Teaching approaches - Song

Traditional Scottish Songs and Music by Katherine Campbell and Ewan McVicar is a suberb collection of Scottish songs and the stories behind them. The book and accompanying CD is published by Leckie & Leckie.

One of the things that has helped to keep Scots alive is its use in countless songs. Songs such as 'Auld Lang Syne' are famous throughout the world. These songs continue to form part of the national consciousness. The Robert Burns song 'A Man's a Man for a That' was sung at the opening of the Scottish Parliament in 1999.

Far from being a thing of the past, the Scottish folk tradition continues to flourish, and popular songs continue to be written in Scots. A feature of the folk tradition is the reuse and reworking of lyrics and melodies over the ages. Many Scottish songs exist in several versions and their melodies are well known. There is considerable teaching potential in working with some well known Scottish songs and letting pupils create their own versions of them.

'The Day we went tae Rothesay-Oh' is a song from Katherine Campbell and Ewan McVicar's excellent collection of Scottish songs 'Traditional Scottish Songs and Music'. One of the activities the authors suggest in the teacher's notes that accompany the book is that pupils 'invent new songs about their own holidays'. These excerpts from the book and CD are reproduced with the kind permission of Leckie & Leckie.

• Email this page
• Print friendly format
• Digg this
• Save to del.icio.us