Festival of American Fiddle Tunes/Paul Conklin

 

Winter 2001/2002

ARTICLES

COLUMNS

  • Classic Song History: Listen to the Mockingbird, by Beverley Conrad
  • The Practicing Fiddler: Left Hand 101, by Hollis Taylor
  • Bluegrass Fiddling: Buddy Spicher, by Paul Shelasky
  • On Improvisation: Thinking on Your Feet, by Paul Anastasio
  • Cross-Canada Fiddle Tour: New Brunswick's Ned Landry, by Gordon Stobbe
  • Reviews of Recordings & Books
  •  

TUNES

  • Drops of Brandy, transcribed by Anne Lederman as played by Walter Flett
  • Grandy's A Reel, transcribed by Anne Lederman as played by Grandy Fagnan
  • Red River Jig, transcribed by Anne Lederman as played by Lawrence "Teddy Boy" Houle
  • Togo Farewell, by David Greenberg
  • Francis Xavier Kennedy MacDonald, by David Greenberg
  • Pretty Little Indian, transcribed by Peter Anick as played by James Price
  • Flannery's Dream, transcribed by Andrew Kuntz based on the playing of John Hartford
  • Camp Chase, transcribed by Andrew Kuntz from the playing of Gerry Milnes
  • Listen to the Mockingbird, transcribed by Jack Tuttle
  • Hell Among the Yearlings, transcribed by Hollis Taylor
  • Big Country, transcribed by Richard Greene as played by Buddy Spicher
  • Bowing the Strings, transcribed by Gordon Stobbe as played by Ned Landry

 

ARTICLE EXCERPTS

Photo: Grandy Fagnan by William Henry

Native and Métis Fiddling: Portrait of a People

By Anne Lederman

In 1984, I was fortunate enough to meet an elderly fiddler, Carl Grexton, from Grandview, Manitoba, on a trip he made to Ontario. Later he sent me a tape, which had, scribbled on the label on one side, "Grandy Fagnan, MB [Manitoba] Métis Fiddler." The music I heard on this recording is somewhat indescribable, a bit rough and out of tune, and frequently accompanied by loud, steady, two-foot rhythms which have the precision of a military drum, much like those often heard in Québec and Acadia. But that is not what caught my attention the most. Although the tunes seemed to be, basically, jigs and reels and sounded vaguely Scots-Irish, they were so unpredictable and so lacking in any perceivable structure (by me, at the time) that I wondered at first if they weren't improvised. I was hooked. Within the year, I had gone back to school, got a grant from the National Museum, borrowed a Uher, and landed in Dauphin, Manitoba.

When I arrived, fiddling was a well regarded, but fading cultural expression, as it was in much of rural Canada. In the dominant Euro-Canadian farming community of the area, it was pretty much restricted to the over-sixty set and consisted mainly of jigs, reels, polkas, waltzes, some schottisches and foxtrots, and Ukrainian tunes. But there was another culture here, an older, often almost invisible world of Native and Métis peoples ("Métis" is a French word meaning "mixed"). It is hard to describe the relationship between these two cultures -- English Euro-Canadian and Native/Métis. With the French in the middle, they intertwine, they permeate each other, and, in this mingling, determine much of the character of the rural Canadian prairies. But it is not an equal partnership, and each regards the other with a certain amount of distrust.

Carl was the key. When younger, Carl had worked in the bush further north cutting timber, and had met Grandy, the man on my tape. Grandy came from Camperville, Manitoba, a largely Métis settlement about seventy miles north of Dauphin. Over subsequent years, Carl played and socialized with many fiddlers of Native and Métis heritage, which, I learned, was an extremely unusual thing for a "white" prairie farmer. He, alone amongst his Euro-Canadian peers, seemed to admire their way of playing, their quirky repertoire, their driving rhythm. He lost touch with Grandy for many years, but, a couple of years before I arrived, he and Bill Henry, a musician and reporter for the local paper (and whose photos you see on these pages) decided to take a drive to Camperville. They found Grandy, brought him back to Carl's house for a couple of weeks, made the tapes, sent one to Ontario, and here I was. Only later did I come to appreciate how easy it would have been to never learn of the existence of this music, to never even suspect the extent of this 200-year-old, indigenous tradition, born of a blending of cultures that could only have happened in Canada. It was all because Carl was the sort of person who could see past the odd timing and rough sound to the powerful soul of the music.

Over the next couple of years, Carl and Bill were frequent companions on my visits to fiddlers. Through them, I found myself in the bosom of a culture. I met players of many backgrounds and recorded dozens of hours of music in people's living rooms, at community halls, weddings, dances, house parties, and just sitting around the kitchen. We went to see Grandy in Usherville, Saskatchewan. Further explorations on my own led me to the Ebb and Flow area east of Dauphin where I met and recorded Emile Spence, Albert Beaulieau, Lawrence Flett and Frank Desjarlais, and up to Camperville to Fred and Hyacinth Mckay and Rene Ferland. Bill gave me tapes of Willie Mousseau, a wonderful player of about Grandy's age who had passed on before I got there. Eventually, I met Lawrence "Teddy Boy" Houle who now resided in Winnipeg (about 150 miles southeast of Dauphin), and heard tapes of his father, Walter Flett. Later, Lawrence accompanied me on another recording expedition which resulted in more recordings, and eventually, a four-record set -- Old Native and Métis Fiddling in Manitoba.

In the intervening years, I have come to further understand both the roots and the extent of what we can generally call "Métis fiddling," comparing it to what we know of other Métis communities, as well as to old Native, French-Canadian, and Scottish music. This is an on ongoing endeavor, but we do know now that elements of the old style and repertoire are common to French, Native and Métis communities throughout the Northwest into Alaska, across Québec into Acadia, and down into the U.S. We know that not only Scottish, French-Canadian, Anglo-Irish and American influences are at work in the older repertoire, but that this music also owes a great deal to the traditional music of Native peoples.

Let's go back. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Scots, mainly from the Orkneys, and French-Canadian voyagers from Québec and Acadia came to the prairies in search of furs. They intermarried with Cree and Ojibwa women, creating a mixed culture which is commonly called "Métis." Métis peoples came to dominate the prairies in many ways for over 100 years, as traders, trappers, interpreters, and general go-betweens for the French, Scots and First Nations peoples. Today Native and Métis peoples in Manitoba still speak several languages -- English, French, Cree, Ojibwa, Swampy Cree, Saulteaux (a dialect of Ojibwa), and a mixed language which eventually became known as Metchif. Surnames are French, Scottish (usually Orkney), and Native. Within the same families, some may identify themselves as French, some as Ojibwa, Cree or Saulteaux, and some as Métis.

By the 1880s, the buffalo were gone and Native and Métis peoples who had depended on them were starving. Reserves were created for those who could claim substantial Native blood -- parcels of land set aside for their exclusive use, usually near water and not much good for farming. But those who did not qualify for Reserve status, or who lost it over the years were left pretty much to fend for themselves in whatever way they could. Today, people survive by fishing, trapping, farm and casual labor, running small local businesses or working for the government and social service network. Some head for the cities and higher education.

Until recently, fiddle was the musical center of Métis culture, having been passed on by both French and Scots traders to their mixed offspring. Fiddles were played for dancing, for listening, for celebration, and sheerly for personal enjoyment. Over the years, the fiddle took on the status of a cultural icon, a symbol of the Métis people. It was said, in the communities I visited, that every male at one time picked up a fiddle. (Why not the women? Not a respectable female pursuit, I suspect, although no one said so in so many words.) The banning of Native ceremonial practice in the late 1800s, no doubt, further strengthened fiddling as the main musical expression; in fact, outside of hymn-singing in church, it became the only form of music-making in some areas for quite some time.

But Métis fiddlers did not merely reproduce the music of their Scottish and French forefathers. While some of the tunes are, unmistakably, versions of Scottish, French-Canadian, and even American tunes, the music also bears strong elements of the Native musical culture of their mothers, including the very irregular forms and phrasing, a tendency to stay on or around cadence notes for several beats, the tendency for tunes to descend from higher to lower, a fondness for long introductory phrases, shortened on repeats of the tune. This Native influence makes the music quite distinctive, even from old Québécois styles which it most closely resembles. In its blending of European and Native elements, Métis fiddling also belies a long-accepted tenet in Ethnomusicology, voiced by Bruno Nettl, that Native and European musics did not combine in North America the way they did in South America, supposedly because their differences were too great. However, I would venture that the ceremonial voice and drum music of the Plains and the Celtic fiddle music of the Scots, partly via French Canada, in fact, had much in common -- a strong steady pulse, modal melodies using similar scales, a texture of melody with rhythm accompaniment. After all, voice and fiddle are not so different. It is in their forms and structures that Native Plains music and Celtic fiddling differ most, but even here there is evidence of mutual accommodation; some tunes lean more towards the two-part, equal-length phrase structures of the Scots, others follow the outlines of old Native Plains song, consisting of several phrases of different lengths, starting high and descending in pitch to rest on a final low note.

Eastern Canadians, Ukrainians and other northern Europeans were encouraged to come to the prairies and farm, beginning around 1890. (This phenomenon was so recent that I was able to meet and talk to some of the original "pioneers" who had come as children just before the turn of the century.) Fiddling was also at the center of this young rural culture, forming the basis of dance and wedding bands. But this new breed of Euro-Canadian settlers did not, for the most part, take to the older Métis approach to fiddling with its crooked phrasing, quick short bows and aggressive footwork. The prevailing attitude still, in 1985, was that Native players "didn't understand rhythm," that they were musically lacking in some way, that their music just didn't make sense. Native and Métis players were regularly passed over in contests, adding to their general feeling that they were being unfairly discriminated against. Many had given up any attempt to participate in musical events outside their own communities. However, there is some evidence that this situation has improved in recent years, partly from the interest and attention paid by "outsiders" to Métis music.
...

[Anne Lederman is a performer, teacher and Adjunct Professor at York University, currently living in T oronto. A former member of bands Muddy York and The Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band, she currently performs with her own group, Fiddlesong, and with Njacko Backo and Kalimba Kalimba. For information on her recordings, including her recent fiddle recording called 7 Cats, see her website at www.annelederman.com.]

 

Photo: Charles Maring

Stacy Phillips: Performer, Teacher, Scholar

by Janet Farrar-Royce

Composer, researcher, writer, musicologist, teacher and clinician, but always and foremost, performing musician, the world has come to know Stacy Phillips by many identities. Laid back as he at first may seem, Stacy has a strong sense of priorities and is filled with the intellectual energy to pursue them. He can be the personification of determination and focus because he is dedicated to what he loves: playing the fiddle and Dobro. His talent and abilities are impressive. His understanding of every genre of fiddle music amazes everyone who has ever worked with him. His ability to draw from this great fund of knowledge and apply just the right mix of the most appropriate components astounds his peers. Still, when other musicians describe Stacy, they always mention how he brings himself into whatever music he plays. Phil Rosenthal, member of the well-known bluegrass band Seldom Scene, sums it up best: "Stacy doesn't copy anyone else's style. He approaches each tune as a new, unique challenge and doesn't fall back on cliches. He draws upon his vast knowledge of fiddling styles that gives him his own voice. He creates the music as he goes and every tune he plays, whether he has written it or not, is uniquely his."

Where It All Began

Stacy first came to know about bluegrass music because of his family's interest in music. He briefly tried the mandolin but was so taken with the Dobro that it became the first instrument that he would play professionally. Kenny Kosek, one of New York City's "first call" professional fiddlers, was among the first of many well-known musicians who worked closely with Stacy. They both worked in a group called Breakfast Special, whose membership also included Tony Trischka and Andy Statman. Most of what this group performed was experimental and has, in recent years, been lauded as an ensemble with musical vision ahead of its time. Although they played plenty of "roots" tunes, with occasional straight bluegrass and Junior Walker-style rhythm & blues material, the group was known for creating energetic music with bluegrass instruments in non-bluegrass settings. These were the roots of Phillips' diverse knowledge and the impetus of his own distinctive playing style.

Kenny takes credit for having influenced Stacy to pull out his father's old violin. He says that Stacy was a quick study and the two young men spent many hours between gigs on the road practicing together. Stacy supports Kenny's claim: "I learned a lot from a band I had been in with Kenny Kosek, whose fiddling I admired greatly. In fact, I would have to say that he's the one that got me interested in fiddling. I watched and listened to him very carefully when he played on stage. Along with many of the same players who influenced him, Kenny Kosek's influence on my playing has been real strong. So I already had visions and sounds in my head when I began to practice regularly. These were my guides."

The Musicologist: Researching and Transcribing Fiddle Music

As Stacy's ability on the fiddle improved, the boys found that they had a common attraction to bluegrass music and studied it together. They began listening to and copying passages that they liked and thought were impressive. Stacy remembers, "We listened to the important solos from the great fiddle players and chose the solos that we thought were most influential. They introduced licks that became standard riffs of the style, while some contained challenging passages that confirmed the high level of technique required for bluegrass."

This, of course, was the beginning of the famous Bluegrass Fiddle Styles, a chronological history of great players and solos of bluegrass history. Better known among many students of fiddling as "The Yellow Book," or even "The Yellow Bible," this volume has become a standard of bluegrass fiddle education. Kenny admits that he and Stacy worked very hard on this treatise. "There was a decade of intense study and effort behind it. Still, we have been pleased but surprised by its wide acceptance. And Stacy continues to work equally hard on all his other books, of which there are many!"

Before the publication of "The Yellow Book," transcriptions of fiddle tunes had generally been more skeletal. Stacy had just raised the bar. According to Matt Glaser, Chairman of the String Department at Berklee College of Music, "Stacy was the first to publish such high quality texts. He set a precedent and standard for creating fiddling books. He was out in the forefront to set the direction."

The Author

After this first book, Stacy went on to publish several more instructional fiddling texts, filled with his transcriptions and good advice. He searched to find interesting versions of the tunes he transcribed and took great pains to make his editions very close to the originals that he studied. This highly personal standard continues to identify his work. Contest Fiddling was the first published by Mel Bay in 1983. Included with Stacy's scripted version of approximately thirty-five required hoedowns, waltzes and various tunes of choice required for the Texas-derived "National" style are tips for performing and competing, interviews, a discography, and list of fiddle associations and contests. Stacy made the book to be a real help to his readers.

A year later, Oak Publications printed Hot Licks for Bluegrass Fiddle, one of Stacy's two most specific and technique-oriented volumes. Scattered between the lessons on double stops, connecting licks, kickoffs, tags and fills are specific solos and tunes for illustration and study.

In 1991, Stacy's publications returned to transcriptions as the center of his work when he completed Mark O'Connor, The Championship Years, a book of some of Phillips' most precise transcriptions of the music on the album by the same name. The book includes over forty printed versions of Mark's 1975-1984 contest performances and interesting interviews with Mark O'Connor and others. Of particular interest are the multiple versions of a few of Mark's favorite pieces that he reused for competitions. Of the time they worked together Mark says, "Working with Stacy on my Championship Years book was both amazing and eye opening for me. Stacy's attention to detail was hard for me to grasp back then It took Stacy to make me realize this way of passing on my music on the written page."

In 1992, Complete Country Fiddler hit the market with 150 pages crammed with details on creating licks and solos in the major fiddle styles of blues, bluegrass, swing and commercial country music. 300 musical examples and analyses clarify every lesson and the text also includes interviews with eleven top professional fiddlers. Phillips had created a rival to his own Bluegrass Fiddle Styles!

Another book that has continued to be popular is Western Swing Fiddle, published in 1994. Stacy describes it as "an exhaustive historical study of the most influential (as well as the hippest) solos and instrumentals in the western swing fiddler's repertoire. This collection includes from straight-ahead jazz and swingy versions of old time fiddle tunes to polkas and schottisches; and from early Bob Wills and Milton Brown through the rediscovery of Johnny Gimble."

Finally, by 1995, Mel Bay published what is still Stacy's largest and most comprehensive work, The Phillips Collection of Traditional American Fiddle Tunes. This two-volume compilation includes over 1,000 transcriptions. All of the tunes are bowed, organized by type (rags, blues, etc.) and cross-referenced. Some tunes are supplied in multiple versions. In the introduction to these volumes Phillips gives us details of the considerable thought he employed in creating this masterpiece.

In addition, Stacy's Beginning Fiddle, Beginning Fiddle Solos, and Twin Fiddling are among the best known and most widely used among fiddlers and even teachers of classical and school string instrumental programs. With likable collections of tunes, easy to read music and excellent accompanying CDs (with Stacy's relaxed patter), these texts are seldom left on the music store shelf for long. A fiddler and string teacher for more than twenty years, Mary Anne Schallert directs a music school during the winter. She is also the creator of the Alaskan Children's Music Camp, possibly the largest children's fiddling camp in the world. "I was first introduced to Stacy through his books. I own all of his books. His books make sense. They are user-friendly, particularly for people who are crossing over from violin to fiddling."

...

The solicitation for articles by such a prolific author was inevitable. Stacy's articles have appeared in just about every fiddling publication that has ever existed, as well as Guitar Magazine and Sing Out!, but he is best recognized as a regular contributor to Strings and Fiddler magazines. His literary output mirrors his multi-faceted abilities. In addition to many instructional transcriptions, Stacy has written articles that address jam session etiquette, electronic amplification of a violin, explanation of the Afro-Cuban violin style, insightful interviews with famous players and reviews of books and recordings of all genres of fiddling and world music.

Of his experience in writing articles Stacy says, "Some of my earlier articles were about specific fiddlers and fiddle styles. More recently I have been writing more articles about stage set-ups and other aspects of performing with electronics. I also like to do reviews of new books and recordings. Some of my more recent reviews are about East Indian and Scandinavian playing. There are so many articles I could write. It is a good way to keep expanding myself."

The Teacher

Having built a reputation through his books and performances, Stacy is in high demand as a clinician. He finds pleasure in teaching and has gained a reputation as a mentor to aspiring fiddlers. Mary Anne Schallert is impressed with Stacy's teaching at her camp. "Before hiring Stacy, I used to have someone different come out to my camp every season. But he is so good that the kids want him back year after year! He aims his teaching of every student at who they are, and their specific needs. His honesty and sincerity come across to his students of every age and I think that is why he enjoys so much success teaching at every level. From a director's point of view he is a model employee, as well. He doesn't just teach his class, he does everything he can to make the whole camp better."

...

"I think the most important thing I teach anyone is how to practice. I teach my students that when something goes wrong in their playing, isolate that part and work on just what's wrong, not the whole piece. And, if you make a mistake once, you must play it correctly twice. If you make a mistake twice, you need to do it right four times!" Stacy continues, "The most important thing I need to do as a teacher is to be aware of why each student is taking fiddling lessons and teach to that individual. I have to find a balance between what each student wants to do at a lesson and what I perceive that he or she needs. And you have to keep adjusting your goals during the lesson. But no matter how much I think about it before hand, half of my lessons are improvised. A successful lesson is not one where the student necessarily goes home happy. I know I've done my job when the student leaves me with something they want to practice."

...

Stacy Phillips Today

With a continuous schedule of teaching private students, workshops, seminars and music camps, writing articles, revising new editions of his published books and creating new ones, arranging and performing music, Stacy Phillips' life is still busy and varied. He spends a significant amount of time traveling the globe in locations as remote to New England as Australia and Alaska.

For a man who influences as many aspects of music as he does, Stacy's description of himself is modest. "Mine is a life that is full of so much diversity that sometimes it is a struggle to fit in the practice to keep not just my fingers, but my personal musical identity in peak form!"

For this multifaceted fiddler, the inspiration for the immense output of innovative and influential material all begins and ends with a need to perform the music that he loves on the instruments that he holds dear. Stacy Phillips is all musician -- with a lot more to give. His quest for personal fulfillment is a gift to the world. For those of us who are searching for a way to give thanks for this happy situation, the answer is easy to find. All we have to do is to enjoy the transcriptions, the articles, the texts, and most of all: the music he performs.

Follow Stacy's performing and teaching itinerary, read excerpts and hear cuts of Stacy's fiddle and Dobro books and videos on his webpage: http://nw3.nai.net/~stacyphi

[For over thirty years, Janet Farrar-Royce has been a professional string musician and teacher. In addition to performing in various symphonies and directing a summer arts camp, Ms. Farrar-Royce is on the Executive Board of the Connecticut chapter of the American String Teachers Association and coordinates a 250+ student string program for the Cheshire public schools. Her quest is to bring fiddling into the public school string instrumental music curriculum.]

 

Photo: Arne Glassbourg

Baroque Violinist and Cape Breton Fiddler David Greenberg

by Paul Cranford

David Greenberg is a prominent professional musician whose soulful performances put him in great demand both as a fiddler and as a violinist. In both baroque and Cape Breton circles he has toured the globe and appeared on numerous recordings. In the mid-'90s, he formed Puirt a Baroque, a Scottish/Baroque/Cape Breton cross-over group which gave stunning concerts and made three wonderful CDs. In addition to being a lively, old style dance fiddler, he is a well respected teacher and co-author of the acclaimed DunGreen Collection, a book of traditional music from Cape Breton which he and his wife Kate Dunlay assembled.

Today, for traditional dances, concerts and recordings, he works with Cape Breton pianist Doug MacPhee. As a baroque violinist he travels widely to freelance as a soloist. At home in Halifax, Nova Scotia, he plays with Symphony Nova Scotia and directs a new baroque chamber orchestra, Tempest.

David, this summer, in addition to having a hectic performance schedule, you traveled widely to teach at a number of fiddle camps. Do you teach primarily by ear, or using written music?

I like to think that I teach primarily by ear, because I really think that's the shortcut to the music. But in reality, I think it has to be a combination. I've also been concentrating on teaching my students the value of considering a new aesthetic hierarchy -- if you want to call it that. One example of that is considering good tone, and even good intonation, to have lesser importance than some other things like good drive, and that elusive thing called good timing, which I think are two different things, but related. They're right up there with playing from the heart, as being so vitally important to the Cape Breton style.

How is it that you've been able to successfully cross over between all the different idioms -- between baroque, classical, and traditional music worlds. Were you self-taught?

I try to consider how I learned, especially the Cape Breton style, when it comes time to try to teach other people. What I keep coming back to is how stubborn I was in trying to copy every single aspect of the way a certain player plays a certain phrase of music. If I could see the player, I would try to copy how that player moved, how he or she held the violin. If I couldn't see the player, I would listen, and copy, and listen and copy some more, until I felt I got the feeling of the phrase of music. So that's a really different way of learning from any kind of classical approach, except perhaps the beginning of the Suzuki method, which is where I started, so that kind of ties in as well. I also started as a young kid picking up fiddle tunes by ear, so that I think further enhanced that kind of learning.

Are there techniques that classically-trained violinists learn that might make traditional music more difficult to learn? Do you see that with some of the people who come to you, that their technical background makes it difficult for them to become fiddlers?

Absolutely. I think the fact that they come to me at all speaks volumes. But this kind of touches on a deep-seated ambivalence I struggle with in teaching Cape Breton style to others. On one hand, I seem to have cracked some of the code, not all of it, but enough to have something to share -- but, getting back to that ambivalence, the way I learned is, I think, a good way of learning: train yourself to pick things up by ear and be stubborn about it until you get it the way you hear it being played.

Does that mean it's not really about specific techniques? Would it go in reverse? What about a mature fiddler -- is it necessary for him to break all sorts of habits if he wanted to learn classical music?

I have to smile, because that's sort of the other class of Cape Breton fiddle student I get - somebody from Cape Breton, who has family in Cape Breton, who has the blood, as it were, who has the music in them, perhaps because they've been around it all their lives. In any case, they know intuitively more than a classical musician would know what makes the music tick -- maybe from dancing themselves, or just from being around it as part of how they grew up. And they think that coming to me will give them a technical or somewhat magical kind of a head start. I can certainly point out a lot of the basic technique -- how to hold the violin, to working on tunes, different things about basic bowings and so on. Those students usually are the most fun to teach because they're not in it for the long-term as a student. They want to get started and then they usually want to explore on their own, which is, I think, what this music is about.

Actually, the question I meant was more about mature fiddlers -- already good, solid players -- if they want to learn classical music, are they up against the same hurdles as classical musicians wanting to learn traditional music? Do their individual techniques and their sound get in the way?

I haven't had much experience with that type of student, however, I have a gut feeling that a similarly obstinate, mature fiddler who wanted to play either baroque style or classical style, would end up with a way of playing that kind of musicand would have more great stuff in it. I don't think that they would ever be accepted in the classical music world in the same way a conventionally taught classical musician is, just as a classical musician is always looked at with suspicion in the folk music world.

You consider yourself a baroque violinist, not a classical violinist -- is there a big difference between approaches?

Probably not as much as I like to make out [laughter]. Baroque music leaves more of the music making decisions up to the performer. Often the composition itself is not as complex and the way in which the violinist is allowed and expected to ornament the music is more spontaneous. Those things suit me, so I identify more with the extra freedom of baroque performance practice violin playing. And even within baroque music, I tend to be more drawn to the earlier Italian style, such as Dario Castello and Marini and others like that. Even the way the music is printed, it's almost like you have to squint at it and kind of imagine what it's supposed to sound like. You can really make it up as you go along to some extent.

Is the improvisational character somewhat akin to fiddling, playing at a dance?

I think it is, though not in the same way, and perhaps not as much playing at a dance as playing in a living room. In other ways, it's even more free [Cape Breton fiddling], because you get to make up the order of the tunes as you go along - adding that little bit of danger and freedom that is enticing often to both the performer and the audience. But even within the orientation and style of playing, there are a lot more expressive possibilities -- the palette is larger, the coloring, ornamentation, I think -- in Cape Breton fiddle music than it is in conventional classical music.

Can you summarize how bowing styles differ?

If I were to generalize, I think there are one or two things in each of the three ways of playing. In conventional classical playing you must control everything, and yet there are hundreds of different ways to control it, different effects you can get. But usually the result is, once you decide to start the bow going in a certain way, it will continue in that way until you stop it. Which means that the actual sound of the note in the middle is pretty near constant -- it doesn't decay, it doesn't grow, except in minutia, a very subtle, refined sort of way. That's different from the baroque style in that, again, usually the result is a very distinct and lively beginning to a note, both up and down, but especially down, followed by immediate release, so that you get a rapid diminishing of the sound in that release. And that's partly because of how the instrument and bow are constructed. There's less tension in the violin strings and therefore much more immediate response to a lighter touch of the bow. You can't press as hard and it doesn't want to sustain -- it wants to just respond and be let go...

Getting back to the question about how baroque music is different from classical I don't know whether it's part of the way I've trained -- I don't think it can be because I've spent more of my life training for conventional classical music than baroque. In any case, I think baroque music comes alive or responds very well to what I tend to do naturally, which is be very attentive to very detailed parts of the phrases, almost in a note-to-note kind of way, so I'm always making an effort to make this note or that note, or the way this note goes to that note come alive. That doesn't work so well for more modern classical music, like Romantic-era music, because the phrases are so long and drawn out compared to baroque music, or to fiddle music.
...

[Lighthousekeeper Paul Cranford has published many books of fiddle music, including the five-volume Cape Breton Musical Heritage Series. Also a fiddler and composer in the Cape Breton and Irish traditions, many of his tunes are widely played. See his website at www.cranfordpub.com]

 

Photo: Peter Anick

James Price: Bluegrass Fiddlin' the Old-Time Way

by Peter Anick

The recent release of the soundtrack of "O Brother, Where Art Thou" has brought new attention to the haunting, down-to-earth mountain music of Ralph Stanley. But bluegrass fans have been savoring the "Stanley sound" for over fifty years. As the "Stanley Brothers," Ralph and Carter Stanley developed an instrumental and vocal music distinct from fellow bluegrass pioneers Bill Monroe and Flatt and Scruggs. It is a sound that Ralph Stanley and his Clinch Mountain Boys continue to play today. The fiddle has always been a key component of the Stanleys' music and the ranks of the Clinch Mountain Boys have been graced by some of the best fiddlers in bluegrass, including Art Stamper, Moon Mullins, and Curly Ray Cline.

In 1995, James Price was asked to join the Clinch Mountain Boys. For the past six years, James has picked up where his distinguished predecessors left off, staying true to the traditional Stanley sound while keeping it fresh with his own smooth bowings and stylistic nuances. He has even added his own brand of comedy to the stage show with his imitations of Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson.

I caught up with James Price at the 1997 Thomas Point Beach bluegrass festival, as he was starting his third year with the band. We talked about his musical background, his adjustment to the Clinch Mountain Boys' style and his philosophy of fiddle playing.

I have an uncle, his name is Elzie Davis. Growin' up as a little boy in the hills of West Virginia, he would come in to visit the family. I learned to play a lot from him. Actually started playing guitar and backed him up when I was just real young and then I sorta picked up fiddle. I been around bluegrass festivals and good fiddle players and all of the pro bands, probably all of my life. This evolved from that. I probably played my first tune on the guitar when I was six, seven years old, and ten years old I started playing the fiddle. So it's been little by little and here I am.

Where'd you grow up?

I grew up in a little town in Boone County, West Virginia, called Prenter, and graduated in 1982 and moved up to Ohio. Worked up there for a couple of years and then moved on up into Michigan and worked with a band up there named "Wendy Smith and Blue Velvet." Then came back and started playing some country music, worked a few jobs here and there, probably fourteen or fifteen dates with Johnny Paycheck. And worked a few dates with Little Jimmy Dickens. Just played some clubs. And then about five years ago, I went to work for Melvin and Ray Goins, the Goins Brothers. Worked with them for three years and then there was a job opening with Ralph, so Ralph called me. I got to know Ralph real well when I was working with the Goins Brothers, so Ralph called me and I was interested in that job, so here I am. I been with Ralph for two years now, about two years and a month.

How does playing with Ralph compare with playing in country music?

The music business in general is pretty much alike, any way you go at it, other than being different styles of music. I really love this job with Ralph. It's given me a lot of exposure and I'm making a lot of friends, loving playing bluegrass.

When you were growing up and playing with your uncle Elzie, what kind of music did he play?

Just old-time fiddle tunes, "Soldier's Joy" and "Soppin' the Gravy" and stuff like that.

Old-time, not really bluegrass?

Well, he's always liked bluegrass. I don't think he ever made a distinction between the two. He just played the way he felt, and according to the players he grew up listening to. I've heard him talk about Clark Kessinger a lot, and "Natchez the Indian," some of those players were old-time. They done a lot of contest fiddle playing. He's listened to Bill Monroe, and Stanley, Flatt and Scruggs, but his style of fiddle playing is nothing real fancy or elaborate, just good melodies.

What would you consider the style of fiddle playing that you play with Ralph? That's sort of halfway between bluegrass and old-time, isn't it?

Yeah, it is. Ralph calls it old-time. But also I have a little bluegrass flavoring mixed in. I can't help it, especially, you know, when he sings a Monroe tune or something like that. I'll add a little bit of Kenny Baker flavor, just enough to put a little salt and pepper to it. Basically, it's old-time.

How did you go about getting the right sound?

Well, I'll tell you one thing. When I was playing bluegrass, like with the Goins Brothers, Melvin and Ray played a lot of Flatt and Scruggs tunes, and a lot of the stuff that I would play was more of a Benny Martin, Paul Warren style of fiddle playing. And when I went to work for Ralph, I really didn't realize growing up that there would be that much difference in style. It took me several months just to try to convert to that timing and that style of music. It's a lot harder to play than it sounds.

What exactly did you have to do?

The timing and the style, it's just different. I can't really describe it. If you listen to tunes like "Pretty Little Indian," there's one part in that tune where a lot of people would think you're jumpin' the time, you're not holding out long enough. There's a lot of that in Ralph's music, like "Little Birdie," it's different.

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Does Ralph ever spring new tunes on you that you haven't heard before?

Yeah, he's done that. Actually, we'll play tunes sometimes from all the records he's recorded in his lifetime. He's got hundreds of tunes, and we probably have forty or fifty tunes that we do from time to time. But sometimes he'll just go back and grab one that we've never even done, out of way back in the archive. And just from the memory of hearing it when I was a little boy, I can get through it pretty good. But it's tough, especially when you are in a situation where it's a pretty prestigious gig.

So do you have your arrangements all worked out, or does he look at you when it's your turn to take a break?

No, usually he don't. But there's a sort of code for a professional musician. He can feel and tell when it's time to speak or time to shut up. It's fairly customary that the fiddle takes the second break, usually. Like, if the banjo kicks the tune off, it's pretty customary for the fiddle to take the first break. That's sort of a rule of thumb, where we don't get confused, if it's a tune we've never done.

And if you kick off the tune...

Then the banjo gets the next one. Yeah, Ralph's music pretty much revolves around banjos and fiddles. Even though he's got a mandolin player right now, a good one, and it sounds wonderful, he still doesn't slight the fiddle at all. It's still real dominant.

And Bill Monroe, too, the same thing.

I heard Bill say one time that the fiddle was the most powerful instrument in bluegrass, even though he played the mandolin. I was kinda shocked to hear him say that, but he did. That's his version. Maybe somebody else thinks different.

[Peter Anick, co-author of Mel Bay's Old Time Fiddling Across America, plays fiddle and mandolin with the Massachusetts-based Acoustic Planet.]

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