Fiddle Studio
The glasses clink and the talk and laughter grow louder. In the corner of the pub, musicians sit and play traditional dance tunes that make your feet want to stomp and slide. Join fiddler Meg Wobus Beller as she brings you along into the world of fiddling and traditional music, from bow-grips and double stops to Old-Time tunes and Irish jigs.
Fiddle Studio
Why we squeak (Cumberland Gap)
Why does the fiddle squeak? If only we knew. Hang on, we do know! I offer lots of diagnosis and advice for how to get to the bottom of squeaking. Together we can not squeak as much.
The tune for this week is Marion Reece's version of Cumberland Gap.
Reach me at meganbeller@fiddlestudio.com.
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Welcome to the Fiddle Studio P 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 the tune Cumberland Gap, Marion Reece's version from an old-time jam in Baltimore, maryland. Hello everyone, I hope you are well. I believe this is going to be episode 99, and that means that next week we'll have episode 100. And for that episode I'm going to have a very special guest who has been on the podcast many times. In fact, nearly every week my husband, Charley, and I are going to record a little podcast where we I guess we kind of interview each other as my 100th episode, and so I will see you all back next week with that and very happy to have brought the podcast all the way to episode 99. Still love collecting these tunes. Still love talking about fiddle getting into the weeds, still thinking about more things to do podcasts on. So feel free to send ideas or questions or topics to meganbeller at fididdlestudiocom. Okay, so we have a great topic this week what makes the fiddles squeak? Why do we squeak? Wouldn't it be great if fiddles didn't squeak? That would be great If, whatever it was that's happening between the bow hair and the steel string, that that could go wrong in many ways and that none of those ways would make a squeaking sound. Maybe if I had a magical ability I would make that happen. Let's go through the really basic stuff. We're going to assume that your fiddle is in tune. It doesn't really affect squeaking. Let's make sure that if you're getting your fiddle out to play and you're trying to make it sound good, that you've got your fiddle in tune, that there's not too much rosin dust on your strings, okay, get a clean cloth and rub those strings down. I apologize in advance for the sound that's going to make, but making that squeaking sound to clean your strings will mean fewer squeaks when you play. So there you go. I should have called it how to squeak on the fiddle. We're assuming you have a pretty reasonable bridge. If your bridge is very curved or very flat, that's going to be a hindrance to getting a good, clear tone without squeaking. I want you to make sure your bow is tightened a normal amount Mona Lisa smile, you've got some rosin on there and basically that your fingers are on the right string and they're pressing down a reasonable amount Strings going all the way down to the fingerboard. So if all of that is all set, you've got your instrument and your bow set up right and you know you're playing the correct finger on the correct string. We will move on to the main reason why we squeak, which is what's happening with the bow on the string. So let's talk about that Now. I know that we're not really talking about crunching, but crunching. A lot of what I'm going to suggest is going to involve putting a little more pressure or you could say getting a firmer grip on the string with your bow. But it's good to keep in mind that if you go too far in that direction it will crunch. So crunching is the sound of the bow pressing too hard on the strings, and if you're crunching you've gone too far. You got to back up a couple steps. One main way that people squeak is actually by putting too little pressure into the string. So you get kind of a wispy squeaking tone if you're pressing too little and the full note is not sounding out of the string. I would totally suggest that you go get your fiddle, if you're curious about some of this, and try it. Try pressing hard, getting a crunching sound. Try pressing really light and getting a wispy, squeaking sound. So you know what that's like. If your bow is sliding around, it will be more of a scraping noise. So try playing sliding your bow on the string so it's not staying straight on the highway but it's at an angle, it's sliding as you're playing. That's another noise that you can get. Now there's a lot of squeaks that come from either changing strings or hitting other strings other than the string that you're trying to play on. If your bow hits another string while you're playing and it gets kind of a full contact of that string, you'll hear basically a double stop. You'll hear the two strings at the same time. So two notes. But if your bow only makes like half contact with the string, just hits it for a very little while or very little bit of pressure, then you're going to get a squeak, because that's what happens when the bow's making contact with the string but it's not grabbed the string enough to get a full note out of it, and so it can happen if you're going to a string and you haven't fully gotten a grip on the string yet, you get a squeak as you go over there. Or it can happen if you're playing and you accidentally hit another string, but only partially, if you know what I mean. Only partially, if you know what I mean. So when I say that most squeaks come from not having enough pressure, that's what I'm talking about the squeaks you can get from not pressing hard enough or from sliding around on the string, and the squeaks you can get from hitting or going to another string and not having full pressure on that string. There's some noises you can get changing bows, and that's usually about having a good contact point and adjusting the amount of pressure you're putting into the string. It's going to depend a little bit on your fiddle and your bow, so you may need to press a little harder, press a little lighter when you're changing directions from where you do. In the middle of the note, diagnosing squeaks is a little tricky. If you really can't get to the bottom of something, you can always take it to another player or a shop See if you can get some advice about it. Our tune this week is Marion Reece's Cumberland Gap. This is from William Marion Reece went by Marion and it's another tune in G, a reel from North Carolina this time Marion Reece was a fiddler, also made fiddles and was a fife player. He lived in Zionville, N north Carolina. He played a lot of the older repertoire from that area and he played in standard tuning and in cross-tuning did a lot of drums. So from what we've heard from his recordings and from what other fiddlers have said, a very old-time, drone-heavy style and he grew up in a musical family playing the fiddle and playing the fife. I guess his father or maybe his grandfather would have played the fife in the American Civil War. So this is his version of Cumberland Gap, which of course is the place where Kentucky, T tennessee and Virginia all come together in one spot in Cumberland Gap, as played in North Carolina. So there you go, here we go, thank you. Thank you for listening. You can find the music for today's tune at fiddlestudiocom, 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.
