Music in the Shetland Islands

Shetland traditional fiddle playing dates back more than two hundred years and is renowned world wide. It is said that at one time in Shetland, there was a fiddle hanging up in every kitchen.
Shetland born musicians such as Aly Bain, and Catriona MacDonald both pupils of the great teacher and collector Dr.Tom Anderson are well known in fiddling circles and have done much to put Shetland music on the world stage as have Willy Hunter, Violet Tulloch and "Peerie Willy" Johnson. Shetland music continues to thrive producing wonderful musicians in the shape of bands like Fiddlers Bid, Rock Salt & Nails, Da Fustra, Jenna Reid and Filska to name but a few. Many musicians visit the Islands to learn techniques or play in local sessions.
The annual Shetland Folk Festival is held in April/May and attracts music lovers from all over the world. The festival, first held in 1981, features a heady mixture of talented local performers and visiting musicians and artistes from many parts of the world. Concerts and dances are held throughout Shetland and these are supplemented by workshops and informal music sessions at the festival club in Lerwick.
Later in the year, in October, there is the Shetland Accordion and Fiddle Festival. The success of the first festival in 1988 has been repeated and it is now a highly popular annual event. The highlight of this lively festival is the Grand Dance, where up to a dozen bands play virtually non-stop accordion and fiddle music.
The Shetland Isles are the most northerly outpost of the United Kingdom lying north-north-east of Scotland, east-south-east of Faeroe, and west of Norway.
They are made up of more than 100 low-lying and almost treeless islands and skerries (only 15 of which are continuously inhabited) clustered together equidistantly between the three countries. Not surprising, the average Shetlander maintains that he or she is no more Scottish than Scandinavian. Almost 24,000 people live in the islands, greatly outnumbered by about 30,000 gannets, 140,000 guillemots, 250,000 puffins, 300,000 fulmars and, at least, 330,000 sheep. The Islands were ruled from Norway until 1469 when Shetland was pledged to Scotland as part of the marriage dowry of Margaret, daughter of the King of Denmark, on her marriage to King James III of Scotland. 
Little remains of the old tunes that were used for dancing in the Shetlands. The Scots brought in the fiddle and the reel-type dances, supplanting the gue, or two stringed viol that had provided music for the old ring dances. Remnants of the style survive in fragments of old wedding reels known as the "Auld Reels" or "Muckle Reels". The Foula Reel* is a popular set dance which imitates the action of a loom, with the top couple weaving through like a shuttle, between the other couples. The Papa Stour Sword Dance has its roots buried in the past and is the only Shetland dance exclusively performed by men. Despite increasing Scottish influence on the Nordic culture of the Shetlands, the island fiddling has remained remarkably distinctive. There apparently exists about 125 tunes that seemed to have no Scottish ancestry and which definitely have a very distinctive Shetland feel about them. They are virtually all reels, for up until the early years of the present century reels were almost the only kind of dances performed and only began to be replaced by polkas, quadrilles and other Scottish country dances after World War I.

Shetland Folk Festival:
5 Burns Lane, Lerwick, ZE1 0HE Tel: 01595 694757 http://www.shetlandfolkfestival.com

* For anyone who wants to know how to dance a Foula Reel here are the instructions as called by Bryan Low who learned it from Pete McCallum:

1. Sets of eight, or ten, (4 or 5 couples) about 5 feet apart, facing partner, gent's left shoulder to the band. This is another dance that can be done as one long set, with any number of couples in the line, with two or Mòre couples doing the shuttling, it can take a while to do, but seems to be excellent fun.
2. Top couple, the couple nearest the band, turning and travelling down the middle of the set to the bottom end of the set.
3. Top couple ( as in the strip the willow) turn each other in the middle and each other couple until down the line they are back to the top of the set. This style of turning is called billowing.
4. Top couple side by side, holding near hand (gents right, ladies left), facing the band (backs to the rest of the set).Promenade anti-clockwise, lady round the outside of the line of dancers, forming an arch with their joined hand, Down the line of men and back up the line of women.
5. All now join both hands with partner.
6. All men excepting the top man take four steps backwards, partners follow.
7. Top couple take one or two steps down the line of the dance postioning themselves in the space between the next two couples, then two or three steps in the same direction as the rest of the dancers.
8. All women excepting the top woman take four steps backwards, partners follow.
9. Top couple take one or two steps down the line of the dance postioning themselves in the space between the next two couples, then two or three steps in the same direction as the rest of the dancers.
10. Repeat 6 - 9 until the top couple are at the bottom of the set.
11. Repeat all ad lib