New to Old Time Music (Need a tip or two)

[JeffD]

What I'm about to say may not make sense to players who are not steeped in old-time appalachian music, but what Rob describes above can actually be a great musical experience. It has to do with listening and participating. To me, Rob's statement is like saying, "I have no interest in drinking more than one shot of fine single-malt scotch. The second one is boring and the third even more boring."

There it is!!!!

[JeffD]

One of the joys of music is that you can do absolutely sacreligous things, and the original is still available unscathed for the more traditional folks to enjoy. You could reinterpret Bill Monroe on the sax if you want, and the original music remains for the rest of us.

OT music is about the tune. It is about listening to the tune, playing the tune, experiencing the tune, getting in underneath the tune. Its not about individual expression as much as it is about expressing the tune. Sure there is room for some ornamentation, but like Irish Traditional, you are trying to decorate the tune in a way that brings out its essential nature more vibrantly, not trying to showcase your musical agility.

It might be hard to understand, if you come from jazz or blues or bluegrass traditions, where individual expression and improvisation are central. In the old timey music, it just doesn't fit. One looks around and wonders, did this person forget the tune at that point and just make something up? Did this person bother to learn the tune? And a tune that has been mesmerizing folks for decades or more, pretty much as is, is not usually going to be spontaneously improved.

You have to be there for the tune. To let the tune do its magic. If you are looking for ways to improve it, or figuring out what you might do with the tune, or worse yet, what crazy stuff you could spontaneously compose to the same chord progression, you are not listening to the tune itself.

Every type of music has its norms, and everyone has preferences. No problem. And I am certainly not an orthodoxy enforcer. But I really believe if you approach OT on its own terms, you will experience something very profound, very old, very fundamental. If you come with distracting expectations, or a saxophone, I think you might miss something really glorious and moving. If it still turns out to be not your cup of tea, at least you tried it.

[Rob Gerety]

I would have no interest in playing with a jam where everyone plays the melody over and over without variation and where the chord players never vary from the straight and narrow.

I think I overstated this. I'll play with almost anyone who will have me! What I meant to say is that I start to really have fun playing music when we mix things up and try new combinations, etc. I completely agree that before you start changing things you really need to know the straight melody cold. And I completely appreciate and agree that it is important to honor the traditions in whatever genre you are playing in. Maybe its the dance band thing - there certainly is a lot more tolerance, even need, for spice when you are playing for a dance that can last upward of 15 minutes.

I'm a rank amateur player - but I have danced a lot and now that I have started to play I think my experience dancing, and maybe my natural proclivities, affect my musical interests as a player. As a dancer I started dancing with fairly traditional music but my eyes were opened when I was exposed to some of the more modern dance bands on a regular basis and I quickly become somewhat addicted to the modern sound and now I seek out the modern bands and I will travel a good distance to find the bands. The main venue we dance at now is the Guiding Star Grange in Greenfield, MA. There is a LOT of good music on the weekends down there. Also, I am exposed on a weekly basis to a contra dance band workshop with a local musician of some note, Jeremiah McLane who has been one of the leaders in the good work of taking traditional melodies (Irish, French, Quebecois, Breton, etc.) and melding them with more modern arrangements and rhythms for contra dancing. Check out some of his work with the bands Nightingale and The Clayfoot Strutters.

This discussion has been going on for ions. Remind me a bit of Fiddler on the Roof. I think there is room for all of it. Perhaps I am missing something that lies deep in the traditions of these various genres. That is certainly possible. I have an open mind and ear. I try to immerse myself as much as I can. I just seem to enjoy pushing the envelope a bit. Can't help myself really.

[Jim Nollman]

[JeffD]

Its a classic battle, negotiated by every musician individually. We need the respect for tradition, and what is good about it. We also need to make things meaningful to us, today, far from the context in which the tradition was forged. We need the orthodox, the envelope pushers, and the border guards. Sometimes we are the orthodox, the envelope pushers, and the border guards.

Keep in mind the mandolin itself is not exactly central to OT, like it is to BG. We mandolinners go in with a handicap, trying to at least do no harm to the perfect coupling of the fiddle and the banjo.

A little Knob Creek bourbon, (just a little) seems to help round off the corners and make me at once more tolerant and more tolerable.

[lgc]

"Keep in mind the mandolin itself is not exactly central to OT, like it is to BG."

See I can't agree with this assertion. What abut the Mobile strugglers, or Ted Hawkins, or the Bluesky Boys, or the Mississippi Sheiks or all the hundreds of other OT bands that had mandolin as one of the central instruments. And what about all the OT music without fiddle OR banjo.

This whole thing abut calling repetitive fiddle tunes oldtime music seems so bizarre. It doesn't, with very few exceptions, sound anything like old music. It all sounds very contemporary to me. It should. The material experiences of people playing today are vastly different so the musc should, and does reflect that.
I can't understand how the discourse of trad. American music has been pigeon holed into meaning fiddle and banjo music. By calling very specific kinds of Appalachian music OT implies those forms of music were prevalent all through the US. I know people all over called the music their parents and grandparents played old time music.

And further, where in America has there been a real musical tradition where people didn't sing. New time musicians claim all these rules that are essentially made up. They are not rooted in a tradition but rather in a set of ideas superimposed on someone else's tradition.

THere is no central instrument in OT because it is a collection regional art forms. The only ubiquitous instrument is singing.

[sgarrity]

That is a darn good post!

[JeffD]

I can't understand how the discourse of trad. American music has been pigeon holed into meaning fiddle and banjo music. By calling very specific kinds of Appalachian music OT implies those forms of music were prevalent all through the US. I know people all over called the music their parents and grandparents played old time music. .

Sorry about that. I was using the specific definition, i.e. OT as appalachian, and more specifically southern appalachian. When "old time" music as a specific type is referred to, googled or whatever, that is mostly what folks understand it to mean. And with specific reference to the original post, that is what is played, for the most part, in an OT jam.

Less so the New England contra dance music and Canadian fiddle music, which has been referred to as northern OT.

Though I have heard the phrase old time in reference to any music that is old, Italian Americans referring to the musical traditions of their grandfathers, and newer Klezmer bands refering to the origins of Klezmer music. Heck the phrase "old time rock and roll" is not contradictory.

But no, I was specifically referring to OT as narrowly defined.

[JeffD]

And further, where in America has there been a real musical tradition where people didn't sing. .

There are many American musical traditions that de-emphasize or don't even include singing. Especially the ones that are focused on dance tunes. But also a lot of jazz etc.

[JeffD]

What abut the Mobile strugglers, or Ted Hawkins, or the Bluesky Boys, or the Mississippi Sheiks or all the hundreds of other OT bands that had mandolin as one of the central instruments. .

Or the Louvin Brothers...

Again, I was narrowly talking about the Appalachian fiddle tune tradition. Stuff that one might say is the roots of blues, or roots of country music, while I would not argue could be called old time, would not be in my narrow reference, as I was referring to what we mostly do at OT jams.

The borders of these definitions can get fuzzy, especially as the modern musician has been influenced by all of this stuff.

For example, when someone refers to "old time string band" its interesting how many things that can refer to.

[Samjessin]

This conversation again! Kentucky String Ticklers - old-time? Ha!

As an old-time musician, I am with lgc. For me, old-time music for me as a person who plays it daily refers to the music recorded in the 20's and 30's. For someone else it might mean only Round Peak style music. I feel that old-time as a genre is just a doorway into appreciation for different types of music that existed in a different time.

My recommendation to the Original Poster is this -

Find an old-time community, make some friends in it, you will meet different sages, students, peers, records, cds, mp3's, relatives of old-time musicians, and other sources that will answer your questions. You may come out of it playing one form of music, you may come out of it playing another, you may get sick of it and buy an electric guitar but the answers are out there.

[Samjessin]

I also see that the OP is from Boston - man, you are in one of the many hotbeds of Old-Time activity. Do yourself a favor and track down Alan Kaufman!

Head out to the Harry Smith frolic or John Putnam day in Greenfield. Get down to Lake Genero. There is tons of Old-time music and people around. Ask questions in jams like "How did this sound?" You will get ten different answers and pick the one you like. Record yourself in a jam, eliminate the stuff you dislike!

[lgc]

"Especially the ones that are focused on dance tunes. But also a lot of jazz etc."

Which dance traditions? And if nobody is dancing then doesn't the function of de-emphasizing singing become less meaningful.

I also wouldn't characterize jazz as traditional music any more than I would Mozart. It is far to diffuse, personal and progressive to have the same relation to tradition as ballad singing or cajun music.

I think one would be really hard pressed to find even a sizable minority of truly traditional styles that are devoid of singing or even strongly de-emphasize it.

I like Sam's advice. You should also listen to yourself and add the things you'd like to hear. The great musicians in traditional American music balanced tradition and forward movement. I hear very little dogma in people like Earl Johnson, Gus Cannon or Charlie Poole.

[JeffD]

"
Which dance traditions? And if nobody is dancing then doesn't the function of de-emphasizing singing become less meaningful.

.

I am referring to contra dance, square dance, buck dancing, and also very popular though not strictly speaking an "American" tradition is English Country dance, and Irish dancing, etc.

My experience is that when no-one is dancing the band goes home.

[JeffD]

"

You should also listen to yourself and add the things you'd like to hear. The great musicians in traditional American music balanced tradition and forward movement. .

Keep in mind the original post however. He was looking for specific advice regarding playing a specific kind of music in a specific jam. In that context you really can't add the things you'd like to hear.

Also we are all in this music for entirely different reasons. I would have to say I am in it to play with other people. Not to be heard as an individual voice, not to express myself, not to push any envelopes or seriously impress anyone. I am not in it to get better necessarily, or to more accurately emulate any articular musician or style. I am not in it to preserve any particular tradition or style, nor to expand any particular tradition. I am pretty easily satisfied actually - I just to show up and play music with folks.

So, in that context, I approach music by asking - what is this group playing, and then how can I contribute. And the answers to those questions come in packages with labels on them. I know what to expect if it is an old timey jam. I know what to expect if its a Celtic jam, or a bluegrass jam. etc. I know that I don't do chop chords or take wild breaks or sing much at an OT jam, I keep my jigs and hornpipes for the Celtic jam, I play standing up and don't expect a penny whistle at BJ jams, and pretty much nobody wants to hear my broadway show tunes.


But the discussion has moved a bit from its original post, which is ok, and in that context I do agree with you, and would expand your thought to all of us: each individual musician, consciously or unconscioulsy makes decisions that balance tradition and forward movement.

[Jim Nollman]

Nice description of why you do it, Jeff.

Our group plays stuff from many traditions — Irish jigs, old polkas, some waltzes, one or two off-color sea chanties, Scottish laments, Cape Breton, Appalachian reels — whatever any of the members cares to bring to a session. 95% of what we do goes back at least to the 19th century, although one guy occasionally tries to sneak in tunes like Honeysuckle Rose and By By Blues. A lot of what three members bring to a session, is from either of three well known books of "fiddle tunes". One guy in the group is 80 years old and quite fit. He has been playing this music professionally since the 1940s, with some very well-known names among former band mates. He may know as many as 500 tunes on concertina and banjo, and knows the words to 200 traditional tunes. He's also our caller at dances.

I tend to browse the itunes store at least once a month, listening for tunes that meet my own desire either to learn extraordinary melodies, or wild and crazy dance tunes. We play a different repertoire at contra dances than we do at a farmers market. And we keep some others, just to play when we get together once a week. We all know 40 or 60 tunes, both the melodies and chords. When my wife (who plays piano in the band) and I get together alone, we usually deconstruct any of these tunes to enhance her classical sense of arrangement. I sometimes play sitting down. I usually play with more rhythmic accuracy while standing up. Always stand up at a dance.

I am a music producer. And, perhaps strangely, I don't think our group possesses the technical skills to lay down an inspired recording of any of these songs. I'd love to make that recording some day, but not anytime soon, since I'd have to get more polished players outside the band to make it work. And I am very content playing and learning with this current devoted lineup of people.

[Rob Gerety]

Man, I wish I could sit in at one of your contra dances Jim. And maybe dance a few as well. Have you ever though of booking some dances back here in New England?

[Jim Nollman]

Our dances are fun. But we're nothing special on the musical side of things. Some of us were playing in the national public arena when we were younger. At this point we all see our band as a terrific expression of encouraging local social interaction and also being the keepers of a worthy musical tradition.

We live on an island which takes an hour ferry ride just to set foot on the North American mainland. Our group has never played a gig outside our island county. We would do it, I suppose, if someone asked us, and covered ferry fare. This weekend we play at a Civil war era "reenactment", where people arrive from all over the Pacific Northwest to dress in 19th century style, and the dance hall is lit by candle chandeliers. We'll use minimal amplification to fit the format. That allows a piano on a small amp, the caller on one mike, and a second mike for everybody else..

What's the payoff? It's humble. For one example, the piano player saved part of her gig money for 6 months and then used it to buy a Yamaha P-85.

As for your comment, Rob, I can say that 2 of our 6 are from New England. One of us was quite instrumental in the flourishing of the NH and Vermont old-time music scene, starting back in the 1960s. I didn't start playing traditional music at all until 2006. I played mandolin in my teens and twenties, then played pop and rock on electric guitar for 30 years. When I moved to the islands 25 years ago, like all the many musicians here, I gave up any possibility of ever playing professionally this side of a ferry boat ride. It was a fair trade for being given the opportunity to raise my family in a beautiful location with a rich local culture, no traffic lights, and great garden soil.

Yes indeed, our dances are great fun. If i ever get to Vermont, I'll let you know.

[allenhopkins]

...This weekend we play at a Civil war era "reenactment", where people arrive from all over the Pacific Northwest to dress in 19th century style, and the dance hall is lit by candle chandeliers. We'll use minimal amplification to fit the format. That allows a piano on a small amp, the caller on one mike, and a second mike for everybody else...

Would be more authentic if you used a horse-drawn or steam-powered PA...

I've played my share of Civil War balls (mostly on bowed bass fiddle), and nothing's more fun than "dressing up," then playing to a dance floor full of ladies in hoops and men in uniform. Still had to use a PA, though, and I wonder how 19th century callers got their instructions across. Megaphones?

[Jim Nollman]

good question, Allen. I was wondering this same thing while driving to the gig, when who does NPR play on the car radio, but Al Jolson. His voice sounds so bizarre in modern terms. I know enough about acoustics to realize that his weird pinched tone joined to an over-the-top-loud delivery would have been the perfect voice for being heard in a noisy stomping room. Makes me wonder if that style was way more common for every performer in the many centuries before microphones.

We considered using a salmon-drawn generator, but they are almost all extinct in this bay on Puget Sound. We got 60 kids on a treadmill of 60 bicycles to make 60 cycle current.