Articles categorised as Music

New Year singalang

Don't remember all the words to Auld Lang Syne? Don't worry - they're all here along with the words and tune to a Guid New Year tae Ane an Aa. You'll have no excuse for not joining in the...

Doric Cabaret Evening

As pairt o the city o Aiberdeen’s St Andra’s Weekend, the Associe o Grampian Storytellers is haein a Doric Cabaret Eening on Seturday 1 December at Union Terrace Gairdens, Aiberdeen, fae 7.30pm...

Broken Gong

Fifer Andy Chung’s latest album, Broken Gong, contains all the voices that make up one of Scotland’s most unusual and distinctive singers. Kirkcaldy born Chung comes from a musical family with a...

Night of traditional song in Scots

The Aberdeen and Regional Oral History Association will be holding a traditional concert party on the night of Saturday 26 April. On the night there will be a series of traditional songs in Scots,...

American accents for Scottish Rappers

Two Scottish rappers had to speak in American accents in order to get a music deal, the Sunday Mail reported this week. Dundee guys Billy Boyd and Gavin Bain – known as Silibil’n’Brains –...

The Scots Song Tradition

In this section of our website you can find an overview of the broad kirk of Scots songs and their many shapes, forms and contexts, down the centuries. It is by no means a comprehensive...

Fitbaw: whit a scunner + Norrowegian fowkies an glaikit trowes

I dinna ken hou monie o ye haes been watchin the fitbaw frae Austrick an Swisserland ower the hinmaist week or twa, but I maun say - sum o it's been pretty guid. Whan ye see hou kintras like...

A braw nicht, thanks tae the SLC

Hello aw, howp ye hae been makkin the maist o wit braw simmer...or the twa-thrie braw hours we hae been gettin. Michael wis sayin this wad be the year fer a bonnie simmer - but sae faur it's...

Shetland songs - Evergreen.

Maria Barclay Millar has produced a CD of Shetland songs all sung in the Shetland dialect, 'Evergreen, Dialect Sangs for Schools'. As a singing teacher, Maria felt there was a need for audio...

Flittin, Nae Mince etc.

Weil, I'm back on bloggin efter a wee whilie awa. Jist flittit twa week syne, sae aye trying tae redd out a nummer o fankles that's no richt just yet. It's guid tae see thon veidio "Nae...

Traditional Arts Working Group - Public Meetings

David Francis, the chair of the Traditional Arts Working Group, will be hosting a series of public meetings across Scotland to allow as many people as possible the opportunity to feed their views...

The Bleacher Lassie o Kelvinhaugh

This month's song from TMSA  is The Bleacher Lassie o Kelvinhaugh. Its about the practice of laying clothes and sheets out in the sun to bleach them. At the time of the song the Kelvinhaugh area...

SLS Annual Collogue

The Annual Collogue of the Scots Language Society will take place on Saturday 10 October 2009 at the A.K. Bell Library, York Place, Perth. This year’s theme is ‘The Interaction between Scots and...

Launch of 'For A' That'

The launch of a new book entitled 'For A' That' will take place at the Dundee Rep Theatre at 7pm. The University of Dundee has commissioned various wriers to put together an anthology celebrating...

Annual Collogue of Scots Language Society

The Annual Collogue of the Scots Language Society will take place on Saturday 10 October 2009 at the A.K. Bell Library, York Place, Perth. This year’s theme is ‘The Interaction between Scots and...

Doric Sampler

The 16th Doric Sampler from the Monymusk Arts Trust will be at 7pm. For more information enquire with The Arts Trust at www.artstrust.org

Old Songs with Scots Words

Monymusk Arts Trust presents Irene Drummond (soprano) and Alasdair Beatson (piano) performing songs with words by Scots poets. Monymusk Arts Centre, near Inverurie. Doors opem 3pm, tickets cost £8...

Lori Watson

A musician from the Borders, Lori Watson has several online sites with information about the music of the Borders. Follow these links to find out...

Merrier Christmas and Brawer Hogmanay at SLC

With December only weeks away, the Scots Language Centre is putting the finishing touches to what should be its best ever Christmas and New Year programme. There are many old favourites – the...

Robert Burns the Songwriter

Burns is primarily regarded as Scotland's national poet, but there is strong evidence that he considered himself as much a songwriter as anything else. The work of Dr Fred Freeman in recording...

Drunk Man set to music

A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle, Hugh MacDiarmid’s Scots poem, with its infamously thrawn narrator, is set to music of huge imagination and vibrancy by Glasgow composer Bill Sweeney  in a...

An app’s an app for a’ that

Ahead of this year's Burns night, the Scottish Government has released a Burns app for the iPhone. As well as including more than 550 of the Bard's poems and love songs, the app gives users a...

Two new CDs

Two new CD releases show Scots language being used by young professional musicians today. Singers Jeana Leslie and Siobhan Miller's new album is called Shadows Tall, while the Paul McKenna Band...

Written Questions on Scottish Culture

This page collects written questions on Scottish culture that are not directly related to Scots language but may have a bearing on it. S4W-09340 Murdo Fraser: To ask the Scottish Government what...

Scots Song Collections

Two of the main collections of Scots song are known as the Child Ballads and the Greig-Duncan Folk-Song Collection.'The Child Ballads' is shorthand for the collection of 305 narrative songs...

Music Hall Songs

An often overlooked element of Scots song is that of the Scottish music hall, which for many people was a great source of entertainment from the mid-19th into the early 20th centuries. Scotland's...

Borders

With the publication of Sir Walter Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border in 1802, which went on to be published and translated around the world, the Borders became revered as a heartland...

Scots Mouth Music

An underplayed aspect of Scots song is its mouth music, the lowland cousin to the puirt a beul of the Gaidhealtachd. Similarly, largely meaningless or comical lyrics are used to underpin the...

Travellers' Songs

Through the collecting of folklorists in the 1950s, Scottish Travellers came to prominence as bearers of extensive repertoires of Scots song, amongst them many muckle sangs or classic ballads....

Weaving Songs

The songs of the millworkers of Scotland are perhaps best embodied by Dundonian Mary Brooksbank's song, Oh Dear Me, also known as The Jute Mill Song: Oh dear me, the mill's gaen festThe puir...

Angus & Dundee

Jim Reid: The Wild Geese/ Norland Wind by springthyme Steve Byrne of Arbroath has also put some of the poems of local poets to music, including Marion Angus from his home town, in The Seaward...

Appalachia

When Scots travelled to North America, naturally they took their songs with them. One of the richest areas where versions of Scots songs are found is in the Appalachians in the eastern United...

Songs of Robert Tannahill

Paisley weaver Robert Tannahill (1774-1810) was an accomplished songwriter and poet who penned some of our best-known songs.  His most famous compositions include the Braes o Balquhidder (later...

Children's Songs

Children's songs are as rich as source as any of Scots language in song.  The Edinburgh schoolteacher James T. Ritchie undertook important collecting of the songs being sung in Edinburgh...

Political and Protest Songs

Scotland's complex history means it has never been short of political and protest songs in the Scots tongue. One of the most iconic is of course Robert Burns' song of equality and brotherhood, A...

Comic and Bawdy Songs

Comic songs feature heavily in the Scots tradition,  whether it be the misfortunes of poor country chiels in the big city, marital strife, romantic mishaps or chaotic scenes in the byre. Country...

Scots Song Resources

A wide variety of Scots Song resources is now available online.  Kist o Riches / Tobar an Dualchais is home to over 30,000 digitised field recordings in Scots and Gaelic mainly from the archives...

Modern Songwriters in Scots

The 20th-century Scottish Folk Revival with its mixture of politics and the search for cultural identity has given rise to a healthy body of songwriters who use Scots as a vehicle for their ideas...

Jacobite Songs

Scots songs celebrating Prince Charles Edward Stuart and his relatives were very much in vogue in the 19th century, although few, if any, were contemporaneous with the events of the Jacobite...

The Language of Scots Song

In the folk field, as well as in the less sure-footed literary Lallans, Scots may be said to 'include English, and go beyond it'.Hamish Henderson. The Ballads in 'A Companion to Scottish Culture',...

Love and Courting

Amongst all the politics, murder ballads, and songs about work, the Scots do find time for singing a wee bit about old fashioned romance in their mither tongue! Here's Barbara Dymock and Maureen...

Europe

As part of the wave of Romanticism in the 18th and 19th centuries, encompassing James MacPherson's Ossian and the works of Sir Walter Scott, certain Scots songs became famous across Europe,...

Ulster

Given its proximity to south-west Scotland, Ulster is also home to versions of Scots songs which have travelled over with Scottish settlers as far back as the Plantations of Ulster from the 1600s...

Songs for St Andrew's

  Liberty  Written by George Weir (words) and Roy Williamson (music), sung by The Corries Written by Peebles baker George Weir, with Roy Williamson of The Corries, this song celebrates a number...

A Sang for Oyne

An Aberdeenshire school recently hit the headlines for its promotion of the Scots language and traditional song. Drama teacher Margaret Hearne, together with Sharon Hassan, wrote the script for a...

The Cundeez

On Tuesday evening last (April 30) Dauvit Horsbroch and Katrina MacLeod from the Scots Language Centre met up with Dundee band The Cundeez at the Seagate Recording Studio in Dundee. The Cundeez,...

The Bothy & Beyond

Scottish musician and singer Steve Byrne will be hosting a practical class in the Muckle Sangs of Scots, beginning at 3pm in Teviot Row House, 13 Bristow Square, Edinburgh. Tickets cost £6...

Bothy Nichts

Scottish musician and singer Steve Byrne will be hosting (with other singers) a night of traditional songs at Teviot Row House, 13 Bristow Square, Edinburgh, beginning at 7pm. Tickets are £10 (£7...

Singin The Sea

The Scottish Fisheries Museum, St Ayles, Harbourhead, Anstruther Easter, Fife, is hosting 'Singin The Sea', a special workshop devoted to the traditional tales and songs of the Scottish fishing...

Dr Sheila Douglas 1932-2013

The Scots language community was saddened by the death of Dr Sheila Douglas at the end of April. Sheila was a well-known figure in the musical and Scots communities for many years. Born in...

Scots Language Society Collogue

The Scots Language Society Collogue, or annual gathering, will be taking place this year at Hillhead Baptish Church, 53 Cresswell Street, Glasgow. Tickets cost £20. Please download the programme...

Eneados 500

Five hundred years ago, on St Mary Magdalene’s Day (22 July) 1513, Scots master poet, or makar, Gavin Douglas completed his translation into Scots of the Roman Virgil’s (70-19 BC) Latin work The...