0:00:04 > 0:00:06Welcome to our exhibition.
0:00:06 > 0:00:09During the next half hour, we shall show short excerpts
0:00:09 > 0:00:13from films and tapes in the video archives of the School of Scottish Studies.
0:00:13 > 0:00:16GAELIC WAULKING SONG
0:00:31 > 0:00:35In 1951, a new department of the University of Edinburgh,
0:00:35 > 0:00:41the School of Scottish Studies, was created to record the culture,
0:00:41 > 0:00:46customs, folklore, songs and stories of Scotland.
0:00:46 > 0:00:50It was about going out with tape recorders - people like Hamish Henderson
0:00:50 > 0:00:53and Calum Maclean, the early field workers of the School -
0:00:53 > 0:00:56Going round the country into real people's homes,
0:00:56 > 0:00:59looking at real people's lives and their cultural traditions.
0:00:59 > 0:01:02Over the past 60 years,
0:01:02 > 0:01:05thousands of recordings have been added to the archive.
0:01:05 > 0:01:10So you can see there are racks and racks of open reels here.
0:01:10 > 0:01:14It's a vast archive and it's quite exciting and really overwhelming
0:01:14 > 0:01:17when you go to visit it.
0:01:17 > 0:01:20Edinburgh University's School Of Scottish Studies
0:01:20 > 0:01:23has a small staff of wandering scholars
0:01:23 > 0:01:28whose life work is studying and collecting items of the country's folklore.
0:01:28 > 0:01:31Here are two of them now.
0:01:31 > 0:01:38There was always this sort of great suspicion about what were these guys up to and what was their agenda.
0:01:38 > 0:01:4260 years on, the School is still researching and collecting.
0:01:42 > 0:01:46Tiber Falzett is a PhD student at the School,
0:01:46 > 0:01:50who has been meeting with Rona Lightfoot
0:01:50 > 0:01:53to learn from her about traditions of piping and song.
0:01:55 > 0:02:01Many of Rona's family were also visited by the School's early researchers on South Uist.
0:02:03 > 0:02:08My mother was recorded, my dad was recorded, my grandmother
0:02:08 > 0:02:11and my uncle, my mother's uncle and my grandmother's brother.
0:02:11 > 0:02:16Absolutely fond memories. I will never ever forget it.
0:02:16 > 0:02:18Never.
0:02:18 > 0:02:22GAELIC SONG
0:02:30 > 0:02:33We have thousands of hours of recordings here.
0:02:33 > 0:02:38Songs, music, stories, rhymes, verse, descriptions of way of life,
0:02:38 > 0:02:43descriptions of crafts, of processes, weather lore,
0:02:43 > 0:02:47customs, beliefs, all sorts of things that have been collected.
0:02:49 > 0:02:54As you can see it's alpha-numeric and it's a way of referencing
0:02:54 > 0:02:59the material so that you can search either by index card here
0:02:59 > 0:03:02or on the computer database.
0:03:02 > 0:03:05There's no perfect system because anyway,
0:03:05 > 0:03:11how you classify something it's, I think, quite idiosyncratic in a way.
0:03:11 > 0:03:16People classify things in their own minds in slightly different ways.
0:03:16 > 0:03:19It's interesting because when you look through it,
0:03:19 > 0:03:21you get distracted by something else that you think
0:03:21 > 0:03:24might be more interesting that what you looked for originally.
0:03:24 > 0:03:28'Chap at the doory, peep in, lift the sneck, walk in.
0:03:28 > 0:03:30'Take a chair, sit doon.
0:03:30 > 0:03:34'Good morning to you, sir.'
0:03:34 > 0:03:39SONG IN SCOTS DIALECT
0:03:55 > 0:04:02'This individual's apparition would appear along their side and they wouldnae be frightened
0:04:02 > 0:04:05'and maybe walk a piece with them and then disappear down through the ground.'
0:04:05 > 0:04:10GAELIC SINGING
0:04:20 > 0:04:25The project, a new town in the heart of Fife, to house the men...
0:04:25 > 0:04:29After the Second World War, it seemed that Britain was becoming
0:04:29 > 0:04:32increasingly homogenous.
0:04:32 > 0:04:36Many felt that in the TV age, the differences between the Scots,
0:04:36 > 0:04:40the English, Welsh and Northern Irish were becoming less marked.
0:04:40 > 0:04:44A cultural sameness was creeping across society.
0:04:44 > 0:04:48Things were becoming diluted, watered down.
0:04:49 > 0:04:54And so the School of Scottish Studies was set up to collect
0:04:54 > 0:04:58and preserve our traditional ways of life, before they vanished forever.
0:04:58 > 0:05:00SONG IN SCOTS DIALECT
0:05:20 > 0:05:22The School was set up in 1951.
0:05:22 > 0:05:24It was closely modelled on the Irish folklore commission
0:05:24 > 0:05:28which was set up in 1935 and that in turn had been modelled
0:05:28 > 0:05:30on Uppsala University in Sweden.
0:05:30 > 0:05:34And these were, if you like, the mother and father
0:05:34 > 0:05:36of the School of Scottish Studies.
0:05:36 > 0:05:38Their workers and their leaders were very influential,
0:05:38 > 0:05:40very helpful, coming across here
0:05:40 > 0:05:42and helping the early members of the School set up.
0:05:42 > 0:05:47The man who had the vision, supported by others, including
0:05:47 > 0:05:52a number of people, who were his friends, Professor Angus McIntosh,
0:05:52 > 0:05:56had worked during the war period at Bletchley Park,
0:05:56 > 0:05:57he had been part of that team
0:05:57 > 0:06:00of people recruited from lots of different backgrounds.
0:06:00 > 0:06:05To help break enemy codes, you had at Bletchley Park, people working
0:06:05 > 0:06:09on quite individual projects,
0:06:09 > 0:06:13but all working towards a common cause...
0:06:15 > 0:06:16working in a team,
0:06:16 > 0:06:21in ways which, perhaps, people in the humanities hadn't quite done before.
0:06:21 > 0:06:22The arts and humanities.
0:06:22 > 0:06:25Scientists had been used to working in teams
0:06:25 > 0:06:29but it wasn't quite the case, perhaps, for other disciplines.
0:06:29 > 0:06:33And Angus McIntosh could see the tremendous value of people
0:06:33 > 0:06:36all working towards a common aim,
0:06:36 > 0:06:39building up bodies of data which they and, importantly,
0:06:39 > 0:06:42other people could use in the future.
0:06:42 > 0:06:46He'd also seen how valuable new forms of technology
0:06:46 > 0:06:51like Magnetic tape and the portable tape recorder could be.
0:06:51 > 0:06:52And he could see the importance
0:06:52 > 0:06:56and the need for undertaking collecting work in the field,
0:06:56 > 0:06:59preferably, right where people were living and working.
0:06:59 > 0:07:04When they were telling stories, Jeannie, your own folks,
0:07:04 > 0:07:09did they tell them with plenty of actions, did they give them plenty of gestures?
0:07:09 > 0:07:13Hamish Henderson himself was a folk collector, a folk songwriter.
0:07:13 > 0:07:15A poet.
0:07:15 > 0:07:20He was out there trying to kick-start a folk revival
0:07:20 > 0:07:23here in Scotland. And he had a deep-rooted philosophy of what
0:07:23 > 0:07:27folk culture should be and should be about.
0:07:27 > 0:07:31Hamish Henderson was very inspired by the ideas of Antonio Gramsci,
0:07:31 > 0:07:32who was a Sicilian socialist.
0:07:32 > 0:07:37And one of Gramsci's ideas was the way in which imperial powers
0:07:37 > 0:07:44and capitalism enforce conformity on people is through culture,
0:07:44 > 0:07:48so what we now call cultural imperialism.
0:07:48 > 0:07:54And what happens, according to Gramsci, is that indigenous culture is denigrated.
0:07:54 > 0:07:59It's made worthless, and that makes people feel worthless
0:07:59 > 0:08:03and that enables capitalists or imperialists
0:08:03 > 0:08:06to be better able to exploit indigenous people.
0:08:06 > 0:08:08So in one sense,
0:08:08 > 0:08:14you can say, yes, there is a clear political direction in this,
0:08:14 > 0:08:19in that it's sticking two fingers up at the idea of cultural imperialism
0:08:19 > 0:08:22and the idea, a very important idea,
0:08:22 > 0:08:28that Scottish culture was not as valuable as these kind of standard
0:08:28 > 0:08:32BBC culture which was being pumped out to people on a daily basis.
0:08:49 > 0:08:52It's not just a sound archive.
0:08:52 > 0:08:54With an extensive photographic archive,
0:08:54 > 0:08:57the obvious next step was the moving image
0:08:57 > 0:09:01and researchers began to film as well as record their informants.
0:09:01 > 0:09:03Filming was a major
0:09:03 > 0:09:08and important innovation for us because it enabled us
0:09:08 > 0:09:09to give context to,
0:09:09 > 0:09:14for example, storytelling, to be able to see the facial gestures
0:09:14 > 0:09:19and the other gestures of a storyteller, or to see a craft process,
0:09:19 > 0:09:22or to see a dance, you know how, the intricacies
0:09:22 > 0:09:27of how a reel in Shetland might be performed in a kitchen.
0:09:27 > 0:09:28FOLK MUSIC PLAYS
0:09:43 > 0:09:47THEY CHANT A RHYME
0:09:57 > 0:10:00HE PLAYS A DANCE WITH PIANO ACCOMPANIMENT
0:11:11 > 0:11:14Nobody had done this before. There was no template.
0:11:14 > 0:11:18There was no script, so one of the great things people like Hamish Henderson did
0:11:18 > 0:11:21was to go out into these communities,
0:11:21 > 0:11:25who were quite suspicious of these outsiders, with these strange devices,
0:11:25 > 0:11:27tape recorders and things like that,
0:11:27 > 0:11:30and getting them to open up and part with, you know
0:11:30 > 0:11:33important aspects of their culture,
0:11:33 > 0:11:37real treasured kind of items, and be able to communicate to them
0:11:37 > 0:11:42in a way that didn't seem authoritative
0:11:42 > 0:11:43or talking down to them.
0:11:43 > 0:11:51And that, you know, is something that they would have to make up as they went along.
0:11:51 > 0:11:57Of course, going to an old community where you are alone,
0:11:57 > 0:12:00and you don't know anybody there personally,
0:12:00 > 0:12:02there is a diffidence about it, you know.
0:12:02 > 0:12:04As you go up to a door...
0:12:04 > 0:12:07In fact, I remember thinking, more than once,
0:12:07 > 0:12:11"I'll knock gently on the door, and if nobody comes out,
0:12:11 > 0:12:14"then thank goodness, I don't have to go in."
0:12:14 > 0:12:20But a couple of hours later, when you're in, you're so delighted that you have gone in.
0:12:20 > 0:12:24There was never at any stage
0:12:24 > 0:12:27any course of training for field work or for research.
0:12:27 > 0:12:31We were left to our own devices.
0:12:31 > 0:12:33I think it would have been advantageous
0:12:33 > 0:12:38if we had had, right at the beginning, some indication of what material
0:12:38 > 0:12:42and what questions we ought to ask people.
0:12:42 > 0:12:46I regret now and for many years,
0:12:46 > 0:12:49that when I was a youngster,
0:12:49 > 0:12:53talking to old people long since dead, that I didn't ask certain things
0:12:53 > 0:13:00but even if we had been trained to do that, it's impossible,
0:13:00 > 0:13:06unless you are living permanently in a community, to get round everything.
0:13:06 > 0:13:12My first memory of anyone looking for old stories,
0:13:12 > 0:13:16songs, legends, I would be about
0:13:16 > 0:13:1913 or 14 or whatever...
0:13:19 > 0:13:20was going to Dr McLean's
0:13:20 > 0:13:24to play the pipes for an American lady
0:13:24 > 0:13:27and Dr McLean told my dad
0:13:27 > 0:13:32what the lady was about and what she was after -
0:13:32 > 0:13:37stories, songs, legends, anything, old stuff.
0:13:37 > 0:13:43And my father said, "I think my wife Kate knows a song or two like that."
0:13:43 > 0:13:45So my mother was sent for
0:13:45 > 0:13:51and that was the first time I had heard my mother singing properly.
0:13:51 > 0:13:54She used to hum to herself but nobody paid any attention to her.
0:13:54 > 0:13:58But after this lady came Calum McLean came, and...
0:13:58 > 0:14:02I think my mum fell in love with him. She used to practise
0:14:02 > 0:14:05for him coming to record.
0:14:05 > 0:14:09And we had wonderful ceilidhs at Dr Alastair's.
0:14:09 > 0:14:14They would have a dram, and everybody was always in a good mood and the singing would start,
0:14:14 > 0:14:20playing pipes and singing, a ceilidh and everything was being recorded, nothing formal.
0:14:20 > 0:14:24If you came to a house where...
0:14:24 > 0:14:29say a man or woman had been known to be a storyteller,
0:14:29 > 0:14:35they, in general, would be more than delighted to give you what they could give.
0:14:35 > 0:14:38There were others who might know a great deal...
0:14:38 > 0:14:43you heard that they knew a great deal about traditions...
0:14:43 > 0:14:48that might involve things like second sight, you know,
0:14:48 > 0:14:50looking into the future and that sort of thing
0:14:50 > 0:14:52And they might be diffident about putting it on tape
0:14:52 > 0:14:59and one or two might say "I'll tell you about it but don't record."
0:14:59 > 0:15:04Others would say, and you'd heard they were full of this sort of lore,
0:15:04 > 0:15:07"Oh, I don't believe in that sort of thing."
0:15:07 > 0:15:12So you would say, "That's all right, but let me tell you about something that I have heard,"
0:15:12 > 0:15:14and before an hour or two has passed,
0:15:14 > 0:15:16they were ready to tell you everything they had
0:15:16 > 0:15:19because they knew that you weren't coming to sneer at them, you know?
0:15:19 > 0:15:23For the collectors, there's time for a friendly word.
0:15:23 > 0:15:27They've got another important fragment in a living tradition,
0:15:27 > 0:15:33another recording to place beside the many thousands held in the sound archives in Edinburgh.
0:15:33 > 0:15:37RONA SINGS IN GAELIC
0:15:37 > 0:15:39TIBER JOINS IN
0:15:53 > 0:15:56Well, there's nothing very technical about it.
0:15:56 > 0:16:00It's mainly about creating a relationship with someone
0:16:00 > 0:16:03in which you can have a conversation.
0:16:03 > 0:16:06I think at the base it's friendship - you are learning from them,
0:16:06 > 0:16:09they are sharing parts of their life with you.
0:16:09 > 0:16:13It's very much about what we're doing here, we're having a conversation.
0:16:13 > 0:16:17I think field work is always undergoing an evolution -
0:16:17 > 0:16:20it changes with the times, and when the School first began doing
0:16:20 > 0:16:23field work 60 years ago, it was very much trying to
0:16:23 > 0:16:26record texts that were about to disappear,
0:16:26 > 0:16:30whether it be traditional narratives, long narrative songs, forms of music,
0:16:30 > 0:16:32and it was very much about getting these items.
0:16:32 > 0:16:36And field work has changed very much to looking at the context,
0:16:36 > 0:16:39looking at where did these songs fit into everyday life?
0:16:39 > 0:16:41How where they part of your experience
0:16:41 > 0:16:44in creating identity in the family, in the community?
0:16:44 > 0:16:47I think this was also part of field work from the beginning.
0:16:47 > 0:16:50But with reel-to-reel tape recorders,
0:16:50 > 0:16:54you only have so much time you can fit on the tape,
0:16:54 > 0:16:56so I think these conversations were happening
0:16:56 > 0:16:59but weren't being recorded and being deposited in the archives.
0:16:59 > 0:17:02So now we have the privilege of being able to talk about context.
0:17:02 > 0:17:06When a story is passed on from person to person
0:17:06 > 0:17:08in a traditional community,
0:17:08 > 0:17:11it's not passed on in an envelope somewhere,
0:17:11 > 0:17:13it's two people who are looking at each other
0:17:13 > 0:17:15and those individuals,
0:17:15 > 0:17:22through all kinds of signs and proximities are bringing more to bear than just the story
0:17:22 > 0:17:26or the song, that's the crystallisation of it. But so much that you pass on
0:17:26 > 0:17:30in that story or that song, is something that is outside of it,
0:17:30 > 0:17:35or something that goes into the performance that is intangible. And to make recordings
0:17:35 > 0:17:40of this quality requires again that kind of relationship and that relationship gets built up here.
0:17:48 > 0:17:51SIGNS SILENTLY
0:17:51 > 0:17:55It's more than just the nature of the School's fieldwork
0:17:55 > 0:17:58that's changed in the last 60 years.
0:17:58 > 0:18:02New ways of using and interpreting the archive have led to projects
0:18:02 > 0:18:07such as this one - to translate some of its stories into British Sign Language.
0:18:09 > 0:18:15And Archive Trails, a project that invites contemporary musicians
0:18:15 > 0:18:19to play with and discover the archive for themselves.
0:18:19 > 0:18:20HE SINGS AND PLAYS
0:18:26 > 0:18:29SHE SINGS SONG IN SCOTS
0:18:30 > 0:18:33Everything in that archive had been
0:18:33 > 0:18:35learned or passed on from someone at some point
0:18:35 > 0:18:37and I found that fascinating
0:18:37 > 0:18:40because there was a kind of unspoken conversation
0:18:40 > 0:18:45that had happened behind the scenes, or, you know, where people were learning things.
0:18:45 > 0:18:48And I wanted to make a piece of work that was all about
0:18:48 > 0:18:53trying to learn something because it's not an easy task often,
0:18:53 > 0:18:57whether it's a song or a story and trying to get things right,
0:18:57 > 0:19:01so I thought that this whole process of learning was a fascinating one.
0:19:01 > 0:19:06So my performance is me trying to learn something on stage,
0:19:06 > 0:19:10live, under the most uncomfortable circumstances.
0:19:10 > 0:19:12SCOTS SONG
0:19:16 > 0:19:19I think it's a fantastic collection, it's really fascinating
0:19:19 > 0:19:25and I think it was made with the people of Scotland in mind and with
0:19:25 > 0:19:30the intention that this material should be available to future generations.
0:19:30 > 0:19:35I'd been working with these artists interpreting Scotland's traditional music in new ways
0:19:35 > 0:19:40and I thought there was a lot of potential in bringing those kinds of artists into this kind of archive,
0:19:40 > 0:19:45which is something that hasn't happened really here before.
0:19:45 > 0:19:48So I listened to some recordings of fishermen
0:19:48 > 0:19:50in the East Neuk of Fife,
0:19:50 > 0:19:55so I had Jimmy Muir from 1983, which was recorded by Roger Leech.
0:19:57 > 0:20:00Jimmy Muir was a Cellardyke man and a fisherman.
0:20:00 > 0:20:06At some point in the conversation he said, "16 fathom on the cot rope, 17 fathom on the foot rope,"
0:20:06 > 0:20:09talking about different types of rope they used.
0:20:09 > 0:20:12But just that little phrase, and the way he said it,
0:20:12 > 0:20:15the rhythms of it, I wrote it down and that went on to be
0:20:15 > 0:20:20factored into the Shoals of Herring song, like a rolling sea shanty.
0:20:20 > 0:20:22# 17 fathom on the foot rope
0:20:22 > 0:20:28# And heave-ho, you're hauling in the herrin'
0:20:28 > 0:20:33# You silver darlings, oh you silver darlings
0:20:33 > 0:20:37# You silver darlings oh you silver darlings... #
0:20:37 > 0:20:41There was quite a lot of remixing of already existing material,
0:20:41 > 0:20:45but just sort of trying to come up with something new, creatively,
0:20:45 > 0:20:48out of it, which I guess is kind of what a lot of folk culture is about.
0:20:52 > 0:20:56The commission was essentially to create some new musical work
0:20:56 > 0:20:59but I kind of wanted to use the opportunity to
0:20:59 > 0:21:02expand my work into different directions.
0:21:02 > 0:21:06I've come across a book a few years before, about Galoshins,
0:21:06 > 0:21:08a Scottish folk play.
0:21:09 > 0:21:11# So I am going to sever his head
0:21:11 > 0:21:13# What should I do more? #
0:21:13 > 0:21:17# Fight on, fight on brave warriors! Fight on with all your speed!
0:21:17 > 0:21:21# I'll give any man a hundred pounds that kills Galoshins deid! #
0:21:24 > 0:21:27So I am working in collaboration with my friend
0:21:27 > 0:21:32Shane Connolly, creating a puppet theatre interpretation of Galoshins.
0:21:32 > 0:21:36# The next young man that I call in's Galoshins by renown
0:21:36 > 0:21:40# He's gonna slay the admiral and take his golden crown. #
0:21:49 > 0:21:53This is the tape of the interview with Andrew Rennie.
0:21:53 > 0:21:57Andrew Rennie is the blacksmith from Kippen,
0:21:57 > 0:22:01who performed Galoshins when he was a small boy, and this is him
0:22:01 > 0:22:05being interviewed on the 6th December 1979,
0:22:05 > 0:22:09talking about the play and his performance of it when he was a boy.
0:22:09 > 0:22:12At the time of this recording, he was about 90 years of age.
0:22:12 > 0:22:14# The money's for to give
0:22:14 > 0:22:16# And what you freely give to us
0:22:16 > 0:22:19# We clearly shall receive
0:22:19 > 0:22:23# The first young man that I call in
0:22:23 > 0:22:25# Is the admiral stout and bold
0:22:25 > 0:22:31# Who won the battle of Heggy Peggy And got the crown of gold
0:22:31 > 0:22:35# Here comes in the admiral The admiral stout and bold
0:22:35 > 0:22:41# Who won the battle of Heggy Peggy And got the crown of gold. #
0:22:41 > 0:22:45I was talking to my aunt, my father's sister about this project,
0:22:45 > 0:22:50about Galoshins, and I mentioned Andrew Rennie of Kippen
0:22:50 > 0:22:56and my aunt said, "You know we are related to the Rennies of Kippen?"
0:22:56 > 0:23:01And sure enough, we looked a bit further and it was indeed the same Andrew Rennie
0:23:01 > 0:23:05and we are related - quite a strange, a strange discovery.
0:23:05 > 0:23:09We have a kind of similar nose. We have this big nose.
0:23:12 > 0:23:18# I wish you all a good Hogmanay And a happy Ne-e-e-w Year! #
0:23:21 > 0:23:24GAELIC SONG
0:23:35 > 0:23:38I'm very happy that they did it.
0:23:38 > 0:23:40I just live it,
0:23:40 > 0:23:44I just live the songs. I learnt them listening to my mother
0:23:44 > 0:23:47and listening to recordings of my mother, of course.
0:23:47 > 0:23:50SHE SINGS
0:23:53 > 0:23:57But, eh, she learnt them by going to the waulking, because they did
0:23:57 > 0:24:01waulking the tweed in those days, to shrink the tweed.
0:24:01 > 0:24:06They were so busy bringing up children and doing the work outside as well as the work inside,
0:24:06 > 0:24:11they never had any... that was their social way of meeting.
0:24:11 > 0:24:15You know they gave each other's troubles to each other from the table
0:24:15 > 0:24:18while they worked, and composed as they went along.
0:24:18 > 0:24:22It was amazing how they did it - and the beautiful tunes.
0:24:24 > 0:24:30I'm very proud of them. I listen to them a lot because I teach young people at Feisean,
0:24:30 > 0:24:34and it's very nice to be able to hand them over
0:24:34 > 0:24:38to the young, but I always tell them "Please don't change them."
0:24:38 > 0:24:40So I hope they don't.
0:24:40 > 0:24:46REEL PLAYS
0:24:46 > 0:24:49The texture of our lives today, how we work,
0:24:49 > 0:24:52tell each other stories, spend our evenings,
0:24:52 > 0:24:57enjoy ourselves, has changed dramatically since the School began.
0:24:58 > 0:25:02Accurately passing traditions from one generation to the next
0:25:02 > 0:25:06is less critical in an age of information saturation,
0:25:06 > 0:25:09when the internet gives us the world in seconds.
0:25:10 > 0:25:13But who knows what details of our lives today
0:25:13 > 0:25:17will hold the interest of tomorrow's researchers?
0:25:26 > 0:25:30One of the important things that they did was to build up
0:25:30 > 0:25:35a brilliant archive and this has been absolutely fundamental
0:25:35 > 0:25:39to scholars in the past, and the present and the future,
0:25:39 > 0:25:43so I think no matter what happens, their legacy will always be secured
0:25:43 > 0:25:48because of that important stuff they did when Scotland was changing.
0:25:48 > 0:25:52I think part of the ethos of the School was definitely to,
0:25:52 > 0:25:55in a way, find all the diversity of Scottish life
0:25:55 > 0:25:58and get all the different textures of life.
0:25:58 > 0:26:03To collect material that was on the verge of dying out
0:26:03 > 0:26:06in many ways, at that particular time.
0:26:06 > 0:26:10I mean, some people call this rescue ethnology, and I think
0:26:10 > 0:26:14it's really important that this material was collected at the time.
0:26:14 > 0:26:17Because if we went out with tape recorders now,
0:26:17 > 0:26:20it would no longer exist.
0:26:20 > 0:26:26They have a place that is, has the depth of memory that you
0:26:26 > 0:26:29find in the books, and files around us, is an important thing.
0:26:29 > 0:26:34But having the people who make that connection and having this place be a magnet,
0:26:34 > 0:26:38for the scholars and for the storytellers, and for the singers
0:26:38 > 0:26:40and the tradition bearers, is an amazing thing.
0:26:40 > 0:26:44It's exciting times in some ways, although I think we are at a crossroads,
0:26:44 > 0:26:47in terms of the generations.
0:26:47 > 0:26:51The entire generation that taught me is retired or retiring now.
0:26:51 > 0:26:55We know where it's come from and we have to decide where to take it to.
0:26:55 > 0:27:00What should the role be of a place like the School of Scottish Studies
0:27:00 > 0:27:03in the 21st century as opposed to the middle of the 20th century?
0:27:07 > 0:27:10Your version of the story is going to be your version.
0:27:10 > 0:27:13If you give that to another person, that's the richness of it
0:27:13 > 0:27:16that they are going to be able to interpret it in a different way.
0:27:16 > 0:27:19And I think that's a richness in it
0:27:19 > 0:27:24but at the same time we heard Rona saying yesterday, when she teaches
0:27:24 > 0:27:31a song to students, whether it's at a feis or someone who comes to the house like we were yesterday,
0:27:31 > 0:27:34she wants the song to be maintained,
0:27:34 > 0:27:38she doesn't want the student to change it, the person who is learning it to change it.
0:27:38 > 0:27:43And this isn't a backwards, historic look at tradition, a static tradition,
0:27:43 > 0:27:48but it's the dynamism of tradition. It's how oral tradition is resilient
0:27:48 > 0:27:52and can be maintained intergenerationally for hundreds of years,
0:27:52 > 0:27:56that it is just as relevant today as when the piece was first composed.
0:27:56 > 0:27:58And that's what keeps it going.
0:27:58 > 0:28:03WOMAN SINGS: "Andrew Lammie: Mill O' Tifty's Annie"
0:28:05 > 0:28:10# Noo when Andra hame fae Edinburgh came
0:28:10 > 0:28:17# Wi' muckle grief and sorrow
0:28:17 > 0:28:20# Oh my love she died
0:28:20 > 0:28:24# For me last night
0:28:24 > 0:28:27# So I'll die for her
0:28:27 > 0:28:30# Tomorrow. #
0:28:30 > 0:28:33That's the shortest I can make it.
0:28:37 > 0:28:38That is the last item
0:28:38 > 0:28:42from this short series of excerpts from our sound and film archives.
0:28:42 > 0:28:44We hope you've enjoyed them.
0:28:44 > 0:28:49If you wish to see them again, please ask for the tape to be rewound to the beginning.
0:28:49 > 0:28:51Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd