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fiddlepogo - Posted - 06/10/2013: 10:48:08
OTJ just encouraged me to "Go learn Catlettsburg".
Well, NOTHING on YouTube, my usual first stop.
At least nothing under that name.
Did a search, Slipper Hill came up with a recording of Ed Haley doing it.
I actually kind of like the tune- it's a C tune, and I could use another C tune- I only have four!!
And I'm liking the key of C for fiddle tunes more than ever before.
But here's the Ed Haley recording:
slippery-hill.com/c/Catlettsburg.mp3
The A part sounds easy enough, and easy enough to get in my head-
the B part is something else though.
And like all of Ed Haley's recordings that I know of, the fidelity is abominable- there's as much hiss as there is fiddle!!!
fiddlepogo - Posted - 06/10/2013: 11:34:41
Thanks for the reminder! (Fiddler's Companion- DOH.... why didn't I think of that?)
And yeah, Brad Leftwich has a good version.
Oh, the IRONY!!! OTJ makes a suggestion to learn Catlettsburg to "shake me out of my pattern bowing stupor",
and the trail leads almost immediately to Brad Leftwich!!!
Plus a lot of the phrases, definitely the A part START with Nashville Shuffle.
A lot of sawstroke too, though.
DougD - Posted - 06/10/2013: 11:55:36
Speaking of Brad, I just bought a mint, unopened copy of the Plank Road String Band LP "Vocal and Instrumental Blend" this past weekend. Good version of "Cherry River Rag." No pattern bowing on it that I'm aware of though.
OTJunky - Posted - 06/10/2013: 12:02:44
There are three parts to it.
I think Gary Lee Moore put up his version of it three or four years ago. Don't know if it's still on his home page - but I think he omitted the 3rd part.
The trick to this tune is the way Haley plays with the unison E - hitting a D on the A string with the third finger, sliding it up to E against the open E string, then playing on the A string in 2nd position while sounding the open E string. At least that's the way I hear it. I think Haley went to 2nd position a lot when playing C tunes. He was known for being able to slide up to 2nd and/or 3rd positions then slide down again. I've no idea how he did that given the way he held the fiddle guess that's one of the reasons he's a legend... 
I think the 3rd part goes up to either 4th or 5th position - depending on how well you can use your pinky.
So this tune's a challenge but once it's nailed Haley's "Cherry River Rag", and "Dunbar" are just low hanging fruit.
--OTJ
Edited by - OTJunky on 06/10/2013 12:09:38
ironworker - Posted - 06/10/2013: 13:17:39
Gary Lee plays it with Gayle Hopson, Gayle posted it here a while back.(click on Music Search in Media Archive).
Warning: unless you've got time to kill, don't look around on Gayle's page. I've spent hours that i couldn't afford listening to what he's posted there.
fiddlepogo - Posted - 06/10/2013: 13:32:12
quote:
Originally posted by OTJunky
There are three parts to it.
I think Gary Lee Moore put up his version of it three or four years ago. Don't know if it's still on his home page - but I think he omitted the 3rd part.
The trick to this tune is the way Haley plays with the unison E - hitting a D on the A string with the third finger, sliding it up to E against the open E string, then playing on the A string in 2nd position while sounding the open E string. At least that's the way I hear it. I think Haley went to 2nd position a lot when playing C tunes. He was known for being able to slide up to 2nd and/or 3rd positions then slide down again. I've no idea how he did that given the way he held the fiddle guess that's one of the reasons he's a legend...
I think the 3rd part goes up to either 4th or 5th position - depending on how well you can use your pinky.
So this tune's a challenge but once it's nailed Haley's "Cherry River Rag", and "Dunbar" are just low hanging fruit.
--OTJ
The way I hear it on Slippery Hill, with the Ed Haley recording, it's a two part tune, and sounds like it's first position...
the second part seems LOWER than the first part.
Brad Leftwich DOES do it as a three part tune though, and is definitely getting up there.
Well, the way you're talking, if you know this tune's a challenge, and you know that Cherry River Rag and Dunbar are just low hanging fruit, you must have learned ALL THREE.... you don't suppose we could HEAR them???
One odd little serendipity.... since Doug mentioned Fiddler's Companion, and FC mentions J. P. Fraley, I went looking for something on YouTube by J.P. Fraley that would include Catlettsburg.
Didn't find it yet.... BUT...
First thing I noticed was that J. P. on the first tune I listened to looked/sounded like a downbower.
Secondly, he used WHOLE BUNCHES of Syncoshuffle in that tune! (Syncopation- YES!!!!
)
Thirdly... his fiddling had never quite grabbed me, even though I had his Wild Rose of the Mountain, and a friend took me all the way across the U.S. in the back of his pickup/camper combo to the J.P. Fraley Festival!!!
THIS listen.... I can't figure it out... I just connected with it deep inside, and I think I'll be listening to a whole lot more J.P. Fraley!!!
I think maybe my taste in fiddling had to mature a bit.
Also, I think his bowing was way too advanced and way too subtle for me to read back in the '70's.
( You don't suppose that I myself could of had a case of "sour grapes" on J.P.'s fiddling??? Naw, couldn't be...
)
Now, it seems much more within reach.
fiddledawg - Posted - 06/10/2013: 13:43:49
John Hartford has a version based on Ed Haley's playing on the album " Speed of the Old Longbow". You can buy the MP3 for 99 cents on Amazon.
KCFiddles - Posted - 06/10/2013: 13:48:29
Here's a pretty good transcription. Catlettsburg
Seems pretty easy to me, comparable to the Money Musk I just posted but fewer variations. I just played through it, and it seems pretty easy to slide up a step from third for the high parts in the B variation, and then reach back for the A with the first finger on the way down. Heck, it's mostly just scales and arpeggios! BTW, everything with a quarter note followed by two eighth notes is NOT a Nashville shuffle (i.e. William Tell Overure) and if you played the opening notes of this tune that way, you'd lose the whole point of it.
Money Musk is another good tune to get away from pattern bowing. The way Walters plays it is all sawstroke, as far as I can tell from listening to it enough to transcribe it, and playing along with it enough to verify the transcription.
Guess I'll have to add Catlettsburg to the "learn" list. Thanks, Paul!
BTW - I had to learn to slide up with the pinky on some Kenny Baker song I learned a while back. As far as I can tell, it's about equal to me whether to slide the third finger up or start low and slide the pinky up. On this one, since you are playing a C natural with the second finger it seems simpler just to start low with the pinky, slide up from indeterminate D or Eb to E
Edited by - KCFiddles on 06/10/2013 13:55:07
OTJunky - Posted - 06/10/2013: 14:31:01
quote:
Originally posted by fiddlepogo
The way I hear it on Slippery Hill, with the Ed Haley recording, it's a two part tune, and sounds like it's first position...
Haley plays all three parts. It's just that as you say the recording quality is so awful that's hard to listen to the whole recording and pick out the third part.
It's pretty much the same for the 3rd part of his "Brushy Fork of John's Creek". I listened to that recording for months before finally realizing there are three parts to it.
That said, Haley had astounding technique; and musical taste; and could - and did - improvise at speed. If somebody said there isn't really a third part to either of those tunes but instead Haley was just improvising what he felt at the moment it would be hard to argue with that since we only one recording of him playing those tunes.
I'm pretty sure though that he really wanted three parts to Catlettsburg - he made up that tune for that town. Probably the folks there threw a lot of coins into his fiddle case over the years...
--OTJ
OTJunky - Posted - 06/10/2013: 14:40:48
quote:
Originally posted by KCFiddles
Here's a pretty good transcription. Catlettsburg
If I were you Michael, I'd take a stab a transcribing it myself. I don't think that transcription is close enough to really capture the bowing on the B-part. And I hear some different notes on the G chord in the A-part as well.
At first blush, Haley can sound like a hornpipe fiddler because he's so smooth. But he liked to rock the bow a bit on the low strings when playing in C so I don't hear straight scales where that transcription has them and I think Haley's version has more notes in in the B-part than the transcription does.
--OTJ
KCFiddles - Posted - 06/10/2013: 14:57:41
quote:
Originally posted by OTJunky
quote:
Originally posted by KCFiddles
Here's a pretty good transcription. Catlettsburg
If I were you Michael, I'd take a stab a transcribing it myself. I don't think that transcription is close enough to really capture the bowing on the B-part. And I hear some different notes on the G chord in the A-part as well.
At first blush, Haley can sound like a hornpipe fiddler because he's so smooth. But he liked to rock the bow a bit on the low strings when playing in C so I don't hear straight scales where that transcription has them and I think Haley's version has more notes in in the B-part than the transcription does.
--OTJ
Is that recording above the only one there is of Haley? I can slow it down and EQ out a lot of the noise, but it's still pretty hard to hear clearly.
Edited by - KCFiddles on 06/10/2013 14:58:30
DougD - Posted - 06/10/2013: 16:13:10
I think that's a sample - about half the recording that was on the Rounder album "Grey Eagle." So there's more, but the quality is about the same. No other recording that I know of.
There is a transcription in the Milliner-Koken Collection, but I don't have it handy right now to check.
BTW, I don't think the transcription KCFiddles linked to is too bad. Following along with the full recording, Haley plays things differently each time around, but that doesn't seem like such a bad place to start.
Also, the third part (or variation) doesn't start until about 1:45, so its not in the sample at Slippery Hill. That's where it goes up high and stays there for a spell. If you look around online a bit I think you can find the full recording.
Edited by - DougD on 06/10/2013 16:28:23
KCFiddles - Posted - 06/10/2013: 16:54:26
I found it on Amazon, and yes, there is a LOT more to it. Sound is a little cleaner, but not much. Only way to learn it for real is to transcribe it, at least for me, so I guess I've got another project.
Good tunes. Guy reminds me a bit of Eck.
bsed - Posted - 06/10/2013: 18:26:31
I have Cattlettsburg tabbed out with Ed Haley as the source. It's a rag in 3 parts. Key of C. I play it pretty well, I guess.
Edited by - bsed on 06/10/2013 18:42:06
fiddlepogo - Posted - 06/10/2013: 22:51:00
quote:
Originally posted by OTJunky
quote:
Originally posted by fiddlepogo
The way I hear it on Slippery Hill, with the Ed Haley recording, it's a two part tune, and sounds like it's first position...
Haley plays all three parts. It's just that as you say the recording quality is so awful that's hard to listen to the whole recording and pick out the third part.
It's pretty much the same for the 3rd part of his "Brushy Fork of John's Creek". I listened to that recording for months before finally realizing there are three parts to it.
That said, Haley had astounding technique; and musical taste; and could - and did - improvise at speed. If somebody said there isn't really a third part to either of those tunes but instead Haley was just improvising what he felt at the moment it would be hard to argue with that since we only one recording of him playing those tunes.
I'm pretty sure though that he really wanted three parts to Catlettsburg - he made up that tune for that town. Probably the folks there threw a lot of coins into his fiddle case over the years...
--OTJ
Well, maybe I need to try another player, or download it and play it, because it has stopped every time after the second low part... AABBA or AABBAA.
DougD - Posted - 06/10/2013: 23:06:12
I'll try and clarify what I wrote above. The original recording as issued on the Rounder LP is about three minutes long. The third part (or variation) where he shifts up high, begins at about 1:45. The excerpt at Slippery Hill is only the first 1:30, so it doesn't include the third part. A different player won't help - you need to find the full recording to hear the third part.
fiddlepogo - Posted - 06/10/2013: 23:47:28
quote:
Originally posted by KCFiddles
I found it on Amazon, and yes, there is a LOT more to it. Sound is a little cleaner, but not much. Only way to learn it for real is to transcribe it, at least for me, so I guess I've got another project.
Good tunes. Guy reminds me a bit of Eck.
Thanks, Michael- that'll get me started. I tend to learn from 2 or 3 sources anyway... pick what I like best from each version to get my own. I definitely like Haley's A part, and can hear it clearly. But even listening to Brad Leftwich's version, I can tell I'll need help (like notation) on the 2nd and 3rd parts.
KCFiddles - Posted - 06/11/2013: 08:14:43
I got Catlettsburg downladed to my home computer last night, and got it up on Transcribe. EQ'd a lot of the noise out, slowed it down by half. There are 12 sections to the tune, with a fair amount of repeats. Spent some time playing along, getting the feel of the tune. It's easy to play so far, but it's gonna be hard to transcribe because of the loss of detail in the recording. Just have to play the phrases that are hard to hear a bunch of different ways and see what sounds right. As I start to figure the tune out, I'm pretty sure that none of the existing transcriptions are very good, but time will tell.
fiddlepogo - Posted - 06/11/2013: 10:13:56
quote:
Originally posted by ironworker
Gary Lee plays it with Gayle Hopson, Gayle posted it here a while back.(click on Music Search in Media Archive).
Warning: unless you've got time to kill, don't look around on Gayle's page. I've spent hours that i couldn't afford listening to what he's posted there.
Here it is:
fiddlehangout.com%2Fmyh...cID%3D3739">fiddlehangout.com%2Fmyh...cID%3D3739" target="_blank">hangoutstorage.com/jukebox.asp...ID%3D3739
Edited by - fiddlepogo on 06/11/2013 10:15:33
IdleHands - Posted - 06/11/2013: 12:35:02
I'll upload the version as annotated in the Phillips Collection in a couple days. I played it yesterday for few minutes. Im playing the 1-3 slide with 2-4 though, and just staying in place. Good pinky exercize.
KCFiddles - Posted - 06/11/2013: 13:16:51
quote:
Originally posted by IdleHands
I'll upload the version as annotated in the Phillips Collection in a couple days. I played it yesterday for few minutes. Im playing the 1-3 slide with 2-4 though, and just staying in place. Good pinky exercize.
That's copyrighted. Might want to get permission first. Stacy Phillips makes his living, in part, from selling those transcriptions.
OTJunky - Posted - 06/11/2013: 14:36:06
quote:
Originally posted by KCFiddles
I'm pretty sure that none of the existing transcriptions are very good, but time will tell.
I suspect you're right.
I've spent a lot of time over the past year or so listening and working on a certain set of C-tunes that involve both bow rocking on the lower two strings and "jumping" from the course to the fine strings.
The tune set that I've been pondering includes.
Haley's "Dunbar"
Haley's "Cherry River Rag"
Haley's "Catlettsburg"
Skillet Lickers' "Rocky Pallet"
Skillet Lickers' "Hell Broke Loose in Georgia".
Having thought about it for a day or two I think my impression of what Haley plays on the Catlettsburg B-Part is probably an amalgam of my listening to both Dunbar and Catlettsburg with maybe a little of the B-Part of Rocky Pallet thrown in for good measure. I guess I need to go back through those tunes again and make some more bowing decisions. As you've noted, the recording quality on the Haley recordings is awful - not only the technology (wire recorder I think) but also the background "noise" and the overall acoustics. I think those recordings were made at family gatherings with various family members playing along on various instruments. It could be there's no way to get an exact transcription and the best we can do is try to figure out his conceptual approach to fiddling, then try to apply it. I guess in the end that's what we want to do anyway.
That said, I hope you can pull a better transcription out of it. You'll be doing us all a service.
As far as I can tell "Hell Broke Loose in Georgia" is really just "Streak o' Lean, Streak o' Fat" with a fourth part added. I've heard Betse Ellis play "Streak o' Lean, Streak o' Fat" as well so that's another source. Her fiddling always seems to push me forward a bit.
That low part of "Hell Broke Loose in Georgia" is really a canonical piece of OT fiddling - how to "vamp" on a C-chord. Haley does something like it on "Dunbar". I imagine the sound of it to be the sound of Sherman's soldiers marching on to burn the next farm after committing the sound of the third part's artillery to destroy the last one.
Though not generally recognized I've heard it said - and I agree - that there seems to be a deep connection between playing in C and playing in A with the fiddle tuned to AEAC#. The portal between them is that you can play the unison third on the high strings and create a dissonance there if you want to. Among the folk tales in OT fiddling history is that "Grey Eagle" was originally set in C along with it's companion piece "Waggoner". Cyril Stinnett and some other fiddlers have recorded it in C. But over the years it's migrated to A which is where most fiddlers play it today.
I sometimes wonder if it migrated there through AEAC#. Waggoner won the race and Grey Eagle lost it so it's easy to believe Grey Eagle wanted a plaintive sound in the B part where a hint of F# minor is still preserved.
Uhhh - sorry for the rambling. Got started and couldn't stop. Hard to find people to talk to about stuff like this.
--OTJ
Edited by - OTJunky on 06/11/2013 14:37:36
MikeyBoy - Posted - 06/11/2013: 15:36:06
"Uhhh - sorry for the rambling. Got started and couldn't stop. Hard to find people to talk to about stuff like this."
No apology needed, as far as I am concerned. I'm interested!
KCFiddles - Posted - 06/11/2013: 16:19:55
I learn the bones of a tune first, so that I can halfway play along, then I just break it down phrase by phrase and beat by beat if I have to, slowing it down til artifacts start showing up, speeding up again until I think I have the sense of it. Once I think I have the notes down, I play along with the recording, listening to see if there's anything that doesn't make sense. It's amazing what you can hear when you are tired & come back the next day and find it's all wrong!
At any rate, after I've played along with a section and gone back and forth a bit I let things sit for a day or so and come back with fresh ears. It's really easy to read stuff into bad audio, and it' really easy to miss stuff as well. Once I've got something that sounds right, I put it all together, learn to play it at a reasonable tempo, and see how it flows compared to the original. If there's an easier or better way, I'd like to hear about it, but tunes have their own logic and even if you don't get it exactly right note for note, if you stick with the logic, you can get very close. OTOH, One of the things I like about a lot of Missouri tunes is that they go off in unexpected directions and aren't so predictable as a lot of other genres.
DougD - Posted - 06/11/2013: 16:47:23
I think Idlehands meant he's going to post his playing of the tune based on that transcription, not the transcription itself - but I could be wrong.
I'd help you all with some of this, but I'm busy working on Lowe Stokes' "Billy in the Lowground." Trying to help Peggy confound the Bluegrassers!
Also, I think those Ed Haley recordings (which were discs: oldtimemusic.com/FHOFHaley.html ) were loved near to death by the family before they got into Rounder's hands. The conversion to .mp3 hasn't helped them any either.
Edited by - DougD on 06/11/2013 16:56:39
fiddlepogo - Posted - 06/11/2013: 17:13:50
quote:
Originally posted by DougD
I think Idlehands meant he's going to post his playing of the tune based on that transcription, not the transcription itself - but I could be wrong.
I'd help you all with some of this, but I'm busy working on Lowe Stokes' "Billy in the Lowground." Trying to help Peggy confound the Bluegrassers!
Also, I think those Ed Haley recordings (which were discs: oldtimemusic.com/FHOFHaley.html ) were loved near to death by the family before they got into Rounder's hands. The conversion to .mp3 hasn't helped them any either.
That last sentence is a good point- I'm amazed how much my recordings thin down when exported from Audacity to .mp3. If a recording is already on the thin side, there may not be much left.
I wish .ogg was the standard, but, wishing won't make it so.
IdleHands - Posted - 06/11/2013: 19:52:57
quote:
Originally posted by KCFiddles
quote:
Originally posted by IdleHands
I'll upload the version as annotated in the Phillips Collection in a couple days. I played it yesterday for few minutes. Im playing the 1-3 slide with 2-4 though, and just staying in place. Good pinky exercize.
That's copyrighted. Might want to get permission first. Stacy Phillips makes his living, in part, from selling those transcriptions.
I mean a recording of my playing based on that version. Im no felon.
uncledelphi - Posted - 06/17/2013: 06:03:47
Just in case anyone is still watching this thread, here is a transcription of Gary Lee Moore's version of Catlettsburg. (I have his permission to post transcriptions of his playing on my website.)
I worked on transcribing the Ed Haley version over the weekend, but that recording has degraded so much that I can't have much confidence in anything I transcribe from it.
