The session scene in Oban has used a number of different venues throughout my time as a participant. For a while in the mid 1990s the main weekly session was in The Woodside on Tweedale Street. This was before the pub was extended and the rear was converted into a night club of sorts. A small, narrow pub, it didn’t have much space for musicians or punters but this did make for a good atmosphere as it didn’t take many folk to make it feel busy. I was making my living as a busker at the time so was playing a lot, often many hours per day. New tunes would often form in my head and this was one of them.

The pub is still there although it has recently undergone a complete renovation and name change and is now called The Whisky Vaults Hotel.

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I use the excellent, open-source software MuseScore for final score engraving. You can upload your tunes to musescore.com and then embed the score in your own site.

The Woodside Reel by S P McNally by bagpie

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Below is the tune in ABC Notation. ABC is a great way to share simple, single staff notation and is popular amongst traditional musicians. You can learn about ABC notation here and I recommend EasyABC to convert the tunes into standard notation, for editing and playback (although a working version isn’t yet available for macOS Catalina or later).

X:6
T:The Woodside Reel
M:4/4
L:1/8
C:© 1996 S P McNally
K:AMix
Q:2/4=100
e2 |: aAcd egfd | egfd edBd | aAcd egfd | edBd e2e2 :|
|: eA (3AAA egfd | edBd egfd | eA (3AAA egfd | edBd e2e2 :|
Bddg fged | BddB G4 | Bddg fged | df-fd e4 |
Bddg fged | BddB GBdG |Bddg fged | Baad e4 ||
Baad eaBa | caad eaca | egfg edBd | egfd e4 |
Baad eaBa | caad eafa | egfg efde | cdBc A4 |]