To my U.S. friends

[paraphasiclotus]

 Sam and I sometimes play guitar and flute together. For years we've giggled at the title of a medieval Scottish piece we play called "Whip my Toudie".

Now I've reached breaking point: I must know what a toudie actually is.

Google only found this article which may shed light:http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-870364_ITM
but the crucial

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[danoot]

* Early Scottish music to mesmerize modern ears at Simms Center concert

The Baltimore Consort plays Scottish music in a concert next Sunday in Albuquerque.

There's a tune with a seemingly racy title in the Baltimore Consort's Nov. 2 program of early Scottish music.

The title is "Whip My Toudie" (pronounced tow-dee).

Well, laddies and lassies, what's a "toudie"?

Mary Anne Ballard, a founding Consort member who plays viols and rebec, researched the meaning and origins of the tune.

"We spent a lot of time trying to find out what a 'toudie' meant. I came up with the possibilities of a hen who doesn't lay eggs or a woman who has not had children. There's a connection in the concept," Ballard said by phone from her Chicago home.

Why "whip"?

"If you have a hen that doesn't lay eggs you punish the hen," Ballard said.

"But I think the title is a joke. It was probably a colloquial expression, an overstatement by someone used to spinning yarns."

"Whip My Toudie" is a piece that's in a set of instrumental compositions.

The Consort's "Adew Scotland" concert has mostly secular music from the 16th, 17th and early 18th centuries, before the craze for "Scotch tunes" in England.

"When we started doing early Scottish music we found the tunes were extraordinarily beautiful," Ballard said. "They really get under your skin. The early Scots' pronunciation is also something that is mesmerizing to modern ears."

For example, there's "Our Father, God Celestial," which Ballard said is the translation into Scottish of the Lord's Prayer.

"Throughout, the language has so much more arresting imagery than the King James version," she said.

Besides Ballard, the Consort's members are Mark Cudek on cittern and bass viol, Larry Lipkis on soprano recorder and bass viol, Ronn McFarlane on lute, Mindy Rosenfeld on flutes, whistle and recorder and Custer LaRue on vocals.

Early Scottish music, Ballard said, had a mix of courtly tunes and native airs, or what today is referred to as folk music.

"But then people didn't make a distinction. They just managed to preserve the music that they liked."

[paraphasiclotus]

Thanks so much for that, Dan. I must say I'm disappointed - I was hoping it was Scottish slang for butt, or maybe even an alternative word for sporrin.

[danoot]

I know, I was hoping it'd be more compelling also.