I don't think you can rightly complain while calling it St. Patricia's day...

And you know I'd really not have been any more comfortable with that (can't imagine folks starting their posts 'sorry this isn't about STM' either!) when I see both (despite acknowledged differences) as belonging to one great intertwined trad family and my own flute/whistle style as possibly most at home (in colouring my native Scot's take on diverse elements with some natural Irish influence on these particular instruments) somewhere at the bottom of the North Channel!

So just a simple plea to whom it may concern... there's no need (IMHO) to keep apologising for non-Irishness and no 'overbearing Irishness' for folks like me to fret about if you don't. (Think, despite my 'North Channel' quip above, that our different angles are all strong enough to merit and survive intelligent discussion here without disappearing into some kind of diluted mishmash of pan-Celtic pseudo-trad!)

Ha! One of us must be psychic. I was just wondering about that last evening.

I always thought it sounded Gaelic somehow.

In my experience the majority of folks in the U.S. can't tell the difference. My wife is a Scot, and even her good friends and my extended family get the two confused on a regular basis.

Reminds me of a friend who used to busk a lot on the Cliffs of Moher. One day a bus tour arrived and while playing away she heard one of the ladies in the group say 'My gawd, I always wanted to see the white Cliffs of Dover, I just can't believe I am finally there'.

Anyway, never mind, continue on.

A Scot I know is frequently taken for an Australian at first guess for some reason in my parts, when he speaks. He doesn't sound even remotely Australian. Answer being "No", next guess is usually English. No. Then Irish. No. Then anything else. They never think of Scottish, yet that's totally what he sounds like; you should hear him pronounce "Ottowa".

I have no basis on which to even try to explain those mistaken assumptions. I mean, c'mon. There's that red-bearded feller on The Simpsons to draw on.

Everyone knows that the Cliffs of Mohair are where those nice fuzzy sweaters come from.

I don't know about that, but I do know that about half the modern Scottish repertoire comes from the late 1700's / early 1800/s, and about half is after that, with quite a bit being fairly recent compositions.

Scottish musical history is well documented, so it's pretty straightforward to find out which tunes were in Scotland at what time (and in many cases who wrote them).

Really? I thought it was where the guys with the really long hair and beards lived...

highland-piper, that simply isn't true. Just because many tunes were published during that period in collections such as the Atholl, Skye, Gesto, Gunn etc does not mean the tunes were from that period. Many tunes in these collections are listed as 'very old'. The Scottish tune repertoire is actually enormous, much more so than the Irish for example and while it's true to say that it's well documented that many tunes were written in that period it's not true that half of all Scottish tunes were written in that period, or anything like it.

"Clan Destine?" Oh god that's too good. I have to hear one of these in person one of these days... On the subject of mingling themes at a "Scottish" festival, from my experience at the Enumclaw Highland games, there's two groups; those who don't quite "get" it, and those who do.

In the "don't get it" category, we have the tents peddling leather goods and quasi-medieval kitsch, the Seattle Knights (and their appalling choreography. In all my years with stage and practical broadsword, I've never seen a performance quite as spectacularly bad as theirs), the "Clan Inebriated" mercantile (dealing mainly to those whose Celtic knowledge begins and ends with "Scotch/Irish people like to drink and fight.") These groups are mainly for the people that show up either because they went to a Renaissance fair once or because they wondered what all the noise was. The presence of these groups upsets me a little because while I don't think they're incredibly detrimental to the event, they do make it harder for newcomers to learn about *actual* Scottish culture.

In the other category, we have the Tartan Thistle, Heritage Meat Pies and MacKinnon's kilts, etc, who mainly address people who are already in possession of some knowledge of the culture or interest in activities such as bagpiping. The Enumclaw games in particular has a tent devoted to Scottish storytelling, history, and cultural anecdotes, which is good, but it's kind of hard to find and doesn't usually entice a lot of newcomers.

We also get some Irish-influenced music and a few Irish-oriented tents, and I think the reason is that there are so precious few of us "practicing Celts" that a separate Irish festival isn't really possible (at least in Washington). There's enough overlap in terms of interests and culture that people see it as a chance to get together with similar people for a few days of reconnecting with a culture that most of us don't get the chance to experience day-to-day.

Finally, I think folks like the people wearing Utilikilts to an Irish festival, or who booked a bagpipe band for Saint Patrick's are simply under-informed about what it is they're actually saying. Festivals are a big get-together, and so it's appropriate to have some Irish stuff even at a Scottish festival. However, Utilikilts really don't represent any culture other than "stupid," and the separate cultures, say Irish and Scottish are NOT interchangeable. GHBs on Saint Patrick's day suggests that "it's all the same," whereas Irish music at a Scottish festival (to me) says, "This tangentially related culture is cool too." I'd wear a tartan kilt to an Irish festival as a show of pride for my particular corner of the Celtic nations when visiting another subculture of the Celtic tradition.

Anyway, that's my (lengthy) personal take based on my experiences in Washington.

well, it was a nugget...

I said that quite a few that are currently played are modern, and this is certainly true. Many of the composers are still living.

The balance were therefore written previously, and it is established fact that they were mostly written in the mid 1700s to early 1800s (aside from the prodigious Scott Skinner). We know who wrote most of the good tunes and when. Sure there are tunes of unknown origin, even some good tunes, but not nearly as many as those with known provenance. Edinburgh was a (if not the) center of enlightenment, so it is no surprise that the men who wrote the popular music of the day were well known (not to mention generally highly educated).

If a tune was published in say 1780, then we know it was not composed at a later date. We know that the music we have today took form after the introduction of the Italian violin to Scotland, perhaps in the last few years of the 1600s. Because Scottish publishers were so prolific (cultural center and all), it is incomprehensible that there would be good tunes unpublished for any length of time. If you subtract out everything played today that wasn't written by a known composer there's not a lot left. It is interesting that in many cases later publications omit composer names that were printed in earlier publications, perhaps lending to the impression that they are of unknown origin.

See David Johnson's "Scottish Fiddle Music in the 18th Century" for a scholarly, yet entertainingly readable treatment of the subject. Also his ’Music and Society in Lowland Scotland in the 18th Century’’

Sorry, late to the thread.
Actual, wor Powwow has a belly-dancer: Becky, who is part Hopi, and dances like a wicked man's dream. She dances through the post powwow NAF session, which has been known to include First Nation players of Didgeridoos... There's cross-cultural for you. All taking place in Wiltshire, UK.