While visiting Chicago recently, Scotsman Billy Connolly commented on Donald Trump (before the disastrous election results.)
“He wants to be the President, (the) place would be a toilet if he became President.”
Aye.
Scotland
Fiddling With the Past: The Secrets of Scottish Music
Rich Gaelic history, in the form of fiddling and dance, is on display each year at Celtic Colours International Festival on Cape Breton, the Nova Scotia island. […]
https://static01.nyt.com/video/players/offsite/index.html?videoId=100000004715882
Reat more at: Fiddling With the Past: The Secrets of Scottish Music – The New York Times
‘It’s got balls and it can bite’: the woman blowing recorder prejudice away
She is revolutionising the classroom scourge – blasting raw experimental music through it, sometimes playing two at once. Meet recorder powerhouse Laura Cannell
The recorder does not enjoy a good reputation. In the popular imagination, it’s somewhere above the kazoo but below the harmonica– an instrument that brings back schoolroom memories of painful, atonal versions of Frère Jacques, with spit dripping on to floors. And that’s why Laura Cannell lies to her hairdresser about what she does.
“I just say I play the violin,” says the professional recorder player and composer. “It’s horrible if your memory is of a plastic instrument that tastes of disinfectant and sounds awful. Kids’ fingers don’t cover the holes, so it’s bound to sound terrible.”
Yet Cannell is revolutionising the recorder, pushing raw, wind-whipped compositions through it, and sometimes playing two at once in stark medieval harmonies. […]
Read the Full Story: ‘It’s got balls and it can bite’: the woman blowing recorder prejudice away | Music | The Guardian
Vashti Bunyan on Soho, silence and finding her voice
Fragile.
The word has been used to describe Vashti Bunyan so often over the years you wouldn’t be surprised to find her picture if you looked the word up in a dictionary. It’s been used about her voice – a delicate, slight yet utterly beautiful thing – and it’s been used about the woman, or at least the girl she was. The girl who was once signed up by Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham. The girl who in 1970 released an album, Just Another Diamond Day, that nobody bought, a failure that crushed her will to make music for decades and saw her disappear in a horse and cart to the wilds of Scotland and Ireland. A fresh peach who was bruised by life. […]
Read the Full Story: Vashti Bunyan on Soho, silence and finding her voice (From HeraldScotland)