On Candlemass Day, a tune to drive winter away – a shining waltz from Leveret‘s newly-released second CD, In The Round. The cover notes tell us the tune was originally published by Daniel Wright in 1715, in An Extraordinary Collection of Pleasant & Merry Humours (etc.).
(See below for where to buy In The Round, and booking details on the UK launch tour)
Leveret
Andy Cutting (diatonic melodeon), Rob Harbron (concertina), Sam Sweeney (fiddle)
Another favourite tune title! This great crooked West Virginia tune dances satisfyingly across the fiddle’s range. It’s fairly straightforward to catch by ear, but the double stopping’s a whole other ball game, so I’m posting several versions to help people find their best way in.
In order of appearance:
A string band playing the tune at speed
Two wonderful solo fiddle videos that show that pesky double-stopping fingering more clearly.
A slightly slower fiddle/banjo rendering that may help mastering the basic tune
And a bonus track – a haunting experimental recording that sent chills up my spine.
Key of A (mixolydian), with the fiddles cross-tuned ADAE (for more on cross-tuning, see blog post Newt Payne’s Tune)
As always, although this blog is fiddle-focused, the tune is intended for any instrument – I’d so love to hear it on border pipes or hurdy-gurdy!
Let’s begin with a great string-band performance setting out the tune for us.
Stephanie Coleman (fiddle), Adam Hurt (banjo), Beth Williams Hartness (guitar), Kellie Allen (double bass)
A rocking line-up filmed at a house concert.
(‘Fine Times At Our House – Stephenie Coleman, Adam Hurt, Beth Hartness, and Kellie Allen’ YouTube video, 3.30. Posted by Kabel Channel, 13 Sep 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNHoECrWKCo)
Scotty Leach (fiddle)
Filmed at a Seattle house concert on 31 May 2014, West Virginia fiddler Scotty leads with an introduction to the tune’s background.
Preview of work from their Creative Artist Residency – based on manuscripts from the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library – that explores ‘the unique relationship between music and morris dance, specifically the gravity defying ‘slows’ that allow dancers to showcase their expertise.’
This beautiful tune, composed by Nigel Eaton in 2011, is so well loved it has its own website – a project to record as many different renderings as possible. Anyone may upload their version; to date, there are 172 recordings on the site.
Nigel Eaton (hurdy-gurdy)
Played here in D – a great key for fiddling Halsway. I play it tuned ADAE and double-stopped, to catch something of the hurdy-gurdy’s drones. (Nigel plays it in G here)
Laurel’s retreats always need a pair of walking shoes as well as your instrument/s, but this one needs a torch as well! Fabulous teaching and playing in wonderful locations – can’t recommend too highly.
It’s been a longer break than I’d hoped, but here I am again – and there are more tunes to come to celebrate Christmas and New Year.
My first Christmas post is this sprightly set of jigs played and sung in wonderful harmony by Finnish folk band Himmeli – named for the traditional Finnish geometric ornaments made of straw hung above dining tables from Christmas to midsummer to ensure a good crop in the coming year.
I Saw Three Ships (trad. English)
On lapsi syntynyt meille (There is a child born to us) (trad. Finnish)
Sussex Carol (trad. English)
Himmeli
Markus Asunta (flute), Jaakko Kyrö (octave mandolin), Paula Susitaival (fiddle), Anni Tolvanen (nyckelharpa, vocals)
Breezy hornpipe that may have travelled to American and back* before arriving in the playlist of Boldwood’s unissued 2012 album Mudlarking. (*see Matthew Coatsworth’s Folkmusicnotes)
Boldwood
Becky Price (accordion), Miranda Rutter (fiddle, viola), Matthew Coatsworth (fiddle, viola)
Boldwood’s wonderful CDs are available on their website – along with marvellous tunes book The Boldwood Dancing Master, ‘a collection of English country dance tunes from 1679 to 1838’.
Current details of recordings, concerts etc are also on their Facebook page.
Use the Search box above to find other great Boldwood tunes.
This week, I’m beginning with a story: acclaimed West Virginia fiddler Ernie Carpenter talking about his fiddling heritage handed down by his father and grandfather, a maker of dugout canoes on Elk River, West Virginia.
In this fascinating 1987 reel-to-reel audio recording, Ernie tells his tale, and goes on to play one of his grandfather’s tunes – the jauntily crooked Granddad’s Favorite.
Ernie’s father, Shelt Carpenter, photographed around 1932.
The audio recording is followed by the video of the musical part of the same performance at the October 1987 Celebration of Traditional Music, Berea College.
And, last but by no means least, this week’s post is topped off by a wonderfully clear teaching video: Andy Fitzgibbon’s rendition of Granddad’s Favorite, as played by Ernie Carpenter.
You’ll notice that Granddad’s Favorite is a crooked tune, with extra bars when you least expect them. It also comes with two warnings for fiddlers:
In the recordings below, the fiddles are cross-tuned: Ernie Carpenter in GDGD, Andy Fitzgibbon in AEAE. If you’d like to try cross-tuning, you’re less likely to break a string tuning your two lower strings up to AEAE, than tuning your top two down a tone for GDGD, and then having to crank them back up again to standard/GDAE. (I speak from sad experience.)
And if you prefer to keep your fiddle in standard tuning, don’t try to copy the fingering in the video!
And now for our story. Are you sitting comfortably? Then Ernie will begin.
Andy Fitzgibbon plays with the Iron Leg Boys, and is part of the New Young Fogies project co-run by Anna Roberts-Gevalt (of Anna & Elizabeth: see ‘Billy in the Lowground’ 7 May 2015)
Ernie Carpenter‘s fascinating family history is outlined on the Berea College website.
For more of his music on Fiddletails, see ‘Gunboat’ (Sept 2015)
A beautiful light-and-shade waltz composed by English fiddler, bass-player and violist Laurel Swift, also widely known as a dancer, choreographer, composer, and inspirational teacher of all things musical. Laurel is playing here with duo partner, fiddler, melodeon-player and dancer Ben Moss (you may remember the tune from a May 2015 Fiddletails post which focused on the second tune in the set, Whitefrairs’ Hornpipe.)
Ben Moss & Laurel Swift play Walthamstow Folk Club, London, Sunday 25 October. Details and tickets here. (Highly recommended – they played and sang up a storm at their Green Note gig back in January 2015!)
More information on their website, and on Facebook, and Twitter (@FolkieBen, @Laurel_Swift). Oxford Folk Weekend has an interesting biography of the duo linked to a future gig in April 2016.
Current EP available from Ben & Laurel’s website, where you can listen to the great (free!) track No Money.
Every couple of weeks or so I feature a tune that's caught my fancy – audio/video clips of brilliant musicians playing great, perhaps uncommon tunes to learn by ear. Most are from the English and American Old-time traditions; some hail from other musical worlds ‒ Scandi, perhaps, or French. But whatever you play ‒ fiddles or frets, free-reeds or fipples ‒ I hope you enjoy catching these wonderful tunes!
Jenny Glover's FIDDLETAILS 