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.
Did Mozart Allan use printers Aird & Coghill? They printed a lot of music in Glasgow!
Sifting through my treasure-trove was so enjoyable that I eventually realised I wasn’t in the least bit ashamed of my guilty secret. I have a contemporary postcard of the very respectable-looking Glasgow street where James S. Kerr first lived. (The neighbourhood is less upmarket now, and both his first home AND his shop are now gone.) And there’s a postcard of the shop that Frank Simpson had on the corner of Sauchiehall Street before the shop and adjacent church were knocked down to make room for British Home Stores.  I also have a card of the view Mozart Allan would have seen every time he stepped outside his shop. (HIS shop building is still standing, just along from the Courts, beside the River Clyde.)
Pretty much the view from the shop doorstep!
I have pictures of the docks, as they were then, conveniently close for Kerr and Mozart Allan’s trading activities, and a picture of the boat on which Kerr’s successor sailed to America on one occasion. I like to be able to imagine what a place was like when the person I’m writing about, actually lived there.
I’ve also got odd bits of commercial ephemera – an advertising brochure; a business postcard; a couple of letters. The business postcard set me on the track of the individidual who took over Kerr’s business after Mrs Kerr died. It was only last weekend, long after I’d acquired it, that I realised there was a woman’s name written across the top left corner. A colloquial diminutive for the new owner’s wife’s first name, in fact. So – maybe she worked in the shop, too? It’s not musicological research, but I would like to find out. I enjoy finding women working in the music publishing/retail business, in eras when fewer women worked outside the home.
Another bunch of postcards trace the tartan-mania which spilled over from cards to coffee-table song-books and miniature souvenir books. Talking of souvenirs, I have travel guides, maps, an embroidery canvas of a commemorative map of the British Isles – it was unworked, but I’ve since done the stitching and had it framed – and a reproduction of an early PanAm poster. I’ve written quite a bit about Scottish songs in the memory of expats, both overseas and over here.
And there are a few photos of children having music lessons; of women sitting at the piano; a magic lantern slide; a stereoscope of (apparently) happy workers on a cotton plantation – in my book, I’ve written about the racism in plantation songs.
A whole load of sol-fa booklets of various kinds. They have a wee box of their own.
There’s also a photo of an Edinburgh railway bridge. Why? I was hunting down a particular song-book editor, and a musician with the right name lived just beside that bridge. I don’t think it was the right man, but it’s a nice photo, so I’ve kept it anyway!
Seriously, why do we do year-end reviews? To show the world what we’re most proud of? Quite possibly. To convince ourselves – and the world – that really, we’ve been very busy and deserve a pat on the back? Perhaps so. I took to the internet to find out why businesses do reviews, and why a career-minded individual might do one of their own.
Consulting the Experts
Braze.com said that year-end reviews offer the chance to ‘create distinctive content’; to ‘build loyalty’ and to remind the world what your particular business does best. To that end, obviously you log milestones, achievements and events. You use multimedia formats, and draw upon customer data. This all makes sense, although I don’t know that I, as an individual, can do all these things. (No customers, for a start!)
I tried again, and found a Harvard Business Review posting about, ‘How to create your own “Year in Review“. There’s plenty of sound advice here, suggesting that I should pause and reflect upon successes and failures; lessons learned; proudest achievements; who has helped me most; how my strengths have helped me to succeed; and whether there’s anything I wish I’d done differently. This is much more introspective, and certainly valuable advice. Whether I’d want to blog about all these headings is a moot point, though.
For me, I have an extra conundrum. I shall be retiring from the Whittaker Library at the beginning of July. I hope to continue the research element of my work, though. So – in one sense I’m writing a career-end review, as far as librarianship is concerned, but it’s not a career-end review for me as a researcher. 
The Harvard Business Review suggests using your diary to capture key events on which to reflect. I spent a few minutes doing just that, yesterday. Immediately, I realised that there’s one thing I’m proud of over everything else, and that is that although I spend 85% of my time as an academic librarian, my 15% as a postdoctoral researcher is actually highly productive.
What do I do best? I get things done.
‘She’s a Librarian’
I confess, I don’t like hearing this! It makes me feel as though my research activity is dismissed as dilettantism – that I don’t do badly, considering research isn’t my main role. On the other hand, a fly on the wall would point out that yes, I do spend the majority of my time as a librarian. 
Jazz CDs – not a Highlight
So, what did my diary exercise reveal? I’ve catalogued a lot of jazz CDs. This causes me to feel quite a bit of resentment, because I know our readers don’t generally listen to CDs as a format, so all my efforts are to very little avail indeed. Maybe that’s one of the things that I wish I’d done differently. It’s not a high-priority task; however, I am conscious that I don’t want to leave the backlog to my successor. And that’s why I do this dreadfully tedious and repetitive activity!
Retrospective Post Script: that jazz CD cataloguing was indeed a waste of time. I did it because the promise had been made that those CDs (thousands of them) would be catalogued. I didn’t make the promise, but I did feel the obligation to fulfil the promise. My resentment was because it used so little brainpower and expertise, provided so very little fulfilment in the moment, and so little benefit in the long-term.
Equality and Diversity: Stock Development
What I’m more proud of is my efforts to get more music by women and composers of colour, into the library, and most particularly, to ensure that our staff and students know just how much of it there now is in our stock. With a colleague from the academic staff, I’m concocting a plan to raise the profile of this material. 
I also suggested maybe there might be a prize for diverse programming …
And I just heard – there is going to be such a prize – it really is happening. A red letter day! 
For me, a particularly proud moment was being invited to attend a Masters student’s final recital in June, at which one of these new pieces was played. It was a piece requested by a member of staff – I don’t think it was me that actually stumbled across it – but I certainly sourced it, catalogued and listed it. Whilst I’m heartily sick of cataloguing, I do take pleasure in stock development, and in ensuring there are ample means of discovering the music once we have it.
In September, I was gratified that one of our performance departments reached out to me to request more materials by under-represented composers – a sign that the message is getting through, and that staff appreciate that the library really is trying to help.
Since October, I’ve also been broadening the stock of music inspired by climate change and ecology, including songbooks for school-children, since we have a number of music education students. That pleases me, too.
What else? Dealing with donations to the library, some eagerly received and others needing sifting through. Weeding stock to ensure there’s room for new material, and ensuring that tatty material is removed or replaced depending on how much it’s likely to be used.
User Education
Some things are cyclical – most particularly providing initial library introductions, and later talking to different year-groups about good library research practice. In June, I gave a talk about bibliography to the Scottish Graduate School of Arts and Humanities, which attracted far more of an audience than I’d ever dreamt of!
Queries, and Research-Related Activity
I’ve also dealt with queries – such as one from a Polish librarian, or another from an elderly enquirer wanting to trace music remembered from childhood. And I talked about my research activities at a library training session, even though I was rather afraid of wasting colleagues’ time going on about something that might not feel very relevant. (This autumn, I also obtained and catalogued – in detail – a book of Scottish songs that I have written a book chapter about. It would be dreadful, wouldn’t it?, if someone read the chapter but couldn’t find the song-book in the library!)
Professional Activity
Professionally, I managed the comms for the IAML Congress in Cambridge this summer (with a little bit of help from mascots Cam, Bridge and Don and a couple of fellow IAML (UK & Ireland) librarians, and I think it went quite well. The stats for the blog and Twitter (“X”) rose gratifyingly during this period. I went to a couple of days in Cambridge, but I didn’t speak this time.
IAML Congress mascot Don
A Researcher with Determination
Early on in 2023, I was gratified to receive an LIHG (Library and Information History Group) Bursary to attend a conference at the University of Stirling between 17-19 April, which was about Reading and Book Circulation 1650-1850. This was to be the first of two major successes this year, for I was also elected the inaugural Ketelbey Fellow in the Institute of Scottish Historical Research at the University of St Andrews. I’ve written extensively about this experience in other blog-posts, so I won’t duplicate it here. However, I can’t resist reminding myself of highlights!
Researching key documents in Martyrs’ Kirk Reading Room
Attending both fortnightly research lectures, and ISHR pub lunches on alternating weeks
Many enjoyable hours concentrating on my book revisions – with a view of the sea!
Twilight from my window, St Katharine’s Lodge, St Andrews
We’re not going on a (sniff!) Summer Holiday …
Being a researcher for 15% of the time is not easy – there simply isn’t the time to do all I want to do. Far from ‘dabbling’ in research, I take this side of my work very seriously indeed. I might have been a librarian most of the time, but I have devoted far more than the designated 10.5 hours a week to my research activity! I took annual leave in the summer to get my book draft completed, and took more annual leave to enable me to spend two, rather than 1.5 days researching in St Andrews. I’m doing it again next week; the book revisions must be completed and submitted very soon, and if the only way I can do it is by taking holiday, then that is what I must do. 
In January, I wrote an article for the Glasgow Society of Organists, about a Paisley woman organist and accompanist whom I’d discovered during research over Christmas 2022. Even though it wasn’t for a scholarly journal, it was research done to my usual standard, and I’ve drawn upon that research in one of the chapters in my forthcoming monograph.
I’ve peer-reviewed an article, a book manuscript and a grant application. Considering all that I’ve had on my plate this year, I’m quite proud that I did manage to do these things. I don’t attend reading groups, and I’m not always able to attend research-related events that fall in ‘library time’ – I don’t want to give the impression I’m skiving off library work! But I do want to feel part of the research community, and that was precisely what was so magical about my Fellowship in St Andrews. For those two days a week, I was a researcher, pure and simple.
Roll on 2024! What am I going to do differently?
I’m looking forward to the summer. I feel I’ve been a librarian long enough. I’ll miss doing the user education, and rising to the challenges posed by unexpected or unusual queries. I shan’t be sorry to quit cataloguing, particularly jazz CDs!
I don’t actually have any ‘retirement’ plans as such. Apart from having more time to spend on my role as Honorary Librarian of the Friends of Wighton in Dundee. Whilst I live on the other side of Scotland, at least I shall have more opportunities to leap on a bus or train to get to Dundee Central Library to look after the repertoire that I love.
Little old lady? Not me!
Not Entirely Retiring!
I don’t feel remotely like a little old lady! I hope I’ll continue as a postdoctoral researcher in my present institution, but I’m also keeping my eyes open for any other part-time opportunities that I could pursue alongside that. ’Actively looking’, is the phrase, I think.
With a colleague in another institution, we’re cautiously planning a new research idea. And I also have strands of research that I commenced for my book, but hope to pursue in greater depth once this book is safely further along the publication process. Watch this space.
When I’m not occupied as a researcher or a librarian, I’m the organist at Neilston Church of Scotland. I’m not exactly a serious composer, but I do compose occasional Christmas carols, both lyrics and music. This year, because the church choir is few in numbers, I felt that a bit of instrumental backup would help. The Salvation Army band led Wednesday night’s carol service, so I politely requested two cornets to accompany me on the organ. Wow! That certainly brightened things up.
Neilston Parish Church
By and large, the carol was well-received. Although I sensed from one comment that I need to make next year’s effort more upbeat! Someone else thought it sounded Scottish. I suppose there IS a gapped scale in the verse part of the melody, though I didn’t set out to use a Scottish idiom!
Women at the Inn in Bethlehem
My composition was inspired by my thoughts that the traditional story focuses on men – shepherds and wise men – but there must have been women in the Inn. There must! In Biblical times, women didn’t generally have a high profile. Who helped Mary give birth in the stable? Hard to imagine that Joseph manfully rolled his sleeves up to help, if there were women around.
Neilston used to be a weaving village, so my allusions to the warp and weft of fabric are a gentle reference to the past of our locality.
By the flickering light, they were led to the stable, In Bethlehem simply by order of Rome; Did the swaddling bands come from the innkeeper’s wife, Kindly showing compassion to a girl far from home? CHORUS Oh, sing for the maidservant fetching the linen, Oh, sing for the woman who’d worked at her loom, Their linen scraps swaddling the Christ-child so helpless, With the Virgin young mother at the inn with no room.
Not the greatest of starts, in a stable so lowly, The carpenter’s wife cradling Jesus with care, Such a fragile young life, and dependent on strangers, With shepherds and kings paying homage right there. CHORUS
For that flickering light lit a life so amazing, His radiance the whole world could not fail to see, And the linen bands foretold the grave-clothes they gave Him, Before on the third day, rising triumphantly. CHORUS
4. For the warp and the weft, Careful hands moving deftly, Made linen our Saviour to wrap and enfold, As we pause to reflect how the humblest endeavours Can be holy in ways that could scarce be foretold. CHORUS
Because I am retiring from the Library next summer, this is the last Christmas I’ll be working full-time in the run-up to the Christmas holiday. And I have a book deadline. It’s self-inflicted – I was asked when I thought I could get the revisions done by. And I said …
The start of January.
Am I insane? December has always been the busiest month for us. Our Christmas is low-key, but we’re also church organists, and that brings its own challenges. I’ve had the Ketelbey Fellowship in St Andrews as well. The experience was fabulous, but I covered approximately 2700 miles in Scotland in 3 months, which all takes time.
There was only one solution: I tried to ignore Christmas for as long as I could. Did it wait for me? No. ‘You knew it was coming’, said the critic at my shoulder. ‘You should have been more organised.’ (Don’t get me started! Why should WOMEN be more organised? Particularly those who are working *and* keeping everything in the home afloat!) I bought the Christmas pudding and the Paxo stuffing ages ago, anyway!
My Christmas circular was written at the weekend, and most of my Christmas cards were sent. I ordered some presents online, and told myself there was plenty of time.
Mishaps come in Threes
Don’t you just love it when you try so hard to get everything right, and then a different thing goes wrong? I recorded my new carol for the two instrumentalists who had kindly agreed to play with me and the choir … and crashed my Finale software creating cornet parts in Bb. (It wasn’t the cornets’ fault that I accidentally left a file open when experience should have reminded me to close it properly – but it took a five hour system-restore to get the audio back …)
I’ve been taking odd bits of annual leave to get writing done (an alternative definition of ‘working at home’), which meant I could justify doing a supermarket shopping order at 9 am yesterday. I felt guilty, even though it was my time, because I knew I should be writing… and yes, I was too late to book a delivery slot. I have to go and collect it tomorrow evening. But the veg box came by van. It was on the doorstep early this morning, neatly draped in plastic to protect it from the rain. Phew!
Chapters 2, 3 and 4 are the biggest chapters, and as I revised, I found myself adding in stuff that I’d discovered during the Fellowship. Chapter 4, which I most enjoyed (and was pleased with – always fatal) led me a merry dance. I splurged on more old teaching materials on eBay. The critic at my shoulder balefully watched small jiffy bags periodically being delivered. Only yesterday, I received a very expensive scan of a delightful new find. (Thankfully, it wasn’t in yet another jiffy bag.) Anyway, it resulted in a new paragraph. Just one, but it was worth it!
I revised Chapter 5 yesterday. Chapter 6 was just about done today – little has had to be done. It’s just a question of weaving in loose ends …
Second Mishap
But we had a service at church tonight, accompanied by Govan Salvation Army Band. It was time for something else to go wrong. This time, in my anxiety not to be late, I misread the clock and inadvertently fed the family an hour early. I’ll never live it down! However, I did get there in plenty of time, and all went well. My carol (about the women who must have been present at the Nativity) met with almost universal approval – well, from the people who were kind enough to comment, at any rate! 
And a Third
Finally, home again, can I catch a break? Well, no. I missed some items off the Sainsbury’s order. I’m twirling like a top …
Soon, very soon, all will be revealed! It’s been quite a quiet year, as far as publications go. Very quiet. But I have had one article and two chapters waiting at their publishers, and this weekend will at least see the article published in History Scotland. Featured on the cover, too.
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,
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)
The Fellow sits outside Cromars fish and chip shop, and cogitates. The chips – which were too hot to handle five minutes ago – have magically cooled to the ‘am I still enjoying these?’ stage, but I have achieved my aim: a short walk by the sea, and chips outdoors for lunch. Now I have to go back to my desk and face The Fear.
Writing a book? You take a deep breath, and start. One chapter at a time, head down and just keep going.
You get it as good as you can, submit it, and wait for the feedback. Not so different from writing an academic assignment, really.
The report comes back. Taking a deep breath, you read it. Then again, carefully. In my case, it was kind and eminently reasonable. After a bit of thought, you respond.
But now for the scary bit! The revision. At this point, you have to address the gentle suggestions for improvements. Not only are you reaching into the recesses of your brain to produce new sparkling prose to align with someone else’s carefully considered suggestions, but there’s another deadline.
I’ve booked some scattered annual leave (so as not to cause too much inconvenience) and mapped out my time.
The Fellow has a busy couple of months ahead, disregarding the festive season!
I would still have preferred a couple more hours’ sleep yesterday morning, but I sat down to revise my paper in the afternoon, and found my early morning brain had done me a favour: moving a couple of chunks of text didn’t involve much rewriting, and I think it makes a more interesting narrative.
My weekend working pattern is a bit disjointed – anyone running a household will understand – but that’s just my reality. Revise a bit of writing – start cooking dinner – a bit more revision. And so on. I tell myself that my subconscious mind is still working on it. (So, when I was carving the roast …? No, I don’t believe it was working at all!)
How to Slow Down Speaking Pace?
I also timed my paper. I think I must still read a bit too fast, though, although I do try to pace it. I don’t gabble. Maybe I should try again tonight, as slowly as I can manage. How do other folk get themselves to slow down? Any special strategies, tips or hints?
Here are suggestions from friends and colleagues. I’ve been practising with the first two already:-
Count one for a comma, two for a full stop, and three for a paragraph
Mark the script with where to breathe
Imagine you’re speaking to people for whom the language you’re speaking isn’t their first language.
I woke early again this morning, but thankfully my wakeful brain wasn’t in editorial mode today…
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 