Hello, everyone, I hope you are well. Today I'm going to talk about Old-Time style. So the things that people do while they're fiddling to make it sound like Old-Time.
I am from Central New York. I am a Yankee, as I have been called occasionally down here in Maryland. So when I play Old-Time, I do my best to sound authentic.
And sometimes I think I get it, I was playing in an old time jam the other day. And a woman next to me said, Well, I want to play old time like you. Like, I'll take it.
I do my best to use the elements that I'm aware of that I've been taught that I hear when I listen to old time, use it in my playing, and I've taught it of course to many students. So I'm gonna give you my take on it. But, you know, I'm not from the mountains.
You know, there is a thriving old time scene down here in Maryland. I play old time music mostly at the local jam in the neighborhood right next door to mine, which is led by Brad and Ken Kolodner. They are well known in the fiddle and the old time scene.
Brad's a great banjo player plays fiddle great, plays a lot of stuff. Ken plays fiddle and hammer dulcimer. They lead these great retreats, look them up and support them. They have built the community down here into a wonderful, thriving community. And I get to benefit from that, because I get to go play a lot of old time and get better at it. Hopefully.
Here's what to think about when you're thinking about old time style. There are some modifications that you will see more commonly with old time players. The age old question, how is a fiddle different from a violin? I answered this question a lot. And the answer is it's not.
But the exception to that rule is old time where you may have players who prefer a slightly flatter bridge. So it's easier to drone and play double stops. It's much more common to have four tuning screws, fine tuners at the top of the violin by the bridge. If you're trying to cross tune, change the strings on the violin to line up in a different key. You don't have to do that just with the pegs. Yeah, you can do it with the screws.
The other thing I'll say is that when you see someone who brought two fiddles to a gig, or a jam, it's usually old time. They have those double cases, you know, like they've got a fiddle in A and a fiddle in G. Wow.
So we'll start with the right arm, the bow arm, and old time style for your bowing is very heavy on accents. On the two and four, that's pretty common in a lot of fiddle styles, and dance music can have a little bit of a swing to it, It doesn't always.
There are a lot of drones. If you want to play old time work on your droning. Get your drone string below drone string above, get used to droning. Get a feel for what strings to drone in what key.
In terms of slurs, there, there is a fair amount of slurring. It's not you know, like French Canadian where it's a lot of separate bows and kind of jerky, jerky in a good way. But in old time, you'll find it a little smoother, more slurring. I will use the Georgia shuffle mostly, yeah, for my bowing with old time.
If we move over to the left hand, there's a particular kind of double stop that you mostly find only an old time and that's sliding into the four. You know, if you play a four on that a string, it's an E, you can play it as a double stop with the open string so that that's a Unison is just two Es at the same time.
If you slide into it, you get a very crunchy e against an almost E sound. That is a very old time sound. You could play Irish fiddle for years and never use your pinkie, but for old time you want to dust your pinky off, build some strength in it, and start using your pinky.
Cross tuning can help, maybe you you're using the three against the open string more, but think you're gonna end up using your pinkie, a lot for double stops and old time. I also slide into my one all the time, almost every tune, there's some note that I'm sliding into my one on, if I'm not sliding into it, I might be doing a hammer on just slurring from the note below.
So those are two very common old time ornaments. And rhythmically depends on the tune. But with a lot of tunes add in an anticipation or two, not all the time. But a lot of tunes I like to throw in an anticipation. So rather than starting a note that starts right on the first beat of the measure, I'll hit it on the fourth beat of the measure before and accent it, it anticipates the note.
So you've got your double stops, including your pinky, your slides, hammer ons, and anticipations. And if you've got all that happening, and you're droning and you're accenting, you're off beats, I think it's gonna sound pretty old time.
I you know, I made some playlists for my students of old time tunes. So if you go to Megan Beller, or Fiddle Studio, on Spotify, or on YouTube, just check out my playlist and listen to it. Look for those stylistic elements.
Our tune for today is a setting of Little Billy Wilson. This is a reel in a that we played at the old time jam at the R House.
Looking around for the history of this tune. There were two players that I saw mentioned. One was Uncle Jimmy Thompson, who played it in 1926. He he played mostly at the Grand Ole Opry and he was sounds like a pretty eccentric guy. The Wikipedia article use the word cantankerous and mentioned that he would get into kind of spats with the organizers down there at the Grand Ole Opry, especially about his habit of drinking a jug of whiskey before performing to loosen up his bow arm.
I mean, if it loosens your bow arm. He also boasted that he could play 1000 fiddle tunes and could fiddle the bugs off a tader vine. Uncle Jimmy Thompson so he played this tune.
And Eck Robertson also played this Alexander Campbell Robertson. He was a fiddler born 1887 In Arkansas grew up in the South. So that would have been during Reconstruction. His father was a fiddler, I believe a musical he had a musical family and also a Confederate veteran.
So one of the ways that he got his break in the South was traveling around and apparently playing fiddle for these Confederacy reunion events. When he was a little older, he recorded with his wife played guitar and his kids played the tenor banjo.
They ended up in New York recording for the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1929. And I'm told that those were some of the first commercial fiddle country recordings, and he did a Brilliancy medley. I wonder if that's the same brilliancy that I know? In the Brilliancy medley he played, Little Billy Wilson. So now we're gonna play it for you here. Fun little tune.
