An online learning resource showing key printed collections of traditional music and song since the Early Modern period. Includes short collector biographies, information on historical context and links to audio/visual material and facsimile editions of collections.;xNLx;
Stationers' Company gain exclusive rights to all printing in England. Ballads not explicitly included until 1637.
Musician, music theorist and collector of canons, rounds, street cries and ballads.
James VI of Scotland becomes James I of England uniting the Scots and English monarchies.
Enter story info here
Enter story info here
Enter story info here
A cartel or 'conger' of leading publishers: a group of six publishers: Cuthbert Wright, John Wright, Edward Wright, John Grismond, Thomas Pavier and Henry Gosson.
Enter story info here
Enter story info here
Enter story info here
England is governed by a series of republican governments.
Playford's collection of 'country dances', with instructions and tunes. Registered with Stationer's company, first edition 1651 - in print until 1738.. Follow the link for an online facsimile of the first edition.
Enter story info here
Charles II restores Stuart dynasty to British throne.
Enter story info here
Nobber, Co. Meath
Limits removed on printing - no longer need to be licensed to Stationers Company.
Henry Playford, son of John Playford, publishes a collection of Scots dance tunes. Much of the material is part of a common stock shared by both England and Lowland Scottish musicians.
Enter story info here
Enter story info here
Crail, Fife.
Politician, court poet and classical scholar, Addison (May 1, 1672 – June 17, 1719) writes, 'an ordinary song or ballad that is the delight of the common people, cannot fail tp please all such readers as are not unqualified for the entertainment by their affectation of ignorance'. (Quoted in Kidson and Neal 1915, 3).
Enter story info here
Ramsay 'a founder member of the Jacobite Easy Club in 1712, became its acknowledged 'laureate', and immersed himself in the 'old racy vernacular ditties' which were enjoyed by the capital's 'middle and lower classes' in private, as part of a gesture of defiance against 'the repressive tendencies of the Kirk', and against the strange tradition of Latin versifying which dominated seventeenth century Scots polite culture.' (Harker 1985, 9).
Browse through a facsimile edition here:
Compiled from old broadsides found in the stores of commercial ballad sellers.
A collection of songs to be sung or read in fashionable company - dedicated to 'ilka lovely British lass'.
Includes tunes by Carolan.
Follow up to the Tea-Table Miscellany aimed at a predominantly male audience: 'any SCOTS Man, who despises the Fopery of admiring nothing but what is either new or foreign, and is a lover of his Country' (Harker 1985, 10).
A Scots Pastoral that transfers 'Arcadia' to the Scottish Lowlands. Suggests that rustic ignorance (and the culture of witch hunting) could be cured by education.
Uses without attribution a large portion of Ramsay's Miscellany - hugely popular in London market. Gives traditional airs arranged for flute and bass accompaniment. The collection also attributes several tunes to David Rizzio, the Italian courtier murdered as the suspected lover of Mary Queeen of Scots in 1566. This attribution is removed in a later edition of 1733.
Inver, Perthshire
First ballad opera - hugely successful. Offsets the simple and straightforward 'British' character of the ballad tune against the artificial trend for Italian music in London. Spawsn a number of imitators, including a ballad opera version of Ransay's Scots' pastoral The Gentle Shepherd.
One of a small number of collections highlighting the notion of a shared 'British' common melodic mood - linked to national charcater set agaisnt European influences (particularly the Itialian hegemony.
Enter story info here
Published Edinburgh. First collection of Scots Tunes to include Gaelic titles. alongside Lowland repertoire.
Oswald's follow up to Curious Collection of Scots Tunes attaches the name of David Rizzio to several tunes - at a time when anti-Italian sentiment runs high. Backlash ensues.
Prohibits 'Highland Dress' such as the kilt, except in the army. Response to the Jacobite uprisings of 1689-1746.
William Marshall 27 December 1748 – 29 May 1833 Born in Fochabers, Banffshire, in the North East of Scotland Served the Duke of Gordon and his wife for most of his life. He published two collections in his lifetime, and one was published posthumously: “A Collection of Strathspey Reels with a Bass for the Violoncello or Harpsichord” in 1781, “Marshall's Scottish Airs, Melodies, Strathspeys, Reels, &c. for the Piano Forte, Harp, Violin & Violoncello” in 1822, and “ Volume 2nd of a Collection of Scottish Melodies Reels Strathspeys Jigs Slow Airs &c. for the Piano Forte, Violin and Violoncello” in 1855.
Joseph Ritson born Stockton-on-Tees, Co. Durham.
A collection of Scots and English Ballads - inspiraton for Percy's cultural 'union' in 'Reliques'
Enter story info here
Enter story info here
Enter story info here
knebworth, Herts.
Fergusson indicates a shift from a funtional to an origins based definition in his poem, writing: Now foreign sonnets bear the gree, And crabbit queer variety, Of sound fresh srpung frae Italy, A bastard breed! Unlike that saft-tongu'd melody, Which now lies dead.
First use of the term 'volkslied'.
Coalisland Co. Tyrone, Ireland
{raises Italian composers but argues that 'a Scots song can only be sung in taste by a Scottish voice'. Dismisses notions that Scots music owed its origin to an Italian (Rizzio) arguing instead, like Lord Kames, for Tassoni's claim that James I (1394-1437) was in fact the originator of the style.
We'd love to hear from you. Please send questions or feedback to the below email addresses.
Before contacting us, you may wish to visit our FAQs page which has lots of useful info on Tiki-Toki.
We can be contacted by email at: hello@tiki-toki.com.
You can also follow us on twitter at twitter.com/tiki_toki.
If you are having any problems with Tiki-Toki, please contact us as at: help@tiki-toki.com
Close