Jane Austen in the ballroom

Background to dancing in the early nineteenth century can be seen at a website entitled Persuasions On-Line, by dance historian Allison Thompson. There's another interesting website about the 19th century dance, the Quadrille, entitled Ellis Rogers & Quadrille Club. Dance historians please advise Whittaker Live if there are other useful websites that RSAMD dancers and actors ought to know about!

Classical Scores Library trial

The Whittaker Library has a trial of Classical Scores Library until the end of January. The database is expensive but very useful - the best advice to RSAMD staff and students is to 'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may'! Trial within the RSAMD Building

Benslow: Music Making July - December 2010

The July-December 2010 brochure is now available. Celebrating 80 years of amateur music-making this year, the Benslow Music Trust offers short courses, concerts and other events which might be of interest to both adult and younger pupils. Website www.benslow.org Email info@benslow.org Instrument Loan Scheme (highly recommended!) ilsbenslow@benslow.org

Canford Summer School of Music 1-22 August 2010

Canford has just issued their new brochure for the 2010 summer music course at Sherborne. The website is being developed right now - visit to see what's happening.

Aye Write - Glasgow book festival Friday 5 March until Saturday 13 March 2010

Music and drama are sociable activities - and how do you share them? By communicating with other folk, whether this means playing, acting, talking about it, or writing about it. And if you're interested in the written word, you might also be interested in the Aye Write book festival, here in Glasgow. Visit the Aye Write website here. What's it all about? Here's a quote from the website:-

The Aye Write! Book Festival returns to the Mitchell Library on 5-13 March 2010 bringing another stellar line-up of authors to Glasgow. The festival, which is in its fifth year will feature local talent alongside national and international authors for a celebration of books, poetry and family events alongside community projects and another extensive schools programme. Aye Write! 2010 will include a number of themes including The Future of the Media, The Future of the Left, Globalisation and a major debate about the place of Scottish Literature in the school curriculum. The full line up of authors won’t be announced until 17th January but as a taster for what’s to come a few of the authors and writers already confirmed to take part include bestselling author Joanna Trollope, the first female Poet Laureate Glasgow born poet and playwright Carol Ann Duffy, musician and writer Edwin Collins and BBC world affairs journalist John Simpson.

Royal Over-Seas League 58th Annual Music Competition

To visit the ROSL Arts Division website, click here. The deadline for entering the 2010 Competition is 15th January, so don't delay!

My Strathspey - a world-wide community of Scottish country dancers

Visit the database here. It is a work in progress, as explained on the homepage:- ' DanceData World-Wide-Web Interface is a database of information related to Scottish country dancing. It contains a wealth of entries describing dances, tunes, people, publications, recordings and albums, all interconnected. You can use this WWW interface to query the database (in an utterly simple-minded manner) without having to install special software on your own computer; there is also a free-standing version for Windows 95/98/NT which is available from Alan Paterson's site. The free-standing version has many more features; most notably, it allows very complex queries of the data. '

Music making at Benslow January-July 2010

The Benslow Music Trust has released their next course prospectus. Well worth recommending to your pupils! Visit the website here:- www.benslow.org

What services do researchers need and use?

The Research Information Network is just winding up tenders for a new project which might be of interest to researchers and their supervisors. Read about Research Support Services: What Services do Researchers Need and Use? RIN homepage The RIN is also looking to fund a second series of case studies to provide a detailed analysis of how humanities’ researchers discover, use, create and manage their information resources. Read about this project here.

Guid Crack: Yule Night, Friday 18 December, 7.30pm.

Edinburgh's monthly storytelling club welcomes all to listen or contribute to the spinning of yarns in a delightful evening of words and song. Appropriately named storyteller and harpist Heather Yule is the special guest tale weaver at Guid Crack: Yule Night on Friday 18 December at 7.30pm. Hosted by Donald Smith, drop into The Waverley Bar on St Mary's Street and find a jovial gathering of storytellers, singers and listeners enjoying a pre-Christmas tale or two along with their pints. [Info from Scottish Storytelling Centre Weekly Events Bulletin]

Archival Sounds at the British Library

See what the British Library says about this service:-

If you are in a licensed UK higher or further education institution, you can

• Search all recordings on the site
• Listen to the recordings and download them
• Add notes and tags and create a favourites list
• Most of the facilities are also available in our Reading Rooms

If this has whetted your appetite, then visit Electronic Resources on the RSAMD Whittaker Library website.

Access from outside the building involves identifying the RSAMD from a list of academic institutions, then using your normal desktop login.

New Screen Search Fashion website launched

A new website featuring fashion on film in the 1920s and 1930s is being launched this week.

Screen Search Fashion has been developed by Screen Archive South East, at the University of Brighton, in partnership with the RCA funded by the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning through Design (CETLD).

• Free online resource offers a new way of looking at everyday fashion and dress history in the inter-war years through unique archive film held in Screen Archive South East's (SASE) collections.
• Site provides a thematic guide to aspects of 1920s and 1930s fashion, as depicted in over two hundred newly digitized stills and clips, enabling the researcher to discover key aspects of fashion and dress of the period in their historical and design contexts.
• Site includes links to records in Screen Archive South East's online database, where the films can be explored in further detail.
• Includes links to related resources held in archives, libraries and museums; a bibliography of related literature and a glossary of terms.

This new online teaching and learning resource is accessible to all, enabling material which has hitherto been underused for fashion research and study, to be opened up to a wider audience. The vast potential of non-fiction film as a resource for students interested in fashion and dress is highlighted by this resource which has the potential to contribute to dress historians’ developing interest in everyday fashions. This resource is the result of a year long, CETLD-funded project, carried out at the Royal College of Art and Screen Archive South East, at the University of Brighton. Screen Search Fashion can be visited at: http://www.brighton.ac.uk/screenarchive/fashion/ Further information/contacts: Screen Archive South East: 01273 643213 Email: screenarchive@brighton.ac.uk

Soup for flu-ridden artistes (and not a music score in sight)

This is a performing arts blog, right? So in the interest of keeping all our budding performers fit and well, it's necessary to look after their diet? Tomato Soup (Red tomatoes, garlic and onion are all good for fighting off infection) Saute an onion and 2 rashers bacon. Add 2 cloves of garlic, then 2 cans tomatoes. Fling in salt, pepper, a chicken stock cube, pint of water. Simmer. Liquidise. If that doesn't make you feel better, here's a health information video from YouTube.

Marek

One of our RSAMD students is doing great things in Warsaw. He tells us that,

Marek Pasieczny is extremely happy!!!!standing ovation after world premiere of his Concerto Polacco at the Lutoslawski's Hall in Warsaw!!!soon on Youtube.

We are sure he will be happy to share this news with his friends and admirers.

Preserving Scotland's heritage (part 2)

The Whittaker Library at RSAMD recently purchased two rare old Scottish printed music scores - the first volume of R. A. Smith's Scotish Minstrel, and Niel Gow's Complete Repository of Original Scots Tunes Part 2. Both books were in a sorry state when we bought them, but they have been expertly restored by Scottish bookbinders Riley, Dunn and Wilson. Come and ask to see them - they are truly fantastic! Robert Archibald Smith published a number of songs by Lady Carolina Nairne in his Scotish Minstrel (note the spelling - someone else published a different collection with the modern spelling of 'Scottish'). He was condemned by fussy antiquarians for 'inventing' Scottish songs and passing them off as traditional. Nonetheless, some of his songs became part of the Scottish repertoire in their turn. (He also published an Irish Minstrel, itself a controversial publication because of copyright issues, but that's another story.) The Gow family were famed fiddlers, and no self-respecting Scottish music library would turn up the chance to buy one of their publications. Niel Gow (1720-1807) was a seriously big name in his day.

UK's Young Music Entrepreneur

Look!

Competition to find the UK's Young Music Entrepreneur 2010 It's being run by the British Council as part of the wider UK Young Creative Entrepreneur programme. Six finalists will undertake a study tour to China in February -

• The aim of the tour is to provide a 'shorthand' for the industry there - meet with industry leaders as well as your peers, and learn how business is done there;
• Amazing opportunity to increase your international networks;
• Gain valuable insights into the Chinese market

Applicants must be ...

• aged 25-35
• with three years industry experience
• UK based

The organisers are happy to hear from those who aren't self employed (as long as they can demonstrate their entrepreneurial ability) and from those in the social enterprise/not for profit sector. Applications are now open and close on 30 November. Further info - click here.

Meet the RSAMD Subject Librarians

Alan Jones and Karen McAulay are the Subject Librarians at the Whittaker Library in RSAMD.

They look forward to meeting all new staff and students in the days and weeks to come.

Alan takes care of Drama in the Librarian, and Karen looks after Music.

Alan is shown here in national dress, hosting a conference - he's the one in white shirt and kilt on the left of the picture. Karen can only apologise that she hasn't got nearly such a nice photo to share, but here she is ...

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Edison Fellowship - research into recordings at the British Library

The British Library is offering on a competitive basis an Edison Fellowship between September 2010 and August 2011. The Fellowship can extend up to 4 months and the award could be up to £5000. For more details, visit the British Library website.

Gordon Dunsire 3rd Memorial Concert

Perth Concert Hall

26th September, at 7.30 pm.

Use Google!

If you're a student, research scholar or member of staff, are you aware that as well as Google, there's Google Books and Google Scholar? Google Books - thousands and thousands of books, full-text or with excerpts. Often the excerpts are enough to give you the info you need. And if you've read the book but need to cite a page reference, Google Books can help you find that page! http://books.google.com Google Scholar - like a free, readily-available index to books and journals. Search on your subject, and retrieve the kind of materials that your advisors would like to see you citing! http://scholar.google.co.uk