Orkney Singers | mp3s - listen, singalong & watch

MP3s - Singalong!

If you like singing along then take the opportunity below! Listen or download music and lyrics, or watch the video.

aimee (bodhran), sarah jane and emily perform in the cromarty hall, st margaret's hope with frank keenan and alex leonard on accompaniment 6th december 2008

We had lots of SongShares across Orkney’s Mainland, South Isles and North Isles in the first year of our project. They took the format of a short informal concert of Orkney songs (as seen above) performed by Aimee Leonard (also on bodhran), Sarah Jane Gibbon and Emily Turton, as well as any musicians we are able to round up for each performance! We rarely knew who were we were going to see, and anyone who wanted to perform was encouraged to come up and join in. The whole thing was very informal – we didn't use the stage and only used microphones and amps to amplify the sound. If we could sing loud enough without them we probably would! It was a fantastic way to spend a Saturday afternoon, in the company of good music and friendly folk, and something we all now miss greatly.

Each Song Share had a workshop where everyone was encouraged to join in and learn an Orkney song. You’ll find some of our tunes and lyrics below, together with a couple of old Orkney tunes. “The Isle of Erin” (lyrics available here) was a song written in 1908 and was found in the Orkney Library and Archive sung by Sydney Scott. It was rearranged, and is now available on the Song Shop cd Fruteetee, together with “Hoy’s Dark and Lofty Isle”, (lyrics available here) another song found in the archives. For more information on this beautiful song, click here.

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Hoy's Dark and Lofty Isle and the Isle of Erin are sung by the Song Shop, but all the rest are sung by the workshop singers at our SongShare Events. These recordings may be only the first or second time everyone had ever sung that particular song!

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Note1: An Orcadian Cradle Song is also known as "Ba Ba Lammie Noo"

Note 2: If you cannot download a song, you may need to clear out your computer's cache/cookies. In Internet Explorer go to Tools/Internet Options/Delete and choose to clear out your cookies. In Firefox, go to Tools/Options/Network/Clear cache. If you still have difficulty downloading a song, please get in touch and we'll email it out to you.