Shetland-Music.com

"Explore the history of the fiddle in Shetland with Charlie Simpson as your guide...

To explore the roots of the fiddle tradition of Shetland, one has firstly to make a journey in the mind to reverse progress and strip away most of the trappings of modern society, to get a feel for what Shetland was like in 1700. Firstly, the population was only about half of today's, and only 700 people lived in Lerwick. Without roads, movement round the isles is slow, and contact between the scattered townships and islands infrequent. The only links to the outside world involve trade. There is no education system to speak of, and no media to spread news of world events. The Anglo-Dutch wars are fresh in the memory and skirmishes between the Dutch and French still affect the islands.

Culturally, it's enough to realise that a long era of Scandanavian influence is coming to an end. A few old folk still speak the old Norn language, sing a song or two, and at weddings folk still perform an old ring-dance to chanted ballads, but the influx of Scots in the last century has brought a new music with them, for the gentry now owning most of Shetland in estates and the retainers who followed them here, took with them new-fangled dances and the new-fangled violin. There used to be people who could play the gue, a two-stringed bowed instrument played like the cello, but as the old dances went out of use the music was lost, apart from a few tunes that could be adapted for the violins that the Dutch fishermen first displayed in the isles.

A musical Shetlander in 1700 would be hard put to lay hands on a fiddle, for apart from naval vessels, only the occasional ship from Scotland carrying oatmeal, from Norway with timber, or Germany with salt were to be seen in Shetland waters. The population was not encouraged to leave the islands, for men were needed to catch fish. Fiddlers therefore would be few and far between, and probably rarely met. Each developed his own way of playing for the reel, and his own repertoire of tunes; some learnt from singing, some perhaps picked up at a wedding, and some made up himself.

In common to all fiddlers, though, was the need for rhythm in playing for the dance. There was never any Celtic influence in Shetland, so the bagpipe and harp never took root. The three-couple reel was 'the' dance, and the fiddle the only music provider. The cottages of the people were the only places to dance in, with room for only one set of dancers at a time. The playing style became strongly rhythmic, with syncopated bowing techniques and lots of ringing harmonics on open strings, sometimes tuned up to increase the effect.

The most notable single event of the eighteenth century was the arrival in Unst of Freidamann Von Steigl, a deserter from a German vessel in 1743 and the founder of a dynasty of good fiddlers right to the present day. Towards the end of the century the onset of the Napoleonic wars lead to thousands of Shetland men being press-ganged into service in the Royal Navy, and an increase in travel outside the isles.

Into the nineteenth century, change gathers pace. The inshore fishery winds down, and the whaling industry in the Arctic attracts men. The Scottish grip on Shetland is firm, with much immigration. The dance culture is now rooted in Lowland Scotland, and many tunes brought in are "Shetlandised" for simplicity to suit the dance. Although the reel is the main dance, there are a number of tunes from this period in jig time. Apart from the 'Foula Reel' - danced on Foula and the West side at this time, and based on a Swedish dance - the tunes are thought to be remnants from a period when the pace of the dance was more akin to 6/8 time than 4/4. The Nordic ring-dance survives at weddings here and there, and the tunes have survived up to the present day as "Auld Reels". The whaling trade produced the "Greenland Tunes" said to be learnt from Inuit people. These tunes, like the 'Trowie tunes' said to be learnt from contact with Shetland's population of trows - little people who dwelt in the misty hills - are more likely to be the efforts of modest composers on whaling ships, for the Inuit had no music or dance tradition at this time.

All in all, musical change between 1700 and about 1880 certainly occurred, albeit very slowly. Only from the latter date onwards does the pace quicken. As the inshore fisheries begin to wither the great herring fishery begins to blossom. Spare manpower is absorbed by the country's growing Merchant Navy, and men go "sailing" of their own free will. Improved trade leads to better communications, and an educated population has greater access to the printed word. The summer herring fishing brings thousands of people to Shetland, and the local population becomes much more mobile as the trade increases and the road network improves.

The incomers bring new dances; polkas, waltzes, quadrilles; new tunes are needed for these. Public halls appear on the scene, allowing more space for dancing. Louder instruments like accordion and melodeon appear; travelling musicians such as George Stark, the blind fiddler from Dundee, come each summer to busk in Lerwick, spreading the music of Scott Skinner and his ilk. By 1910 the phonograph is on the scene, and fiddlers learn new tunes from recordings.

In 1910, the population of Lerwick was 5500; by the standards of the time it was a prosperous modern town with most of the amenities and certainly not lacking in the social sense. Despite attempts by the churches at moderation - a process that had carried on with declining effect for centuries - Lerwick was a lively place socially with many licensed premises and the fishing gave the prosperity that attracted people from country districts, to meet if not to stay. The First World War brought a halt to these social activities and took many lives, not to mention the ruinous effect war and the Russian Revolution had on the herring industry, by destroying its traditional East European markets. The pre-war prosperity was taken away, and took over forty years to be restored.

When social events got going again in the 1920s, it was the youngsters born in the last twenty years who took up the provision of music for dancing.They had been brought up with the new tunes and styles of fiddling for the broader dance repertoire, so the concentration on the Shetland reel tune began to fade from this time. Notable during this period was Gideon Stove of Lerwick, who was influenced as a composer by the style of Skinner, and became a fiddle teacher of renown. Radio came on the scene and inspired many young players to try other musical styles.

This process continued right through to the end of the Second World War. The old music hung on in the country and island areas, distant from Lerwick, but was supplanted by the influence of Jimmy Shand and jazz elsewhere. By the war's end however, a movement was afoot to preserve as much of Shetland's historical culture as remained, and theShetland Folk Society was formed for this purpose in 1945. Not the least of its efforts was in the musical direction, and Tom Anderson came to the forefront at this time, as leader of the Folk Society's Traditional band. Old tunes were written down and published, and Tom almost pioneered tape-recording in Shetland in the process of saving the old music. He got together a group of fiddlers to play for a Hamefarin concert in 1960, leading to the establishment of Shetland Fiddlers' Society on the 29th June that year.

The fifties and sixties saw the popularity of Scottish dance music come to the forefront, and most local players concentrated their efforts in this direction. The tunes composed by Ronnie Cooper, Frank Jamieson, Ian Burns, Willie Hunter, Tom Anderson himself and many others are mainly in this Scottish idiom, but with a recognisable "Shetland" flavour. It has been recorded that when the Forty fiddlers first met to practice for the Hamefarin, the only tune they could all play together was "Mrs. McLeod".

Tom Anderson's contribution to Shetland fiddle playing cannot be overstated. He preserved the old tunes almost single-handedly and encouraged musicologists to follow him; he became Shetland's first instructor of fiddle as opposed to violin; on leaving Shetland Fiddlers' Society in 1980 he formed Shetland's Young Heritage in 1983. Besides, he was the driving force behind the first Folk Festival and "Young Fiddler of the Year" competition in 1981. In addition to Tom, no account would be complete without mention of Patrick Shuldham-Shaw, an English folk-dance enthusiast who first visited Shetland in the 1940s, noting down tunes in the pre-recording era. He particularly deserves credit for preserving the repertoire of John Stickle of Baltasound,whence came all the Freidie Stickle tunes and the vast bulk of the jig repertoire. Today, the musical wheel has turned full circle again; more and more of these 'old' tunes are being retrieved from the archives to be played by younger players, and their value recognised.

In an age where music from anywhere in the world is readily available and imitation relatively easy, it's essential for a culture to retain its individuality in this great musical mass. Shetland traditional fiddling may be simple in the technical sense but this very simplicity, born as it was out of a narrow requirement for undiluted rhythm and accent to liven up a single dance, makes it relatively unique in the traditional music world. Its preservation and perpetuation is therefore an essential and worthwhile task for Shetland musicians , and a great deal of fun and enjoyment for those who do.