A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres including classical music. Although in many cases violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, the style of the music played may determine specific construction differences between fiddles and classical violins. For example, fiddles may optionally be set up with a bridge with a flatter arch to reduce the range of bow-arm motion needed for techniques such as the double shuffle, a form of bariolage involving rapid alternation between pairs of adjacent strings. To produce a "brighter" tone, compared to the deeper tones of gut or synthetic core strings, fiddlers often use steel strings. The fiddle is part of many traditional (folk) styles, which are typically aural traditions—taught 'by ear' rather than via written music.
The reel is a folk dance type as well as the accompanying dance tune type. Of Scottish origin, reels are also an important part of the repertoire of the fiddle traditions of the British Isles and North America. In Scottish country dancing, the reel is one of the four traditional dances, the others being the jig, the strathspey and the waltz, and is also the name of a dance figure.
Scottish country dance (SCD) is the distinctively Scottish form of country dance, itself a form of social dance involving groups of couples of dancers tracing progressive patterns. A dance consists of a sequence of figures. These dances are set to musical forms which come from the Gaelic tradition of Highland Scotland, as do the steps used in performing the dances. Traditionally a figure corresponds to an eight-bar phrase of music.
The Great Highland bagpipe is a type of bagpipe native to Scotland, and the Scottish analogue to the Great Irish Warpipes. It has acquired widespread recognition through its usage in the British military and in pipe bands throughout the world.
The schottische is a partnered country dance that apparently originated in Bohemia. It was popular in Victorian era ballrooms as a part of the Bohemian folk-dance craze and left its traces in folk music of countries such as Argentina, Finland ("jenkka"), France, Italy, Norway ("reinlender"), Portugal and Brazil, Spain (chotis), Sweden, Denmark ("schottis"), Mexico, and the United States, among other nations. The schottische is considered by The Oxford Companion to Music to be a kind of slower polka, with continental-European origin.
Kingussie is a small town in the Badenoch and Strathspey ward of the Highland council area of Scotland. Historically in Inverness-shire, it lies beside the A9 road, although the old route of the A9 serves as the town's main street which has been bypassed since 1979. Kingussie is 42 miles south of Inverness, 12 mi (19 km) south of Aviemore, and 3 mi (5 km) north of Newtonmore.
The hornpipe is any of several dance forms played and danced in Britain and Ireland and elsewhere from the 16th century until the present day. The earliest references to hornpipes are from England with Hugh Aston's Hornepype of 1522 and others referring to Lancashire hornpipes in 1609 and 1613.
The Lombard rhythm or Scotch snap is a syncopated musical rhythm in which a short, accented note is followed by a longer one. This reverses the pattern normally associated with dotted notes or notes inégales, in which the longer value precedes the shorter.
A strathspey is a type of dance tune in 4
4 time, featuring dotted rhythms, which in traditional playing are generally somewhat exaggerated rhythmically. Examples of strathspeys are the songs "The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond" and "Coming Through the Rye".
Cape Breton fiddling is a regional violin style which falls within the Celtic music idiom. Cape Breton Island's fiddle music was brought to North America by Scottish immigrants during the Highland Clearances. These Scottish immigrants were primarily from Gaelic-speaking regions in the Scottish Highlands and the Outer Hebrides. Although fiddling has changed considerably since this time in Scotland, it is widely held that the tradition of Scottish fiddle music has been better preserved in Cape Breton.
Highland dance or Highland dancing is a style of competitive dancing developed in the Scottish Highlands in the 19th and 20th centuries, in the context of competitions at public events such as the Highland games. It was created from the Gaelic folk dance repertoire, but formalised with the conventions of ballet', and has been subject to influences from outside the Highlands. Highland dancing is often performed with the accompaniment of Highland bagpipe music, and dancers wear specialised shoes called ghillies. It is now seen at nearly every modern-day Highland games event.
Aviemore railway station serves the town and tourist resort of Aviemore in the Highlands of Scotland. The station, which is owned by Network Rail (NR) and managed by Abellio ScotRail, is on the Highland Main Line between Perth and Inverness, and is also the southern terminus of the Strathspey preserved railway.
The Highland Fling is a solo Highland dance that gained popularity in the early 19th century. The word 'Fling' means literally a movement in dancing. In John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808, the Highland Fling was defined as 'one species of movement' in dancing, not as one particular movement. There is some speculation that the first solo Highland Fling dances simply showed off steps that individual dancers preferred in the Strathspey Reel, a social dance.
Scottish Americans or Scots Americans are Americans whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in Scotland. Scottish Americans are closely related to Scotch-Irish Americans, descendants of Ulster Scots, and communities emphasize and celebrate a common heritage. The majority of Scotch-Irish Americans originally came from Lowland Scotland and Northern England before migrating to the province of Ulster in Ireland and thence, beginning about five generations later, to North America in large numbers during the eighteenth century.
Four Scottish Dances (Op.59) is an orchestral set of light music pieces composed by Malcolm Arnold in 1957 for the BBC Light Music Festival.
Abernethy Forest is a remnant of the Caledonian Forest in Strathspey, in the Highland council area of Scotland. It lies within the Cairngorms National Park, close to the villages of Nethy Bridge, Boat of Garten, and Aviemore. The forest is an RSPB reserve, close to Loch Garten Osprey Centre, which is also owned by the RSPB. It is popular with walkers, as there are various trails throughout the reserve. The forest forms part of the wider Abernethy National Nature Reserve.
Scottish fiddling may be distinguished from other folk fiddling styles by its particular precision of execution and energy in the delivery, for example, the rendering of the dotted-quaver/semi-quaver rhythmic patterns, commonly used in the Strathspey. Christine Martin, in her Traditional Scottish Fiddling players guide, discusses the techniques of "hack bowing", "the Scottish Snap", and "snap bowing". These techniques contrast quite sharply with the most common bowing patterns of Irish fiddling. The style has a very large repertoire consisting of a great variation of rhythms and key signatures. There is also a strong link to the playing of traditional Scottish bagpipes which is better known throughout the world.
"Brochan Lom" is a Scottish Gaelic nonsense song about porridge. The tune is popular and appears frequently at Scottish country dances and ceilidhs. It falls into the category of "mouth music", used to create music for dancing in the absence of instruments. It is a strathspey song and is commonly sung or played for the Highland Schottische, and for the Highland Fling.
Canadian fiddle is the aggregate body of tunes, styles and musicians engaging the traditional folk music of Canada on the fiddle. It is an integral extension of the Anglo-Celtic and Québécois Frenchfolk music tradition but has distinct features found only in the Western hemisphere.
A fling is an Irish musical form in duple meter. Like the highland, it is related to the Scottish highland fling and the hornpipe, found throughout the British Isles. Like its Scottish cousin, a fling is played in cut time and has a dotted rhythm. A typical fling has a 16-bar form divided into two parts, each consisting of four bars which are repeated: AABB.
