| Historically, the techniques and stylistic elements of traditional Scottish fiddling have been passed from teacher to student through aural tradition. The purpose of this study was to investigate the potential of a written manual and companion DVD to teach the same techniques and stylistic elements. These materials were designed to be used by classical violin teachers who do not have any previous fiddling background. The instructional materials were created to focus on five of the most common Scottish fiddling tune types: airs, marches, jigs, reels, and strathspeys. Upon their completion, they were reviewed and evaluated by string pedagogues and Scottish fiddling experts.;Ten classical violin teachers participated in the study. They were individually pretested and posttested. During the pretest, they participated in a survey of their opinions about Scottish fiddling, fiddling in general, and teaching fiddling. They were also video recorded sight-reading a selection of fourteen Scottish fiddling tunes that did not appear in the instructional materials. They were then given the manual and DVD to use for one month.;At the end of the month, participants were posttested. During the posttest, they again participated in a survey of their opinions about Scottish fiddling, fiddling in general, and teaching fiddling. They were then video recorded performing the same Scottish fiddling tunes from the pretest as well as ten tunes from the manual.;The degree to which the participants demonstrated authentic Scottish techniques and stylistic elements were evaluated by Scottish fiddling experts when they reviewed the videos taken during the pretests and posttests. The judges' scores of the subjects' performances were analyzed, and it was found that the subjects had significantly more Scottish techniques and stylistic elements in the posttest than in the pretest. |
