Swan-Upmanship

Although these (mostly) obscure tunes come from England, Ireland, Scotland, France and Sweden, the band puts a distinctively English stamp on all of them.

Celtic bands often insert a "triplet" when there is a slight gap in the melody, creating a kind of "fill".

English traditional country dance bands tend to leave the gap there.

Instead, the most frequent decoration these tunes are given is something that only fiddles can do - they do a "swoop" into the opening note of the melody.

Here Martin Brinsford uses a huge variety of blocks, tambourines and shakers to give a certain swing to the quartet of fiddles.