Abstract

This chapter examines the growing awareness of the “national properties” of sounds in the eighteenth century, mainly from a British – and more specifically Scottish – perspective, and focusses especially on phenomena such as the collection of national airs, and the ballad revival (but ‘street cries’ could have been an equally suitable example). In this history Britain holds a peculiar place. After the Act of Union of 1707 British national identity was forged (a process that took over a hundred years), and “Britishness” had to be somehow invented. Sounds and music played their part in this process of invented tradition and cultural definition.