When one thinks of Scotland, images come to mind of bagpipes, kilts, and a tough breed of people living in a desolate, rocky mountain region north of England. Cultural pride abounds, with many Americans claiming Scottish ancestry. However, exactly what are the Scottish traditions, and where did they come from? According to Hugh Trevor-Roper, many of the deeply ingrained traditions are not as they appear at first glance. Referred to as ‘invented tradition’ by Trevor-Roper, the symbolic traditions of bagpipes and kilts came into being through the writings of several Scottish Lowland men. Martin Stokes discusses how societies take shape through influences far away from them, succeeding in separating a space from its place. The space in which Scottish traditions exists for many people is not the place in which the tradition was…show more content… Peter Symon states that in the late 1980s, Scotland linked the traditional music forms of bagpipes and other Celtic music to the popular discourse in the Scottish nationalist project. About the same time, Americans discovered ‘Celtic’ music, which combined music of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. The commercialization of the genre contributed to a transnational understanding of the music of the British Isles, rather than a traditional, nationalist view of Scottish music. By commodifying the sound, people disregarded the articulation between traditional music, heritage and identity. An important factor for Scottish music lies in the community setting, both for learning and socialization. The nationalistic representation is lost when the place for the music no longer exists. In the 1990s, the process of learning Scottish traditional music moved to a more formal Westernized approach, so today’s Scottish music has taken on the coloring of a dominant society rather than that of the