Tag: Barnyards of Delgaty

Teaching Scots Song in Schools with SC&T Youth

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I’ve been having a brilliant time in schools the past two weeks teaching Scots Song with SC&T Youth ! The Scottish Traditional Taster Sessions have so far been in Muirfield Primary and Ferryhill Primary with Primary 5, 6 and 7 pupils learning Guitar, Clarsach and Penny Whistle as well as a “Class song” which they sing accompanied by another primary on their instruments and two songs which they sing unaccompanied but along with the other participating classes.

At the end of the week all 3 classes perform their instrumental pieces, class songs and joint songs in front of the rest of the school and teachers – and the two schools I’ve been involved in have totally nailed their performances!

The class songs this year were –
Mary Mac, The Fisherman’s Lassie and The Bonnie Ship The Diamond. Both Mary Mac and the Bonnie Ship were new songs to the repertoire this year and have gone down very well with the pupils!
The joints songs have been the classics Barnyards of Delgaty and The Wellyboot Song.

Convincing P7s that Bothy Ballads are the coolest thing on earth must go down as one of my biggest achievements of 2025!

A Grand Week at Sunnybank School

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I’ve got some braw photies for you today from my week with SC&T Youth at Sunnybank School!

As I said in my post at the start of the week, the P6s were learning The Barnyards O Delgaty – quite the feat for those with non-Scots families, but they pronounced the Scots beautifully and I wis affa impressed wi their “knyot” in Meg MacPherson’s brose!

I posted a link to clarsach tutor Irene singing the song earlier this week, but here’s a link to Bothy Champion Joe Aitken’s performance at the Keith TMSA Festival in 2021 – back when we were still aa daen festivals fae oor livingrooms!

The Barnyards O Delgaty is sung about 22 minutes into Joe’s performance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4yqCYp2O0U

The photo below is of my Dad’s Uncle Willie – taken around 1920. I wanted to show the bairns what ploughing horses looked like, all yokit up. (Uncle Willie is clearly spruced up for this photo, wi his pocket watch and everything!)

The drawings are from a rather talented P6! First she drew one of Uncle Willie’s horses – long after the photo had been taken down off the board! And then she drew me and our cat Apollo 😍

(Apollo is looking mean because he clawed my arm in a moment of “I love you – I love attacking you!” leaving me with a rather obvious scratch, hehe 😃 )

I love when these visits inspire the kids in so many different ways ❤

SC&T Youth Tutoring – Scots Song at St Peter’s School

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Well that was a fun week for the SC&T Youth tutors at St Peter’s Primary School in Aberdeen!

P4, 5 and 6 pupils learned clasarch, guitar, whistle, and Scots song every morning, with a concert on Friday where they were able to show off the tunes and songs they’d learned to the rest of the school and their teachers. P4 and 5 instruments would accompany the P6 singers, for example. 

Here’s a photo of P6 enjoying a video of Joe Aitken singing the Barnyards of Delgaty – they were all singing along within a couple of choruses! I was especially impressed with their pronunciation of all the Doric words which were new to almost all the pupils.

One of the P6 girls drew this amazing portrait of me! – I love it when pupils do that! There are some amazing details in there – I’m particularly loving the duck earrings!

I’m really looking forward to next week when we’ll be sharing songs and tunes with the pupils of Riverbank Primary School.