Community-based Traditional Music in Scotland

Josephine L. Miller is an ethnomusicologist and community musician based in Scotland. Her main research interest is the transmission of traditional music. She holds an MLitt from the University of Edinburgh and a PhD from the University of Sheffield. In 2017, she received the Hamish Henderson Award for Services to Traditional Music at the MG Alba Scots Trad Music Awards.

"In this deft and convincing study, Josephine Miller sets out to describe the process by which traditional music is being taught and learned in community settings in Scotland in the twenty-first century. This is achieved through a nuanced layering of extant educational theory and ethnographic data gathering, including interviews, observations, and detailed, thick descriptions of the setting… There are chapters here that provide an opportunity for the interested folk musician, whether learner or tutor, to reflect on and inform their own practice. And for those making any kind of study of post-revival folk music education the book can be added straight to the list of compulsory reading."Matt Price, Folk Music Journal

• List of Figures List of Music ExamplesAcknowledgements Preface Learning and teaching traditional music: Refocusing the questions IntroductionTransmission and enculturation ‘Traditional’ musicCommunity-based settingsA ‘non-formal’ setting?Communities of practiceMasters and apprenticesFamilyOral tradition and music literacySocialisation Researching the case studyMethods and ethicsNotes ‘A passport into a community’: Setting the scene Learning and teaching: the revival and post-revival contextsLearning and teaching: formal education‘Take off’: community-based organisations Introducing Glasgow Fiddle Workshop Locality: a sense of place Introducing the tutorsGFW in a stylistic community of practiceNotes ‘I’m a better learner now’: In the classJoining a classLearning the shared skillsLearning and teaching a tuneThe role of listeningPlaying it throughVarying, ornamenting and arranging tunesDealing with notationChoosing repertoire Notes ‘Actually doing it’: Participating in performanceParticipation or presentation?GFW sessionsSlow session and pre-class warm-upPrepare for the pub Very slow session Islay Inn sessionConcerts Cèilidh dances Member-led groupsNotes ‘You can make it your own’: Individual musical trajectories and organisational constraintsEncouraging agency at GFWSelf-directed learningMaking progress: reflecting on learning ‘Expressing’ the tune‘Learners’ and ‘musicians’Music as leisure and levels of involvementNon-participation and dissentMusical trajectories beyond GFWNotes ‘A sense of who we are’: Creating a musical identity A GFW identityA community-based identityA traditional music identityTensions and boundaries: ‘who we are’ vs. ‘who we are not’Notes Community-based learning and teaching: Towards a pedagogy of participation Learning and teaching traditional music in a post-revival landscapeThe ethos of the ‘community-based’ organisationRepertoireTutorsLearning and teaching practices: between participatory ethos and individual musical trajectoryConclusion: A pedagogy of participation