David found this great tune and our first Strathspey. Fortunately it’s not too fast and fun to play. It has a great history; the road itself is on Raasay island (between the northern part of Skye and the mainland) and was built by one man, Calum MacLeod, and the story is well told on Undiscovered Scotland and also with archive footage of Calum by the BBC.

Calum’s Road was written by Donald Shaw, a founder member of the band Capercaillie, who you can hear playing it here. Not only has the road inspired a good tune, but you can hear the tune played on Calum’s Road itself on Youtube. Although it might be easier to learn it from this excellent mandolin playing.

One point on the notes/written music is that the whistles can’t reach the low B in the last bar of the A part and again in the B part, and so they usually play that B an octave higher. So I’ve written out the music with both choices available (you don’t have to play both notes – whichever suits your instrument best!).

Some more good recordings:
Clear fiddle
Guitar and fiddle
Excellent tin whistles and guitar

pdf to download