Want to Know More about Robert Burns and Scottish Songs?

You may know of Burns' contribution to the six-volume The Scots Musical Museum.  This collection has been reprinted more than once since first publication!

There's now a new, authoritative edition combining the original text with new scholarly commentary.
University of Glasgow Professor Murray Pittock's edition of The Scots Musical Museum is contained in vols.2 and 3 of The Oxford Edition of the Works of Robert Burns.  (Vol.2 is the tunes, and vol.3 the commentary.)  

We've also got Donald Low's slightly older reprint, which can be borrowed by staff and students for short loan, and William Stenhouse's 1853 Illustrations of the lyric poetry and music of Scotland.

That one's in our Special Collections - because it's special!

Celebrating Folksinger Jean Redpath and her work on Robert Burns' Songs

Jean Redpath Would Have Been 80

The celebrated Jean Redpath would have been 80 this year, and Bibliolore blog is marking the anniversary.  Read RILM's posting about Jean Redpath and Robert Burns.

(RILM is an online music abstract and indexing service.  Their Bibliolore blog https://bibliolore.org/ is full of fascinating detail about a huge variety of different musical topics - well worth following.)

Burns Night? We Have Just One Thing to Say ...

http://tinyurl.com/BurnsSongs

(It's where you'll find all the Robert Burns materials in our catalogue!  Have a nice evening.)

Editing Robert Burns for the 21st Century - New Online Resource

The University of Glasgow has this week launched a great new resource about songs by Robert Burns. Editing Robert Burns for the 21st Century is an AHRC-funded Project to produce a multi-volume edition of the Works of Robert Burns. It's led by Kirsteen McCue,

Professor of Scottish Literature & Song Culture and Co-Director of the Centre for Robert Burns Studies in the Scottish Literature Department.

There's lots to explore.  It all started with this:- 

"The Centre for Robert Burns Studies at the University of Glasgow recently secured a major AHRC research grant to produce a multi-volume edition of Robert Burns’s work, which will be published by Oxford University Press. The project, ‘Editing Robert Burns for the 21st Century’, began in 2009, the 250th anniversary of the poet’s birth, and will take at least 15 years to complete."   Read more on the website!

http://burnsc21.glasgow.ac.uk/

Burns - a Poet for the 21st Century

Monday is Burns night.  Singers will be out "warbling their wood-notes wild"*, and half of Scotland will be eating haggis and neaps. But Burns and his poems are also the stuff of serious scholarship:- 

Editing Robert Burns for the 21st Century - a project at the University of Glasgow

• Professor Kirsteen McCue talks about Burns, my Dad and me on BBC Two on Burns Night. Her father, Bill McCue, was an actor and singer in the 1970s and 80s, and Kirsteen herself is now a lead scholar in Glasgow Uni's Burns project.

Did you need some Burns songs to sing?  

• Check our catalogue here.  Registered staff and students, if you need to borrow anything, then remember we're open until 20:30 on Burns Night (Monday). 
• Try our music streaming services if you're looking for recordings to accompany that haggis dinner!  
• Whittaker Library Electronic Resources for staff and students - click here.

When YouTube comes into its own!

• The Ayoub Sisters play Scottish Melodies. We found this YouTube video which you might enjoy - click here. 
• Robyn Stapleton and Claire Hastings sing 'Logie o' Buchan' at the Star Folk Club 2014. Another YouTube clip for you! Here. 

Warbling their wood-notes wild: when talking about traditional songs, 

Burns's generation frequently used this phrase, referencing the poet Milton! 

Robert Burns and his Fiddle - By his Sister

What do we know about Robert Burns's violin-playing?  Mary Anne Alburger, in Scottish Fiddlers and their Music (1996), says he could play to amuse himself, but couldn't play well enough to accompany a dance.

And how does Alburger know this?  She referred to a famous collection of Scottish songs which has plentiful notes.

Songs of Scotland was edited by George Farquhar Graham, and published by Edinburgh firm Wood and Co., from 1848-1853. It remained in print in various editions for half a century, but the most important thing to us is the annotations.

Captain Charles Gray, who knew Robert Burns's sister, wrote to George Farquhar Graham to say he had asked Mrs Begg for her recollections.  (This would be described as oral history nowadays!)

George Farquhar Graham wrote back to Captain Gray, asking for answers to some more precise questions.  In the Appendix to Vol. 2 of Songs of Scotland, Graham quotes from Captain Gray's original letter, and his own reply with the questions he wanted answered, and finally, from Captain Gray's second letter. 

You can read the whole discussion in Songs of Scotland Vol.2, Appendix (pp.161-62).  We have it in stock in the Whittaker Library at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Click here for catalogue number

And that's what we know about Burns and his fiddle-playing prowess!

Burns could copy music, too - the few scraps that survive have sold at auction for phenomenal prices!  Here's one:- Wha is that at my bower door? (It sold for £12,500 recently!)

Robert Burns Thought Scottish Songs should be Performed Like This

A few years ago, we posted a blog entry about William Tytler.  Never heard of him?  Well, he lived a long, long time ago. 
Nonetheless, we think Robert Burns may have been influenced by William Tytler's "prescription" for good Scottish song performances.  He could have read Tytler's dissertation - it was published in several different books.  Or he could have read Joseph Ritson's book, Scotish Songs, where Ritson quoted from Tytler's dissertation.

So, let's find out more about what Tytler said.

REBLOGGED:-



William Tytler (image from ElectricScotland)

On 12th September, 1792, William Tytler died at the grand old age of 81.  Scottish musical history owes much to Tytler.

Tytler (1711-92) was an Edinburgh lawyer and historian. A founder member of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1780, his A Dissertation on the Scottish Musick was an influential commentary on the history of Scottish music for antiquarians and collectors of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

It was first published in Hugo Arnot’s The History of Edinburgh, attributed to ‘a learned and ingenious friend’, in 1779 (and again in 1788).  It also appeared under Tytler's name in 1783 and 1790, and was later read at a meeting, and subsequently published in 1792, in the first Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

Tytler wanted to track down the origins of the earliest melodies, ‘and to trace the history of our music down to modern times.’ His comments were influential upon the song collection compilers who followed him - Johnson, Burns and Ritson. Tytler’s pronouncement about the correct kind of accompaniment for Scottish song became almost a ‘gold standard’ for contemporary antiquarian publishers of song collections.

• Royal Conservatoire of Scotland - for books on Scottish music history in the Whittaker Library, click here.
• Check COPAC (UK national and university libraries) to find your nearest copy of a Tytler source.
• We have a photocopy of Tytler's dissertation in our own library - here.  (We downloaded it from Archive.org)

Musical Maggots, Anyone?

Glancing through a modern edition of an 18th century flute book, we found "John Anderson's Maggot". Strange, we thought.  We know the Robert Burns favourite, John Anderson, my Jo - but Maggot is hardly a term of endearment, so ... what's a maggot?

It's an early 18th century word for an earworm, apparently - an obsessive returning to a theme.  Right, so that fits the music in question perfectly - roughly speaking, a couple of variations on a theme loosely related to the Burns song.

Don't believe us?  In the BBC film of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, they danced Mr Beveridge's Maggot. Different tune, and Mr Beveridge was apparently a dancing master.

• How to dance Mr Beveridge's Maggot

And then we found a web discussion about musical maggots, to add to the intrigue.  If you're interested in period "country dances", you might like to take a look:-

• Language Log - a chat about Musical Maggots

Karen doesn't dance, but even she thinks she could walk through this particular dance! (Now, what could we do creatively with John Anderson's Maggot ...?  A flute ensemble, maybe?)

And much more recently, Ernest Tomlinson included a maggot in his First Suite of English Folk Dances.  Our thanks to flautist and flute choir director Rachel from Sheffield Flute Choir for sharing this YouTube clip with us:-

• Dick's Maggot

If you're from beyond Scotland, would you like to know more about Burns Night?

Are you celebrating Burns Night?

25.1.2015

This Sunday is the birthday of Scotland's national bard, poet Robert Burns.  The Whittaker Library has plenty of his songs on the shelves, and CDs of them being sung.

One of our web resources is ideal for finding out more about him, though: Scran is jam-packed with images, digitised documents, recordings ... and they have a special feature about Robert Burns at the moment.

Click to visit here - Staff and students of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland can login using their RCS password to get the fullest access to this great online resource.

• Scran homepage: www.scran.ac.uk
• Whittaker Library Catalogue

18th Century Culture: Dance, Theatre Set Design, and Mystery Editors

Early dance, Georgian set design, and Robert Burns' Mystery Editor

Even away from the day-job, 'Whittaker' keeps finding interesting snippets to share with the community of performing artists at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.  Here are three unrelated weblinks to 18th century topics:-

• http://www.earlydancecircle.co.uk/ - The Early Dance Circle
• Abraham Adcock: a Georgian Scene-Painter
• BBC News: Robert Burns 'used mystery editor' on his early work

Robert Burns - Holy Willie's Prayer and the Glenriddell Manuscripts

Some highly significant manuscripts of Robert Burns, the Glenriddell Manuscripts, are on display in the National Library of Scotland until the end of March 2014.  They contain 'Holy Willie's Prayer', amongst letters and other items.  Read their fascinating story - it might make you want to visit the exhibition!

http://www.nls.uk/exhibitions/treasures

Found and Favourited - Links you might Like

Where are your favourites stored? On a device or in the cloud?  Whittaker likes cloud-based Diigo, so that's the first favourite link to share today:-

www.Diigo.com 

The fact that there's an android app (PowerNote) which syncs with Diigo is of course a powerful incentive to use it all the more.

Evernote is another useful tool, to keep track of all manner of action-lists and memos:-

www.Evernote.com

But let's get back to those favourites.  Whittaker's recent Diigo links include these:-

• Burns Scotland - http://www.burnsscotland.com/ (does what it says, authoritatively and without kitschy tartan gimmickry)
• Book Riot - a blog about books - http://bookriot.com/
• Scottish Music Centre - Opportunities and Competitions page:- http://www.scottishmusiccentre.com/competitions/
• Khan Academy - have you heard about 'Flipping the classroom'?  Online teaching using YouTube and student-led learning, as advocated by Salman Khan:- https://www.khanacademy.org/  (The Whittaker Library is buying Khan's book - we'll tell you when it arrives.)
• Fresh on the Net - share your tracks here! http://freshonthenet.co.uk/submit/  Tom Robinson tells you about the scheme here:-

• "This blog grew up out of a radio show called BBC Introducing: Fresh On The Net (read more) which I hosted on BBC 6 Music from October 2007 to April 2012.  Through the show I encountered many gifted individuals who shared my enthusiasm for new music and a dozen of them have now joined me here online under the name Team Freshnet. Our mission remains the same: to promote independent music making in all it forms – and to connect listeners with new music and musicians with new listeners."
  

 

Fred Freeman - Recordings of Burns and Tannahill Songs

If you were at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland's Exchange Talk this evening, you may be keen to hear the recordings that Dr Fred Freeman was talking about.  It will have come as a surprise to many that Tannahill wrote songs with an Irish theme, as well as his many Scottish poems.

We have all three of his Tannahill recordings in the Whittaker Library - see here.


We also have his Robert Burns recordings - see here.

If you're interested in the old music publications that Fred referred to, we commend Geor Thomson's Scottish songbooks and R. A. Smith's Scotish Minstrel books, of which we have examples in our Special Collections.  See our catalogue!

oooooooooOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooo

Paisley poet weaver Robert Tannahill had a tragically short life, but his output made a huge impact. You can find a lot of digitised Tannahill material on Archive.org.

Another scholar who has worked on Tannahill's poetic contribution is Jim Ferguson, whose PhD at the University of Glasgow was a study of Tannahill's correspondence.  You can read this online, here:-

Ferguson, Jim (2011) - A weaver in wartime: a biographical study and the letters of Paisley weaver-poet Robert Tannahill (1774-1810). PhD thesis.

St Andrews Special Collection - a Robert Burns posting

St Andrews University Library

It's the day when everyone struggles to come up with a new 'take' on Scotland's national Bard.  Here is an offering from the University of St Andrews:-

Echoes from the Vault:

Scotland’s Poet: Robert Burns in Special Collections

Burnsfest - Scottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh

Burns-related events continue at the Scottish Storytelling Centre, until 26 January.  Find out more here.

Burns in Song - a Feast of Singing

There's a Robert Burns event at the Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh this Friday:- 

Burns in Song - A Feast of Singing 

Friday 18th January 2-5pm (Scottish Storytelling Centre, 43-45 High Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1SR).  Details here.

NLS Burns Night Poetry Grand Slam

Burns Night

25 January 2013, 6-8 pm

National Library of Scotland

Okay, let's get some Royal Conservatoire of Scotland voices taking part in the poetry grand slam at the National Library of Scotland on 25th January 2013!  There surely must be Conservatoire people who'd enjoy this.

To compete in the slam, you need to contact g.hawley@nls.uk.  More details here on the NLS events page:- 

http://www.nls.uk/events

Use the above link for booking a ticket to be in the audience, too.

University of Glasgow and National Library of Scotland: Burns manuscripts

Robert Burns Manuscripts

News of a major manuscript digitisation project at the University of Glasgow.  Watch this development!

Burns an a' that - Festival, Ayrshire

Burns an a' that

Festival , 30 May - 3 June 2012

http://www.burnsfestival.com/

Whittaker's round-up

Lots of useful snippets have drifted into Whittaker's net of late.  So, here's Whittaker's round-up:-

• Teach faster, Write more (article by Susanne Morgan, for research support website Academic Ladder's February ezine)
• Pseuds' corner (identifying bad books - a THE article by Daniel Melia, 9 February 2012)
• Writing for peer-reviewed journals (strategies for getting published): forthcoming book by Pat Thomson and Barbara Kamler (Royal Conservatoire researchers - should we order this?)
• Re-skilling for research: a report from RLUK
• 201 years ago, 26 February 1811.  Yesterday (Sunday) was the anniversary of the death of James Johnson, instigator and publisher of the Scots Musical Museum. Genuinely a major contribution to Scottish song performers, collectors, scholars and aficionados.  He collaborated with Robert Burns for his seriously big-time, six-volume collection.  A worthy candidate for our "On this day" series of Scottish musical history facts.
• Postgraduate course in Arts management (Vienna)
• Middle Eastern Spirituality and Peace Festival at the Scottish Storytelling Centre this week.