"The Border Pole" by David Kilpatrick

The Border Pole

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One per cent of the Scottish Borders population is now Polish, so this wee tune takes a sort of polka and a bit of Border and a bit of Scots to welcome them to a climate marginally not so bad as Poland

singer songwriter acoustic folk british guitarist song celtic traditional fingerstyle scottish scotland guitar kelso

David Kilpatrick

Solo singer-songwriter and tunesmith playing British fingerstyle steel and nylon string guitar, and historic instruments. Scots and Irish influences.

I've been writing and playing songs and tunes since teenage years in folk clubs and pubs. I co-organise the Kelso Friday night live music sessions at the Cross Keys (hosted singaround 7.45-10pm) and Cobbles Inn (10-12pm open mic with The Cobbles Band) with the help of many friends. All welcome! Visit us at kelsofolkandlive co uk. It is worth clicking on the tab because the sound quality of my tracks is far higher than the auto player on this page. Many can be streamed or downloaded at 320KBps and the enhancement for solo guitar/voice far exceeds the benefit you get for highly compressed band recordings. My recordings are full dynamic, not compressed. Just select Hi-Fi for the first song, and an MP3 high bitrate window will open - you will still get a sequence of songs. Most of my downloads are free, but some 320KBps tracks are paid-for. These are selected because they make up my main instrumental album. I now have a YouTube page and have started doing some video recordings for fun: @daviddkilpatrick I have mainly played Lowden guitars since 1999. I current play a 1985 S5FN (nylon string), 1986 S22 (jumbo O-size mahogany/cedar), and 1995 S32 (small body rosewood/spruce). I also play my own 1997-built Martin 'kit' Grand Auditorium rosewood/spruce, a Sigma OM-T, Furch Little Jane, Tacoma Papoose, Guild 8-string baritone, Vintage V880 parlour guitar and Gordon Giltrap signature model, a Troubadour mahogany/spruce classical and an Adam Black 12-string. And that's just the guitars... also viola, mandolin, mandola, waldzither, bouzouki, Appalachian dulcimer, low D whistle, keyboards.

Song Info

Genre

Acoustic • Acoustic Folk

Charts

Peak #10

Peak in subgenre #1

Author

David Kilpatrick

Rights

David Kilpatrick 2007

Uploaded

January 06, 2007

Track Files

MP3

MP3 3.6 MB • 192 kbps • 3:55

Story behind the song

This is a tune set which has been developing for a year or so, gradually working itself out. It is extremely simple and relies on open string campanella a great deal, in drop D tuning. However, the picking patterns involved are not instinctive and use alternating finger and thumb more than you would expect. The thumb does a lot of work on the high strings in this composition.

The tune is played on a Lamaq small body ultra thin electro acoustic, but it's not even plugged in - and I had to roll the bass off on my twin Behringer C2 mics (about 1 foot from the guitar, crossed stereo config) to avoid too much. And keep the volume down. This inexpensive solid wood all-maple (maple top!) 24.75 inch scale stage guitar has exactly the fast response and clarity of definition I have been looking for to handle this type of playing. It's very easy to play and the cost from iguitars (Antonio Lamaq's eBay shop for his Chinese made instruments) was about the same as buying a hard case from most suppliers. Around a quarter of the real value of the guitar. I regret to say I have now bought four from Mr Lamaq (a well-known classical luthier who has gone to China to get retail steelstrings made) - a jumbo, a small body, this stage guitar and a resonator. Total cost, rather less than the cheapest Taylor...

The tune title is for the 1 per cent of Scottish Borderers who are now Polish, or the other way round :-)

Lyrics

This is an instrumental, so no lyrics, but the opening phrase is can be described for players: Tuning DADGBE. Place two fingers - fret the 3rd on the B string, 5th on the D string - xxx530. Play strings 2-1-2-3 as eight-notes. Next position: move the two finger shape down one set of string, up two frets - xx570x. Play strings 2-3-2-4 as eight notes. Next position: fret strings 4 and 5 at the 7th fret: x770xx. Play 3-4-3-5 as eight notes then end on open string 4 D. That's the opening campanella phrase. It is followed by a partial D7th shape with hammer-on scale - 00421x - then a regular ole G-chord. The second motif uses a 1st position C, the alternate theme a D, the second alternate theme a G (all 1st position) and the harmonic bit is entirely octave harmonics no clever stuff.

You can watch a video of me playing a shortened version (on a very shortened guitar!) on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GXZW_P8V3c

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