Dr Karen McAulay explores the history of Scottish music collecting, publishing and national identity from the 18th to 20th centuries. Research Fellow at Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, author of two Routledge monographs.
I wrote an article. Revised it. Revised the revisions. I have no problem with this – it’s all intended to make it a better article, and hopefully it is now better. However, I feel less positive about the mechanics of submitting it! You have to use a platform called Manuscript Central. Manuscript Central is a product of the ScholarOne platform. (It was owned by Thomson Reuters, then Clarivate and is now owned by Silverchair. Still with me?) I Googled it, and one journal publisher described it as user-friendly.
I’ve used it before. Indeed, I’ve uploaded revisions before. But today, I couldn’t work out how to do all my re-revisions within the platform. After much huffing and puffing, I did submit a manuscript. I’m less confident as to whether I submitted it correctly! And I dislike feeling thwarted by technology. It doesn’t encourage me!
Confused – but no hair was torn out!
On the positive side – I normally have the greatest difficulty stopping research activity when I stop being a part-time researcher for the day, but today I was more than happy to close the document. Gently, if metaphorically shutting the door behind me!
On Thursday, I’ll turn to the next article for submission. Hmm, which platform for this one …?
Once used in an Edinburgh school, a wee Scots song book (pupil’s edition) found its way to a shop on the Isle of Arran, then back to the mainland to me in Glasgow.
1, 2 … still looking!
If you ever find any of these in the back of a school cupboard, or bookshop, or car boot sale, or Granny’s attic …
… please do let me know! I’m trying to get complete set! There were four books for the kids, and four for teachers.
We drove south last week. No, I drove us south. I missed one turning and mistook another. I’ll never hear the end of it, and I never want to see Pontefract again. (It did give a certain person the opportunity to deride my own lack of any sense of direction, and proudly show off their own.)
As for me? I am so accustomed to getting it wrong that I just regard it as part of the journey. I get there in the end. If this sounds like a metaphor for your own career path, then read on. You’re in good company.
I found a photo last week that revealed my career has been a bit like that, too. I’ve told my story often enough, so I’ll keep it brief today.
So Young!!
Aspiring to a research career, I completed a research Masters then switched topic for a PhD. First mistake.
Took fright at the thought of trying to become an academic, and trained as a librarian – without finishing the PhD. Second (big, big) mistake.
First (temporary) post in academic library.
2nd post in public library (who says you can’t change sector? Anyway, I needed a permanent job) – and got Chartered.
3rd post in academic library (another switch, see?). This was where I wanted to be: an academic music librarian. The closest (I imagined) I’d get to being a scholar librarian.
Boredom set in. I wasn’t very happy. Here’s where the LinkedIn career coaches say you should walk away. Listen, a breadwinner can’t just walk away! Hang in there. Plan, prepare.
Mid-career PhD done, whilst working full-time with dependents. Did folk think me crazy? Assuredly!
Partial research secondment.
Retire from library, hang onto the research – no longer a secondment but a new part-time position. Onwards and upwards.
I look at that old news clipping (why did Mum keep it? I thought she found my latter research career an embarrassment! All those letters after my name – so immodest) – and I wonder what 22-year old me would have said if she knew how my zigzag career would pan out?
Then, not many people did Masters’ degrees. Now, a lot of people do.
Mediaeval plainsong? Completely unrelated to anything I’ve done since 1984! No use in the library.
Fifteenth-century English polyphony? Ditto. Although I do feel a bit guilty that I baled out before it was done.
Don’t Look Back
Admittedly, I do wonder what I’d have done if I’d finished the first PhD, and found work as an academic. But there’s absolutely no point in playing “What if?”. We take the decisions that feel right at the time.
I wouldn’t dare to suggest that I had the model career. I didn’t aim high enough, lacking self-confidence to a chronic degree; got stuck where I was (see above); and had one helluva struggle rectifying the situation. Quite a ride! But I did demonstrate both flexibility and determination. I did get what I really wanted all along – eventually.
It all just goes to show that there’s more than one way to get there – if that’s where you want to go. And a few false turns aren’t the end of the road.
I haven’t been posting much this summer, for personal reasons. So – after more than a week of total blog silence, imagine my surprise to find I have had hundreds and hundreds more visitors since yesterday. What’s happened?!
Even if it’s some kind of blip, it gives me the opportunity to introduce myself. I’m a postdoctoral research fellow at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and also, for a few weeks more, at IASH at the University of Edinburgh. I research all sorts of cool stuff (well, it’s cool to me) about Scottish music publishers, with a distinct interest in national song collections, and in early 20th century music education in Scotland.
My second book was published at the end of 2024:-
A Social History of Music-Making and Scottish National Identity: Scotland’s Printed Music, 1880-1951.
That might look like a strange date-range, but my previous book covered Scottish song-collecting up to the 1880s, so this kind of continues in a slightly different way from that point onwards. The 1951 cut-off date is because that was the year of the Festival of Britain. And it was also a good place to stop because I touched upon magic lanterns, gramophones and the wireless, but I really didn’t feel I was the right person to write about early television in Scotland! By stopping in 1951, I conveniently sidestepped early television. There are plenty of people more knowledgeable than me on that front.
My current Edinburgh research entails examining archival records of the Thomas Nelson publishing house, an old Edinburgh firm. The British side of this company has ceased trading – it’s an American firm now – but I’ve found plenty to interest me in the documents up the early 1950s. Education became their focus during the era I’m researching. Whilst my book mostly covers publishers specialising in music, Thomas Nelson really only published music that would be used in schools – though they hoped a few titles would also attract the general public. (The problem being that if you mention ‘school’ or ‘classroom’ in a title, it will turn off the ordinary member of public looking at books in a bookshop!)
Will there be a third book? Possibly! I’m still pondering. September is earmarked for concentrated thought about that!
If this sounds interesting, please do come back and visit this site again.
I have a tiny cutting on my pinboard, which reminds me that,
Many of life’s failures are people who did not realise how close to success they were when they gave up. – Thomas Edison
It’s painfully true in life, but it’s also particularly pertinent in archival research!
Yesterday, I was trawling the most random of files. To be fair, a couple were even labelled ‘Miscellaneous’ in the handlist. However, they date from an era I need to know more about, so I was going to look at them! I entered a rabbit warren of curiosities.
Rejections, marked ‘Refused’, or ‘Returned’
Objections:- ‘You interviewed my son and sent him for a medical before deciding he was too old for an apprenticeship. Why?’ [My precis, not a quote]
Union matters. ‘If you don’t join the union, you put yourself and us in a difficult position because we can’t work alongside you’ [again, my summary]
Sob stories, like the widow whose friends said her story ought to be made into a film, or a book. Apparently, she was robbed and then incarcerated in a lunatic asylum in America, and now she wanted Nelson’s to publish her story of those calamities … (‘Refused‘)
Inks
Plant (machinery)
An Indian paper mill under the mistaken impression that Nelson’s were interested in a collaboration …
By 4 pm, I had a splitting headache, and was quickly flicking through pages as fast as I dared – the paper was fragile, and I still didn’t want to miss something important.
Why not admit defeat and give up on this box file?, I mused. There was nothing relevant in it. Interesting, but irrelevant.
Note from Warlock to a song book compiler
Then I saw it. A beautiful little note from no less than British composer Peter Warlock! In the grand scheme of things, it’s not of huge significance – it’s just an apology for his delayed response, and a request to correct a small detail before publication – but it does confirm the editor’s identity (something I hadn’t yet managed to do, apart from finding a footnote in someone else’s biography), and it reminds me that I should index the Nelson collection that contains Warlock’s unison choral song.
This handwritten note from March 1929 was written less than two years before Warlock died on 17 December 1930, aged only 36. He is thought to have committed suicide over a perceived loss of his creativity. I believe he was something of a tortured soul, though I’m not familiar with his detailed biography.
I so very nearly didn’t find this note! Yet again, that maxim has proved true. Dogged persistence wins every time. The tragedy is that Warlock (Peter Heseltine) was too tormented to be able to keep going at all. What else might he have achieved? How much more might he have written?
In the late 1920s, Thomas Nelson’s were just starting to work with the music specialist who would turn out to be very helpful to them over the next couple of decades. As I mentioned, I’ve been trying to find the very first letter that passed between them. Moreover, the Nelson’s editor had told his line-manager at the outset (in the mid-1920s) that he hoped this individual would be helping with ‘the large music book’. Now, this is delightfully vague, isn’t it? Nelson’s wouldn’t be publishing anything that I’d call ‘large’ in the way of printed music for several years.
And Another Music Man!
On Friday, I stumbled across editorial correspondence from 1929 about revising an earlierbook about music – one useful to individual students, possibly beyond school age – but not a school classroom text-book. When I get my hands on it, I expect to find that it’s a fairly standard Nelson printed book size. If this was ‘the large book’ (Possibility A), then it was only ‘large’ by comparison with slimmer materials intended for the classroom. Moreover, our music man was NOT the person who ended up revising it. His first contribution was something slimmer, and more classroom-based. But this book does perhaps better fit the timescale of a publication being projected in the late 20s.
It’s so easy to imagine up a sequence of events, with what is really insufficient evidence. After all, there could be another projected ‘large book’ (Possibility B) that never actually happened!
My working theory for Possibility A, is currently that even if they approached the first guy to revise a book, then for whatever reason, he wasn’t ultimately offered or didn’t fancy the commission. The chap who did do it was certainly a good choice, in any event – a knowledgeable scholar rather than a gifted practitioner and pedagogue.
There’s nothing for it – I must continue leafing through early correspondence in search of that initial letter! But I’ve also ordered a copy of the book that the scholar revised. After all, it’s another Nelson music publication. I need to know about it, too, whether it’s the ‘large’ book or otherwise.
Yesterday was my first day back in the archives. My phone was crawling with messages (an ongoing family situation). Then came a phone-call, which I couldn’t answer without running out to where I could talk. That led to another, and another. And another. Back and forth I went. I can’t tell you what a day it was!
However, I did get through several folders of Thomas Nelson papers. I’m in search of the first mention of a particular individual who was very influential in Nelson’s educational music output. I found him mentioned a couple of times in yesterday’s papers, once quite unexpectedly. I need to see how this sits in my timeline. Honestly, I didn’t expect to find him urging an organist’s wife to submit a book proposal on … elocution! It didn’t look like choral speaking (yes, that was a thing, which was quite in vogue a little later on). Indeed, a Nelson editor specifically advised his boss that it was about elocution, so I don’t need to wonder.
Nelson’s rejected the lady’s proposal. She found another publisher. I briefly wondered how the Englishman who basically ended up acting as music advisor to the Nelson editors, came to know a Scottish organist and his wife, quite early on in his professional career? But I think they probably met at a course or conference.
This is an interruption into the ongoing intermission!
I really needed this holiday. I was tired. An ongoing family crisis meant I couldn’t go away, but we’ve been for coffees and afternoon teas. I sewed and knitted. I’ve weeded books, tidied the garden, and we’ve had the bathroom gutted and totally refitted. (This is not the epitome of restfulness, especially when the loo’s decommissioned!, but the end result is gorgeous. )
Traumatised
But please, never ever ask me about multi-vehicle car insurance. I do not wish to relive those hours wasted entertaining the thought. It was a terrible idea. Ironically, I don’t even want to share my experience of finding that my data had been shared without consent, or that a non-existent traffic conviction had also been attributed to me. (The ‘incident’ was my being stopped after the midnight Christmas service. Doing 30 mph, stone-cold sober, in a fully compliant vehicle, it was a routine check, that’s all. No breach of the law, no points on licence.)
A couple of email exchanges during my vacation have reminded me how far I’ve moved from librarianship to research in just one year, and I’m looking forward to carrying on in this direction now. Anyway, I’m back to research mode on Monday. The coming week might be as close to normal routine as I could hope for, in the circumstances. Here’s hoping!
Rest assured, I shall return to my normal scholarly tone in August. But for now – I’m on holiday, and this has been quite a month in more ways than I can explain. So, humour me. I’m distracting myself!
Today, a friend’s Facebook posting alerted me to the fact that sentimental stories on Facebook are often concocted by AI and have no truth in them at all.
Now, I may already have mentioned that I loathe, with a fierce and burning passion, the horrible meme of mean and entitled ‘Karens’ – inevitably white women, of a certain age. Similarly, I hate all the vile YouTube videos about a nasty ‘Karen’, usually a white American living in an HOA (Home Owner Association). I’ve heard from various sources that they, too, are made up by AI, or acted using an AI script. When I overhear an endless series of videos narrated in the same voice, same tone, same cadences – with ‘Karen sneered’, ‘Karen snapped’, ‘Karen glared’, I feel an almost visceral response. How DARE they turn my name into a mean, misogynistic slur? I don’t find them interesting or amusing – they’re pathetic and offensive. I hate my name!
But if I complain – then I’m an entitled middle-class white woman called Karen just proving their point for them by complaining. As ‘Karens’ do. (Or am I? My understanding is that the meme originated with people of the global majority who quite rightly objected to condescending treatment by a certain type of white person. I have seriously taken steps to educate myself about racism, and I don’t believe I am racist. Nor do I think I’m ‘entitled’. If anything, I apologise too often for being in the way, or daring to ask for something. This Karen is not a ‘Karen’.)
However, to test the theory that these things are written by AI, I decided to ask Chat GPT to write me a story, to see what the result would look like. How easily can one prompt a very predictable story to fit a predetermined template? And how would I rate the ‘writing’? (This is a one-off, I hasten to add, because I realise I’m wasting resources, especially water, by playing around with a robot. Moreover, the results are frankly boring! I won’t do it again.) My AI story is about a bigoted man called Bert. Here goes:-
“Could you please write me a realistic story about an American called Bert who lived in a housing complex and was mean and intolerant to anyone who looked different. The story must end with Bert learning his lesson the hard way.”
And Chat GPT replied, Certainly — here’s a realistic short story about Bert, with a strong narrative arc and a moral conclusion. (Chat GPT didn’t warn me how dull it would be!):-
Title: “The View from Apartment 3B”
Bert lived in Apartment 3B of the Chestnut Grove housing complex on the east side of Cleveland. He was 67, retired from thirty years at the steel plant, and proud of never needing help from anyone — especially not the government, not the church, and certainly not “those people.”
To Bert, “those people” included anyone who didn’t look, speak, dress, or worship like he did. He hated loud music in foreign languages. He hated headscarves and saggy pants, long beards and bright turbans, rainbow flags and prayer rugs. He especially hated when people didn’t speak English around him. He never said “hate” out loud, of course — he just called himself “old-fashioned.”
He’d sit on the bench outside the complex with his scuffed thermos of black coffee, offering grunted nods to the other older white tenants who tolerated his gruffness. But if anyone else came by — the young Nigerian nurse from 2A, the Filipino single dad from 4C, the Mexican-American delivery driver from the next building — Bert’s face hardened like a storm cloud.
He muttered under his breath, sometimes louder than he thought.
One evening, someone spray-painted “Go home” on the wall near the mailboxes. It wasn’t signed, but everyone suspected who might’ve said something to encourage it. Bert just shrugged. “Well,” he said to no one in particular, “maybe they should.”
Then winter came.
In early January, Cleveland got hit with one of the worst ice storms in a decade. Power lines went down, roads froze over, and the Chestnut Grove complex lost heat and electricity for four days. The management company was slow to respond — they’d been cutting corners for years.
Bert, stubborn and reclusive, didn’t reach out for help. His old space heater didn’t work without power, and he refused to go to the warming shelter set up at the local community center. “Not gonna be packed in like sardines with a bunch of strangers,” he grumbled.
By day two, the temperature inside his apartment had dropped to the low 40s. Bert bundled up in layers of flannel and tried to wait it out, but his breathing became shallow, his chest tight. On the third night, he passed out on his kitchen floor, alone.
He came to in a different kitchen — warm, full of the smell of ginger tea and something simmering on the stove. A woman with dark brown skin and a soft voice was leaning over him, holding a warm compress to his forehead.
“Don’t try to sit up yet,” she said. “You fainted from the cold. My husband helped carry you over here.”
It was Amina from 2A — the nurse he always avoided in the hallway.
He blinked, confused. “Why…?”
“You live alone,” she said simply. “And we saw the light out in your window. We were worried.”
Beside her stood her husband, Yusuf, who offered him a bowl of soup. Bert’s hands trembled as he accepted it. In the corner, their children whispered, glancing at him with worried eyes.
He stayed the night in their warm apartment, too weak to argue.
When the power came back two days later, Bert returned to 3B. He barely spoke for a week. Then, one morning, he walked down to the common area and quietly scrubbed the wall where the hateful graffiti had been. No one asked him to. He didn’t say a word.
Later that month, he surprised everyone by showing up at the potluck in the rec room. He brought cornbread — a little dry, but appreciated — and sat with the Filipino dad from 4C. They talked about old cars. Bert even laughed once.
He never gave a grand apology. He never became warm and fuzzy. But he nodded more often. He started saying “hello” without suspicion. And one rainy evening, he left a small thank-you card outside 2A with a packet of tea tucked inside.
Bert didn’t change all at once. But he learned this much the hard way: It’s the people you push away who might just be the ones who save your life.
Now, here’s where it gets interesting. Chat GPT offered to make any changes I liked. So, let’s say that ‘Bert’ is now a New Englander called Joe, chairman of his local residents’ association, and the story takes place in a parking lot. (I don’t want to offend any Berts with a series of ‘Bert’ stories, so I’ve rung the changes.)
Chat GPT obliged. ‘Absolutely! Here’s a revised version of the story with your requested details’:
Title: “Lines in the Lot”
Joe Whitman was the chairman of the residents’ association at Maple Court Condominiums, a tidy, if slightly worn, complex in a leafy corner of suburban Massachusetts. A retired school administrator, Joe spoke in crisp, measured tones and had a fondness for pressed chinos, classic novels, and rules — especially those printed in the Residents’ Handbook.
He considered himself a man of principle. Decorum, order, and “shared standards” were his watchwords. In practice, this meant keeping the hedges trimmed, the recycling correctly sorted, and — most importantly — the parking lot free of chaos.
The parking lot was Joe’s domain.
He had lobbied for years to have the lines repainted and finally succeeded last spring. Now, every car was expected to park precisely within the marked bays. Double parking, backing in, or — heaven forbid — using visitor spaces without prior notice, were cardinal sins.
Joe’s frustration grew when residents who “didn’t understand the culture of the place” — his euphemism of choice — failed to follow the unspoken rules. A young Haitian couple had moved in recently. A Syrian family rented two units nearby. And there was the quiet Korean graduate student who sometimes worked late and came home after midnight, parking hastily across two lines.
Joe didn’t shout or sneer. He simply left laminated notices on windshields, written in the same font used by the association newsletter. “Please respect community standards. Repeat infractions will be reported.” He believed he was being fair.
One cold November afternoon, Joe spotted the Haitian couple — Daniel and Mireille — unloading bags of groceries. Their toddler was crying. The minivan’s front bumper was clearly over the line, intruding into the next bay.
Joe approached, arms crossed, ready to correct.
“Afternoon,” he said stiffly.
“Afternoon,” Daniel replied, adjusting his son’s hat.
“I see your vehicle is once again outside the boundary. The lines are there for a reason.”
Daniel looked at him for a long moment. “We’ll move it in just a moment. My wife needs to carry the baby upstairs.”
Joe gave a tight smile. “The rules apply to everyone, I’m afraid.”
That evening, Mireille posted in the community WhatsApp group — politely, but firmly — asking for a bit more compassion from the association when families had their hands full. Joe didn’t respond. He didn’t like being called out, especially not in public.
The storm hit two nights later.
Freezing rain coated the lot in slick black ice. Residents stayed indoors, waiting for the salt truck. But it never came.
Around 10:30 p.m., Joe went out to inspect the situation. It was his duty, he reasoned, to ensure no one parked irresponsibly overnight. He didn’t see the ice patch beside the Honda CR-V.
He slipped.
There was a sharp crack — his hip — and then nothing but pain and darkness.
He woke up to voices and headlights.
Daniel and the Korean student, Ji-Hoon, had found him. They’d been helping another neighbor move her car when they saw the shape on the ground.
They called an ambulance, covered him with their coats, and waited until help arrived. Daniel even rode along to the hospital.
Joe spent three nights recovering. The doctor said it could’ve been much worse — if he’d been alone for another hour, in that cold, things might’ve turned fatal.
Back at Maple Court, Joe took a long pause from association duties. He returned slowly — first attending meetings quietly, then helping organize a community clean-up day in spring.
He made no dramatic speeches. But a few changes spoke volumes.
The association adopted a “compassion clause” for parking enforcement. Laminated notices were quietly retired. Joe began greeting Daniel and Mireille with genuine warmth. He even asked Ji-Hoon about his dissertation over coffee one Saturday.
Joe never stopped valuing rules. But he learned that people mattered more — especially the ones you once only saw as problems.
Since I can’t bear my own name becoming a meme, we won’t let Bert or Joe become memes. But I couldn’t resist one more attempt! (To think I once published thirty-odd short stories and a serial in The People’s Friend, but now a robot can write sentimental stuff at the drop of a hat!) Could you tell the stories in this blog post were written by AI? They lack any sparkle that might make a reader want to rea it again!
I asked:- Could you please write me a very short sentimental story about a Devonian man called Derek, who had a much younger wife. A bit old fashioned in his ways, he would gently grumble (sorry, ‘comment’) about anything that displeased him, and his favourite insult was to tell poor Daisy that she was becoming more difficult with age. The story must end with Derek learning a salutory lesson.
Derek, a retired railway clerk from Devon, lived in a neatly kept cottage just outside Tavistock, with his much younger wife, Daisy. He was a man of habits — porridge at seven, gardening by nine, and a cup of milky tea at precisely four. Derek didn’t shout or rage; no, he commented. On the weather, on the state of the world, and most especially, on Daisy.
“Bit extravagant with the basil again, love,” he’d murmur as she cooked. “Back in my day, women didn’t wear jeans to the pub.” And, all too often: “You’re becoming more difficult with age, Daisy.”
Daisy, ever patient, would smile — though sometimes it flickered.
One Tuesday, Derek caught a chill. Nothing serious, but enough to keep him in bed for a few days. Daisy brought him soup, fluffed his pillows, and even read aloud from The Daily Telegraph, skipping the bits she knew would make him “comment.”
By Friday, Derek’s spirits lifted, but Daisy looked pale. “Just a bit tired,” she said, brushing it off. On Saturday, she fainted in the kitchen.
At the hospital, while waiting for news, Derek sat with hands trembling and heart thudding like an old train engine. A nurse appeared. “She’s all right,” she said gently. “Exhaustion. You’ll need to let her rest. And perhaps—help out a little more.”
Derek nodded mutely. That night, back in the quiet cottage, he made tea — weak, a bit tepid — and placed it by her bedside. Daisy opened her eyes, surprised.
“I made it myself,” he said. “Don’t say it’s awful. I’ve decided I’m the difficult one after all.”
She smiled, tired but amused. “Took you long enough, Derek.”
And for once, he didn’t comment. He just held her hand.
As I said, I won’t be doing this again. But I do now agree that a robot is perfectly capable of churning out sentimental, sarcastic or scurrilous material ad infinitum. They are boring stories. The second one has just the same ‘feel’ as the first – it doesn’t make you want to read on. The tone is so bland that, even in the days when doctors’ waiting rooms had magazines lying around, you’d have had to be pretty fed up to want to read to the end of these particular stories! However, it’s grammatical, and my results had acceptable language – no inappropriate academic turns of phrase.
But why would I bother? It’s not nearly as satisfying as writing about something more interesting oneself!
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 