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Thread: Why old time and bluegrass are not the same.

  1. #76
    Registered User foldedpath's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why old time and bluegrass are not the same.

    Quote Originally Posted by Charlieshafer View Post
    Hard core trad sessions in all forms, Irish, Bluegrass, Old-time, etc are dying out, and being replaced by much more free-form sessions and jams.
    I have to disagree with that. Nothing is "dying out" and being replaced by free-form sessions and jams in my part of the USA, anyway. Maybe you're just located too close to Berklee? Too many young, jazz-trained overachievers?

    I kid, I kid...

    We have plenty of the usual OldTime jams out here in the PNW. They do tend to skew towards an older demographic, but that's because people have more time when they're retired, and many are reviving an earlier interest in playing music from when they were younger. There is an entire Fiddle Tunes Festival in my town dedicated to learning and preserving trad music, with an emphasis on Americana but also some international genres. There are always plenty of kids and teenagers at that festival. It's not all us oldsters.

    As far as Irish/Scottish trad goes, I've attended many sessions in my area and never seen a free-form jam. If anything, the tendency is to dig deeper in the tradition, finding the older and more obscure tunes in order to avoid the overplayed session standards.

    And if you want to hear some respect for tradition and zero interest in free-form music, talk to one of the local Scottish pipers! They're about as conservative as it gets.

    Pockets of the hard core exist, but most people want to have fun, and it's not fun to be told you're not authentic, especially when you're playing is every bit as good as the person who is guarding the tradition.
    I think you're overdoing the "session police" angle here. Some Irish sessions and OldTime jams may have this issue, but most of the ones I know of are friendlier than that. Having fun is the whole point!

    There is a need to keep at least some boundaries, to keep an Irish session or OldTime jam from turning into a Grateful Dead singalong for the guitar army. That can certainly look like "hard core" to an outsider, but it's just the way it works. Without some boundaries, you can't get together and have fun playing trad with other like-minded musicians.
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  3. #77
    Registered User Ranald's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why old time and bluegrass are not the same.

    Quote Originally Posted by Charlieshafer View Post
    That's confusing to me. Is the group made up of the hybrid/Metis people? (I'm just using the Wiki definition of Mets, being a french derivative of the word hybrid of indigenous and French Canadians). That sounds awfully like a classical string quartet playing a Quebecois tune, but then, I can't say I know the tune for sure. Is it a Native Canadian tune? Beautifully played whatever it is.

    Rē Mrk's comment, I have never heard of anyone trying to bridge Native American sounds with European/African imported traditions. Are there any studies on this? I'd be curious to hear if there are any, or any musicians doing this.
    I have no doubt that these young people are Metis or First Nations (Indian) folks, and likely fiddlers too, as the Metis culture puts great cultural value on their fiddling. The "Red River Jig" is their national anthem, so to speak. However, I get a strong sense of a music teacher, whether Metis or otherwise, in the background. This isn't an indication of what Metis fiddling has turned into or where it's heading. The musical culture of the Metis people is alive and well. In fact, you can go anywhere in Canada and find plenty of fiddlers or accordion players, though you often have to avoid the "folkies" and perhaps get out of town to find them.

    By the way, Metis musical culture is going through all the issues discussed in this thread, such as commercialization, formal training, and professional and amateur musicians. A couple of Canada's most popular fiddlers in the 1930's to 50's, King Ganan and Andy DeJarlis, were both Metis from Manitoba. Both had "dance orchestras", playing swing and popular music as well as traditional tunes. They were, after all, professional musicians making a living, and, for all I know, might have loved popular music as well.

    Here's some contemporary Metis fiddling at a Red River Jig contest, with evidence of a crossover with county and rock music.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHQX4Htg3wM
    Last edited by Ranald; Mar-16-2018 at 4:00pm. Reason: couldn't upload video

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  5. #78
    poor excuse for anything Charlieshafer's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why old time and bluegrass are not the same.

    Thanks to Mark, Ranald and Foldedpath for their replies. There's a lot to be uncovered here, and will be fun to explore.

    As far as the session thing goes, I'm not disagreeing that there's a place for the hard-core traditional sessions/jams. That's how to keep traditions alive. But here, it's hard to find the hard-core sessions. They exist, but are getting smaller. And what Folded says about the Berklee scene is true, it does influence things. Between that and being close to Brooklyn, as well as Juillard (not to mention Yale's own programs in early music) it's hard to see how anyone can play anything straight anymore. Moira Smiley, vocalist for Solas and Seamus Egan, as well as many others, leaves a traditional Irish show here to head into NYC to work with a contemporary classical choir. Mairi Black leads a Scots workshop after winning Glenfiddich, then has to sit in with an orchestra that's short a few for a Vivalsi show. It's a stylistic mess, and everyone loves it.

    But to the First Peoples and Native American mix, I think we'd all better get on with our documenting as much as possible as soon as possible. Ronald's comment about how Metis fiddling is going through the same issues is very telling. It's like the gentrification of music. I happen to like the morphing, as long as there's plenty of documented examples of the old. In a way, it's the same as a few fiddlers I know who try to emulate Tommy Jarrell's stuff perfectly. I suppose that's a fun exercise, but I have hours of recordings of Tommy to listen to if I want.

    So let's get on it. Ranald, one last question: does anyone have knowledge of when the fiddles were first introduced to First People culture, and when it became a "thing?" Oh, and we're hosting the East Pointers tomorrow night. If you don't mind the 9 hour drive, we're here!

    Added edit: just watched the video you linked to, really fun stuff. The video that came on afterwards was a Metis Orange Blossom Special. The fiddling and dancing were great, and hearing the announcer introduce the Orange Blossom with a Canadian accent was pretty cool.

    While looking for Mark's movie suggestion, I found the soundtrack and was surprised to see a lot of non-Native American artists. So I went back to a guy, Keith Secola, and American Indian who was introduced to me by, yeah Ranald, a Canadian.

    Last edited by Charlieshafer; Mar-16-2018 at 5:09pm.

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  7. #79
    The Amateur Mandolinist Mark Gunter's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why old time and bluegrass are not the same.

    Not Bluegrass.
    Not Old Time.

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  9. #80
    The Amateur Mandolinist Mark Gunter's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why old time and bluegrass are not the same.

    Quote Originally Posted by Charlieshafer View Post
    While looking for Mark's movie suggestion, I found the soundtrack and was surprised to see a lot of non-Native American artists.
    Charlie, go beyond the soundtrack - as I mentioned in an earlier post, something to the effect that you will recognize many of the musicians and will have had no idea of their deep Native American heritage. It's admittedly a popular documentary, not a scholarly study, but it is well documented. The show is primarily about the contribution of Native Americans to modern music - especially rock and roll - but it delves into roots music, jazz, etc.

    The musical history of America is largely rooted in undocumented interaction between native and imported slaves and indentured servants and their masters. I would expect that the best or most well-documented history of native contributions would be in the north, the Metis culture, and in the south, the Creole culture in Louisiana.

    People with Native American ancestry featured or interviewed in this movie (not exhaustive):

    Name - (occupation) - tribal ancestry
    (m = musician)

    Robbie Robertson (m) Mohawk
    Link Wray (m) Shawnee
    Joy Harjo (poet) Muskogee/Creek
    Steve Salas (m) Apache
    Ron Welborn (jazz historian) Gingaskin Cherokee
    Jennifer Kreisberg (m) Tuscarora
    Pura Fe (m) Tuscarora
    John Trudell (poet) Santee Dakota
    Monk Boudreaux (m) Choctaw
    Aaron, Ivan & Cyril Neville (m) Choctaw
    Erich Jarvis (historian/geneticist) Tuscarora
    Rhiannon Giddens (m) Occaneechi
    Charlie Patton (m) Choctaw
    Malinda Lowery (historian) Lumbee
    Corey Harris (m) Choctaw
    Howlin' Wolf (m) Choctaw
    Mildred Bailey (m) Couer D'Alene
    Chad S. Hamill (ethnomusicologist) Spokane
    Buffy Saint-Marie (m) Cree
    Gary Farmer (actor) Cayuga
    Bill Miller (m) Mohican
    Adam Beach (actor) Saulteaux
    Jimi Hendrix (m) Cherokee
    Jesse Ed Davis (m) Kiowa
    Ricky Medlocke (m) Lakota Sioux
    Pat Vegas (m) Yaqui/Shoshone
    Taboo (m) Shoshone
    Randy Castillo (m) Isleta Pueblo/Apache

    This documentary currently can be streamed if you have Amazon Prime; a DVD of this movie can be borrowed through Netflix if you have that service.
    Last edited by Mark Gunter; Mar-16-2018 at 10:42pm.
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  11. #81

    Default Re: Why old time and bluegrass are not the same.

    Quote Originally Posted by Charlieshafer View Post
    ... Excellent musicians pick up all the subtleties if forms no matter what the stye, that's what music is. ...
    Two points here: (1) Apparently then, there aren't nearly as many "excellent" musicians in the general population as one might wish, and (2) it seems to me that what you're saying is based on the assumption that "music" is some sort of universal constant where if musicians master one style then they're automatically masters of all the other styles as well. I don't see that happening.

    Perhaps one's judgment could be clouded by not being able to discern the differences between styles, and/or the differences between great music (stuff that moves people in positive ways) and mediocre barely-passable music (stuff that makes people want to wear earplugs permanently). If that were the case, then it would be easier to think that someone who's good at playing "style a" could just instantly transfer over and play "style b" even though they were completely unfamiliar with "style b".

    One wonders, do these musicians that you're referencing also have the capability to just jump right in and start playing complicated classical ragas from India, or music from other non-Western cultures whose idea of music can be quite different from ours, while understanding all the complex rhythms and other factors that go into making that music what it is? Or are they just bulldozing their way through it and assuming that's good enough?

    Quote Originally Posted by Charlieshafer View Post
    ... You might be hearing amateur classical musicians trying different things out, but the good musicians play anything well. I've worked with classical violinist and cellists for years, introducing fiddle forms for both their fun and to use for teaching. The good players are on it in a heartbeat. ...
    I was hearing professional, not "amateur", classical musicians.

    Apparently then, going by your criteria, they were not "good musicians" since they were unable to adequately process fiddle tunes.

    You might have significantly higher exposure to such "good musicians" than the rest of us, given your geographic proximity to various music colleges or whatever it is that goes on up there.

    Quote Originally Posted by Charlieshafer View Post
    ... it's the same thing discussed on any trad forum and thread, that sort of "we're great and no one else can duplicate our marvelous send of musical perfection" which drives people from ever wanting to even try to play their music. ...
    That's a good point, but with all due respect, it has nothing to do with what I'd written earlier, not sure why it was in a reply to me.

    What I was getting at, and I'm sure that everyone could agree on this, is that there is a vast difference between mechanically playing a string of notes like an unskilled robot or the worst imaginable MIDI, vs playing the exact same notes but putting in subtle expression (velocity, phrasing, etc) to make it sound more enjoyable to listen to.

    Not Bluegrass, not oldtime (and despite the author's attempt at something different at 0:24, still annoying and dead-sounding) - some ice-cream-truck-style MIDI music:


    (or direct link)
    That's how a lot of violinists sound, to fiddlers (the few that are left, anyway). All notes, no feeling. Although, the video's harmony line at 0:44 was somewhat intriguing...

    However, I really don't subscribe to musical snobbery, which is pretty obvious by my own choices for playing music - electric instruments for trad tunes, 'unauthorized' variations on classical pieces, all sorts of things that would have the purists' knickers in a knot. I'm all for playing whatever you want as long as you can make it sound good (yeah I know, the definition of "good" can vary by person), and as long as it isn't disrupting someone else's trip.

    But, that said, just to play devil's advocate for a moment - sometimes the people who complain the most about trad purists, are the people who are musically clueless enough to wantonly bulldoze over everything that the trad players consider valuable. Not always, maybe not even often, but sometimes.

    Quote Originally Posted by Charlieshafer View Post
    ... I can't tell you how many kids in the college master's programs for classical violin make a ton of money playing all sorts of Irish pubs, bluegrass gigs, etc all around the area. ...
    Ha! That's like waving a proverbial red flag in front of a bull. I will refrain from being lured into that topic aside from saying that the classically-trained violinists have put a lot of regular fiddlers out of work over the last few decades since the violinists took up an interest in trying to muddle their way through fiddle tunes. Non-musician audiences have now been conditioned to expect slick well-trained studio-quality violin technique rather than regular fiddlers. That's fine if that's what audiences want, those are the breaks, the cream rises and everyone else gets left out, but it's not a happy topic among some of the elder fiddlers.

    Quote Originally Posted by Charlieshafer View Post
    ... They must be good because they're also winning competitions. ...
    Ah yes, "contest style" fiddling, has it changed much since the 1970s? Then it was little more than a way to show off one's prowess in technical ability and finger dexterity, musicality be damned, no one cared if it actually *sounded* good as long as it *looked* flashy and impressive. Style over substance. Physically impressive, musically disastrous. Not good for much except for gullible audiences (who the judges pandered to) who equated "it looks so difficult!" with "good music". Same as how audiences go wild over "guitar gods" who play flashy stuff way up the neck just because audiences think it looks cool. The true test of any music, IMO, is to listen to it with your eyes closed, hear the sound without the distraction of the showmanship and flashy gymnastics. With the sound alone and no visuals, can you still tolerate listening to it? Does it still seem impressive?

    Even some of the earlier contest-style fiddlers have since gotten a clue, and they no longer play that way, now they play with much more maturity and musicality and 'soul'. I won't name names as it would be unfair to drag their names through the mud for something they're not even engaging in anymore.

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  13. #82
    The Amateur Mandolinist Mark Gunter's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why old time and bluegrass are not the same.

    Quoting from the first paragraph of Diller's blog post: "The unfortunate trend in this country is to homogenize things."

    Unfortunate for whom? His beloved Appalachian Old Time is a homogenization already. I think that when one whines about the unfortunate consequences of homogenization, he should be careful to also celebrate the collateral benefits of it.
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  15. #83
    Registered User Ranald's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why old time and bluegrass are not the same.

    Sorry for the length of this. The topic is Metis and Native music of Canada. If you're not interested, skip this one. I don't know why the quotes aren't coming in. I've added quotation marks.

    from Post 78: "But to the First Peoples and Native American mix, I think we'd all better get on with our documenting as much as possible as soon as possible. Ronald's comment about how Metis fiddling is going through the same issues is very telling. It's like the gentrification of music. I happen to like the morphing, as long as there's plenty of documented examples of the old. In a way, it's the same as a few fiddlers I know who try to emulate Tommy Jarrell's stuff perfectly. I suppose that's a fun exercise, but I have hours of recordings of Tommy to listen to if I want. "

    "So let's get on it. Ranald, one last question: does anyone have knowledge of when the fiddles were first introduced to First People culture, and when it became a "thing?""

    Charlie and all, I don't want to get into a treatise on Canadian cultural history, but I'd like to make a few points in regard to First Nations and Metis music and culture. Understand that I belong to neither group and do not speak for them. Native people of Canada, as of the USA and elsewhere, belong to dynamic and thriving but damaged societies, living in and adjusting to the 21st century, as the rest of us are. They resent being regarded as people "of the past". Most aren't interested in preserving or reviving the folk music from any particular part of their 500-year history of contact with people from across the oceans. However, Ann Lederman, a fiddler, trained violinist, and ethnomusicologist, did "field collecting" in the 1980's, resulting in two LP's entitled "Old Native and Metis Fiddling in Manitoba", vols. 1 & 2. This is an excellent collection of music by fiddlers playing in older styles, with many "crooked tunes", removed from mainstream ideas of timing. Unfortunately, the recordings are hard to get. On Ann's website, she says that they will be available again soon.
    See bottom of page: http://www.annelederman.com/cd.htm
    If you listen to contemporary Native and Metis fiddling from Manitoba on YouTube, you'll find few if any fiddlers playing like the old guys in her collection. Like other societies, theirs changes.

    As I said, there's been continuous European contact with indigenous Canadians for five hundred years. Our history is different than that of the US in that the colonial powers were generally less interested in agriculture than in extracting natural resources, i.e., fish, furs, lumber, and eventually minerals. The fur trade spread across Canada from the east coast to the Rocky Mountains (the west coast had a separate fur trade), with the First Nations people and Europeans working cooperatively. To oversimplify, Native people trapped and cured furs, while Europeans traded for them to sell overseas. As a result, Canada had less genocide, though eventually, especially when the fur trade lost importance, we had the same "cultural genocide" (attempting to destroy the cultures) land theft, and similar cruel governmental policies.

    Fiddles came with the Europeans and European Canadians, especially both French-Canadian traders operating out of Montreal, and Scots trading for the (British) Hudson's Bay Company. Violins spread across the country with traders. Settlers -- United Empire Loyalists (refugees from the American Revolution), Scots, English, Irish, French, African-Americans, Germans Ukranians, etc. -- also brought their fiddles with them, and, people being what they are, Native people both obtained and made fiddles in a slow process over the centuries, to the point where I think it would be hard to find a reserve in Canada without a few fiddlers and other musicians generally.

    Regarding Metis culture, the word "Metis" (there should be an accent on the "e" but I'm a primitive with computers) is politically charged these days, and is used in more than one way. First, there was a Metis Nation in the west, made up of people who were mainly the descendants of French-Canadian fur traders and First Nations women. They were a distinct society, with many people employed in transporting furs and supplies, and hunting buffalo to provide food for the fur trade. Fiddling was popular with these people. To complicate things, their neighbours of similar background, but of Scottish rather than French ancestry, were called, and called themselves, "half-breeds" or "breeds". Those terms are no longer acceptable, so they tend to use "Metis" as well. Both groups associated, intermarried and played music together. And both groups loved fiddling.

    To further complicate things, the term "Metis" in recent years has come to refer to people of Native and European parentage, anywhere in Canada. In this decade, some people with a little Native ancestry, perhaps generations back, call themselves, "Metis." African-Canadians, many of whom have First Nations ancestors, are now asking why does the definition of Metis say indigenous and "European" and not include "African"? The name issue is complex and political, with tension among the various actors -- and that's not even getting into the role of government. But, when we refer to "Metis fiddling", we mostly mean music from the Metis Nation of the west, with strong Scottish and French influences. Is anyone still with me?



    from 78: "Oh, and we're hosting the East Pointers tomorrow night. If you don't mind the 9 hour drive, we're here!"

    Sorry not to get down to hear The East Pointers, Charlie, but the Lear Jet needed some work. I hope you enjoyed the concert. Perhaps I'll catch them on the Island in the summer.



    Added edit: "just watched the video you linked to, really fun stuff. The video that came on afterwards was a Metis Orange Blossom Special. The fiddling and dancing were great, and hearing the announcer introduce the Orange Blossom with a Canadian accent was pretty cool."

    Yeah, we play many American tunes up here, just as you play ours. "Whisky Before Breakfast" is generally regarded as having Canadian Metis origins. And don't tell any Texans out there, but "The Red River Valley" goes back in Manitoba well before the music hall song, "In The Bright Mohawk Valley", that supposedly became "The Red River Valley" (a different Red River). Let's not fight though

    Now, back to our mandolins.

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  17. #84
    Registered User Ranald's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why old time and bluegrass are not the same.

    A brief note on "not looking like Natives":

    Comments of this sort have come up more than once on this thread. Ethnicity is not a matter of blood line. To a large degree it is a matter of cultural choices made by members of the both ethnic group and the larger society ("you're not one of us, you belong to them"). In five hundred years of contact and intermarriage, you're about as likely to find what some Brits call "a pureblood red Indian" as you are to find a genetically pure Celt or Anglo-Saxon (and please don't use the term "pureblood" unless you're talking about animal breeding). Some Native people have blonde hair and blues eyes or perhaps dark brown skin with curly black hair, but live culturally as Native people and are accepted as such by their relatives and neighbours. Furthermore, most First Nations bands have long histories of adopting outsiders of differing ages. In general, it's not for outsiders to judge who is or is not Native according to their appearances -- which doesn't mean that we can all claim to be indigenous.

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  19. #85

    Default Re: Why old time and bluegrass are not the same.

    Great info, Ranald, thanks!

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  21. #86

    Default Re: Why old time and bluegrass are not the same.

    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Gunter View Post
    Quoting from the first paragraph of Diller's blog post: "The unfortunate trend in this country is to homogenize things."

    Unfortunate for whom? His beloved Appalachian Old Time is a homogenization already. I think that when one whines about the unfortunate consequences of homogenization, he should be careful to also celebrate the collateral benefits of it.
    Excellent point.

  22. #87
    music with whales Jim Nollman's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why old time and bluegrass are not the same.

    The old time well is bottomless.

    The first time I ever heard Scottish fiddle music was not in Scotland or Vermont, but during an impromptu session with native Inuvialuit musicians in Inuvik up on the Beaufort Sea in 1987. They told me the tradition had been brought to the Arctic by Scottish trappers who were marrying into their culture 100 years ago.

    Also of note, just last month my wife and I hosted two the most celebrated musicians of modern Contra dance, both of them now in their mid-80s. When I asked the man what he was listening to these days, he pulled out a CD of Andy DeJarlis and gifted it to me. I thought I knew a lot about old time music, but I had to confess to him that I'd never heard of Andy DeJarlis, let alone Metis music which he sometimes referred to it as Saskatchewan tunes. My guest proceeded to give a detailed lecture of the special traits of the music, its origins, its catchiest tunes, and its greatest players. My other guest then pulled out her fiddle to play the Metis classic, "Big John McNeill."
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  24. #88
    Registered User Ranald's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why old time and bluegrass are not the same.

    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Nollman View Post
    The old time well is bottomless.

    Also of note, just last month my wife and I hosted two the most celebrated musicians of modern Contra dance, both of them now in their mid-80s. When I asked the man what he was listening to these days, he pulled out a CD of Andy DeJarlis and gifted it to me. I thought I knew a lot about old time music, but I had to confess to him that I'd never heard of Andy DeJarlis, let alone Metis music which he sometimes referred to it as Saskatchewan tunes. My guest proceeded to give a detailed lecture of the special traits of the music, its origins, its catchiest tunes, and its greatest players. My other guest then pulled out her fiddle to play the Metis classic, "Big John McNeill."
    Thanks, Jim. I'm not sure whether your remark on the "Metis classic, 'Big John MacNeil'" was serious or in jest. "Big John", which has become a Canadian classic, was written by Peter Milne, a Scottish fiddler (1824-1908). To most Canadians, it's "Big John MacNeil", though it's known to Scots, including Milne, and to many Cape Bretoners as "John MacNeil's Reel." The popular New Brunswick fiddler, Don Messer, who had national radio and television shows in the mid-20th century, helped popularize it to the point that I'd call it one of the three favourite tunes of Canadian old-time fiddle devotees. The others are both Canadian tunes: "St. Ann's (or Anne's) Reel", a traditional French-Canadian piece also spread in part by Don Messer, and; "Maple Sugar", by the Ontario fiddler Ward Allen, and also played by Messer -- I can't overemphasize the importance of Don Messer's influence. By now, no doubt "Big John MacNeil" has become a "Metis classic", as it has become a classic for other Canadians.

    Boy, we're getting off the original topic of this thread, but Messer's influence brings up the complexity of issues affecting traditional and commercial music. Messer was a fiddler, brought up in a culture of informal fiddling, but also had classical training on violin. He was both a folk (traditional) and commercial musician. His music, coming into homes across the country, greatly affected a large numbers of fiddlers, who in an earlier era would have been learning primarily from local fiddlers in regional styles.

    Don Messer, "Big John MacNeil": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13s0A-Gj_8c

    Don Messer, "St. Ann's Reel" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzAzShZVw_g

    Ward Allen, "Maple Sugar": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIYRYZHZYJc

    Here's a good explanation of Metis fiddling techniques with "Big John MacNeil" at 8:40:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZtIL5k2gPM
    Robert Johnson's mother, describing blues musicians:
    "I never did have no trouble with him until he got big enough to be round with bigger boys and off from home. Then he used to follow all these harp blowers, mandoleen (sic) and guitar players."
    Lomax, Alan, The Land where The Blues Began, NY: Pantheon, 1993, p.14.

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  26. #89
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    Thumbs down Re: Why old time and bluegrass are not the same.

    Ranald, Thanks for the info about Big John. I had no idea. It makes me suspect that referring to a tune as Metis, often means that the tune has been embraced by these native musicians who make it their own by playing in the unique Metis style. Doesn't that also happen with Scottish tunes played within the Cape Breton community?

    Actually, it seems to happen almost everywhere all the time. Next time you're in an old time jam, focus on what notes the different musicians are actually playing, and tell me that each person is NOT playing a slightly different melody.

    Then there's the so-called fiddle/mandolin no man's land. once in a while an anal fiddler will complain I'm not getting the melody right. My usual response is that what I am actually not doing is playing the melody on a fiddle, but on a mandolin.

    Or one final example. I recently learned Durang's hornpipe. When I was looking up recordings of it on Spotify, I found many many versions. Some of them weren't even close to others, although all of them followed the same chord progression, although not always in the same key. As I learned the tune, I finally chose an A part from one version, and added a B part from another version, and even added a few choice phrases from yet another version. The end result was a new version of Durang's Hornpipe unique to me.
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  28. #90
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    Default Re: Why old time and bluegrass are not the same.

    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Nollman View Post
    Ranald, Thanks for the info about Big John. I had no idea. It makes me suspect that referring to a tune as Metis, often means that the tune has been embraced by these native musicians who make it their own by playing in the unique Metis style. Doesn't that also happen with Scottish tunes played within the Cape Breton community?
    I'm with you Jim, a great many of "our" tunes, no matter who "we" are, are borrowed, put into our style, and played so much that eventually we have a kind of folk ownership of them. You're correct about Cape Breton. Many of the tunes everyone plays are from Scotland and Ireland, or even from Don Messer, but changed into Cape Breton style. "Paddy on The Turnpike" sounds much different with a Cape Breton accent, than when fiddlers in Ontario play it. Many American standards come from other countries as well.
    Robert Johnson's mother, describing blues musicians:
    "I never did have no trouble with him until he got big enough to be round with bigger boys and off from home. Then he used to follow all these harp blowers, mandoleen (sic) and guitar players."
    Lomax, Alan, The Land where The Blues Began, NY: Pantheon, 1993, p.14.

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  30. #91
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    Default Re: Why old time and bluegrass are not the same.

    Despite the instrument line-up, and despite playing standing up, still not bluegrass:

    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

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  32. #92
    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why old time and bluegrass are not the same.

    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Gunter View Post
    Unfortunate for whom? His beloved Appalachian Old Time is a homogenization already. I think that when one whines about the unfortunate consequences of homogenization, he should be careful to also celebrate the collateral benefits of it.
    It is a difficult issue.

    There was a unique musical culture in western PA, that was a melding of Irish and German fiddle tunes and Civil War marches. Samuel Bayard's book Dance to the Fiddle March to the Fife, documents a lot of the music. He bemoans the loss of the entire musical sub-culture because of assimilation into the larger fiddle music culture, typified I suppose, by things like Cole's 1000 Fiddle Tunes, Ryan's Mammoth, Fiddler's Fake Book, etc. The next generation was learning fiddle music from the books and recordings more than from their parents and neighbors parents.

    There are areas where, due to local anomalies of geology and geography, a music culture remained isolated from radio broadcasts long into the more modern era, and so have and are losing fast, the last vestiges of a local flavor to their fiddle music.

    It is heartbreaking on the one hand, and amazing on the other. Perhaps it is wonderful that fiddle music is available everywhere on on youtube, and CD and tunebooks, and that it is enticing a lot of folks to participate and join the fun and carry it forward. At the same time it leads to homogenization and loss of local charm.

    I grew up in New Jersey, and had no knowledge of folk music or fiddle tunes, or old time, or bluegrass until I had been playing mandolin for several years. So without CDs and tune books and all of that, i would be nowhere. I have no regional culture or tradition to pull from, and never have. So just about my whole musical life is a collateral befit of the same cultural forces that lead to homogenization.

    And, for the record, there was hardly any and probably no old time mandolin, until after the folk scare of the '60s anyway.

    It is very hard to know how to feel. Very hard to know if I am being genuine, or a pale emulation, or derivative, or what. My solution, as i stated before, is to go into denial - just play the music, often, a lot, constantly, and where important distinctions need to be made I let the music decide.

    The ridiculous old time fiddler I referenced earlier once told me "you don't want to have the kind of poverty and bad dentistry that it requires to be genuine."
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

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  33. #93
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    Default Re: Why old time and bluegrass are not the same.

    Quote Originally Posted by JeffD View Post
    It is a difficult issue.

    There was a unique musical culture in western PA, that was a melding of Irish and German fiddle tunes and Civil War marches. Samuel Bayard's book Dance to the Fiddle March to the Fife, documents a lot of the music. He bemoans the loss of the entire musical sub-culture because of assimilation into the larger fiddle music culture, typified I suppose, by things like Cole's 1000 Fiddle Tunes, Ryan's Mammoth, Fiddler's Fake Book, etc. The next generation was learning fiddle music from the books and recordings more than from their parents and neighbors parents.
    In the meantime, Bayard documented those tunes and there are people like us who play them.

    I worked with my friend Ray Alden, a wonderful old time musician and collector and documenter of music, in the early days of his organization the Field Recorders' Collective and am now on the board for that organization. It is amazing how much documentation has been done recording and and documenting regional old time and other styles of folk music in the US and Canada as well as other regions of the world. In our FRC catalog we cover more than 17 states with regional variants of old time music as well as gospel, Quebecois, Cajun and other ethnic genres and we have only scratched the surface. I have friends outside the organization who have delved deeply into the music of Texas, Mississippi, Illinois, New York, etc. And check out Virtual Gramophone, a massive archive of recorded music from all over Canada.

    And there are modern musicians who carry on these traditions into this century. And I see this as more of a continuum rather than something that was frozen in time and may never be revived.
    Jim

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  35. #94
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    Default Re: Why old time and bluegrass are not the same.

    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Garber View Post
    In the meantime, Bayard documented those tunes and there are people like us who play them.
    ...

    And there are modern musicians who carry on these traditions into this century. And I see this as more of a continuum rather than something that was frozen in time and may never be revived.
    Its wonderful.
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

    The entire staff
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    Default Re: Why old time and bluegrass are not the same.

    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Garber View Post
    And I see this as more of a continuum rather than something that was frozen in time and may never be revived.
    This reminds me of Harry Bollick, who is reviving tunes from a specific county in Mississippi. As far as I can tell, this is a completely dead tradition, except tunes were recorded on sheet music during the Depression, but also probably some old 78s. He is tying to bring these tunes back to life. Here's a link to him as a guest on the "Get Up in the Cool" podcast:
    http://www.camerondewhitt.com/getupi...ol/harrybolick

    Jake Blount is a young guy also trying to dig into the recesses of the past, specifically with Black and Native American fiddlers.

    Not Bluegrass:


    Not Bluegrass:

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  38. #96
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    Default Re: Why old time and bluegrass are not the same.

    [QUOTE=A 4;1644345]This reminds me of Harry Bollick, who is reviving tunes from a specific county in Mississippi. As far as I can tell, this is a completely dead tradition, except tunes were recorded on sheet music during the Depression, but also probably some old 78s. He is tying to bring these tunes back to life. Here's a link to him as a guest on the "Get Up in the Cool" podcast:
    http://www.camerondewhitt.com/getupi...ol/harrybolick

    Harry is one of my best friends and we play music often. He is the one I mentioned above about the Mississippi traditions.
    Jim

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  39. #97
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    Default Re: Why old time and bluegrass are not the same.

    First of all, a sincere thank you to Jim Garber for all his years of work in digging up these tunes and then making them publicly available via web archiving. Plus, I have never heard of Harry Bollick's work until today, and I can already see that his archive of tunes is yet another great source of old time tunes.

    Comments here about Harry Bollick remind me a bit of what Vivian Williams did after discovering sheet music and set lists passed down from mining and logging camp events in 19th century Idaho. She went and recorded a CD of all the tunes from one particular 19th century event, bypassing modern interpretations of some of the tunes in favor of the original notation, and, with friends, included voluminous notes on the tunes, the locale, and the band leader.

    As I read those notes while listening to the CD, I was surprised by how many distinct dances were represented by that old set list, and especially the way tunes were joined into sets that would involve two or even three different dances, one right after the next.

    Today, so much attention is given to old time tunes among so many avid musicians. And yet, so little attention is given to the dances that go with those tunes. I've played contra dances for some years now, during which our band always includes a few waltzes and an occasional Swedish Hambo, to break up the usual line format. But our band has never played a mazurka, or a quickstep, or a quadrille for people actually doing these dances. And even when we play a polka, of which we know our share, it is always interpreted as a contra dance.

    It makes me wonder. Is there any place in the world where people regularly come together to dance mazurkas and quadrilles and quicksteps? Or have they all gone the way of the watusi the peppermint twist and the mashed potato.
    Last edited by Jim Nollman; Apr-02-2018 at 6:57pm.
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    Default Re: Why old time and bluegrass are not the same.

    And I had never heard of Vivian Williams before. I am so impressed with the folks who dig deep to save and provide the music for the rest of us. I am further reminded of the efforts of Alan Jabbour to preserve the music of Henry Reed.

    Jim Garber, since you are friends, thank Harry Bollick for me if you get a chance. I've got one of his Mississippi tunes into the rotation, having learned it a workshop, and am working on Roll them Simelons, too.

    Jim Nollman, thanks for your version of Winderslide, which introduced me to the tune for the first time, via the MP3 collection here at the Mandolincafe.

  41. #99
    The Amateur Mandolinist Mark Gunter's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why old time and bluegrass are not the same.

    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Garber View Post
    In the meantime, Bayard documented those tunes and there are people like us who play them.

    I worked with my friend Ray Alden, a wonderful old time musician and collector and documenter of music, in the early days of his organization the Field Recorders' Collective and am now on the board for that organization. It is amazing how much documentation has been done recording and and documenting regional old time and other styles of folk music in the US and Canada as well as other regions of the world. In our FRC catalog we cover more than 17 states with regional variants of old time music as well as gospel, Quebecois, Cajun and other ethnic genres and we have only scratched the surface. I have friends outside the organization who have delved deeply into the music of Texas, Mississippi, Illinois, New York, etc. And check out Virtual Gramophone, a massive archive of recorded music from all over Canada.

    And there are modern musicians who carry on these traditions into this century. And I see this as more of a continuum rather than something that was frozen in time and may never be revived.
    Quoting Jim's entire post, because my first thought while reading Jeff's musing about the "difficult issue" was that it is less difficult in our day and time, due to the invention of audio recording.

    Music is and always has been in a continuum - that's the way I see it. There was a time when the church resisted every attempt at expanding music - adding colors, changing rhythms, tampering with lyrics - and there was a time when the church, along with scientific philosophies and even mathematicians resisted tempered ("tampered with") tuning schemes. Yet the field of music and the practice and playing of music continued to morph along. Unfortunately, the further back in time we go to study music the less we actually know about what the music was like and how it must have sounded. Fortunately (perhaps), the advent of tempered tuning has allowed music to flower and blossom at a rate never before seen in history, and the current information age homogenization is now playing a role in that as well.

    As long as our civilization survives, we'll now have sonic records of much of the music that was extant beginning from the time that field recordings were made. That is cause for celebration!

    Worrying over how music is changing is a bit of a lost cause, I think. We have plenty of absolutely great music being played today, and growing from earlier roots. Folk who are overly concerned about their music being changed or lost would do well to simply record their music. The idea that music which was passed down from generation to generation (in the days before recording devices and the information age came to be) was somehow pristine and not in a continuous state of flux is a difficult proposition in and of itself.
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  43. #100
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    Default Re: Why old time and bluegrass are not the same.

    Quote Originally Posted by JeffD View Post
    There was a unique musical culture in western PA
    Jeff, just to further illustrate how my own mind works in thinking about these things ...

    I'm in full sympathy with what your fiend feels, and with your own difficulty grappling with this issue. In my life, I was surrounded by a large extended family in rural Louisiana, and families and relatives used to visit each other. Gatherings that included feasting, working together, playing together and singing together were common. Old songs were sung, She'll be Coming Round the Mountain, Old Dan Tucker, On Top of Old Smokey, etc. etc. In the present day, this type of stuff has all but vanished.

    Yet, where music is concerned, virtually none of the old songs and hymns I sang as a child have been lost!

    Further, the phrase I quoted above could easily have been finished as follows:

    "There was a unique musical culture in Ur of the Chaldess, but ..."
    "There was a unique musical culture in Athens around 200 BC, but ..."
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