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 thought folk might be interested to see a quick summary – NOT the whole talk – of the keynote I gave at the University of Birmingham yesterday. ‘Alt-Ac’ is Alternative Academia, or Alternative Academic. You’ll see what I mean …
A first for me, today: I was the keynote speaker for an Early Career Research Network event jointly organised with CALt-Ac at the University of Birmingham. That’s the College of Arts and Law’s network for people with ‘alternative academic’ roles, rather like mine when I was in the library 3.5 days a week, and seconded to research for 1.5. Not a full-time academic, in other words.
Yes, yes, you’re correct in pointing out that I’m not exactly ‘early-career’ myself! I was invited to share my own ‘Alt-Ac’ story, since it transpires that I have actually been an Alt-Ac since before the term was devised.
Everyone was very kind and appreciative; it’s been a lovely day. I heard interesting and informative contributions, and chatted to a number of people. There was a mix of subject-related presentations, and others which, as I did, shared their own way of making the alt-ac existence work for them.
The ‘Queen of Alt-Ac’ (not my words) declares herself happy (if abashed by the epithet), and is now being conveyed back to Glasgow in her carriage, Avanti West Coast.
My next post will share a summary of my talk. Are you ready …?!
This blog post is an edited excerpt from the research Exchange Talk I gave at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland on 11 November 2024.
Inside the song-book, The Glories of Scotland, the foreword was followed by a full-page signed photo of a popular Scottish singer and comedian, Alec Finlay. The University of Glasgow’s Scottish Theatre Archive, characterises the latter as, ‘The pocket Harry Lauder’, and ‘Scotland’s gentleman’, describing his comedy as, ‘delightful, couthie and kindly’.
His was an international variety act; significantly, he toured America in late 1950.
If he was known as the ‘pocket Harry Lauder’, it was for a logical reason: a colleague of mine pointed out that Finlay, who clearly modelled his act on the variety superstar, Harry Lauder, even went so far as dressing like him, ‘wiggly stick’ and all.
A song is linked to the signed photograph of Alec Finlay at the front of the book. The photo is captioned ‘Scotland’s own comedian’, with Finlay in typical pose, full Highland dress, wiggly stick, and a blurred Scottish vista behind him. Beneath the photo, and alongside his signature, is the name of a song, ‘Let Scotland flourish’, composed and sung by Alec Finlay.
Sure enough, opposite a picture of Edinburgh’s Princes Street supplied by the Scottish Tourist Board, page 71 bears the words of the chorus – not the music, just the lyrics!:-
‘Let Scotland flourish / In all the years to be / The land that I was born in / Will aye be dear to me / Caledonia I adore you / Tho’ I travel the wide world o’er / My home is where my heart lies / Scotland ever more.’
It’s there, ‘by kind permission of Alec Finlay’, and it was written and composed by Bill McDonnell and Alec Finlay. At the foot of the page, we read that the ‘complete words, music and Solfa are available for 2/- from all music-sellers.’ It was published by Mozart Allan – who also published The Glories of Scotland. The British cover appears at the top of this blog post. (There was another for the overseas edition. )
‘Let Scotland flourish’ is a typical Scottish waltz of the era. Finlay was a hit in America in 1950; and selling the song as a single piece of music would make commercial sense.
In the recording of the song, published by Scottish Clan Records in New York, Finlay sings in the broad Scottish brogue that contemporary American listeners would have expected to hear.
YouTube audio – enjoy!
A quick post to mark a successful and very enjoyable evening. I gave my research exchange talk tonight at RCS. It was about a book of Scottish songs almost certainly published for the Festival of Britain in 1951. I talked about history, book history, music history, Scottish tourism and that all important catch-phrase for the Festival of Britain – ‘A Tonic for the Nation’. And then there was my book launch afterwards.
RCS wasn’t on Renfrew Street in 1951. We were the Royal Scottish Academy of Music at that point, in the old Athenaeum building (Nelson Mandela Place), but we had established a drama department in 1950 – the Glasgow College of Dramatic Art. (More about our history – click here.)
It’s fair to say that the book I talked about tonight – The Glories of Scotland, published by local publisher Mozart Allan – would not have been required repertoire for the talented students passing through our doors in 1951. It wasn’t aimed at high-performing classical artistes. (I doubt the library even had a copy in 1951, but there’s no way of finding out now. Anyway, we have recently acquired it!)
Nonetheless, the songbook does have a place in Glasgow’s history, in its own unique way.
After the exchange talk, we launched my book about amateur music making, Scottish national identity and Scottish music publishing. Professor Stephen Broad introduced it, and said some very kind words about it. There were friends and colleagues there whom I hadn’t seen for a while, so it was very sociable as well as celebratory.
My thanks go to everyone who contributed to make the evening so successful – Research Exchange colleagues, Library former colleagues, and the box office events team. I’m ‘dead chuffed’, as they say.
Looking forward to my Exchange Talk and Book Launch next Monday, I made a wee promotional video! Maybe I’ll see you there, if you’re in/around Glasgow.
Click for The book’s details
I’m very happy to have been honoured with an honorary Fellowship of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, the place where I’ve worked for 36 years. It was a memorable and touching evening.
https://www.rcs.ac.uk/news-stories/global-arts-educator-to-be-recognised-alongside-the-class-of-2024-at-the-royal-conservatoire-of-scotlands-autumn-graduation/
Loads of official photos were taken; here are a couple!
Please watch this space!
On Monday 11th November at 6 pm, I’m giving a talk in the well-established and popular RCS Exchange Talk series, where scholars talk about their latest research. I’ll be talking about a song book compiled for the Festival of Britain:-
It’s in the Fyfe lecture theatre. There will be ONLINE BOOKING for this lecture. This will be the link:- https://www.rcs.ac.uk/whats-on/exchange-talk/book/507006/
At 7 pm we’ll have the launch of my new book, in the library. No online booking for the book launch, but if you’re hoping to attend, please do let me know, so we have an idea of numbers.
You can attend both, or either event.
McAulay, Karen E., A Social History of Amateur Music-Making and Scottish National Identity: Scotland’s Printed Music, 1880-1951 (Routledge, October 2024) 🎶
Is it just me, or is there something strangely comfortable about allowing oneself to be an amateur and just enjoy a creative process?
This is how it is for me with sewing, and composing music. Whilst I can spend hours, days, weeks (and more) striving for high-end results in writing about musicology, I take a good deal of pleasure in just sitting and sewing, or writing lyrics and music, enjoying less pressure on myself to produce perfect results. Indeed, several decades ago, when I was writing light fiction for a modest fee, I briefly attended a writing society, but concluded quite quickly that I preferred to row my own boat, solo.
I am chronically perfectionist where I have to be, but I can allow myself a bit of slack with spare-time occupations.
Last weekend I encountered a challenge to write a song in the hour gained between British Summer Time and Greenwich Meantime. I wrote the lyrics in advance, but did complete the song and the score in an hour.
However, I had to change a couple of chords and un-double a few octaves before ‘recording’ my effort as a computer audio file. Sing it, accompanying myself? No chance! Now, that would be embarrassing.
I hope I’ll get better reviews than this from people who are interested! You need to know the context. This is the complete, full and unabridged parental acknowledgement of the book that I spent five years writing. I have not missed a single word.
We tell students that they should not make assertions without providing evidence. I was recently explaining that I had found a great website with a long article about the Shakespeare controversy. It criticised a couple of other authors for blithely ascribing half of Shakespeare’s plays to a woman, Emelia Bassano Lanier, without providing sufficient (any?) evidence.
Now, I’m not a Shakespeare scholar. (I did study some of his plays for A-level, a very long time ago – that doesn’t really count!) In recent years, I have become aware that some experts query whether he did write all the plays ascribed to him. That, in summary, is really all I can say about the controversy, because I simply don’t know enough to make further comment.
I was, however, quite taken with this website’s argument. The authors they were criticising had proposed Emilia Bassano Lanier as the author of a number of ‘Shakespeare’ plays. The justification for this assertion was apparently that Emilia hadn’t written much in her own name before middle-age, due to the fact (?) that she had been busily writing some of the plays that we now consider to be by Shakespeare, before that. It seemed a very shaky assertion!
You need to back up your statements with firm evidence, I insisted in my seminar. Well, I was right in that advice.
However, we also talked a bit about being accurate in our references, and checking where our information came from. Very important, as everyone will agree. And here, I’ve come unstuck. Because, if you wanted to cite the Oxfraud website, the first thing you find is that there’s no date of publication at the bottom of the page, and no obvious sign of who the authors are – or whether they have an institutional affiliation. (Don’t try googling, “Who is responsible for Oxfraud” – it thinks you’re asking about monetary fraud.) Indeed, there is also an Oxfraudfraud website and a ShakespeareAuthorship website, and I’ve no doubt I’ve only scratched the tip of the iceberg. But I shan’t be delving any deeper. I don’t need to cite it.
In the circumstances, it’s probably a good thing that, as a musicologist, I don’t actually need to know about the Shakespeare controversy!
Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 