📷 Photo by Peter McNally

I first came across the incredible sound of Gaelic psalm singing back in 2002 when I was living in London and studying music at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). As part of my degree, I had the opportunity to do some work experience and spent a day a week over a couple of years in the sound archive of Cecil Sharp House in Camden, the home of the English Folk Dance and Song Society. My job was to digitise a collection of 78 recordings that had been gathered in the 1940s and ‘50s for a substantial BBC archiving project. Having just moved to London from Shetland, I was assigned the Scottish collection of material – so many beautiful Gaelic songs, Shetland fiddle tunes, piping and ballad singing among other styles and instruments. It was an exciting time and I discovered some amazing music while I was doing this, and a few tunes that I ended up learning and recording in the duo, Blyde Lasses.

📷 Angus Murray singing at a public talk, Comunn Eachdraidh Nis, Ness, Lewis. June 2025. (Photo by Mary Stratman)

On one of these days I was sitting in the archive, dusting off the first of a new batch of recordings for transfer to CD, when one of the librarians (and also a fine singer), Peta Webb, appeared in the door and we got chatting. She said, ‘you’re digitising all this Scottish music. Have you ever heard Gaelic psalm singing? It’s incredible – like nothing else you’ve heard in the British tradition. It sounds more like Islamic singing than singing from these islands’. I admitted that I’d never heard of it but would look it up. When I came across a recording, I was blown away by the sound – incredibly powerful, moving, and evocative. Peta was right – it had the hint of some Middle-Eastern traditions, and this has been noted by the likes of Scottish musicologist John Purser, who pointed out the remarkable similarities between Gaelic psalm singing and some forms of Ethiopian Christian singing.

📷 Marybelle MacKinnon, Crossbost, Lewis. March 2022. (Photo by Frances Wilkins)

Since my time in London I have gone on to become a professional ethnomusicologist – someone who seeks out, researches and promotes the wonderful musical traditions often hidden from view within communities. The practitioners I meet rarely sing or play music as a profession but take part in musical traditions as an innate expression of their identity – whether that be geographical, occupation, spiritual, or linguistic. I have researched singing in fishing communities and among fishermen at sea, music from the days of the whaling industry and the fur trade, fiddling and dancing in subarctic indigenous communities, and more recently the incredible spiritual song, psalm and hymn traditions spread out across the Hebrides. I am based at the Elphinstone Institute, University of Aberdeen, where I completed my PhD in 2009. As a senior lecturer in ethnomusicology I teach on the MLitt programme in folklore and ethnology, training students to study the cultures of Northern Scotland (and beyond) in context.

📷 Murdo J Morrison, bard and Gaelic psalm precentor, Fivepenny, Ness, Lewis, March 2022. (Photo by Mairi M Martin)

In the last few years I have interviewed and recorded many singers from across the Hebrides and have travelled throughout the islands, meeting people and hearing their stories and songs. The result has been a substantial archive of songs, interviews, field recordings, photographs and videography.

📷 Gaelic psalter. (Photo by Mairi M Martin)

Gaelic psalm singing is one of our oldest living musical forms in Scotland, with its roots in the years following the 1560 Scottish Reformation, when singing in churches suddenly shifted from choral singing in Latin, to unaccompanied congregational psalm singing in the vernacular language. It was led by a precentor, someone (usually male) who sang out each line for the then mostly illiterate congregation to follow. In most places, this style of singing was replaced by more modern singing styles but in the Gaelic speaking churches of the Hebrides, the old style of singing remained and became an important part of Hebridean culture. Many people I spoke with, regardless of whether they were religious or not, expressed how elemental the tradition was to all aspects of life in the past, forming a musical soundtrack to their daily lives – in daily ‘family worship’, at weddings, funerals, wakes, and other gatherings where people congregated together.

📷 D R MacDonald, Gaelic psalm precentor, Stornoway. October 2022. (Photo by Mairi M Martin)

The project, ’Seinn Spioradail: Sacred Soundscapes of the Highlands and Islands’, was an amazing experience and I met so many inspiring people. Unfortunately these incredible singing traditions are struggling to thrive under the current climate of anglicisation and secularisation within the church and communities. There has been a lot of discussion in recent years about safeguarding music as intangible cultural heritage (ICH), since the Scottish ratification of the UNESCO Convention for the safeguarding of ICH. On talking to TMF director Brian Ò hEadhra among others, it appears that the pure act of unaccompanied singing has become an art-form under threat. It is in need of safeguarding and treasuring if we are to see this unique and deep-rooted practice survive and flourish. Gaelic psalm and hymn singing, along with a number of other traditions such as Sean-nòs in Ireland, has been losing prominence in traditional music over the years under a constant bombardment of alternative, more accessible musical styles. It is no different in the Hebrides, and part of this project was to gain a better understanding of the singing, explore how it is being adapted in order to stay relevant to its singers and the changing environment, and how it might be safeguarded in its present form for future generations.

There have been some amazing initiatives to teach and preserve Gaelic psalm singing. Calum Martin has produced an excellent series of online workshops to teach people to sing Gaelic psalms, and is teaching classes to people on Lewis. Gemma Malcolm from the Kinloch Historical Society in Balallan recently worked with school children to record the oral history of psalm singing in the local area. As part of the project they learnt to sing a psalm, competing at their local Mòd and winning first place. Since then the children have had invitations to sing the psalm at local venues and events.

📷 Children from Sgoil nan Loch who sang a Gaelic psalm at the Stornoway Mòd, winning first place. With Gemma Malcolm, Kinloch Historical Society. June 2025. (Photo by Mary Stratman)

The Seinn Spioradail project culminated in an exhibition that has been on tour for the last 2 years across the Hebrides. It is currently on display at Comunn Eachdraidh Nis (Ness Historical Society) in Lewis and includes panels, objects, film, listening stations and digital archive. There is an accompanying website which hosts the digital archive – over 300 songs recorded as part of the project, with lyrics and translations. It has been a useful learning tool for singers looking to explore the tradition and learn some of the psalms and beautiful songs and hymns of the Hebrides. Other resources are being produced in the coming months including a CD and podcast series.

📷 Frances Wilkins with Hamish Taylor, Leverburgh, Harris. June 2025. (Photo by Mary Stratman)

A highlight of the project for me was giving some public talks in Lewis and Harris over the summer, where I was accompanied by some incredible singers including Torquil MacLeod, Hamish Taylor, Murdo MacMillan and Jeanna Cumming. I was also invited, with the wonderful Gaelic singer Kristine Kennedy, to give a talk/performance at the British Academy in London as part of the event, ‘Memory Through Melody: Celebrating Sung Histories’. The British Academy funded a large part of the project and it was exciting to have the opportunity to bring the music to them. The 20 minute presentation is available to watch on YouTube (from 44 mins).

📷 Jeanna Cumming singing at public talk, Leverburgh, Harris. June 2025. (Photo by Mary Stratman)

📷 Frances Wilkins and Kristine Kennedy at the British Academy, London. May 2025. (Photo by Oliver Wilkins)

For more information on the project, including to see the exhibition panels, film and digital archive, visit franceswilkins.com/seinn-spioradail

Picture this: it’s an hour before checkout in a Kyoto hotel. A kilted Scotsman approaches the reception desk, hoarse and probably still a little bit drunk. He croaks an almost silent “Sumimasen” to a bemused concierge. We’d been in Japan three days, and we’d already been on stage for ten of the last forty-eight hours. I could speak very little Japanese, and that morning, I could speak very little of anything.

I’m Davie, and I’m the singer for Bruach. We’re a Scottish folk rock band, some would say Celtic punk. I’ve been known as the wee bouncy dude with the Duracell batteries for years, but now I’ve found myself in a band of people who carry the same energy. We bring it to every show, with Kayo Ono’s fiddle tearing through reels, Sean Wilkie’s bass thumping like a heartbeat, Niall Crookston’s drums kicking like a mule, and Kris Pheely’s guitar tying it all together. We love The Corries and Gaberlunzie, but our sound is closer to Scotia or Peat and Diesel. We live for getting the crowd going; clapping, singing, dancing along, or sometimes just shouting whatever nonsense we throw at them.

So how did we end up staggering around a hotel in Kyoto? It all started with a daft moment at Hootananny in Inverness last August. We were mid-set, calling for a bit of crowd interaction. All For Me Sauce is our take on All For Me Grog. It’s a family-friendly version with a dafter edge. Instead of “tobacco,” the crowd shouts “tomato.” There’s a story behind it, but we won’t get into it here. This American guy refused to play along. We had some banter and called him “Tobacco guy.” Afterwards, he was chatting to Kayo – in Japanese! He told her that he lived in Kyoto now, and suggested the Osaka Expo.

We all laughed our kilts off. Japan? The furthest we’d been so far was Skye! But Kayo grabbed the idea like a lifeline. “My ties to Japan faded after twenty years in the UK,” she told us later. “This was my chance to show you my home.” She applied, fully expecting nothing, and we didn’t hear for months. Then, just before Christmas, bam! We’d been selected to host a stage at the Expo. Who knew a pub chat could send us round the world?

It sounds simple when you say it quickly. “We’re off to Japan!” Easy, right? But getting five musicians to Japan with instruments, kilts, and enough energy to host a full-day stage is no small feat. This wasn’t just a half-hour set. It was Scottish food tasting, ceilidh dancing, and a Celtic instrument experience, and all that on top of our music. That kind of show doesn’t fall together by accident.

The truth is, Kayo did most of the heavy lifting. Flights, accommodation, schedules, venues, translations, endless emails, sleepless nights, the lot. The rest of us pitched in the only way we knew how: gigging harder than ever. Coach and Horses in Dumfries, Waxy’s in Glasgow, McKays in Pitlochry, The Havelock in Nairn, among others. We booked everywhere and anywhere that would have us. Every pint poured, every t-shirt sold, every raffle ticket was another step closer to Osaka. We’re not normally about the money, but we needed it now.

And somewhere in the middle of that grind, Japanese influences started to creep in. Kayo, our honorary Scot (Sean would say “She’s no honorary, she’s just Scottish!”), started wearing a kimono at practice, and on stage, her traditional dress against our kilts. It showed our intent. Japan was going to be a part of our music.

We began with Highland Soldier, a tune Kayo had written back in Japan, paired with a 19th-century Scottish broadsheet ballad. Those old ballads were meant to be shared. Their words could be sung to all sorts of melodies. Putting it to Kayo’s tune felt like a bridge between her two homes.

Then came Sakura Air An Duine Sith, a mash-up of the Japanese folk song Sakura Sakura with The Atholl Highlanders. The title itself was a blend, half Japanese, half Gaelic, and the verses mixed Japanese, English, and, increasingly, modern Scots. We learned Train Train, the Japanese punk anthem of the 90s, and translated it into Scots (or maybe just Glaswegian). Later in Japan, we met Tetsuya Kajiwara, the drummer of The Blue Hearts, who wrote the original. If we get his blessing, our version might yet see daylight.

July came around so quickly, I swear we skipped a month. Did we have May? It was really happening! Landing in Tokyo was like stepping into a video game. All neon, noise, vending machines selling cold coffee. Those soon became my morning ritual. The hotel omelette was so fluffy I could’ve napped on it. Then the bullet train to Osaka, where I promptly got stuck behind the ticket gates like a numpty and missed the meeting point. Nobody slept that first night. The Expo stage was waiting the next day.

It was 35 degrees, and humid enough to melt. As Pheely put it, “the scale of the thing is incredible.” He was right, but we didn’t have time to look around. We had a stage to set up. I was cream crackered before we even opened the doors. I don’t know how Kayo did it, she was the only one of us who could communicate with most people, so she was everywhere, like a blur. Seconds later (or so it seemed), I was calling ceilidh dances while she translated and demonstrated at the same time. Just like home, we had volunteers tripping over Gay Gordons and laughing their heads off. The Dashing White Sergeant had them grinning ear to ear. They got it in the end, proving that Scottish country dancing can travel.

That’s when we met Shima. He turned up to Expo in a kilt with a Bonnie Scotland flag draped over his shoulders. He danced, he tried the toy bagpipes, he played with the accordion. Seeing a Japanese fan in a kilt reminded us that our cultures had already been in conversation long before we turned up.

Then came our main set. We had Scots and Japanese lyrics side by side on a massive 10-metre screen behind us. People sang along to Scottish songs in Scots, then told us afterwards that the translations gave them a new understanding of lyrics they’d known for years. We’d been worried about the crowd participation bits we had in the set, but we needn’t have worried, they sang along to Wild Mountain Thyme and shouted “tomato!” just like back home, and the songs we added for them, like Train Train, went down a storm! They even called for an encore! What else, but our first single, Big Strong Belle, to finish off the night? It was a special moment, one I won’t forget. Sean roared, “We love you, Osaka!” and we all meant it!

Hooking up with Japanese musicians was the heart of it. Souichirio and Yogakai, masters of Gagaku, Japan’s ancient court music, were absolute legends. They were running our Celtic musical instrument experience and our merch stand as well as playing the support slots. Joining them for Kimi Ga Yo, the Japanese national anthem, was magic. Kayo’s fiddle wove with their flutes, and I sang the vocal in my best Japanese. I don’t think I butchered it.

We recorded the Expo set live. When I listen back, I can hear the sheer relief and joy in it. That mix of “we made it” and “let’s give them everything we’ve got,” it’s plain to hear. That show pulled us closer together as a band. The road and the miles from Dundee and the work had been worth it.

Yogakai later took us for a Gagaku lesson, where they had us puffing on the Hichiriki, a bamboo double-reed flute which tickled my lips like a bee’s wing. The Ryuteki or Dragon flute, the hero’s instrument, was Sean’s favourite. He bought one, though his fiancée’s not thrilled about the noise. “Gagaku was brilliant! Love trying new gear!” he said. They let us wear traditional kimonos. I chose yellow because, aye, I’m a showoff. We banged Tsuri-daiko drums, their ceremonial beat feeling like the slow build in our reels but way more polished. Niall called it “the most Japanese thing we did.” It’s got us itching to mix those haunting melodies into our next tracks.

The gigs after Expo had their own flavour. At Stones in Kyoto, the crowd spilled into the street! Scots, Kiwis, Belgians, Americans mixing with locals, clapping and singing and shouting “I Love You!”. That’s Bruach, though. We get folk dancing, from Osaka to Oban. At one point, I was handed a “mega pint” of Guinness on stage. I tried to split the G, only to find it was in a Stella glass. Sacrilege! By the end of the night, there wasn’t a drop of Guinness left in the bar. We met a Scottish couple there, too, and it turned out I knew the guy’s uncle. Half a world away and still bumping into neighbours.

Tin’s Hall in Osaka was so cool. Goro from The Goro Band mirrored my every move like he’d been touring with us for years. Their ’50s rock ’n’ roll shapes were a show in themselves. We’re going to do a bit more of that. Meg had been our contact in The Goro Band, and when we realised that Sean wouldn’t be there for the duration, she sorted out bassists for the remaining dates. Then came the coup: Tetsuya Kajiwara from The Blue Hearts turned up. Not only that, he stayed for the whole show. Smashing out Train Train with him in the room was surreal. Kayo was starry-eyed for days.

The Enchant charity gig was another kind of special. Playing for neurodiverse kids hit home for me, as my son has ADHD/ASD. We ran ceilidh dances and the instrument experience with them. Some of them were right in there, but others needed a little encouragement. One kid saw a mosquito bite on my arm and made a buzzing sound, then said “Scratcha-scratcha!” No translation needed. Kayo thought I should join the dancing instead of calling it, but I’m a terrible dancer. Hopefully, my partner had fun, because he didn’t learn a step from me. Their smiles were everything. “Treasures I’ll carry,” Kayo said.

Japan is full of little bridges like that. Take Auld Lang Syne. They have a version of their own. Hotaru no Hikari is about time passing, which is in the same spirit as Burns. Some stations even play it for the last train of the night. When we played Auld Lang Syne at Expo, and the Japanese lyrics joined the Scots ones, it felt like a perfect circle. “During this trip,” said Kayo, “I made new friends, built new connections to Japan, and travelled with Bruach – my new family.”

Coming home, we didn’t want to lose that momentum. The Expo live recordings are being polished, with a bit more crowd sound mixed in. Highland Soldier will be the first release in early October. After that, we’re heading into the studio to record an EP including the Scots version of Train Train if we get permission. Maybe even some anime for fun, the Dan Da Dan theme is a banger.

We’re dreaming of a 2026 tour, but maybe we’ll just tour the West Coast of Scotland. If we do, the plan will be to reach some of the islands. We’re keeping the Japanese influence, Kayo has a Sho, and Sean’s Dragon flute. We want to incorporate them into some arrangements.

None of this would have happened without the people who backed us. So here’s the important bit: massive thanks to The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation and Japan Society of Scotland. Thanks to Tommy the Tomato Guy, Souichiro and the Yogakai crew, Goro and Meg and The Goro Band, and everyone who bought a pint or a t-shirt along the way.

Japan is in our blood now. Somewhere between the kilts and the kimonos, between The Atholl Highlanders and Sakura Sakura, we found a shared language. If you come to a Bruach gig, we’ll be happy to teach you a few words of it. And if you shout “Tomato!”, we’ll know exactly where you’ve been.

Bruach

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📷 Photo above by Nicky Murray

Let me tell you a little bit about Janey, the subject for the final track of this EP. Janey used to stick her head out of the car window in the backseat and sing at the top of her lungs into the wind, and the wind would wisp it away, carrying it right up into the ether the moment that the sound left her lips, as though it never happened. She and the wind had an understanding. The reality of this was that her parents were biting their tongue in the front seat wondering why their child was belting Tomorrow from Annie out of the window. You might have guessed already, but Janey is the term of endearment my mother used for me when I was younger based off of my middle name, Jane; this song is a letter to my past, present and future self all in one. It’s safe to say that Janey has come a long way from singing out of car windows, anyway.

Despite Janey’s shyness when it came to singing, I don’t remember her that way. In fact, I remember her to be quite boisterous at times, top of her class in character building, taught mostly by her two older brothers; she did everything with conviction and took to any task with not an inkling of self-doubt. At what point does all this change? Shouldn’t we simultaneously be gaining confidence and life experiences in equal measure? Self-confidence, of course, ebbs and flows. It happens to us like the seasons, and some seasons are harsher than others. This song is all about carrying that child-like lack of self-consciousness into adulthood, as well as being simply an ode to a memorable and carefree childhood, to which I will be ever grateful for.

“Oh Janey, the sun rises and sets with you,
Oh Janey, with what your mother and your father told you.
—
Oh Janey be but little she is fierce,
I carry less of her with every passing year,
She’s happy in her hand-me-downs, keeping up with her brothers,
Growing cleverer and kinder in the warm glow of the summer”

An extract from Janey, written by Heather Cartwright

My guitar style has shifted over the years. I come from a background in solo finger-style guitar, but since moving to Glasgow I have picked up more traditional styles of playing such as flat picking, which you can hear in the track, Haystacks. At the end, you can hear my first crack at using improvisation in a studio recording, as I’m usually more in the category of mapping out my parts in a lot of detail beforehand. I’d been implementing improvisation into my practice, often by just putting on a drone and improvising melodies over it and varying the keys each session, and I can really see how this has improved my fluency up the fretboard over time. The process with these things is really slow but really satisfying when it starts to pay off; I like that this track is now a snapshot into my development in this area of my playing. Haystacks is named after one of my favourite places in the Lake District, not too far from my home in Cumbria, and the march that comes before that is named Goodnight Glasgow, a tribute to my current home.

The Blackest Crow is a traditional Appalachian folk song, although its exact origins are unknown. It’s quite possible that it originated from older Scottish and English ballads and taken over to America by early settlers. Some of the lyrics were found in letters and diaries dating back to the American Civil War (1861-1865), indicating the song’s presence in America during this time. I think knowing that these lyrics of loss and separation resonated so deeply with people during the civil war, enough for them to write them in their war diaries, adds so much to the meaning of these words to me.

“As time draws near my dearest dear when you and I must part,
How little you know of the grief and woe, in my poor aching heart,
’Tis but I suffer for your sake, believe me dear it’s true,
I wish that you were staying here, or I was going with you”

An extract from The Blackest Crow, trad.

Video: Duo Version of The Blackest Crow

The themes of loss and separation drip down into the next track, Lost Lula, composed by Jason and Pharis Romero. According to an online forum, the tune was written for their dog that disappeared into the woods and never came back, hence the wandering nature of the tune. I am often drawn to old-time American melodies for their laid back, melancholy undertones, and very fortunately indeed, two of my good friends Josiah Duhlstine (cello) and Madeleine Stewart (fiddle) happen to be both brilliant and American and bring the perfect old-time feel to these tracks. The other musicians making my arrangements so special are Sam Mabbett (accordion), Dan Brown (piano), Beth Malcolm (vocals), Callum Convoy (Bodhran) and Chris Waite, who recorded and mixed this EP so beautifully.

Photo taken at Gran’s House Studio, September 2024 (left to right: Dan Brown, Sam Mabbett, Callum Convoy, Chris Waite)

EP cover: Lino print by Heather Cartwright 

The artwork is a three-layer Lino print which depicts the Blackest Crow and Lula meeting each other in the forest and finding companionship in each other. One of the things that isn’t necessarily obvious when you meet me but is obvious when looking at my creations is that I’m quite the romantic. I recently recorded a song of mine which is about the Mars Rover (Opportunity, 2004-2018), the details of which stopped me in my tracks. Opportunity was only predicted to live for three months but instead lived for fourteen years. The song talks of a lonely Mars Rover on an enormous planet all by himself who dreams about being best friends with Neil Armstrong – also pretty romantic, right? Keep your eyes peeled for that release later in the year.

In other news, I’m currently working on an album of guitar duets, each track featuring a different guitar player, with the intention of learning from and collaborating with some of my favourite players. Until then, my EP is available on Bandcamp.

www.heathercartwright.co.uk

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📷 Photos by Pip Graham-Bishop

Twenty years ago this January, I stepped into a journey whose full scope I couldn’t then imagine. The seeds were sown earlier, but the story began in earnest in 2006 when a grant from the Arts Trust of Scotland made it possible for the late Nigel Richard to prototype a keyless chromatic Scottish smallpipe chanter.

Nigel had already cracked the equivalent problem for border pipes. But smallpipes, being cylindrical, present different physical challenges. Still, he understood the principles — far better than I did at the time — and the prototype worked. I played it for six years, learning its possibilities.

It had a one-octave range, like most smallpipes. But I became curious: could that range be expanded, upward and downward, without adding keys?

I suspected that keywork had been largely rejected by Scottish pipers for good reasons — reasons rooted not just in aesthetics but in the tactile form of piping itself. Cylindrical reed instruments (like the clarinet or smallpipes) don’t naturally overblow into a second register the way conical ones (like the Uilleann pipes or saxophone) do. There’s a gap. To bridge it without disrupting the idiom — technically, ergonomically, musically — would take some doing.

So I began a quiet process of prototyping, always asking the same question: could this new design speak convincingly within the Scottish piping idiom? That meant judging every new note on its tone, its ergonomic placement, its role in the scale, and its implications for technique and repertoire.

By 2013, I’d discovered 3D printing. MakLab in Glasgow’s Lighthouse had just opened. One sunny afternoon, I watched the first Lindsay System prototype begin to emerge from the lab’s Ultimaker printer, using highlighter-green filament. Midway through, Glasgow saxophonist and tea-blender Martin Fell walked past, and leaned in to watch.

“What’s it making?” he asked.

“A chanter.”

He nodded, paused, and said in tones of awe:

“I’m looking at the future.”

He wasn’t wrong.

In 2014, a small Kickstarter campaign let me bring that future into our home. My wife Hannah, son Ryall (then 10yrs), and I watched the countdown from our kitchen in Pollok, South Glasgow. It was a moment of pure excitement, and possibility. By 2016, during Ryall’s October school break, the first fully playable Lindsay System chanter was born — stable, ergonomic, and tonally satisfying enough for professional use.

Blueprint: Draft drawing by Zexuan Qiao, based on models and data provided by Donald Lindsay. Originally typeset, colour graded, and published in Piping Today (issue 97).

That final prototype marked a turning point. During development I’d used the same handful of test phrases all that week — short sequences to explore the stability and voice of the extended range. That morning, when I came downstairs to the kitchen with the finished print, they didn’t just function. They sang.

The first phrase climbed into the second register, tentatively but with a keening clarity — reminiscent in timbre of the Uilleann pipes, though still bearing the grain and warmth of smallpipes. The second tumbled downward across the new low end, stepping in and out of the traditional scale like round, mossy stones in water. A tune formed. I played it round and round, almost surprised that it kept asking to be played. That tune became Chanter 2, later recorded with a band at the College of Piping in Glasgow. It’s still on YouTube.

From there, development shifted outward. The following year, in 2017, Piping Today published the first of five articles on the project, written by Elizabeth Ford, documenting the system’s evolution and outlining its potential. Two early prototypes — The Rainbow Set of Pollok and A Phìob Ghrianach — were formally added to the Museum of Piping’s permanent collection in 2019. That same year I handed over my teaching work at the National Piping Centre and left Scotland with my family to live on Ascension Island – a remote volcanic island outpost, in the mid South Atlantic.

There, I focused on consolidation: design iteration, tone work, reed design, and the beginnings of a formal method. I also continued collaborating remotely with Zexuan Qiao, a young designer and academic who I’d met in Glasgow, then based in UCL in London, now at Queen’s University Belfast. Together we developed LSC_PRINT&PLAY — a downloadable, home 3D-printable version of the chanter that’s still available via Thingiverse. Zexuan contributed significant refinements to the internal bore design, including proposing the square-bore variant that ensures relative consistency of diameters across different printers and materials. That file set has now been downloaded over 2,500 times worldwide.

In 2018, I’d invited, and remotely mentored Malin Lewis — then a student at the music school in Plockton — to build the first wooden version of the Lindsay System chanter. Malin has gone on to do incredible things with the chanter, in performances and recordings, including the soundtrack of The Outrun in 2024, and their debut album Halocline, in the same year.

Since moving to Orkney in 2021, I’ve kept development in progress, quietly in the background. Our time here has been a lot busier than on Ascension – we’re renovating a house, somewhat slowly, and I’ve established an electrical contracting business locally, providing a vehicle to apprentice my son. Meantime, the system has grown in scope and reach, while remaining rooted in its original aims: musical clarity, ergonomic form, and cultural shareability.

The system remains open-source. All designs are released under Creative Commons. This isn’t just idealism — it’s a structural choice. I believe that traditional instruments, like traditional music, belong most fully when they’re made available to others. That belief and trust has largely been met with care, generosity, and rigour by those who’ve engaged with the work.

Next year, 2026, marks two milestones: twenty years since the first prototype conversation with Nigel Richard, in the festival club during Celtic Connections 2006, and ten years since the system graduated from prototyping – to the sound of Chanter 2. I’m planning a modest series of events and teaching days to mark that time — not to celebrate an endpoint, but to affirm a threshold. The work now has community around it – many of whom have invested deeply in the instrument and the design – and the next decade will reveal how, where, and why it is taken forward.

For now, the instrument is speaking, and singing, and growing, and next steps in terms of design development, music, and community building are being planned.

Download the home 3D printable version of the chanter:
www.thingiverse.com/thing:4271780

Sign up to receive Donald’s newsletter and keep up to date with his 2026 plans here.

📷 Photo above by Nicky Murray

Fiddle players from across Scotland each bring their own regional styles and musical accents, but growing up in the middle of Glasgow, I never really felt like I had a geographical heritage or cultural lineage to belong to. Now, after a decade of following my fiddle round the world and studying degrees in Jazz and Classical violin, I’ve eventually started to settle into a comfortable voice that feels like home.

This process of discovery and self-acceptance has culminated in my debut solo release ‘Close’, an album which celebrates the vibrance and diversity of my upbringing and is rooted in the music of my family. It features performances alongside my mum, gran and auntie as well as three compositions by my late grandfather which, together with a handful of my own tunes, encompass the myriad influences which have come to form my own peculiar, 21^st-century fiddle tradition.

The record is performed on my great, great grandfather’s fiddle, an instrument that’s been passed down through our family for over a hundred years. Below are a couple of posters, advertising concerts in Glasgow at the turn of the last century featuring ‘Jack Hugo’ (his stage name) and “violin recitals by the Geddes Family”.  His grandson was my grandfather, John Maxwell Geddes, a contemporary classical composer and an inspiring educator. Some of my earliest memories are sitting with him, feet dangling below the piano stool, as he showed me round the magic of music and sound.

My granddad’s piece ‘Bartók on Byres Road’ was inspired by hearing a Hungarian busker playing on the same streets in which Bela Bartók stayed during his visit to Glasgow in 1933. The score is headed with a dedication: “to Roo plus any of his cellists” (referring to my mum, gran, auntie and sister) and is performed brilliantly on the album by his daughter – my auntie – Nicola Geddes.

Another of his compositions is an elusive creature I’ve had to temporarily name ‘Ane Fragment O His Ayn’: For as long as I can remember, a tiny, handwritten fragment of his music has hung in the hall of our home and recently, I opened the dusty old frame, hoping for a title or clue, but only found another slip of paper with his initials and a couple of delicate sketches of starlings. I’ve rifled through the archives and called up old composers the length and breadth of the country, but the origins of this one remain a mystery for now… And lastly the final track ‘Lullaby for Ruairidh’ is a short tune he wrote the day I was born which gradually diminuendos “al niente” as the music falls asleep.

Also on the album are two original tunes from my multi-talented mother, Trish Strain, and an arrangement of an ancient Gàidhlig air arranged for fiddle and piano with my gran Lily Geddes. It’s hard to put into words the feelings of connection and affirmation that arose from the chance to make music with them in this way: the immense privilege of having a shared fluency in a language as emotional and transcendent as music with the people you love.

None of us exist in isolation, least of all artists and musicians, and as I moved beyond conceiving of my first “solo release” as being centred around me individually and towards a more collective understanding of my music as something embedded within and growing from family and community, it felt increasingly honest and relevant.

Growing up in the city, and as one of the first generation to grow up with the internet, I had access to an incredible variety of musical cultures within a 15-minute cycle from my home. As a teenager I learned gypsy jazz from playing with Polish-Roma musicians in Clydebank and (with the help of a band-funded fake ID) could go to a trad session or pop/rock open mic night any night of the week. Even the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland was only a couple miles from home. I studied for five years as a traditional fiddle player before completing my undergraduate in classical violin and going on to be the first violinist to graduate from the Jazz Department for my Masters.

The rest of the album is comprised of little vignettes which nod to, and are grateful for, these many traditions which continue to inform and nourish my practice. Track 9, for instance is a retreat march, written in the pipe scale and littered with the idiomatic ornaments and intonations that I’ve grown to love from my exposure to Gàidhlig music. There are a couple tunes inspired by my time in Ireland and northern England, while the opening track conceals secret flirtations with the Indian raag Kaushik Dhwani between two jigs, borrowed from my study of Hindustani music with Glaswegian friends.

There are also compositions of my own which engage more directly with the more Classical sides of my upbringing, such as the ‘Partick Partita’, a work for solo violin that grew out of the  scales and mixed meters of ‘Bartòk on Byres Road’. Dancing across the full register of the instrument with fiery double-stops and intricate left-hand pizzicati, the tune is a technical nightmare – but a fun playground for some of the wilder techniques that have emerged in my playing over recent years.

The process of making the album was greatly helped by funding from the RCS’s ‘Make it Happen Fund’ which provides select funding to recent graduates to help with early-career projects. This enabled us to work with my favourite engineer the world over: Gus Stirrat at his Solas Studios. In four jam packed days we had recorded, mixed and mastered the entire album and I’m immensely grateful for his assiduous effort and boundless encouragement throughout the process.

For the artwork, I spent a morning touring some of the southside’s bonnie tenement closes with photographer extraordinaire Nicky Murray and his amazing analogue gear, before commissioning Glaswegian artist, and old school friend, Laurie O’Dowd to create and design the cover. Their creativity was incredible, and I couldn’t be happier with how the physical manifestation of the music came to life in their hands. One detail that I’m particularly fond of is how Laurie incorporated the tassel which hangs from the scroll of my fiddle for the design of the CD itself. Mum gifted me that tassel when I was a teenager, having worn it on her own fiddle for many years beforehand.

Once we had the physical copies at the end of April, we were ready to launch. We opted for the Partick Burgh Halls, a beautiful community centre run by the council that was built in 1872 and is just down the road from our house! Tickets were free and came with an unlimited supply of tea and biscuits. The date was set for the 8^th of May and soon gathered one of the warmest audiences I’ve had the pleasure of playing for. We ran the album in full, from top to bottom before lingering in the lovely atmosphere of the space for hours telling stories and catching up with one another. It was the perfect way to welcome this music into the world.

I’m continually delighted by the reception of the album, both at home and abroad. In the past couple weeks we’ve had radio stations in California, Alaska, Ireland, Spain and Aotearoa/New Zealand broadcast the tunes on the airwaves. I’ve even had a radio station in Mexico ask to play the tunes! Celtic Music Radio have us scheduled as ‘Album of the Week’ later in June and the Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann have invited us to launch the record in Ireland in August. This engagement is particularly heartening given that the album has been released entirely independently.

With the release of ‘Close’, I’m now formally a published solo artist, after over a decade of releasing music with bands and ensembles, and I can’t wait to do more! Touring commitments in Scotland, Spain and India have me fully booked until next year, but I’m hoping to pull together my first run of solo shows upon my return. This year sees the release of albums with ‘Roo & Neil’, ‘Awkward Family Portraits’, ‘Darach’, ‘Niamh Corkey’, ‘The Black Denims’, ‘Donald Lynsey’ and others, though I’m already excited to make a start on writing some more music and to see where we end up next! Thank you all for listening.

‘Close’ is available on bandcamp: roogeddes.bandcamp.com/album/close
Or email Roo directly for a physical copy: [email protected]

📷 Photos by Elly Lucas

Sometimes I procrastinate. During the recording and writing of Outsider book, my skills grew from that of an amateur dilly-dallyer to that of an Olympic level dawdler. The shed was well organised, the garden weeded and the record collections alphabetised. Rooms were repainted, cars hoovered and dogs walked to exhaustion. Not easy with Labradors. Social media posts were queued and multiple excuses were formed and delivered with the creativity and flourish one would expect from someone whose primary function is to make stuff up and sell it.

How did the Outsider project start? I was due to release a new record and, unsurprisingly, I didn’t have a focused idea yet. After It Is What It Is was released in 2021, Jen Anderson (The Bothy Society, Apex Music) was keen to release another of my albums alongside an album-book. I knew that it would be an expensive project and I knew that the deadline for Creative Scotland’s Crowdmatch project was approaching. I am very grateful that two of my previous albums (VIP: Very Interesting Persons and Glasgow) were crowdfunded through the generosity of my fans. I had lost the capital I’d saved to make the next album during lockdown so I hoped that the crowdfunder, with the additional support of Creative Scotland, would raise enough to help me fund this expansive and expensive project.

For the first time ever I had a lot of material to choose from. Forty five unrecorded songs in total. Thirty or so were in very good shape, the rest were fragments or abandoned works in progress. During lockdown I met Francesca de Valence who runs “I Heart Songwriting Club” – an online community of songwriters. She encouraged me to sign up and, due to the club’s song a week philosophy, I was writing more than ever. I added these weekly creations to everything that had been written and remained unrecorded over ten or so years right back to The Bar Room Mountaineers days. It would be unfair to give the impression that I write a song a week. Despite many attempts I have never managed to write a song a week. I think six weeks in a row is my current record.

Selecting which songs would appear on the album was a problem. Jen suggested that I type the titles into a spreadsheet and in the second column write down the themes which featured in each song. This took ages. Mostly because I added some extra columns: beats-per-minute, time signature, key signature, form, if a phone demo existed, if the lyrics were typed up, did I know the chords and what extra work they would require to finish them. I chipped away at this task over a number of weeks and slowly themes began to emerge from the chaos. I had “Man Child”, some political songs, a few anti-war songs and about twenty that fell into the categories of “Outsider in Love” and “Outsider in Life”. This was when I settled on Outsider.

Boo Hewerdine agreed to produce and one weekend he came over to Arran. We whittled the twenty-ish songs down to eighteen, wrote two more thereby whittling the total back up to twenty-ish. That weekend we also listened to a lot of music trying to figure out how the album could sound. I love a late nineties album by Richard Thompson called Mock Tudor. I like the mix between the roar of the full band and intimate acoustic tracks. I also liked the way that the album was divided into three sections: “Metroland”, “Heroes in the Suburbs” and “Street Cries and Stagewhispers”. Inspired by this idea the extended version of Outsider (which is only available with the book), you’ll see that the album has four extra tracks and is divided into “Outsider in Life”, “Outsider in Love” and “Outsiders”. The coincidence here is that based on the demos I’d sent to Boo, his blueprint for the album was Thompson’s Mirror Blue. That album features the same production team as Mock Tudor. We were on the same page from the start, right from the choice of personnel and studios to the final mixes.

Apart from the inevitable logistical juggling to line up diaries, the recording process was reasonably painless (which will be the title of my next album). I did two days with Chris Pepper at his Saltwell Studio and recorded all of the intimate tracks with Chris adding keys, bass and some strange and uncomfortable noises.

A few weeks later we took a band into Chem 19 and recorded all the band songs with Kevin McGuire on bass and Liam Chapman on drums in three days. I returned to Chem19 with engineer Jamie Savage a few weeks later and recorded final acoustic guitars and lead vocals on those tracks. That was only two days although the second day was at least thirteen hours long.

The final two days were just before Christmas 2023 at Angus Lyon’s Gran’s House studio in Lanarkshire. Karina Smillie came and sang backing vocals, Angus added some keys and some of the crowdfunders came for a studio hang and ended up singing on a couple of tracks. I had to leave the session early to catch the last boat from Ardrossan to Brodick. A storm was coming in and if I didn’t leave I wouldn’t have made it back home for Christmas. Exciting times.

In January 2024 we sent the tracks to Mark Freegard to begin mixing. And with that all in hand there was only the album-book to go. That wouldn’t take too long.

What is an album book? An album-book is a great idea in a world where most people stream music. Concert goers buy a lot less merch at the merch table, very few cars come with a CD player and the days of “£50 man” (the man who spent £50 in Fopp every Saturday, the target audience of magazines like Mojo, Word and Uncut) are far behind us. The idea behind the album-book is that while listening to an album on your streaming service of choice you can pour yourself a glass, stretch out on your sofa and read about the album you’re listening to. You can look at pictures and even use the augmented reality function to see video clips. While streaming one often has no idea of the song title, the story behind the song (very important in the world of folk songwriting), the musicians playing on the recording, where it was recorded let alone the make and model of guitar, the brand of strings or the gauge of plectrum (I use a 1mm TF 100 by Wegen). The album-book is an opportunity for an artist to take the sleeve notes of an album and extend them. In my case I extended them to a 154 page full colour coffee table book with augmented reality content.

The phrase “biting off more than I can chew” springs to mind. I am an eternal optimist so the reality of writing a book was far from my mind when I decided to do it. Fellow musicians take note that had it not been for Jen Anderson’s typesetting skills and the proofreading skills of Audrey Hewerdine and Ian Howe, crowdfunders of this project would still be waiting for their books and I would still be trying to figure out which hyphen to use.

This was my third crowdfunder so I knew that I had to take lots of photos and videos of the sessions to share with the funders. Even with that knowledge I didn’t take anywhere near enough for a coffee table book. Thankfully we had access to loads of photographs from Elly Lucas when she visited us in Chem 19 studio. Musicians, should you choose to go down the album-book route, you either need to be incredibly organised or you need to employ a photographer to document every part of the process, a proof-reader/editor and a typesetter. This I learned the hard way.

I will write it while I am away on tour. How hard can it be? It turns out driving the length and breadth of the UK, sound-checking, feeding myself, finding the hotel and repeating is not where I do my best writing. In fact it is not where I do any writing. I do a lot of listening and I get a lot of ideas for songs and things but no actual sitting at an open laptop typing in words took place. There was always some reason I couldn’t write. Too tired, too busy and tomorrow were the primary reasons.

On one tour I listened to John Higgs’ brilliant book The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band Who Burned a Million Pounds, their have-a-go attitude inspired me to at least get started. On a subsequent tour I listened to Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act: A Way of Being. I so wanted his book to be rubbish. I so wanted it to be filled with useless airy-fairy pseudo spiritual guff. It was neither of those things, in fact it was the turning point for all the writing I did despite featuring a gong between each chapter. Rubin’s book inspired me to take the short paragraph on songwriting Jen had asked for and to turn it into a proper deep dive into my techniques, finally setting down a lot of the things I talk about in workshops. I learned a lot about what I do simply by writing it down. I wrote a very silly thing about audio mastering which a few of my sound engineer pals have enjoyed. It is very niche but it was a pleasing thing to write. The book allowed me the space to write about things that I talk about with other songwriters and musicians. A load of interesting and amusing things that deserve to be shared with the general public but never make it out of the dressing room, the green room or the table in the corner of a bar after a show.

With the CD pressed, the book proofed and typeset it only remained to gather the augmented reality content. We have some great little films from the studio, a flick book of my original notebook where you can see the songs forming on the page, Elly Lucas’s entire cover photoshoot from the woods above Brodick and a whole lot of other interesting things. People who buy the book download an app and when they hold their phone or tablet over certain photographs they come to life. There’s even a little cartoon of my dog Floraidh and I running up the Fairy Glen. Over the course of the Outsider project I struggled with old technology like paper diaries and word processing packages so you can imagine that there were a few nail biting weeks waiting for the Fireside app to work. Poor Jen had the thankless task of testing each of the pieces of AR content on various old and new Android and Apple devices.

Thankfully Outsider is finally out, released at last on the 4th April on The Bothy Society label. I am now blundering in another landscape, the land of Whatnext. Despite being well trodden, Whatnext still remains completely unmapped. Many cartographers have tried but its ever changing features make it hard to translate into two dimensions. “Just make a list”, they say but that would involve sitting down for long enough to make a list.

Readers should note that this blog was delivered late because I believed (optimistically) that I would find time to write it while teaching at Adult Fèis Rois in Ullapool. Some people never learn.

Outside Album and Coffee Table Book available here.

📷 Photo above by Sandy Butler

Once upon a time, many years ago in late 2010 the committee of the Edinburgh International Harp Festival reached out to me with an exciting proposal: to craft a piece that would celebrate their 30th anniversary while also honouring the 80th anniversary of the Clarsach Society. This opportunity felt like serendipity, as the Clarsach Society had played an instrumental role in my own harp journey. I still remember the first harp I rented from them as an eager student and how every festival I attended continued to inspire me, opening my eyes to the rich variety of performances and music that comes together in Scotland.

A group of harpers at Cromarty Harp Village learning a section of the piece. Caroline, my mum, in the bottom right corner, the manager of The Cromarty Arts Trust. Photo CDH

With this new composition, I envisioned a sound palette that reflected the diversity of harpers who fill the Scottish music scene. I knew I wanted to spotlight players who not only showcased their individual talents but also actively contributed to shaping the musical landscape around them. I was seeking out musicians whose distinctive styles and memorable sounds made them stand out, and who were ready to collaborate honestly, drawing on both their musical intuition and previous experiences we’d shared.

One of the first names on my list was Mary Macmaster. I vividly recall meeting her at a Feis in Plockton when I was younger. There she was, a striking figure with a mohawk and a harp—she was simply the epitome of cool, and I thought to myself, “That’s who I aspire to be!” Years later, when we formed the trio “Shine,” I knew I had found my musical soulmate. Mary’s unique use of the electroharp creates a captivating depth, with big bass tones and a brilliant spangle of sound, especially when her nails dance across the wire strings.

Then there’s Wendy Stewart, a powerhouse of musical influence. Her ability to blend English, Scottish, Swedish, Cajun, Welsh, and other European folk styles into her performances is just so uniquely ‘Wendy.’ With roots tracing back to her mentor, Jean Campbell, she has become a steadfast member of the Clarsach Society, and her versatility shines through in her acoustic and electroharp playing.

I also couldn’t overlook Heather Downie, one of the most reliable harpers I’ve ever known, I trust her implicitly. As a former student, Heather has developed into a fantastic teacher herself, and her commanding presence on both acoustic and electroharp adds another layer of richness to our ensemble.

I fondly recall my first encounter with Bill Taylor many years ago when he moved to Strathpeffer near the Black Isle, where I lived. We met at Balnain House in Inverness, a beloved hub for musicians—complete with an immense shop selling everything a musician could dream of. Bill was playing local Ardival harps, and I shared my first ‘professional’ gig with him at the Highland Festival back in July 1994. His medieval wire-strung harp has a sonic depth that I absolutely adore, and he’s a demon in the intricate complexities of 9-dot dominoes.

Tristan Le Govic was another brilliant musician I connected with. He was a Breton harper living in Glasgow at the time. I had always been inspired by my travels to Brittany, playing in festivals like Lorient, Quimper, Dinan, St Malo. I realized I wanted to bring that light yet heavy Fest Noz dance groove into our music, a characteristic Tristan captures beautifully on his electroacoustic harp.

As I began composing, I drew inspiration from Eugene Field’s “The Oak Tree and the Ivy,” a whimsical story exploring the symbiotic relationship between the two plants. While the tale itself may not have aged gracefully, it sparked a deep curiosity in me about how we, as musicians, mirror nature in our own right, much like the wood, age, and craftsmanship of our harps—each unique as the players themselves. I wanted the piece to resonate with a cyclical feel, divided into four sections that reflect the changing seasons, intertwining themes of love, friendship, power, rage, loss, renewal, and hope.

Photo outside Main St during rehearsals

Our rehearsals took place in Pathhead, in our wee living room on the Main Street, where ten harps, six players, amplifiers, tables, leads, and extension cables converged in chaos. I still crease up at one particular rehearsal when Mary unceremoniously discovered not only had we ants coming in under the walls, but they were also making their way up her trouser leg.

We premiered the piece in April 2011, followed by a small, perfectly formed tour that took us through the Edinburgh Fringe, Cromarty, Dunblane, Celtic Connections 2012. We played in Lorient in August of that year with Dimitri Dimitri on wirestrung harp as Bill couldn’t make it, and Catriona McKay toured with the group magnificently when I was unable.

We have had the EIHF mass harps play sections of it, as well as mass harps in Cromarty Harp Village. Since that time, our composition has evolved, taking on a richer form that feels like second nature to us now. There’s something incredibly special about performing together—when musicians truly connect, the experience transcends the notes on the page.

Amid this journey, I faced a poignant blow when my mother, who had begun sketching designs for the album artwork, ran out of time to finish. It took me a long while to learn how to live with that loss, but the onset of COVID-19 restrictions ignited a fierce determination within me to complete the recording as a testament to our music and memories. I resolved to save up and create the artwork myself, transforming that longing creatively.

The Celtic Connections show in January 2025 marked a turning point for the piece, helping it find its true shape. I had the opportunity to intertwine my voice over Dave Milligan’s piano, weaving melodies from the various sections together. His contributions lent a delicious depth to the album, capturing moments of magic that we all cherished.

The recording itself took place through 2022 at Castlesound Studios in Pencaitland, a space I’ve loved working in for years. Although we couldn’t all all be there together at the same time—juggling schedules proved to be a challenge—we made the most of our time there, allowing Stuart Hamilton to skillfully handle the many harps, bringing my vision to life.

I truly love the recording process, and although I am truly terrible at the promotional side of things, I am glad to have it out there now. I’m glad to share the journey behind “Song of Oak and Ivy” with you, and a wee bit of our collective experiences that have shaped this piece into what it is today. Thanks to Hudson Records for taking on the distribution.

https://corrinahewat.bandcamp.com/album/song-of-oak-and-ivy
https://propermusic.com/products/corrinahewat-songofoakandivy
Cat No: BBRCD020

Corrina Hewat

Instruments:
Corrina Hewat – Camac Ulysse harp, Camac Electroharp
Heather Downie – Camac Aziliz harp, Camac Electroharp
Wendy Stewart – Klangwerkstatt Bohemian Harp, Camac Baby Blue
Tristan Le Govic – Camac Mélusine
Mary Macmaster – Camac Electroharp, wire strung harp
Bill Taylor – Ardival wire strung clarsach
David Milligan – Steinway piano

Recorded, mixed and mastered by Stuart Hamilton
at Castlesound Studios, Pencaitland – castlesound.co.uk
Photograph of performers taken at the EIHF 2022 by Chantal Guevara chantal.photo
Artwork by Corrina Hewat – corrinahewat.com
CD design by Dave Milligan at Van Gill Media – vangillmedia.com
Printed by Akcent Media – akcentmedia.com

📷 Photos by Jannica Honey

How did someone’s painful arm become a four year music project exploring the many moments of a woman’s life that are usually experienced in silence?

It was mid-COVID times. My partner, an incredibly strong woman who I was used to seeing endure trials and tribulations way beyond any I could stand, lost it. She was experiencing frequent, excruciating pain in her arm that stopped her in her tracks and made her cry out with the intensity. The doctor and the physio declared she had a ‘frozen shoulder’, and gave her some exercises she did with great dedication. No explanation for why this dreadful thing had suddenly arisen.

No-one mentioned the menopause.

If there ever was a time that women of all ages gathered and passed the wisdom of their experience from one generation to another, that time is not now. Instead of hearing from people who’ve been there before, my partner and I and most women around us grew up talking to our peers about issues – and they were no more clued up than us. That is if we talked about the issues at all. There seemed to be so many things that none of us did talk about: periods, sex, the menopause, all the many life changing experiences so many of us went through around the childbearing cycle, like abortion, miscarriages, not having children, not wanting to be a mother. Somehow, without anyone saying anything, we all knew not to speak openly about our experiences of such matters.

That’s how taboos work.

When I found out through a friend that frozen shoulders are strongly linked to the menopause, I was stunned. Why hadn’t anyone mentioned that? When I really thought about the matter, I saw two things: that relevant and vitally important information about all manner of female experience doesn’t get passed down from one generation to another. And two, that something that pervaded these subjects was shame.

And shame, I saw, brought silence, and silence brought isolation.

So we’d ended up with this insane situation: many many women all experiencing similar things, in need of support and community, and no-one feeling able to say anything.

I asked myself what, if anything, could I do? There seemed one very simple action: get people together to talk. Women of all ages, across the generations. I put a call out on social media inviting women to an online discussion about the menopause. This was before Davina McColl and her Channel 4 documentary, when menopause wasn’t as out in the open as it is now. I was amazed by how many women wanted to come. Too many – we had to have 2 different sessions.

I learned more about the menopause that day than in all my years. This gathering women of all ages together thing seemed to work. What else did we need to talk about?

I thought about my own life. What might help me to discuss with other women? Perhaps the fact that I don’t have children? I put another post online: would any women like to come together and talk about not having children?

Again, massive interest. Again, massive learning. I seemed to be onto something here.

What has any of this to do with music? As someone who lives, breathes and thinks song, I started to wonder whether there were any folk songs written about not having kids. I knew plenty about mothering (think of all the lullabies), songs about the plight of single mothers, but what about childless women? Online research brought nothing. I reached out to that stalwart of female folk song knowledge, Peggy Seeger, and asked if her she knew of any. She said absolutely, categorically no. There weren’t any.

So of course I had to write one.

And so began a process that has now resulted in an album and a ‘live gig experience’, The Elephant In The Womb.

Twelve songs and a two-hour show followed by a discussion. The show was developed in conjunction with survivors of various traumatic experiences and aims to use the unifying power of communal singing to bring connection and community to aspects of our lives previously experienced alone. Think gig-meets-folk-club singalong plus.

It features three genres: traditional song (or songs in a traditional style), ‘medicine music’ – gentle songs to soothe and comfort – and my own genre, ‘mad trad’, which sees me using a loop pedal to layer up multiple vocal harmonies and rhythms, still grounded in the folk song tradition. And I get somewhat creative with percussion too.

All are welcome to the show. The most common word people have used to describe their experience of the project so far is ‘inspired.’ People laugh and cry, which I personally think is a great combination. It gets people thinking, and talking, and singing. And, crucially, for any woman who wants to continue exploring these issues and experiencing community around them, there are ways to stay in touch beyond the gig.

The album is released mid-March, and is followed by a tour.
www.joaniebones.com/the-elephant-in-the-womb

📷 Photo by Alleksana Photography

For any artist, the creation of an album is a journey – one that often takes unexpected turns and reveals itself gradually. Fable, my latest album, was no exception. What began as a collection of songs I felt deeply connected to evolved into a cohesive exploration of Scottish folklore, history, and identity. The theme wasn’t apparent at the start, but as the songs came together, a narrative unfolded – one woven from the myths, landscapes, and voices of Scotland.

The Stories Behind Fable

Scotland has always been a land of storytellers, where history is passed down through song, poetry, and oral tradition. I wanted Fable to reflect this, drawing from both traditional and original material to create something that feels timeless yet personal. The songs largely stem from Gaelic and Scots folklore, while others capture contemporary experiences through a folkloric lens. I also wanted the album to encapsulate my love for Scottish Gaelic, Scots, and writing my own songs – something I’ve done since my days with Barluath. My gigs have always been eclectic, representing the living and breathing tradition of songs and stories, and I think this album captures that spirit – eclectic, unafraid to explore, and a true reflection of my personality through music and performance.

One song that exemplifies this is Machir Bay, inspired by Islay’s rugged beauty and adventure, but it is a big sing – probably the biggest sing I have recorded on a solo record, which is exciting, I’m very proud of this track. Another track that exemplifies the eclecticness of the record is The Angels’ Share, that explores Scotland’s connection to whisky. Like quite a lot of Scotland’s legends and traditions (we’re thinking Nessy here), it’s often dismissed as a shortbread tin cliché, but for me, it is far from that. Nearly all my family has worked in the whisky industry across different sectors – it is part of the lifeblood of Scottish tradition, something I have grown up with. The album also incorporates old legends and songs such as The Cailleach and Cumha an Eich-Uisge, further weaving folklore into the music. Some of the songs come from the Tolmie Collection, which I co-edit alongside my longtime friend and teacher, Kenna Campbell.

I also decided to take a completely different turn and include a Gaelic translation of Nina Simone’s Sinnerman. Arranging this was incredibly challenging – it had to retain the epic energy of the original while becoming something new and uniquely ours. My incredible band played a huge role in bringing it to life: Alistair Iain Paterson, Sam Kelly, Toby Shaer, Signy Jakobsdottir, Euan Burton (on the recorded version), and Manny Clarke (live). Some might say it leans into jazz, others might call it a bit pop—but that’s the beauty of music, right? It makes each of us feel something different, whether that’s excitement, nostalgia, or something else entirely. Sinnerman fits into the overarching theme of Fable as a tale of reckoning and consequence, much like the Scottish ballads and myths woven throughout the album. Though originally an African American spiritual, its themes of fate and desperation felt familiar to me within Gaelic storytelling. Translating it into Gaelic and reimagining the arrangement made it feel like part of my own tradition—honouring the past while making it something new and personal.

Additionally, I included What Can a Young Lassie, a Burns song, and Leave Her Johnny, a sea shanty – both of which I learned during my time at RCS and performed with Barluath in live gigs 15 years ago when we first started out. These are songs that have been a part of me for so long, deeply influencing me at the time, yet I had never recorded them until now. This album spans a huge period in my life, capturing songs that have been in my ether for many years, making their way into this collection at last.

Choosing the Right Musicians

An album’s sound is as much about the musicians as it is about the songs. For Fable, I knew I wanted to work with people who not only understood traditional music but could bring something fresh to the arrangements. Sam Kelly, who produced the album, was a natural choice – his musical sensitivity and storytelling instincts aligned perfectly with the vision for the record. Toby Shaer’s ability to weave flute and guitar seamlessly into the arrangements added depth, while Alistair Iain Paterson’s piano and harmonium grounded the album in a rich, evocative soundscape. And with Signy Jakobsdottir’s percussive textures, the heartbeat of the album truly came to life.

Thematic Evolution

At the outset, I didn’t set out to create a concept album, but as the songs took shape, a theme became clear – one of Scotland’s stories, its people, and their connection to place. Each track, whether rooted in tradition or my own writing, ties into this overarching idea. Fable isn’t just a collection of songs; it’s a sonic tapestry of the past and present, a celebration of the voices that continue to shape Scottish music and identity.

The Physical Album and Trends

This is the first time I’ve produced vinyl, and I feel terribly trendy for it – hahaha! But in all seriousness, it’s exciting and new for me. It’s important to look at what is selling in different audience demographics, and with a younger audience and standing gigs, vinyl is much more popular. CDs, on the other hand, tend to do better at sitting gigs. While this isn’t always the case, I’m so pleased that physical sales are being encouraged. The physical product is really important to me – I put so much thought and effort into the artwork, working with Silverlace Creative, as well as the blurbs, lyrics, and English translations of the Gaelic songs. I absolutely love a sing-along when I get a new album, and I wanted to ensure listeners could properly learn the songs. The notes are also a valuable reference for those studying Gaelic and those wanting to dive deeper into the inspiration behind the music.

The Reality of Funding an Album

This album has been mostly self-funded, and I won’t sugarcoat it – it can be quite the burden. I’ve had to take things slowly, methodically, and allow myself time to think and rest when needed. It’s taken me a year to release this album from when I first started recording. The only funding I was able to secure was from Urras, a Gaelic fund that covered the PR campaign after the release, which was incredibly helpful. It’s something worth discussing openly – making albums independently is a huge undertaking, and it’s important for artists to share their realities without discouraging others from pursuing their own projects.

Looking Ahead

Celtic Connections has now come and gone, and Fable is out in the world. I’m excited to be heading on tour across England to promote the album in February and March – Scotland later in the year. You can check out my tour dates here. If you enjoy the album, I’d love for you to follow me on Spotify, and if you’d like to support my music further, the physical CD and vinyl are available to buy now: www.ainsleyhamill.com

Supporting your favourite artists makes a huge difference, and while I used to shy away from saying it, I now realise how important it is to let people know the best ways to help. Folk music is a community, and people genuinely want to support artists – they just sometimes don’t know how. Whether it’s buying a physical copy, streaming, or coming to a gig, every bit of support matters.

Thank you for coming on this journey with me. Fable is an album I’m incredibly proud of, and I hope it resonates with you as much as it does with me. Let’s keep the stories, songs, and tradition alive – after all, that’s what folk music is all about.

“You’re so lucky to play music”

The poignant song ‘Everything is free’ by Gillian Welsh skilfully captures a dynamic where we as musicians can be damned when faint praise replaces a full appreciation of worth. It can feel that the glistening tip of the iceberg is sometimes the only aspect appreciated by even loyal fans.

Anyone involved in music though will surely recognise that it takes conviction, passion, a sense of vocation and a dose of bravery to achieve the recognition and commercial success that many of us require for our practice to be sustainable to us.

These are themes that recur in discussion with my MA Music and the Environment students. These students tend to be established practicing musicians from a variety of genres and distributed across many time zones in different countries. This imperative to convey the full ‘iceberg’ of value that our music truly represents is not confined to just the UK.

The recent Scottish ratification of the UNESCO Convention for the safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage and numerous reports detailing the benefits of music at the societal and economic realms do not seem to protect the sector from funding cuts and demoralising news of valued institutions falling by the wayside. Yet, Scottish traditional groups have sold out large venues from the OVO Hydro in Glasgow to Carnegie Hall in New York.

So, to embark on any musical journey without a visible destination there needs to be a sense of conviction and bravery to invest our cherished time and energy in developing and honing our practice despite the difficulties.

“Walk on air against your better judgement” as the poet Seamus Heaney implored of us as his epitaph.

My University of the Highlands and Islands colleague Professor Roxanne Permar introduced me to the work of Martinican poet and philosopher Édouard Glissant and his work on Archipelagic Thinking. Rhizomatic, without centre, shared identity and values can bond and facilitate collaboration between disparate though connected islands.

This metaphor resonated with the reality of my MA students who successfully collaborate and create music online though often without meeting in person. Bonds and common cause can be found as a basis for group creativity demonstrating adaptability, resilience and shared appreciation for the value of music in and of itself.

To celebrate the wonderful outputs of this cohort we will meet in person in a public event on Wednesday 15^th January to showcase this and other work in The Bungalow in Paisley.

Feel free to join us to explore these themes and find out more about what this course can offer, and you can also watch the event on the venues Facebook page either at the time or afterwards.

https://www.uhi.ac.uk/en/courses/ma-music-and-the-environment/