Composing Fiddle Tunes (In Memory of Coleman)

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Welcome to the Fiddle Studio Podcast featuring tunes and stories from the world of traditional music and fiddling. I'm Megan Beller. And today I'll be bringing you a setting of In Memory of Coleman by Ed Reavy from a session at the Arthouse Bar in Baltimore, Maryland.

Hello, everyone, I hope you're well. Today I'm going to be talking about composing fiddle tunes, or writing your own tunes. I have been on a writing spree, you could say, I like to write tunes when I'm very alone.

Where I'm not, I'm not going to be interrupted, of course, I have three kids. So when I'm at home, the chances of me not being interrupted are very low. So I tend to write tunes. Other places, I've been going camping, to write tunes, or riding them away from home when I have some free time, doesn't have to be away from my home, but sort of requires that everyone else be gone. And that doesn't happen that much.

I have really been enjoying writing the tunes. And I was going to tell you a little bit about, we'll talk about some aspects of composing for fiddle tunes. We'll talk about either starting from a melody, or starting from chords, and writing intentionally versus just having something stuck in your head. And a little bit about how I capture the music that I compose.

I n terms of where to start and composing new music. I mean, I grew up playing the violin. And my other instrument was the flute. And I sang soprano. So I was very melody driven person. And when I started composing fiddle tunes, I always started from the melody, I never kind of had a progression of chords in mind. I was always starting melodic lines that I liked, kind of fitting them together into a fiddle tune.

Another thing about the way that I compose tunes is that I usually do so very intentionally, like I sit down, and I'm gonna write a tune. Oftentimes, I'll I'll be trying to write a tune that goes into another tune that already exists, or comes out of a tune. So like I have this traditional tune, I think, oh, it'd be great to have a really driving D Major reel after this. So I try to, to write that, I'd see a need for a tune, and I'll write a tune to fit that need. 

My father who, who writes a lot of fiddle tunes, when I've talked to him about it, he's kind of said, he'll be driving, and he'll get a tune stuck in his head. And oftentimes, he'll go and try to find the tune, and he can't find it. And sometimes he figures that he just wrote that. So it's a little different. 

Some people write tunes, from chords. I was talking a little bit to a pianist who I work with. His name is Marc Irwin. And he writes a lot of music, and a lot of different genres. And it sounds like he does a lot of writing from the chords or even when he's writing melodies, he's kind of hearing the chords along with it. Which he said, Well, you know, you're always, anytime there's a melody, there's also chords.

Well, you know, when you play the violin, and you don't play rhythm, you don't, you know, know the chords, and you don't necessarily hear the chords along with everything. So he was talking a little bit about starting with the chords. And the other place that I heard about this was two different places where I recently read or watched more about the professional music, business, pop music, and how they write and create songs. 

One was, I think, the Taylor Swift documentary, and one was a book by Rick Rubin. And both of them talked about a music producer, or somebody who was sort of supporting a songwriter, coming up with a chord progression, and kind of a groove to go along with it. And then giving that to a songwriter and having them come up with a little melody with words on top of that.

In the documentary about Taylor Swift, there were examples of that. So she had her producers giving her this progression with a groove, or even just a track with already drums on it. And then she's writing melodies to go with that. And Rick Rubin talked about the same thing, and he worked with a lot of different kinds of bands. 

I never thought about this. I think I'm gonna have to try it. Come up with a progression I like and then try writing a tune over it, just to understand it better. If you haven't really ever composed a tune, you can try playing questions and answers. If you go back to the improvisation podcast, I talked a little bit about how to dip your toe in the water making up music, and that's exactly how I do it with children and adult fiddle students to get them used to making up music and start to start to compose. 

You'll want to when you write a tune, you want to capture it. Do not assume that if it's good, you'll remember it. Yeah, I don't think there's any professional artist who creates music, who would say, Oh, sure, don't, don't write it down. If it's really good, you'll remember it. 

Never assume you'll remember anything, even if it's genius. So you can capture it. Most people just turn their phone on and they go to voice memos, and they do a voice memo of it. I actually sketch it with a pencil, I just have a tiny little staff and I write out the a part and the B part really quick, with a pencil. And then I have to make sure I don't lose the sketch on like the back of an envelope or something. 

I do put my tunes into music notation software, I use MuseScore it's cheap, it's really easy. I love it. You know, just be aware that your tunes will often sound like other tunes, or like each other. You know, lately, I've been writing tunes, and some of them just sound very similar. It's like, oh, this jig is just the reel I wrote the other day, but in a different key. And the notes are basically the same, the chord progressions the same, it happens. 

I try not to get down about that because then every now and then I will write a tune that's very unique from the others. So just keep writing a lot of tunes and you'll find the good ones. Yeah, I have a friend recently told me that their new album of mostly composed fiddle tunes came from writing just A Tune a Day in which they did during lockdown. Just write a tune every day and they said there was lots of garbage and there was good stuff in there. 

So that might be the best way to do it. You know, don't wait to be inspired by some magical fiddle tune that pops into your head while driving. Just just write it, write a tune every day or tune every week and see what you get. Yeah. Oh, let me know how it goes. 

The tune today is In Memory of Coleman. This is a real by Ed Reavy, it's a good opportunity, because I'd review wrote a lot of fiddle tunes. So I did look up a little bit about his process for composition, but Coleman refers to Michael Coleman, who was an Irish fiddler and dancer, and the Sligo style, lived in New York City recorded in his 20s as a fiddler, played a lot with piano. I love that. I should look up those recordings, always curious about the Irish piano. 

So Ed Reavy wrote this, this tune in, in memory of Michael Coleman. Ed Reavy was, of course, a fiddler, also born in Ireland, but lived in Philadelphia, one of the most popular composers of Irish Dance tunes of fiddle tunes, I would say, I don't think many people would argue with that. 

I looked it up. And it said, it said that his tunes came to him in moments of reflections, and that he had to be in a certain mood before he could start writing tunes. But the moods can kind of come on anytime, day or night, but most likely to occur when he was making music with other people. That would kind of get him in the mood to write a tune. 

And his son said that he would, he would think about Ireland, when he was writing music, he would think about his childhood there. Or even think about the problems that, that Ireland was having. This is the quote, "the trials and tribulations that the Irish people went through for the past 750 years. All that enters into music and naturally shows up in places". Went on talking about how his memories of Ireland and his thinking about the Irish people and what they've been through, enters into the Irish tunes that he is composing.

In terms of capturing his compositions, a lot of them were not written down immediately. It took Ed's son Joe, who started to collect his father's tunes, write them down, a lot of them would be recorded on homemade 78 records, Ed had a way to record them and his friend Tommy Caulfield recorded a bunch.

Joe would write them down and try to collect them that way. And many of them had been unnamed, too. They were just called Reavy's tunes. So when Joe and Ed started to collect them all, write them down, make recordings of them, that was when they named them as well. Always named my tunes right after I write them.

Okay, well, so we're gonna play this In Memory of Coleman. It's really interesting tune.

How to Handle Stage Fright (Maudabawn Chapel)

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Welcome to the Fiddle Studio Podcast featuring tunes and stories from the world of traditional music and fiddling. I'm Megan Beller. And today I'll be bringing you a setting of Maudabawn Chapel from a session at the Arthouse bar in Baltimore.

Today, I'm going to be talking about feeling nervous, and dealing with nerves. This is a topic I have worked on a lot, as a Suzuki teacher, my students, the kids at least, played a recital every December, and a recital every May, and they got nervous. So I had a lot of experience coaching kids through nervousness, here are some of the ways I would try to help them. I hope this could be helpful for you. I use these tips for myself. And I think it's good because I'm not naturally...I get nervous I, I get nervous about a lot of things. We'll talk about that. 

I usually start with the frog story. So this is to illustrate that nervousness is a feeling that comes from how you're thinking about something. I always tell kids, I say, I was on a hike with my own children, and we saw a frog. And one of my kids was thinking in their head. I love frogs, then I'll ask the kids, how do you think they felt I was like, oh, excited, happy, like so excited to see a frog. 

My other kid was thinking in their head. Because they were a little bit misinformed. They had just been studying poison dart frogs, and didn't realize that poison dart frogs don't live in Maryland and won't kill you on the spot. So that kid was actually thinking that frog could kill me. And so they were feeling very scared. 

Here's the frog, not hurting anyone. One person is super excited, the other person is very scared. So it was what they were thinking about it that was affecting how they were feeling. I tell that to kids, just not to say like, it's your own fault for thinking things that are making you nervous. But the nice thing about thinking is, it's a little bit like breathing, we do have some control over it. 

When you think something that gives you a nervous feeling. What I've read is that the actual chemical reaction in your body that gives you I mean, whatever happens if you feel like a little hot, or a little sweaty, flutter in your stomach, whatever those physical reactions are, it's kind of a short, like one to two minute chemical process. And then it's done. But you can keep thinking something over and over again, kind of spinning with it keep, keep recycling it and triggering the process over and over again.

When a kid is doing that, they're just thinking something that's making them nervous. And they they feel like they can't stop. I try to work with them to think something else. But it has to be something that they really believe they can't just think like I'm going to play great. I mean, if they don't believe that, it's not going to be helpful. 

So sometimes in a situation where they're going to perform, and they're feeling really nervous about that, and they're thinking, I'm going to screw up and my family's going to hate me or something like that, and they can't stop thinking about it. I'll try to find something for them to think like, do you feel physically safe? Do you feel like you're going to play in this recital? And things might go wrong, but your body is safe physically? 

If they're able to say like, Yes, I, I acknowledge that this might be hard for me emotionally, but physically, I am safe. There is no danger to me. Then I'll say why don't you try thinking and saying to yourself, I am safe. I am safe. And try to think that instead of Oh, my family's gonna hate me if I mess up. 

Another thing that I'll explain to students who are feeling nervous is that one feeling...if you can notice it in your body, let the feeling be there and not try to fight against it and panic about having the feeling then you avoid it turning into like a whole layer cake of feelings. 

And I tell them the story about me when I went on a college audition and made a mistake in the practice room warming up beforehand. So I had the thought, I'm not sure this is gonna go well. I'm not playing this well. Just feeling nervous. I didn't just let the nervousness be there and try to work to still perform through it. 

I kind of let myself panic over it like, Oh, if I'm nervous, I'm not going to play well, what if my parents are upset, I'm gonna let my teacher down. Like, what if I don't get into college and you know all these other feelings, worry, panic, shame, dread, like, you can just let it spin out of control. 

So, when a kid is feeling nervous, I like to have them identify it. I'm feeling nervous, feel it in their body. And think about the reason like, I'm feeling nervous, because I'm going to perform this piece, and I'm performing this piece because I'm part of this performance, I'm going to share my music, people are going to enjoy it. feeling nervous is part of that. But I'm doing it for a reason that I like, like I do want to perform in this concert. It's not great that it makes me feel nervous, but it'll be worth it. At least I hope, that's always the goal is that it's worth it. 

The quick and dirty way to deal with nervousness that I use is box breathing. I just used it at the dentist this morning. Breathing in, for instance, for a count of four, then you hold for for breathe it out for four, hold for four, and then I'll work up to maybe six or, or even eight, sometimes just a little bit of box breathing will get me through that two minute chemical reaction in my body. Sometimes I need to do it over and over again. 

I played a dance on Wednesday, in a situation that would probably make a lot of people nervous. I felt absolutely no sensation at all actually checked on my body was like, am I feeling nervous. And there was nothing I've played so many dances, I knew whatever happened, I would be fine. I don't know, I wasn't scared. 

But also last week, I did for the very first time I did live streams. I called it like a practice club. I was going to get on YouTube and practice. And people could practice along or just kind of have a practice buddy and talk in the chat a little bit. And I'd never done this before. 

And on Sunday, the first day that I did it, I had several hours of feeling nervous beforehand where it would come in my body kind of flood and I would do some box breathing and just saying to myself, I'm nervous because I'm gonna do this live stream. But I want to do the live stream and it's worth it even if I have to feel nervous. And it would kind of go away after a little while and then it would come back again when I was thinking about it. 

And on Monday, I really only felt it. And even Tuesday for 30 to 60 minutes before I was gonna turn on the webcam and do the live stream. And then I did one this Sunday just yesterday and I didn't feel nervous. I mean it was almost imperceptible. So it's good to remember that. A lot of times you feel nervous because you're just not sure what to expect. And that nervousness goes away very quickly. You just have to do something a couple of times and you know what to expect. You won't feel nervous. 

Oh I have gone on and on about this. Let's do our tune. 

This is a tune called Maudabawn Chapel and it's by Ed Reavy. I have also seen it called the Reefs. Ed Reavy was an Irish Fiddler, born 1898 in County Cavan, in the town Maudabawn. And this tune, Maudabawn Chapel was named for the local church. 

Ed Reavy moved to the US in 1912 and lived outside of Philadelphia, working as a plumber, and also as a musician he recorded in 1927 for the Victor record label. He was a prolific tune composer, more than 100 compositions published and his sons have said that he wrote probably more than 500 tunes. That's a lot of tunes. His most famous fiddle tune is maybe the Hunters House, but this is a very popular one. 

If you look it up on the session, I guess Kevin Burke played it and recorded it a little different from the way that Edie played it when he recorded it. And somebody asked Kevin about it. That must have been a funny email to get why is your aversion different? But he was a good sport about it. And he wrote back and said, you know, different strokes, basically different strokes for different folks. 

Kevin's version is specifically on the session if you want to go in there, Kevin said that his version was influenced by the musicians, Martin Burns and Brendan McGlinchey. It's a little bit of a long discussion of this tune on the session but we're gonna kind of play the version that's played around here in Baltimore. Yeah, here we go.

Thanks for listening, you can head over to fiddle studio.com to find sheet music for this tune and more information about becoming a member of fiddle studio. I'll be back next time with another tune for you have a wonderful day.