This has also been posted on Facebook, on my Glasgow Music Publishers page.
Well, that’s it done. I was invited to contribute a chapter to a book, and after quite a bit of research – and 34 hours’ writing in the past week – I have submitted it! Such a relief. I admit, I was a bit chastened to realise that I had just spent a whole week of Actual, Genuine Holiday sitting at my desk writing a book chapter – which constitutes actual, genuine intellectual work. Oh well, it had to be done!
This also means I can sidle out of the eighteenth century and back to the twentieth, to continue my researches into Scottish music publishers from the late Victorian era onwards.
Because of Covid, I still can’t do what I’d like to do next. I’d like to speak to very elderly people, to see what they can tell me about the Scottish music they and their parents enjoyed in the days before the folk revival. To do this properly, I’d have to get ethical clearance from my department, and then I’d need to reach out to the generation whose memories I’m particularly interested in. Obviously, Covid means I can’t go physically interviewing frail old people anywhere, so I’m a little bit stuck, and there’s no point in seeking ethical clearance to do anything of the sort, even when everyone’s had their vaccination.
But if you’ve got elderly relatives who enjoyed Scottish music in their youth, and they can remember particular books that they had in their music cabinets or piano stools, then do feel free to tell me what those books were! It might not be a formal, ethically-approved study, but even anecdotal stories help us document what was popular and, maybe, why it was. Maybe Great Auntie Doris always had a few songs that she sang at Hogmanay, or cousin Lottie used to sing from a certain book at Sunday School concerts? Or Bert next door was renowned for his bothy ballad renditions on the accordion? Do tell me! Otherwise, in another decade or two, we’ll have lost that generation and their stories with them.
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 