ABSTRACT
This chapter first defines the terms of our tide and sets down what exactly we mean by the ‘national and traditional’ music of Scotland. With instrumental music it would seem to be enough, to merit the title of ‘traditional’, that it should have been passed by ear and not by the printed copy, from one player to another, or, among the pipers, from pupil to master, even where the authorship is known. The composition of Scots music both vocal and instrumental by no means of course stopped at the end of what we may call the ‘traditional’ period. Finally one would not wish to deny the masterly Scots songs of Francis George Scott an honoured place among the national music of Scotland; but these come into the category of Art Song, and though the roots of many of them may lie in the gapped scale systems of the older traditional Scots music.
