Shetland Fiddle Music

The use of a stringed instrument in the Shetlands goes back long before the arrival of the fiddle or violin. The gue was the Shetland version of a type of bowed lyre once in widespread use in the Celtic areas of Britain and in Scandinavia. It fell out of use in the eighteenth century, but its sound is still produced by older fiddlers, as they keep their open strings ringing away both above and below the melody line.

Crofting and fishing is the traditional way of life in the Shetlands, and the annual cycle is one of ceaseless industry throughout spring and summer followed soon after by the short dark days of winter with its frequent storms. At that season there is ample opportunity to acquire a mastery over an instrument that does not easily yield its music. Radio, television, and records seem unlikely to succeed in making the Shetlander just a passive listener.

Violins have always been comparatively cheap. Such cheapness must be counted an asset in the islands which have never known affluence. Returning seamen frequently brought violins home and some men tested their skill by making the instruments. Today few Shetland homes are without one.

Its possibilities for dynamic contrast and rhythmic attack make the violin a superb instrument for dance music. Shetlanders, young and old love dancing at weddings, at the annual inter-island regattas, and at the ordinary public rants.

The late Andrew Poleson was a prime example of ‘da auld Shetland fiddler,’ the term used affectionately by other Shetlanders to describe those fiddlers of an age now past. They were mostly quite unschooled in fiddling, having learned their repertory orally. Their repertory consisted almost solely of dance music and they usually played unaccompanied or along with other fiddlers, for they belonged to an age when fiddlers were usually the only providers of dance music in Shetland. This was especially true of small communities where pianos were often not available and where accordionists had not yet become the leading providers of dance music.

Andrew, a native of the island of Whalsay, on the eastern side of Shetland, taught himself to play the fiddle, learning much of his large repertory of dancing ‘springs’ from the singing of his mother. He began to play on a borrowed fiddle at the age of ten and didn’t own a fiddle of his own until he was in his teens. Besides playing for weddings and dancing in crofts and community halls in Whalsay, he also sang in the choir in the island’s kirk and like many Whalsay men, he possessed a fine resonant singing voice. Unlike other Whalsay men, however, he was neither seaman nor fisherman but a crofter and builder’s labourer for most of his working life.

The following four tunes are examples of fiddle music – Mrs. Major Stewart of the island of Java, Madame Frederick, Earl Grey, and Waverly Ball.