¤ Scottish Music Texts

The heart of the ScotMus project is "the music itself" — without knowing that, there's not much point reading about it. But listening to the music without grasping its cultural meaning is equally pointless. There's a much longer and deeper tradition of Scottish writing about music, and writings about Scottish music, than most folks realise. The story actually begins in Late Iron Age Latin, developing through native Latin, Cymric, Gaelic and Anglian/Scots/English traditions.

Writing per se is far older than musical writing (notation). So our earliest evidence for Scottish (or any other) music isn't actually "the music itself", but a precious scattering of ancient scribblings (often poetry & lyric). Of course, archaeological evidence pre-dates even the oldest writings. But, ironically, our knowledge of that evidence is a fairly recent development. Nonetheless, you'll find it here, too.

Author	Text	Type	Language	Date
Cornelius Tacitus	"The Caledonian Cantus"	excerpt	c.Latin	c.AD 98
Aneirin Gwawdrydd, et al	The Book of Aneirin [ external preview ]	Verse	o/m.Welsh	c.600+
Giraldus Cambrensis	"Gaelic and Welsh Instrumental Music"	excerpt	m.Latin	1188
anonymous	"Sir Fergus, Saint Ninian and Minstrel Jack"	excerpt	o.Scots	c.1368
Richard Holland	"Blessed Birdsong vs. Bardic Babble"	excerpt	o.Scots	c.1450
Robert Henrysoun	The Traitie of Orpheus Kyng	Poetry	m.Scots	c.1508
Robert Bremner (jnr?)	Instructions for the Guitar	Tutorial	English	1758
William Tytler	Dissertation on the Scottish Music	Essay	English	1779
William Tytler	Entertainments in Edinburgh in the Last Century	Essay	English	1792
Adam Smith	Of the Imitative Arts	Essay	English	1795
[ Rev. Dr. MacKnight ]	A Brief Biographical Account of Neil Gow	Article	English	1809
Thomas Carlyle	The Life of Robert Burns	Essay	English	1828
Thomas Carlyle	Luther's Psalm	Article	English	1831
[ Joseph Macgregor ]	Nathaniel Gow	Article	English	1835
anonymous	Neil Gow	Article	English	1835
Thomas Carlyle	The Opera	Article	English	1852
Robert Glen	The Ancient Musical Instruments of Scotland	Essay	English	1880
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser	Lowland Scots Song: Its Interpretation	Essay	English	1922
Marjory Kennedy-Fraser	Pronunciation in Lowland Scots Song	Essay	English	1922

Language Key: c.Latin = Classical Latin; m.Latin = Medieval Latin; o.Welsh = Old Welsh; m.Welsh = Middle Welsh; o.Scots = Older Scots (Inglis); m.Scots = Middle Scots (Scottis); Scots = Modern Scots.

Translations: Most texts in pre-Modern / non-English languages are printed here in bilingual editions, ie. with English translations (normally my own, as time allows). The main exceptions to this rule are some of the longer texts in older forms of Scots, not least those in forms relatively close to modern Scots. If you have difficulties with any period of Scots, then I can warmly recommend using the excellent online and free-to-access Dictionary of the Scots Language (DSL), hosted at the University of Dundee. The DSL is built on a reliable and thorough digital combination of two vast and classic resources that would otherwise cost you a very pretty bawbee indeed — the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue, and the Scottish National Dictionary.

Authors: Authors' names as given are those either known, proven or generally accepted either by scholars or by tradition. Names given in square brackets are probable or widely-accepted hypotheses for otherwise anonymous texts.

Titles: Titles given in italics are either the author's original, given by another in one or other manuscript or in the first print edition, or otherwise generally accepted by scholars or by tradition. Titles given in "quotes" normally indicate my own labels for excerpts I've made myself from larger source texts. In either case, details of my sources and their provenance are given in the notes to each of my editions.

Forthcoming Titles:
(sporadically, until I've got more music online)

The "Taliesin" Poet(s), excerpts re North Brythonic traditions, etc. (various dates)

Bede, excerpts on Northumbrian music, etc. (C8th)

Giraldus Cambrensis, excerpts on Welsh & Northumbrian singing (C12th)

Thomas of Erceldoune, various excerpts (C13th)

Gawyne Dowglas, The Palis of Honoure (c.1501)

King James VI, Ane Schort Treatise, Conteining Some Reulis & Cautelis to be Observit and Eschewit in Scottis Poesie (1584)

John Burel, The Queens Majesties Maist Honorable Entry into the Town of Edinburgh (1590)

Robert Sempill, The Life & Death of the Piper of Kilbarchan (c.1640)

Alexander Malcolm, A Treatise of Musick, Speculative, Practical and Historical (1721)

Alexander Gerard, Of the Sense or Taste of Harmony (1759)

John Gregory, Discourse III (1763)

Benjamin Franklin, Letter to Henry Home (1765)

Robert Fergusson, The Daft Days (1773; repr.1779)

Robert Fergusson, Elegy on the Death of Scots Music (1773; repr.1779)

James Burnett, Of the Origin and Progress of Language (1773-92)

James Beattie, Essays on Poetry and Music (1776)

Edward Topham, Letters from Edinburgh (1776)

Archibald Alison, Of Composed Sounds, or Music (1790)

John Gunn, "Of Shakes, Turns, and Other Graces" (c.1795)

Alexander Campbell, A Dialogue on Scottish Music (1798)

Alexander Campbell, Some Curious Particulars Respecting Our Highland Dances (1804)

William Dauney, Enquiry Illustrative of the History of the Music of Scotland (1838)

Finlay Dun, Analysis of the Structure of the Music of Scotland (1838)

John Alexander Smith, Notice... of a Bronze Ornament like a "Swine's Head", found in Banffshire (1867)

R.W. Cochran-Patrick, Note on the Caprington Bronze Horn (1878)

Charles D. Bell, Notes on the Queen Mary and Lamont Harps (1880)

James Dick, "Auld Lang Syne"—Its Origin, Poetry, and Music (1892)

D.P. Menzies, Note on the "Bannockburn" Bagpipes of Menzies (1895)

Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, Hebridean Song and the Laws of Interpretation (1922)

Also Various Readers/Sourcebooks for the Following Figures:

John Knox

John Skene of Hallyards

John & Henry Playford

William Thomson

Niel Gow & Sons / Gow & Shepherd

Robert Burns

Robert Louis Stevenson

And, of course, a series of new essays by myself dealing with the issues raised by all of the above,
and, most importantly of all, the albums in the music section.

Meanwhile, here's some I made in a previous incarnation:

Steve Sweeney-Turner, Reading "Scottish Classical Music": A Historiographical Critique (1997)
— reprinted here from The Journal of Area Studies No.10: "Nation, Place & Culture: Issues of Identity in Contemporary Europe"

Steve Sweeney-Turner, The Pastoral Celt: Images of the Gàidheal in Lowland Scots Song (1998)
— in Celtic Cultural Studies No.1: "Music & Identity"

Steve Sweeney-Turner, "Borderlines: Bilingual Terrain in Scottish Song"
— in ed. Leyshon, Matless & Revill, The Place of Music (New York: Guildford, 1998)

Steve Sweeney-Turner, "Pagan Airts: Reading Critical Perspectives on the Songs of Burns and Tannahill"
— in ed. Carol McGuirk, Critical Essays on Robert Burns (New York: GK Hall, 1998)

Steve Sweeney-Turner, "The Political Parlour: Identity and Ideology in Scottish National Song"
— in ed. Harry White & Michael Murphy, Musical Constructions of Nationalism (Cork: Cork University Press, 2001)