The Dark Island
⚡ The Short Version
I write The Dark Island in 6/4 rather than the usual 6/8, because it more accurately shows how the tune is actually played. The 6/4 notation captures the true relationship between the long tied notes and the short sixteenth notes far better than the typical 6/8 setting most pipers use.
Stretch the long notes, keep the short notes truly short, and never rush into a birl or doubling. A common mistake is letting short notes get rounded out toward the long notes around them — and rushing ahead into embellishments that follow a long note, instead of holding that note for its full value first.
The tune is full of repetition, which makes it quicker to learn but requires real consistency. Bars 1-2 match bars 5-6, and bars 3-4 match bars 7-8, within each part — so once you know the first part, you really only need to learn the first two bars of the second part to have the whole tune.
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⏱️ In this lesson
00:05Not This Is Written Why in Introduction: 6/8 6/4,🔒
00:45Its Three Beats Holding for Long D 8 in Full Bar the🔒
02:08Short Notes Keeping Long Notes Short, Long🔒
02:25and Doublings Into Don't Birls Rush🔒
03:06High Holding A the Birl to Right Up🔒
04:02Tune's Structure Repeating The🔒
04:36Landing the Tachum Two Bar Beat on in the🔒
05:55"Two Two" Old-Fashioned Repeat: The Bracket The of🔒
06:41Putting Structure the Together Whole Repeat🔒
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Every time The Dark Island came up in a live class, with the moment I said it — click a timestamp and you land right there.
▶ 00:22:11Use Practical Your Piping to ChatGPT Improve to AI and WaysLeaving Island, Forest ChatGPT: Hector would Mist Flowers Grace, Best — of Song, airs slow Mountains, Lismore, I The a… Skye per the Covered Dark Boat Hero, the Amazing🔒
▶ 00:58:03Member 7, 2022 July Videos —cut Island needs tune slow still notes a like its Dark short. played Even🔒
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About this tune
🔒 The write-up and the quotes from this tune are part of the members’ page.
for T. a air, well-loved was Benbecula, slow on and name, actually despite the 1962 The in sound, written in Scotland's adapted traditional Outer BBC by McLaughlan its Island for Hebrides. composition radio. same set is island television series the of an The — a series later modern it's Dark
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“It's slow, short are and still these notes short.” really quite
hold “I the starts beat.” that birl that I'm and early to the not on right high A, — birl really
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