Reviews – Soundyngs

Book cover showing a smiling women in an old photograph and the title of the book Cadence of a Song

Review: The Cadence of A Song, The Life of Margaret Fay Shaw

25 May 2026 by Jane Pettegree

Fiona Mackenzie brings to her biography of Margaret Fay Shaw two significant gifts. Firstly, she spent almost 9 years as … Read more

Book cover A Singers Life, with picture of an opera singer in Elizabethan costume

Review: Brian Bannatyne-Scott A Singer’s Life

30 March 2026 by Jane Pettegree

At the start of its own (digital) life, Soundyngs wondered what constituted ‘Scottish’ music, and decided that if it was … Read more

Book cover Songs of Gaelic Scotland with blue sky background

Review: Songs of Gaelic Scotland Anne Lorne Gillies

3 March 20262 March 2026 by Jane Pettegree

Soundyngs doesn’t speak Gaelic. There it is; and sorry, the failing memory and current work pressures means that it won’t … Read more

Book cover with title and a photograph of a family with a horse, grandparents, 2 children and a hillside

Review: The Coigach & Assynt Collection

16 February 2026 by Jane Pettegree

Music, place, and people are woven together in this collection from the far north-west of Scotland. Subtitled ‘òrain, sgeulachdan, puirt’ … Read more

Text The Bagpipes a cultural history with old bagpipes in background

Review: The Bagpipes, a Cultural History by Richard McLauchlan

5 January 202622 December 2025 by Jane Pettegree

Astonishingly affordable at £20 for the hardback book, there’s not excuse not to sneak this into a last-minute Boxing Day … Read more

Book cover with title, editor, and a photograph of a smiling man with a tweed hat and coat (Jock Duncan) in a farm landscape

Review: Jock Duncan: The Man and His Songs

8 December 2025 by Jane Pettegree

Image: cover, Jock Duncan: The Man and his Songs, compiled and edited by Peter Shepheard (Perth: Rymer Books, 2024) Jock … Read more

Two books John M Mason collection with the man himself in tartan

Review: The John M Mason Collection

1 December 2025 by Jane Pettegree

Soundyngs’ workplace recently received an impressively weighty 2 volume hardback collection of fiddle tunes by John M Mason (1940-2011), co-founder … Read more

Photograph of the approach to Dundee from the south looking at the city skyline from the road bridge

Review: Take It To The Bridge

27 October 2025 by Jane Pettegree

Image: Tay Road Bridge, approaching Dundee in the slow land (2001), Colin Smith CC BY-SA-2.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tay_Road_Bridge_-_geograph.org.uk_-_97596.jpg Dundee: once, jute, jam … Read more