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On the fiddle again

© Ray Chandler

There was a time when every village band and dance group had a fiddle or two. Indeed it was often the only instrument available for social dances and family gatherings in community halls, pubs and country kitchens. But then its popularity waned as fewer youngsters were pushed into violin lessons.

Through the 60s,70s and 80s, the fiddle became far less common on the folk music scene, especially in England. It hung on more strongly in Ireland, Scotland, Eastern Europe and the US, although even here it struggled for favour against the more popular melodeons and guitars.

But an instrument of such scope, flexibility and enormous expressive range was bound to have enough devotees to keep its folk usage alive. So even when its popularity ebbed outside its safe havens of classical music, the fiddle was never in real danger of disappearing from the folk scene.

Throughout the globe there remained enough enthusiasts to keep the various national and regional folk fiddling traditions alive. Notable players such as Eileen Ivers in the US, Dave Swarbrick in England, Aly Bain in the Shetlands, Tommy Peoples and several successors in Ireland, kept the flame fuelled even when the instrument lacked popular appeal.

That flame has now grown to become a forest fire, with the fiddle enjoying great popularity and record numbers of aspiring players taking it up. Fiddling in a wide range of folk styles has been revived and is enjoying new enthusiasm among highly skilful young players.

This is producing a much healthier supply of players than most folk traditions have had for decades. Not long ago an English traditional dance band would have considered itself lucky to secure a single decent fiddle player. Today it is not uncommon to have two or three in the line-up.

The English Country Dance Band, for example, has three fine fiddlers supporting and complementing the melodeon's strong melody line. And in open music sessions it is now common for fiddles to outnumber guitars - this would have been extraordinary ten years ago. I've been at sessions recently where there have even been more fiddles than melodeons and nobody has thought it worthy of comment.

So, after a long period of being overshadowed in the popularity stakes by other instruments, the fiddle is on a roll again. Long may it continue.

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