The BBC Genome Project is an essential resource for anyone researching Scottish traditional music post 1923 as it contains a wealth of details of radio and television broadcasts. From it I even learned (why did I not know?) that I was once a BBC Radio 3 Artist of the Week! (January 1995) By was of illustration here is information on a fiddle music series Dancing Fiddles from 1989:

Dancing Fiddles

Introduced by Ron Gonnella with George Mcllwham , Rhona MacKay , Angus Cameron. Walter Blair and Graham Robb
Producer KEN MUTCH BBC Radio Scotland 21 June 1989

Dancing Fiddles

Introduced by Ron Gonnella with George McIlwham , Rhona MacKay , Angus Cameron , Walter Blair and Graham Robb
Producer KEN MUTCH BBC Radio Scotland 28 June 1989

Dancing Fiddles

Introduced by Ron Gonnella with George Mcllwham , Rhona MacKay , Angus Cameron , Walter Blair and Graham Robb
Producer KEN MUTCH BBC Radio Scotland 5 July 1989

Dancing Fiddles

Introduced by Ron Gonnella with George Mcllwham , Rhona Mackay , Angus Cameron , Walker Blair and Graham Robb
Producer KEN MUTCH
BBC Radio Scotland (R) 14 June 1989

The Dancing Fiddles

Ron Gonnella introduces a lively mixture of traditional music from the Crieff Hydro Hotel, Perthshire, in the company of George Mcllwham (flute/piccolo), Rhona MacKay (harp/clarsach), Angus Cameron (fiddle), Walter Blair (piano) and Graham Robb (double bass). Producer KEN MUTCH BBC Radio Scotland 31 May 1989

As previous posts show, my research is throwing up some interesting references to attitudes to jazz in Scotland in the 1920s and 30s, how this was seen as a threat to traditional music and how our native folk music was an antidote to this foreign infection. F. Marian McNeill, writing in the Scotsman on 28 September 1933, offered the Celtic harp as ideal alternative to the modern music:

The re-awakening of the national spirit in Scotland to-day is affecting every department of the national life, and the sap is stirring down in the ancient Celtic roots of our civilisation. To a palate jaded with jazz, how grateful the mellow, woodland notes of the clarsach.

This is fairly new ground in Scottish traditional music studies and I plan to return to the theme in some depth in future.

At long last I’ve found a photograph of this elusive fiddle player. Piecing together recent cultural history takes time and effort but is always rewarding when things start to fall into place. The photograph is from a newspaper article which can be read in the area of this blog dedicated to Harvey-Webb.

I was asked to make a live recording of this outstanding young fiddle trio at a house concert in Edinburgh. Their music is all composed by Simon Bradley who lives in Uist. His tunes are quite idiosyncratic and there are influences from Scotland, Ireland and Asturias. As such it illustrates a current feature of late revival fiddle repertory and style. The playing is attractive, energetic, sensitive and entertaining. Here is a video from the concert:

I play a bum traditional fiddle to correct the neurosis of painting – Davy Lockhart

I am sorry to record the passing of Davy Lockhart, fiddler and artist from Fife on 28 December 2014. There is information on Davy here.

I was introduced to the important work of Mark Wilson the other day by Dr John Shaw of Edinburgh University. Of course, I was familiar with Wilson in passing but had not been aware of the scale of his contribution to fiddle studies until I read this article by him. I am particularly drawn to the following lines which relate to revival:

…Just as importantly from the viewpoint of musical psychology, a “folk musician” typically expects to find his or her audience locally as well–a fiddler strives to play for the local dances, not to appear in vaudeville or the concert hall; a singer’s ambitions reach only as far as singing for her children or for fellow miners during a lunch break. This basic modesty of intent is closely connected, in my opinion, with much of the music’s charm.

…As one who likes to fiddle a bit himself, I am cheered by the vigor of these enthusiasts, but it is an unfortunate fact that these efforts sometimes have the inadvertent effect of pushing genuine traditional music into even deeper obscurity (rather, I’m afraid, as the “cover” recordings of Pat Boone temporarily eclipsed Little Richard’s originals). Indeed, because the “revivalists” are usually better equipped to promote themselves successfully, one often encounters a situation in Appalachia today where “folk festivals” are largely dominated by these groups, even if excellent traditional musicians may live nearby. To my ears at least, the music of the revivalists has become rather ingrown, for they learn mainly amongst themselves, and frequently lacks the virtues that supply
genuine traditional music with its special elan. For example, the fiddle playing one
often hears in these circles ranges from the bland to the pointlessly frenetic,
interpretations that all grow from a failure to appreciate the intrinsic subtleties of
the American dance tradition.

… I have been disheartened by the attitudes current among professional folklorists who, because of unhappy intellectual trends in academia, often regard honest recording work as mildly contemptible. Thus the folklore unit at a university where I recently taught found it far more worthwhile to probe the
attitudes–they call them “social constructions”–towards “things Irish” of the
middle-class burghers of Dublin, Ohio rather than spend any time capturing the old fiddle tunes that can still found in the countryside.

… misapprehensions are largely the artifact of conducting ones research
largely in the library rather than the field.

This list of fiddle pibrochs (see earlier post) was compiled by the late Dr. David Johnson. The playing of pibroch or pibroch-like music on fiddle has undergone a minor revival of late that can be largely credited to David’s pioneering research.

The following newpaper quote from 1934 is confirmation of the late persistence of an aural fiddle culture in Scotland, at least in one rural area:

BORDER MUSIC FESTIVAL The fifteenth annual Border Music Festival will be held at Hawick and Galashiels from May 14th to 19th. Four new classes are included in the syllabus, which has just been issued. There are a class for Women’s Rural Institute choirs, where the test is singing two Scottish songs in unison; a strathspey and reel class for violinists, intended primarily for those who are accustomed to playing by ear; a class for bagpipe players under 19 years of age; and a class for percussion bands. Southern Reporter 25 January 1934, p. 4.

A programme in commemoration of Neil Gow , the father of Scottish fiddling, who was born on March 22,. 1727 Taking part:
Charles R. M. Brookes
Catherine Fletcher
Ian Sadler
Thomas Smith
Harold L. Wightman
George Harvey-Webb (violin) and The Reel Players (Leader, Margaret Smart)
The programme written by Ian Macpherson
Produced by Andrew Stewart
BBC Radio Times for 23 March 1936

DAVID MCCALLUM in Violin Solos
DAVID MCCALLUM , who is Principal First Violin in the Scottish Orchestra, studied in Glasgow with the famous Verbrugghen and then at the Royal College of Music with Maurice Sons. He made his first public appearance at the ace of nine in Bonnybridge Town Hall. A cab met him at the station and drove him in state to the hall, where, after a heavy meal of pies it was discovered that he had left his fiddle and music in the train. After considerable anxiety the instrument was returned later in the evening on the same train on its return journey and he was able to appear before the concert ended.
Scottish Children’s Hour BBC Radio Times, 25 April 1934

David McCallum was born in Kilsyth in 1897 and died at Arundel, Sussex in 1972.