The Music:

What makes Shetland fiddle music recognisable and different from other fiddle styles?

• The actual tunes, which as well as being Shetland-based have links with mainland Scotland and with Scandinavia, which is culturally closer. Many of the tunes are 'modal' (the key signature is not the root note of the tune), which makes it hard for accompanying instruments to decide which key to use.
• The rhythm of the music, which is often syncopated (the accent is not on the first beat of the bar). It sometimes has an 'extra' note in a bar or an 'extra' bar in the whole tune. These varying bar lengths and uneven numbers of bars are common in Swedish and Norwegian but not in mainland Scottish music.
• The bowings, which are varied, with a great use of slurs (that is, the playing of more than one note in one bow stroke). A characteristic bowing pattern is "one down and three up", one note played on a down stroke and three on the following up-bow. In mainland Scottish music, it is usual to start each bar with a down-bow. In Shetland, fiddlers will even slur over a bar line, in order to syncopate the rhythm. If a Shetland fiddler advises you to 'bow it out', i.e. to play alternate down and up bows, that is the exception rather than the rule.
   
  This way of using the bow has been passed from generation to generation of fiddlers who may never have used written music. It was also used by Gideon Stove, who wrote down some fine tunes as studies for his students. Natural players are likely to vary their bowing each time they play, which makes the music unpredictable and exciting
• Double stopping: Two adjacent strings are bowed, both of which are stopped (often at different places) by the fingers of the left hand.
• The use of ringing open strings: Two adjacent strings are bowed, one of which is left open or unstopped. The sound produced echoes the sound of the Hardanger fiddles of Norway.