A Few Words about Shetland...

Context for the music

Although the article below was published in Scottish Life magazine in 2003, it isn’t out of date, except that where I describe my favorites, I might now say “one of my favorites”! All is still relevant and you can Google any of the musicians to learn more of their more recent efforts. (I added a video and update at the end.) This article is one of 95 chapters in my book MusicScapes of Scotland: Vignettes from Prehistory to Pandemic.

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Some of the most upbeat and easy-going tunes in Scotland come from a patch of islands halfway to Norway — the Shetland Islands. You might have heard about Shetland ponies or sweaters, or read about their offshore oil rigs, but if you haven’t caught an earful of Shetland music, you are in for a treat.

Nearly every traditional Shetland tune seems to paint a picture: one describes a fisherman keeping his boat steady with the oars (“Aandowin’ At Da Bow”), another portrays the way you might limp along a sandy beach that tilts down to the sea (“Shingly Beach”), and yet another tune cycles through notes that can speed up and slow down like a mill grinding grain (“Da Mill”).

Shetland is a land of fiddlers. In the old days, they played reels for dancing, or hymn-like slow tunes for listening. With the wind howling off the sea and treeless fields, there could be no better way to warm up a winter’s night than to fit three couples and a fiddler into a kitchen for a dance. For weddings, there was always a fiddler leading the procession, eventually playing the newlyweds right into their bedroom.

In the dialect, place names, and some of the music, the Norse influence is clear. One of the most popular Shetland fiddle tunes, for example, is called “Willafjord”. The Norse took over from the Picts and Celts over a thousand years ago and ruled the islands for 500 years. Then, in 1469, Scotland’s King James III married the daughter of the King of Denmark, and Shetland was given to Scotland as a dowry. Such was the power of kings.

The two World Wars were disruptive to Shetland. Especially after the second World War, people sought out new ways and ideas, and musical tastes were broadened by visitors, radio, and records. Aberdeen being the nearest Scottish city, it’s not surprising that Aberdeenshire fiddling had a strong influence on Shetland fiddlers. Some left their native music behind and took to the novelty of the Scottish airs, marches, strathspeys and reels, and the romantic northeast Scottish style of playing them.

Perhaps the best recorded examples of this are two albums by the late Willie Hunter Jr: Leaving Lerwick Harbour and The Willie Hunter Sessions. Willie’s traditional fiddling spirit (his father was a fine old-style fiddler) drew upon his classically trained, impeccable technique to grab listeners with powerful playing.

Aly Bain, Shetland’s (and arguably Scotland’s) most famous fiddler, is a master of the northeast Scottish style of fiddling. But he also knows the traditional Shetland tunes well, because he was taught both styles by his mentor, Tom Anderson.

In the 1950s, Tom Anderson worked as an insurance salesman throughout the islands, which gave him a chance to haul his clunky reel-to-reel tape recorder with him and record every traditional fiddler he could find. In 1959, he founded the Shetland Fiddlers Society, setting the stage for the resurgence of Shetland traditional fiddling. Aly Bain was the youngest founding member of the group, at age 13.

A fine fiddler himself, Anderson taught many students, and composed beautiful slow airs and jaunty reels. He and Aly Bain can be heard together on the classic album Da Silver Bow, playing traditional Shetland tunes.

Aly Bain has many recordings to his credit, a number of them with the great Celtic concert band, Boys of the Lough. Although he is a master of Shetland and Scottish fiddling, he also has eclectic musical interests which he explored as host of multiple BBC TV programs. French Canadian, Cajun, and Texas swing tunes amiably join the Scottish and Shetland music on Aly’s solo albums, First Album and Lonely Bird. In recent years, Aly recorded four duo albums, three with accordionist Phil Cunningham (The Pearl, The Ruby, and Another Gem) and one with Swedish musician Ale Möller, called Fully Rigged. On the Scottish Fiddle Rally Highlights CD (disclaimer: I produced this album), Aly plays several tracks of straightforward, traditional Shetland as well as Scottish fiddling.

Follow the Moonstone spotlights Aly Bain as a solo fiddler with a chamber orchestra, the BT Scottish Ensemble, performing three works by a Finnish composer. One of the works is built on traditional Shetland tunes, one is based on Scottish fiddle tunes, and one uses Scandinavian themes.

My current favorite band from Shetland is Fiddlers' Bid. This group of three fiddlers, backed by guitar, harp, piano and bass, is incurably lively much of the time, though they do like to wallow in a few lush waltzes and slow airs from time to time. Their albums Hamnataing and Da Farder Ben Da Welcomer, are both great listening.

Catriona MacDonald, who was one of Tom Anderson’s many students, keeps up her Shetland repertoire whether touring with the Highland band, Blazin’ Fiddles, or as a soloist. Her album Bold includes traditional Shetland tunes as well as a nice variety of other tunes. One track begins with an old recording of a Shetland fiddler and blends right into Catriona’s own rendition of the same tune.

Of course, there is more to Shetland’s music than the fiddle. During the last century, the piano and guitar became popular for accompaniment. The accordion arrived to substitute for, or supplement, the fiddles, providing the needed volume for larger dances. And in such a musical culture, music filtering in from elsewhere perked up local ears with a penchant for Scottish and Irish tunes, country, bluegrass, and rock.

One of Scotland’s most popular bands is the Shetland group Rock Salt & Nails, which is a rock band of sorts, with lively songs, and as might be expected for Shetland, some fine traditional fiddling thrown into the mix. Their CD Boxed offers good songwriting and instrumentals; their other albums, Waves, and More & More are equally good, with a diverse selection of music that they like to call “Shetland sheboogie.”

Other Shetland bands to look for include the versatile Drop the Box, and the bluegrassy Hom Bru. A ceilidh band called Da Fustra has several lively dance albums, as does the Cullivoe Ceilidh Band, which featured the late fiddler, Willie Hunter Jr.

Shetland’s rugged hills and coastlines are home to only 23,000 inhabitants, who nevertheless manage to host two major music festivals each year. The Shetland Folk Festival has presented island artists and major performers from around the world every April since 1981, and the Shetland Accordion and Fiddle Festival offers concerts, dances, workshops and music sessions every October, including the “Grand Dance” with about a dozen bands playing nonstop music for some 1500 dancers and music lovers.

Despite its 100 islands, most of Shetland is connected enough to be accessible by car, with a few larger islands only a short ferry ride away from what they call the “mainland.” Of course, mainland Shetland itself is an overnight ferry ride, or a 90-minute plane trip, north of mainland Scotland.

The small population of these northern islands has made a happy musical imprint well beyond their shores. Many wonderful Shetland tunes are now common repertoire throughout the Celtic music scene. But beneath the surface of those tunes lie the spirit of the old dance tunes and airs that will always tell the tale of fishermen and crofters from Shetland.

Last week, I described the Shetland Reel, often done with just three couples dancing to each other and then reeling a figure of eight, while one or two fiddlers play for them. Here’s a great little video made by fiddler Maurice Henderson, one of the musicians in the band Fiddler’s Bid. You’ll see that band at the beginning and end, but in the middle, Maurice takes us on a journey to see and interview older dancers about how they did the Shetland reel, interspersed with old footage of traditional dancers.

Current info about arts events of all kinds can be found on the Shetland Arts website or on the general Shetland info site.