Creating New Fiddle Tunes (Mandolin Tunes, Technically Speaking)

[Killian King]

I figured this is the best place to post about this topic.

I find myself, of late, coming up with all sorts of new (to me anyway) tunes on my Jacobson #34. A lot of this activity begins to take place during the course of movie watching, and I've started recording what I come up with on my smart phone (just in case it actually is new).

I was just wondering how many of you try to compose new tunes on your mandolins, and how often do you think you've come up with something new only to have someone else on the cafe congratulate you on discovering another old tune, rather than inventing a new one?

I've spent the last 2 years learning and practicing approximately 50-100 fiddle tunes of various genres (thank you mandozine tabledit archive). I've definitely gotten some tunes in my fingers which certainly is contributing to my exploration.

One very cool thing, I find, is that creating music this way is excellent practice for hearing the music in my head and transposing it to the mandolin through my fingers.

[Mark Wilson]

I discover bits and phrases I think are cool but eventually they start to resemble something I already play.

Post your favorite new one. You made me wonder if there are any popular(mass appeal) fiddle tunes written since the Monroe era.

[Killian King]

Mark,

That's definitely the plan. I just need to find the time to make a decent recording first.

I am already anticipating the response, "oh that's the Plagiarist's Reel", or " Louie Louie's Hornpipe"

[Killian King]

Here is a rough version I played into my smart phone during the above referenced noodling. Until someone tells me the correct name, I give you...

https://soundcloud.com/killian-king/...agiarists-reel

[JeffD]

Post your favorite new one. You made me wonder if there are any popular(mass appeal) fiddle tunes written since the Monroe era.

I am thinking quite a few. Give me a starting year, and I will dig some out. Tunes written or composed or conceived after 19XX.

[Killian King]

My new favorite tune to play is Amanda's Reel. That's pretty new, is it not?

[JeffD]

I was just wondering how many of you try to compose new tunes on your mandolins, and how often do you think you've come up with something new only to have someone else on the cafe congratulate you on discovering another old tune, rather than inventing a new one?.

I play many tunes written by one of our local jam musicians. Two of them were offered here.


I have tried to write new fiddle tunes, and I have never managed to come up with anything that I was interested in playing more than once or twice.

But part of the problem, for me (uniquely my problem) is that composing my own tune goes against the grain of why I am into old time music. Not that the tunes need to be old, necessarily, but that its all about the tunes and animating them best I can. Composing a tune feels like putting too much of me into it, and one of the best things about old time music is that it is not about me. The more not-about-me the better. As I have said elsewhere, I much prefer someone like the tune I am playing than like my playing. I would much rather share a tune with other musicians and watch it catch fire than perform a tune to an audience.

That said, I know some talented tune writers, and I do not hesitate to play recently composed tunes and see what I can make of them.

[Killian King]

I have tried to write new fiddle tunes, and I have never managed to come up with anything that I was interested in playing more than once or twice.

I totally get that.

I've started to notice how a lot of the tunes I have learned begin to converge, and how, if I lose concentration I can easily start playing the end of a different song because of a section that shares the same notes before diverging. It also sometimes takes me a few seconds to realize that the melody I am playing belongs to a song that I know because I unwittingly began playing it in a different key from the original.

It's all good though. I'm playing music and that makes me happy.

[Tobin]

On the question of new fiddle tunes, yes, there are scads of new ones out there. Jay Ungar, for example, is a well known writer of new fiddle tunes, such as the ever popular Ashokan Farewell. I've got my jam friends playing Haymaker's Hoedown, another of his tunes. I recently started playing another new fiddle tune, Amelia's Waltz, written in 1980. Not a Jay Ungar tune, though.

I noodle a lot on mandolin and fiddle, and could probably make some tunes out of my random grooves. But I figure I have no business writing fiddle tunesuuntil I learn all the old ones I want to retain.

[Killian King]

I noodle a lot on mandolin and fiddle, and could probably make some tunes out of my random grooves. But I figure I have no business writing fiddle tunes until I learn all the old ones I want to retain.

I'm definitely going to keep learning new ones as well as work on making the current ones sound better.

One cool thing about creating your own is that whatever you play is exactly right.

[foldedpath]

You made me wonder if there are any popular(mass appeal) fiddle tunes written since the Monroe era.

As mentioned above, Jay Ungar is one good example. Over on the Irish trad side of the fence, there have been many popular tunes written since the 1940's by fiddlers like Seán Ryan, Paddy Fahey, Liz Carroll, many others. At least "popular" within the narrow niche of session culture, if not exactly known to the masses at large.

In the world of Scottish trad, the piper Gordon Duncan wrote over 100 tunes, many of which have entered the repertoire as converted fiddle tunes. Piper Fred Morrison is also a composer of tunes like "Lochaber Badger," which you might have heard in one of the Transatlantic Sessions clips (which reminds me, that's still on my "tunes to learn" list).

Back to the OP's topic, I think it's a great thing to try your hand at composition. There is always a risk that you're just remembering something, but it's a good way to stretch your ear. My fiddler S.O. attended a Liz Carroll workshop a few years ago, and in one section she had everyone leave the room to go outside by themselves somewhere, and attempt to write a phrase, or complete tune from scratch. She felt it was an important part of learning to be a good fiddler.

If you're worried about whether a tune is actually original or not, one modern tool that can help is the TunePal app (iPhone, also available on Android I think), which attempts to match audio played in real time to a database of existing fiddle tunes. It doesn't always work, but it works surprisingly often to match up a tune. If TunePal can't ID your fiddle tune, you may (not guaranteed) have something new there.

[sgarrity]

I wrote what I thought was the most beautiful Am waltz a few years ago and then realized I had just put Jerusalem Ridge into 3/4 time!