After their Moment of Glory, the Books Slept …

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Well, the talk seems to have gone well, and again, I found a very responsive audience. After being taken out for a delicious dinner, I headed for Dundee, which was the only way I was going to be at work on time in the morning.

Hotel room obligingly had low lighting and glass topped table, illuminating Wee Davie!

Another time, I need to clarify, for anyone not familiar with Tonic Sol-Fa, that it was devised for singers, not instrumentalists.

If you played an instrument, you learned off standard staff notation or by ear – with or without an instructor. In late Victorian times, after the 1870 and 1872 Education Acts, it stands to reason that more children would have learnt sight-singing by Sol-Fa, than learnt an instrument. Children whose parents could pay, might have had private instrumental lessons. Some might have had opportunities to join a band, learn from someone known to them, or pick up a fiddle (for example), but I still maintain that the majority of children were more likely to have encountered Sol-Fa.

As to social mobility … I’m not entirely sure whether it was easier or harder to fight your way up the ladder in those days. I’d need to ask a social historian of that era. I can only comment on the few instances that I’ve observed: ‘my’ music publishers certainly seemed to do well for themselves.

So, here I sit on a train back to Glasgow. Like Cinderella, my carriage will change back to a pumpkin, and my garb back to rags, if I’m not a librarian behind my desk by nine o’clock!

The Long Road to St Andrews

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

The bus got delayed in traffic today. (Significantly so. My journey was 4.75 hours from door to door!) This did reduce the time I had for book revisions, but I still managed a productive afternoon. I’ve revised the Introduction and created a Preface.

I had already done more work on my literature review, so I worked through the reviewer’s suggestions until I was pretty sure I’d addressed them all. I start with their suggestions and my responses. Once dealt with, each point is ticked off, and digitally ‘crossed out.’

So far, so good. Just a small matter of giving all the chapters the same treatment. I’ll get there eventually.

And because a mild, damp morning turned into a mild, dry afternoon, I even managed a walk by the sea. What could be nicer? (I didn’t quite get onto the sand, but next time, if I’m in trainers! …. )

Late lunchtime in St Andrews
Upstairs & downstairs flats with outside stairs

From Magic Lantern to Microphone:

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

the Scottish Music Publishers and Pedagogues inspiring Hearts and Minds through Song’

You just have to get to St Andrews!

Thursday at 5.30 pm

https://x.com/ISHRStAndrews/status/1726346251262722510?t=Pcj4iHBLW-ABj4-jzAECvw&s=09

Researcher? Thinking of Writing a Book?

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

It occurred to me that many folk with a recently finished PhD or some other significant piece of research, must wonder whether to publish it as a book. Now my second monograph has moved to the revision stage, I thought I’d share a few thoughts on the process.

Everyone will arrive at this point with different prior experiences. In my case, I’ve written in a variety of formats and contexts. All writing experience is useful, even if you have to adopt different styles and protocols.

  • 30+ short stories for The People’s Friend
  • Serial for The People’s Friend (short stories and serial both great experience in telling a story, building a character, and writing to be understood.)
  • Countless book reviews
  • Blogging
  • Magazine articles
  • Journal articles
  • 20k word BA dissertation
  • 60k word MA dissertation
  • 100k word PhD dissertation, which became a
  • First monograph (= scholarly book)

So, here I am, revising the draft of my second monograph. And it’s different. It’s like swimming – eventually you take off your armbands, do a few lengths of the pool, and at some point, head for the sea. I can’t talk about writing a non-academic book, but I can certainly outline what’s likely to happen with a scholarly one.

  • You pitch your book idea to a suitable publisher. They’re likely to want chapter abstracts, a sample chapter, and an indication of the likely audience. Also some kind of literature review, proving the need for a book like yours to fill the gap.
  • Your pitch goes to peer reviewers. It may well take a while to get a response. They’re busy academics, after all.
  • They may suggest changes. Assuming the reviewers’ reports are generally favourable and recommend publication, you finally get a contract – and a deadline to finish writing the book.
  • Months pass. You get the book written and submitted – and then you wait. The full manuscript now gets reviewed, and eventually you receive the email you’ve been half-dreading. Changes may be suggested.
  • You respond to their reviews and indicate what you’re going to change. (Or perhaps, you will decide not to change something that you can defend just as it is!) With a second or subsequent book, these folk are the closest you’ll get to the kind of advice your tutors/doctoral supervisor offered – try to receive it gratefully and graciously, unless you really feel misunderstood!
  • You then wait for the go-ahead to make the agreed revisions, and agree a new deadline. It’s Scheduling Time! My calendar for the rest of 2023 is all mapped out.
  • I do know what will come next! The copy editor will be let loose on it. I’ll get to see and agree to the suggested edits, usually just small matters of style, or inconsistencies. Meanwhile, I will either have to produce an index, or pay an indexer.
  • A cover is agreed on. My book is part of a series, so there may not be much choice here.
  • The exciting part is when it’s just about ready to go to press; you are notified of the publication date, and can start planning that book launch.

And then – if it hasn’t happened already – someone utters the dreaded words,

“And what’s your next book going to be about … ?”

Unknown, interested well-wisher

Diversifying the Repertoire

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Choosing more diverse repertoire is challenging for instrumentalists and singers. For four or more years, I’ve been working hard on increasing our stock in this area – music by women, music by BIPOC composers, and, of course, music by women who are BIPOC composers – and I’ve compiled some helpful lists of music in stock at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s Whittaker Library. They’re posted on the library WhittakerLive blog.

I intend this to be my legacy when I retire from the Library in July 2024.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

All quiet over here

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

The Fellow had a migraine yesterday.

Caffeine, carbs, codeine and a lunchtime walk restored me to near normality, so I did some reading in preparation for the book revisions, and continued the task today. But migraines are very draining, so I’m tired!

Sea view

I have taken annual leave in order to spend my Thursday afternoons researching, to maximise the time I have in St Andrews. So I settled down to do what needs doing, but STILL I received emailed queries. I spent as little time as I could, but readers shouldn’t be kept waiting. Anyway, back to the research ….

Having a finite amount of time certainly concentrates the mind. Is this relevant? Useful? How does it help the argument?

It pays to get an oversight of a book’s chapter structure, and to make use of the index. If something is in digital format, searching for keywords certainly gives an indication as to whether it’s worth spending time on.

And home-time!

From Magic Lantern to Microphone

Next week, I’m giving another talk, this time to the Institute of Scottish Historical Research. It’s all written, so I just need to read the whole thing out loud to myself between now and then, to ensure there are no tongue-twisters to trip me up!

Crucial to the talk ….

And after carrying far too much to last week’s talk, be assured that I won’t make the same mistake again! My props will be no larger than will fit in a pocket.

Music by Subscription

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Contributed Chapter

Music by subscription : composers and their networks in the British music-publishing trade, 1676-1820 / edited by Simon D.I. Fleming, Martin Perkins. (Routledge, 2022)

I wrote a chapter for this book, which came out in 2022. I wonder if anyone has read RCS’s e-book version? The hardback itself seems to have sat on the shelf unnoticed for a whole year ….

‘Strathspeys, reels, and instrumental airs: a national product’ (pp.177-197)

I write about British Women in Music …

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

It wasn’t until I needed to draw up a list that I realised just how much I’ve focused on British women in music in my research over the past five or six years! Quite a bit, it appears.

‘Mrs Bertram’s Music Borrowing: Reading Between the Lines’, 18 Sept 2017, Guest blogpost: EAERN (Eighteenth-Century Arts Education Research Network) https://eaern.wordpress.com/2017/09/18/mrs-bertrams-music-borrowing-readingbetween-the-lines/

‘My love to war is going’: Women and Song in the Napoleonic Era’, jointly authored with Brianna Robertson-Kirkland, Trafalgar Chronicle, New Series 3 (2018), 202-212.

‘A labour of love for Miss Lambert’, Nov 20, 2019, Personal blogpost: https://karenmcaulaymusicologist.blog/2019/11/20/a-labour-of-love-for-miss-lambert/

‘The sound of forgotten music: Karen McAulay uncovers some of the great female composers who have been lost from history’, in The People’s Friend, Special Edition, 11 Sep 2020, 2 p. Dundee : D C Thomson.

‘A Music Library for St Andrews: use of the University’s Copyright Music Collections, 1801-1849’, in Journal of the Edinburgh Bibliographical Society no.15 (2020), 13-33.

‘An Extensive Musical Library’: Mrs Clarinda Webster, LRAM, Brio vol.59 no.1 (2022), 29-42

‘Representation of Women Composers in the Whittaker Library’, Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice. Vol. 11 No. 1 (2023): Special Issue on Breaking the Gender Bias in Academia and Academic Practice, pp.21-26. (Paper given at the International Women’s Day Conference hosted by the University of the Highlands and Islands, 2022.) DOI: https://doi.org/10.56433/jpaap.v11i1.533

Newsletter article, ‘‘Our Heroine is Dead’: Miss Margaret Wallace Thomson, Paisley Organist (1853-1896)’, The Glasgow Diapason, March 2023, 10-15. (You can find this article in full on this blog)

FORTHCOMING: Article in History Today â€“ due Dec 2023 [Marjory Kennedy-Fraser and Annie Gray, fin-de-siecle performers]

Meanwhile, back in the Whittaker Library – a Catalogue Entry

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

One day, when I’ve retired from librarianship, all that will be left to show for my 36 years here will be the books and music on the shelves – and their catalogue records. Naturally, I made sure RCS has a copy of Mozart Allan and Jack Fletcher’s The Glories of Scotland in Picture and Song. Click on the title to see how I’ve catalogued it!

I think you’ll agree I’ve managed to insert enough hints as to why I think it’s significant. There’s a book chapter coming out in an essay collection from the Centre for Printing History and Culture at Birmingham City University, so there will be more to read in due course.