Having played for seven nights a week for a 20 week season for 19 years to a different audience of approximately 200 every night up until 2008, I find it difficult to comprehend how many people I have actually played for. Also, having met so many people of different nationalities and had post performance conversations with them, I could write a book about my experiences replete with many anecdotes, some of which I might not be able to put into print.
However, throughout my playing career, I have tried to be a promoter and preserver of 18th and 19th Century classic Scottish Fiddle Music, in which respect my efforts have been to some degree successful, I still have to live with the fact that wherever I play, the most requested tune is the "Hen's March o'er the Midden", which just goes to show that the general public are more impressed by trivia than serious music. I can live with that, and it is understandable. My opinion of this scenario altered somewhat a few years ago when someone asked me to play that particular tune and the day after the performance presented me with a bottle of Laphroaig, to which they happened to know I was particularly partial.
Here's another piece of trivia that been a signature tune of mine and has been regularly requested over the years. This is a Grampian TV recording that was made round about 1996. It is my version of a recording made by James Scott Skinner round about 1915 of his variations on the well-known "Blue Bells of Scotland".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fxzz-5i-Tc
Merda taurorum animas conturbit. Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur