Genres of Fiddling (Billy in the Lowground A)

Let's talk about the different kinds of fiddling you find around the US and Canada. I share what I know about the genres more closely related to dancing and dance music, and a little about fiddling along with songs.

Our tune for today is a version of Billy in the Lowground in the key of A, played in either Calico (AEAC#) or Cross A (AEAE) tuning. I use cross A.

Email me at meganbeller@fiddlestudio.com.

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Transcript

Meg Wobus Beller: 0:10

Welcome to the Fiddle Studio Podcast featuring tunes and stories from the world of traditional music and fiddling. I'm Meg Wobus Beller and today I'll be bringing you a setting of Billy in the Lowg round in A from a jam at Anna Bandeira Chocolates in Northampton, Massachusetts. Hello everyone, I hope you are well. Today we're going to be talking about different genres of fiddling, but first I had a question. I had a question from Matt. Thanks for sending a question, Matt.

Meg Wobus Beller: 0:44

Matt writes I normally play with my wrist somewhat bent. It's never been a problem before. I'm trying to learn a couple of tunes with third position. Should I be trying to change my wrist to shift? Aha, that's a great question. My first thought is how long have you been? Matt doesn't say how long he's been playing or playing with a bent wrist, so is it six months? Is it six years? Is it 60 years? Also, I'm wondering how much you want to get back and forth to third position, how much you want to shift. Is it just very occasionally playing road to a rogui or something and you want to get up for just a couple of tunes? I would say just stay calm and do whatever feels okay. You can play up in third with a bent wrist. I've seen it. It can work for people. Or if the goal is to really straighten out your wrist and be able to shift much more than just playing in first position kind of 99% of the time. Or if you're trying to do more techniques that benefit from a really relaxed and aligned left wrist, like using your pinky a lot vibrato stuff like that you can work on your wrist.

Meg Wobus Beller: 2:10

I did a podcast the Bent Left Wrist. Check that out. And I did a recent podcast Unlocking the Left Hand. That's the same kind of thing. It's a lot of holding the violin firmly with your jaw and dropping your hand down, shaking it out, feeling what that feels like. The opposite of that is you can have your wrist and really bend it so you know what that feels like. So it's like playing around so you can feel when it's straight and relaxed and aligned. And then the mindful practice of trying to play. That way you can do the trick where you have someone else hold your scroll and then play without your thumb with your left hand. To play without your thumb you'll really have to hang your fingers on the on the fiddle. It's very hard to do that with a bent wrist. You'll straighten your wrist out in no time. Strange, a strange little trick there, and I'm not sure I've covered that one before. It's a little bit of a chicken or the egg. Some people work on straightening their wrist to do these other techniques shifting and vibrato and stuff and sometimes people start to work on vibrato or shifting and they find that it loosens up their wrist. Their wrist gets straighter just from working on them. Yeah Well, let me know how it goes with your wrist. Matt, you can send your questions in. You have a question, I'll answer it or at least give you my take.

Meg Wobus Beller: 3:38

Next week is March. I'm excited. I think. If all goes well, I'll be talking to Jenna Moynihan, who is a fiddle professor at the Berkeley School of Music next week and that's going to be great. I did not teach Jenna to fiddle, but we did work together when we were younger and I'm super proud of her and excited to talk to her about fiddling. We're going to do genres of fiddle today. Oh, this could go on and on. I'm going to try not to let it go on and on.

Meg Wobus Beller: 4:14

Violin was a folk instrument in many parts of the world, or something like the violin, so anywhere in the world you can find music that often has an instrument played with a bow, and I am less familiar with music from Mexico and other Central American, south American types of music and also, I would say, asian and South Asian instruments and folk music that use fiddle-like instruments. So we're mainly going to stick to genres from the US and Canada, because that's what I know about. Fiddle music is dance music, so little tunes are dance tunes. They're not always played for dancing. Sometimes they're played for jamming and parties, but they are dance tunes, with the exception of maybe like Irish slow airs or something. I tell people that I play New England fiddle, so New England is a genre. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't know what that is. Also, I grew up in New York, which is not New England. New England music was being played in New York when I was growing up and learning fiddle.

Meg Wobus Beller: 5:26

And New England genre of fiddling is a mixture of the sort of Northern European styles, often played with piano and in a little bit more of a variety of keys. Because of the piano it's easier for the piano to play in all 12 keys as opposed to a guitar, and the fiddle tunes were played for contra dances, so contra dancing is done in long lines. It's done all over the country now and all over the world. But it was the traditional dance form and the music that went with. It was played for contra dances and that was in New England originally.

Meg Wobus Beller: 6:05

If we go north from there there is French Canadian or Quebecois fiddling, so that's mostly in Quebec and they do the feat. While they play the fiddle so their feet are going tec, tec, tec, tec, tec, tec, tec, tec and they're playing the fiddle along with it. It sounds awesome and the tunes are very happy, a lot of the time very syncopated. That's my impression of French Canadian. It's kind of a blend of originally I believe, the music from French settlers and Irish settlers and it became its own thing. It's played a lot with accordion you can stay in Canada and there is another kind of Canadian music that's pretty well known, Cape Breton. So to the right of this state of Maine you've got Nova Scotia and Cape Breton is there and that is closer to Scottish music. So if you think about Quebec, it's on the other side of Maine and very much its own, more French-influenced fiddling. And on the right of Maine in Nova Scotia, you've got Cape Breton, which has a lot of tunes and techniques in common with Scottish fiddling. They do play with piano though, and the piano playing for Cape Breton music is amazing. Also in Canada there is a genre called Canadian Old Time and there's Matis Fiddling. Matis is an indigenous culture descended from both First Nations and European ancestry, so distinct from other First Nations in Canada and Matis. They have their own tunes and style. It's often done with feet. It has that in common with Quebecois music In the US.

Meg Wobus Beller: 7:57

Once you get below New England, the Appalachian Mountains run down the eastern part of the US and the music found there is generally called Old Time, the traditional tunes there. But you have a lot of different kind of stylistic differences because the tunes Old Time tunes played in the mountains in Pennsylvania were different from the ones played down in North Carolina. But that music is often played at jams and square dances. There are several kinds of international genres of fiddle music that's played all over the US. So Irish music you'll find everywhere. There's sessions in bars, also played for Ceidli dances and Fleadhs all over the US. Scottish music, I think, is maybe not played quite as widely, but definitely there are some Scottish jams and there's festivals, so you'd find it at festivals. Most of the Scottish players I know live in either DC area or Boston.

Meg Wobus Beller: 8:56

There is English Fiddling, English fiddle tunes played for English Country Dance music think Jane Austen Balls and their English country dances scattered, maybe not as many as country dances, but there's one in Baltimore, english country dancing. There's definitely Swedish pockets of Swedish music and Klezmer music, which is the music from Jews who are living in Eastern European, so Ashkenazic Jewish music, klezmer. And there is Cajun Zydeco. So if you go down into Louisiana you'll get Cajun Zydeco. Both of those share kind of French and African roots for their music in the rhythms and the tunes and sometimes with the fiddle it can be tuned down a full, whole step. So instead of G-D-A-E, cajun tuning is F-C-G-D. Has a very interesting sound.

Meg Wobus Beller: 10:01

That was what I could think of off the top of my head in terms of fiddle tunes as dance tunes. And then there's, when you think about fiddle playing along with songs, the genres there. Bluegrass still has tunes, I would say, but is more song based. So you're getting a little further from just dance music and you're getting into with the fiddle a lot more chopping and taking improvised solos. And that would be similar I mean not with the chopping but taking solos playing back up in blues fiddle, country fiddle for country songs, western swing those would be closer to that. And there are indigenous fiddle styles in the US. I know a little bit about Cherokee and Creek fiddling and I believe there are others as well, so that is just an overview. Wow, I'm gonna be working on a Klezmer course this year Klezmer, the Eastern European fiddling because I have a background in klezmer.

Meg Wobus Beller: 11:07

Tunes are so fun but a little harder maybe than old time, which we'll be doing today. Old time tune. This is Billy in the Low Ground. So most people play Billy in the Low Ground in C. This is the A version or the Calico version, so you can play it. I mean you can play it however you want. Play it on regular tuning. You can play it in cross A. You could try it in Calico. I will not be trying it in Calico, which is cross A, but the E's tuned all the way down to a C sharp. Get some very funky drones with that. We played it in cross A. We were playing in A at the jam I went to in Massachusetts.

Meg Wobus Beller: 11:51

So somebody asked for this tune version of Billy in the Lowg round in A. I found a version online from the West Virginia fiddler, French Carpenter. So it was a 1963 recording and he played it in A and paired it with Bonaparte's Retreat, another famous tune that's usually not played in cross A tuning, and apparently he did them, did them both that way. The Calico version I found of this was played by Trisha Spencer, who's a Kentucky fiddler who might be coming on this podcast. Really curious to hear about fiddling down in Kentucky. She's a great fiddler. If you go to Slippery Hill you can hear her version. It sounds so good. Billy in the Lowg round, calico.

Meg Wobus Beller: 12:40

Oh, I also asked Ken Kolodner about this tune, a fiddle teacher and great musician in the Baltimore area, and he has the A version as part of. If you go and look at Ken's website, he sells some little packages of fiddle tunes and study packets for them, sheet music and suggested bowings and sound files, and one of them that he had was the A, Billy in the Lowg round. So you can look up Ken's materials on this tune. They looked really good. Well, we're gonna play it for you right now. Okay, you, you. Thank you for listening. You can find the music for today's tune at fiddle studio com, along with my books, courses and membership for learning to fiddle. I'll be back next week with another tune, for you. Have a wonderful day.