Music of Scotland

 This article is part of the 

 English folk

 Irish folk

 Scottish folk music

 Welsh folk

 Cornish and Manx folk

 Early British popular music

 1950s and 60s

 1970s

 1980s

 1990s

Many outsiders associate Scottish folk music almost entirely with bagpipes, which has indeed long played an important part of Scottish music. It is, however, not unique or indigenous to Scotland, having been imported around the 15th century and still being in use across Europe and farther abroad. The piobaireachd, or highlands bagpipe, is the most distinctively Scottish form of the instrument; it was created for clan pipers to be used for various, often military or marching, purposes. Piping clans included the MacArthurs, MacDonalds, McKays and, especially, the MacCrimmons.

Table of contents

1 Folk and Ceilidh Music 2 1960s rebirth 3 References

Folk and Ceilidh Music

This takes many forms in a broad musical tradition, although the dividing lines are not rigid, and many artists work across the boundaries.

There are ballads and laments, generally sung by a lone singer with backing, or played on traditional instruments such as harp, fiddle or bagpipes.

Dance music is played across Scotland at dances or ceilidhs. Group dances such as jigs, strathspeys, waltzes and reels, are performed to music provided typically by an ensemble, or dance band, which can include fiddle (violin), bagpipe, accordion and percussion.

There are traditional folk songs, which are generally melodic, haunting or rousing. These are often very region specific, and are performed today by a burgeoning variety of folk groups. Most famous of which is Capercaillie.

Popular songs were originally produced by Music Hall performers such as Harry Lauder and Will Fyffe for the stage. More modern exponents of the style have included Andy Stewart, Glen Daly, Kenneth McKellar and the Alexander Brothers.

Military music, typically massed pipes and drums. Major Scottish regiments maintain bapipe and drum bands which preserve scottish marches, quicksteps, reels and laments. Many towns also have voluntary pipe bands which cover the same repertoire.

1960s rebirth

With Irish folk bands like The Chieftains finding widespread popularity, 60s Scottish musicians played in pipe bands and Strathspey and Reel Societies Music had long been primarily a solo affair, until The Clutha, a Glasgow-based group, began solidifying the idea of a Celtic band, which eventually consisted of fiddle or pipes leading the melody, and bouzouki and guitar alongside the vocals. alongside The Clutha were other pioneering Glasgow bands, including The Whistlebinkies and Aly Bain's The Boys of the Lough, both largely instrumental. Scottish folk singing was revived by artists including Ewan MacColl, who founded the first folk club in Britain, and The Gaugers, The Corries, Dick Gaughan and Ian Campbell Folk Group. In the mid-1960s, the most popular group of the Scottish folk revival, the Incredible String Band, began their career in Clive's Incredible Folk Club in Glasgow.

The next wave of bands, including Battlefield Band, Ossian and Alba, featured prominent bagpipers, a trend which climaxed in the 1980s, when Robin Morton's A Controversy of Pipers was released to great acclaim. By the end of the 1970s, lyrics in the Scots-Gaelic language were appearing in songs by Nah-Oganaich and Ossian, with Runrig's Play Gaelic in 1978 being the first major success for Gaelic-language Scottish folk.

More modern musicians include Shooglenifty, innovators of the house fusion acid croft, The Easy Club, a jazz fusion band, Talith MacKenzie and Martin Swan, mouth musicians, pioneering singers Savourna Stevenson, Heather Heywood and Christine Primrose.

References