Hamish Henderson: centenary and legacy
This post is something of a late ripple washing back from the tsunami of writing that celebrated, back in 2019, … Read more
Articles
Reconstructing Sacred Polyphony from Renaissance Aberdeen
Image: Fragment of written notes, found in the Breviarum Aberdonense, from the National Library of Scotland RB.x.002-003, https://digital.nls.uk/103009037 New research … Read more
Happy Mid-Winter 2024: A Short Digest of Scottish Christmas Traditions
Image: Fire – I, MarcusObal, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2386768 A short post this one – simply signposting you on to … Read more
Gaelic Boating Songs: Ancient and (more) Modern
Image: Harbour and Castle at Helmsdale, Am Baile ID QZP40_Card_5608 Highland Libraries Postcard Collection It’s a truism that the Gaels … Read more
Review: MacDonald’s Compleat Theory of the Scots Highland Bagpipe
Soundyngs’ reviews are sometimes of recent works, and other times of books that have recently arrived on Soundyngs shelves and … Read more
Edwardian Music Rooms in Scottish Great Houses
Featured image: Fyvie Castle Music Gallery (author’s own photographs) “Domestic music-making” means different things in different homes. Soundyngs learnt recently … Read more
Mats Melin and Scottish Dance: A Short Appreciation
In Soundyngs’ travels this summer, a highland library shelf threw up a rather interesting book called A Sutherland Dance (1977), … Read more
The Sound of Scotland – what is ‘Scottish film music’?
Image: Advert for Rob Roy (Westminster Films, dir. W. P. Kelling, 1922), in The Bioscope, Thursday 21st September 1922, p.7. … Read more
Soundscapes and Natural Histories: Listening to Portmoak
Image: crosssection of a bank on the perimeter of Portmoak Moss, showing how deep the peat is, and its layers. … Read more
The Dupplin Cross: Harping on Kingship
In its summer visits, Soundyngs stood in front of a very beautiful thing in St Serf’s Church, in the Perthshire … Read more
Stirling, August 1594: Music at the Baptism of Prince Henry Stuart
Featured Image: Stirling Castle Ceiling Boss, Hercules, from the King’s Chamber. Attribution: dun_deagh, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons … Read more
Researching Music Publishing in Scotland before 1900: two databases
Featured image: Edinburgh in 1769, from G H Millar, The New and Universal System of Geography c1782 (Morris, Public Domain, … Read more