On the Naming of the ‘Strathspey’: Toponymic Evidence from Early Fiddle

Collections

Musica Scotica: AberdeenWill Lamb

27 April 2014

The strathspey appeared when Anglo and Gaelic culture came into their closest historical contact

We can see this when we map the placenames of Scottish music collections

Many Faces of the Strathspey

1. A rhythmic ‘meme’ permeating Scottish musical culture, esp Gaelic song

2. A type of instrumental dance music, or ‘tune type’

3. A slow form of ‘listening’ music4. A type of dance

Strathspeys and Reels: Modern Definitions

• Strathspey: slow pointed tune in common time (4/4) with dotted notes and ‘Scots snaps’

• Reel: fast round tune in alla breve (‘cut time’: 2/2) with smooth, regular quavers

Timeline: first ‘strathspeys’

1700 1750 1780

1710‘MacPherson’s

Testament’ (Sinkler)

c 1697-1716First ‘Scots snaps’ in

‘Schots Air’(Dutch ms: Rimmer)

Culloden

1745‘A new

strathspey reel’ (Oswald)

1747Prince Charles

sings ‘a strathspey-reel’

1757First

anonymous strathspeys (Bremner)

1759First notated

waulking song

(Oswald)

1780Cumming’s Collection

✔

Angus Cumming’s collections

1780 A Collection of Strathspey, or Old Highland Reels

1782 A Collection of Strathspeys, or Old Highland Reels

Francis Peacock (1723-1807) said that the strathspey was found across the Highland region.

Patrick MacDonald (1784): prints strathspeys from N Highlands, Perthshire and Hebrides

Cumming’s preface (1780)

THAT species of musical composition called a REEL, and particularly the STRATHSPEY REEL, is

the CATCH, the brisk and lively SONG, of the natives of Caledonia

St Kilda c1780

‘At the conclusion of the fishing season, when the winter store of this little commonwealth is safely deposited in a house, called Tigh-a-bharra,

its whole members resort thither, as being the most spacious room in their dominions, and hold a solemn assembly. There they sing with

gratitude and joy one of their best reel-airs …’ (Ramsay)

’S ann an Ìle (strathspey)Hugh Duncan, Islay

Strathspey followed by reel: normal speed

A Chur nan Gobhar às a’ Chreig (Reel)

Strathspey at normal tempo followed by 3rd part of reel, stretched to the same tempo

Hugh Duncan, Islay

Pretty Marion: Pipe ReelRona Lightfoot, South Uist

Strathspey (end of Moneymusk) in normal tempo followed by 3rd part of reel (Pretty Marion), stretched to same tempo

Griogal Cridhe: LullabyJessie MacKenzie, Lewis

Normal Speed

14

Griogal Cridhe cont

Sped up to strathspey tempo

In both the playing and singing of reels and slower work songs one finds an underlying ‘strathspey’ feel, when

performed by Gaelic speakers

The ‘strathspey’ seems to be an underlying rhythmic matrix for Gaelic

song associated with movement

Why was it called the ‘strathspey’?

• The strathspey first entered the written record in the 1740s– At this time, the Spey valley region was on the

border between Anglo and Gaelic society• The rhythm was noticed by violin playing

nobility, or musicians employed by them• The strathspey - as we know it today - is likely

to be a product of intercultural contact: a culture graft

Place-names in Scottish Fiddle Collections (Gore)

Category Proportion of total place-names

Dedications to noble personage 54%

Geographical features/ settlements 19%

Baronial houses 7%

Other dedications 6%

Transportation (roads and bridges) 4%

Misc 10%

Ex. ‘Lord Kinnaird’; ‘The Duchess of Argyll’; ‘Castle Grant’

Place-names in Tune Collections 1700-1749

Place-names 1700-1749: Counties indicated0 points in Hebrides, Rosshire, Sutherlandshire or Caithness

1 point each in Inverness-shire and Argyllshire

Manuscript evidence 1616-1750(data from Keith Sanger)Data comes mainly from Highland estates (so covers less spread)

Almost all references before 1744 are within ‘intercultural zone’

Indicates instrumental culture was linguistically-divided

1744

1747

Violin or fiddleViol

1701?

Place-names in Tune Collections 1750-1783

• Intercultural zone much bigger

• Many areas of the Gaidhealtachd still ‘off the map’

• Ross-shire• Sutherland• The Hebrides (except

Mull and Skye)

Around the world, instrumental dance music traditions are recognised as generally evolving from earlier dance song

traditions (Sachs 1937: 181)

“In all probability, the first songs to be instrumentalised are those for which the words have been forgotten” (ibid.)

Sachs, Curt. 1937. World History of the Dance. New York: W W Norton.

Importance of Place-names

• Provide us with evidence of intercultural contact

• Show that the Spey valley area was accessible to Anglo musical society

• Shows the absence of such contact in large swathes of the Highlands

• The moniker - the ‘strathspey’ swallowed up earlier airs featuring the meme

The underlying rhythm of the strathspey is so ubiquitous in Gaelic songs connected to

motion, that it must have developed as part of that tradition

As a ‘tune type’, it is a culture graft: a product of contact between Anglo and Gaelic society

We must be attentive to the hybrid nature of this musical form

Summary