Cape Breton fiddling is a regional

violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...

style which falls within the

Celtic music Celtic music is a broad grouping of music genres that evolved out of the folk music traditions of the Celts (modern), Celtic people of Northwestern Europe (the modern Celtic nations). It refers to both orally-transmitted traditional music and ...

idiom. The more predominant style in

Cape Breton Island Cape Breton Island (, formerly '; or '; ) is a rugged and irregularly shaped island on the Atlantic coast of North America and part of the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. The island accounts for 18.7% of Nova Scotia's total area. Although ...

's fiddle music was brought to North America by

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

immigrant Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as permanent residents. Commuters, tourists, and other short- ...

s during the

Highland Clearances The Highland Clearances ( , the "eviction of the Gaels") were the evictions of a significant number of tenants in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, mostly in two phases from 1750 to 1860. The first phase resulted from Scottish Agricultural R ...

. These Scottish immigrants were primarily from

Gaelic Gaelic (pronounced for Irish Gaelic and for Scots Gaelic) is an adjective that means "pertaining to the Gaels". It may refer to: Languages * Gaelic languages or Goidelic languages, a linguistic group that is one of the two branches of the Insul ...

-speaking regions in the

Scottish Highlands The Highlands (; , ) is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Scottish Lowlands, Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Scots language, Lowland Scots language replaced Scottish Gae ...

and the

Outer Hebrides The Outer Hebrides ( ) or Western Isles ( , or ), sometimes known as the Long Isle or Long Island (), is an Archipelago, island chain off the west coast of mainland Scotland. It is the longest archipelago in the British Isles. The islan ...

. Although fiddling has changed since this time in Scotland, it is widely held that the tradition of Scottish fiddle music has been better preserved in Cape Breton. While there is a similar tradition from the Irish-style fiddling, that style is overlooked as a result of the Scottish presence in the area. In the span of the 1920s to the 70s, Cape Breton's fiddling style faced decline. Dance styles associated with the music are Cape Breton step dancing, Cape Breton

square dancing A square dance is a dance for four couples, or eight dancers in total, arranged in a square, with one couple on each side, facing the middle of the square. Square dances are part of a broad spectrum of dances known by various names: country dan ...

(

Iona Iona (; , sometimes simply ''Ì'') is an island in the Inner Hebrides, off the Ross of Mull on the western coast of Scotland. It is mainly known for Iona Abbey, though there are other buildings on the island. Iona Abbey was a centre of Gaeli ...

style and

Inverness Inverness (; ; from the , meaning "Mouth of the River Ness") is a city in the Scottish Highlands, having been granted city status in 2000. It is the administrative centre for The Highland Council and is regarded as the capital of the Highland ...

style), and highland dancing. In 2005, as a tribute to the area's

traditional music Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has b ...

, the construction of a tourism center and the world's largest fiddle and bow was completed on the waterfront in

Sydney, Nova Scotia Sydney is a former city and urban community on the east coast of Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, Canada within the Cape Breton Regional Municipality. Sydney was founded in 1785 by the British, was incorporated as a city in 1904, and dissolv ...

Playing style

Cape Breton- Scottish playing is accented, characterized by driven up-bowing. The tunes of other music origins (Irish,

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

French-Canadian French Canadians, referred to as Canadiens mainly before the nineteenth century, are an ethnic group descended from French colonists first arriving in France's colony of Canada in 1608. The vast majority of French Canadians live in the prov ...

, ''etc''.) sound different when performed by Cape Breton- Scottish players. The downbeat pulse is driven by the fiddler's heel into the floor. The pattern tends to be heel-and-toe on reels, the heel on strathspeys. Cape Breton fiddle music is influenced by the intonations of the Scots-Gaelic language, especially Puirt a Beul (mouth music) and strathspeys. The ornaments are adapted from those used on the

Great Highland bagpipe The great Highland bagpipe ( 'the great pipe') 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 Armed Forces, British mili ...

. The ornamentation (cuts aka. trebles, drones and doubling) brings out the feeling of Cape Breton fiddle. A century ago the violin and

pump organ The pump organ or reed organ is a type of organ that uses free reed aerophone, free reeds to generate sound, with air passing over vibrating thin metal strips mounted in a frame. Types include the pressure-based harmonium, the suction reed organ ...

were the common instruments; the latter has been supplanted by

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

to provide a rhythmic accompaniment.

Guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

is also used for accompaniment instead of piano or in addition to it.

Repertoire

The types of tunes commonly associated with Cape Breton - Scottish fiddling are jigs,

reels A reel is a tool used to store elongated and flexible objects (e.g. yarns/ cords, ribbons, cables, hoses, etc.) by wrapping the material around a cylindrical core known as a '' spool''. Many reels also have flanges (known as the ''rims'') arou ...

marches In medieval Europe, a march or mark was, in broad terms, any kind of borderland, as opposed to a state's "heartland". More specifically, a march was a border between realms or a neutral buffer zone under joint control of two states in which diffe ...

, strathspeys, clogs (

hornpipe The hornpipe is any of several dance forms and their associated tunes, played and danced in Great Britain and Ireland and elsewhere from the 16th century until the present day. The earliest references to hornpipes are from England, with Hugh As ...

s), and slow airs. Many of the tunes associated with this style fiddle music are also commonly performed on other instruments, especially

bagpipes Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The Great Highland bagpipes are well known, but people have played bagpipes for centuries throughout large parts of Europe, N ...

and

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

. It is not unheard of for the music to be performed on

harmonica The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica incl ...

tin whistle The tin whistle, also known as the penny whistle, is a simple six-holed woodwind instrument. It is a type of fipple flute, a class of instrument which also includes the recorder and Native American flute. A tin whistle player is called a whistl ...

mandolin A mandolin (, ; literally "small mandola") is a Chordophone, stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally Plucked string instrument, plucked with a plectrum, pick. It most commonly has four Course (music), courses of doubled St ...

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and in modern forms is usually made of plastic, where early membranes were made of animal skin. ...

. Modern Cape Breton players draw on a large body of music, from the Scottish and Irish traditions, and from modern compositions. Several older books of tune collections have been popular sources: *Fraser, Simon (1874), ''Simon Fraser Collection'' *MacDonald, Keith Norman (1887), ''The Skye Collection'' *MacQuarrie, Gordan F. (1940), ''The Cape Breton Collection'' * O'Neill, Francis (1903), ''O'Neill's Music Of Ireland'' *Robertson, James Stewart (1884), ''The Athole Collection'' *Skinner, James Scott, ''The Scottish Violinist'' *Skinner, James Scott, ''The Harp and Claymore'' A number of recent publications also document a substantial amount of the modern Cape Breton - Scottish repertoire: *Beaton, Kinnon (2000), ''The Beaton Collection'' (compositions of Kinnon, Donald Angus, and Andrea Beaton) *Cameron, John Donald (2000), ''The Heather Hill Collection'' (compositions of Dan R. MacDonald) *Cameron, John Donald (1994), ''The Trip To Windsor Collection'' (compositions of Dan R. MacDonald, volume 2) *Cranford, Paul (2007), ''The Cape Breton Fiddlers Collection'' *Cranford, Paul (1997), ''Winston Fitzgerald: A Collection of Fiddle Tunes'' *Dunlay, Kate, and David Greenberg (1996), ''The Dungreen Collection - Traditional Celtic Violin Music of Cape Breton'' *Holland, Jerry (1988, several revised editions), ''Jerry Holland's Collection of Fiddle Tunes'' *Holland, Jerry (2000), ''Jerry Holland: The Second Collection'' *MacEachern, Dan Hugh (1975), ''MacEachern's Collection'' *Ruckert, George (2009), ''John Campbell: A Cape Breton Legacy'' *Stubbert, Brenda (1994), ''Brenda Stubbert's Collection of Fiddle Tunes'' *Stubbert, Brenda (2007), ''Brenda Stubbert: The Second Collection''

References

External links

Kimberley Fraser's Fiddle Blog
Cape Breton Fiddler Kimberley Fraser discusses issues relevant to Cape Breton fiddle music. {{authority control 19th-century music genres 20th-century music genres 21st-century music genres Canadian Celtic music Canadian Gaelic Cape Breton Island Celtic music Irish styles of music Music of Nova Scotia Scottish styles of music Violins * Folk music genres

Playing style

Repertoire

See also

References

Further reading

External links