The changing nature of conceptualisation and authenticity among Scottish traditional musicians : Traditional music, conservatoire education and the case for post-revivalism
- Submitting institution
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Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 2860276
- Type
- C - Chapter in book
- DOI
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- Book title
- Understanding Scotland Musically : Folk, Tradition and Policy
- Publisher
- Routledge
- ISBN
- 1138205222
- Open access status
- -
- Month of publication
- -
- Year of publication
- 2018
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- The education landscape for traditional music in Scotland has evolved pedagogically, commercially and professionally since RCS established specialist degree study in Scottish traditional music in 1996. This ‘mainstreaming’ of traditional music over the past generation has led to greater expressions of confidence, external-facing eclecticism and fusion in contemporary Scottish traditional music. This in turn has led young exponents’ notions of authenticity and value to coalesce increasingly around the sonic – around performance practice itself – and less on the cultural contexts of traditional music on which the Conservatoire’s degree programme was founded.
Drawing on stakeholder surveys, focus groups, comparative review of relevant degree curricula and a literature review, my article explores the porosity and hybridity that are establishing themselves as hallmarks of Scottish traditional music; it also considers how these issues have transformed provision in Scotland’s national conservatoire.
I argue that we have arrived at an impasse in the flowering of the volksgeist that fed traditional music scholarship and performance aesthetics in Scotland; an impasse in which commodification, deterritorialism and mass mediation have effected a shift away from the political and essentialist agendas of the 20th century folk revival movement. In turn, there is a need to shift pedagogical thinking and practices in higher music education from the revivalist educational objectives of the 20th century to what could be described as the post-revivalist educational objectives of the 21st.
The article was the basis of the keynote lecture of the inaugural 'Pedagogies, Practices & the Future of Folk Music in Higher Education' international conference (Glasgow, 2018). It is highlighted in a review of the anthology by James MacMillan for the Scottish Review, and has informed the design of the folk degree programme at Leeds Conservatoire.
The co-editor of the parent volume was the first PhD graduate of the Conservatoire, in 2005.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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