Bernie has been playing the accordion for over 40 years, having started at the age of 14. In that time has played with a number of different groups and bands and now concentrates mainly on the music needed for Scottish Country Dancing and Ceilidhs. That said, he still occasionally lets fly with a quickstep, foxtrot or even the odd Rock and Roll number and has an interesting repertoire of “sing-along” tunes which can get just about any party going. For 5 years he led a Brussels-based Scottish Country Dance band which performed regularly in Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, and shortly after his return to Scotland in 2002 was invited to join the staff of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society (RSCDS) as a class musician. He has played for a regular class with Dunfermline branch of the RSCDS, spent some time as the vice chairman of that Branch and was a member of the Management Board of the RSCDS itself. He appeared frequently alongside the Edinburgh-based function band “Northern Star” leading the ceilidh section of their wedding and corporate entertainment package. He can also teach ceilidh dancing, and when not actually playing the music himself is a lively ceilidh caller.
Bernie’s teaching centres around “playing for dancing”, emphasising the need for strong, steady rhythms to get people up and dancing, together with the variations in melody lines and harmonies needed when playing traditional Scottish music to keep dancers interested and moving. His passion for good dance music is highly infectious and comes across strongly in all his classes.

Away from music Bernie has spent the last few years as a leadership and management training consultant both at home and overseas in the Middle East, using his previous 30 years wide-ranging experience as an officer in the Communications and Information Systems branch of the army to help people improve all aspects of their own and their teams’ performance. His previous experience in peace keeping situations has led to some very interesting and provocative discussions in the dialogue session at Common Ground. Bernie is a member of the Institute of Directors and a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute. He makes a point of bringing all his knowledge and hard-won expertise into his music teaching, using a variety leadership and management techniques to help bands and other groupings of musicians play together more effectively.

Bernie can be contacted via:

Email: bh @ bernhew.com
Skype: bernie.hewitt