Harmoniums in Caithness
The wonderfully cheerful men featured in this photograph are chemist Edgar Munroe Fisher and two friends, fiddler Willie Gibson and … Read more
20thCentury
Musicians at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery
Image: author’s photo, taken as a tourist with an old mobile phone, of ‘The Lullaby’ (see below). Another post about … Read more
Sounding the Archive: Cathy Lane, Soundscapes and History-making
Image: The Machair on Berneray, Outer Hebrides, By Richard Webb, CC BY-SA 2.0. Soundyngs is interested in different approaches to … 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
Review: The Cadence of A Song, The Life of Margaret Fay Shaw
Fiona Mackenzie brings to her biography of Margaret Fay Shaw two significant gifts. Firstly, she spent almost 9 years as … 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
Review: Brian Bannatyne-Scott A Singer’s Life
At the start of its own (digital) life, Soundyngs wondered what constituted ‘Scottish’ music, and decided that if it was … Read more
Review: The Coigach & Assynt Collection
Music, place, and people are woven together in this collection from the far north-west of Scotland. Subtitled ‘òrain, sgeulachdan, puirt’ … Read more
Review: Jock Duncan: The Man and His Songs
Image: cover, Jock Duncan: The Man and his Songs, compiled and edited by Peter Shepheard (Perth: Rymer Books, 2024) Jock … Read more
Review: The John M Mason Collection
Soundyngs’ workplace recently received an impressively weighty 2 volume hardback collection of fiddle tunes by John M Mason (1940-2011), co-founder … Read more
Review: Take It To The Bridge
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
Review: Alexander ‘Battan’ Grant, 1856-1942
Image – the rondello, from Inverness Museums, in Smartify.org Art is long, and life is short, alas; people often need … Read more