Articulation on the Fiddle (Dusty Miller)

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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 Dusty Miller from a jam in Baltimore, Maryland. You a setting of Dusty Miller from a jam in Baltimore, Maryland. Hello everyone, I hope you are well. I'm excited to talk to you today about articulation. Now articulation is in music. 

So I looked up the musical definition on Wikipedia and it wasn't that helpful. They said articulation is a musical parameter that determines how a single note or other discrete event is sounded, determining the length of its sound and the shape of its attack and decay. It's attack and decay, hmm, okay. So on the violin, articulation is, I guess they said in a not very clear way in that definition it's about the beginning of the note and the length of the note. I'm trying to think of how articulation would affect more than that, but it's pretty much the beginning and the length. 

The way we teach it to kids, the way I teach it to kids as a Suzuki teacher at first, I just teach them to move their bow back and forth. You know they're playing whatever they're playing. Boil them, cabbage down, twinkle, twinkle, little star their bow's on the string, get them to leave it there on the string, not be pulling it up and off the string and moving it back and forth. Just move it for each note, change directions. 

Then I teach them staccato. So that's the first articulation In the classical world. They often use the Italian to refer to the types of articulation In the classical world. They often use the Italian to refer to the types of articulation. So staccato is making a note short, and so I teach the kids to stop their bow. So they're playing and they stop. It's not really that much about the beginning of the note, it's more teaching them to stop staying on the string in between their notes. Then we teach them legato. So legato is a lot like how they were sort of playing to begin with, but legato, making the notes long and smooth and connected. 

We get them to slow their bow down to connect the notes even more and try to make it real smooth between the notes so that there aren't any spaces. So now they have, hopefully kind of a regular autopilot way of playing and then they can play staccato, stop their bow, they can play legato, slow their bow down, connect the notes really well. Then we teach them the accent. So that's digging in at the beginning of the note for a very kind of explosive ka, getting an explosive sound. 

And in classical technique there are more kinds of articulations. You can get into spiccato and bouncing your bow and all kinds of things, what it means to have a line and a dot. So you've got the marking for legato and for sticcato a dot. So you've got the marking for legato and for staccato. There's sort of a long note with a little space in between. For fiddle we don't use most of that. Yeah, you're not stopping your bow and you're mostly not making it legato either. 

There are some fiddlers who play without articulation. I was talking last week about studying up on fiddle contest winners and some of them play real smooth kind of Texas style without a lot of articulation. Bluegrass some bluegrass fiddlers I hear articulation in most fiddlers playing. Nobody actually taught me this about fiddling. My dad, who had gone to Pinewoods and to old songs, learned from some of the old timers there and he taught me to do an accent on two and four. You know (speaking), make those notes louder, make that explosive accent, grabbing the string there, using more (speaking) from some fiddlers. 

I did workshops with Brian Conway and Becky Tracy who taught me about ghosting notes. So that was when you barely play a note, sort of the opposite of an accent, where you play a note much less, and so that's a way to bring attention to the other notes. Basically, in a jig you might play dot and (speaking) and those n in the middle, (speaking). But when I started teaching fiddle, especially to classical players, I felt like something was missing from their playing and I would call it being scrubby. So I would teach them to be scrubby. Then if they were playing fiddle and it was really smooth and it didn't sound very rhythmic, I'd say, oh, you need to make it more scrubby. Remember to be scrubby. Use your k-k-k-k-k-k. 

What I mean by this is it's a grabbing of the string at the beginning of the note. So a little bit like an accent, but smaller, because it's kind of every note I'm using like a d-d da for a lot of the notes, and those are all instances where I'm grabbing the string with my bow. So I'm not just la, la, la, la, la, moving my bow back and forth, but I'm digging into the string to make almost a little plosive like explosive sound, a buh or duh or cuh at the beginning of the note and doing that over and over again, up bows and down bows. 

I'm not using a lot of bow for this and it makes it sound for lack of a better word scrubby. If you're trying this at home, different strings take a different amount of force to get a little consonant on the beginning of your note. So if you're talking about the lowest string, the G string, you're going to have to grab it harder Then for the E string. You don't want to be putting tons and tons of weight over and over again into the E string. It's not going to sound as good. 

You use it rhythmically. You use it to keep the beat. You're playing for dancing and you're playing them a tune and you're also keeping the beat for them. That's the whole reason I'm doing it. So you got to use it really rhythmically. It's common to slur some of the notes and it's common to slur some of the notes. So now you've got a few notes that are slurred or ghosted so they're not showing up in your rhythmic pattern.

 And then you've got your other notes that are scrubby, or you're grabbing them, getting that little attack at the beginning of the note, and those are keeping the beat for you. Yeah, experiment with that scrubby sound. I don't know, you can. Once you learn it you can use a lot of it or you can just use a little bit of it, but it's a nice thing to have in your toolbox. 

This tune that we're going to play today is Dusty Miller. I guess it has a lot in common with Miller's Reel. I play a New England version of Miller's Reel and they have some things in common. I's Reel. I play a New England version of Miller's Reel and they have some things in common. I don't know. The A part's pretty different. So I grew up playing Miller's Reel. 

I guess this is you know. I learned this tune from my friends and they got it from the old-time fiddlers' repertory, from a book by RP Christensen Repertory from a book by RP Christensen. He got it. I guess he transcribed it from the playing of Bob Walters. It's a tune in A but I guess Bob played it in standard tuning and there are a lot of versions of Dusty Miller. 

Holy cow, if you look up this tune you will find a lot of different versions, but this one is it's close to Dusty Miller. That was recorded for Victor Records on the Texas Fiddler Captain MJ Bonner and Eck Robertson's version, which is maybe the parts are switched, but more similar to Bob Walter's. The one that we're doing switched, but more similar to Bob Walters, the one that we're doing , is from he's from Nebraska, so it's a Midwest tune. 

I guess we were playing Midwest tunes that night, so we're going to go ahead and play Dusty Miller .  Here we go Thank you for listening. You can find the music for today's tune at fiddlestudio.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. 

Signing up for a Fiddle Competition (Old Billy Hell)

Listen and subscribe to the Fiddle Studio Podcast on Apple Music, Spotify, or Buzzsprout. 

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Here are my Fiddle Studio books and my website Fiddle Studio where you can find my courses and mailing list and sign up for my Top 10 Fiddle Tunes!

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 the tune Old Billy Hell from a jam in Baltimore, Maryland. Hello everyone, I hope you are well. Today we're going to be talking about preparing for a competition and I have lots of exciting thoughts about this. But first a little bit of housekeeping. Sometimes I listen to podcasts and they call it housekeeping when they make an announcement.

You know, Charley and I had an album come out this fall but we had a pretty busy winter and we never had an album release party. So we are finally having our album release party, for our album Broke the Floor. It's going to be in Baltimore on May 30th, which is a Thursday. It'll be a big contra dance and concert at the Mob Town Ballroom on Thursday, May 30th, from 7 to 9.30. So if you're in Baltimore or you're nearby, please come out that Thursday on May 30th and hear music from our album and have fun at a big contra dance at the Mob Town Ballroom. So let's talk about preparing for a competition. So let's talk about preparing for a competition.

This is a topic that I have no experience in. You can go back and listen to some of my interviews. I know Joanna Clare talked about competing in fleadhs in Irish fiddle and Lissa Schneckenberger spoke about how she got into fiddling as a kid and a teenager by doing kind of a circuit of fiddle competitions that were at fairs in Maine and New England. And a few of my old-time fiddlers who I've interviewed have talked about competing at places like Clifftop and other old-time music festivals. But I've actually never competed in a fiddle competition, and not only that, I've never. I'm trying to remember to make sure I'm not stretching the truth here. I don't think I've ever been to a fiddle competition. They used to have a little showcase at an old-time fiddle fair outside of Syracuse that my dad would take me to Remember. He'd put me up on stage for that, but it wasn't a competition. Yeah, I don't think I've been to one. I've been to other competitions. I've competed in classical but not in fiddle. So I decided, partly just because of this podcast y'all inspire me to take on new things because it'll give me something to talk about. On the podcast. I was planning to go to Clifftop this year. My kids will be at camp during Clifftop. So my husband and I are going to go check it out after hearing about it for years from other musicians in Baltimore who go and who talk about it. And if you play old time music in Baltimore and you're just meeting someone for the first time, one of the first things they'll ask you is have you been to Clifftop? And I've had to say no, so I'd like to say yes to that. So I'm going to Clifftop and I thought, well, they have a competition there, why don't I enter it? And then I'll know what it's like to play for a fiddle competition. I've done a lot of performing in my day. I've performed well, I've performed classically, I've competed and done orchestra concerts and other kinds of recitals and such, and I've done a lot of performing on fiddles certainly dances for the last 30 years and a variety of other things Mostly dances, I would say Some concerts and stuff like that, open mics. So I feel pretty comfortable with the idea of getting up on stage and playing for people. That has never been something that bothered me too much. But I didn't quite know what to expect from Clifftop.

The first thing I did, thinking about how to get ready for this competition. I went and I watched videos on YouTube of Clifftop winners so you can look at the videos people have put up Finalist in the Open Fiddle 2016. Finalist in the Open Fiddle 2018. And they have these videos that were taken. So that was really helpful because I could see like, oh okay, they play the tune a certain number of times. Some people have guitar accompaniment, some people don't, and these are the kinds of tunes they're playing, these are the kinds of tempos they're taking. This is the kind of playing that's getting at least to the finals.

And there were it wasn't just one kind of old time playing. There were some people playing really smooth and some people playing with more of a rhythmic style, which was nice for me to see, because I can't really play fiddle totally smooth. I just because I played mostly just for dances. I keep the beat with my fiddle basically for dancing. I haven't really tried not to do that, but I don't think I could. I don't think I would feel comfortable getting up and playing for people and trying to make my tunes sound super smooth. Some people do that. You know, I get the bluegrass. They do these licks. It sounds great. That's not me. I want it to sound rhythmic, I want it to sound danceable.

I found it interesting there were a variety of tunes. Some people were playing really fast, kind of major breakdowns. There were a lot of funky modal tunes. A lot of them are crooked, so you have to come with a couple of tunes. So I thought, okay, well, go and dig up some tunes. I got to dig up a cool modal tune and maybe some kind of fast breakdown. A couple tunes like that I already know. Many of them are tunes I learned off my dad's old records.

There was a breakdown, kind of old time, maybe more of a bluegrass breakdown, called Snowflake Reel that I play, that I have my own version of. So that might be something I do I play, that I have my own version of. So that might be something I do. And I do know some old modal tunes. Sweet Milk and Peaches is one I have off of one of his records. I have a couple of others that I learned just sort of straight from those recordings from hearing them so many times growing up. I'm going to listen to some old time fiddle between now and then and develop my playing. I mean I don't think I'm ever going to be an old time fiddler. When I'm working on other genres outside of New England I'm not usually trying to become that kind of player, but I love playing music with people. I love being able to hang in a jam. If I know half the tunes and I can keep up and my playing isn't sticking out as not matching the style of the other players, then that's enough for me to enjoy it.

So that's usually about what I'm aiming for in Irish that I've been working on in old time, even in French Canadian, which doesn't get played as much down here. But when I go up north and I play some French tunes, working on getting enough of this style that I can blend in with other people, getting enough of the tunes that I can play a few of them and pick up a few, not be lost the whole time. A few of them and pick up a few, not be lost the whole time. So I don't think I'm going to become an old time fiddler before August. But I'm going to work on my sound a little bit, try to make sure it sounds reasonably old time, and I'll probably just be listening to recordings and getting myself out to jams a couple of different-time jams I go to around here. I emailed my dad to ask him about tunes. He had a lot of good ideas. If you are looking around for tunes, if you're thinking about doing a competition or any kind of open mic or performance, you know. He suggested the LPs. He gave me his collection and pointed out that there's the anthropological like the Smithsonian Institute has a lot of recordings they made and there's also commercial people trying to make a buck. And he said you know, don't ignore the commercial recordings. There was some good stuff there, said you know, don't ignore the commercial recordings, there was some good stuff there. People were rushing at one point, rushing around the South trying to record folks and producing it to try to meet the demand. You know, in the late 60s, early 70s, the folk music revival. So they were finding folks and recording them and we have some of those records. There were also folk music revival bands from the 60s and 70s. What do I have? I have Fuzzy Mountain, Hollow Rock, new Lost City Ramblers, a bunch of stuff, Cranberry Lake, Highwood String Band, Delaware Water Gap and of course a lot of people look on YouTube. So you've got YouTube, they've got all the CDs up now. You can find so much of that. My dad had another suggestion. He heard that a lot of old-time players would swap iPod libraries with thousands of tunes. So he said, go ask around in your community, see if you can get one of these old libraries that might be from the days of Napster. Anyway, if you're an old-time musician with a tune library, maybe hit me up. Help me prepare for this competition.

So my practice schedule is it's April now and Passover is coming up, which means that I'm a busy lady until May. So I'll be doing a lot of practicing in May and June getting ready for this, and it'll mostly be working on tunes working out tunes that I want to play, working out my own versions and how I want to play them and if I want to do them in a special tuning and how that's going to work, and working on them with Charley trying to work them up. We'll see how that goes. I will let you know. Our tune for today is called Old Billy Hell. The tunes this month were pulled from a jam in Baltimore that was at my friend Heather's house a jam in Baltimore that was at my friend Heather's house. I get together with some folks on some Monday nights and we play tunes. I'm very lucky to have friends who know a lot of tunes from studying the fiddle, and old time tunes especially for many years. So a lot of these tunes are tunes I learned from Brenna and Shane and Heather and John, who I jam with. So this was from a jam and we played Old Billy Hell the way that they played. It comes from an album called Just Tunes and it's from Claire Milliner and Walt Kokum. You can buy that on their website. It's $15. It's called Just Tunes. This is a G major reel played in standard tuning. A common source for it is Bingham. Here's the little blurb from Fiddle Archive Old Billy Hell was a euphemism for the devil or hell itself. As in, we're going to raise Old Billy Hell or get drunker than Old Billy Hell.

Bruce Green did a field recording of Estill Bingham. Yeah, so it was Estill Bingham playing the fiddle tune in 1989. But it's a breakdown from Kentucky area Old Billy Hell. So we'll play this version for you now that we got from Brenna and Shane. You, you, you. Thank you for listening. You can find the music for today's tune at fiddlestudio.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.