The Making of the First Scottish Fiddle Music Index
by Charlie Gore
Most people involved or interested in traditional Scottish music would probably agree that the two most vexed questions are :
1) What is the name of that tune that is running around in my head and many go away at any second?
2) When I get the name at last, where do I find the music?
These questions are answered in the Scottish Fiddle Music Index. It is the first-ever systematic listing of the contents of the 18th and 19th century printed music collections.
For about 40 years I carried these questions around and spent quite a proportion of that time wondering why there was no efficient way of finding the answers. About 5 years ago, it struck me that, if someone were to make a card index of tune titles with a cross-reference to the printed source, it would answer the second question at least. Someone had – the National Library of Scotland had a listing of tunes from the old printed collections, but it was not complete.
At about this juncture, I was given an introduction to Morag Ann Elder, of Dundee, a music graduate of Aberdeen University, who had gone about 40% of the way to answering both questions. We agreed almost at once that there would be a purpose in continuing her work beyond its original limits and to ‘round out’ the listings of tunes where – it can be reasoned – there is a natural pause, namely, with the end of James Scott Skinner’s long composing and publishing career. His ‘Cairngorm’ series of 1922 is the last collection to be fully integrated in the Index. We also agreed that the indexing should be computerized, so there had to follow a massive transfer and development process, taking up several years in fact. In this, we were greatly supported by the Scottish Music Information Centre in Glasgow and by the computer skills of Lynn Morrison in particular.
The first results of five years or so of unrelenting work (aided and indeed made possible by the help of kind friends and a generous Glenfiddich ‘Living Scotland’ Award) is an Index of 15,000 tune titles. There has never been anything approaching that degree of completeness before. Because some were re-published in the 19th century and are deliberately duplicated (for various practical reasons) the net total of separate tunes is probably about 12,000. There are at present only two or three thousand tunes from the old tradition either in print or readily accessible; the rest have been perceived in what are now among the rarest and in some cases the oldest printed music books to be found anywhere. These are in the care of some half dozen great libraries and they were the source books for the Index. It can fairly be claimed that there are some pretty amazing musical discoveries yet to be made.
Morag Elder’s index employed the conventional ‘pigeonhole’ method of referencing the tune title, key, time and source, but the computerization of her theme code referencing system has introduced an entirely new dimension. This system was based on the work of an Irish traditional music expert, the late Breandan Breathnach, which he called ‘Numerical Representation’ and which he used to create a card index of the Irish fiddle repertoire. Using a computer database for this purpose (which was not possible in Breathnach’s time) has given the index much wider referencing capabilities. What it does in the simplest terms is to give each tune an individual code (based on the opening beats of the melody; just sufficient of it to form a recognizable ‘sample’). This can then be compared with any tune which is akin to it in ‘shape’. Related tune titles (for example, tunes which are the same but have a range of titles) can be picked up in the A-Z mode. In fact, when the database itself is put into use, any of the ‘pigeonholes’ (titles, keys, tempos, sources or themes) can be grouped and extracted for further research. Thus it is possible, for example, to select a complete alphabetical listing of any collection; or extract a list of tunes relating to one region, name or subject.
The Scottish Fiddle Music Index is now in print (Autumn 1994), in hardback, listed at £49. It is a complete reference work of over 500 pages, comprising the Tune-Titles Index, A – Z listed, the Bibliography (giving the Collection, together with a number of title page illustrations; volume and page and at least on library source to find it in); the complete Theme Code Index (15,000 entries, arranged for ‘tune-finding’); and appended lists of related or marginal collections. Copies of the Index may be obtained from The Amaising Publishing house, Musselburgh.
Following on from this it is planned to make the database available to researchers on CD, to be updates as work on the Index continues and expands. But that is somewhat in the future. The vocal collections (both of central Scotland and of the Highlands and Islands), the music of Shetland and Orkney, the music of the contemporary folk tradition all need similar treatment. 1994 could be designated the 200th Anniversary of when the first Index of Traditional Music might usefully have been published (a large proportion of the best of it had been composed by 1794). It’s never too early to start planning!
Box and Fiddle
April 1995
1) What is the name of that tune that is running around in my head and many go away at any second?
2) When I get the name at last, where do I find the music?
These questions are answered in the Scottish Fiddle Music Index. It is the first-ever systematic listing of the contents of the 18th and 19th century printed music collections.
For about 40 years I carried these questions around and spent quite a proportion of that time wondering why there was no efficient way of finding the answers. About 5 years ago, it struck me that, if someone were to make a card index of tune titles with a cross-reference to the printed source, it would answer the second question at least. Someone had – the National Library of Scotland had a listing of tunes from the old printed collections, but it was not complete.
At about this juncture, I was given an introduction to Morag Ann Elder, of Dundee, a music graduate of Aberdeen University, who had gone about 40% of the way to answering both questions. We agreed almost at once that there would be a purpose in continuing her work beyond its original limits and to ‘round out’ the listings of tunes where – it can be reasoned – there is a natural pause, namely, with the end of James Scott Skinner’s long composing and publishing career. His ‘Cairngorm’ series of 1922 is the last collection to be fully integrated in the Index. We also agreed that the indexing should be computerized, so there had to follow a massive transfer and development process, taking up several years in fact. In this, we were greatly supported by the Scottish Music Information Centre in Glasgow and by the computer skills of Lynn Morrison in particular.
The first results of five years or so of unrelenting work (aided and indeed made possible by the help of kind friends and a generous Glenfiddich ‘Living Scotland’ Award) is an Index of 15,000 tune titles. There has never been anything approaching that degree of completeness before. Because some were re-published in the 19th century and are deliberately duplicated (for various practical reasons) the net total of separate tunes is probably about 12,000. There are at present only two or three thousand tunes from the old tradition either in print or readily accessible; the rest have been perceived in what are now among the rarest and in some cases the oldest printed music books to be found anywhere. These are in the care of some half dozen great libraries and they were the source books for the Index. It can fairly be claimed that there are some pretty amazing musical discoveries yet to be made.
Morag Elder’s index employed the conventional ‘pigeonhole’ method of referencing the tune title, key, time and source, but the computerization of her theme code referencing system has introduced an entirely new dimension. This system was based on the work of an Irish traditional music expert, the late Breandan Breathnach, which he called ‘Numerical Representation’ and which he used to create a card index of the Irish fiddle repertoire. Using a computer database for this purpose (which was not possible in Breathnach’s time) has given the index much wider referencing capabilities. What it does in the simplest terms is to give each tune an individual code (based on the opening beats of the melody; just sufficient of it to form a recognizable ‘sample’). This can then be compared with any tune which is akin to it in ‘shape’. Related tune titles (for example, tunes which are the same but have a range of titles) can be picked up in the A-Z mode. In fact, when the database itself is put into use, any of the ‘pigeonholes’ (titles, keys, tempos, sources or themes) can be grouped and extracted for further research. Thus it is possible, for example, to select a complete alphabetical listing of any collection; or extract a list of tunes relating to one region, name or subject.
The Scottish Fiddle Music Index is now in print (Autumn 1994), in hardback, listed at £49. It is a complete reference work of over 500 pages, comprising the Tune-Titles Index, A – Z listed, the Bibliography (giving the Collection, together with a number of title page illustrations; volume and page and at least on library source to find it in); the complete Theme Code Index (15,000 entries, arranged for ‘tune-finding’); and appended lists of related or marginal collections. Copies of the Index may be obtained from The Amaising Publishing house, Musselburgh.
Following on from this it is planned to make the database available to researchers on CD, to be updates as work on the Index continues and expands. But that is somewhat in the future. The vocal collections (both of central Scotland and of the Highlands and Islands), the music of Shetland and Orkney, the music of the contemporary folk tradition all need similar treatment. 1994 could be designated the 200th Anniversary of when the first Index of Traditional Music might usefully have been published (a large proportion of the best of it had been composed by 1794). It’s never too early to start planning!
Box and Fiddle
April 1995