Tag Archives: history

Exploring the John Miller fife manuscript, part 2

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John Crawford continues his exploration of the John Miller Fife Manuscript

About the author: John Crawford is a long-standing supporter and co-organiser with FluteFling. John enjoys exploring the forgotten pre-revival Scottish flute manuscripts that reside in online libraries and collections, such as this Scottish fife player’s manuscript from 1799 held in the A K Bell Library in Perth. The manuscript is part of the Atholl Collection, a key archive source for the Scottish flute world.

Part 1 of this article dealt with my early lockdown experience, pursuing the John Miller Fife MS (manuscript) I found in the Village Music Project (VMP) website. This revealed a lot about the music John Miller must have played on his fife and provided a partial understanding of the context of the manuscript, but largely left Miller and his life shrouded in mystery.

A K Bell Library, Perth © Perth Life.

The trail to the original document pointed to the Atholl Collection and the AK Bell Library in Perth. The collection was compiled by Lady Dorothea Murray, later Ruggles-Brice, and a daughter of the 7th duke of Atholl. When she died she left instructions for it to be bequeathed to the Sandeman Library in Perth. When this closed the Collection moved to the AK Bell Library.

The general significance of the Collection has been outlined in part 1 of this Blog. The catalogue, compiled by Dr Sheila Douglas, confirms the Atholl Collection has been recognised for many years by the world’s academics, with enquiries from institutions as diverse as Harvard, the Joseph Hayden Institute in Cologne and the University of Sydney. It remains an open question whether Scottish traditional musicians have invested an appropriate level of interest in understanding the value of the collection and what it can offer them.

From a flute perspective it’s worth re-emphasising its significance in the Collection. The Miller MS is one of 60 items where the catalogue description specifically mentions flutes or fifes. This is a powerful demonstration of the popularity of fifes and flutes in the 18th and early 19th century and makes a strong case for further study of the collection. Items of note and interest include:

  • Fifty Favourite Scotch Airs; for a violin, German flute and violoncello, with a thorough bass for the harpsichord – PEACOCK, Francis, Aberdeen s.n. 1782 [Ref No Bf55 26796]
  • Complete Repository of Old and New Scotch Strathspey Reels and Jigs adapted for the German flute – HAMILTON John, Edinburgh s.n. 1802 [Ref No Bd49 26661]

At the time of writing the Miller MS, along with the rest of the collection, has not been digitised, making a visit to Perth essential. When Part 1 of this blog was written COVID restrictions made it impossible to see the MS at first hand and examine it in more detail.

JMS Front cover (c) John Crawford

Waiting another six months to see the MS was a challenge and a time to remember one of my mother’s favourite Gaelic proverbs about patience:

“Am fear a bhios fad aig an aiseag gheabh e thairis uair-eigin.”
[He that waits long at the ferry will get over some time.]

On Friday 10 September 2021 I finally made it to A K Bell Library to see the MS. Was it worth the wait? The answer is an unambiguous and absolute yes. I enjoyed my day immensely. Being able to see, and touch, the MS was a very powerful experience. I felt very privileged and had a very strong sense of being in direct touch with history. Probably the nearest parallels are:

  • discovering an important artefact during an archaeological dig and
  • that sense of connectedness you get from playing a vintage flute.

The experience was amplified by:

  • the fact that what I had in my hands was a MS rather than a printed document;
  • the obvious age and fragility of the document (particularly the cover boards);
  • evident fingerprints, particularly on the fore edge of each leaf and
  • the additional notes on some of the pages in a hand other than that of the person who wrote the tune titles.

The John Miller Manuscript front cover and first page. (c) John Crawford

Seeing the MS sparked some additional ideas about how the MS originally came into being and what might have happened to it, between John Miller’s time, and it becoming part of the Atholl collection. The handwriting of the tune titles is very precise and stylised; certainly the hand of a highly literate well educated individual. There’s evidence of a second less literate, less well developed hand, in pencil, in additional notation in the book.

I’m now wondering if it’s possible Miller got the book from his Bandmaster and that the second, less literate hand writing is his. Given the lack of history of the MS and how it came into Lady Dorothea’s hands it is, of course, equally possible the other handwriting is that of an interim owner.

My conversation with the library staff during the visit flagged up the material on the adjacent shelves relating to the Black Watch. The Village Music Project narrative relating to the MS, speculates that Miller might have been associated with the Black Watch or its antecedents (the 73rd (Perthshire) Regiment of Foot, or the 42nd Regiment of Foot).

My initial online research had failed to find any indication that the Black Watch, or its antecedents, was in Ireland, at any of the locations mentioned in the Miller MS (Strabane, Stranorlar and Londonderry) between 1798 and 1801. This finding appears to be supported by the additional material I found in the Library.

The John Miller manuscript with the tunes Bonnet Makers of Dundee and the Haughs of Cromdale (c) John Crawford.

My view, based on the information currently available, is that it’s much more likely Miller was part of the many Fencible regiments formed and posted to Ireland in the wake of the 1798 uprising and the French invasion. Unfortunately attempts so far to uncover historical sources providing detailed information on recruitment by these Fencible regiments, their bands and musicians appears to be very limited.

Perhaps this is unsurprising given the limited time these regiments existed for. The earliest regiments were raised in 1759. When it became clear that the rebellion in Ireland had been defeated and that there would be peace between France and Britain in 1802 (The preliminaries of peace were signed in London on the 1st of October 1801) the Fencible regiments were disbanded.

We may have to accept that John Miller’s history is lost to us and that we can only speculate about his age and circumstances; how he came to be recruited; what regiment he was part of and how his MS came to be part of Lady Dorothea’s collection. The repertoire in the MS suggests a Scottish connection but this is not 100% conclusive. The Buttrey Manuscript mentioned in my previous post includes a wealth of Scottish tunes. John Buttrey joined the 34th Regiment in Lincolnshire, England in 1797 as a drummer at the age of 13. He served in Africa and India and was discharged when he returned to England in 1814.

John Miller’s MS is, nevertheless, an invaluable and rather unique window offering a more human perspective on the importance of the fife in the life and music of Scottish Regiments in the 18th & 19th century than formal sources like Thompson’s 1765 Compleat Tutor for the Fife with all its duty calls. These are tunes that deserve to be played; when you do, tip your hat and say thanks to John Miller.

Scots Guards band in the Park in 1880 by Édouard Detaille. Note four ranks of fife players vs one rank of pipers. © Public Domain

Article (c) John Crawford 2022

From Hotteterre to Tannahill: a Scottish flute journey

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Elizabeth Ford describes how she came to study the Scottish baroque flute

Elizabeth Ford performing at Edinburgh FluteFling 2017 (c) Gordon Turnbull

Elizabeth Ford is a flute player, academic and publisher who has been involved with FluteFling for a number of years, performing and speaking at some of our events. Her PhD on the early history of the flute in Scotland was published in book format in 2020 and you can read a review of it in this blog.

Here, Elizabeth describes how she became drawn to early Scottish flute repertoire and to study the history of the flute in Scotland.

My research into the history of the flute in Scotland started informally in 2003, as a Master’s student at the Peabody Conservatory. I was just then learning to play baroque flute and was surprised and somewhat demoralized by how challenging it was. My teacher had assigned a suite by Hotteterre, in a facsimile edition, in the original French violin clef.

I was writing my thesis on Hotteterre’s improvisation manual, L’Art de preluder, so this was good for me. But now and then, I needed something to remind me that I had actually been a pretty good flute player before I took up baroque flute, so I was combing the shelves of the library looking for 18th-century flute music that wasn’t depressingly challenging and that I wasn’t already familiar with. I happened upon Jeremy Barlow’s edition of James Oswald’s Airs for the Seasons. I knew my teacher wouldn’t approve because it was a modern edition, and Scottish; this music was outside the canon and we were not there to challenge the canon. Personally, I think the Peabody Conservatory is exactly the place to do so, but that’s a different topic.

I had always been interested in Scotland, but I didn’t know very much about it as a country or culture. The only recordings of Scottish music I could find at this time were by the Baltimore Consort, which happened to be my favorite band.

I kept my Scottish music tendencies to myself, yet after graduation I started to explore music from Scotland, especially for flute, in greater detail. I kept coming back to Oswald, and how delightful and satisfying his music was to play and to hear. I amassed a large collection of photocopies of music and performed this repertoire any chance I got. I didn’t get into the traditional/art music debate because having been trained in French 18th-century performance practice, I didn’t know what to do with the questions of national identity and ‘traditional’ as it related to music. I had been taught to think that playing by ear was somehow inferior to reading music…even though baroque music is and was largely improvised.

While a law student a few years later, I acquired Concerto Caledonia’s recording Colin’s Kisses: The Music of James Oswald. It was the most exciting, fun recording I’d ever heard. I had a new favorite band and was completely down the rabbit hole. I started reading as much as I could find in the West Virginia University library about Scottish music, and it wasn’t much. David Johnson, Henry Farmer, and that was it. What I kept coming back to was their assertion that the flute was unknown in Scotland prior to 1725. That really bothered me. One thing led to another, and I contacted John Butt and David McGuinness at the University of Glasgow, who said that this would be an excellent PhD topic.

This is the question from which all my research on the flute in Scotland sprang: how, if there was no flute in the country prior to 1725, was there so much flute music published so early in the century? If an instrument wasn’t known or wasn’t popular, it would presumably take a while before composers or music publishers started marketing for it. But, as I made my way through the secondary literature, I realized that this date of 1725 had never before been challenged.

To me, this was ludicrous. The one-keyed flute was developed in France sometime before 1692 (the first image is on the title page of Marin Marais’s Pieces en trio) by a member of the Hotteterre family. The addition of the key revolutionized music: a formerly one-piece non-chromatic instrument with a limited range became fully chromatic, in three pieces, and with wide range. The flute was very popular in France, and considering the long and well-established relationship between Scotland and France, it didn’t make sense to me that no flutes travelled back home with a visiting Scot. I wondered if music scholarship had become victim to that unfortunate ailment, the Scottish Cringe.

These questions guided me I as began my archival research. I quickly found evidence for the flute in Scotland prior to 1725 in the National Record Office. I know that this can sound like I’m saying previous scholars didn’t do their work properly, but that’s not my intention. My predecessors were not focused on the flute, lacked my background in flute history, and didn’t have any reason to question the date. I then began to challenge the historiography of Scottish music scholarship, and its reliance on antiquarian sources.

So, this is the long story of how and why I study the history of the flute in Scotland. My next task is to determine when it disappeared from Scottish music, as until recently most contemporary Scottish traditional flute players would assert that there is no historic evidence for the flute in Scotland and they must look to Ireland for culture, tradition, and repertoire. This is obviously incorrect, but it has been the prevailing assumption, and I want to know why that’s the case.

Here are some factoids on the flute in 18th-century Scotland:

  1. The earliest iconographical evidence for the flute dates to the 16th century
  2. The earliest mention of the German flute, or transverse flute, is 1702
  3. It was primarily played by gentlemen amateur musicians, although ladies and lower class men also played it
  4. Musical tastes were similar to those in the rest of Europe: there was a taste for Handel and Quantz
  5. The first music for flute published in Scotland by a Scottish composer was William McGibbon’s 1727 Sonatas for Two German flutes, or two violins, and a bass
  6. Many compositions were based on traditional tunes, but this is not unusual for the time
  7. Much so-called traditional music was newly composed and collected in the 18th century
  8. Flutes were made in Scotland in the first half of the century
  9. The idea of traditional music and art music isn’t relevant to music of the 18th century
  10. There is evidence of shared repertoire between flute players and pipers

Some of the major composers for flute are William McGibbon, Mr. Munro, James Oswald, John Reid, Daniel Dow, and Francesco Barsanti. Some known flute players include Susanna, Countess of Eglinton, John Reid, Alexander Bruce, the 3rd Duke of Gordon, and Robert Tannahill. Flutes were played in homes, concert halls, and taverns.

Here are some excellent recordings of this repertoire:

  • Captain Tobias Hume: A Scottish soldier, Concerto Caledonia
  • On the Banks of Helicon, The Baltimore Consort
  • Adew Dundee, The Baltimore Consort
  • Wind and Wire, Chris Norman and Byron Schenkman
  • She’s Sweetest When She’s Naked, Alison Melville
  • Colin’s Kisses: The music of James Oswald, Concerto Caledonia
  • Fiddler Tam: The music of Thomas Erskine, the 6th Earl of Kellie, Concerto Caledonia
  • Mungrel Stuff: Francesco Barsanti and others, Concerto Caledonia
  • The High Road to Kilkenny, Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien
  • [Ex]tradition, The Curious Bards
  • The Reel of Tulloch, Chatham Baroque
  • The Caledonian Flute, The Chris Norman Ensemble

Sometime in the 19th century, the flute seems to have disappeared from Scottish music: it stops being mentioned, it stops appearing on title pages, and there are notably fewer flute manuscripts. I’m interested in knowing why and how this happened, and this exploration of historiography and cultural history will (hopefully) be a future project.

More about the author:

Elizabeth Ford won the 2017 National Flute Association Graduate Research Award for her doctoral research on the flute in eighteenth-century Scotland. She was the 2018-2019 Daiches-Manning Memorial Fellow in 18th-century Scottish Studies, IASH, University of Edinburgh. Her complete edition of William McGibbon’s sonatas is published by A-R Editions, and her monograph, The Flute in Scotland from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century, is part of the Studies in the History and Culture of Scotland Series from Peter Lang Press.

In 2021 (hopefully!), Elizabeth will hold the Martha Goldsworthy Arnold Fellowship at the Riemenschneider Bach Institute, the Abi Rosenthal Visiting Fellowship in Music at the Bodleian Libraries, and the American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies-Burney Centre Fellowship at McGill University for research related to James Oswald, Charles Burney, and John Reid. She is co-founder of Blackwater Press.

(c) Elizabeth Ford 2022

Exploring the John Miller fife manuscript

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John Crawford digs into the digital archives of the Scottish flute world

About the author: John Crawford is a long-standing supporter and co-organiser with FluteFling. John enjoys exploring the forgotten pre-revival Scottish flute manuscripts that reside in online libraries and collections, such as this Scottish fife player’s manuscript from 1799.

Update: John Crawford has written a follow-up to this post.

Early in lockdown, I found myself in the Village Music Project (VMP) website. Their primary interest is the traditional social dance music of England and I was intrigued by their Manuscript collection. They’ve transcribed some 45 manuscripts into ABC format with most also rendered as printable PDF documents.

The Village Music Project Manuscript List © Village Music Project

The people who wrote these manuscripts were generally educated and literate people with some available leisure time and a strong interest in music.

The VMP collection includes a manuscript book belonging to Grace Darling’s father and another by poet, John Clare. It’s said that John Clare used to stand in the bookshop, in Stamford, copying the latest tunes from published books into his manuscript book. No doubt, some musicians copied from books owned by better off friends and acquaintances.

The Scottish location of the John Miller MS, held in the AK Bell Library in Perth, as part of the Atholl Collection, made it the obvious first choice to explore in more depth. I was surprised and delighted when I opened the file and discovered the content was fife music. My first ever flute, nearly fifty three years ago, was a five key, rosewood Bb fife which my friends christened “Roxanne”.

John Crawford’s Bb, 4 key rosewood fife, “Roxanne” (c) John Crawford

The Village Music Project transcriptions and the related notes have provided the opportunity to take a trip back to 1799 into the world of a military fife player.

St Cecilia’s Boxwood C Fife, 1800 © 2021 University of Edinburgh.

John Miller’s fife would have been far simpler than “Roxanne”. It would have been made from a single piece of wood with six finger holes, an embouchure hole, brass ferrules at the ends and no keys.

St Cecilia’s Hall Concert Room and Music Museum, in Edinburgh, have a boxwood C fife, made around 1800, that is almost certainly similar to the instrument John Miller played. Their website provides more details of the instrument and a sound sample.

Flyleaf illustration from Thompson’s Compleat Tutor for the Fife – published in 1765 © NLS Inglis Collection.

Chris Partington’s introduction to the VMP material on the MS (see the extract below) provides a summary of the MS contents, some speculation about the man behind it and the context of his fife playing.

The insight we get into the world of a fife player 220 years ago tells us quite a lot about the music John Miller played but relatively little about the context of his playing or indeed the man himself.

 

The Manuscript

The John Miller MS is in the A.K.Bell Library, Perth, Scotland
This introduction by Chris Partington, village music project, 2002

DESCRIPTION

The John Miller MS is in the A.K.Bell Library, Perth, Scotland, accession number possibly 34685, which is inscribed on the fly-leaf. We have worked from a good photocopy. We do not at present have a context for how the MS comes to be in Perth, other than the obvious martial nature of it and the fact that Perth is I believe the home of the Black Watch.

Music manuscript book, 7.5″ wide, 3.75″ tall, apparently hard – bound. 4 pre-ruled staves per page.

Inscribed (repeatedly) prominently on the flyleaf and elsewhere “John Miller his book of tunes for the Fyfe” often along with dates from August 1799(most often) to 1801. Also postings in Ireland, “Strabane May 12th 1800”, “Stranorlar”, “Londonderry”. Ireland had been and still was in some considerable turmoil at this period……1798 rising, etc. Some of the tunes herein may still have some resonance today, particularly played by a fife & drum band, as it was intended by Mr. Miller.

There are 117 Musical items surviving, at least two pages are missing, the book is otherwise in good condition.

The handwriting is consistent through the book.

It would seem then that John Miller wrote the book, that he was a Fife player, rank unknown, probably in the Regimental Band, but I would not at this stage like to form an opinion as to which Regiment, even if Perth was the home of the Black Watch. Somebody with knowledge of Military History may be able to throw some light on this if they were so inclined.

THE MUSIC

    • 117 surviving musical items, some barely legible.
    • 26 common time marches (or serving as)
    • 11 6/8 marches (or serving as)
    • 8 jigs
    • 4 strathspeys
    • 12 reels
    • 14 English hornpipes, all well known
    • 16 airs
    • 1 slip jig
    • 25 sacred items, psalms

I would suspect that most of the non-martial and non-sacred tunes would be Lowland rather than Highland in nature. The most remarkable feature to us is the number of tunes marked as being for marches, but this would not be remarkable I suppose for a member of a Regimental fife band.

The Context

Understanding the context of the John Miller manuscript has required exploration of:

  • Other music collections including the Buttrey Manuscript and the Black Watch Fife Manuscripts in the NLS;
  • Sources on the history of the fife and its place in the music of Scottish regiments (including – Highland Soldier: A Social Study of the Highland Regiments, 1820-1920 by Diana M Henderson; Drum & Flute Duty 1887; Scots Duty – The Old Drum and Fife Calls of Scottish Regiments – Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research Vol. 24, No. 98 ) and
  • Sources on the Irish rebellion in 1798 (REBELLION, INVASION AND OCCUPATION: A MILITARY HISTORY OF IRELAND, 1793-1815 – Thesis by Wayne Stack, University of Canterbury 2008)

Each of these topics deserves to be the subject an article on its own right.

Military activities in Ireland 1798 (c) Wayne Stack, University of Canterbury 2008

Dates and locations given in the MS strongly indicate that Miller was in counties of Tyrone, Londonderry and Donegal during a tumultuous time in Irish history as part of some sort of military unit. The 1798 uprising had just happened. Massacre and atrocities were perpetrated by both government and rebel forces, each feeding on religious bigotry.

The French invasion in August the same year came too late to aid the rebel cause. Dublin Castle accepted the offer of English militia regiments to serve in Ireland, alongside the numerous English and Scottish fencibles units that remained in the country until their disbandment in 1802. In 1801 Britain reclaimed political control of Ireland through the Act of Union.

Recruiting card for the Caithness Highlanders 1799 (c) Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research

None of the locations cited in Miller’s MS, other than Londonderry, appears to have been the location of permanent barracks, associated with a specific regiment. Londonderry seems to have been the location of a Militia barracks. Evidence supporting the VMP suggestion that Miller might have been part of what was to become the Black Watch is very limited. There is no clear evidence that the 73rd (Perthshire) Regiment of Foot, or the 42nd Regiment of Foot, were in any of the locations mentioned by Miller on the dates indicated in his MS.

An alternative possibility is that Miller belonged to one of the Scottish fencibles regiments. These were raised as a defence force during 1793/ 94 due to the fear that the French would either invade Great Britain or Ireland, or, that radicals within Britain and Ireland would rebel against the established order.

A significant number of the Scottish fencibles served in Ireland including the Breadalbane Regiment (Embodied in Perth in 1793 – 3rdBn disbanded in Ayr in 1802) and the Angus –shire Regiment (disbanded in Perth in 1802). It’s interesting, and perhaps not entirely coincidental, that Miller’s MS has no postings or dates after 1801.

The possibility that Miller was part of an Ulster militia regiment seems to me less credible.

The Content

The Atholl Collection Catalogue (c) 1999 Perth and Kinross Libraries

The original copy of the MS, in the Atholl Collection, has not been digitised. It is of course, possible to visit the Bell Library in Perth to view the manuscript. Naively, I thought when the pandemic is over it’ll be relatively easy to go to Perth and see this at first hand. Here we are a year later still waiting.

The Collection, consisting of around 600 books and manuscripts of Scottish music, some from the seventeenth century, has been described as one of the most important collections of its kind in existence. In addition to the Miller manuscript the collection includes 50 other flute specific items making a visit to the Bell Library well worthwhile.

A catalogue was published in 1999 and is available from the library service at a cost of £4.95 plus postage. A card index to the tunes has been compiled by a volunteer and this is currently being transferred to an Access database. Contact the library if you are looking for a particular tune. info@culturepk.org.uk

There are two main options for accessing the manuscript online.  The first is via the Village Music Project website: The VMP manuscript list is at this link. The MILLER,John MS, 1799, is item 32 in the list. The following links will take you directly to an introduction to the manuscript and the tunes in ABC and standard music notation respectively.
INFO * ABC *  PDF

The second online access option is to use  Richard Robinson’s Tunebook . The following link will allow you to see the entire Miller MS in standard notation:
http://richardrobinson.tunebook.org.uk/documents/0/11/112.html

The links associated with each tune provide download options including ABC files, a printable PDF of the tune in standard notation and a MIDI file.

My own favourite tunes from the manuscript include:

  • JMP.019 – The Bonnet Makers of Dundee (Bremner’s  1757 collection)
  • JMP.026 – The Sussex Polka  (untitled polka from the 1796-1818 MS collection of William Aylmore)
  • JMP.015 – Quick March [aka  “Auld Reckie”, or “Hoble about”] (Aird – Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs, vol. 3  1788) Note the dedication on the cover! “Humbly Dedicated to the Volunteer and Defensive Bands of Great Britain and Ireland”
  • JMP.062 – West’s Hornpipe (Appears in Preston’s Twenty-Four Country Dances for the Year 1798. The tune also appears in the Buttrey fife manuscript. This tune is now a regular fife and Lambeg drum repertoire)

Cover of Volume 3 of Aird’s Collection published in 1878 (c) National Library of Scotland

Although this is only a small sample from the manuscript, it does support a view that Miller’s had a source that had access to contemporary music collections, like Aird’s, Bremner’s and  Preston’s  published in the late 1700s.

Another feature of the manuscript is the number of tunes (like West’s Hornpipe) that are now part of the Orange Order fife and drum tradition.

Cover of With Fife and Drum by Gary Hastings (c) Gary Hastings

Perhaps this isn’t surprising; in the late 1790s Orangeism quickly spread in the North of Ireland; by early 1797 as many as 30,000 Orangemen had enlisted in Ulster yeomanry corps. Miller, and his regiment, must have found himself in the middle of a society where Protestant/ Orange Order values were very influential.

Other tunes in the MS that currently feature in the music of Orange Flute bands include:

  • Boyne Water
  • Croppies Lie Down
  • Morning Stare (Star)

See Gary Hasting’s excellent book With Fife and Drum for more details.

In common with the contemporary Black Watch & Buttrey fife manuscripts, the Miller MS omits the duty tunes that would have regulated the soldier’s day (The Reveille, The General, to Arms, the Gathering, the March, the Retreat and the Tattoo). Presumably, as part of the fabric of regimental life, no written reference to these was required.

An 1819 political cartoon (c) Wikipedia.org

Only the Buttrey MS includes “The Rogue’s March”; arguably the most recognised melody in martial repertory of the era. Being “drummed out of the regiment” consisted of as many drummers and fifers as possible, playing the tune, parading the prisoner in front of the regiment. The offender’s coat would be turned inside out as a sign of disgrace. The final ignominy was a kick from the youngest drummer followed by ejection through the barrack’s gate with an order never to return.

Some of the available manuscript resources suggest that the musicians who played for marches and parades would be the same ones playing for social events and dances in the officer’s mess and the Sunday morning church parade and service. Other sources dispute this; making the point that the drums and fifes were part of the regiment. The fifers were generally boys. Some were the sons of soldiers who were brought up in the regiment, regarding it as their home. This is unlikely to apply to Miller if he was part of a short term fencibles regiment.

As the Buttrey MS confirms another recruitment path, for fifers, was via the poor house or, other comparable institutions. In contrast, the regimental bands were civilian professional musicians, in uniform, sponsored by the officers of the regiment. Ironically the band uniforms were often more exotic and elaborate than those of the drums and fifes.

Who was John Miller, what regiment was he part of, where, when and how was he recruited, where did he obtain the tunes in his MS book, why did the book have a four line stave, how did he obtain his skills in playing the fife and writing  music notation, who did he play music with and in what circumstances? The answer to these and a host of other questions may lie in a closer examination of the Atholl Collection or, may be lost to us forever. His music though is still with us thanks to his manuscript and deserves to be remembered and played providing an insight into our musical history.

Update: John Crawford has written a follow-up to this post.

An 18th Century British Army fife player practicing (c) militaryheritage.com (additional text by John Crawford)

Article (c) John Crawford 2021

Scotching a musical myth

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The Flute in Scotland from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century,
Elizabeth C Ford; published by Peter Lang (2020)

Review by Gordon Turnbull

Until very recently in Scotland, when we thought of the flute in traditional music, we tended to immediately think of Irish musicians. This is beginning to change, but the truth is that the flute has been undergoing a revival in Scotland for less than 50 years, with most of the activity being since 2000.

Many of us, myself included, were drawn to the instrument largely through exposure to the flute in Irish traditional music, where it is long established. By studying these examples and applying what we have learned to Scottish traditional music through trial and error, it has been possible to begin to piece together something that might be understood as a Scottish flute. This was the origin of the FluteFling weekends — an attempt to understand and share as part of an ongoing process of revival.

But an ongoing mystery for many traditional flute players in Scotland who are part of the current revival is: to what extent was the instrument previously played? There have been hints in publications of repertoire found in many public archives, but they have been buried away. As Kenny Hadden noted, there must have been a market for flute arrangements of Scottish music in the past.

Discovering the origins

Just before the second FluteFling Scottish Flute Day in Edinburgh in 2015, Elizabeth Ford approached the organisers. A PhD student at the time, she was studying the early history of the flute in Scotland and gave a talk and performance for attendees, opening up a new world for many of us. Elizabeth returned the following year to participate in a notable concert and has remained in touch.

Following the completion of her landmark PhD, it has been published by Peter Lang as The Flute in Scotland from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century.

Dr. Elizabeth Ford giving a talk on flutes

Dr. Elizabeth Ford giving a talk on flutes

It has to be said that Elizabeth Ford’s book is a welcome publication in the history of Scottish music and is a must-have for any serious student of the flute in Scotland. This is a well-researched fascinating read, full of engaging detail, fascinating diversions and leavened with disarming wit; dry it is not.

Importantly, Dr. Ford firmly dispels the long held myth that the flute was introduced to Scotland in 1725 and reveals instead that it was present in the 16th century and was part of a rich musical flourishing in Scotland throughout the 18th century and into the 1800s. Through detailed research, she examines and scotches many established assertions to piece together a rich and colourful picture of the Scottish flute world. What emerges is that the flute was confidently part of the contemporary musical landscape. A quote from Tobias Smollett of 1771 sets the scene: “The Scots are all musicians — Every man you meet plays on the flute, the violin, or the violoncello…”

Covering amateur and professional musicians of the period, evidence for women playing, composers and repertoire, traditional musicians, teachers and instrument makers, Elizabeth Ford delves deep into the archives to demonstrate that the flute was prevalent in the Lowlands, from Aberdeen to Glasgow, Edinburgh, the Lothians and Galloway. As yet, no direct evidence for the flute in the Gaelic archives has been uncovered, but it is to be hoped that the tantalising hints may be pursued in the future.

Gordon Turnbull holding an ivory flute.

Gordon holds an ivory and silver flute claimed to have been once owned by Bonnie Prince Charlie. At an Edinburgh auction room 2015 (c) Gordon Turnbull

Much like elsewhere in Europe, the flute was largely a symbol of gentrification and grew in popularity alongside that of other instruments in tandem with the increasing wealth of the landed classes. Scotland underwent a period of rapid urbanisation, from 1750-1850 in particular, as Lowland farming was “Improved”, resulting in the displacement of many who had formerly worked the land.

Some of these displaced people went to work in towns and cities, while the wealth of landowners increased and merchants prospered with transatlantic trade such as sugar, tobacco and slaves. The Scottish Enlightenment, the Jacobite uprisings of 1715 and 1745 and the start of the notorious Highland Clearances also occurred during this turbulent period of rapid change in Scotland.

For more on this, the early chapters of Tom Devine’s The Scottish Nation: A Modern History perfectly complement Elizabeth Ford’s book.

Against these many changing strands of Scottish society, we learn from Dr. Ford’s book that the establishment of Musical Societies took place in Aberdeen and Edinburgh. Associated professionals were engaged to teach various instruments, including flute, and organise performances. The flute was also featured in Glasgow where the music teachers organised performances in the absence of a local society.

The Flute in Scotland from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century digs deeply into the archives and shines the light on many personalities and characters, from letters requesting new flutes to be purchased from London to a love message secreted into an instrument gifted to a female flute player. (And yes, women most certainly played the flute).

Flute players, composers, arrangers, teachers and makers

Dr. Ford offers us portraits of different amateur and professional musicians of the period, looks at the flute elements of the work of composers and arrangers, not just bigger names such as William McGibbon and James Oswald, but also Daniel Dow and the Italian influence of Barsanti and Urbani, who worked and resided in Edinburgh. Combined with private manuscript collections of flute players, a broad sweep of Scottish flute playing society is captured. The repertoire ranges from traditional music to newly composed sonatas in an Italian style, suggesting a healthy amateur scene and a wide range of ability.

William Nicholson’s flute (c) The Future Museum, Southwest Scotland.

Flutes have always been expensive instruments and require some care, but it wasn’t just those with money and aspirations who played the flute. Information is scant, but much can be inferred. Lower class examples such as weaver poet Robert Tannahill (Paisley) and pedlar poet William Nicholson (Kirkudbright) suggest that there may have been another traditional and undocumented scene. I think that many of us can recognise this musical scene painted by Tannahill:

There is Rab, frae the south, with his fiddle and his flute;
I could sit list tae his strains still the starns fa out.
An we’re noddin, nid nid noddin,
We’re a noddin fu at e’en
— Robert Tannahill, The Five Frien’s

It is in this context that the music of Scotland began to be collected, organised and published, with the patronage of the landed classes, professionals, middle and merchant classes. The Flute in Scotland from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century describes the music societies of Edinburgh and Aberdeen, and the teachers of Glasgow who organised concerts, where flutes featured naturally alongside violin and harpsichord.

Dr Ford also provides us with a tantalising glimpse of flute makers active in Scotland: James Lily (no surviving flutes but active 1708), Urquhart (his one surviving example is the earliest Scottish flute and can be seen here, probably first name Alexander and active as a maker and writer 1726; he was the first translator of Hotteterre into English), John Mitchell Rose (of Rudall and Rose fame), Thomas McBean Glen (no examples, but listed as a maker of bagpipes and flutes 1833).

John Gunn was one of many new names to me and to my mind should be more widely celebrated as an influential teacher and author of flute theory books. The first to attempt a scientific description of tone production and method while discussing style and expression, he bridges the worlds between single keyed and 8-keyed instruments and surely stands alongside Hotteterre and Quantz in his contribution to the instrument. From a traditional musician’s point of view the discussion of the changes in ornament styles is of particular interest.

Once exposed, all of this activity reveals a compelling argument for the flute being rightfully part of Scottish musical heritage. The reason it has been long forgotten while other instruments and repertoires have been celebrated in Scotland remains an unanswered question. A crux seems to be the formulation of cultural symbols for Scotland in the 19th Century. Dr. Ford ponders on the associations of “German” flute (as the transverse flute was known) with the Hanovarians at a time when Jacobitism was being safely romanticised. That is an area for further study, but The Flute in Scotland from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century lays a welcome firm foundation for future investigations.

The Flute in Scotland from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century by Elizabeth Ford, published by Peter Lang (2020) https://www.peterlang.com/view/title/69223