Your “Na Trads” are back again. 😛
At least, we have one worthy winner this year.
The wonderful…. Braebach….. who put on a great show last night in Edinburgh.
You can watch the show on BBC ALBA or catch up later.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00g29zl
Total results of the first two pages of a google search for “twalmant”:
15 hits on thesession.org posts about this award, if that’s what it is
9 hits on “Walmart”
But congratulations to whoever did whatever they did.
The only person I know who speaks Scots like Alistair Heather is Alistair Heather. He must come from a town with a population of one.
Actually, so far so good.
Most of the winners tonight have been sensible choices for a change and some very well deserved. Great to see Meghan Henderson win musician of the year as well as winning with her band.
The musical sets have been good too. Much closer to what I’d describe as “Trad” this year.
Eryn Rae was brilliant.
Oh, missed Eryn. I’ll have to watch on catchup.
I saw her at Kelso this year and she’s very professional with a warm and engaging stage presence too.
By the way The “Live Ack O’ The Twalmant” has just been announced….. “Ack” is is supposedly Scot for “Act”.. 😉
Winners: Skerryvore.
Yes, I saw the “Live Ack” and thought “Ock, what the eck is ”ack"?
I’ve seen and heard Eryn many times over the years but would have liked to have been in Kelso to hear her playing with Michael Biggins. Unfortunately, I was otherwise engaged.
It’s Breabach, not Braebach and good to see that Megan Henderson also got musician of the year.
Still watching a bit behindhand after various computer glitches: went to the loo, put computer on pause, but then it wouldn’t start again, so had to fire up my other laptop.
Anyone know how Folk Club of the year went? Usually in the first half before they start televising it; fingers crossed for Aberdeen!
Sorry, that was a typo. I was so excited they won.
Mind you, I’ve done the same thing before… 🙂
Aberdeen won, apparently. I read that elsewhere.
Great stuff re Aberdeen!
I met a neighbour of mine 3 weeks ago in a supermarket. Knowing my interest in traditional music he said he’d gone along to Aberdeen Folk Club the previous week. He didn’t stay. There were 12 people there. There are 7 in the committee. “Folk Club of the Year” ?
Alistair Heather just gets more ridiculous. “Fowk baun”, “ack”, “twalmant”. If you want Scots, forced, faux-Scots like this “gie’s me the dry boak”.
Apart from one set of traditional Shetland tunes played very well by Eryn Rae, and some puirt-a-beul, where was the traditional music in “Na Trads”?
And my brother did get a wee dig in - “Silly Wizard” and “Tattie-howker chic” 🙂
BBC Alba have just tweeted Aberdeen’s award(among others) under the heading “Howff O The Twalmont” 🙂
We went to Aberdeen FC after the Stonehaven weekend and although there was a decent enough crowd for a non guest night, it was a bit too formal in the set up. A bit like a concert setting and you had to go “up front” to do your song or whatever. Apparently, it was because of “Covid” .
Aberdeen is a long established club, of course, but seems more “low key” of late. Arguably, it does deserve to be recognised for its past contributions and history but I agree it may not seem the most obvious winner at the moment.
However, the awards seem to be like that. Edinburgh Folk Club has been nominated a few times but never actually won during the time it was relatively busy and popular. It did eventually though but, sadly, it was after the passing of the long time chairman. What a pity it couldn’t have happened while he was still with us.
Aye, I enjoyed your brother’s contribution to the night, Kenny.
Regarding the awards, I seem to remember Simon Thoumire saying it didn’t matter who the awards went to, it was all about raising public awareness of the “trad” music scene. If that’s the case, then having a host speaking in a real Scots dialect instead of a made up one would help.
Again, I was disappointed with the coverage of the so called “minor awards”.
Some weren’t mentioned at all including the “Howff O’ the Twalmant” and, in some cases, we heard a few words from the winners but had to work out what they had won for ourselves.
So, that certainly isn’t helping to raise the profile of the music either.
One of the things that might have swung the vote for Aberdeen Folk Club was the fact that it celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2022.It is a club with a very distinguished history - Jeanie Robertson, Arthur Argo and others. I have been on a couple of occasions, and they were very welcoming, so I am happy for them. Oh, and I have a friend on the committee, but she didn’t swing my vote!
As for not showing it on TV, it has always been the case, since they started televising it (and that was a major breakthrough!) that they only start transmitting after 9pm, whereas the whole ceremony starts at least an hour earlier, so there are always a number of awards that are NOT covered in the televised broadcast - which is a shame! And that always includes “Folk Club of the Year” - or if you really must…Howff o’ the Twalmant! (Fit’s that?)
And yes, Kenny, you’ll know far more about the club than me, but that faux-pseudo-Scots does my head in too!
“Twalmont” seems to be a Shetland term..
https://www.shetlanddialect.org.uk/john-j-grahams-shetland-dictionary.php?word=2641
I’ve never heard it until recently though. Certainly not in mainland Scotland.
While I’m all in favour of people being encouraged to speak their own local “Scots” and preserving the language in general, I don’t like all this “made up” stuff either or the attempts to gather it all together into one homogenous “mix”.
In Inverness, we didn’t speak much in the way of “Scots”. However, my grandmother(Mother’s side) grew up in Morayshire and I heard a lot from that side of the family. Also, there were plenty of “fowk” coming and going through the area too. So, I learned quite a lot even although I would never consider myself to be a true Scots speaker.
“Twelvemonth” is a known word in Standard English, although for a century or more now I doubt it’s been used for any reason other than as a cod medievalism.
Turns up in old songs:
“I’ll sit and mourn all by her graveside
For a twelvemonth and a day”
(The Unquiet Grave)
“ having a host speaking in a real Scots dialect instead of a made up one would help”….
Well my vote goes to Rab Nesbit (but then I’m Australian(ish).
“Turns up in old songs”
And new(ish) ones:
All around my hat I will wear the green willow
And all around my hat for a twelve-month and a day
But that doesn’t mean people use the word in speech. The only time I’ve ever heard anyone use the word “twalmont” in speech is at the Trad Awards or in discussions about the Trad Awards. And where I live I would be more likely to hear it if it was used since the local dialect for twelve is “twal”.
"All around my hat I will wear the green willow
And all around my hat for a twelve-month and a day"
1820s.
Just curious here. How did you narrow that song down to a specific decade ?
I guess they looked on Wikipedia, the entry for “All Around My Hat” starting by stating:
“The song ”All Around my Hat“ (Roud 567[1] and 22518,[2] Laws P31) is of nineteenth-century English origin.[3] In an early version,[citation needed] dating from the 1820s,…”
Which means that, given that the same online encyclopedia says that The Unquiet Grave “is thought to date from 1400”, All Around My Hat is, relatively speaking, kind of “new(ish)”.
wikipedia, altho quick & dirty, can be useful for some things, if used carefully. For a kind of fullish discussion, there’s this: https://web.archive.org/web/20070617152117/http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=37571
. . . . .
per the Grauniad (do people still call it that?)
“Ballads are notoriously difficult to date. Some sources suggest c.1400; others say that there is no evidence that ”The Unquiet Grave“ existed in written form before 1800. In fact, not many of Child’s ballads date from before 1600. In some versions, it’s the young man who has died: like a medieval knight, he lies ”slain“ in the ”greenwood“. 78D has a literary diction at times, a hint of Scots dialect, and a nautical setting. The quality of 78A could reflect the later crafting and processing of some rougher, older material. But there are many versions in addition to Child’s and you may have a favourite of your own.”
Writing over here in the 2020s, I personally consider a song dating from the 1820s - or even the 1830s - to be an old song.
. . . . . .
And finally (for the moment) if “yeir” was good enough for William Dunbar, it should be good enough for Mr. Fowkbaun.
My prince in God, gif thee guid grace,
Joy, glaidnes, confort, and solace,
Play, pleasance, myrth, and mirrie cheir
In hansill of this guid New Yeir.
I like Wikipedia, refer to it a lot, and contribute to its upkeep. It has its errors but then there is very little on this Earth that is free from error, including me.
But just to reiterate, I’ve never heard “twalmont” used by any Scot in casual everyday conversation.
“but then there is very little on this Earth that is free from error, including me. ”… No you’re wrong Donald!
Haha, cool paradox, Gobby.
There are 127 versions of “All Around my Hat” mentioned in the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library - just in case you want to check! No, I don’t think I’ll bother.
And I did a Google search for “Twalmant” and it comes up with Walmart!
It wid tak ye yin whale twalmant tae dae sic a thing.
🙂
I’ve always loved the energy and shear sense of fun in the Steeleye Span version.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxhjBiUE87A
“It wid tak ye yin whale …”
Let’s leave whales, sharks, dolphins and other aquatic creatures out of this discussion. BTW, the Scots equivalent of English “whole” is “hale”.
I know. Unfortunately, I’d already posted it before I realised and didn’t notice until it was too late to edit same.
🙂
I think that Scots as is heard in the east and north east of Scotland is a dialect of what can be loosly called the English language.None of it is a purist form of Angles or Saxons but of course includes latin,norman french,scandinavian,maybe in the case of Scots pictish,and many more recent words from overseas plus throw backs from older forms of the language.
Although from the west riding of Yorkshire I have lived and worked in Scotland for nearly 30 years.The only way to function effectively in the urban communities of Glasgow as a Social worker was to understand and speak the dialect.More recently for the past 20 years I have stayed (thats a west coast expression for lived)in and around Inverness.
Listening to the Scots dialect in context and to those who sing in it-Michael Mara et al I can understand most of it as with Geordie Brummie etc.
However Scots gaelic is a different matter.
There is some latin in there as a result of it first been written down in a gaelic bible ( meadhan a’ bhaile-“me an a (b)vaal ”-middle of bailey castle-of town)and some obvious modern words like tacsi,football,poilis etc but much of the rest of it is completely different and never spelt how it sounds.
