Learning Fiddle Tunes

[shiloh]

Hi all,

I'd like to concentrate a bit more on fiddle tunes. Do any of you have experience with the Fiddle Tunes for Mandolin book by Tom Ohmsen? Are there any books/CDs you might recommend?

Thanks!

Jill

[CelticDude]

Hello Jill,

I don't know that book, but have used Dan Gelo's "Fiddle Tunes & Irish Music for Mandolin", and think it's a pretty good place to start. Otherwise, any book of tunes, like the Fiddler's Fakebook, will work just fine. Don't worry about speed to start, just get the tunes nice and even. And most important, have fun!

[catmandu2]

One of the best resources for tunes is the "Fiddler's Fakebook."

[Jean Fugal]

fiddlers fake book is great, however, both my wife and I prefer this one
http://elderly.com//books/items/262-14.htm
Songs I learned at the tractor tavern .....Gene Silberberg

[shiloh]

I have the Fiddler's Fakebook - (somewhere in storage!) - I never thought of that. Umm, duh!

i have a book called Learn to Fiddle by Hope Grietzer (which I bought from her website - I believe I read about it on the Cafe). It has been very helpful. It includes 51 pages of fiddle tunes, starting out slow and advancing thru different keys, along with exercises, tips, and 3 CDs. I'm just working my way thru it.

So, with that in mind, any fiddlers and/or mandolinists you recommend listening to? I still struggle somewhat trying to translate fiddle tunes onto the mandolin, and making it music worth listening to (ie: not dull and boring by just learning "notes" but having no style or musicality. Such is the hazard of reading notation for me.) I think I need to develop my right hand technique a lot more....

Jill

[JeffD]

The Fiddlers Fakebook, the two volumes of the Portland Collection, the two volume Phillips Collection, are all my most go to books, followed very closely by Ryan's Mammoth Collection, Fiddlers Throne and New England Fiddler's Repertoire (Randy Miller).

Then I have various books focused on Irish, Cape Breton, Klezmer, Eastern European, Old Time, Bluegrass, or whatever.

I have tunebook aquisition syndrome bad, real bad. There is not too much better than to sit down with the mandolin and a brand new unopened tune book, my post-it flags, and a pencil, and a bowl of coffee, and spend a snowey winter afternoon mining some new gems.


The best thing though, for learning new tunes, is a duet partner or regular jam session, where you have others who can introduce you to new tunes they are excited about and inspire you to dig out new tunes to share with them.

[sgarrity]

The best thing though, for learning new tunes, is a duet partner or regular jam session, where you have others who can introduce you to new tunes they are excited about and inspire you to dig out new tunes to share with them.

That is excellent advice!! I'm pretty much a fiddle tune player. I learn from books, Tabledit files on Mandozine, by ear from jams, tunes friends introduce me to, and YouTube. The 'tube is an excellent resource!

As far as translating them to mandolin, have a listen to Mike Compton play a fiddle tune. That's the stuff right there!

[Mike Snyder]

Strictly aural. I've thumbed jealously through the fake books. Lots of cool stuff in there. I can't read a lick of it, and evidently I'm too lazy to learn at my advanced age. I pick stuff up pretty quick by ear, though. Youtube and banjo hangout and a couple of other sites are fiddletune heavy.
It's alot more fun with a warm body, so I put some miles on the old Toyota seeking out those Oklahoma and Missouri fiddlers. I watched a flute player and a fiddler at a little bluegrass festival, years ago. They sat down in the morning, opened the Fiddlers Fakebook to page one, and played the whole book. Took them well into the evening, at an unhurried pace. I regret not learning to sight read when I was a kid.

[Rob Gerety]

There is the Portland Collection series and the Waltz books - search google and they pop right up. But I have to say, in my opinion the best way to learn these tunes, by a long shot, is to learn them by ear. Amazing slow downer or something similar is a wonderful tool. If you learn them by ear you will get better and better at it and soon you will be able to sit with people and play a new tune after a time or two through it without any sheet music.

[Clamdigger]

Try Steve Kaufmann's 20 Tunes Every Parking Lot Picker should know. Tunes in beginner, intermediate and advanced tab and notation with CD's . Clamdigger

[Perry]

I library of fiddle tunes books is the way to go eventually but if I had to pick one it would be the Fiddler's Fakebook. It has almost all every fiddel tune ;)

If you can read standard notation then the world is your oyster. Tons of stuff out there for free and for sale.

[woodwizard]

My 2 favorite fiddle tune books are both of Butch Baldassari's ... "30 Fiddle Tunes For Mandolin" w/2 CD's and "Mandolin Tunes For Practice and Repertoire" w/2 CD's as well... HIGHLY RECCOMENDED!

[JeffD]

Another source of great tunes is to friendly up to some organized jam session. Many of these have put together a their own tunebook, either a list of tunes organized by type or by key (which is helpful in answsering the question: "What tunes should I learn??" or, more better-er, a collection of photocopied pages of sheet music, from various sources. One of the jammers will be glad to let you make a copy of it (either the tune list or the sheet music collection), or, like one jam I know, give you one of several copies always stacked in an old accordian case.

I have many three ring binders of such homemade tunebooks. The advantage over a published tunebook is that the tunes are collected because some community of musicians likes them - so there is a better chance you will be working on tunes you will like, and that others will know and want to play with you.

[JeffD]

i have a book called Learn to Fiddle by Hope Grietzer (which I bought from her website - I believe I read about it on the Cafe). It has been very helpful. It includes 51 pages of fiddle tunes, starting out slow and advancing thru different keys, along with exercises, tips, and 3 CDs. I'm just working my way thru it.

Hope is an excellent teacher and fiddle tune enthusiast. (That she is a friend of mine has nothing to do with it.) :grin: Her website is here (http://www.happyhollowmusic.com/), and I always check out the "tune of the month" which she provides the music for, both in standard notation, and a recording of her playing the tune on fiddle.

She has excellent taste in tunes, in my totally unbiased opinion, :grin: so when she picks a tune of the month, it is usually a great tune to learn.

[Mandophyte]

One of the best resources for tunes is the "Fiddler's Fakebook."

The one above is the one to buy for notation, but if you must have tab, then The Mandolin Picker's Fake Book is very similar, BUT is ONLY tab.

[jim_n_virginia]

They make a Mandolin Players Fake book that has tab by the same people who make the Fiddler's Fake book. If you can read notation the Fiddler's Fake Book is better and has more tunes.

Also Steve Kaufman's 4 Hour Bluegrass Workout volumes I and II are good too. Enough fiddle tunes in there to last you a lifetime. He even has a Celtic Workout book that is pretty good too. What I like about the Kaufman books is that they come with CD's that show you how to play them slow then fast and then with just back up music so you can play along.

Remember most fiddle tunes are just the bare bones melody. It is up to YOU to learn the fiddle tune so well that you add you own ornamentals and personality into it to make it your own.

And learn different variations of the same song that way if a fiddle tune goes around again (or 3 or 4) you don't have to play the same exact thing again you can play it differently.

:mandosmiley:

[Pete Counter]

I have that book and Its a good one to learn basic versions of fiddle tunes from, he also expands and throws in some theory to try to show how to make up variations. Having said that tho, If I were to recommend one to someone, I would recommend the "Developing Melodic Variations for Fiddle Tunes" from John McGann. He teaches the basic fiddle tunes but also teaches how to make small changes to create new versions, and he lays them out side by side so you see exactly how the lines are changed and it ends up with 5 version per song..... that'll keep a song from getting boring.