Duncan cut his teeth aged about 10 on classical music and fell in love with Russian romantics and early music, learning piano and church organ. As a late teenager , he was blown away by Fairport Convention’s “Live at LA Troubadour” album and developed a love of folk rock. In the early 1980s he started exploring Irish trad and with the inspiration of bagpipe makers like Jim Parr and Jon Swayne, he bought a set of Jim’s Flemish pipes. This took him into the world of French / Breton music and the hurdy gurdy.

In the late 1980s, Duncan co-founded Shave the Monkey with Bryan Causton and Carolyn Sheppard. The band enjoyed many years together, recording four albums and performing on TV and radio and at hundreds of UK and European festivals, arts centres and folk clubs.

Duncan has also played the hurdy gurdy with Robert Plant and Jimmy Page on Jools Holland’s BBC2 “Later with” show, featured on Verity Sharpe’s Radio 3 playlist and performed live on Charles Hazelwood’s Radio 2 show.

After moving to Somerset in 2002, he took on the daunting task of replacing Cliff Stapleton in World folk fusion band Dragonsfly and recorded two albums with them. He worked with bagpipe maker/player Dom Allan touring French dance clubs as Allan and Moss and has guested on numerous other albums including Canada’s Spirit of the West.