A WALLYFORD author has created a “love song to Scotland” using her daughter’s school recorder.

Amanda Baker collaborated with students to interpret her ideas into a track, released earlier this month, which pays tribute to Scotland.

Amanda, who usually uses her creative talents to produce works of poetry and prose, was struck with inspiration in the early hours one morning to put her words to music.

She said: “A tune started tumbling around my head.

“I do not read music or play an instrument so, when I got the early morning brain crash for this song, I didn’t have the ‘language’ to pin it down.”

Amanda borrowed her daughter’s school recorder to try and note down the idea.

Since Amanda does not write music, she invented her own method, using numbers corresponding with the holes in the recorder and made-up symbols to indicate how the notes should be played.

After four days, the paper resembled what Amanda described as “alien code” that only she could read.

Amanda Baker author headshot

Amanda Baker

She said: “There followed several months of trying to elicit help from someone musical – the problem being that no one else could read the code.”

Eventually, two young music students from Edinburgh College agreed to help and made her song their project.

Vocalist Maisie Arbuckle, 18, recorded Amanda playing the tune and college lecturer Laurie Crump helped to transcribe it into a readable score.

Maisie worked up a raw recording, singing in the style of a traditional Scottish ballad, with 17-year-old Brodie Cuthbertson, who played guitar.

Amanda said: “It’s so wonderful having it made real, and working with the college was fantastic.

“No one could live in Scotland and not fall in love with this country – this is really a love song to Scotland.”

The first draft of the song, Mend My Heart, is available to listen to via amandabaker.bandcamp.com/track/mend-my-heart