On 21 November 2015 I was an invited speaker at the Scots Fiddle Fest in Edinburgh. I talked about the AHRC-funded Bass Culture Project run jointly between the University of Glasgow, University of Cambridge and Royal Conservatoire of Scotland - and our new website, Hms.scot which is currently released in Beta, pending the launch in February 2016. These are the slides to illustrate my talk.

1. The Bass Culture Project
Karen McAulay
Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

2. Before the Project …

3. 1726 Stuart for Ramsay
(Sedate, elegant baroque)

4. 1757 Bremner (functional)

5. 1781, McGlashan (little change?!)

6. 1784 Gow, A Collection of S’spey Reels

7. 1801 Gow (cadences & ending)

8. Marshall’s Scottish Airs of 1822…

9. And Marshall’s Scottish Airs, 2nd ed, 1844

10. Kerr’s Modern Dance Album

11. Finding the Tunebooks
Found on imgfave.com

12. Charlie Gore’s Index (Books and Tunes)
• Fiddle Music Index, 1994
• Scottish Music Index (online)

13. Charlie Gore’s Tune Incipit Codes

14. But there were more!
Union Catalogues (lots of libraries)
• Worldcat http://worldcat.org/
• Copac http://copac.jisc.ac.uk/

15. Trains, Tethering and Teashops

16. Big Ambitions
• What’s the repertoire?
• What’s in the books?
• What do they look like?
• What do we know about the compilers and
the history behind each collection?
• What’s remarkable about each one?

17. We digitized these
• Bremner – A Collection
of Scots Reels or
Country Dances (1757)
• McGlashan – A
Collection of Strathspey
Reels (1778)
• Cumming – A Collection
of Strathspey or old
Highland Reels (1780)
• McGlashan – A
Collection of Scots
Measures … (1781)
• Marshall – A Collection
of Strathspey Reels
1781)
• Riddell – A Collection of
Scots Reels, Minuets &c
(1782)

18. And these …
• Gow – A Collection of
Strathspey Reels (1784)
• McGlashan – A
Collection of Reels
(1786)
• Malcolm Macdonald –
A Collection of
Strathspey Reels (1788)
• Bowie - A Collection of
Strathspey Reels (1789)
• Malcolm Macdonald – A
Second Collection of
Strathspey Reels (1789?)
• Joshua Campbell - A
Collection of New Reels
& Highland Strathspeys
(1789)
• S, A & P. Thompson –
The Caledonian Muse
(1790)

19. You want more?
• Petrie - A Collection of
Strathspey Reels &
Country Dances (1790)
• Calvert – A Collection of
Marches and
Quicksteps (1792)
• John Clark – A
Collection of New
Strathspey Reels (1795)
• Petrie – A Second
Collection of Strathspey
Reels (1796)
• Niel Gow – First Book of
Niel Gow’s Reels, 2nd
edition (1801)
• Niel Gow – Part First of
the Complete
Repository (1805)

20. Still more!
• Petrie – A Second Collection
(corrected by Gow, 1808)
• William Marshall – Marshall’s
Scottish Airs, Melodies,
Strathspeys, Reels &c for the
Piano forte, Harp, Violin &
Violoncello (1822?)
• Marshall’s Scottish
Airs, Melodies,
Strathspeys, Reels
&c (2nd edition,
1844?)

21. Books Listed and Books Digitised
22
Digitised &
indexed
Book details
and
commentary
throughout
200+
listed

22. Social Media
• @BassyCulture
• http://bassculture.info/ (our blog)

23. Hms.Scot
• Historical Music of Scotland www.hms.scot
(Beta version)
• The fiddle page http://hms.scot/fiddle/

24. Hms.Scot/fiddle

25. Hms.scot/fiddle - searching

26. Other useful info on website

27. Searching
• Enter a search-term – search engine finds the
term anywhere, so entering something like
“Glasgow” means you’ll get tunes with
“Glasgow” in the title but also collections
which have a Glasgow connection.
• “House” is a good term for exploring the
website!

28. Search Results

29. Looking at the results of a search
Download button
Hyperlink

30. Wifi? Worth a try?
• Any questions?
• Thank you!
• Feedback on the website:- info@hms.scot
• K.McAulay@rcs.ac.uk
• Twitter @Karenmca

31. The Bass Culture Project
Alexander Stuart for Allan Ramsay’s Tea-Table Miscellany – Polwart on the Green (1726)
Robert Bremner – Tulloch Gorm (1757)
Alexander McGlashan - Tulloch Guirm (1781)
Niel Gow – Tulloch Gorum (1784)
Niel Gow – Tulloch Gorum (1801)
William Marshall – The Marchioness of Huntly’s Strathspey (1822)
William Marshall – The Marchioness of Huntly’s Strathspey (1844)
Kerr’s Modern Dance Album – Reel of Tulloch