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Multiple versions, performance contexts and singing style
Much of this repertoire is still known in both oral and printed forms. There is often no one 'correct' or original version (except where the composer is known and the song is published), but many versions exist. Part of the interest in studying traditional songs is in comparing different texts and tunes used for the same song.

Scots song is performed in many different venues, from the home to the concert hall. Singing styles vary a great deal, and items may be performed unaccompanied by soloists, with piano accompaniment, by folk groups or bands with accompaniment by mixed instruments, in choral arrangements, and so on.

Song types - Dance Songs, Mouth Music and Diddling
These songs use melodies which are also often dance tunes in the repertoires of instrumentalists. They may be marches, strathspeys, reels or jigs, and the texts in Scots or English are often humorous or nonsense words, sometimes bawdy.

Many Scottish musicians have ways of singing over a tune, either to learn it themselves, teach it to someone else, or just for the fun of the text. Sometimes they do this using meaningless syllables, and this is called 'diddling' the tune. It's a useful tool for learning a tune quickly, and generating rhythmic ideas for making your own tunes.

Here is a 'diddled' version of the reel Mrs MacLeod of Raasay.

Mrs MacLeod of Raasay – diddled (voice - Jo Miller)

Robert Burns wrote his own text for the strathspey song Whistle o'er the Lave o't, probably borrowing the line "whistle o'er the lave o't" from a traditional version of the song he knew. Listen to a recording of the dance song Whistle o'er the Lave o't (traditional version).

Whistle o'er the Lave o't (voice - Jo Miller) audio score

There is also an instrumental version of the tune. It sometimes accompanies the solo dance Seann Triubhas ('old trousers').

Another strathspey with words to it is the tune Braes o Tullymet used in Birnie Bouzle. The text sung here was written by a near contemporary of Robert Burns, James Hogg (The Ettrick Shepherd).

Birnie Bouzle (voice - Jo Miller) audio score

Another dance song, this time to a reel tune is Jenny Nettles.

Jenny Nettles (voice - Jo Miller) audio score

Children's Song
This category includes singing games, clapping games, skipping rhymes, ball rhymes and counting songs. Tunes for these songs are often rhythmic, and may use parts of dances tunes. For example, the song Katie Bairdie uses part of a schottische called Kafoozalum.

Ballads
Scotland is well known for its ballads - a body of narrative songs (i.e. songs which tell a story) which are still a strong part of oral tradition up to the present day

Ballads are part of international genre dating back as far as the middle ages. They are often called 'Child' ballads, after the American scholar Francis James Child who classified over 300 ballad texts and published them in his famous collection English and Scottish Popular Ballads (1882-89). They are often published (and taught in the English class) only as poems, though most also have tunes.

Child identified 4 categories of ballads:
· historical;
· romantic and tragic;
· magic and marvellous;
· humorous.

Many of the songs deal with themes of human life and relationships: love, death, betrayal and murder. There is also a strong supernatural element in several Scottish ballads. For example, The Twa Sisters features a magical fiddle (or harp, in some versions) which plays or speaks to reveal the identity of the murderer.

Features of ballads:
· they are strophic songs;
· written in ballad meter, with appropriate stresses, e.g.

There lived a lady in the North
You could scarcely find her marrow
She was courted by nine gentlemen
And her ploughman boy frae Yarrow

· usually sung solo, with or without accompaniment (though other voices may join in refrain);
· there is often repetition of text within the ballad; there may be a refrain or chorus either between or within each verse. e.g. in The Twa Sisters:

There were twa sisters in yon bower
Aye O an sae bonny O
And there cam a man tae be their wooer
An the swan swims sae bonny O

The Twa Sisters (voice - Jo Miller) audio score

· words of ballads use motifs or cliches which are part of ballad 'language'. For example, hair becomes "lang yellow hair", a horse becomes a "milk white steed", and hills become "high, high hills";
· there are usually a small number of central characters;
· the story often features dialogue. The ballad My Son David is told entirely through a dialogue between a mother and son. The first verses begin:

O what's the blood that's on your sword,
My son David, ho son David
What's the blood that's on your sword
Come promise, tell me true?

O that's the blood of my grey meer
Hi lady mother, ho lady mother
That's the blood of my grey meer
Because she wadnae rule by me

Son David (voice - Jo Miller) audio score

The Dowie Dens of Yarrow
The ballad The Dowie Dens of Yarrow has been one of the most popular Scottish ballads, and is associated with the border area through its location in Yarrow. Ballads which have historical or geographical links there are often referred to as Border Ballads. The Dowie Dens is a tragic ballad (dowie simply means sad), telling of a lady who loves a ploughboy, and refuses the courting of noblemen. Her family disapproves, and the nobles fight with the innocent ploughboy, though it is her brother who eventually slays him.

The refrain element in this ballad is simply the repetition of the word "Yarrow" at the end of each verse. There is dialogue in the ballad between the lady and her brother John, and with her father. Motifs in the story include the "high, high hills" and the "path sae narrow". The final verse suggests that the lady's father may have been responsible for sending the nine noblemen and the brother John to kill the ploughboy. In this version, the only named characters are the brother and the ploughboy, who share the same name.

The version of The Dowie Dens given here comes from the singing of Willie Scott, who lived and worked in the Borders for most of the 20th century. Willie learned the song from his mother.

The Dowie Dens (voice – Emily Smith) audio score

Listening to ballads
The best way to get to know a ballad is to hear one sung well (preferably live) by a good singer. There are many recordings available which can be used to compare different versions of the same song, comparing story, tune and singing style. Whilst listening, try humming or singing along - get to know the tune, and gradually join in with parts of the text. Get inside the story, and imagine yourself in the roles of the characters.

It's very interesting to discuss the story with other pupils: how do they interpret the action; are there parts where the listener has to fill in gaps using their own imagination; how important is the tune to the mood of the ballad?

Performing ballads
Performing a ballad can involve simply joining in a chorus line, or performing it as a solo song. The best way to get to know a ballad is to hear one sung well (preferably live) by a good singer.

Perhaps different soloists could take the verses, while others join in the refrain. Work unaccompanied first. When you know it well, decide if the ballad needs an accompaniment: often the starkness of ballad stories seems to suit unaccompanied performance best.

There are other creative projects which can use ballads as their starting point, such as artwork (the fast moving and dramatic plots often suggest film or comic strip presentation). Ballads are also ideal sources for drama - act out the whole plot, develop the characters, use the music as a backdrop if you like.

Inventing ballads
Make a ballad of your own, using a typical ballad metre and structure, such as:

verse line 1
refrain line 1
verse line 2
refrain line 2

It could relate a real life event, or an imaginative story. You could re-use the tune of a well-known ballad, or make your own.

Popular ballads to look out for include: Barbara Allan, The Jolly Beggar, The Cruel Mother, Lord Ronald, Sir Patrick Spens, The Twa Corbies, and many more.

Here is a recording of the accompanied ballad Fine Flowers in the Valley (a version of The Cruel Mother):

Fine Flowers in the Valley (voice – Jo Miller, clarsach - Fraya Thomsen)

Bothy Ballads
Bothy ballads is the name given to songs associated with 19th and early 20th century farm workers, especially in Aberdeenshire, though songs like these are found elsewhere in Lowland Scotland.

Bothy ballads are important because of their number and popularity, and also as a historical record of people, places and events associated with a particular period of farming history in Scotland. Some songs, for instance, record the introduction of new machinery. They are also full of social detail - the hierarchy of labour on the farms, and the treatment they receive at the hands of their employer.

These songs are usually performed solo, by male singers, with other voices joining in the chorus in unison, or sometimes in spontaneous harmony.

Bothy ballads are sung in broad North East dialect known as Doric. They were performed at hiring fairs and in the bothy after the day's work was done.

Groups of instrumentalists who also performed were known as bothy bands. Some people regard them as forerunners of the Scottish Country Dance Bands of the 20th century. Modern performances of these songs take place at folk clubs, concerts, informal singsongs, or specially staged bothy nichts.

Listen to the popular bothy ballad Sleepytoon, performed here with accordion accompaniment.

Sleepytoon (voice – John Eaglesham, accordion - Steve Sutcliffe) audio score

Notice the use of Scots words, some of which may be familiar to you. This is a typical bothy ballad, sung by a farm worker who has taken a job at the farm of Sleepytoon, and is treated harshly by the farmer ("old Adam"). They work ten hours a day, must be in bed by nine o' clock and are fined if they leave the farm. Finally, their "term" is up, and they go off on a spree, and to warn others of the "bad usage" they've had.

The tune is a jig, and in this arrangement the accordion plays parts of the tune as an instrumental refrain between verses. Sleepytoon also has a two line chorus of nonsense words, to allow others to join in, and give the soloist a break between verses:

And sing airrie erritie adie,
and sing airrie erritie an.

Try learning a bothy ballad - or part of it - by singing along with the recording. You could also arrange the tune for instruments. Many song airs - including the well known humorous bothy ballad The Muckin o’ Geordie's Byre - are also commonly played as dance tunes.

Here is another example of a bothy ballad, sung unaccompanied by a younger female singer. The song is set not in the North East, but at a hiring fair in Dumfries, in South West Scotland.

Dumfries Hiring Fair (voice – Emily Smith) audio score

Other Scots Songs
There is a rich and varied repertoire of Scots songs to get to know, including recently written songs about events and people past and present. Well known modern songwriters include Adam McNaughtan, Brian McNeill, Sheena Wellington and Nancy Nicolson. However, it is a sign of the health of Scotland's song tradition that many people still know and sing songs which have been around for several centuries.

One enduringly popular item has been McPherson's Farewell, the tale of the death of outlaw James McPherson, popular since the 18th century and still sung today. The song is performed unaccompanied, but with the supporting voices providing harmonies to the melody.

McPherson’s Farewell (voices – Jennifer Port, Emily Smith, Ishbel Munro) audio score