Celtic Music Recordings and Collections at the Archives of Traditional Music

Scotland

Folk Music of Scotland

Scottish (along with Irish) folk music makes up the majority of holdings of Celtic music available at the ATM.

Traditional Scottish folk music, much like with traditional Irish music, can have many variations. Differences can be regional, such as traditional music of the Highlands vs. the Lowlands of Scotland. Other differences can be in the language of the text, with songs found in English, Scots (which can have many variations in itself), and Scottish Gaelic. 

The history of Scottish folk music is sometimes difficult to track, as much of it was passed down through oral tradition until collections of these folk songs began to be recorded in books in the late 17th and 18th centuries. One of these notable collections includes six volumes of "The Scots Musical Museum" (1787-1803) collected by James Johnson with contributions by famous Scottish poet and lyricist Robert Burns.  

• One particularly interesting style is the Waulking song, or in Scottish Gaelic, the Òrain Luaidh. These songs were unaccompanied and typically sung in Gaelic by women while waulking the wool (a process of rhythmically beating newly woven cloth against a table to shrink the fibers, which would better repel water). The songs were typically simple and beat-driven, with one person singing the verse and others joining in the chorus. The typical waulking session would begin with slow-paced songs, with the tempo increasing as the cloth became softer. 

Of course, the most famous and well-known of the traditional Scottish instruments are the bagpipes, more specifically the Great Highland Bagpipes. The bagpipes are commonly played in solo or ensemble pieces, and there are even pipe bands that regularly perform in festivals or compete in pipe band competitions. Besides bagpipes, it is also common to see instruments such as the accordion or melodeon (a push-button variation), fiddles, the Celtic harp (or clarsach as it is sometimes known), the bodhrán, tin (penny) whistles, and more recent 20th-century additions like the guitar, the bouzouki, and the cittern (string instruments similar in size and shape to the mandolin). 

Click on the passages below to hear some of our holdings

Example 1: 95-447.0065-C -- "I Love a Lassie (My Scotch Bluebell)" - performed by Sir Harry Lauder with Victor Orchestra, 1910

Example 2: 95-447.0013-C -- "Roamin' in the gloamin' " - performed by Sir Harry Lauder with Victor Orchestra, 1911

Example 3: 85-394b-F -- Scotland, Edinburgh, Hebrides; Norway, Oslo, 1952 - 

Collected by Helen Dunlop, this recording features a particularly fun and interesting song found at timestamp: [3:25-5:56] - "Fameeyoo" - Waulking song, performed by a young girl and then an older woman, 1952

Note: the following examples require an IU login to listen

Example 4: 64-111-C -- Songs and pipes of the Hebrides (side A) - "Hi-ri-hoireann o (Waulking song) - performed by John MacLeod, "Duanag na ceardaich" (Ossianic chant) - performed by Mrs. Archie MacDonald, "Puirt-a-beul" (Mouth music) and "Craobh nan ubhal" - performed by Rena MacLean, and "Hi-ri-ri o" and "Ho-ro-a la vo" (Waulking song) - performed by Mrs. Archie MacDonald (recordings feature unnamed choruses), 1952

Example 5: 71-270-C -- Traditional songs and ballads (The Scottish garland) (side A) - "As I came in by fisherrow," "The spinning wheel," "My apron now," "Tibbie Fowler," "The begger laddie," and "The weary fund o' tow" - performed by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, 1964

Example 6: 62-007.3-C -- Scottish instrumental music (side B) - strathspeys, reels, jigs, hornpipes, airs, and marches for the bagpipe, fiddle, Jew's harp, and accordion