I’m really delighted to let you know that I’ve recently started a wee job at the RCS, teaching technique to all of the fiddle players on the Traditional Music undergrad and masters programmes. This is a real honour and I’m extremely passionate about giving these players all of the tools they will need in order to thrive and make a living in their chosen profession! It’s not all jigs and reels!
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Nominated for Musician of the Year
I’m absolutely delighted to have been nominated for Musician of the Year in the 2024 Scots Trad Music Awards! The public vote has now closed but I’m looking ofrward to a fun night our in Inverness on the 30th November. Thanks to those who voted for me!
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Launching Patreon
Well, we’re all having to find new ways to keep ourselves busy and feed the birds so I have ventured into the world of Patreon. I’m quite enjoying it and getting into a good steady workflow, meaning my Patrons have lots of interesting, mostly fiddle teaching based content to keep them occupied and most importantly, learning.
To whet the appetite I’m posting a free workshop here, where I teach a fantastic traditional reel, Mary Gray. As always, it’s more than just learning the tune and I go into lots of bowing, ornamentation and general technique advice. I hope you enjoy it and please have a look to see if it might help you with your own fiddling adventure!
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Local Hero
LOCAL HERO, the Musical
I’m having an amazing time as part of the band in the brand new music adaption of the 1983 hit, Local Hero at the Lyceum in Edinburgh. Mark Knopfler has written 19 amazing new songs the band is just fab!
The show is on until 4th May, get your tickets quick as they’re selling out!
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Nominated for Instrumentalist of the Year
I’m honoured to have been nominated again for Instrumentalist of the Year, as part of the MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards 2018.
It’s always a really fun event and there’s every chance I’ll be making an appearance in my Emerald City costume, after my performance as violinist for Pitlochry Festival Theatre’s Wizard of Oz production, just up the road.
If you’d like to find out more and to place a vote for any of the categories, please visit the MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards website.
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P R O U D : Symbiosis II
I’m actually quite emotional! I have had the most enjoyable hour or so listening to a brand new album by two good friends of mine – Ross Ainslie & Ali Hutton.
Wow. Just, wow.
Symbiosis II is such a bold and magnificent album and I’m so proud to have been part of it. Yes, there are several Me’s on there and I’m so grateful they gave me the opportunity to write and record the strings for them. I absolutely love creating string sections and it can the most rewarding job in the world, especially when the material is jam packed with awesome tunes, arrangements and simply the best performance and production.
Congratulations to Ross, Ali and Andrea Gobbi for all their hard work absolutely paying off and thanks again for believing in me!
I recommend you pre-order the album now, which means you can download and listen immediately.
Follow this link to their Bandcamp page, where you can preview the opening track, KINGS and download the rest.
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Songlines Review 4****
I’m delighted with this 4**** review of A Glint O’ Scottish Fiddle from Songlines, as featured in issue #136. Many thanks to them and especially to Billy Rough who rather liked it! Songlines is a lovely glossy magazine, specialising in roots and world music, for more information, please visit their website.
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A Glint O’ Scottish Fiddle – Available on all formats now
Yes it is finally here, you can now listen to and buy A Glint O’ Scottish Fiddle on all platforms.
You can order it from my shop.
Alternatively it’s available from my distributor, Proper Music.
Or Amazon and other third party websites.
If streaming is your thing, the album is on my Soundcloud page as well as Apple Music & Spotify.
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January 2018 | Review from Bright Young Folk
The first review of A Glint o’ Scottish fiddle is in and it’s a lovely one!
Thanks to the great people at Bright Young Folk.
A Glint o’ Scottish Fiddle is the third studio album from accomplished Scottish fiddle player, and Breabach founder, Patsy Reid. It’s a composition of both deft fiddle and more meandering, introspective pieces, all of estimable quality.
Accompanied by Alistair Iain Paterson on the piano, Reid weaves her way through a collection of Scottish fiddle tunes, both contemporary and traditional.
The album opens with a set of five traditional tunes, beginning with the gentle Strathearn. It’s a nice introduction to the subtle emotiveness of Reid’s playing, beginning as meandering and wistful and then evolving into something warmer, though still with that wistful edge.
The addition of Paterson’s piano is often a very welcome one. It is a relatively soft touch, never replacing Reid as the driving force. An uncontroversial choice but probably the better one, since any time spent focused on Paterson’s playing (lovely as it is) would detract from the real star of the show, Reid.
Paterson does add some welcome rhythm and depth however. The pairing and interplay between the two throughout the album sets A Glint o’ Scottish Fiddle apart from other trad fiddle albums. The ninth set particularly, comprised of Niel Gow’s Wife, Miss Whiteford, Mrs Graham of Balgowan, and Miss Grant, features a veritable dance between the fiddle and piano parts.
The short of it is – Reid is really a very good fiddle player, as if there was any doubt, and is also a dab hand at collating complementary tunes into evocative sets. There’s perhaps room for the emotional peaks to be higher and the troughs to be lower, but there’s something to be said for subtlety and it is nevertheless a fine release.
http://brightyoungfolk.com/records/a-glint-o-scottish-fiddle-patsy-reid
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Gift Vouchers Available Now!
Due to popular demand, I have made tuition gift vouchers available to purchase. Music tuition can be an excellent gift for those who are tricky to buy for and there are a wide range of instruments and topics they can choose from.
I teach at home in Perth, Scotland and can provide tuition in fiddle, classical violin, viola, cello, piano, composition, arranging, orchestration and music theory. For those living further afield, I am happy to teach via Skype or FaceTime.
For the aspiring techies, we also have a recording studio in-house, so if anyone is interested in learning about recording, production and generally making music on computers, then we can offer that too!