Synopsis
A unique collection of 66 fiddle tunes illustrating the major regional styles found across America and Canada. This book contains rare vintage photographs, player's biographical profiles, historical and performance notes, bowing indications, and information on cross-tunings and the American institution of fiddle contests. The authors have collaborated brilliantly on this labor of love to produce a definitive volume of tunes transcribed from recordings by many of the best fiddlers in North America. Exemplary tunes are included from the Northeast, Southeast and Western regions, plus various widespread ethnic styles including Cajun, Irish, Scandinavian, Klezmer, and Eastern European styles.
About the Author
Although he had taken violin lessons in grade school and high school, David Reiner heard old-time fiddling for the first time in 1970 at a Cornell University square dance. Captivated by its rough and hypnotic sound, he asked the fiddler to show him how it was done, and eagerly learned his first tune, Hop High Ladies. During a two-year stint with the Peace Corps in Zaire, he brought along a mandolin and Cole's 1000 Fiddle Tunes book, completely puzzling listeners and dancers there. Returning from Africa to study for a Ph. D. in Computer Science at Madison, Reiner spent most of his free time jamming and working out fiddle tunes. He tried them out at dances and innumerable bar gigs with the Arkansas Travelers, the Irish Brigade, Country Caravan, the Pitz Valley Boys, and Bluegrass Caravan. For five years, Ranier taught old-time, bluegrass, Irish, and jazz fiddle at Pickin' and Grinnin' Workshops in Wisconsin, idyllic weekend gatherings concentrating on acoustic folk music. There he was continually challenged by fiddle students wanting to understand and play these different styles. He won a few fiddle contests in Wisconsin, ranging from the World Dairy Expo, where the cows were a bigger draw than the music, to the 1978 and 1979 State Fiddling Championships. In 1980, he moved to Boston, playing with Fire on the Mountain and Southern Rail before co-founding Hot Off the Frets with Pete Anick. His first book for Mel Bay was Anthology of Fiddle Styles, which covers old-time, bluegrass, swing, blues, Irish, Scandinavian, Texas, Cajun, and twin fiddle tunes. He had the most fun with Old-Time Fiddling Across America, thanks to the trips to Galax and other fiddle festivals, the hours spent poring over the fiddling literature, and the wonderful story- and tune-swapping sessions with his fiddling friends across America. It was in 1971, his freshman year at Rutgers College, that Peter Anick discovered that good music didn't begin with the Beatles. A Tuesday night folk series brought to the campus many of the beast artists of the 70's folk revival, and he was lured from the electric guitar to pursue ragtime, blues, bluegrass, and jug band music on the acoustic guitar and mandolin. During one vacation, his father brought home a couple of Peter's grandfather's fiddles, and he cautiously began to scratch his way into a new and mysterious world of old-time fiddling. Anick has many fond memories of those early days of struggle and discovery--the jam sessions at the Middletown Fold Festivals, attempting to decipher the bowings of local Irish fiddle master Ed McDermott, anxiously taping fiddle music from Gene Shay's Philadelphia radio show as it faded in and out over the airwaves, performing with the eclectic and often lunatic Kathy DeAngelo and the Lentil Soup Boys, and the many evenings of musical camaraderie at New Brunswick's Mine Street Coffeehouse. Moving to the Midwest to pursue graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin, Anick was fortunate to happen upon the Pickin' and Grinnin' Workshops, with which he spent many a musical retreat as student and instructor. Through the workshops, he met fellow UW student and fiddler Dave Reiner, with whom he performed in a succession of old-timey, bluegrass, and swing bands. When computer science careers transplanted both of them to the Boston area, they teamed up again in the bluegrass/western swing ensemble Hot Off the Frets. Now, with his wife Connie on the piano and his two young sons, David and Jason, dancing around the living room, he is enjoying fiddle music as much as ever, recreating a scene that must have existed in countless households before the days of television and phonographs.
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