Episode 1

Scottish Traditional Music

[00:00:39] Let's get into this. It's time for real talk. Now what's real talk. You might ask. It's all about real conversations with real stories and real experiences. This is where you want to feel inspired and connected. Now we're going to be talking about how young people are breathing new life into traditional Scottish music. Kat from California went on a life changing trip to experience Scottish culture for herself with Kentucky and visit Scotland. She joins me now. How are you Kat. Hi. I'm good. How are you. I'm doing good doing good.

[00:01:14] So tell me about your connection to Scotland. I would say that the first thing that pops my head is all of the childhood memories of going to the Scottish games in California because my stepdad is half Scottish and he's very proud of his clan Hamilton heritage that's passed down from his mother's side. And most of what I would hear from him is more focused on the visual culture is like growing up I knew all about the killing.

[00:01:42] He had a book on how to dress properly for any special event including my sweet 16 my graduation he would wear his full kill outfit and that for one was really important to me because I knew that like his tart in all of that I like what that means lesser on the music and that. So this trip was more of like me discovering the other sides of the culture.

[00:02:05] When did you get your first taste of Scottish trad music on this trip.

[00:02:09] My first taste was going to the pub on the first day. Yeah that was it the first in Edinburgh. We went to a pub in the afternoon and it was really small and intimate and it was just filled with people. You walk in there is like a stairway down but generally it's just the one room and a few tables. There was nowhere to sit. So everybody was crowded and looking into the corner where there were five or six young musicians they were already jamming. And I think it lasted like an hour or so. So during that time I was sketching them all.

[00:02:48]
They were that for me right now I'm envisioning just like a pub full of people and just like music randomly coming from like everywhere. So like people just like I like hanging out in this park just having like a pain drinking some wine Oh yeah.

[00:02:59] They were and they also it's not like a thing where they rehearse or anything because they all know a lot of these tunes by heart. So they they would whisper to each other and it was like oh like what you want to do now. And then one would star on the guitar or something and they were all just chime in. So it was very spontaneous and electric atmosphere in there.

[00:03:21] How did it make you feel like what emotions were you feeling and like how was the vibe in the pub.

[00:03:25] The vibe was very moving because even though I didn't know these tunes by heart and it doesn't remind me of any specific like childhood memories it is still like evident to anybody that it carries so much so much meaning in it. It's almost not even about the specific culture and and the folk lore that is behind the certain songs it is just about the history of like how the music brings people together. We're just like together in that moment. So that was just a a wonderful environment to be in now that we're talking like trad music.

[00:04:01] Let's bring in Rory Graham now Rory is a young Scottish musician who plays drums in a band called Nite works which fuses Gaelic Scottish sounds with electronic music. Is that right. That's correct David. Yeah. So as someone who's never been to Scotland how would you describe Scottish trad music to someone who knows nothing about it since you obviously play it.

[00:04:24] Well I think I mean it's such a big question that I think fundamentally speaking trad music is really kind of an expression of Scottish culture cap the Senate pretty well there it's like there seems to be an energy in the room whenever there is a kind of a session going on.

[00:04:40] It's a very informal type of music so you would get what's called generally a session and they take place more often than not in the pub so more often than not far more often. Yes. And so it's basically like it's like a gathering I suppose is like a jam.

[00:04:58] But as Kate was saying you know like the songs some of the tunes have been played for hundreds of years some of the songs as well have been sung for hundreds of years.

[00:05:06] So it's amazing to see quite a v emergence really in the trade music scene because it's such a window into kind of current Scottish culture but also into like the past and Scotland's history as well.

[00:05:19] There's no technical song that you play like you say it's just a jam session. So like someone would just like start playing like the bagpipe and just like start playing like an old melody that I went up knows like describe a little bit more.

[00:05:32] Well yeah I mean there's thousands of what you would say Cuban is right. So their tunes that have been written by somebody at some point in time so Jeff generally if you have a session like somebody or Brock to kind of like a commonly known tune so that everybody can kind of join in and and then by going to sessions sometimes you'll learn new tunes quite a lot of trad music is taught by ear rather than by sheet music. Oh yeah. So you have to as a tribe musician you have to really train your years. The art I learn pretty much only instruments mostly by year. I can hardly even read a sheet music.

[00:06:09] You know you're one of those naturally talented musicians.

[00:06:12] Well yes I mean like generally that you would play a tune and maybe three or four times round on the first time you'd kind of listen to it and then the second time you would maybe try a little phrases and then by the third time you kind of start and scratch around and pick up and the other process I'm going to the pub very often you can pick up these songs and it becomes like a corpus. It's like communication going on between all the musicians there and is this contract. You know it's good fun.

[00:06:44] So you said you you learned by listening by ear so did you just learn what like with their family as well. Does it seem that you just picked up by yourself you're like I want to learn trad music and you started going just listening to it.

[00:06:55] Yeah for sure. Well for me like I come from we island off the north west coast of Scotland called the Isle of Skye. So trad music is and Gaelic music in particular is part of the culture and part of growing up there. My mum's like a Gaelic singing teacher so she would go round all the primary schools teaching all the old songs and garlic. All my brothers and sisters we all play an instrument.

[00:07:22] So literally like part of growing up was you know sitting around the piano and like you'd be playing some tunes or you'd be singing some songs.

[00:07:30] Now in Scotland are there different types of Scottish trade music or is it all the same to this on different from different places.

[00:07:37] Oh yeah for sure. There's there's different styles of music wherever you go.

[00:07:41] So on the West Coast where I'm from there tends to be the type of trad music that you play is very fast and very late there's a lot of drive behind it. So you would play lots of types of tunes that you would call reels and they're in for four. That's great for what we call Chely which is a traditional dance event basically. And then there's associated dances that everybody in Scotland knows on the West Coast are pretty wild.

[00:08:08] So there's lots of it. So that's why I want to guys senses what you're telling me. Yeah yeah.

[00:08:13] Oh for sure yeah I'm a bit biased in that respect but the West Coast is pretty good fun.

[00:08:18] There's lots swinging people around and all that kind of stuff and then it's really interesting you get different styles if you go up to the Northern Isles like Oregonian Shetland you've got a different style of trad music that's kind of very connected to kind of Scandinavia as well because they are culturally very connected to cats Scandinavia and the east coast of Scotland it's their playing is a bit more a bit more reserved but a bit more kind of bouncy and they're playing rather than so reserved as in like they don't get up to dance or is it just more mellow dance or mellow dancing the more mellow dancing a bit more kind of conservative dancing than throwing somebody out of a window.

[00:08:57] I still want to go to the west. Definitely.

[00:09:02] Cat. So when you were in Scotland when you were listening trad music out of those types of meat versions of tribe music which ones did you think you were listening to.

[00:09:12] If I had to guess it was the faster ones with more drive. Everyone was just enthralled in there and the players themselves like their eyes were closed and they were bouncing up and down the chairs their feet our their knees were just like coming up and down pounding the wood floors in the same rhythm. So I want to say that I really love. The players themselves like because they didn't need the sheet music and they just knew it like the fiddle player was just playing with his eyes closed. What are the amazing and then everyone else we were just clapping. Unfortunately there wasn't room for me to dance so I was always standing and crowding around a big table.

[00:09:47] Well that's good you did get thrown out a window so that's still but still a plus. So Roy we'd really like to hear a track from networks so what is one of the tracks that you would want to play for us.

[00:09:59] I'd suggest to players from their latest album called it fat and what actually it translates at the dawn of the day. Perfect let's hear it.

[00:10:15] You show me.

[00:10:37] We're now going to hear from Archie MacFarlane a trad musician who grew up with traditional Scottish music before its revival by young people today. Welcome to the podcast. Archie Hello. So how long have you been playing tried music for oh since I was about 11. I think we're talking about how young people have revived tried music today. Huh. What are your thoughts on how they are experimenting with other genres of music and fusing them with track.

[00:11:02] Yeah I think there's a bit of that good on the moment. I guess they're kind of pushing things forwards by introducing other influences or whatever. I think trad music generally it's not a static thing it hasn't just stayed the same for years and years. It's always evolving. So you know at the moment there is I guess it's more access to other music perhaps or other influences so young people are taking some of that and you know infusing it into their tribe. MUSIC PLAYING sometimes it doesn't work. You know people and fuse things together and they sound terrible. In which case you know it doesn't survive no one listens to it. So that's the good stuff does happen and it happens well that's when itself work. So people listen to it and it survives and it gets taken on to something.

[00:11:58] Try to music it's very personal. So all these young people are taking it and kind of adding a part of themselves to their own music and that becomes you know this fusion that are happening right now.

[00:12:09] I mean and also as well like traditional music you know a tune played in Aberdeen.

[00:12:15] It's going to be maybe a bit different if you hear it played in fast-track are one personal play slightly different another person. It's not like I kind of see that classical music can you give it to these adults and that's it. It's kind of it's got that structure. You have to stick to try doesn't really have that it's got the tune but you can kind of make it your own and you can change bits of your life. It's a very fluid in that sense. So.

[00:12:52] You worry.

[00:12:53] How important is Scottish trad music to the Scottish national identity.

[00:12:59] I'd say I'd say it's it's really really important. It's quite interesting. I mean trad music has been going for as I said like hundreds of years basically so it is a window into our past for a lot of people like a lot of the songs and tunes were written so long ago that especially some of the songs you know some of some of the the lyrics and that speak of a time where we just don't have that time anymore. So it's kind of like a very strong connection with Scottish roots. There was a period of time where it became I hasten to use the word like unpopular but it wasn't really a lot of people were kind of not taken up up until like the 70s and 80s it was mostly kind of like all guys in the pubs you know a scotch in a way in a federal and maybe one or two. But the really interesting thing is has happened since late the 70s or 80s when bands started taking like trad music and mixing it up with other styles. So that's really begun a massive resurgence in popularity particularly amongst young people. It's just kind of latched on to this new kind of young generation of Scottish people that want to identify with the country that they are part of. And it's a great way to do that. I think of it it's just like it's music of the people for the people and by the people if you want to put it like that. And that's because it's it's so welcoming to anybody can pick up a fiddle and join a session you know and like be part of that kind of music which is the Scottish roots music and kind of what makes Scotland Scotland whether it's what Scotland sounds like.

[00:14:37] Kat when you were in the pub when you were listening to the Scottish trad music was there. Could you see kind of like the different generations of an age of people playing the music was it or was it all just young people or was it just older people.

[00:14:48] It was definitely a mix and specifically one of the nights there were three generations.

[00:14:54] There was one particularly old man who was just like the most amazing fiddle player. He was the one who is like in that trends during that one song and everybody was watching him at one point because what was nice is that you can tell that for some of the tunes although they all knew many by heart though there are a few where only the older generations knew how to play the entirety of it. So for like a stretch of time it was just him and one other person playing and going back and forth going back and forth that was it was an extremely fast paced song as well. It kind of circles back into this main chorus where everybody joined in again and the young boy was sitting next to the older man and I think it was just really moving for me to see across all generations and then playing and like a thought that crossed my head was just like you know that old man was once that young boy you know picking up this tradition and one day that boy is going to be the older man. And it's just even though I can't say that I'm culturally tied to that I loved being in that moment I can experience the value of it.

[00:16:06] It feels amazing you know because it is a personal thing to me and to the other band members as well that you get to take you can have cultural identity and what you grew up with and package it into something kind of new and put it on stage and it really seems to appeal to people and you get to play trad music and Gaelic music to two audiences who otherwise wouldn't have come into contact with it. Thank you so much to our guests very cat and Archie for telling us all about the rebirth of Scottish trad.