Levelling oot the Braes O' Mar

One might have anticipated that these times with the possibility of Scottish Independence at hand would cause a resurgence of interest in Scottish traditional music and culture.  It does not appear so.

With honourable exceptions like the Scottish Culture and Traditions project in Aberdeen and other similar initiatives, young people do not seem to be interested in traditional music in general and ceilidh dancing in particular.

There is certainly a resurgence in performing traditional music, but not for the original purpose, for dancing.  This is a sad state of affairs.

Setting aside the question of how you learn to play for dancing and in dance bands, there is still a disquiet in me that traditional music as it seems to be played these days is being divorced from its roots in dancing.

I use the term traditional music in its broadest sense.  New tunes in a traditional idiom have always been a healthy thing, however, most modern tune writing seems to be about virtuosity and not about feeling.

Frankly I am bored when I hear most of the new crop of "traddie" bands.  They simply make me switch off.  It seems that I should be content with a display of (allegedly) jaw-dropping virtuosity as a substitute for feeling moved or uplifted.  That kind of display is a substitute for real emotion.

What passes for music criticism in the traditional music world is mostly shameless enthusiasm for the latest phenomenon to come out of the Conservatoire.

I am not going to single out any particular examples (you will have a list of your own) as being guilty parties.  I know that much of what what I hear that is punted and promoted as the very best of traditional music is dross.  Certainly virtuosic dross but dross none the less. Tunes that go nowhere and have no utility other than to display their performers dexterity.

There seems to me to be far too much emphasis on playing an instrument rather than playing music.  An old friend of mine went to see one of the many fiddle-playing wunderkind that seem to excite the enthusiasm of the pundits (who will it be this week? Yawn).

I asked his opinion of the young man's performance.  He thought for a moment and said;

"Ach, he fairly levelled oot the Braes O' Mar".

If you are a traditional musician you will know exactly what he meant.