Styles

Gaelic psalms

These are sung by the congregation of the Free Church of Scotland in Gaelic. The psalms are unaccompanied and are led by the minister or a precentor. Listen to an example.

Mouth music

A style of Gaelic singing originally used to imitate instrumental music for dancing. After the 1745 Jacobite rebellion, musical instruments were confiscated and banned in the Highlands, particularly the bagpipes, and as a result all music for social occasions had to be sung. Therefore music which had originally been played on pipes and other instruments was sung much in the style which you hear in this excerpt.

Bothy Ballad

A Scottish song in strophic form which was sung by farm workers. They generally told of life on the farm and had a chorus of nonsense syllables, for example: ''Rowtin' owtin' owtin' addie, rowtin' owtin' owtin' aye'. The verses were usually sung by a solo voice while others joined in the chorus. They were performed unaccompanied and often originated from Aberdeenshire.

Jig

A fast dance in compound time, usually with two beats in a bar. Being in compound or 6/8 time, the music has that skipping sound associated with the nursery rhyme 'Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall'.  

First listen to this example played by an accordion.

Notice the repetition of each section of the melody. Listen to this example played by a modern-style folk band and notice that the melody instruments play the same notes and play in unison while a drone continues in the background.

Here are some other examples from a Scottish dance band 

and a fiddle orchestra,   an upbeat version by a pipe band   and a traditional version on bagpipes.