Strathspey Players Past and Present, by William Honeyman

If you play the fiddle, take a look at this.  It was written in 1922, practically a century ago.  William Honeyman is all but forgotten now.  He talks about Niel Gow and James Scott Skinner in an unashamedly anecdotal style.  But the stories themselves might be worth sharing next time you're introducing a Gow strathspey at a gig.

Fifteen pages to 'favourite' (They're already in my Diigo bookmarks!):-

http://www.cyberstudia.com/ogmios/texts/honeyman/strathspey-players/strathspey-players.html


Honeyman wrote a Strathspey, Reel and Hornpipe Tutor, too - we have it in the Whittaker Library.  We blogged about it in the context of Newcastle fiddle reels, not so long ago.  Read that blogpost here.

New Links for Trad Musicians

I've just been checking my Diigo account, and I see I've recently saved several links that our Scottish trad musicians might like:-

• The Archive Project: an Adventure in Traditional Scottish Music - blog about a project to get people using tunes in the School of Scottish Studies Archives:- "Welcome! This is a project from the Edinburgh Youth Gaitherin and School of Scottish Studies Archives (funded by Creative Scotland through the Youth Music Initiative) running for a year from June 2012 – June (or beyond!) 2013.  It aims to bring seven young people (aged 15-23) into the Archives and create innovative new traditional music as a result."
• Forthcoming Minstrelsy Concert at The Sage Gateshead -  promoted by the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle Upon Tyne, 23 June 8 pm.
• Society of Antiquaries of Scotland - has been studying the history of Scottish culture and archaeology for over 200 years!
• Ronnie Gibson explores the Atholl Collection of Scottish music at Perth's A K Bell Library - blogpost. 
• Archived article about James Scott Skinner, from the Box and Fiddle magazine archives. Scott Skinner was a fabulous Scottish fiddler who also published fiddle music.