Sydney Scottish Fiddlers

last updated January, 2012

Recent Additions

Link to The 2012 National Festival Fiddle Rally Music

Photo by Norm Merrigan, April 2010

3 more tunes added to National_12 page, 14th January, 2012

Objective

To provide a venue for the dissemination and teaching of dance tunes in the aural tradition, and to foster the many fiddling techniques of Scottish origin through a variety of workshops

To develop a basic repertoire of dance tunes that can be competently played for social gatherings, concerts, dances and demonstrations

To create a repertoire of traditional and contemporary tunes and airs as well as popular Scottish melodies

Background

The Sydney Scottish Fiddlers was formed in mid 1997. The Canberra National Folk Festival, in March '97, provided the impetus for a group of Sydney fiddlers of varying abilities to get together to practise tunes. Led by Trish Barker the group is based loosely on a number of other fiddle groups like the Los Angeles Fiddlers and the Melbourne Scottish Fiddlers. The latter group, led by Judy Turner, often plays at the National Festival in Canberra as do the Sydney Scottish Fiddlers. A number of other fiddlers who had previously attended Valley of the Moon 1996 (Trish Barker, Chris Duncan, Matthew Robertson and Bob McIness) joined the MSF in their concerts at the National. In addition a number of Sydney based fiddlers attended Chris Duncan's workshop on techniques.

After deciding that there was sufficient interest in Sydney for a regular group a few initial meetings were held to set an agenda. The group now meets twice monthly on the 1st and 3rd Sunday in the Hall of the New Church, Roseville. It plays regularly for dance demonstrations and sessions in concerts and at other venues such as folk clubs.

This site provides a point of reference for members and others interested in Traditional Scottish Music. In addition this site has been designed to provide a focus for Australian users looking for links to other sites of interest in traditional Scottish music and dance. Additional features are a resource guide to indicate sheet music, books and CD's generally available and eventually an index to common tunes and sources.

Both the events and SSF page should be checked for new dates or changes to programmes, these pages are kept up-to-date as often as possible.

Links contained herein are not all encompassing and feedback from users is welcomed by direct E-mail particularly on sites not mentioned here. Please note that all Email addresses mentioned on this site need to be modified before use, what needs to be done is fairly obvious given the normal domain extensions.

With time and space permitting, tunes that may be of interest and those associated with monthly meetings of the Sydney Scottish Fiddlers will be available in abc format, midi and in PDFs. To send an E-mail with any information that you think of interest to others click here.