Do you approach Scottish, Irish and contradance tunes differently?
I don’t necessarily approach the styles of music differently, but I try my best to play them differently. Each style requires certain types of ornaments, certain types of dynamics and musical phrases to make them sound authentic. As a musician, you have to be aware of what is stylistically correct, and then make an informed decision on your own personal sound, and how you want your performance of it to be. You are one of the few fiddlers that I can think of who is also a singer/songwriter. Do you have particular role models in this regard? To tell you the truth, although I occasionally write songs, I don’t identify with the singer-songwriter genre. For the most part, as a whole genre, it’s not something that excites me. There are certainly amazing and wonderful artists within that genre who sort of transcend the stereotype, but for the most part I’m not interested in today’s singer-songwriters. I identify much more with traditional singers, and when I happen to write a song, I try to k
