Details re new Scotland's Songs website

Subject: Details re new Scotland's Songs website
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 02 Dec 10 - 04:18 AM

SCOTLAND'S SONGS, a new website
PLEASE PASS ON THE WORD ABOUT THIS EXCITING RESOURCE TO TEACHERS AND PARENTS YOU KNOW.

An exciting new resources for teachers and learners has been launched on the Learning and Teaching Scotland (LTS) website. Scotland's Songs is a learning resources that makes a world-class collections of songs and tunes freely available to all Scottish schools.
To support the implementation of Curriculum for Excellence, the materials have been designed to allow teachers and early years practitioners the freedom to incorporate them into their teaching practice as they choose.
Scotland's Songs brings together a diverse collection of more than 130 Scots and Gaelic songs and tunes from across the nation. All songs are freely available to listen to online; most are accompanied by full lyrics and musical notation. The new resource also features introductions to traditional songs and music, a tour of Scotland's instruments and a look at themes in Scottish music.
Find Scotland's Songs at
http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/scotlandssongs/index.asp
Find Ewan McVicar's site that offers a support and development service for teachers at
http://www.scotssangsfurschools.webs.com/

PLEASE NOTE
These are new sites, still under development. For example, the translations of Gaelic lyrics are not yet linked to the Gaelic recordings. Also, there is the prospect of a Phase Two in which regional material will be added.

Subject: RE: Details re new Scotland's Songs website
From: Monique
Date: 02 Dec 10 - 05:10 AM

Clickies
Scotland songs
Ewan's site

Subject: RE: Details re new Scotland's Songs website
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 02 Dec 10 - 12:30 PM

Having had a very quick (initial) look at this site, I was glad to see that "Coulter's Candy" had been printed accurately, at least as I recall it from childhood, and not the version which seems now to be common, "To buy some sugar candy"; but, on the other hand, "The Barnyards of Delgaty" had replaced one line in Scots, about a horse lying on its "wyme" (that is, "wame", or belly) with "lay in the grime" - an acceptable rhyme for "time", but should such anglicisation be encouraged?

Subject: RE: Details re new Scotland's Songs website
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 02 Dec 10 - 12:32 PM

Additional; scotssangsfurschools - why not "schules"?

Subject: RE: Details re new Scotland's Songs website
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 03 Dec 10 - 06:00 AM

Well, I've heard and seen too many versions of Coulter's Candy and The Barnyards to be able to know which version of a particular line is the 'correct one'.
Similarly, it could have been 'schules', but in that title I'm aiming to use my own notions of modern Scots usage around where I live, while reaching out to teachers. I am reminded of Tom Leonard's poem piece announcing a meeting of a Scots language group meeting, topic - the spelling of the poster announcing the meeting.

Subject: RE: Details re new Scotland's Songs website
From: maeve
Date: 03 Dec 10 - 06:45 AM

Scotland's Songs

Ewan McVicar's site that offers a support and development service for teachers

These are valuable information sources, Ewan. I've added both sites to my music bookmarks. I surely could have used them when I was teaching!

I had trouble reading the cobalt blue font color against the dark backgrounds. It might be worth considering a better contrast when future tweaking is planned.

Thanks for your valuable additions to online music resources.

Maeve

Subject: RE: Details re new Scotland's Songs website
From: GUEST,Allan Con
Date: 03 Dec 10 - 08:44 AM

It is a great site so I don't mean to be negative - but I'm sure you'd want it all to be accurate. Killiecrankie is described as a victory for the Marquis of Dundee. I'm sure Dundee was only a Viscount so maybe here he is being mixed up with his earlier Graham namesake the "Marquess of Montrose". Rampant Scotland seems to have the same mistake. I might be wrong of course but I'm sure Claverhouse was never a Marquess.

Subject: RE: Details re new Scotland's Songs website
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 03 Dec 10 - 11:36 AM

Yes, "Viscount Dundee" (not "Viscount 'of' Dundee", by the way - as I once had pointed out to me by one of the types that run the National Galleries in Edinburgh, as if titles mattered a damn to most of us). With regard to the two songs I mentioned above, I wasn't so much concerned with deciding upon one supposedly "correct" version, as with the anglicisation which I mentioned; it would be unfortunate if Coulter's name were to be forgotten simply because "sugar candy" is more commonly heard and "makes sense" to younger generations, and I've never once heard or read the "grime" line in more than forty years of hearing the other song, off and on. I don't know if "The Dowie Dens of Yarrow" be among the collection, but I recently heard this line sung as "the dewy dells of Yarrow" - again, words which are each more likely to be familiar in the present day, and again, words which are (unlike "wyme"/"wame" and "dowie") not Scots English, but shared among various of the English languages.

Subject: RE: Details re new Scotland's Songs website
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Dec 10 - 04:17 AM

Interesting about the 'grime' line. I learned it that way in about 1956, but all the books I've looked at give wime! I wonder if whoever was teaching it to us at Allan Glen's school anglicised it? I strongly doubt that Morris Blythman changed it, but seems likely someone did. It's still my version. Singers remake lines all the time to make the words into their kind of sense, sometimes without even knowing they have done so. An aspect of The Folk Process.
I am astonished and deeply saddened how very little Scots our kids have in the 200 schools I've been into, that's one of the reasons I knock my pan out spreading the word about song, since it is one of the few mediums in which Scots is easily permitted to be used in class without fear of protest from the parents. I've aimed for no compromise but no antiquarianism, transcribing what the singers sing.
And I sing The Barnyards that way, always have.