Traditional Scottish Music
Scotland's has a rich heritage of folk music and dancing that have been preserved with recordings and documents of manuscripts and tunes.
Scottish people keep their tradition alive with many festivals and celebrations, and celtic music and dances are popular all over the world. Scotland is famous for its traditional dancing, and especially for step-dancing.
Useful Sites
ScottishDance.Com
Highland Dance.Com
Celtic Instruments
Bagpipe
The Bagpipe, or in "piob-mhor" in Gaelic, did not actually originate in Scotland but is known as the Scottish national instrument. There are several types of Scottish bagpipes: the best known are the Highland Pipes that are very loud and powerful instruments. The chanter is usually pitched in Bb, but the music is written in A.
Clarsach
Scottish folk harp an be seen in stone carved images from around the 9th century. The clarsach was enjoyed by Celtic aristocratic families, often together with Celtic poetry. The main difference between the clarsach and harps from elsewhere in Europe was that the clarsach has metal strings.
Tin Whistles
The tin whistle is a vertical fipple-flute. The first tin whistles of the 1800's were rolled plates of tin with a wooden block in the mouthpiece carved to form the fipple. Modern tin whistles are made of metals including nickel-silver, brass and aluminum and have a range of two octaves.
Scottish Smallpipes
In the past, small pipes existed in Scotland in various forms. They are a quiet chamber instrument with a warm woodwind timbre and date from the early 1700's. Scottish Small Pipes were developed as an option for indoor performances of Highland music.
Bodhar Drums
This traditional percussion instrument takes its name from the celtic word 'Bodhar'. It is played by hitting the skin with the "tipper" or "beater" briskly while the other hand presses the back of the drum skin.
Useful Sites
Bagpipes-Henderson.com
