ABSTRACT
This chapter combines the terms traditional and national in the music of Scotland under the general heading of Scots music. That it possesses a strong and unmistakable native idiom is obvious from the most casual acquaintanceship with it; and the question at once arises, ‘What is it that makes the “Scottishness” of Scots music?’ The few musical manuscripts earlier than the eighteenth century containing Scots tunes which have come down to us, are almost all written in tablature for Court types of musical instruments such as the lute and for such un-folk-like instruments played with the bow as the Lyra Viol or the Viola da Gamba, in none of which we necessarily find the native folk idiom. That Robert Burns the poet, who probably knew more about Scots songs and song airs than any man before or since, realized the native force and rightness of the ‘snap’ is shown by his choice of words to go with it.
