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There's a really good Scottish fiddler named Ian Hardie that I've been listening to and I've put a couple of samples below. The cool thing is that he publishes most of his scores on his web site. So, if you want to try to play them, he makes it easy for you.
You can see them here: http://www.ian-hardie.co.uk/scores.php
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. ~Herm Albright
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Oh my. i think i have a new favorite! I do believe i will start trying to learn these though i still have a long long way to go before i do these any sort of justice!
Lead me, Follow me, or get out of my way!
~General George S. Patton
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great tip! it is indeed difficult to find matching scores and recordings, so this will be very helpful.
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Love the sound of Scottish fiddle > sweetness to my spirit.
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@BillyG
There has been a series of programmes on TV about medicine in the Shetland islands, and one of the GPs was a fiddler. They have a nice-looking folk festival there each year.
I went on Amazon imagining I could find an obvious book of Scottish fiddle tunes to buy, but there are hundreds of them, and I don't have a clue which ones are worth paying for.
Andrew
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Indeed @Gordon Shumway - I caught the same TV program !
Because of my Scottish background, I have a lot of traditional tunes "in my head" and generally play by ear, so I cannot really make a recommendation as regards a useful tune-book.
What I do use however, is the online resource http://www.thesession.org - now - "strictly" that's for Irish - but - a lot of these tunes are shared, with variation in playing style rather than anything else, with Scottish and other Celtic-connected cultures. It is quite a substantial resource, getting added to regularly - but I guess the difficulty in using it is that you probably need to know the name of the tune you are looking for first ! Hmmm.....
However - each tune ( and version thereof ! ) - generally has sheet and an ABC (text music format) file. I have used that successfully ( a couple of the ABC files ) to import to MuseScore - just to get the general "idea" of a piece I'm not familiar with, before going on to "fiddle" with it - pun probably intended.... 
There are also arrangements (elsewhere on the net) which have a bit more body to them compared to the single-voiced ABC files in midi format on various sites such as https://www.contemplator.com/t.....otland.htm - that may also be worth a look.....
I seriously recommend not copying my mistakes. D'oh - 
Please make your own, different mistakes, and help us all learn :-)
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Thanks, @BillyG
I've signed up with The Session. If I knew how to discover sites' directory structures, that would be nice.
(although I was a computer programmer, it was all off-line, and I was never really interested enough in computers to learn much about this malarky, lol! I have no idea what a midi is. I just wish I had the premises for an old-fashioned piano)
=====================================================
Here's a start (I'm just using this post as a data dump now)
Mind, 1,557 pages are a bit unwieldy.
https://thesession.org/tunes/popular/
https://thesession.org/tunes/p.....lar/reels/
https://thesession.org/tunes/p.....ular/jigs/
https://thesession.org/tunes/p.....pular/slip jigs/
https://thesession.org/tunes/p.....hornpipes/
That was a bit of a waste of time - the pull-down menu in Tunes is just as good.
Andrew
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At the risk of sounding very ignorant, I only know of the Scottish/Irish fiddle music from bars and taverns by musicians who appear to have several songs they play by heart. And without the understanding of the culture and the origins of the music I do not have much of an idea which music played is local, cultural, popular, historic, or where it is from.
But it all interests me. It is a rich and very interesting style of playing that has a wide range and diverse techniques. It is also very closely tied to the culture and people. Much of it is beautiful and can also be rhythmic and complex.
- Pete -
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I know nothing of it, and my memory won't be able to cope with much.
Something that needs to be learnt is the styles of ornament, although that maybe happens more on (bag)pipes - the fiddle playing I heard on telly seemed to lack a lot if it, although we didn't get to hear much.
Andrew
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BillyG said
http://www.thesession.org - now - "strictly" that's for Irish - but - a lot of these tunes are shared
I've noticed that there's a Strathspey section.
Andrew
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Not sure if this is Irish or Scottish, pretty sure she is German, and since I'm American with a Cajun French Native American lineage, it is very well an international affair.
She's Patty Gurdy, playing a hurdy gurdy. From the looks of it a piano and a violin had a baby and the hurdy gurdy was born. Fascinating instrument.
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Well... @Shane "Chicken" Wang - look what you've done ! I just HAD to go find Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man" - and wow - that takes me back !!! (And I don't believe that track even features a Hurdy Gurdy)... So, now I'll have to go revisit dozens of late 60's tracks now - that's my day well and truly ruined (well,the plans I had. Oh heck, they can wait, nothing like a bit of nostalgia ! )
I seriously recommend not copying my mistakes. D'oh -
Please make your own, different mistakes, and help us all learn :-)
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I've been following Patty Gurdy on youtube for a little while, her stuff is pretty cool. Made me wish Hurdy Gurdys weren't so expensive, haha.
☆•*¨*•¸¸¸.•*¨*•☆•*¨*•¸¸¸.•*¨*•☆•*¨*•.¸¸¸.•*¨*•☆
World's Okayest Fiddler
☆•*¨*•.¸¸¸.•*¨* •☆•*¨*¨*•¸¸¸.•*¨*•☆
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I'd rather own a Woolworth's harmonium! 
Andrew
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@BillyG I just discovered the hurdy gurdy this year and thought it was something new. Had no idea it dated back to medieval times, but I was just fascinated by it. Now I have to look up this Donovan fellow you speak of so.....touche'.
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BillyG said
I just HAD to go find Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man"...And I don't believe that track even features a Hurdy Gurdy
And for that matter, how big a repertoire can a tambourine man possibly have?
Andrew
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I seriously recommend not copying my mistakes. D'oh -
Please make your own, different mistakes, and help us all learn :-)
Honorary advisor
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Andrew Fryer said
BillyG said
I just HAD to go find Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man"...And I don't believe that track even features a Hurdy GurdyAnd for that matter, how big a repertoire can a tambourine man possibly have?
@Gordon Shumway I am genuinely not trying to be a smart arse but, let's be honest, an annoying person with a tambourine is like a flea that can ride any dog. There are laws against shooting tambourine players for a reason. Because I own guns.
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Had people seen this website (@billyg)?
There are some useful pdfs on it.
Andrew
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That's some collection @Gordon Shumway !
Just had a very quick browse through the various lists, some I recognize, but there are many, many less well known tunes there. Since the few I've looked at so far in .pdf form appear to be "machine (software) generated" scores as distinct from scanned original hand-written manuscripts, I'm sure many of the unfamiliar-to-me tunes may well import to MuseScore using the pdf-reader plug-in (I often use MScore to quickly get the feel of a piece before I'll decide to work on it rather than spending time "learning it" directly from sheet, and deciding - hmm, nah, I'm not fussy about that one LOL)
I'm working away from home right now (although to the amusement of others in the hotel here, I do have a fiddle with me!) and really my time is more than spoken for , but I kind of guess that's going to fill-in time over Xmas and New Year !!!
and thanks for the link
I seriously recommend not copying my mistakes. D'oh -
Please make your own, different mistakes, and help us all learn :-)
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