Old Time Ensemble (Wed) – week 4

The story of a horse race, between Molly (from Californy) and Tenbrooks.
The most famous version was by Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys.

Lyrics and sung melody here . . .
Tim Brook by the Carver Boys (circa )1928

. . . and fiddle break melody here.
Skippin’ and Flyin’

We did it in the key of A.

Filed under: Old Time Ensemble,Paul Tyler,Uncategorized by Paul | March 29, 2010 | Comments (1)

Fiddle 4 Old-Time (Tue) – week 4

We ventured into cross-tuning, ie A E a e
Raise your G string up a step to A, and the D string to E.

Old Greasy Coat by Edden Hammons

I highly recommended that you purchase this CD from West Virginia University Press. Great tunes. There is also a Vol. 2 of 2 discs. All these recordings were made by John Chappell in 1947. Great tunes. Fabulous playing.

some demonstrations . . .
Old Greasy Coat slow

Jack Wilson in A D A D tuning

Filed under: Fiddle 4,Paul Tyler by Paul | March 24, 2010 | Comments (3)

Fiddle 3 (Mon) – week 4

A malleable tune in D with an ambiguous title . . .

John Lovers Gone played by Alan Jabbour & Tommy Thompson
(formerly of the Hollow Rock String Band)

slower

Filed under: Fiddle 3,Paul Tyler by Paul | March 24, 2010 | Comments (0)

Old-Time Ensemble (Wed) – Week 3

Single-Footin’ Horse. What does it mean?

Single-Footin’ Horse by Fiddlin’ Arthur Smith from Tennessee
(star of the Grand Ol’ Opry in the 1930s)

slow-fiddle

medium tempo-fiddle & banjo

Filed under: Old Time Ensemble,Paul Tyler,Steve Rosen by Paul | March 19, 2010 | Comments (2)

FIDDLE 2, weds 6:30, week 3, Johnny Don’t Get Drunk

here is a medium speed version, for your dining and dancing pleasure.

here is a slow version. the second A and the second B have slurs worked in.

Filed under: Fiddle 2,Steve Rosen by Steve | March 19, 2010 | Comments (0)

TUESDAY 8PM, fiddle 3, squirrel hunters and mary wants a lover

two tunes this week

squirrel hunters, slow

medium, with guitar, mandolin and cello guitar, done by me on the computer, which explains the screechy quality.

mary wants a lover.
a slight change to the B part….second time slightly different than first time.
mary wants a lover A part slow

mary wants a lover B part slow

mary wants a lover, from the foghorn stringband

you can get their awesome CDs at the old town school store or
FOGHORN STRINGBAND WEBSITE

by the way and FYI….the name of the french canadien tune we did is “gigue de terrabonne”.

Filed under: Fiddle 3,Steve Rosen,Uncategorized by Steve | March 18, 2010 | Comments (0)

Fiddle 4 Old-Time (Tue) – week 3

A couple of tunes with some nice bow-rocking/shuffle pattern opportunities. Both are from John Salyer.

Jack Wilson in D

played slow

medium tempo

The Speed of the Plow in A (cross-tuning)

The Speed of the Plow is slow

Filed under: Fiddle 4,Paul Tyler by Paul | March 17, 2010 | Comments (0)

Fiddle 3 (Mon) – week 3

Here’s “Frosty Morning.” Note that it’s frosty, but not a “Cold Frosty Morn,” which is a Melvin Wine tune. The Fuzzy Mountain String Band’s tune comes from Henry Reed. Click on Henry’s name to take you to a choice of recordings of Henry playing the tune on the wonderful American Folklife Center’s website “Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier.” Go visit again when you’ve got time to poke around. It’s very rich.

Frosty Morning

played slow

medium tempo

BTW: I just determined Fuzzy Mountain’s sources for our previous two tunes. They learned “Green Willis” from Taylor Kimble of Laurel, Virginia. “Magpie” came from Harlan Coble of Guilford County, North Carolina. Ironically, I was living in Guilford County in 1971 and ’72 when that Fuzzy Mountain LP first came out. Wish I had known. I was just then making my first (unsuccessful) attempt at learning the fiddle.

Bonus: a medium tempo banjo-fiddle duet of
Magpie

Filed under: Fiddle 3,Paul Tyler by Paul | March 16, 2010 | Comments (1)

Old Time Ensemble (Wed) – week 2

Charlie Acuff called it the “Old Yellow Dog went trottin’ through the meetin’ house.” But the tune dates back to the mid-1800s and was known variously as “The Old Gray Horse came tearin’ through the wilderness” and as a campaign song, “Old Abe Lincoln came tearin’ outa the wilderness.”

Charlie Acuff plays Old Yellow Dog, with John Harford on the banjo.

[under construction]
fiddle & banjo at medium tempo

Filed under: Old Time Ensemble,Paul Tyler,Steve Rosen by Paul | March 16, 2010 | Comments (0)

Fiddle 4 Old-Time (Tue) – week 2

We bravely made our way to the key of C. (Hey, this is Fiddle 4).

Our tune comes from John Salyer, a fabulous fiddler from eastern Kentucky who made a bunch of home recordings in the early 1940s. He traveled around the entire planet after being discharged from the army in the Phillipines. He came to Chicago for the World’s Fair and played for dances in a downtown hotel. He went back to Kentucky where he farmed and taught school. He never made any commercial records.

Indian Ate a Woodchuck

played slow

medium tempo

Filed under: Fiddle 4,Paul Tyler by Paul | March 16, 2010 | Comments (0)


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