Scotland is internationally known for its traditional music, often known as Scottish folk music, which remained vibrant throughout the 20th century and into the 21st when many traditional forms worldwide lost popularity to pop music. Traditional Scottish music comprises a variety of different styles such as ballads, reels, jigs and airs. Traditional Scottish music is closely associated with the bagpipes which is credited as having a prominent role in traditional music originating from the country. The bagpipes are considered an "iconic Scottish instrument" with a history dating back to the 15th century. Other notable Scottish instruments include the tin whistle, the accordion and the fiddle.
The origins of Scottish music are said to have originated over 2,300 years ago following the discovery of Western Europe's first known stringed instrument which was a "lyre-like artefact", which was discovered on the Isle of Skye. The earliest known traces of published Scottish music dates from 1662. John Forbes of Aberdeen published the earliest printed collection of music in Scotland which ultimately became recognised as the first known published collection featuring traditional Scottish songs. Modern contemporary Scottish musicians within popular genres of rock, pop, and dance include Chris Connelly (musician), Calvin Harris, Paolo Nutini, Amy Macdonald, Lewis Capaldi, Shirley Manson, Lulu, Sheena Easton, Susan Boyle, KT Tunstall, Emeli Sande, and Nina Nesbitt. Successful bands originating from Scotland include Travis, Texas, Simple Minds, the Bay City Rollers, the Jesus and Mary Chain, the Fratellis, Glasvegas and the Cocteau Twins.
Music in Scotland is celebrated and recognised in a variety of different methods such as music festivals and award ceremonies. The countries major music festival, TRNSMT replaced the former T in the Park, and is held annually in July in Glasgow Green. Other music festivals include Celtic Connections, Eden Festival, Glasgow Summer Sessions, the Skye Live Festival and the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. Scottish music is celebrated through awards such as the Scottish Album of the Year Award, the Scots Trad Music Awards, the Scottish Alternative Music Awards and the Scottish Music Awards.
Early music
Stringed instruments have been known in Scotland since at least the Iron Age. The first evidence of lyres was found in the Greco-Roman period on the Isle of Skye (dating from 2300 BCE), making it Europe's oldest surviving stringed instrument. Bards acted as musicians but also as poets, storytellers, historians, genealogists, and lawyers, relying on an oral tradition that stretched back generations in Scotland as well as Wales and Ireland.M. J. Green, The Celtic World (London: Routledge, 1996), , p. 428. Often accompanying themselves on the harp, they can be seen in records of Scottish courts throughout the medieval period.W. McLeod, Divided Gaels: Gaelic Cultural Identities in Scotland and Ireland, C.1200-c.1650 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), , p. 102. Scottish church music from the later Middle Ages was increasingly influenced by continental developments, with figures like the 13th-century musical theorist Simon Tailler studying in Paris before returning to Scotland, where he introduced several reforms of church music.K. Elliott and F. Rimmer, A History of Scottish Music (London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1973), , pp. 8–12. Scottish collections of music, like the 13th-century "Wolfenbüttel 677", which is associated with St Andrews, contain mostly French compositions but with some distinctive local styles. The captivity of James I in England from 1406 to 1423, where he earned a reputation as a poet and composer, may have led him to bring English and continental styles and musicians back to the Scottish court on his release. In the late 15th century, a series of Scottish musicians trained in the Netherlands before returning home, including John Broune, Thomas Inglis and John Fety. The latter became master of the song school in Aberdeen and then Edinburgh, introducing the new five-fingered organ playing technique.J. Wormald, Court, Kirk, and Community: Scotland, 1470–1625 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1991), , pp. 58 and 118.
In 1501 James IV re-founded the Chapel Royal within Stirling Castle with a new and enlarged choir and it became the focus of Scottish liturgical music. Burgundian and English influences were probably reinforced when Henry VII's daughter Margaret Tudor married James IV in 1503.M. Gosman, A. A. MacDonald, A. J. Vanderjagt and A. Vanderjagt, Princes and Princely Culture, 1450–1650 (Brill, 2003), , p. 163. James V (1512–42) was a major patron of music. A talented lute player, he introduced French chansons and consorts of viols to his court and was patron to composers such as David Peebles (c. 1510–1579?).J. Patrick, Renaissance and Reformation (London: Marshall Cavendish, 2007), , p. 1264.
The Scottish Reformation, directly influenced by Calvinism, was generally opposed to church music, leading to the removal of organs and a growing emphasis on metrical psalms, including a setting by David Peebles commissioned by James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray. The most important work in Scottish reformed music was probably A Form of Prayers, published in Edinburgh in 1564.R. M. Wilson, Anglican Chant and Chanting in England, Scotland, and America, 1660 to 1820 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), , pp. 146–7 and 196–7. The return in 1561 from France of James V's daughter Mary, Queen of Scots, renewed the Scottish court as a centre of musical patronage and performance. The Queen played the lute and virginals and, unlike her father, was a fine singer.A. Frazer, Mary Queen of Scots (London: Book Club Associates, 1969), pp. 206–7. She brought many influences from the French court where she had been educated, employing lutenists and viola players in her household.M. Spring, The Lute in Britain: A History of the Instrument and Its Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), , p. 452. Mary's position as a Catholic gave a new lease of life to the choir of the Scottish Chapel Royal in her reign, but the destruction of Scottish church organs meant that instrumentation to accompany the mass had to employ bands of musicians with trumpets, drums, fifes, bagpipes and tabors.
The outstanding Scottish composer of the era was Robert Carver (c. 1485–c. 1570) whose works included the nineteen-part motet 'O Bone Jesu'. James VI, King of Scotland from 1567, was a major patron of the arts in general. He rebuilt the Chapel Royal at Stirling in 1594, and the choir was used for state occasions like the baptism of his son Henry.P. Le Huray, Music and the Reformation in England, 1549–1660 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), , pp. 83–5. He followed the tradition of employing lutenists for his private entertainment, as did other members of his family.T. Carter and J. Butt, The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), , pp. 280, 300, 433 and 541. When he came south to take the throne of England in 1603 as James I, he removed one of the major sources of patronage in Scotland. The Scottish Chapel Royal was now used only for occasional state visits, as when Charles I returned in 1633 to be crowned, bringing many musicians from the English Chapel Royal for the service, it began to fall into disrepair. From now on the court in Westminster would be the only major source of royal musical patronage.
Folk music
There is evidence that there was a flourishing culture of popular music in Scotland during the late Middle Ages, but the only song with a melody to survive from this period is the Pleugh Song.J. R. Baxter, "Music, ecclesiastical", in M. Lynch, ed., The Oxford Companion to Scottish History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), , pp. 130–33. After the Reformation, the secular popular tradition of music continued, despite attempts by the Kirk, particularly in the Lowlands, to suppress dancing and events like penny weddings.J. Porter, "Introduction" in J. Porter, ed., Defining Strains: The Musical Life of Scots in the Seventeenth Century (Peter Lang, 2007), , p. 22. This period saw the creation of the ceòl mór (the great music) of the bagpipe, which reflected its martial origins with battle tunes, marches, gatherings, salutes, and laments.J. E. A. Dawson, Scotland Re-Formed, 1488–1587 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), , p. 169. The Highlands in the early seventeenth century saw the development of piping families, including the MacCrimmonds, MacArthurs, MacGregors and Mackays of Gairloch. There is also evidence of the adoption of the fiddle in the Highlands, with Martin Martin noting in his A Description of the Western Isles of Scotland (1703) that he knew of 18 players in Lewis alone.J. Porter, "Introduction" in J. Porter, ed., Defining Strains: The Musical Life of Scots in the Seventeenth Century (Peter Lang, 2007), , p. 35. Well-known musicians included the fiddler Pattie Birnie and the piper Habbie Simpson. This tradition continued into the nineteenth century, with major figures such as the fiddlers Niel and Nathaniel Gow.J. R. Baxter, "Culture, Enlightenment (1660–1843): music", in M. Lynch, ed., The Oxford Companion to Scottish History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), , pp. 140–1. There is evidence of ballads from this period. Some may date back to the late Medieval era and deal with events and people that can be traced back as far as the thirteenth century.E. Lyle, Scottish Ballads (Edinburgh: Canongate Books, 2001), , pp. 9–10. They remained an oral tradition until they were collected as folk songs in the eighteenth century."Popular Ballads" The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century (Broadview Press, 2006), pp. 610–17.
The earliest printed collection of secular music comes from the seventeenth century.M. Patrick, Four Centuries of Scottish Psalmody (Read books, 2008), pp. 119–20. Song collecting began to gain momentum in the early eighteenth century, and as the Kirk's opposition to music waned, there was a flood of publications, including Allan Ramsay's verse compendium The Tea Table Miscellany (1723) and The Scots Musical Museum (1787–1803) by James Johnson and Robert Burns.M. Gardiner, Modern Scottish Culture (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005), pp. 193–4. In the late nineteenth century, there was renewed interest in traditional music, which was more academic and political in intent.B. Sweers, Electric Folk: The Changing Face of English Traditional Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), , pp. 31–8. In Scotland collectors included the Reverend James Duncan and Gavin Greig. Major performers included James Scott Skinner.J. R. Baxter, "Music, Highland", in M. Lynch, ed., The Oxford Companion to Scottish History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), , pp. 434–5. This revival began to have a major impact on classical music, with the development of what was in effect a national school of orchestral and operatic music in Scotland, with composers that included Alexander Mackenzie, William Wallace, Learmont Drysdale, Hamish MacCunn and John McEwen.M. Gardiner, Modern Scottish Culture (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005), , pp. 195–6.