OUT OF HIS MIND (BOOK)
65 Contemporary Compositions for the Scottish Accordion
 Published by Taigh na Teud 2001

This book of 65 contemporary compositions includes standard guitar chord notation and an amusing insight into why the tunes were written!

"When I first began to play the accordion over twenty years ago, I never imagined that it would eventually become my career, and certainly never imagined that I would still be playing the same little Hohner 48 bass accordion that I started on. Well, it's true, and most of the tunes in this book can be played on a 48 bass, although some need the range of a slightly bigger keyboard, but you can always adapt the tunes to fit, if necessary."
Sandy Brechin

Here's just a few of the tunes you can find in the book:
Hanging Out the Windows: This march was written while hanging out the window of a top floor flat in Edinburgh, during a break at a Burach practice in the early 90's. View PDF

The Crapper: As the name suggests, written in exactly the amount of time it takes someone to visit said establishment. This, however, bears no reflection on the quality of the tune..! View PDF

Sometimes It Doesn't Work: A tune for all those occasions when things just don't quite come together. View PDF

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REVIEWS

"Brechin displays both his flair for writing traditional sounding tunes and his skill at playing them"
Dirty Linen magazine

"Sandy proves to have virtuosity in abundance, not only in his playing, but also in his ability to write a cracking tune"
Folk On Tap

"Sandy displays displays both his aptitude in composing/arranging and also his considerable playing ability.... a talented man indeed"
Box and Fiddle

"Scotland has a relatively classical approach to traditional music, and the norm, when the music is written down is still for standard music notation. Scots traditional musicians are used to this, and hence there are myriad books of Scottish music, although I'm sure there are few as zany as this one! There are 65 new tunes here, all by the author, whose foreword quotation "try not to play all the tunes as they're written on the paper" is music to my ears. No classical approach here then! No "Bonnie Dundee" or "Corn Riggs" or such like old stagers; instead we have "The Custard Pie Gang" and "Lipstick on my Whistle."

Sandy Brechin's quirky notes to all the tunes leave no doubt that he doesn't take himself too seriously, always a welcome quality in a 'traditional' musician. Only ten of these tunes are in the 'Scottish' key of A, but even if they are a wee bit complex for the English melodeon, if you're a Scots fiddler or accordion player, and looking for new material, you could do worse than dip into this!"
Jim Banbridge, The Living Tradition Magazine

"Those who have seen Sandy in action in one of his bands - Burach, Seelyhoo or The Jimmy Shandrix Experience - will know that fun is very much what he is about. Even just reading the tunes, you can feel the energy leaping off the page. Appropriately, since this music is deeply rooted in the Scottish dance tradition: most of the tunes are apparently conventional jigs and reels together with the odd strathspey, hornpipe and waltz.

Once you hear the tunes, though, you realise they are not conventional at all. Sandy's originality shines out of every composistion. Sometimes, however it's a bit of jazzy syncopation or Texas shuffle, an odd time signature, or pairs or crotchets jumping into the jig, but always the happy knack of making the music go somewhere unexpected but which also sounds right.

The book should be welcome to players of any instrument - a good tune is just whatever you play it on - but here are just a few, for flavour: 'Buckfast at Tiffany's' (jig with wonderful off-beat stresses), the strathspey 'Roddy's Last Trip' (slow and moving), 'Tune for a New-Found Watch' (brain-bending syncopation), '10-NA' (a slip jig which wanders from A minor to A major to F sharp minor and most points in between) and 'Kathryn Brechin' (a simple tune made beautiful with imaginative chords). There are many more, so if your wish is to expand your range beyond the conventional, you can't do much better than this. Have fun!"

TUNES
10-NA, Admiral on the Bow , Alasdair James Allan, A L’eau c’est l’heure, Apricot Brandy,The Bonk Band, The Bouncing Bridge,The Bouzouki Reel, Brechin Wind, Buckfast at Tiffany’s,Butterfly Fingers, Cameron A. S. Low, Campbell’s Red Cords, The Canny Repair, Craig Hunter Jnr,The Crapper,The Custard Pie Gang,Dale’s Place, The Dwarf,The Eel, The Ensign, Eurotrash, The Formula 1, Chocolate Racer, The 40-Ouncer,Grace Brechin, Green Mutant Ninja Turtle Blood, Hanging Out the Windows,Highly Strung, It’s a Dog’s Life, The Jelly River, John Currie’s Infra-red Scanner, Kate Jørgenson’s Waltz, Kate McAndrew’s Gin Sling, Kathryn Brechin, Lipstick on my Whistle, The Long Jumpers,The Long Water, The Lost Job, The Masochist’s Waltz, Neckbuster, Nice Hands, Shame about the Face, The Nippy Sweet, Oliver the Otter Killer, Pete Brady’s Chubby Cheeks, Photocopiers to the Famous, The Pinkie Wrestler, The Poetry Punch-up, Porto the Rat, Roddy’s Last Trip, Roger McAndrew’s 50th Fling, The Rolling Stone,The Scottish Parliament,The Sloppy Bellows,Smoke on the Air, Sometimes It Doesn’t Work, Sonically Justified, Superwasp, The Tain Cheese Factory, The Tazmanian Devil, Tape me to the Bannister, Tune for a New Found Watch, The 24 Oz. Steak, Walter Gilchrist’s Pipe Organ, The Waltz in Time, Your Drunken Fumbling Fingers.