Ye Banks and Braes

How hard is it?

Medium, and not because someone remembered it that way. These five numbers come off the melody itself, the same way the app grades its lessons.

Fastest passage

375 ms

per note, at 100 bpm

Ornaments

1

notes shorter than a snap

Quick leaps

0

of a fourth or wider

Span

14

semitones, A4 to B5

Black keys

17%

of the notes

• nothing in it moves faster than about 375 ms a note, so the hands are never rushed
• 1 very short note to turn
• it spans 14 semitones, wider than an octave
• it covers 52 notes across 8 phrases, which is how it is taught in the app, one breath at a time

What you can play it on

8 of the instruments in the workshop can teach this tune. Where the number differs from "all of them", the reason is the instrument, not the song: a diatonic kalimba has no sharps, and a pentatonic handpan or guzheng has no fourth or seventh at all.

• Piano at written pitch
• Guitar down 1 octave
• Kalimba down 2 semitones
• Handpan down 1 octave
• Violin at written pitch
• Xylophone up 3 semitones
• Guzheng at written pitch
• Accordion down 1 octave
• Drums not this one

Where this transcription came from

Robert Burns, 1791, to the older air 'The Caledonian Hunt's Delight' - public domain. Notes from setting 8 on thesession.org/tunes/6718, the one written without the passing C sharp the other settings carry, so it stays five-note and the pans can play it.

The Session, tune 6718

Every melody in this catalogue is public domain and was transcribed from a named source, then checked against it by a tool rather than by ear. None of them was written down from memory - which is the usual reason two versions of a folk tune on the internet disagree.