Music in The Gentle Shepherd

Summary

For each tune, we have listed all available printed and MS sources prior to 1734, when Ramsay first printed the songs in the body of the main text. We have also given a brief account of the sources to 1758, when Ramsay's text was first published with musical notation, to demonstrate that the music in this apparent ‘first edition’ may not always have much in common with the tunes as they were being transmitted when Ramsay was writing.

Sources are presented chronologically, or as near to this as possible given our knowledge of the origin of each source.

The tonality of each tune is briefly described in terms of its modal content, and its underlying harmonic structures. As this is a repertoire of some stylistic hybridity and un-settledness, which inhabits more than one tonal language and framework, the terminology similarly draws on several traditions. Major and minor keys, ‘church’ modes and gapped scales all have their place, and functional cadential harmony rubs shoulders with the binary grounds familiar from bagpipe repertoire and medieval harp music. These grounds are notated in 1s and 0s following the example of Barnaby Brown (2014). It is notable that the attempts by William Thomson and John Watts to make the music fit more conventional ‘scientific’ rules are rarely followed in the Scottish sources, and that the use of modulation within a tune is rare: the few instances may be evidence of a composer's hand at work.

Repeat marks and double bars are presented as in the source except where noted: where repeats are clearly implied, this is discussed in the commentary.

Accidentals given in the key signature are listed in the order they appear in the source. Where the same accidental is repeated at different pitches, e.g. a k-s of three sharps where two of these are F an octave apart, the F is given here only once.

Where text is underlaid in songs, the use of hyphens to show syllabification generally follows present-day practice, but preserves the original underlay where it is sufficiently clear in the source.

The bar count begins with the first full bar; the counting of notes within bars does not include grace notes or ornaments.

Pitches at a specific octave are represented in italic in the Helmholtz system, where c’ is middle C. Pitches in Roman type refer to pitch class.

Cautionary accidentals given above the stave are editorial.