Renowned Scottish Fiddler Paul Anderson composes a couple of great tunes about our ancient sport

Renowned Scottish Fiddler Paul Anderson has recently composed a couple of tunes about our ancient sport, shinty.

Over the years Paul has composed over 300 pieces in the Scots style, so we caught up with him to find out what inspired these new compositions and any connection to shinty that he may have. It transpired that Paul had got talking to his friend, Roddie MacLennan, after Paul’s eldest son Hector was enjoying playing shinty at Aboyne Academy. Roddie MacLennan is a caman maker and master craftsman who even constructed the Ken Thompson Memorial Box shown below. You can read more about this by clicking here.

In return for a Caman that Roddie was going to make for him, Paul penned a Strathspey “Roddie MacLennan the Caman Maker” which you can view below:

“Warrior’s of the Caman” is the reel to accompany the Strathspey and can also be viewed below: 

Paul went on to say:

“I wrote “Warriors of the Caman” to go with Roddie’s tune (strathspey and reel). Writing Roddie’s tune brought many thoughts to mind and I’ve had an interest in Shinty for many years. Not coming from a Shinty playing area however (Tarland on Deeside in Aberdeenshire) means it’s not so easy to see Live matches so my viewing is restricted to what’s on TV.

I’ve always been interested in history and the antiquity of Shinty has always appealed to me with its links to the game of Hurling in Ireland.

I once played at the Shinty/Hurling post-match party in Aviemore (Scotland won that year) in the early 90’s and it was an unforgettable night with the camaraderie between nations.

I’ve only once attended a match and that was by accident. Travelling home from an event there was a game going on near Loch Ness which I think was between Glen Urquhart and Lovat.”

There is no question that Paul has composed a cracking couple of tunes and, when conditions allow, we at the Camanachd Association will work to remedy the fact he’s only seen one match live!

_{This article wouldn’t be possible without the support of Mowi Scotland.}