This tune came up a lot in sessions, it seems to be a hornpipe , I have got it reverberating round my head at 5 in the morning. Any info on it and its composer? I'll go on the Session also

yes, a very good tune!
the session has Robert Whitehead as the composer (full name is the great north run '86)
and there's lots of info in the comments section foir the tune at the session site here

Chris

ps we play it after Willy Taylor's High Tea (which is also availble in the session tunebase)
pps I think of it as a rant

There's a nice recording of this tune by Alistair Anderson and Joe Hutton: cut 6 on the cd The Grand Chain as the middle tune in the medley Robertson's reel, The Great North Run, The Grand Chain.

Thanks for the info. Nice to see a tune working its way into the tradition from a known date. If its in the idiom and gets subjected to the selection process how long before it is 'Traditional Music'?

Yes I was wondering the other day how old does something have to be before its 'traditional'?

This came up in a session at Whitby last week. Some great young fiddlers were playing a rake of tunes nobody else knew so some people felt excluded. One woman complained and said 'they should play some traditional tunes'. In the discussion that ensued we agreed that they might be tunes from a tradition with which we weren't familiar, frrom session in another region, from records etc or that they might be new compositions in the trad idiom. It transpired that a lot were[ new compositions but were played without mentioning that fact ( who says they should be) A lot of composers do just introduce them into sessions to see how they get on and a lot do get accepted, in fact I've heard people say "I've not heard that for a few years"

I think that the tune "The High Tea" is not really Willy Taylor's, in the sense that he didn't write it. It was written by Michelle Soinne and named to commemorate the generous hospitality of Willy Taylor and his wife, Nancy. So it does have a direct connection with Willy, but I think Michelle Soinne deserves some credit. The Geckoes recorded this tune on Geckoblaster.

Chas