International Regional and Local Music Scenes
Local Edinburgh, UK Music Scene
The local music scene of Edinburgh is heavily influenced by the overall UK scene as well as what's
happening throughout Europe. The reason Edinburgh has an excellent music scene is partly due to
the rich music education offerings at places such as the Reid School of Music at the University of
Edinburgh, which has a world-class music library and balances between the art and science of
music, which has helped contemporary classical musicians. Reid was named after 19th century flute player General John Reid of the British Army.
The music scene is also full of upbeat rockers and electronic artists, as covered by
ENTS24.com and
Edinburgh-Festivals.com.
Some of the rising stars of the Edinburgh music scene include Broken Records,
eagleowl, Meursault, Withered Hand and Kid Canaveral. Tributes to the city have appeared in songs
such as "The Flowers of Edinburgh" by Jim Malcolm, "Autumn in Edinburgh" by Nick Keir and
"Sunshine on Leith" by the Proclaimers, the most famous pop music act from Edinburgh. Another famous
musician from the city was Shirley Manson of Garbage, who many people assume is from Madison,
Wisconsin in the United States because that's where the band made their mark.
Edinburgh's rich history revolves around big names outside of music such as Charles Darwin
and Alexander Graham Bell. It can be argued, however, that the Darwin helped the evolution of
music by discovering dinosaur fossils, which led to the petroleum industry, which is where plastic
comes from, giving us vinyl records and CDs. It can also be argued that Bell's invention of the
telephone inspired the invention of the first phonographs that were meant to be answering machines
for the telephone. Stereo was originally invented by combining two phones. Bell's company became
AT&T which made some of the first commercial radio transmitters. A spinoff company, Bell Labs, was an
earlier developer of transistors, which became the basis of the computer chip revolution.
These days Edinburgh has a developing music scene, although the more vibrant part of Scotland
is Glasgow, where many artists relocate. Some of the main live music venues in Edinburgh include
The Queen's Hall, Electric Circus, The Cabaret Voltaire, Sneaky Pete's, The Liquid Room and HMV Picture House.
One of the problems with a lot of indie music is that not enough emphasis is put on lyrical
storytelling. Lyrics add an extra dimension of communication to a song that should not be ignored.
Advertising jingles usually make sure that the lyrics are clear, but in many other instances,
messages can get slurred with more emphasis places on the sound of the instrumentation or vocal
style. Indie can be elevated to a higher level if it not only had more message-driven anthems,
but songs with more entertaining storytelling.
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