Exploring a history of collecting and adapting Gaelic songs for a wider contemporary English speaking audience

A wide variety of political movements, community efforts and cultural forces have played significant roles in preserving Gaelic language today. One of the cultural aspects is the popularised collection, recreation and performance of Gaelic song internationally. One of the key proponents of this in the early 1900s was Marjory Kennedy-Frazer, a musician from the lowlands of Scotland who developed a focused interest in collecting songs from the Hebrides, arranging and performing them. She “is responsible for many early popular arrangements of this kind, much sung in school choirs throughout the English-speaking world.” (Chapman 1997)

Kennedy-Frazer’s collaboration with Kenneth Macleod was instrumental in her work, he was from the Isle of Eigg, with deep family roots in Gaelic culture, he also became well versed in many dialects and song traditions. “Kenneth Macloed was thus heir to generations of orally transmitted lore from two of the great clan traditions of the Gàidhealtachd; and what he had not learned in boyhood he absorbed during his twenty-year career as a Church of Scotland lay preacher, and thirty as an ordained minister of the Gospel.” (Blankenhorn 2018)

One of the criticisms of Kennedy-Frazer’s legacy is the application of Western classical harmony, this has been readily adopted by Gaelic choirs and is a probable factor in broadening its popular appeal outside of the Gàidhealtachd, however there have been cultural objections by Gaels to the adaption of the songs, and Chapman argues something is lost here musically too. "…pentatonic tunes of great beauty are de-natured by their passage through a system based on a twelve-note tempered scale and functional harmony; the two systems are fundamentally incompatible, and much is lost in the translation from one to another." (Chapman 1997)

Initially my interest in traditional songs and tunes started with the sonic textures, or timbres in mixing audio for traditional instrumentation. At the time I was performing semi-professionally in a contemporary popular music context, predominantly with an artist from Dunoon called Martha Hill, playing synthesizers, bass and singing backing vocals. So, I understood on surface level a musical language of modal, pentatonic and diatonic key centres, and the rhythmic devices popular in the form. I also particularly appreciated the idiom’s more recent intersections with electronic dance music in the UK, drawing inspiration from bands I worked with.

Around this time, I discovered contemporary folk fusion band Niteworks, whilst operating lights for them at my job in a local nightclub and multi-disciplinary arts venue, Cobalt Studios in Newcastle. The band is named after a composition by the legendary piper Gordon Duncan, Obair Oidche. This “translates into English as ‘Night Work’. The band’s name comes from the same sample, a recording of elderly Gaelic speaker on their native Skye discussing the change of life on the Island.” (Hands up for trad 2015)

The personal connection to someone in their locality made this a highly appropriate choice for Niteworks to use the recording. However, I will be taking lessons here from the parallel histories of mainlanders’ including Kennedy-Frazer and the reception of their work by the Gaels; as to whether I should use archive recordings to inform, or to even be included as samples within my practice. Whilst I was very much inspired by Niteworks’ use of archive recordings, considering how this could be part of a contemporary radio ballad presents an ethical question.

Drawing inspiration from this neo-traditional approach, it’s my intention to develop a radio ballad that celebrates and includes people’s culture using field recording techniques, collecting and reproducing songs as accurately as possible, using some creative license with the consent of any participants, and sensitivity to their experience as being fundamentally different to mine.

I won’t be using archival recordings as part of constructing this radio ballad, partly because this doesn’t necessarily align with the format I’ll be using and mostly because I’m unlikely to have a personal connection to the recordings, so realistically I can’t request the consent of their subjects. One of the questions I would like to raise within interviews is how people from Gaelic speaking communities relate to archive recordings in the context of their own cultural practice, and if they have found personal connections or family history connected with those.

It may be important for me to distinguish between having “folkloric tastes,” (Chapman 1997), with a particular liking for Scottish or Irish tunes and songs, as opposed to using it as a vehicle to reclaim my Scottish or Irish heritage. In truth I was drawn to studying the language, by the musical and sonic aspects of my peers and colleagues’ inspiring performances, in the contemporary context of the UK music scene. Even my first active engagement with this creatively was playing instruments more disconnected from folk traditions, bass guitar, electric keyboards and electronic samplers. This form of contemporary fusion could be argued as part of a living tradition depending on the context, as our lives have become more digitised so have our approach to sharing and performing traditions.

The songs I have learnt in Gaelic so far have been collected from recordings of friends and colleagues, not from my Scottish mother who was excluded from learning Gaelic in school, or my great granny; the last Irish Gaelic speaker and singer in the family who I never met or heard. It remains a fact that I was born in England and raised here, so will approach the topic sensitively in the context of interviews. In my experience, people born and raised in Scotland can be understandably protective of their culture, language, and traditions, I intend to respect this particularly within the context of my creative practice rather than claiming it as somehow my own culture.

Photo (top) from my work operating lights for Niteworks at a local club in Newcastle 2018

Reference list:

Chapman, Malcolm (1997) Thoughts on Celtic Music, from: Ethnicity, Identity and Music - The Musical Construction of Place edited by Martin Stokes. First published in 1994 by Berg Publishers, reprinted on paperback in 1997. Chapter 2 pp39

 Blankenhorn, V.S. (2018) Songs of the Hebrides and the Critics. Scottish Studies, 38, pp.1-53 Available at: https://open.journals.ed.ac.uk/ScottishStudies/article/download/82/80 (Accessed 1/3/2026)

Hands up for Trad (2015) Obair Oidhche by Niteworks Available at: https://projects.handsupfortrad.scot/folkwaves/obair-oidhche-by-niteworks/#:~:text='Obair%20Oidhche'%20is%20an%20instrumental,the%20legendary%20piper%20Gordon%20Duncan%2C (Accessed 4/3/2026)