Competitive Music Festivals in Scotland
This spring, various social media posts told me that the Caithness Music Festival was celebrating its 70th anniversary (1956-2026). The … Read more
Articles
Wick Voices: A New Online Audio Archive
Folk who know, know that Caithness accents are just not like other Highland accents, nor even like Orkney ones. There’s … Read more
The Waters of Kylesku
Image: Ben Klibreck from Strath Vagastie Road, Photo by Anthony Jeffrey, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2671872 This post is a meditation … Read more
J Scott Skinner and Taigh na Teud: Weaving together print and orality
Soundyngs has posted quite a bit in recent months about the infrastructures for maintaining and disseminating traditional music in Scotland, … Read more
Scottish Historical Musical Instruments Collections
Soundyngs has the greatest of respect for people who make things that make music, since its own cottage industry experiments … Read more
Greentrax Recordings: the sounds of Scottish music history
Scotland has a small but highly creative group of independent recording labels, which do important work in curating and shaping … Read more
The More Taubroner: A Black Musician at the Court of James IV
Image: The Westminster Tournament Roll of John Blanke, a trumpeter in the service of the court of Henry VIII, in … Read more
Pete Shepheard and Springthyme Records
Image: Scots Songs and Music Recorded at the Kinross Festival of Traditional Music and Song (Springthyme Records SPR/SPRC 1001 LP, … Read more
Pete Shepheard remembers Scottish Folk Festivals and TMSA Competitions
Image: Festival at Blairgowrie (Topic Records, Topic 12T181, 1967), recorded by Pete Shepheard. An interview with Pete Shepheard held on … Read more
Pete Shepheard remembers … the St Andrews Folk Club, and the early days of the traditional song revival
Image: Imperial Hotel, South Street, St Andrews, from late 1905s postcard “Dig from where you stand” is a precept that … Read more
Scottish Bells
Image: Bells from Holy Trinity Church. A carillon of 15, c1926. Courtesy of the University of St Andrews Libraries and Museums, … Read more
Sounding Stones: Reconstructing Historic Scottish Sacred Soundscapes
‘The Ringing Stone of Tiree’ in J.A. Harvie-Brown and T.E. Buckley A Vertebrate Fauna of Argyll and the Inner Hebrides … Read more