 He played with much ornamentation, including bowed and slurred triplets, rolls, 'cuts', mordents (particularly on long 'first-finger' notes), double-stopping (based on standard western music principles, normally highlighting the tonic and third of a particular chord).Heavily influenced by the Scottish bagpiping tradition, he often replicated the sound of the pipes' drones, by either retuning the fiddle to an open tuning ('scordatura'), or by maintaining the fourth finger on the string below the pitch of the melody.According to Alex Monaghan in the magazine, "The Living Tradition", he was a significant influence on the fiddle playing of The Chieftains and Altan.