Fiddle and …
Music of the frontiers . . . |
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My facebook page may be more current.
2023 – Feb 5, Unitarian Farm barn, Dallas, 1-5, with video links to John Cobb and others.
2022 Calendar —
Wed, Mar 17 (St. Pat’s Day) 6 pm – solo, Opening for Pirate Jenny, the Pirate Rock Band! Alberta St. Pub, PDX
Sun, Apr 17. – Dallas, zoom from/with John Cobb Eco Farm, 4 – 5 pm…
Sat. April 30 – Independence Heritage Museum Opening: solo, 1-3 pm (break for ribbon cutting at 1:15)
Sat. May 7 – Sheep-to-Shawl at Mission Mill, Salem, 10:15-11:30, solo; later with the OOTFA fiddlers.
Sat, May 14 – Polk County History Museum, Rickreall; solo, 12:30 – 4 pm
Sat Jun 4 (??) – 9-10 a.m, for Helmick Park Anniversary of Oregon’s 1st state park ?? (fiddlin’ was rained out!)
Mon., Jul 4 – 1:45-4 pm at Newell House, at SW corner of Champoeg State Park
Sat. Aug 27 – Brownsville Pioneer Days – wandering minstrel, 1-4 pm
Sat. Sep 17 – 4:30-5:30 for Independence Wine Crawl; Main Street in front of the Mural.
Sat Oct 1 – sometime between 2 & 6, tba: Monmouth City Park, for Melanesian celebration (!)
Sat Nov 19 – Waldport, 1 – 4 pm; playing for unveiling of Louis Southworth statue
Dec 12 @ – danzas por la Senora de Guadelupe. Times t.b.a.
open jams included : 2nd Sundays, 1-4 intense fiddle tunes jam, back room of Knox Presbyterian in Keizer
— 2nd Wednesdaiys, 6:30 -8:30 low-key general jam, Monmouth Sr. Center
… a few leftovers of 2021:
4th of July — A short set of Patriotic songs; America the Beautiful, a military medley, the important verses of This Land is Your Land & Ochs’ Power and the Glory… among others. Riverview Park, 4:30 – 5 pm. With Nathan Anderson of MusicalIndependence.
July 10 Sat , 11-1; for Sons & Daughters of the Oregon Trail, at Champoeg.
Nov 11, Friday, 11 am – solo, Vets’ Day, for a retirement home.,. inc. all the military anthems– “Who knows this one?” and bits of Oregon history.
Wed. Dec. 8, 6 pm : 30 min. solo set; Opening for Pirate Jenny, Pirate Rock! Alberta St. Pub, PDX
Dec 12 – danzas por la Senora de Guadelupe, in Albany at 11:30, in Independence at 4 pm at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church.
A few square dances were scheduled but cancelled, as super-spreader events.
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GENERAL MUSINGS: … a few old video song links near the bottom of this page … notes on lessons …
Recent memories: Summer of 2018 was nice. Fiddled about half of all Sunny Saturday Mornings at the Independence Saturday Market. On that first warm spring day I did 2 1/2 hours without a break, as wide a variety of songs and tunes, from show tunes to hoedowns: after each tune or song, straight to the next, but changing key, and genre, each time and alternating between tunes and songs with lyrics. Later, I wrote down a tune list, over 60 of them, all I could remember… tunelist here.
Elements that made Old Time Fiddle. A program at Brown House, Stayton, June 2018: First, Mark Babson did a set on violin, sampling baroque/classical/romantic violin pieces. My contribution sampled 10+ different threads that combined to make old-time fiddle, starting with the oldest tune, Soldier’s Joy, how it can be played many ways but is still the same; a tune sample in an open tuning; the Scots/Scots-Irish migrations to Appalachia and the Mixolydian mode of the bagpipe chanter; the influence of African-American fiddlers; their synthesis in a tune learned in the New River Valley; for contrast, a regular New England/Eastern Canada tune; a French Canadian tune; in response to a question, stories about the Metis fiddlers; the influx of rags; swing; Scandinavian; a Norteno tune; and, for where do all these tunes come from, why I made up “The Swallows”, and played that. A one-hour romp through Old-Time Fiddle as I see it.) A hit. (That Metis question inspired me to work, for a while, on Red River Jig. Tricky! Doesn’t feel exactly like a jig to me, but like a regular 4/4 measure plus a half-measure, repeated many times very quickly. Hard! — and needs a lot more work!)
The St. Paul Rodeo July 3 was fun. Opened for, and played breaks for, The Bronco Billy Band. No firm set list: tunes whose titles mentioned large animals alternated with old country-western songs, finishing with Bill Staines’ great rodeo rider’s lament, Sweet Wyoming Home, yo-de-lay-ee oo… which Bronco Billy had never heard of (but all went well).
The “Steam Punk Jane Austen Ball” near Halloween was another kick — dozens of extraordinary costumes wending through the hospitality tables in the formal Grand March around the upper floor of the Mission Mill Building, straight into squares and reels.. I love this stuff!
Poke here for 2017
poke here for some of 2016
Lots of old calendars here. … & a few old photos
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Solo fiddling and calling, an 1800’s Reel for a sesquicentennial party at Newell House by Champoeg, with authentic 1859 dinner and dance. – Suzi on the left. You should have seen that gray cloth skirt swirl when the lady twirled in the center of “Bird in the Cage”… touched everyone’s ankles! |
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LOCAL JAMS: ...all suspended in 2020… resuming 2022
Appalachian fiddle tunes: A nice Appalachian fiddle tunes jam in Keizer on the second Sunday of each month — Restarted! Feb 2022. Inquire here, or of Roger Applegate. Here’s a few recent tunelists. About half of the core group of 15 or so musicians show up at any particular jam.
General fiddle jam: in Corvallis, 1st Thursdays of each month; at Old World Deli, 7 pm; hosted by OOTFA … A good varied jam. Hasn’t restarted yet.
Appalachian fiddle tunes: in Corvallis, was on 3rd Thursdays of each month; at Old World Deli, 7 pm; hosted by John Luna (when he’s not in town, it is not)
Second Wednesday each month, a few friends practice/perform for a small but regular audience at the Monmouth Senior Center, 6:30 – 8pm; musicians and listeners welcome!
General jam: Guthrie Park, 3 miles south of Dallas at 4320 Kings Valley Hwy, has resumed Dec 2021; it ran every Friday night, 6:30-10 pm, for 28 years (I never missed a Friday in the first ten years or so). [[Note — I did stop for a while in 2019-20 after a lead musician accidentally dropped her loaded pistol on the stage… I haven’t resumed after covid, and may not.] A large jam – 10 to 20 musicians each week, a large and faithful audience of folks listening or dancing. Strict rotation around the circle of musicians, playing country-western, older pop, folk, fiddle tunes and waltzes. If weather is nice, fiddlers may move out to the porch.
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MEMOIR:
Canora: Notes from Perfect-bound pb, 8.5″, 254 pp Some nice comments from readers Back cover shows our music room, |
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Ancient History: |
—-> “An Appalachian Christmas” with Jane Keefer and Tim Crosby was a fun gig!
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A few nice verses of June Apple filmed by Ray Leach at Centralia Campout August 2005, trio with Adam Price and Tom Peloso (of Modest Mouse):
These are with Adam on banjo, at Northwest Folklife Festival, Seattle, Memorial Day Weekend 2007:
These videos, and a few others, are on YouTube, some with nice comments – poke here, or just enter the words “old time fiddle” and see what comes up!—
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Two CD’s:
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LESSONS:
I’ve taught beginning violin to advanced fiddle for many years. Former students have become players and bandleaders. Also enjoyed presenting a workshop “fiddle for violinists,” seven times at NW Folklife in Seattle and for the Oregon Oldtime Fiddlers annual convention in Rickreall.
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From the desk window in Early Spring . . . . . . | Same thing in June, with organic Jerseys . . . . . . | Hey, Stop Scaring My Cows! |