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 Farewell to Princeton, from a jam at the Peabody Heights Brewery in Baltimore, Maryland.
Hello, everyone, I hope you're well, today we're going to be talking about high and low 2s. But before we start, I don't know if you caught it. But I used a different name at the beginning of the podcast, I'm still the same person. I just am using a slightly different name. Meg Wobus this was my name when I was younger. And after I got married, and I got older, I went more by Megan Beller. But I am transitioning back to Meg Wobus. So at the moment, we're going with Meg Wobus Beller.
What is the deal with high and low twos? And why are we always talking about them, at least for beginners? This is a great question. by twos I mean the middle finger on the left hand. Now, some people use the letters to talk about the notes on fiddle, and some people use numbers. And there can be times when it feels interchangeable. Like 1 is a B, and a B is a 1. But it's good to remember, they're not interchangeable.
It's easy to remember this like on the piano where you can use your pointer finger to play any note. So a C can be well on the piano, the pointer fingers, the 2. But you could play a C with a 2 or a D with a 2 or an E with a 2. Sometimes my children play the piano just like this, everything just with their 2.
On the violin, I mean, it's true that we most often are playing on the A string, a B with our 1. So we start to think 1 means B, most of us for most of the time, that is what it means. But we do play other notes with that 1, for instance, B flat or in positions, all kinds of other notes.
So in general, we have fewer options. But that can mean because most of the time 1 plays B and 3 plays D on the A string, that when we talk about the 2 beginners get confused, because they're like, whoa, the 2, the C sharp is the 2. And we have to say, well, the C natural is also the 2. And they're not just variations on the same note, they are two different notes.
Can you tell that I've given this lecture before? The high 2, and the low 2 are ways to play the C sharp and the C natural, and they are two completely different notes. And your second finger, your middle finger on the fiddle is going to move around more than the other fingers. So you could play for years and not have to deal too much with low 1s or high 3s.
But your first year playing fiddle, you're going to have to learn how to move back and forth between the what we call the high 2, which is the 2 right next to the 3 in the C sharp position, or on the E string, it would be the G sharp. And the low 2, which is the 2 right next to the index finger right next to your 1, that would be the C natural or on the E string, the G natural.
They are two different notes. It's not a C whatever, there's no middle 2 or medium 2, it has to be high or low, whatever you call it, whether you call it by a number or a note or just the sound of it. It's either high or low. And those are the notes and there's not a note in between. If we're talking about Western music.
You don't have to understand that theory, if you're like 'a sharps key is like I can't even think about that'. You don't have to think about it, you can basically just go by high or low 2 or if you can hear the difference between the notes, you know, put your your middle finger in the place that sounds like the right note on that string for that tune.
The reason I talk about high and low to so much is that it's a great shortcut for my students, you know, I can tell them for Old Joe Clark, it's a low 2 on the E string and a high 2 on the A string. And that way if they start playing the whole tune with high 2 with a whole tune with low 2 and doesn't sound right. That's a way to let them know like this is the position and it's different on one string or the other string. So you're going to have to keep adjusting the position of that finger.
If you just prefer to listen and kind of match up your hand with what you're hearing what it sounds good to you. That works too. High and low 2s. Something to think about.
Our tune for today is Farewell to Princeton. This is a tune by Clyde Davenport. Born in 1921. He was an old time fiddler and banjo player out of Kentucky, Monticello, Kentucky. He played fiddle many, many years. In 1992, he was awarded the National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts. So they have a great article on him. You can look it up.
And died in 2020 at the age of 98. Oh my goodness, we should all live so long, and play the fiddle so much. He, when he was nine, he made his own fiddle from barn boards, oh my goodness, using hair from his family's mule for bow strings. And he just started basically learning tunes that he heard his father play. I relate to that.
He also became interested in the banjo, an instrument his father also played at 11 he made his own banjo with an iron band off of a wagon wheel and. I'm gonna just read this because I don't understand it 'trimmed out a green hickory hoop, bolted the ends together with a slat and set it up to season. He paid a dime for a groundhog hide. attached to the frame with carpet tacks carved a hickory neck and had his first banjo'.
Holy cow. This is dedication. If any of you are are having trouble getting your instrument out of the case, just think about little 11 year old Clyde Davenport one year older than my youngest making himself This banjo. Oh my gosh.
There's a collection of tunes from his playing from the recordings of Ray Alden. Definitely look these up. It's a beautiful set of tunes. I saw a great video of Emily Shaad playing this at Clifftop. It's another one of those Clifftop tunes, and we're gonna we're gonna take a crack at it here. Farewell to Princeton. Princeton, West Virginia, I think. Yeah, here we go.
