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Summer 1996Articles
Tunes
ARTICLE EXCERPTSNatalie MacMasterBy Mary LarsenTwenty-three year old Natalie MacMaster is among the foremost Cape Breton fiddlers on the scene today. Constantly touring, Natalie is introducing the Cape Breton style to music lovers all over the world. In the past two years alone, Natalie has toured with Martin Hayes and Brian McNeill, as well as with the Chieftains, taught at Mark O'Connor's fall fiddle camp in Tennessee, performed in Ontario, Newfoundland, Labrador, Nova Scotia, Denmark, Belgium, the U.K., New Zealand, and the U.S., and was part of the 1994/95 Masters of the Folk Violin tour. In previous years, Natalie has performed at the Smithsonian Institution's Festival of American Folklife, Wolf Trap, the Calgary Stampede, and myriad other festivals all over the world. Natalie is also an accomplished pianist and step dancer, marking time with her feet, and all-out step dancing at the end of the show. (A Nashville producer, referring to Natalie's fiddle and dance finale, called it "the best seven minutes in show business.") Natalie has three recordings to her name: Four On the Floor (recorded when Natalie was sixteen); Road To the Isle; and Fit As A Fiddle. In 1992, she won the East Coast Music Association's Roots/Traditional Artist Award, and in 1994 won the Instrumental Artist of the Year Award for Fit As A Fiddle. In 1995, she was nominated as Entertainer of the Year. Natalie has recently signed a recording contract with Warner Canada and is in the process of signing with an American record company as well. Natalie started step dancing at age five, with her mother Minnie as her teacher. She began fiddling age nine, learning first from her father and a bit later from Stan Chapman, a teacher in Antigonish [anti-go-NISH], on the northeast mainland of Nova Scotia. Natalie began playing for dances at age twelve. Shortly thereafter, she began traveling, playing in Boston at thirteen, Vancouver at fourteen, and then Ottawa, Toronto…now it might be easier to list the places she hasn't played! Natalie credits her uncle Buddy MacMaster as being the greatest influence on her fiddling, as his recordings were constantly heard in her home, growing up. Other influences, and recordings often heard around the house, include Angus Chisholm, Donald Angus Beaton, Winston "Scotty" Fitzgerald, Cameron Chisholm, Arthur Muise, Jerry Holland, and Willie Kennedy. More recently, she has been influenced by Irish-American fiddler Eileen Ivers, and also has a few Mark O'Connor tunes in her repertoire. Natalie says, "It's mostly the tunes that attract me as far as my playing other types of music. I never really learned a particular style, other than Cape Breton, but I've played a lot of Irish tunes, and I just play them my own way. I play a few Texas swing tunes, because I like them, and I don't really play them Texas swing style -- I play them in my own style. I haven't really concentrated on any other styles, but I certainly enjoy listening to them." She is currently working on a new recording, to be available sometime in June. Tracey Dares and David MacIsaac will be on the album with her, along with guest appearances by Mark O'Connor and several other musicians. Natalie learns most of her tunes from tapes, but also learns "the odd tune from people, especially Dave MacIsaac -- he plays with me a lot and he's always jigging [singing] tunes. I get them off his mouth, really -- he jigs them and I learn them. Also a few by note --when I'm really, really hungry for new tunes, I'll pull out a book. I'm not crazy about the books, because I'm a slow reader -- it's something I'd like to get better at. But I can read, so sometimes I use the music." Asked to single out an especially memorable musical experience, Natalie said: "One of my most exciting musical experiences was at the Mark O'Connor fiddle camp last year, in October. Mark O'Connor, Darrol Anger and Ian Swensen were all playing -- actually Mark was in the lead -- they were all down on the wharf on the lake, and it was about two or three in the morning. All you could hear was three fiddles in harmony, playing. Mark was playing stuff he had never played before, just improvising, doing everything you can imagine, and the other two guys backing him up. You could just hear them and the crickets. It was a full moon, and every now and again you'd hear a fish pop out of the water. It was amazing -- definitely one of my highlights." Natalie offers the following advice for budding fiddlers: "Stick with it. It's very rewarding, and it's always the times that I didn't want to -- not that I ever practiced a whole lot anyway -- but the times that I just didn't feel like practicing, if I pushed myself that little bit extra, it did me a world of good. A person should keep that in mind when they're trying to learn something -- just to stick with it for the extra…even if it's just ten minutes, until you get what it is you're trying to do. It will definitely pay off for you in the long run." Being on tour so much, Natalie says she doesn't have time to practice as much as she'd like. "I've been playing every day, I've been warming up before each show -- I usually play for a half an hour, and that involves a bit of practicing, I guess, but as far as real practice, or what I think is practice, which is picking out your mistakes, and trying to make it better, I haven't done that in quite a while. And I need to -- I'm not saying I don't. But I haven't had the time. When you're playing music every day, you don't want to take your free time, whatever there is, and sit there and really practice. But don't tell that to the ones who are learning, because I just told them to take the extra ten minutes!" I asked Natalie if she ever gets tired
of being on the road so much. "Oh, yeah, I do. I'm on the road all
the time. I haven't had a vacation, really, ever. So that part gets tiring.
But I just try not to think about the future, like when I think about what
I'm doing two weeks ahead, or a month ahead, I'll be like, 'Oh, no, I have
no rest, no break!' But I try not to think like that. I just take it one
day at a time, and usually every day is good, there's something -- a really
nice thing we were playing at, or I meet somebody new, or I learn a new
tune or something."
Cape Breton Fiddle ResourcesMusic Schools in Cape Breton The Gaelic College of Celtic Arts & Crafts, (902) 295-3411 The Ceilidh Trail School of Celtic Music,
(617) 544-3179 Recordings & Books Breton Books & Music/Cape Breton's
Magazine Ceilidh Music Cranford Publications/Silver Apple News Elderly Instruments Fiddlin' Around Fiddlers Crossing Lark in the Morning Tayberry Music
Richard Greene -- Coming Home to BluegrassBy Jim D'VilleRichard Greene began studying classical violin at age five. At age thirteen, he gave up the instrument, but returned while a student at U.C. Berkeley after being caught up in the old-time fiddle playing of Mike Seeger. In the early '60s, Greene, a Los Angeles native, spent time in L.A. absorbing the new acoustic music scene. During that time Greene studied the fiddle styles of Scotty Stoneman and western swing fiddler Dale Potter. In the mid-'60s, a stint with the Greenbriar Boys led to a job with the father of bluegrass music, Bill Monroe. Greene recorded fourteen sides with Monroe between October 1966 and January 1967. Such Monroe classics as "Blue Night" and "Midnight on the Stormy Deep" came from those sessions. After leaving the Blue Grass Boys in March of 1967, Greene worked in a series of eclectic bands including the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, Seatrain with Peter Rowan, Muleskinner with Rowan, David Grisman, Clarence White, Bill Keith and Stuart Shulman, and the Great American Fiddle Band, also with Grisman, which later became the Great American Music Band. In the '70s, Greene toured and recorded with Loggins and Messina, and concentrated on studio work. In 1977, however, Greene felt the need to resume classical violin training. His renewed interest in classical violin led him to form the Greene String Quartet in 1985 and explore such genres as jazz, blues, and rock. Now Richard Greene has returned to bluegrass in a big way, having recently released his second Rebel Records recording of bluegrass, old time, and original tunes entitled Wolves A' Howlin', and touring with his new band The Grass is Greener, featuring instrumental giants Tony Trischka on banjo, David Grier on guitar, Butch Baldassari on mandolin, and Buell Neidlinger on bass. This interview took place at the Shasta Serenade Music Festival in Redding, California, on October 14, 1995. I've heard it said that you were the first fiddle player to bring the symphonic sound of the violin to bluegrass when you played with Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys. Symphonic is a very general term. I think that a classical sound is a better way to put it. And to be really accurate, I would say Chubby Wise, who was Bill's first fiddler on the bluegrass recordings when the music finally tipped over from old-time to bluegrass, was the first one to do that. His sound in those days was very full, very beautiful, very well-maintained, and amazingly in tune. I don't know if he was a classically trained musician -- I don't think he was. But it doesn't matter. He brought those values to bluegrass music. And that created a serious challenge for all the fiddlers that followed him -- they could never have his tone. And so no fiddler between him and me had that sound; they had fiddle sound. It's a different thing. And you can't fault it -- it's a beautiful, pure sound, but it doesn't have the fullness of tone that is involved in classical violin. How is this fullness of tone achieved? It's how you draw the bow on the string, but also choice of instrument, strings, where you sit on the mic, choice of mic, where you put the bow on the string, how fast you pull it… the classical violinist learns how to project and throw like a ventriloquist. Imagine standing in front of an eighty piece orchestra -- there are no mics, the violinist has to be louder, or at least appear to be. So it's a throwing of tone. What inspired you to form The Grass is Greener and record albums of traditional bluegrass instrumentals? I had a need to interact and communicate more fully in a musical way than I had been doing for the last many years. As a studio musician, you are told what to play -- it has nothing to do with the expression of what I've been, which is a bluegrass fiddler. I was a devout disciple of Bill Monroe when I played in the band. So when seeking out which ways I could find musical satisfaction, it dawned on me, what do people really say about me, and even though I hadn't done it for many years, I am still known as a bluegrass fiddler. So what was your first step to get back into bluegrass? I attended the IBMA [International Bluegrass Music Association] convention in Owensboro, Kentucky, in 1993. I had no idea what would happen. When I got there I saw all these people I hadn't seen for years who still remembered me, and I found that platform for musical communication quite quickly. It was a tidal wave of what I was looking for. It's a week of jamming in a ten story hotel. In the atrium, where the ten stories go up, every balcony has bands playing. So you walk into this atrium and you hear fifty bands, all of them really good, playing all at once and in different keys! That sound is unforgettable.
The Museum of Appalachia: Preserving the Traditional Mountain ArtsBy Mary LarsenThis past October, while filming our Carrying on the Traditions: Appalachian Fiddling Today video, I had the pleasure of attending the Tennessee Fall Homecoming at the Museum of Appalachia in Norris, Tennessee. Suffice it to say that I was impressed enough to want to spread the word about this fascinating museum. Founded by John Rice Irwin, the Museum has been a labor of love for the past thirty-some years. Irwin got into the museum business by accident, or perhaps it was destiny, in 1962, when he attended an estate auction at an old home place in eastern Tennessee. As he saw generations of tools and crafts being sold like junk to often unappreciative buyers, Irwin felt he had to preserve what he could of the old way of life. He bought what he could that afternoon, and continued to attend area auctions and visit mountain cabins for many years, collecting thousands of relics, which he stored in and around his garage. Then he started adding old mountain cabins, which he carefully restored and furnished. The word about this "museum" at Irwin's house spread, and the visitors started coming. When the number of visitors got to be a problem, he decided to charge a nominal fee. He installed a service station-type hose which rang a bell in the house when a car pulled in; one of his daughters would then go out and greet the visitor. In their first official year, 1969, they had about 600 visitors. The visitors now number about 100,000 a year. Today the museum's sixty-five acres include some thirty authentic mountain buildings ranging from furnished log cabins and barns, to a one-room school house and a tiny chapel. The main display building houses over 250,000 pioneer-frontier relics, ranging from axes, barrels, and traps, to stills, spinning wheels, and churns. The 15,000 square foot Hall of Fame contains relics which belonged to outstanding or just plain interesting people connected with the southern Appalachian mountains. In addition to displays on historical figures, there is a large collection of musical instruments, including gourd fiddles and "cookie tin" banjos, and displays on Grandpa Jones, John Hartford, Roy Acuff, and other well-known musicians, as well as displays on instrument-making. There is a working farm and garden, and the farm animals include fainting goats, horses, sheep, and oxen. There is also a large gift shop run by Irwin's daughter, Elaine Meyer, which sells locally-made quality crafts. Charlie Acuff and others perform throughout the year. The Museum is open year round and offers an educational and cultural experience for visitors of all ages. Rain doesn't hinder the sights or activities, but it does make mud; you might want to throw a pair of rain boots in your suitcase, just in case. Located sixteen miles north of Knoxville, one mile from Interstate 75 (Exit 122) near Norris. For more information, write to the Museum of Appalachia, P.O. Box 1189, Norris, TN 37828, or call (865) 494-7680 or 494-0514. Other Special Events at the Museum of Appalachia Christmas in Old Appalachia (month of December). Old-fashioned, hand-made decorations throughout the museum buildings and musicians playing every day. July 4th Celebration. An old-fashioned celebration highlighted by the traditional "shooting" of an anvil. Other activites and demonstrations include sassafras tea brewing, saw milling, sheep herding, rail splitting, and crosscut sawing. Musicians perform in various locations. For full versions of these articles, please visit Fiddler Magazine store to order back issues. |
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