Money Musk

A Scottish strathspey composed by Edinburgh fiddler and teacher Daniel Dow in 1776, first published in his Thirty Seven New Reels & Strathspeys under the title “Sir Archibald Grant of Monymusk’s Reel,” named for the House of Monymusk, a baronial estate in Aberdeenshire whose name derives from the Gaelic moine mus(g)ach, meaning “nasty, filthy bog.” Dance instructions were published by 1785, and the tune had reached North America by 1792, spreading rapidly into American manuscript copybooks and printed tunebooks. It appeared in Knauff’s Virginia Reels, vol. 1 (1839) under the alternate title “Killie Krankie,” which was the name of the associated dance rather than the tune itself. Cape Breton fiddlers, who retained older Scottish practice, play it as a strathspey in G major, while the American contradance tradition settled into a reel version; Ryan’s Mammoth Collection prints it twice, once as a reel and once as a strathspey. A four-strain version learned from West Virginia fiddler Henry Reed appeared on the Hollow Rock String Band’s first album (Kanawha 311) and became a key entry point for the tune in the old-time revival; the Highwoods String Band also recorded it on Dance All Night (Rounder 0045).

Daniel Dow (1732–1783) was born in Kirkmichael, Perthshire, Scotland, worked as a music teacher and concert organizer in Edinburgh, and was one of the first musicians to publish music specifically for bagpipes. His Thirty Seven New Reels & Strathspeys (1776) was the first published collection to include the word “Strathspey” in its title. Many of Dow’s compositions were renamed by Nathaniel Gow and others when they included them in later collections.