Juggling Act! 10.5 Hours, One Project, One Distraction

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Cartoon picture of children singing

The heading is here to keep me in line. I’ve written the paper on my two fin-de-siecle lady musicians, for next week’s conference. I’m slightly obsessed with them both, to be honest – especially their family history. (Parents James and Mary-Anne Smith, for example!)

But today, I’m getting back to my Dundee Leng Medal Memories transcriptions. Contractually, I work 10.5 hours a week (research at other times isn’t ‘work’), and this week the genuine working hours are dedicated to the social history behind the Dundee Leng Medal. I’ll try to avoid distractions, though I can’t promise not to open tempting emails relating to the Smiths’ back history!

Dundee, here we go! (Metaphorically speaking. I’m not planning any trips this week.) And if you were wondering why I need to check auto-transcriptions, then let me give you just a few wee examples:-

Teams Transcriptions

Teams generally manages just fine with the Scottish accent, but obviously, it cannot know old Scottish songs, and occasionally it is completely stumped. Anyway, I’m getting a few smiles … try these:-

Image by Henry Bell from Pixabay
  • ‘Just a wee dog and Doris’ (the song that Harry Lauder didnae sing?)
  • ‘The paper of Dundee’
  • ‘You banks and brays’ (close!)
  • ‘June wrongly’ (you will never work out what that was meant to be?)*
  • Kayleigh dancing
  • A place called ‘Canusti’ ???! [Carnoustie]
  • ‘The first few words would be a bit cheeky’ [but they actually said, ‘shaky‘!]
  • ‘First of all, I’ll come to you, my lad’ [ie, Whistle and … ]
  • ‘Are he the Norse’ [a Welsh song, that’s your clue here!]
  • ‘When the guy comes in’. Let me give you a clue:-

Main Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

*’June wrongly’ was actually a song entitled, ‘John Grumlie’.

A Week with a Difference – and only Halfway Through

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Programme and delegate tag for Tradition in Motion conference at RCS

I started my Leng Medal Memories interviews this week. What a pleasurable experience this is turning out to be! Two of my interviewees still have their silver medals, fifty-odd years later. I subsequently asked the Facebook group, Dundee Pals, and found that lots more people there still have their medals, too. It just goes to show how significant winning the medals actually was to the school pupils who took part.

Anyway, I thought I’d re-share the link to my questionnaire about Dundee Leng Medal memories, in case anyone finds this post and would like to participate in my research project:- https://tinyurl.com/LengMemories

Tradition in Motion

The stage is set: Stevenson Hall for Co-founder Dr Jo Miller’s keynote; doctoral students Connor Civatte and Neil Wood; and Dr Jo Miller in conversation with Head of Dept Prof Josh Dickson,

On a different note, yesterday (Tuesday) saw me as a delegate attending the first day of an Royal Conservatoire of Scotland conference, which was celebrating thirty years of traditional music at RCS. The keynote speaker was Dr Jo Miller, one of the co-founders of the Scottish Music degree. As she spoke, her slides showing the chronology of those early years, I realised that when I arrived at what was then RSAMD in 1988, this was just as trad music teaching was getting off the ground.

In 1988, I had no idea that I’d end up recommencing my doctoral studies fifteen years later – little did I know! – forsaking mediaeval polyphony to focus on Scottish songs. My choice of subject was very much influenced by the thought that I’d at least be studying something that might be useful and relevant to students on that course. It took me a little bit longer before I realised that what I was researching counted as ancient history – certainly relevant background, but a very different kind of Scottish song to what today’s contemporary musicians really want to focus on! The songs – their tunes and authors – are still important. But the harpsichord, and subsequently the piano arrangements that I was looking at, represented the soundscape of another world entirely. By contrast, yesterday I heard a paper about sounding Scottish in modern harp-playing; another about the use of traditional Scottish music in videogames; and a third talking about Robert Burns and Hamish Henderson. So many different aspects of Scottish traditional music!

No more interviews or meetings for me this week, but next week I’ll resume my researches. Meanwhile, I need to create another ‘Microsoft Forms’ online form. To think that when I was first a doctoral researcher, I took typing lessons so that I wouldn’t be dependent on paying a typist – as I had done for my Masters dissertation.

By the time I finished my second attempt at a PhD, we had email and PCs. Social media and all the extra Microsoft offerings were still in the future.

And now – I couldn’t even do this present research without Teams, Bookings and Forms. Times change!

Silver and Gold: Leng Medal Memories

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
A Silver Leng Medal for Scots song singing

Do you have schooldays memories of taking part in the Dundee-based Leng Medal Scots song singing competitions?  Perhaps you were a proud prize-winner of a Silver or Gold Leng Medal? 

Maybe you didn’t actually win, but the memories are still vivid? You might remember the song you chose, or which song book you sang from? Or you helped someone else polish up their performance?

Maybe you’ve never stopped singing Scottish songs?

Newspaper engraving of Sir John Leng (Illustrated London News, Saturday 10 June 1983)
Sir John Leng: Dundee benefactor

I’m on the staff of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland as a postdoctoral research fellow, researching Scottish music.  Whilst investigating an old Scottish song book aimed at school pupils in the post-war era, I became fascinated by the initiative of Sir John Leng (1828-1906), who endowed the singing prize 125 years ago. He died 120 years ago, but his singing competition is still live and kicking all these years later.  Encouraging kids to sing Scottish songs was obviously a good thing!

Would you like to help me?  If so, I’d be very grateful if you could fill in a very short questionnaire, and I’ll get back in touch as soon as I can to arrange an interview with anyone who has a story to tell!

I decided to find out more, and I’m embarking on a project to talk to as many Leng medallists, entrants, teachers or adjudicators as possible.  The Sir John Leng Trust endorses this research, and is looking forward to hearing what I uncover. 

My research is made possible with the support of an Athenaeum Award from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR LINK TO SHORT QUESTIONNAIRE

Ethical Approval: a Must

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Scrabble letters spelling Projects, Jobs, Done

My next research project requires ethical approval – interviewing real live people rather than writing about people long since departed.  And it’s imperative that I get my submission in on time, since the next meeting of our ethics committee is early next year.  

I’ve been working on it for weeks. (Admittedly, I’m a part-time research fellow, so I technically have only 10.5 hours a week to get my research activities done. Yes, we all know that the reality is different!) Anyway, yesterday was my own deadline: it just happened to be the last day we’re open before Christmas, and the morning after my last working day this year.

Efficiency (and Thoroughness)

There’s only one way to fill in a form efficiently, and that’s to make sure every question is answered satisfactorily. To this end, I go through and make myself a list of the information I must provide. Over the past few weeks,  I assembled the info. Attachments were created and labelled. And here’s where Tuesday (not a ‘work’ day) and Thursday came unstuck. I wanted to have a particular collection of old newspaper excerpts to share as an interview prompt.  Finding and listing them was easy enough. Formatting the document in Word, though? With clips of the excerpts? It took hours!

Have I Forgotten Anything?

Finally satisfied, I turned back to the form. And there – I swear they weren’t there when I initially saved it! – were a couple more questions with grey-shaded boxes requiring answers. And attachments.  What a good thing I double-checked. ✔️

It’s done. Phew! Details of whom I hope to interview, what I’ll be asking, and how I’ll save and use the gathered information, are all itemised.

And … breathe!

I submitted it. Ensured everyone involved could access it. At last, I can stop thinking about it until after Christmas!

Now, where’s the domestic to-do list (all the stuff I need to do, because no-one else will think about it) …?

Christmas cheer!

Image by Daniel Schmieder from Pixabay