first line with him a lot closer. The first line is pretty simple. Some really nice edres and embaris. The double echoes on E and then right into double echoes on D with a B transition is quite nice. This is a lovely tune.
Tomorrow I'm going to play the first line on the pipes.
Ground-2nd line (Aug. 3, 2010)
The second line of the ground has the first two measures of the first line in reverse. After that there is some new material and then ends the same way it began. I have this line memorized. I played the first line on pipes and didn't have any memory problems. Tomorrow I'm going to play the 1st and 2nd lines on pipes.
Ground-3rd line (Aug. 4, 2010)
