Category Archives: Tunes of Interest

A Twin Fiddle Throwback

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One of my favorite classes to teach has always been my Twin Fiddle class.  I remember getting the idea for the class while driving to West Virginia in the summer of 1998. I told Gail (as best I remember), “This will be a class where I can teach Gu’Achi tunes and Swedish tunes and American tunes that lend themselves to harmonizing. And the students can master a little chord knowledge and music theory to help them figure out harmonies for themselves.”  We started the class within the next year, and it showed up in the Fiddle 4 rotation every year until a few years ago.  This year I brought it back.  As you will see at the end of this post, it was a great class.

But the most memorable year for Twin Fiddle was 2010 when, within the span of the few weeks, we were visited by fabulous fiddlers from three countries – Mexico, Austria and Finland – plus a band from North Carolina.

Osiris Caballero came by in May 2010. Besides teaching us a tune from his home state of Tamaulipas, he played a YouTube-worthy version of Cielto Lindo accompanied by our own Maria McCullough and Yahvi Pichardo.

Austrian ethnomusicologist, Rudi Pietsch, hung out at the Old Town School of Folk Music on his sabbatical away from Vienna. (The University of Chicago was his other hangout.) He visited Twin Fiddle class a couple of times and taught us a jodle (yodel) and a couple of polkas, as heard here

The Polka Chips from Finland and the Mostly Mountain Boys from North Carolina and Washington DC visited in June 2010 and did a special workshop for Fiddle Club and several Old Town School classes. This post reported on the workshop and the World Music Wednesday concert that followed. It also contains a recording and a video from Rudi Pietsch’s Fiddle Club meeting a few days earlier.

Check these old posts out for some great twin fiddle music 4 years past. And it continues, as this years Fiddle IV Twin Fiddle class proves at an Old Town School graduation showcase.

Paul Tyler, convener

A delectable treat (un delicioso gusto)

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From the Huasteca region, i.e., northern Veracruz. That’s in Mexico.

The fiddler is Osiris Caballero who visited Fiddle 4 Twin Fiddle last week. His group, Los Utrera performed at World Music Wednesday the next night. Thanks to Yahvi Pichardo for arranging this visit. Yahvi and Maria McCullough assist in this rendition of La Cielito Lindo.

Another version in the Son Huasteca style can be found on the CD Folk Songs of Illinois #2: Fiddlers, played by Chicago’s own Sones de Mexico. Full disclosure: I co-produced this CD.

Paul Tyler, convener

Bluff Country Tunes 1: Tom, Brad & Alice

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Recordings used by permission of the artists. Click on their names or photos for links to their websites or info on their CDs &c. (Tom, Brad & Alice)

Tom Sauber

 

 

Tom Sauber
Los Angeles, California

 

Deep Ellum

Dry and Dusty

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Brad Leftwich
Bloomington, Indiana

 

 

Arkansas Holler

Richmond

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Alice Gerrard
Durham, North Carolina

 

 
West Virginia Farewell

Wild Hog in the Woods

Recorded by Lynn Garren at the Bluff Country Gathering in Lanesboro, Minnesota on May 17, 2008.

Return to Bluff Country Gathering post and link to more recordings.

Notes and Tunes from Our European Correspondent

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Maria McCullough, a charter member of the Chicago chapter of the Fiddle Club of the World, represented the Fiddle Department on an exchange program that sent five Old Town School teachers and two administrators to Newcastle, England and Helsinki, Finland this past spring. Armed with a video camera and sound recorder, Maria digitally captured some fabulous folk music moments.

You can visit the Old Town School Connect blog to read Maria’s comments and peruse some of the footage. I highly recommend the videos of the Rapper Sword Dance, performed in a pub in Newcastle, and the demonstration of the Jouhikko, an archaic bowed lyre now being taught to students at the in the Folk Music Department of the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki.

The Sibelius Academy parallels the Old Town School in many ways, including offering ensemble classes dedicated to traditional folk music. Maria got to participate in one such class taught by Olli Varis. A mandolinist and guitarist, Olli is a veteran of some of Finland’s best known professional folk music groups, including Koinurit, Värttinä and the Helsinki Mandoliners.

Olli Varis
Olli Varis

Here’s a three-part tune taught by Olli.

Suden Rita

And here’s the ensemble class wailing away at the tune. The Old Town School’s Steve Levitt joins in on guitar on the right. What is the one major difference between this class in Helsinki and Old Time Ensemble at the Old Town School (I mean besides the fact that the students are reading music off the stands in front of them)? These Finnish students are receiving college credit for learning their old time music!

Sibelius Ensemble Class

For more of the flavor of folk music in Finland and England, peruse Maria’s comments on the On the Road blog. For a taste of fiddling in northern England, try her recording of a lesson with fiddler Ruth Ball. The tune is the “Dunstanburgh Rant.” Here’s a shorter clip of the full tune at a moderate tempo. (Rants are like reels. They should played pretty fast.)

Dunstanburgh Rant

Keep fiddling.

Paul Tyler

Some C Tunes

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In fiddle classes at the Old Town School, we seldom get around to teaching tunes in the key of C. That’s a shame. There are so many good ones. Larry Warren, a gentleman I met on FIDDLE-L, posted a private page of sound clips of C tunes contributed from fellow FIDDLE-L subscribers. Here’s my contribution of a few gems (IMHO) that I don’t think made it to Larry’s page.

Blue Buggy Bounce

I learned this nearly 30 years ago from Hector Phillips, of Petersburg, Indiana. I made this recording ten years ago for a FIDDLE-L compilation CD. Rhys Jones is on guitar. Hector Phillips can be seen and heard in “Tough, Pretty, or Smart: A Portrait of the Patoka Valley Boys,” a film by Dillon Bustin and Richard Kane.

Postuns Jig

Even longer ago, I learned this one from Paul Gifford, who was then living in Ferndale, Michigan. He learned it from Merritt Olsen, from the nearby Detroit suburb of Birmingham. I heard Merritt play once–he also played a button box accordion–and greatly regret that I never went to visit him. Of course, at that time I could barely scratch out an identifiable tune.

Walter Harmon’s Hornpipe in C

And this one I learned in 1979 from Donald Duff of Lizton, Indiana. He learned it from Mr. Harmon, an older local fiddler who helped Mr. Duff get started when he was a kid. Jimmie Campbell of Dolan, Indiana played the tune as well, and called it “Old Bob.” Same name, different tune from one Garry Harrison collected.

Just so the record is straight, I am the fiddler on all these recordings. Any clunkers are mine and mine alone. Enjoy the tunes, and maybe we can play one of two of them at the upcoming open session of the Fiddle Club on July 15.

Paul Tyler, convener

A tune (or two)

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Oyster River Hornpipe

This mp3 is about 6 minutes long. Here’s an abridged mp3 (two times through the tune).
shorter recording

Played by Frank Hall (fiddle), Lena Ullman (banjo) and Paul Tyler (guitar). Recorded October 2007 when Frank and Lena were visiting from Ireland. Frank, a long-time resident of Bloomington, Indiana, learned the tune from Lotus Dickey. Note the chord changes in the B part (Em & B7).

And here’s an example of Lotus playing the tune in a medley with “Weller’s Reel” and “Green Fields of America,” recorded at the Indiana Fiddlers Gathering in 1982, with Dillon Bustin (guitar) and Linda Handelsman (hammered dulcimer).

Oyster River Hornpipe medley

The Fiddlers Gathering (aka Battle Ground) is coming up the last weekend in June.
The Tippecanoe Battlefield in Battle Ground, Indiana is a 2 1/2 hour drive from Chicago.
The setting is a beautiful setting. The folks are friendly. The jam sessions are lively.

Paul Tyler, convener