Scottish Gaelic Music

A look at the background of two pipers, one from each side of the battle which includes William Cumming who was the subject of the iconic full length portrait of the 'Piper to the Laird of Grant', usually taken to be a picture of a typical clan piper. pub. Piping Times Vol 68. No 2 (November 2015

Active in both the women's suffrage movement and local politics, musician and Gaelic song-collector Marjory Kennedy-Fraser started promoting Scottish Independence, widely discussed at present but front-page news also a century ago, eventually becoming one of its figureheads.

Having begun collecting Hebridean songs in 1905, fired by an ambition both to preserve the musical riches of the Scottish Gaeldom – then considered backward and culturally barren – and to present the material to a wider audience, Kennedy-Fraser gradually evolved from focussing on musical matters to using the music as a means to place the Gaels on the political agenda. Introducing Gaelic songs to fashionable Edwardian audiences, although somewhat provocative, made her efforts socially acceptable and highly esteemed – and thus more usable for propaganda purposes.

Daughter of well-known Scottish tenor David Kennedy, Marjory grew up in Scotland and London when not travelling with her father; later studying music in Milan and Paris. The Kennedys were ardent Liberals and staunch supporters of Irish Home Rule, and she became interested in politics at an early age. A truly British cosmopolitan, she nevertheless always considered herself primarily a Scot.

Her father wished to bring the songs of Scotland to those in the diaspora and toured widely, thus reinforcing the Scots' separate cultural and national identity within the British Empire. Politically aware, the Kennedys appreciated the egalitarian society in Australia and New Zealand, strongly disapproved of the prevalent unequal social conditions in British India, and explicitly refrained from visiting the West Indies where the democracy 'non est'.

My paper will explore how Mrs Kennedy-Fraser used both Scots and Gaelic songs to reinforce a national identity, how she responded to jingoistic currents during the Great War, and how her œuvre began to sink into oblivion in the socially transformed Britain in the years leading up to World War II.

Having heard Marjory Kennedy-Fraser perform Hebridean songs at a house party in 1907, English composer Rutland Boughton brought her work to the attention of his friend Granville Bantock. In 1913, Professor Bantock met Mrs Kennedy-Fraser, and from 1917, they worked intermittently on their 'Gaelic Folk-Opera', "The Seal-Woman", which eventually premièred at Barry Jackson's Birmingham Repertory Theatre in September 1924, conducted by Adrian Boult. Despite some hesitant press reviews, the fourteen performances were well attended, and in 1927, the original cast, including Kennedy-Fraser, reunited for a live broadcast of the opera. Since then, there have been but a few revivals, but "The Seal-Woman" is nevertheless frequently mentioned in works dealing with the emergence and development of a British national opera.

Although Granville Bantock is usually regarded as the opera's composer, his letters to Marjory Kennedy-Fraser reveal that her participation in the creative process was not restricted to the libretto. Instead, they discussed every aspect of the opera extensively, often disagreeing about dramaturgical as well as musical details, and innumerable revisions of text and orchestration were required before they were both satisfied.

My paper offers an outline of "The Seal-Woman" and the inaugural Birmingham production, discusses the creative process behind the opera, drawing on the recently unearthed Bantock/Kennedy-Fraser correspondence, and relates it to similar operatic works. Concluding, I speculate upon why "The Seal-Woman" failed to become a repertoire opera, despite its various inherent qualities, suitably illustrated by several sounding excerpts from a fairly recent but unreleased professional recording of the complete opera.

Anns na leanas thathar a’ coimhead air Iain Criathrar 1750-1840, fìdhlear à Garbh-chriochan Siorrachd Pheairt. Gu sònraichte, bheirear sùil air a chuid ciùil agus stoidhle fìdhleireachd na sgìre san 18mh agus an 19mh linn.
Thèid bun-fhiosrachaidh air beatha Criathrar, aig an taigh agus a chuid obrach, a chruinneachadh gus sealladh farsaing a thoirt air agus gus taic a chumail ris a’ chòrr den phròiseict.
Bheirear sùil air an ionnsachadh a fhuair Criathrar, an seòrsa ceòl a bha ga chluich aig an àm, fìdhlean Albannach an 18mh agus an 19mh linn agus am buaidh a bheireadh seo air stoidhle cluich, agus stoidhle cluich na sgìre fhèin.
Gheibhear cuideachd sgrùdadh air na puirt a sgrìobh Iain, stoidhle nam port, sgeulachdan air cùil nan tiotal agus am buaidh a bh’ aig an obair làitheil aig Criathrar air a chuid chiùil.

Draft of a colloquium presentation given in 2014 at the University of Arizona as part of their ancient ethnomusicology series. Herein, the mechanics of the bagpipe as well as the basic structure of Ceol Mor (Piobaireachd) are briefly outlined for the uninformed. Traditional theories as to the origins of Piobaireachd are discussed, and then an additional likely source of inspiration for the genre is proposed: early liturgical change in the British Isles. More research and musical analysis is needed to fully outline this theory. Some problems arise when we consider that there are few extant sources of medieval chant from the Isles due to numerous church reformations and consequent destruction of archives. However, if we can examine closely related repertoires from the Continent, extant Scottish sources, as well as more recent chant sources in the Isles, the similarities between the melodic structure of the earliest Piobaireachd and medieval chant repertoires become evident as at least one additional source of inspiration for early Ceol Mor's distinctive intervalic contours.

Please note that this is a draft, not a published paper in any fashion (hence, it's labeling as such). I am not an expert on Piobaireach, rather a scholar in medieval studies with more extensive experience in chant history. My interest and knowledge of Piobaireachd comes from my experience as a bagpiper, and these observations come from my knowledge of chant in conjunction with my familiarity of early Piobaireachd repertoire. If you are interested in more thorough discussion of Piobaireachd apart from Gregorian/Gallican/Scottish chant, please refer to the bibliography.

You can view the presentation at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWjFYPwcxWY&t

In this paper, a centuries-old religious tradition of song is presented, which is unique in the world in this form. Whereas it might seem unfamiliar and strange to inexperienced hearers, for the participants themselves the Gaelic psalm singing on the Outer Hebrides is a deeply moving, emotional and spiritual experience.
First I will briefly sketch an overview of the origin(s), historical development and practice of this unique form of the praise of God. Subsequently I will attempt to demonstrate, using theoretical aspects of cultural (musical) hybridization, in what different ways modern artists deal with this historical tradition, subjecting it to a process of transformation and thus not only raising its public profile (on a national and international scale), but also making it accessible to a wider audience.

http://norient.com/academic/gaelic-psalms/

The principal aim of this article is to refine our understanding of the Gaelic place-name element cailleach. This will be done primarily through analysis of a cluster of cailleach-names and associated place-lore from one area of the island of Muile/Mull in the Inner Hebrides. The main geographical area of focus is small but its namescape is dynamic and the analysis has implications for our understanding of this place-name element furth of the island and, indeed, furth of Scotland. The evidence lies in a range of published and unpublished textual and oral sources; in place-names, place-lore, linguistics and song. It will be argued that, when considered together, these sources provide evidence of a dynamic namescape which has been shaped by its associated place-lore and which has, in turn, fed the creative imaginations of local place-name users. It is argued that the namescape of north-west Muile/Mull is a microcosm of dynamism in language and lore. Furthermore, the argument has implications for our understanding of other place-name elements, including the Gaelic elements coileach, achlais and dròbh (also drògh).

In Scotland today, traditional dancing is commonly accompanied by instruments like the fiddle, accordion and bagpipes. In the past, instruments were not always available for dances, or even preferred. Amongst the Gaels, dances were often accompanied by songs. Such ‘dance-songs’ or puirt-à-beul [‘mouth-tunes’] served multiple purposes – including dandling children, facilitating work or transmitting instrumental tunes – but their principal association was with dancing.

This booklet provides a short introduction to the genre, lyrics and translations of the CD audio, biographies of the contributors, and a bibliography of references and relevant publications.

The clàrsach (a wire-strung Gaelic harp) was the pre-eminent instrument in musical culture of the Scottish Highland élite during the medieval period until the late seventeenth century.  Yet by the end of the eighteenth century the Highland bagpipe had supplanted the clàrsach. The professional clàrsair (player of the clàrsach) had accompanied the recitation of Classical Gaelic syllabic poetry where this form had drawn its patronage, including many of the noble houses of Scottish Gaeldom. By the end of the eighteenth century the metrical structure of formal bagpipe compositions (ceòl mór) had inspired song forms in Scottish Gaelic and bagpipe music was described as analogous to Gaelic song itself. This paper explores the transition from clàrsach to bagpipe by examining the portrayal of the bagpipe and its proponents in the record of Scottish Gaelic poetry.

Reviews:

‘outstanding […] of the first importance in the study of Scottish music and social history’ (Scottish Gaelic Studies), ‘a major contribution’ (Cothrom), ‘enormous added value’ (The Scotsman), ‘imaginative and thorough’ (Scottish Studies)

'This newest edition of Puirt-à-Beul renews our insight into the musical form and expressive voice of Gaelic Scotland' (Julie Fowlis)

'One wonders what Dr Keith Norman MacDonald would make of this elegant edition of the book that he produced around 1901? Its subject-matter was rare in his own time, and we must not expect so much of someone who did not have the resources and knowledge that we now have. Will Lamb begins with an excellent definition of the genre, giving Puirt their proper place as art at long last. The book contains not only every word and note that was in the original, in a pleasanter format, but the texts are translated into English, and the names of the tunes are given as titles known to instrumentalists. That is only a hint of the treasures that Dr Lamb has culled from books and manuscripts from many centuries and places. MacDonald’s book is long out of print in any case, and the new Puirt-à-Beul should be a matter of great satisfaction to singers and instrumentalists alike.' Morag MacLeod

This is my PhD dissertation. The third chapter might be interesting since it shows that the natural scale was the primary scale used in European antiquity (the so-called Folk Music Scale). It combined with the early diatonic scale (stacking thirds on the diatonic scale that those instruments couldn’t play) to create our modern scale. The Highland bagpipe is an ossified hybrid between the two.

The fourth chapter might be of interest to composers because it explains the rhythm of languages (especially English) and also the pitch-patterning of the spoken word which is used as the basis of melody.

The link brings you to the University of Otago library which is open and non-private. So you have to force your web browser to continue to the site.

ABSTRACT:
The purpose of this study was to investigate through archival and musicological analysis the audio recordings of Fenian lays made in the middle of the last century. These recordings were made from informants who learned the material orally; they contain cultural elements that assist in comprehending the musical mechanics of Fenian lays at a time when their performance practices were being extirpated by foreign musical influences. These elements include Indo-European (IE) thematic material, poetics, language register, pitch structuring, rhythm, and vocal techniques. Audio recordings of Fenian lays from Ireland, Scotland, and Nova Scotia, Canada were analysed in terms of their linguistic-musical material. Results show that the rhythm of the lays did not display a repetitive musical metre but the more complex structure of speech. However, rhythmic patterns did alter with volume. Also, resonance tuning was apparent. Many characteristics associated with volume in lay recordings exist in declaimed speech as well; both may be seen to act as a bridge between speech and metered song. Lay poetry appeared to be syllabic, which is unusual for a stress-timed language; this reflects an Indo-European genesis that is supported by the presence of oral formulaic language. Both stress and accent shifted pitch by poetic line to match spoken characteristics. A high language register was present, which does not indicate composition by the intelligentsia for use at court, but rather a fear-induced protective linguistic device apparent in all social classes. Moreover, the addition of delineated pitch to spoken declamation may be seen as an attempt to further increase the communicative register. The pitch structure was seen to be anachronistic, matching the linear scales played by pastoral instruments, particularly that of wooden shepherd trumpets used since at least the beginning in the Early Neolithic Age.

Waulkings, or millings, were a necessary aspect of life in the Scottish Highlands. These millings produced cloth for clothing and blankets that were much needed by those who lived and worked in this mountainous region. Since the Gaelic people tended to put their work to music whenever they could, these waulkings produced some of the most important songs by women that can be found within the corpus of working songs.

The Clearances brought vast numbers of Highlanders to the New World, particularly Nova Scotia. And with them, they brought their language, their culture, and their songs. But as time wore on, and the need for things such as waulkings disappeared, the culture surrounding them changed. Waulking became known as Milling Frolics, and they became community events rather than a necessary practice done by the women of a community. This meant that the songs, too, changed.
This is the purpose of this dissertation: a compare and contrast of the Waulking songs of the Highlands, and the Milling songs of Nova Scotia.

There is little question that the Gesto Collection ranks amongst one of the premiere sources of Gaelic song and music.  Along with his other books, the Skye Collection of fiddle music and Puirt-à-Beul, its compiler, Dr Keith Norman MacDonald, has provided us with a wealth of source material for understanding and performing Gaelic music.  What makes the Gesto Collection particularly special, however, is – strangely, perhaps, for a book of music and song – its appendix.  There, we find perhaps 40 or so songs contributed by one of the most important early Gaelic song collectors, Miss Frances Tolmie.  Keith Norman MacDonald’s imprint on Gaelic musical publishing is perhaps more noticeable than Frances Tolmie’s, but hers is no less important, and in some ways, more so.

According to the conventionally held view, the strathspey or 'strathspey reel' was an eighteenth century innovation instigated by fiddlers of the Speyside region, such as the Browns of Kincardine and the Cummings of Grantown. However, the basic rhythmic characteristics inherent to the strathspey - a series of long and short notes, organised within two or four strong beats per bar - are found in Gaelic songs thought to be much older. Using a range of data from early fiddle collections and transcriptions of twentieth century audio recordings, this paper explores the musical and semantic connections between the strathspey and Gaelic song, suggesting an alternative developmental path for Scotland's national music.

Detailed liner notes, containing introductory and contextual information, from the two-CD set Cruinneachadh Chaluim: Field Recordings of Gaelic Music and Song from the Highlands and Islands by Calum Maclean. The CD, issued by Greentrax in the Scottish Traditions series, was launched in 2015 to celebrate the one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Calum Iain Maclean in Raasay. The first CD focusses on songs, including a variety of genres from mouth music to ballads, and the second one offers instrumental music, including tunes on the pipes and fiddle as well as ceilidh dance bands. Included in the notes are transcriptions and translations of song or narrative items from a variety of outstanding performers from throughout the Highlands and Islands as recorded by Calum Maclean during his work as a fieldwork collector, initially employed by the Irish Folklore Commission and then by the School of Scottish Studies, established at the University of Edinburgh in 1951.

A concordance table mapping 854 transcriptions by 10 pipers to 313 pibrochs, combining and correcting the concordances by Frans Buisman and Roderick D. Cannon. I have added analytical data that allows the material to be sorted by structure and tonality. This dataset underpins the website www.altpibroch.com and the article ‘A map of the pibroch landscape, 1760–1841’ in Piping Today 70 (2014), available at https://www.academia.edu/22928936/A_map_of_the_pibroch_landscape_1760_1841. It was first released in 2014 and is now at version 7 (2016).

My research on the nature of Scottish Gaelic performance culture has focused mainly around seanchas or discourse on tradition and the semiotics of words contained in such discourse (Falzett 2007-2010; 2010; 2012).  However, as John Shaw has argued, much can be learned by applying such contextual knowledge from the field to the analysis of verbal art forms (i.e. songs, stories, etc.) themselves: “Ideally, informants’ perceptions may eventually be correlated with analysis of texts—permitted variants and other materials—to form a coherent description” (1992/1993: 40). Therefore, this paper hopes to provide insights regarding the dynamic relationships between language and music in varied performative contexts of Scottish Gaelic cultural expression. This will be done by examining the role of ‘genre reinforcement’ (Shaw 1992/3: 38-40) in two Scottish Gaelic versions of ATU  503 (The Gifts of the Little People): one from Kate Dix of Berneray, Uist and the other from Donald (Danny) Cameron of Malden, Massachusetts, who grew up in Beaver Meadow, Antigonish County on the Nova Scotia mainland. In turn, the association of these two versions to the dance-tune ‘The Bob of Fettercairn’ and a related port-à-beul  version of it, beginning with the phrase “Cuir dhachaidh e,” will form the basis of our examination here.

The second part of this paper looks more abstractly at the symbolic nature of the narrative and examines the language contained within various Scottish Gaelic recitations of it. The Gifts of the Little People is well attested throughout the Gaelic-speaking regions of Scotland, Ireland and Nova Scotia. Lillis Ó Laoire’s (2009) groundbreaking discussions on the semiotic significance of this popular narrative have elucidated our understanding of its relevance to the inner mechanics of Gaelic aesthetic criteria and modes of transmission. Following Ó Laoire’s approach, the narrative’s aesthetic symbolism will be further explored through the lenses of emerging theoretical trends in the study of metaphor and other tropes from various scholarly disciplines, including cognitive linguistics and anthropology. This will incorporate a discussion concerning embodied understandings of abstract thought as demonstrated by the seemingly intangible nature of the aural and its ability to be made sense of through its associations with more concrete forms of sensory-motor experience, including vision, motion, and taste.

The conundrum of the title refers to the problem of reconciling an authentic repertoire for those wishing to use replicas of the three early wire strung harps, with what little real evidence exists. Since as in any such exercise the foundations of any evidence base needs to be solid; this critical analysis examines how firm that foundation, based mostly on a few interlinked modern published works, really is. This also includes a fresh evaluation of an apocryphal story from the harper Arthur O’Neill’s memoir noted down circa 1808, which formed part of that evidence, by expanding on the brief discussion in an addendum to the article Mapping the Clarsach in Scotland  https://www.wirestrungharp.com/harps/harpers/mapping-clarsach/

Myth and Mist: The early history of the Harp in Scotland. Given at the 24th Edinburgh International Harp Festival. 5th April 2005.

An exploration of the history of the Scottish harps  viewed in their historical setting when the geographical boundaries of 'Scotland' were considerably more elastic than today.

In the light of a two-volume glossary, focusing upon musical terminology in particular and aesthetics in general, compiled by Angus Fraser (1800–1870), this article offers a brief lexicographical overview of the Gaelic word port, a term most commonly used for a tune in Scottish Gaelic. A brief overview of his military and musical career places Fraser’s fieldwork, publishing and collecting in its historical milieu. A Glossary of Ancient and Modern Terms and Expressions Associated with the Music, Poetry, Dancing & Oratory of the Gaeil contains upwards of 2,200 entries (along with additions) arranged by Fraser more or less alphabetically, three pages of which are dedicated to port. Many of the entries (and others besides) for port appear to be unique and thus are unavailable elsewhere, whilst others are derived from references, mainly culled from Gaelic printed literature. Although the glossary is extensive and contains a diverse, and probably unparalleled, resource for Scottish Gaelic aesthetic terms, questions of authenticity remain. It may justifiably asked how reliable or, indeed, how current were these terms. By discussing these port entries, a more nuanced understanding of the strengths and inherent weaknesses of this glossary are revealed and where also suggestions are offered to deal methodologically with unpicking this unique glossary and thus to establish where further work needs to be done.

When Disney and Pixar launched the computer-animated film Brave in June 2012, the film was praised for its strong flame-haired heroine and its lush landscapes inspired by the Scottish Highlands. This also marked the first time the “Disney treatment” was given to Celtic culture. Dr. Emily McEwan-Fujita explains.  Text available on the magazine's website at:  http://www.celticlifeintl.com/gaelic-in-disney/

Some articles exploring the background to the collection of pipe music known as the Campbell Canntaireachd published in the Piping Times Vol 58. No. 1 (October 2005), Vol 58. No. 2 (November 2005), Vol 58. No. 10 (July 2006) and Vol 67. No. 1 (October 2014).

This is a hymnbook that I recently published (and was layout, musical notation editor, graphic designer, etc.). It is a book of six modern religious hymns in Scottish Gaelic, written by Mòrag Burke. Mòrag hails from Big Pond in Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Ranald MacAllan Og, of the MacDonalds of Morar has been the subject of numerous traditional tales but with few hard facts. Indeed that the traditional tales mostly have a supernatural element should arouse the suspicion that they are, like many of the even earlier folk tales of fairies and changelings, a method of dealing with the less pleasant realities of life. A subject which has been well covered by Ronald Black in his introduction to 'The Gaelic Otherworld' in his new edition of Gregorson Campbell's Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Therefore in the absence of solid evidence this author and others have mainly relied on just one main source, the three volume 'The Clan Donald' published by the two Ministers, the Reverends MacDonald and MacDonald between 1896 and 1904, where they state that, Ranald of Cross. He had a great reputation as a piper, and was also reckoned a good performer on the harp and violin. It was on this basis that Ranald MacAllan Og was included as a harper in the book 'Tree of Strings', published in 1992. The research has however continued since then and it has become clear that this simple statement presents a number of problems when set against the evidence now to hand. Ranald MacAllan Og was certainly a piper but the claim that he was 'of Cross' and was also a harper and violer seems to be the result of some enthusiastic embellishment by the two Victorian Ministers with no such claims appearing prior to their publication. Indeed it has some similarity to some other erronious additions to piping history, also down to an over enthusiastic clerical historian when in 1840 the Reverend Doctor Norman MacLeod published a number of unsubstantiated claims about the MacCrimmon family of pipers including the myth that they originated in Italy in the town of Cremona.

The song “Oran a Mhaorach” that appeared in the Sydney, Cape Breton-based Scottish Gaelic-language newspaper Mac-Talla (1892-1904), edited by Jonathan G. MacKinnon (1869-1944), on July 29, 1893 provides a rare glimpse into the all-too-often overlooked tradition of local Scottish Gaelic song composition as conveyed by nineteenth-century Island-born Gaels in their first language. Such songs, depicting, often humorously, aspects of everyday experience in Prince Edward Island’s nineteenth-century Gàidhealtachd are at once as universal in their comic appeal as they are specific in their local detail.