Festival of American Fiddle Tunes/Paul Conklin

 

Winter 2006/07

Features

Departments

  • The Practicing Fiddler: Arranging a Tune, by Hollis Taylor
  • Cross-Tuning Workshop: ADAE, by Jody Stecher
  • Irish Fiddling: Learning from Flutes, by Brendan Taaffe
  • On Improvisation: Jazzin’ the Saints, by Paul Anastasio
  • Cross-Canada Tour: Isidore Soucy, by Gordon Stobbe
  • Accompanying Traditional Fiddle Music, by Mark Simos
  • Bluegrass Fiddling: A Kenny Baker Solo, by Paul Shelasky
  • Reviews

Tunes

  • Pig In a Pen, transcribed by Jack Tuttle as played by Andy Leftwich
  • Scotch Mary, as played by Gerry O’Connor
  • Amor de Temporada, transcribed by Jim Wood (Costa Rica’s National Song)
  • Red Wing, transcribed by Hollis Taylor (The Practicing Fiddler)
  • Gunboat, transcribed by Jody Stecher as played by Tom Dillon (Cross-Tuning Workshop)
  • O’Meara’s, transcribed by Brendan Taaffe as played by P.J. Maloney (Irish Fiddling)
  • Quadrille des Laurentides, transcribed by Gordon Stobbe as played by Isidore Soucy (Cross-Canada Tour)
  • I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry, solo transcribed by Paul Shelasky as played by Kenny Baker

 

Article Excerpts

Photo: Peter Anick

Re-Rite of Strings: Jean-Luc Ponty’s Reunion with the Acoustic Violin

By Peter Anick

The name “Jean-Luc Ponty” is practically synonymous with jazz violin. A graduate of the Paris Conservatory, Jean-Luc was pursuing a career in classical music when a side gig on clarinet in a college jazz band piqued his interest in jazz in the early ’60s. Soon he was carrying an amplified violin to late-night jam sessions in Paris clubs, receiving raised eyebrows at his choice of such an unusual instrument for playing jazz. Drawn to the cool modern sound of Miles Davis and John Coltrane, Jean-Luc developed a playing technique on violin that captured the bebop harmony, phrasing, and tone of contemporary horn players. Invited to tour with Frank Zappa in the early ’70s, he moved to Los Angeles, where he pioneered the use of electric violins and electronic effects. Soon he was leading his own bands, soloing over his own extended compositions in a jazz-rock fusion style. In the early ’90s, he incorporated elements of West African rhythm and melody into his repertoire as well, forging a new sound that is a cross between jazz fusion and world music. His current touring group consists of piano and a West African rhythm section of electric bass, drums, and percussion.

Over the years, Jean-Luc has participated in a number of notable collaborations, including with guitarist John McLaughlin, swing violinists Stéphane Grappelli and Stuff Smith, Indian violinist L. Subramaniam, and banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck. Perhaps his most celebrated side project was a 1994 trio with guitarist Al Di Meola and bassist Stanley Clarke in which the three jazz/fusion giants put aside their electric instruments to create an intimate and exciting acoustic soundscape as “The Rite of Strings.” The group recorded one critically-acclaimed album before disbanding in 1995.

Having always enjoyed this acoustic side of Jean-Luc’s playing, I was pleasantly surprised by the news of a reunion tour in the summer of 2004 and I managed to catch them live at the scenic Mountain Winery amphitheatre on a chilly northern California evening. Their set included many of the pieces from their 1995 recording, interspersed with solo numbers from each of the artists. As Stanley remarked after a particularly physically demanding bass solo, “I was trying like hell to put some heat up here. And that hurt like hell, too! Lucky I’ve got Blue Cross for this finger.” As you might imagine, the chilly California winds were no match for the heat generated by this trio.

After the show, I had a chance to catch up with Jean-Luc (our last interview was back in 1997) and we discussed the history of The Rite of Strings, some of his musical inspirations, and his growing role as “elder statesmen of jazz violin.”

I’m glad to see The Rite of Strings reunited. I never expected it to happen.

JLP: Nobody knew if it would happen again! It was a one-time project. But Stanley asked us to participate in a benefit concert last November. He created a scholarship fund for young musicians and every year he organizes a benefit concert. So he asked Al and myself if we would agree to come and play a couple of songs for that show. Which we did and it was fun to do it and we said, “Maybe we should do it again on the road.” And here we are.

How did the three of you meet? You said on stage that you met Stanley when he was a teenager.

Yeah. I believe he was nineteen. I think it was in the States and I was in New York and Tony Williams had just left Miles Davis and started his own band called “Lifetime.” I went to listen to him with John McLaughlin, guitar, who had just arrived from England. And we connected. So we played in Europe and Tony Williams told me, “I’m going to bring a young bass player who is the new great bass player in New York.” And that was Stanley Clarke. That was 1972. And we have crossed paths ever since. Even played together on the Downbeat poll winner TV show in Chicago for PBS with Chick Corea on piano, Billy Cobham, and Dizzy Gillespie. There was a wish to do a project together someday but we were involved in our personal careers. It’s really Al’s idea to do this trio, because he started switching to an acoustic format in the late ’80s, early ’90s. We had crossed paths because I’d seen him with Chick Corea’s band, “Return to Forever.” We’d never played together before, but we’d met a few times. Al called me in the early ’90s to talk about his idea of doing this trio, with Stanley and me. At the time I was skeptical about playing acoustic violin. Although this is my background –– I studied classical violin since age five until I graduated from the conservatory –– but then once I got into jazz and into rock and started with amplification, my identity became as an electric violinist.

Were you playing any acoustic violin at that point?

At home, yes, to practice, but not really on stage. So I was not sure if I would be able to transfer my style onto an acoustic violin. You know, you feed from the sound as well and it made me play a certain way. After all these years to have that big, powerful sound, suddenly to have a smaller acoustic sound startled me at first. So I was not sure that I liked the idea of doing an acoustic trio. But we tried. We got together in the studio and I must say then I saw the possibilities. It was very exciting with musicians of that level. We did a first tour in Europe in July 1994.
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Did you pick up any new techniques from one other?

We did not learn techniques from each other; we had three different instruments. But we had to come up with a way of backing up the other soloists that we are not used to. Stanley really liked the idea of having no percussion, no drummer. It’s harder, but more original this way. Then I had to come up with ways to play some background parts for my colleagues. I do a little bit of that but not as much with my band.

So you had to develop a backup style. You did a lot with tapping the bow, tapping the tip sometimes for a different sound.

Exactly. Because I’m trying to create a frame for the soloist, whether it’s Al or Stanley. Especially if it’s Stanley, because he is the drummer of the band. When he starts soloing, you really need the downbeats, some solid beats so that he can fly over it with his improvisation. I’m the one who will give these marks –– next bar, next chord change. That’s a responsibility that came to me which I had to develop. This is the fourth show (of this tour) and already I start finding new ideas. I feel a lot more confident doing the rhythm. We rehearsed for a week before starting this tour to refresh our memories. Ten years is a long time without playing this music! But tonight, I found some new ways of providing this rhythmic foundation.
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You mentioned earlier that you do master classes. What kinds of things do you work on with students?

I’m very new at this. I did one at Berklee (College of Music) and another one in Spain. I’m trying to pass a bit of my experience –– what it took me years to learn of the phrasing, the rhythm, how to feel the modern music and, if they have a classical background, how to transfer from one style to the other. Of course, there are the harmonic ideas and chord changes, bowing techniques. I get a lot of questions about technology, about electric violins and amplifiers. Even without the master classes, constantly on the internet I get questions from young string players from all over the world. But it seems to be a trend that even young classical string players are open to learn other forms of music.

Yes, things have changed, haven’t they?

Absolutely, believe me! For a long time I felt lonely. We were so few. I thought maybe that would be it. It took a while, but there are some really grand players. So I will try as I grow older to be more available for other young people to try to pass on as much as I can.

You find yourself becoming the elder statesman of jazz violin now!

You know, I remember being a young prodigy, like when I was nineteen years old playing in jazz clubs in Paris. No more! [laughs] Even when I did that violin summit project with Stéphane Grappelli, Stuff Smith, Sven Asmussen, I was the young cat. I was about twenty-three years old, I believe, and that was my first time ever on stage with great jazz violinists.

And you didn’t find that intimidating?!

A little bit, but, you know, I had a lot of guts when I was young…and maybe being not conscious. I think that’s what it is. I had not that much problem being on stage with them. I’d be more terrified today if I was in such a situation. I would be more conscious of the thing, so maybe it’s good to be a bit unconscious. But, it’s true that in (the festival in) Poland, all the young people –– Mark O’Connor and Regina Carter –– they were all saying I was one of their inspirations. I felt indeed like the older guy! It’s a reward, though, to see people take over and take up on it.

When you were coming up, you were pretty much the only one playing the new music, right?

There was no modern jazz violinist of consequence. There was Harry Lookofsky who had done one album that I discovered later. I think if he had been able to improvise, he would have been a serious competitor. What a technique, what a sound he had! And he had really adapted the bebop phrasing very well. But he was reading arrangements written out, so I guess this is not really what jazz is about.

At one point, you played with Django Reinhardt’s son, Babik, didn’t you?

Yes, but he was playing bebop. And he introduced me to some modern bebop albums like Clifford Brown, this trumpet player, and that was a big influence at first, when I started playing. I loved Stéphane Grappelli, of course, and I loved the Hot Club de France, but once I got really attracted to hard bop, bebop, and Miles and Coltrane and all these musicians, I had no example any more to follow. That’s why I listened to horn players. And, in fact, I myself started playing jazz horn, clarinet and saxophone, and that’s probably why my phrasing was from the start like a horn player, because I transferred what I learned on these instruments to the violin. And then I got my inspiration from trumpet players, sax players, and even pianists. Bill Evans, Red Garland, all the pianists who played bebop and hard bop in Miles Davis’ groups, and Herbie Hancock.
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What do you see as next for you?

I don’t know. I don’t even want to think too much in the future. I’m sixty-one years old now and Grappelli was able to play close to ninety –– absolutely phenomenal. But with the energy I put in my music, I don’t think I’ll be able to go quite that far. The other examples are classical violinists, I guess. They play very demanding music and go what –– seventy, seventy-five at the limit. If that’s what it is, then I have another ten years. So that’s why as long as I have the physical abilities, I want to give as much as I can to the instrument. I’ve come to a point where composing is not as important as it has been throughout all these years. It was really extremely important in my life to write all this music, as much as the violin, as much as performing. But now I am focusing more on the violin itself.
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[For the full text of this interview, subscribe to Fiddler Magazine!]

[A DVD of The Rite of Strings’ performance at the 1994 Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland has recently been released, as well as the first live concert DVD of the Jean-Luc Ponty Group, from a 1999 performance in Warsaw, Poland. For more news about Ponty’s releases and tour dates, visit his website at www.ponty.com.]

[Peter Anick, co-author of Mel Bay’s “Old Time Fiddling Across America,” plays fiddle with the Massachusetts bluegrass band Wide Open Spaces (www.wideospaces.com).]

Photo: Aric Wilmunder

Andy Leftwich: On the Road with Ricky Skaggs

By Jack Tuttle

Anyone who has followed the world of bluegrass fiddling over the last decade has seen an explosion of new talent arrive on the scene. Young players are getting better and better at earlier and earlier ages. Andy Leftwich, at age twenty-five, is one of the latest fiddle prodigies –– one who was suddenly thrust into the spotlight in 2001, when, at the tender age of nineteen, he joined one of the top bluegrass bands, Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder. Now, five years later, Leftwich has firmly established himself as one of the premier bluegrass fiddlers both on the traditional and progressive ends of the spectrum. One senses that life has been very good for him as of late, both personally and professionally. Newly married (to Ricky Skaggs’ niece), he maintains a heavy weekend touring schedule, but has time at home during the week to pursue other music ventures. He is currently featured prominently on two new instrumental CD releases.

Leftwich’s fiddling features magnificent technical skills, not unlike his early role model, Mark O’Connor, and his association with Ricky Skaggs has instilled a strong affinity and understanding of the older bluegrass masters. Putting all his influences and talents together these last few years has led many observers in the bluegrass world to acknowledge Leftwich as one of the elite fiddlers of the new generation.

Talk about your entry into the world of fiddling.

I began fiddling at age six. My dad played banjo and guitar and he played with a friend who moved away, so he got me a fiddle. He knew just enough to teach me “Boil ’Em Cabbage Down.” I played it for hours that first night. Then I got some fiddle lessons.

Did you use written music?

Not until I was nine or ten when I started taking lessons from Craig Duncan. Craig helped me clean up my fiddling and showed me proper bowings and proper form. He was such a great teacher –– he showed me a lot of bowing techniques and taught me how to be smooth with my playing.

When did you first play in public?

My first outlets were fiddle contests. I entered my first contest when I was six years old at the Smithville Jamboree. It was my first time on stage in front of about 20,000 people. It was the National Championship, Beginners’ Division. I played “Camptown Races” and “You are My Sunshine.” I didn’t win, except in my parents’ eyes! I was so nervous and my dad was so nervous –– I can still see him shaking as he was getting up on stage to play rhythm guitar.

My grandparents would take me around every weekend to fiddle contests –– Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky. That’s when I learned other kids my age were doing this and were better than me. I’m probably the most competitive guy that you’ll ever meet.  I got beat and I hated that. I think in a lot of ways contests are good for beginners because it shows them what level they need to get to.
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How much did you practice in the beginning?

My dad made me practice an hour a day and at six years old that’s a lot. Every day when he’d get home from work he asked if I’d done my practicing and he always knew when I was lying. I hated to practice –– I loved playing, but I hated to practice. I practiced scales and double stops for an hour in the beginning. I played about three months before I learned my first real song. After about a year I could play about ten songs. When I was about nine, I got Mark O’Connor’s Championship Years CD and that’s when I really got inspired to learn all of that stuff. Before I knew it I couldn’t wait to get home from school to play. I’d play about two and a half or three hours a day. And my school work always came last. I practiced like that until I entered my last contest at Winfield in 1996. I entered Winfield on a whim and luckily I ended up winning, which was a complete surprise.
…

What did you do after your contest phase?

Right after the Winfield contest, I got a job playing bluegrass with Valerie Smith and Liberty Pike.

Was it an easy switch over to bluegrass?

I had never listened to bluegrass fiddling so it was a big adjustment. I started listening to Stuart Duncan. I was about fifteen years old. The biggest change for me playing bluegrass was adjusting to how much less I had to play, because in a contest you’re trying to play as much as you know in three minutes and playing behind a vocal you have to really tone it down and play melody.

I didn’t listen a lot to the older bluegrass fiddlers like Benny Martin and Paul Warren until I met Ricky Skaggs. When I joined Ricky, I was playing beside Bobby Hicks, and listening to him, I realized there was a whole different world that I hadn’t even begun to scratch the surface of. It was the hardest thing for me to take a bluegrass solo on a singing number and play something besides a bunch of notes over the chords. But I loved learning how the older generation of fiddlers played songs and I loved bringing that into my own playing.

How did you get the job with Ricky?

I knew his guitar player at that time, Clay Hess, and it dawned on me to ask him if Ricky needed a fiddle player because Luke Bulla had left the band, so Clay put me in touch with Ricky’s bass player, Mark Fain, and he helped me get in touch with Ricky. I submitted a CD I had recently recorded and Ricky happened to have liked it and he invited me to Lexington, Kentucky, just to hang out with the band at a show. He ended up asking me to play on stage on a few numbers and then he offered me the job right on stage that night. At this point I was nineteen years old and I was in the process of filling out college applications but when the gig playing for Ricky came up, it was a no-brainer.

When you joined his band, were there special rehearsals for you or did he just assume you could step right in?

He pretty much assumed I could step right in. The night in Lexington he asked me if I was okay playing some of the tunes and fortunately for me they were the songs I was working on that week. But yes, he just assumed I could fall right in and there weren’t any special rehearsals for me.

How much do you improvise on stage with Ricky?

There are some pieces with Ricky that I tend to play the same way every time, but songs like “Bluegrass Breakdown” and “Black-Eyed Suzie,” we tend to feed off each other and play for the spur of the moment. But something like “Lonesome Night,” and slower songs, there’s just no better way to play it than with the straight-ahead approach. We do the same show with Ricky practically every night. On the song “Minor Swing,” which is currently my featured piece, I play the first section in A minor pretty close to the way Grappelli played it with Django Reinhardt, but after we modulate to the key of Dm, I pretty much rely on improvisation. 

How different for you was it when you joined such a high profile act?

Joining Ricky was a dramatic change. I learned so much. Not only the musicianship aspect, but also the business aspect. There’s a certain etiquette that goes with playing with a high profile band like Ricky’s, learning to stay out of people’s way, and how to travel with the other members.
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Do you get nervous before shows?

The only time I’m ever nervous is when I’m not prepared. If I’m prepared for a song, I’m fine. We’ve had the privilege to play for the president a couple of times now and I don’t get nervous doing that. But doing a fiddle workshop makes me nervous, because I don’t really know where things will go!
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[For the full text of this interview, and the tune “Pig in a Pen” as played by Andy, subscribe to Fiddler Magazine!]

[Jack Tuttle performs and teaches fiddle in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is he author of nine instructional books, available at www.jacktuttle.com.]

Gerry O’Connor: Pockets and Seams of Tradition on the East Coast of Ireland

By Tim McCarrick

Gerry O’Connor is one of Ireland’s finest fiddlers. He recently earned the award for “Best Male Artist 2006” from Live Ireland.  His album Journeyman received “Traditional Album of The Year” for 2004 from Irish Music Review, and his albums from his bands La Lugh and Skylark have received much critical acclaim including “Best Album of 1996” for La Lugh’s album Brigid’s Kiss.
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I was looking at some biographical info and Brigid’s Kiss was an album of the year ten years ago.

That’s right, ten years ago now. Voted album of the year by the readers of Irish Music Magazine. That’s an album that was very well received and the “Bridgid’s Kiss” song is being picked up by a young, new act in Ireland, a pop-crossover act called Triniti. Three girls, from Dublin, I think, and it will be their third single. So it’s amazing to see that happen half a generation later. That album incorporated music and songs from the area of County Louth. It also included three generations of my family: a very young Donal O’Connor on the keyboard at age seven, and my daughter played and my mother played on a track, too. We had a set of jigs there called “The Three Generations Jig” –– that was a bit of fun!

That was my mother’s first recording in forty years! She had played fiddle way back in the ’50s on the radio. She was amazed at the studio and all the microphones. She’d say, “What do you need so many microphones for? Last time I was here there was only one for the entire ceili band!” [laughs]

When you were starting out in your younger years, who were the fiddlers you would try to sound like, or learn tunes from?

I suppose my mother. She was a fiddle player and she was the one who taught most fiddle players in Dundalk at the time. Back in the ’60s, on the East coast, traditional music wasn’t really a big thing, and it wasn’t a big thing anywhere. I mean we were coming into a period in Ireland where modernism was what it was all about. My mother played in a ceili band, and she thought that we should at least learn her tradition and the music she was brought up with.  I suppose we were lucky because so many people of that generation didn’t teach and didn’t learn. So, like from the age of six, I suppose –– 1963 or 1964 –– I’ve been playing the fiddle…that’s forty-something years now!

So she put the fiddle in our hands. My older brother had one, and the next brother and I wanted one. By 1967 we had a ceili band in Dundalk with Rory Kennedy. He had a ceili band called the Siamsa Ceili band, but he had no young musicians. He was working with John Joe Gardiner and his daughters. John Joe is a fiddle player from County Sligo who would be a contemporary of Michael Coleman’s. And they (Coleman and Gardiner) would learn music in John Joe Gardiner’s house. Then they went to America, Coleman and Morrison…and John Joe Gardiner came to Dundalk in ’29. I didn’t meet him until his later years, but he was a big influence on the older generation of musicians in the area and sort of a source and an icon I suppose.

So, John Joe Gardiner would have been a huge influence musically, on me. After my mother, he was the biggest influence. Two local fiddlers –– Peter McArdle had just passed away, but I knew Tommy (Peter’s brother) pretty well. Traditional music was very strong in the area, but very small pockets and very rich seams of music. So musically my immediate influences were the McArdle brothers, Rory Kennedy and John Joe Gardiner, and my mother obviously the biggest influence of all, you know?

And then we suddenly we had a community youth group of musicians in the late ’60s, early ’70s, which was a top class. Winners in ceili band contests and all that so, to us, music was like a youth club. During the summer months between fleadhs [contests] we’d go off cycling and swimming and all that. We were more than just musicians –– we were friends. That was my community growing up, the musician community.

And traditional music wasn’t big, you know, and didn’t have the interest it has now. And in the late ’60s, early ’70s Planxty kicked in and a lot people took interest in folk culture. We were getting the tail end of the folk revival which was happening in the States, Ireland, Britain, and Europe. And people were coming into the halls where we were playing music and we’d say, “Oh, here are the Planxty fans!” It was a bit derogatory, I suppose, but the idea was that we’d been playing the music anyway and suddenly it became a popular thing to play traditional folk music. That was an experience in itself, having been there playing it before it was popular and profitable.

How did you get involved with being a violin maker and repairer?

When my mother was teaching she would always have these fiddles, and strings would break or pegs would break or bridges would collapse and that. And at the time that I was working as an industrial engineer at a mining company, I didn’t feel it was meant for me –– I was too interested in playing music. My next job would have been in Canada or Australia and I didn’t really fancy leaving.  Rab Cherry, a violin maker from Belfast, was studying in Cork at the time, and he advised me a lot on that, and how to approach it [the luthier course]. The following year I went down to Cork and studied violin making for three years. And it complemented was I was doing. I knew lots of situations where people just didn’t have access to good repairs, and good set-ups for fiddles. And I thought it would complement my music and make more of a lifestyle. So it’s been what I’ve been doing the last twenty-five years or so. Servicing the needs of the traditional musicians in the area, and playing music.

That’s a good deal you’ve got going there!

Yeah! I get great people coming to the house to get a fiddle sorted and we’ll have a tune or a chat and a cup of tea or whatever and it’s a community that I’m familiar with and that I enjoy working with and being around. And that way, the whole fiddle thing has become part of my life in many different ways: repairing them, trading them, teaching the fiddle, and playing and recording. It’s been an all-encompassing sort of experience for me. I don’t look at myself as any sort of a serious maker, but I do feel that I service the needs of a community that needs it. And it’s good company and easy people to work with, so it’s always a pleasure. You know, the phone rings and somebody says, “Gerry, I’m in trouble, I need something.” And I say, “Alright, bring it over, we’ll sort it out.” As a performer, I can appreciate that. It’s always a last-minute job…”I’m heading off to Europe –– can you rehair the bow tomorrow, or even today?” And I know the story. We’ve all done it. So I say, “Go ahead and bring it over.” It’s great, though, and good fun…It’s a nice community.

Talk about the teaching and workshops you do.

I see so many situations where fiddle players suffer from “big session syndrome,” where they try to play at such a speed and a volume and level that their playing technique suffers a lot. And I find that they can hear the tune, but don’t know how to approach it. And they end up getting into habits that are very hard to get out of. And I spend time in my workshops breaking down the tunes and the bowing patterns and working out how the bowing works. I don’t like the word “grammar,” but there’s a “grammar of bowing” where you can drop it into many tunes. Lots of tunes have typical bowing motifs, and you can move them up a string or down a string or into different keys, but the patterns are familiar. It’s not the only way to bow it, but it’s one way that does work.  It’s probably what people learned years ago without even thinking about it. Watching the same fiddle player going over the same tunes night after night…nobody learned bowing, we just assimilated it. Years ago the musicians had a much smaller repertory than they have today, so you’d hear the tune and hear the bowing without even realizing it, and to me, fiddle players in sessions don’t get that. All they get is the melodic line, and very little else.

Seems like in every type of fiddle playing or even violin playing, it’s the bowing that really tells the tale.

Well, when you think about it, jazz, rock, blues, whatever music you play, classical –– the fingers in the left do much the same thing, give or take few ornaments, but it’s the right hand that breathes and articulates what you’re doing…it’s an accent, a voice. It’s like breathing…breathing goes in and out, the bow goes up and down and it’s how you do it in those twenty-nine inches. But some don’t hear the sound of the fiddle. They hear bands, they hear performances, but they don’t actually hear a fiddle player. And a lot of them miss that point. They’re missing the thing of being a fiddle player. They’re trying to be a musician on the fiddle, and I think it is two different things. And it’s something I try to sort out in the workshops. I sometimes think, “if I only had this person six months or six years earlier, I would have sorted a few basic things that would have made their life easier.”

Years ago people would ask, “how do you bow a reel?” and I used to shy away from that question. Because I didn’t know…didn’t know how to teach it. See, nobody ever showed me how to bow, but now I’ve learned how to dissect bowing enough to give some pointers like, “Ninety percent of the time I would do it like this in that passage.” And that’s a help. But to say “how do you bow a reel,” that used to scare the life out of me. [laughs] But as a teacher, I do think it’s a responsibility, especially when you travel and teach a lot. I’ve taught in Germany, through Europe and the States and Canada and Australia, and I think it’s our responsibility [as teachers] to articulate that and to present it as we see it. You owe it to the people who come to you to break it down and say, “That’s a typical way of doing it.” That’s my philosophy of teaching. It’s our responsibility to pass it on. 

It’s not the case of sitting in the corner of a pub or a house anymore. People don’t have that luxury anymore. They’re learning it off the internet; they’re learning off albums, concerts, shows…but they’re missing that one-to-one contact, which is what made it possible for me. That generation is gone now. That was part of the message of the Journeyman CD. It was a hidden agenda there that most of the tunes I had learned from individuals, and that’s the point I was making: “This is how I remember them playing it.” Like John Joe, Peter McArdle, Pat McKenna, Rory Kennedy, all the various people I would have played with…that’s what I had…and I know it’s not there for a lot of people today. It’s a changing world in many ways. So I give it back in workshops. That’s the way I can do it.
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[For the full text of this interview, subscribe to Fiddler Magazine!]

[Gerry O’Connor will be teaching and performing in the USA and Canada beginning in May 2007. For further details or for booking information, visit his website at www.gerryoconnor.net]

[Tim McCarrick works as an editor in the field of educational sheet music. He started the Irish Fiddle website in February 2000 (www.irishfiddle.com).]

Photo: Michael John Simmons

Neyveli S. Radhakrishna, John Jordan, and the Double Violin

By Michael John Simmons

John Jordan first learned about L. Shankar and his double violin twenty years ago. At the time, Jordan was impressed by the engineering that went into creating the twin-neck, ten-string electric violin and the intricate music Shankar created on it. But, as he was studying guitar building, he filed the article away as a record of an interesting project that wasn’t likely to affect his life.

Over the years, Jordan’s dreams of becoming a guitar maker changed when he got a custom order for an electric violin and came up with a unique headless design. His new design became popular with players and he earned a reputation for taking on projects others wouldn’t. Along with his standard instruments he built custom items like a seven-string violin, a fretted violin, a six-string solid-body cello, and a six-string viola. With a resume like that, it was only a matter of time before someone came knocking at his door asking for a double violin. So, when an Indian violinist named Neyveli S. Radhakrishna approached Jordon four years ago about making a double violin, Jordan wasn’t too surprised.

“Ken Parker, who built the original double violin, sent me all the technical specs for his instrument a while ago,” Jordan says. “Ken said that if anyone wanted to have one made, he would send them to me. Part of that was because he thinks I’m a good builder, but also, I think, it was a handy way for him to get out of having to make another one. Anyway, he sent Radhakrishna my way.”

Radhakrishna took delivery of his double violin in early 2006 and immediately began performing with it. Even though he was impressed by the instrument’s sound and playability, he felt it could use a bit of tweaking. So, when Radhakrishna was in Berkeley in the summer of 2006 as part of Ravi Shankar’s Festival of India, he took the short drive north to Jordan’s Concord workshop to have his new instrument adjusted. Happily, I was able to hang out and talk with Jordan and Radhakrishna as they worked together to set up this unique violin.

When I arrived at Jordan’s garage workshop, Radhakrishna was already there and his instrument was on the workbench with its electronic innards spread out. While we were waiting for Jordan to reassemble it, I asked Radhakrishna about his early days. “I started on the four-string acoustic violin, which my father bought for me when I was boy,” he said. “I studied Southern Indian classical music, in the Carnatic tradition. We had to learn the vocals, learn to sing, no matter what instrument you wanted to play. The idea was that when you start to play an instrument, you try to play it the way you sing. The techniques you play on, say, violin, should replicate the rhythms, the breathing, the phrasing of singing.”

Radhakrishna was a talented student and when he was thirteen, he won the All-India Violin Competition and later received a government scholarship to study music. After he graduated, he found work playing in the orchestras that churned out the soundtracks for Bollywood musicals. “It was commercial in the studios, but I played with a wide range of instruments, both Indian and western, like electric guitars,” he explained. “When you play film music, well, it wasn’t the heaviest, deepest part of our music. We would pick a raga that sounded good on the ears and just go along with what the musical director asked. It wasn’t true fusion music like I now play in Germany, but it did introduce me to a lot of western styles.”

By now, Jordan had the electrical problem sorted out and handed the instrument to Radhakrishna to try out. Radhakrishna sat cross-legged on the floor of the garage, tucked the headstock into the instep of his right foot in the Indian style and ran through a number of quick scales on both necks. After ascertaining that the problem was solved, he handed the violin back to Jordan to have one or two strings changed and we got back to talking.

“In India, we tune the violin strings to the same intervals, but to different tunings,” he said. “So, depending on the piece, on a five-string neck I might tune to DADAD or CGCGC, or whatever is appropriate. Because I’m trying to emulate a singing voice, as I was trained to do, I don’t tend to play high up the neck. I want to retain the same timbre from string to string. Also, the subtle pitch differences that are so important to Indian music are difficult to play too high up the neck.

“The second neck on the double violin is a bass neck and I have to be very careful with the intonation when I play it. The strings are so thick and heavy you really have to dig in with the bow to get them vibrating. I find that I have more freedom to play on these necks. With an acoustic violin, the body gets in the way and I have to constrict my technique in some ways. Also, the low tones are very exciting to me. Most Indian instruments are designed for playing higher pitched notes so these bass sounds are a new thing.”

Radhakrishna first saw L. Shankar’s double violin in a magazine article. After tracking down a recording of the instrument, he knew he had to get a double violin of his own. “My father didn’t have much money, so it was impossible for them to have one made for me,” he said. “In the meantime, I began experimenting with low strings on another violin. I was playing for various film scores and the musical directors would hire cellos and violas along with the violin players. I got the idea to try putting cello strings on a spare violin I had. And it sounded amazing.

“I practiced on this for a while and one day at a session I told the musical director I had an instrument that might work for him. He told me to go home and get it. When I got back he looked surprised and said, ‘But that’s just another violin. Why did you have to go and get it?’ But when he heard it, he loved the sound, too. He may have also liked the idea that he wouldn’t have to hire a cello player because I could play those parts now.”

Jordan handed back the violin with the new strings, which at the time were a mixture of D’Addario and Thomastik Ropecores. In an e-mail sent a few months later, Jordan describes the strings Radhakrishna is now experimenting with. “On the treble neck he is using Pirastro Chromcor,” he wrote. “They are very smooth which helps with the glissandi that is inherent with Indian violin technique. The bass neck has special low-pitched Super-Sensitive Sensicore strings which allow him to tune down as low as D, a whole step below the low E string of a bass.”

After playing it for a few minutes, Radhakrishna asked Jordan to adjust the relation of the treble neck to the bass neck. As Jordan fiddled with the neck angles, Radhakrishna talked a bit more about his technique and the possibilities of the electric instrument. “I put a bit of oil on the fingerboard,” he said. “It helps my fingers slide without making noise. I’m also looking forward to experimenting with amplification. I have been using reverb and trying some digital delays. I don’t use effects like phase shifters or chorus pedals because they change the amplified pitch and make it impossible to play in tune. In my fusion band in Germany we do sometimes make some weird electric sounds. But in India they are conservative and they don’t accept too much weirdness. There are people there who don’t accept it when I play on the bass neck, for example. They don’t like it when I play a raga on the low strings. When I amplify it, they can’t bear it. I think their ears are attuned to the acoustic sound.”

Jordan says that the pickups on both necks are Barbera Twin Hybrid ls and that Radhakrishna uses L.R. Baggs Para-Acoustic DI preamps. There are separate volume controls for each neck and a master volume control. There are three output jacks –– one for each neck and one that switches them into combined mono when a plug is inserted into that jack. When using the master volume with a jack plugged into each neck’s output separately, the signals stay separate because a dual pot was used for the master volume.

Radhakrishna’s career has been taking off in Europe, India, and America. In Germany he is a member of a fusion band called Ahimsa along with guitarist Matthias Müller, bassist Armin Metz, tabla player Udai Mazumdar, and percussionist R. Yogaraja. “It is not easy to play fusion,” he says. “You cannot say it’s traditional, but you cannot say it’s untraditional either. I can only play music the way I was brought up to play it, which is in the Indian classical style, so we have to work hard to find a way to meet and join our music. I think you can differentiate the systems, but ultimately you cannot differentiate the music. Music is music, and I believe it’s really the same all around the world. We learn ragas in India and in the West you learn scales. You can add notes to a scale and we can take away notes from a raga, for example, and make things fit together.”

Even as he explores new styles, Radhakrishna still keeps in touch with his roots. Throughout much of 2005 and 2006 he was part of the Festival of India, a tour arranged by the legendary sitar player Ravi Shankar. Getting that gig required a combination of musical skill and an easygoing nature. “Ravi Shankar’s flautist introduced us,” he says. “Ravi Shankar was looking for a violinist and was not only interested in how well I played, but how would I be to travel with on tour. He was getting ready to go out with his daughter Anoushka so it was very important to him that everyone got along. His music has a very spiritual component that would be spoiled by backstage strife. I met him at his home and he was happy with my playing and with my habits. It’s a very big thing for me to be playing with Ravi Shankar.”

After examining the violin after it’s been on the road, Jordan is happy to see that it’s holding up well. “I use carbon fiber fingerboards, which are very stable,” he said. “Electric violins tend to get played in a lot of different climates. Look at Radhakrishna. He’ll be playing at a festival in India one week, a jazz club in Europe the next, and a concert hall in New York the week after that. You don’t want the necks to twist one way in a tropical, humid environment, and another way in an arid, dry climate. Musicians need their instruments to be the way they want them.”

John Jordan is pleased with the way the double violin turned out and while he’s not exactly eager to start work on another, he’s
not adverse to the idea, either. “I think from the time we first communicated to when the violin was complete was about four years,” he said. “In terms of actual hours involved in the construction, I have no idea other than that it took considerably longer than I thought it would. On prototypes and one-of-a-kinds, I never like to keep exact track of the time involved because I’d probably be disappointed with how much an hour I make doing them. But I love making them so it’s okay. This instrument would be impossible to build as an acoustic, which is why it’s so exciting and freeing to think about electrics. You can do things that really stretch your imagination.” And stretching the imagination is as important for builders like John Jordan as it is for players like Neyveli S. Radhakrishna. Happily, they found each other and we get to hear the results of their collaboration.

www.ahimsamusic.com  •  www.doubleviolin.com
www.jordanmusic.com

[Michael John Simmons started his career as a writer at Fiddler Magazine with a  review of a Juan Reynoso CD. He has since gone on to write a book about Taylor Guitars and co-author a book about acoustic guitars. He is currently the editor of the Fretboard Journal (www.fbj.com), a magazine he co-founded with Jason Verlinde.]