What's your new fiddle tune?

[Brent Hutto]

Sounding pretty good: Congress Reel, Beth Cohen's
Getting there: March of the Banchory Strathspey & Reel Society
Next Up: Deveron Slide
Wonder if I could: Learn Flower O' The Quern played as a Stratspey

[Bluegrassnate]

I've been learning Angelena the Baker, Stoney Point, and Forked Deer on the mandolin. But I'm just a beginer...

[Mike Pilgrim]

Little Dutch Girl.

[Randy Smith]

Little Dutch Girl.

Michael, if you haven't heard it, there's a nice version of this on Sadie Compton's *Trouble Come Knockin*. Mike Compton, James Bryan, and Alan O'Bryant play the tune with her.

[JeffD]

Here's a goodie: Chinuapin Hunting

[woodwizard]

The Chiquapin Hunting I've learned has a completely different melody than that with 3 parts to it. But I like that version too.
"Moses Hoe the Corn" is my new one ... great little melody to it.

[Loretta Callahan]

Ah, I finally nailed the Fakebook Kesh jig, guess the cumbersome part was why I had some trouble!. Some other versions are available in other books I have. I'll check out eh Pogues version ... and the Song of the Week versions.

I learned Kesh Jig from the Fakebood too, but modified it to sound like what someone else was playing, I think Barb Shultz' video. The version she played sounds more like what I'm used to, from some song The Pogues play it to. I dunno if it's more simple or more complex (simple I think). I found parts of the Fakebook version to be cumbersome to play through.

Working on Kid on the Mountain right now, but using Mel Bay's session book, not the Fakebook version. It's a bugger of a tune, but I love listening to it.

Finally aced Wind that Shakes the Barley, but nowhere near that triplet action that Jill does so easily.

Love Chiquapin Hunting .... it may go on the back burner!

[woodwizard]

"Pretty Little Dog" is a pretty dandy little tune I've been picken recently.

[woodwizard]

Lantern in the Ditch ... D tune

[Jim Nollman]

I do love the hornpipes, no matter for their origin. Now learning Walsh's Hornpipe from an old Kevin Burke recording. While the melody is simple, the phrases seem to possess an odd interchangeable equity, meaning that any of them can be played in any order, yet the tune retains its identity and its internal integrity.

The thing that holds it all together (and which makes it hard to get it out of my head) is the lavish use of hammer ons and offs, sometimes across three notes. This is not an easy thing to do well on the E string of a mandolin. If you want an exercise in such technique, learn this tune. If you learn to play it well, you will never forget it.

[TWINGDAE]

Little Drummer Boy
Petit Papa Noel
Silent Night

[Mike Snyder]

Greencastle Hornpipe
Blakes' March
Abes' Retreat

[Mike Bunting]

Grub Springs.

[Psyberbilly]

Crosseyed Fiddler in E .

[Denny Gies]

I know everyone says "it's simple" but Angeline the Baker still is eluding my fingers.

[AlanN]

Cotton Patch Rag, a al Mr. Bush.

And Common Ground, off Rice Backwaters.

[woodwizard]

I do love the hornpipes, no matter for their origin. Now learning Walsh's Hornpipe from an old Kevin Burke recording. While the melody is simple, the phrases seem to possess an odd interchangeable equity, meaning that any of them can be played in any order, yet the tune retains its identity and its internal integrity.

The thing that holds it all together (and which makes it hard to get it out of my head) is the lavish use of hammer ons and offs, sometimes across three notes. This is not an easy thing to do well on the E string of a mandolin. If you want an exercise in such technique, learn this tune. If you learn to play it well, you will never forget it.

Cool ...I'm going to try find some music on Walsh's Waltz. Your Rosebud tune is just like a tune I learned called Rose of Sharon.

Nice job ... like that oval hole tone.

[Mumii]

Bonepart's Retreat in D. It seems that in some parts of the country players start in different sections of the tune but it all comes out OK anyway.

[JeffD]

Working on Kid on the Mountain right now, but using Mel Bay's session book, not the Fakebook version. It's a bugger of a tune, but I love listening to it.

:

Its a wonderful tune. One of the few that doesn't seem to get easier once you know it.

[Paul Lucas]

Grub Springs from Clyde Curley and the Oxymorons CD and Sandy Boys from Matt Brown's Old Time Fiddle Lessons Vol. 1 CD.

[Loretta Callahan]

Its a wonderful tune. One of the few that doesn't seem to get easier once you know it.

Glad it's not just me that finds this song not easy! Mel Bay Session's version of Kid on the Mountain wasn't quite working, so I yanked the first four bars from another version I found over at the The Session, cut and pasted, and voila ... more better version. Don't know if that's legal

[AlanN]

From the pick of Bobby Clark:

22nd St. Rag
Fast Forward

Get that wrist a-movin'...

[Jim Nollman]

This thread has definitely become my go-to thread on the Cafe. And a big bravo to all of you who regularly visit here to offer up new songs for the rest of us to hear.

This morning I came online after a week on the road, and to be greeted by 6 or 8 new tunes I'd never even heard of. Immediately went to the itunes store to give a listen. And immediately got hooked by Kid on the Mountain. There's a pipes version by someone named Piob More that absolutely blew my socks off. I just love tunes that use some version of a syncopated modal drone. Gotta learn that one.

[JeffD]

I think I first heard Kid on the Mounain from a Bothy Band record, Kevin Burke on the fiddle. The version in the Fiddler's Fakebook is the one I heard, and its the one I learned. I don't know how Mel Bay's or others differ, but I don't suspect its much. And, I have been playing the tune for a while, so I don't doubt I have "evolved" the tune a bit over these many years.

The tune captures for me what is great about an Irish Session. The five parts of the tune, like separate but thematically complimentary tunes, following on each other without break, continuing the energy of the last one, the energy and drive of the thing, and then the endless quality of it, that tune will never end, but you never want it to, and then holding the last note, last time through, like we all collapse from exhaustion, or the sudden slow to a stop at the end of a wooden roller coaster ride, or the way you drink the last bit of beer in your glass.

I don't know where the name of the tune comes from, but I can just see that baby mountain goat up there prancing around unpredictably, under the sway of the sheer joy of being alive.

If you can capture all of that in the way you play it - I don't care which version you use.

[Paul Lucas]

Here's another great site for learning tunes by ear that I just found today -> http://www.stringband.mossyroof.com/

The Canote Brothers of Seattle teach an OTM Stringband class three times a year for 8 weeks per session. A student started a website that has mp3s of the tunes they teach in class. Note there is not a mandolin on the mp3s, at least the couple I listened to, but it shouldn't be too hard to adapt a mando version of the tune from the fiddling part.