Community-based Traditional Music in Scotland

Josephine L. Miller is an ethnomusicologist and community musician based in Scotland. Her main research interest is the transmission of traditional music. She holds an MLitt from the University of Edinburgh and a PhD from the University of Sheffield. In 2017, she received the Hamish Henderson Award for Services to Traditional Music at the MG Alba Scots Trad Music Awards.

List of Figures

List of Music Examples

Acknowledgements

Preface






Learning and teaching traditional music: Refocusing the questions
Introduction

Transmission and enculturation

‘Traditional’ music

Community-based settings

A ‘non-formal’ setting?

Communities of practice

Masters and apprentices

Family

Oral tradition and music literacy

Socialisation

Researching the case study

Methods and ethics

Notes




‘A passport into a community’: Setting the scene
Learning and teaching: the revival and post-revival contexts

Learning and teaching: formal education

‘Take off’: community-based organisations

Introducing Glasgow Fiddle Workshop

Locality: a sense of place

Introducing the tutors

GFW in a stylistic community of practice

Notes




‘I’m a better learner now’: In the class
Joining a class

Learning the shared skills

Learning and teaching a tune

The role of listening

Playing it through

Varying, ornamenting and arranging tunes

Dealing with notation

Choosing repertoire

Notes




‘Actually doing it’: Participating in performance
Participation or presentation?

GFW sessions

Slow session and pre-class warm-up

Prepare for the pub

Very slow session

Islay Inn session

Concerts

Cèilidh dances

Member-led groups

Notes




‘You can make it your own’: Individual musical trajectories and organisational constraints
Encouraging agency at GFW

Self-directed learning

Making progress: reflecting on learning

‘Expressing’ the tune

‘Learners’ and ‘musicians’

Music as leisure and levels of involvement

Non-participation and dissent

Musical trajectories beyond GFW

Notes




‘A sense of who we are’: Creating a musical identity
A GFW identity

A community-based identity

A traditional music identity

Tensions and boundaries: ‘who we are’ vs. ‘who we are not’

Notes




Community-based learning and teaching: Towards a pedagogy of participation

Learning and teaching traditional music in a post-revival landscape

The ethos of the ‘community-based’ organisation

Repertoire

Tutors

Learning and teaching practices: between participatory ethos and individual musical trajectory

Conclusion: A pedagogy of participation