Scottish Folk Music

Scottish folk music is the traditional music of Scotland, sung in Scots, Scottish Gaelic and English and carried by both unaccompanied song and instrumental dance traditions. Its repertoire spans narrative ballads, Jacobite and emigration songs, comic bothy ballads from the farm-servant era, Gaelic work songs and praise poetry, and a dance stock of reels, jigs, strathspeys and marches. The defining instruments are the fiddle, the Great Highland bagpipe and smallpipes, the clàrsach (Celtic harp), accordion and guitar, with strongly marked regional fiddle styles in Shetland, the north-east and the Borders distinguishing it from neighbouring Irish and English traditions.