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Welcome to the Traditional Tune Archive
    The Semantic Index of North American, British and Irish
 traditional instrumental music with annotations, formerly known as
                          The Fiddler's Companion.
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Having overcome deafness and a severe bout of arthritis when he was no longer able to play his beloved fiddle, Angus found relief with a course of 'gold' injections.
Angus Fitchet

Played by: Alex Barrass
Source: Soundcloud
Image: Angus Fitchet, of Dundee (1910 - 1989)

Angus Fitchet

Angus Fitchet, of Dundee, was one of Scotland's foremost fiddlers and bandleaders. He was also a remarkably versatile musician whose experience ranged from village dances to network television shows accompanying high profile international guest artists. Check out The Music of Angus Fitchet vol 1 and Volume 2 in our book store and The Legendary Angus Fitchet CD

Angus's father worked on a small dairy farm outside Dundee and Angus recalled being wakened in the morning to the sound of his father's fiddle. He was understood to be a fine player and had been taught by John Lamond of Monikie. It wasn't long before he uprooted the family and settled in Dundee where he hoped to make a better living. It was he who gave young Angus his first lessons when he was five years old and before he was very much older, Angus was playing at dances alongside his father. When he got tired, he lay down at the back of the hall and slept for a while before taking his place once more in the band, quite often playing until 2.00am! He went to various teachers but seems to have gained his considerable musical knowledge from watching and listening and from natural ability.

In the days before 'talkies', the cinemas hired small orchestras to add musical drama to the films being shown. In the street where Angus lived, these musicians used to congregate on a Sunday afternoon for a "session". Angus was right in there, handing out music, running errands, listening, watching, discovering the joys of classical music, hearing for the first time of Haifitz and Kreisler, borrowing records and playing them slowly until he could play along with them. He would play scales and arpeggios for hours (something he continued to do even when he was quite an old man), and then, at the ripe old age of twelve, a visiting piano tuner heard him and asked if he could play one night at the local cinema as the violinist was absent.

This was the beginning of Angus' professional musical career.

...more at: Angus Fitchet - biography



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Who Builds the TTA

Who Builds the TTA

Although we are not trained musicologists and make no pretense to the profession, we have tried to apply such professional rigors to this Semantic Abc Web as we have internalized through our own formal and informal education.
This demands the gathering of as much information as possible about folk pieces to attempt to trace tune families, determine origins, influences and patterns of aural/oral transmittal, and to study individual and regional styles of performance.
Many musicians, like ourselves, are simply curious about titles, origins, sources and anecdotes regarding the music they play. Who, for example, can resist the urge to know where the title Blowzabella came from or what it means, or speculating on the motivations for naming a perfectly respectable tune Bloody Oul' Hag, is it Tay Ye Want?
Knowing the history of the melody we play, or at least to have a sense of its historical and social context, makes the tune 'present' in the here and now, and enhances our rendering of it.
Andrew Kuntz & Valerio Pelliccioni

Please register as a user to make the most of the many functions of the TTA, and enjoy the many ways that information about traditional tunes can be elicited and combined, from simple to complex situations. Users may make contributions, which, when reviewed by an editor, become part of this community project. Serious user/contributors may become editors through the TTA's promotion process, in which quantity and quality of entries allows increased levels of permission to edit and review the entire index.
Above all, the developers wish you joy in the use of the TTA.

Help Getting started

Navigation: Registered users can navigate the Traditional Tune Archive for information in a number of ways.

  • Search. The Search function is located at the top right, and can be used to search the entire index for any key word. See Search help pages
  • Alphabetically by tune title. Under “The Archive” on the SideBar on the left is “The Index”. Click on it to open up the list of tune titles in the TTA arranged in alphabetical order, 200 titles to a page. At the top of the page is an alphabetical breakdown that serves as a shortcut to pages. Clicking on any title will bring one to the music and tune fields. Once the tune appears, clicking “Tune Discussion” at the bottom of the page (below the notation) will open up the narrative information on the tune.
  • Query the Archive. The “Query the Archive” function under “The Archive” in the sidebar can be used to draw down reports from the TTA in either in single items or in a number of combinations. One might, for example, use a single item query to run a report in the TTA for a particular composer/core source. Clicking on the arrow at the right of the bar draws down a list of composer/core sources, or one may be typed in. For example, clicking on “Bill Pigg” and then the “Run Query” tab at the bottom left will result in a list of all compositions listed in the TTA that the Northumbrian piper either composed or is the core source for. Reports may also be run in combinations, as, for example, by selecting “William Marshall” as a composer/core source, “Three Flats” for the number of accidentals, and “Major” for the Key/Mode. This will result in a report of all Eb Major compositions of Scottish fiddler/composer William Marshall that are indexed in the TTA.
  • Tune Books/Magazines in the TTA can be accessed under “Publications” in the left side bar. These are reproductions of publications for which access has been granted to the TTA by the copyright holder, under the Creative Commons license.