I figured it out.  For all the patterns that pogo has named, it's opposite exists, that is, the version of it that starts on an upbow and ends on a downbow.  And the reason for all the upfront analysis, is specifically to eliminate all the upbow versions from the repertoire.  if we accept that all patterns and their opposite are VALID to play, then you can stop up front analyzing and just play, because no matter what you play it would be some pattern.  

Often the argument is offered that downbows must be in a certain place because that beat must be emphasized according to tradition, but i reject that an upbow cannot also be emphasized.  I do it all the time.

The universe seeks unity.  The Yin and Yang cannot be separated forever.   For every pattern, it's opposite exists, and has a right to exist in the pantheon... of existence.

Plus, in my schema there are even more patterns, ones that start and end on the same bow direction, instead of needing to start and end oppositely.  Look pogo,  MORE PATTERNS!

So I guess my real beef with patterns downbowing is the downbowing part, and how it actually keeps us from ever playing certain combinations.

This said, i do actually practice patterns sometimes, but i also practice them backwards.  And my advice is that everyone should also play them backwards, for best bow skill development.

ANyone seen Jet Li's "The One".  A truly astounding philosophical metaphor for life.

Though I hate to endure another long, contentious thread about patterns, the other issue that we haven't talked about much is the use of the "pulsed up bow" or the "potato bow" as it's apparently called in Missouri.

That technique permits you to play two notes on the same bow direction that sound like there's been a change in bow direction when there hasn't.

So, if you include that you have to multiply the number of patterns by some number that I don't care to spend the time to compute.

--OTJ

Edited by - OTJunky on 06/28/2012 06:18:40

Potato bow! Sounds good, but im trying to get off carbs! Bazinga!

But seriously folks.....

Edited by - IdleHands on 06/28/2012 06:33:52

Don't think you're the first one to oppose a bowing strategy. The only reason im posting at all is to remind, there's nothing new under the Sun.  Go with your approach, Pogo will go with his, and i'll go with mine. Let's meet back here after another ten or twelve thousand hours of playing and see how much has changed or remained in our respective bowing approaches. 

quote:

---

Originally posted by wooliver

Don't think you're the first one to oppose a bowing strategy. The only reason im posting at all is to remind, there's nothing new under the Sun.  Go with your approach, Pogo will go with his, and i'll go with mine. Let's meet back here after another ten or twelve thousand hours of playing and see how much has changed or remained in our respective bowing approaches. 

---

What's your approach?

What's your approach?

---

Bowing is like a toolbox where usually you only have time to grab the wrench that's on top. If you're playing longer, like for a dance, you get a chance to dig deeper. Like a piano player won't play the same chord voicing very long because it starts to sound monotonous.  Back to the toolbox, depending upon your give-a-root, the longer you play, the more tools you'll acquire. Also, depending upon your give-a-root, you won't throw everything at something that only needs a little. 

quote:

---

Originally posted by OTJunky

Though I hate to endure another long, contentious thread about patterns, the other issue that we haven't talked about much is the use of the "pulsed up bow" or the "potato bow" as it's apparently called in Missouri.

That technique permits you to play two notes on the same bow direction that sound like there's been a change in bow direction when there hasn't.

So, if you include that you have to multiply the number of patterns by some number that I don't care to spend the time to compute.

--OTJ

---

I think that's also referred to as "hooked bowing" (as in two strokes in the same direction hooked together). 

It's also known as "portato bowing" when the space between the bow stop/starts is minimized.   I think that "potato" is just someone's misspelling of "portato bowing", which then became popularized.  

quote:

---

Originally posted by wooliver

What's your approach?

---

Bowing is like a toolbox where usually you only have time to grab the wrench that's on top. If you're playing longer, like for a dance, you get a chance to dig deeper. Like a piano player won't play the same chord voicing very long because it starts to sound monotonous.  Back to the toolbox, depending upon your give-a-root, the longer you play, the more tools you'll acquire. Also, depending upon your give-a-root, you won't throw everything at something that only needs a little. 

 

---

I guess according to my give-a-root I will not confine myself to a subset of possible bowing patterns.  And since there is no limit,   there is no deciding, since everything is a pattern in my book.  It's like working wood and having the exact correct tool appear in your hand, as if by magic.  That's what she said.

Edited by - IdleHands on 06/28/2012 08:16:49

You know guys, I put a lot of thought into this thread. I would appreciate it if you wouldn't hijack into the off topic forum.

You absolutely have to study bowing patterns if you want to develop a great playing style for any song. In fact, certain songs dont sound the same if they are bowed using different patterns. If you are creating your own songs, then do as you want. But if you are gonna play other peoples music then you need to learn to play it the way they did. Obviously the cops arent gonna track you down, its a matter of learning something you dont know out of respect for the creator. I practice several bowing patterns as a matter of practice, not that Im ever gonna use em. The hardest one is the hockum bowing pattern for me. I also think you should study fingerings and phrasings of those songs. Sure, you can try to reinvent the wheel but, there are far more talented people than me who already figured this stuff out for me. It all absolutely matters!

quote:

---

Originally posted by p1cklef1sh

You absolutely have to study bowing patterns if you want to develop a great playing style for any song. In fact, certain songs dont sound the same if they are bowed using different patterns. If you are creating your own songs, then do as you want. But if you are gonna play other peoples music then you need to learn to play it the way they did. Obviously the cops arent gonna track you down, its a matter of learning something you dont know out of respect for the creator. I practice several bowing patterns as a matter of practice, not that Im ever gonna use em. The hardest one is the hockum bowing pattern for me. I also think you should study fingerings and phrasings of those songs. Sure, you can try to reinvent the wheel but, there are far more talented people than me who already figured this stuff out for me. It all absolutely matters!

---

  By other people's music do you mean their version or composition?

quote:

---

Originally posted by p1cklef1sh

You absolutely have to study bowing patterns if you want to develop a great playing style for any song. In fact, certain songs dont sound the same if they are bowed using different patterns. If you are creating your own songs, then do as you want. But if you are gonna play other peoples music then you need to learn to play it the way they did. Obviously the cops arent gonna track you down, its a matter of learning something you dont know out of respect for the creator. I practice several bowing patterns as a matter of practice, not that Im ever gonna use em. The hardest one is the hockum bowing pattern for me. I also think you should study fingerings and phrasings of those songs. Sure, you can try to reinvent the wheel but, there are far more talented people than me who already figured this stuff out for me. It all absolutely matters!

---

I fully disagree.  Any combination of bowstrokes is a pattern, and it is not necessary to study patterns in the abstract, disconnected from actual tunes, to get the sound you want.

I think of it like this: when I first learned guitar, I never heard of fingerpicking patterns...now, fifty years later I see there are videos teaching picking patterns for fingerpicking guitar...I probably wouldn't dispute any of that stuff, however, I don't try to employ that in my own guitar playing, because to e, the fingerpicking emerged first; the pattern isolating, analyzing, and naming came second. I don't have much experience with the fidde yet, but am highly suspicious its the same with bowing patterns. The question would be how useful knowledge of such analyzed patterns woud be to these earning r even to experienced players. I don't know the answer, because I'd already played the stuff on guitar for decades before I thought about them as patterns...and I'm naturally learning the fiddle the same way learning guitar worked out for me. But I wouldn't dismiss patterns as useless...they are intriguing and fascinating to me, but I can't utilize them in my playing. As far as bw direction...there are places where it's all done upsidedown from the mainstream...try Lewis county, ky, where one side of my family comes from...man they all play exactly backwards over there!!!! Dwn bowing seems to be what you hear mre, but also there are times it appears any which way bowing does the exact same rhythmic feel, in the hands of an experienced and confident anywhichway bower. My two cents...er, that could be four r five cents...

quote:

---

Originally posted by groundhogpeggy

I think of it like this: when I first learned guitar, I never heard of fingerpicking patterns...now, fifty years later I see there are videos teaching picking patterns for fingerpicking guitar...I probably wouldn't dispute any of that stuff, however, I don't try to employ that in my own guitar playing, because to e, the fingerpicking emerged first; the pattern isolating, analyzing, and naming came second. I don't have much experience with the fidde yet, but am highly suspicious its the same with bowing patterns. The question would be how useful knowledge of such analyzed patterns woud be to these earning r even to experienced players. I don't know the answer, because I'd already played the stuff on guitar for decades before I thought about them as patterns...and I'm naturally learning the fiddle the same way learning guitar worked out for me. But I wouldn't dismiss patterns as useless...they are intriguing and fascinating to me, but I can't utilize them in my playing. As far as bw direction...there are places where it's all done upsidedown from the mainstream...try Lewis county, ky, where one side of my family comes from...man they all play exactly backwards over there!!!! Dwn bowing seems to be what you hear mre, but also there are times it appears any which way bowing does the exact same rhythmic feel, in the hands of an experienced and confident anywhichway bower. My two cents...er, that could be four r five cents...

---

Thanks for this thoughtful input peggy.  I dont dismiss downbowing pattern analysis as useless, but there are other approaches, and some people prefer them as you noted above.

Edited by - IdleHands on 06/28/2012 09:50:39

With fiddling you do anything you want. Isn't that where the expression "fiddin' around" came from?

BTW, up bows have always naturally  been stronger than down bows for me.

Edited by - SamY on 06/28/2012 09:54:45

quote:

---

Originally posted by IdleHands

You know guys, I put a lot of thought into this thread. I would appreciate it if you wouldn't hijack into the off topic forum.

---

For my part, my apologies.

quote:

---

Originally posted by tonyelder

quote:

---

Originally posted by IdleHands

You know guys, I put a lot of thought into this thread. I would appreciate it if you wouldn't hijack into the off topic forum.

---

For my part, my apologies.

---

Thanks, you're a stand up guy, except when you're sitting down.

Well, after looking over the other threads..... oh, my.... a bowing thread first thing in the morning!

Yeah, theoretically there are all these other patterns, BUT...
not all of them really apply to fiddle music. First, the melodies are usually not rhythmically all that complex.
Second, it's basically dance music, and with a pretty narrow background rhythm (BOOM-CHUCK!!! That was for you, Tony!).
So there are a fairly limited number of possibilities that are going to create a danceable groove in that rhythmic context.

Then, there is this famous quote by Tommy Jarrell "That feller knows a thousand tunes- and can't play a single one of them!!!"

Now that's about tunes, and this thread is allegedly about patterns (if it doesn't turned into a thread about flame-broiled possum!!!)- how does that apply???

You can spread yourself too thin, and mastery of a small repertoire of tunes is preferable to a superficial knowledge of a large number.

Okay... I go to play a tune, and instead of using a preexisting pattern, I just pull one of the thousands of possibilities out of the air.
Problem: I don't know the pattern very well, I have only a superficial knowledge of it, and my interpretation of it will likely be rigid. Perhaps it might work really well on that tune... but since my interpretation of it is rigid, it sounds lousy, and I discard the pattern.

For me, it all goes back to how I learned.

1. I started playing in Los Angeles. Not a place you'd expect to find a lot of Old Time fiddling, but somehow, I managed to stumble onto the Old Time Scene. I was a clawhammer player, started with "Bump-ditty" the banjo rhythm analogous to Nashville Shuffle. I was a guitarist, sang country-folk songs, like "Red River Valley" and "You Are My Sunshine" with a boom-chucka rhythm. And the first fiddler I jammed with as a clawhammer player used Nashville Shuffle ALMOST ALL THE TIME! So when I started fiddling, it was natural that I'd learn Nashville pretty quick. I experimented with "anywhichway", two slurs, and sawstroke, but I liked hoedowns, and I liked to play with banjo players (who at the time were mostly bump-ditty),
and Nashville seemed to be the ticket to sound Old Time, have good drive, and fit with the banjo players of the time.
And many of the other young fiddlers did the same. And I got pretty good at Nashville. Oh yeah, someone showed me Georgia as well... it sounded cool, but a little extreme, so I mostly filed it away for future reference.

Anyway, I DID get bored with Nashville, and I was on the lookout for other things... and I wasn't just listening, I was LOOKING... when I met another fiddler, young or old, I'd scope out their bowing.
Most of the younger fiddlers at the time were using Nashville or Georgia Shuffle, but I noticed that
the older fiddlers didn't use either of them nearly as much.
It's not like I got to see LOTS of older fiddlers... there were basically three or four.
1. Earl Collins- Tom Sauber introduced me to him in L.A. Mostly sawstroke, (DOWN UP) with some other patterns usually at the beginning of the phrase that I STILL have not figured out to this day. NEVER saw him get turned around.
2. Mel Durham- he was at the same Signal Hill Old Time Fiddler's meeting Earl was- likewise, IIRC, mostly down up sawstroke. Don't remember seeing him get turned around.
3. Franklin George- hornpipey fiddler from West Virginia... likewise a lot of down up sawstroke. It was in concert, so I didn't get up really close, but the strong sound he got was consistent with down-up sawstroke.
4. Tommy Jarrell. Compared to the other three, he used a lot of different things, but the biggest impression was a sweeping down up pattern he would use often at the beginning of a phrase. I imitated it, and came up something that sounded Old Time, sounded good, and when I broke it down and analyzed it, it was 3-3-1-1. But I'm not convinced I was nailing Tommy's beginning lick with that, but it sounded good, sounded Old Time, and gave me a tool to break out of the Nashville straitjacket.

Then, I saw Hubbard and Molk. Blew me away. Tight twin fiddling. NO NASHVILLE!!! Lots of sawstroke, but something else was going on.
ALL the accents were on downstrokes, and they had a powerful groove, WITHOUT NASHVILLE. And the tunes seemed to "breathe" better. It took me a while to figure out what they were doing, and I didn't get this from them, since they seemed pretty secretive about their bowing, but throwing in 3 note upbow slurs fits the visual image I have of their playing REALLY WELL. Sawshuffle is basically the same idea, and when I stumbled on it, it gave me most of what I liked about Hubbard and Molks sound. And it fit well with the lick I'd learned trying to imitate Tommy Jarrell that I call "Smoothshuffle". And I could finally ditch Nashville entirely. I found that with just those two licks, I could:

1. Get a sound more similar to the sawstroke based fiddlers I'd heard like Collins, Durham, and George
2. Flip from hornpipes to hoedowns, and do decently well on both
3. Get a sound similar to Hubbard and Molk, my favorite younger fiddlers at that time.
4. Play the vast majority of Old Time fiddle tunes without the need to come up with other bowings, and yet,
THEY DIDN'T MANGLE the melodies nearly as much as Nashville did.

I used mostly just those two patterns for many years, including after coming back to fiddling from 2005 to 2007.
About that time, things started changing.

Tom Sauber, who I mentioned earlier in connection with the L.A. scene and Earl Collins, was kind of the L.A. Old Time guru.
He played fiddle, he play clawhammer, and he discovered cool old fiddlers. So he had my attention, when one day towards the end of a jamming party, he sat me down and showed me a pattern.
1-2-1-2-1-1.

Problem was, even though I understood it as far as the number of notes, I couldn't PLAY it and make it sound like anything.
So I put it on the 'back burner"... for DECADES! But I figured Tom knew what he was talking about, and he wasn't a prankster, so every now and then I tried to play it... with no luck!

Also, at Galax or Fiddler's Grove, I recorded a fiddler from somewhere up in New England named Dave Viddick, and recorded him doing a hornpipey tune called Cheat or Swing. He was using the same pattern thoughout the tune- it LOOKED like Nashville, but it was way bouncier, very suited to making a hornpipe bounce. It wasn't too hard to figure out that it was
1-2-1-1-2-1. So it started like the Tom Sauber lick, but just kept doing the same thing.
Problem: it was a LITTLE easier than the Tom Sauber lick, but I couldn't figure out how to do it on anything but a rather rough version of Cheat or Swing.

Okay, fast forward to AFTER I start fiddling again after stopping for 15 years.
Within a fairly short time after coming back to fiddling, I get on-line, and start doing searches.
Fiddle Hangout didn't exist yet, but Dave Reiner came on another one, started a bowing thread listing a bunch of bowings, and lo and behold, my "Sawshuffle" and "Smoothshuffle" were on the list.
Then I heard about Brad Leftwich and his DVD's, and that my Sawshuffle and Smoothshuffle were the same or similar to what he called "Melvin's Lick".
And that what I learned from Tom Sauber, Brad calls "Tommy's Lick"... from TOMMY JARRELL!!!

So, it was encouraging... my two favorite patterns up to that point were TRADITIONAL.... I didn't just cook them up... I may have discovered them accidentally, but latched on to them as something more than mistakes because they SOUNDED OLD TIME.

And when I watch the YouTube videos of Melvin Wine, I have to say, his bowing looks a LOT like mine... or mine like his...
and this is WEIRD... I NEVER MET HIM or got to see him play!!!

In addition to those confirmations, the general feedback from people, including people from fiddling states and who grew up in the tradition is that my bowing sounds Old Time.

I could have stopped there, but I still had these two patterns on the back burner. I now knew that what Tom Sauber had taught me was a Tommy Jarrell lick.... so that got me stoked to do the work and get in off the back burner... and I LIKE IT.

Once I got that down and integrated, the one I learned from Dave Viddick's playing isn't that much different- within the last year, I got to where I can use that fluidly too.

Okay.... your faceoff with Dogmageek is VERY interesting.... he IS a classic Nashville Shuffle pattern bower. He has a very nice take on it, it gives a very nice danceable groove. It isn't really well suited to listening though, because the Nashvilli-ness covers up the melody somewhat.

Your fiddling Idle: More emphasis on the melody, which makes it better for listening. You phrase well, also good for listening.
You even come up with some cool rhythmic things I like (like that syncopated thing on the end of Old Blind Sow).
I actually like what you're doing.
BUT... you don't have a danceable groove on your own. Well, that COULD be fixed by a guitar BUT, back when taglines were allowed here, someone had this as a tagline:
"An Old Time fiddler is someone who can play for a dance all by himself, and not need any accompaniment".
I like that... to me, that is the essence of Old Time fiddling.

And, looking at your two approaches, I feel I have the best of both worlds- I can "have my cake and eat it too!"

I can lay down a danceable groove, because I have patterns I can make the bow "drum" with.
I have enough patterns that I can pick out patterns to fit the tune, instead of mashing tune melodies to fit the pattern.

So I have my melodies I like, and I have a rhythmic groove too. People like it, say it sounds Old Time, I like it, think it sounds Old Time, it ain't broke, I don't see any reason to fix it!!! Plus I'm nearly 60, and old and set in my ways.

You may seem like a maverick, even to yourself, but you ARE NOT the only one who has the same bowing philosophy.
OTJ and I have been around the mill many times on this, and fiddledan and I a few times too. A fellow named Steve who builds furniture and has an unusual way of holding his fiddle is also "anywhichway" in his approach, and does VERY WELL at it.
When I say "Pattern Bowing" you guys tend to see me as one of the Nashvillites... my terminology is similar.... I use the dreaded word PATTERN.

But when it comes to the way I treat the melody, I treat it with probably as much respect as you guys do... I REALLY like a good melody, and don't want to mangle it. Before the bowing wars started, a certain "anywhichway" fiddler commented favorably on my tunes.... didn't find anything to object to, even seemed to like my bowing choices... UNTIL he heard that I actually advocated the use of PATTERNS.... lions and tigers and PATTERNS!!! Oh MY!!!! And judging by the amount of opponents I get in these bowing threads when they come up, there are a LOT of Old Time Anywhichwayers out there!!!

So it seems like I'm following a middle road.... and in Old Time, it seems like a road less travelled by. However, I seem to be in good company, some of the others travelling that road are VERY GOOD fiddlers.

Also, it's NOT a road less travelled by in other related genres that sprang out of Old Time- Bluegrass, Texas Style, and Contest Fiddling. That MIGHT seem to be a black eye on the approach, but I can't see that the bowing approaches differ that much from the saw stroke based fiddlers I mentioned at the beginning of this post. What makes them NOT Old Time isn't so much the bowing as far as I can see (except for Hokum/Double Shuffle in Bluegrass) it's the modern accidentals and the jazzy backup. The bowing tends to be one of the more traditional aspects- AND... I have never seen a one of them that's an upbower or an anywhichway bower. Since these fiddlers care about technique, that says to me that they've found downbowing to be technically superior. And it's clear to me that they also throw patterns into their down-up sawstroke from time to time.

However... I DO have this long term fondness for Irish tunes.... and I'm working on them... and what works SO WELL for Old Time DOES NOT work the same way for Irish.... I find the training patterns have given me allows me to "land on my feet", but I can't cling to the patterns I know, and if I do happen to use one, I have to phrase it differently and demphasize the accents to make it sound right... so it's just a phrasing trick.

Anyway, for Irish, I find myself doing more "anywhichway".

Well, I'm about to hit "Post Reply"... how long did THIS ONE turn out to be????

Oh dear.... (EDIT).... it may be my LONGEST BOWING POST EVER!!!!

Edited by - fiddlepogo on 06/28/2012 10:40:33

quote:

---

Originally posted by fiddlepogo

Well, after looking over the other threads..... oh, my.... a bowing thread first thing in the morning!

Yeah, theoretically there are all these other patterns, BUT...
not all of them really apply to fiddle music. First, the melodies are usually not rhythmically all that complex.
Second, it's basically dance music, and with a pretty narrow background rhythm (BOOM-CHUCK!!! That was for you, Tony!).
So there are a fairly limited number of possibilities that are going to create a danceable groove in that rhythmic context.

Then, there is this famous quote by Tommy Jarrell "That feller knows a thousand tunes- and can't play a single one of them!!!"

Now that's about tunes, and this thread is allegedly about patterns (if it doesn't turned into a thread about flame-broiled possum!!!)- how does that apply???

You can spread yourself too thin, and mastery of a small repertoire of tunes is preferable to a superficial knowledge of a large number.

Okay... I go to play a tune, and instead of using a preexisting pattern, I just pull one of the thousands of possibilities out of the air.
Problem: I don't know the pattern very well, I have only a superficial knowledge of it, and my interpretation of it will likely be rigid. Perhaps it might work really well on that tune... but since my interpretation of it is rigid, it sounds lousy, and I discard the pattern.

For me, it all goes back to how I learned.

1. I started playing in Los Angeles. Not a place you'd expect to find a lot of Old Time fiddling, but somehow, I managed to stumble onto the Old Time Scene. I was a clawhammer player, started with "Bump-ditty" the banjo rhythm analogous to Nashville Shuffle. I was a guitarist, sang country-folk songs, like "Red River Valley" and "You Are My Sunshine" with a boom-chucka rhythm. And the first fiddler I jammed with as a clawhammer player used Nashville Shuffle ALMOST ALL THE TIME! So when I started fiddling, it was natural that I'd learn Nashville pretty quick. I experimented with "anywhichway", two slurs, and sawstroke, but I liked hoedowns, and I liked to play with banjo players (who at the time were mostly bump-ditty),
and Nashville seemed to be the ticket to sound Old Time, have good drive, and fit with the banjo players of the time.
And many of the other young fiddlers did the same. And I got pretty good at Nashville. Oh yeah, someone showed me Georgia as well... it sounded cool, but a little extreme, so I mostly filed it away for future reference.

Anyway, I DID get bored with Nashville, and I was on the lookout for other things... and I wasn't just listening, I was LOOKING... when I met another fiddler, young or old, I'd scope out their bowing.
Most of the younger fiddlers at the time were using Nashville or Georgia Shuffle, but I noticed that
the older fiddlers didn't use either of them nearly as much.
It's not like I got to see LOTS of older fiddlers... there were basically three or four.
1. Earl Collins- Tom Sauber introduced me to him in L.A. Mostly sawstroke, (DOWN UP) with some other patterns usually at the beginning of the phrase that I STILL have not figured out to this day. NEVER saw him get turned around.
2. Mel Durham- he was at the same Signal Hill Old Time Fiddler's meeting Earl was- likewise, IIRC, mostly down up sawstroke. Don't remember seeing him get turned around.
3. Franklin George- hornpipey fiddler from West Virginia... likewise a lot of down up sawstroke. It was in concert, so I didn't get up really close, but the strong sound he got was consistent with down-up sawstroke.
4. Tommy Jarrell. Compared to the other three, he used a lot of different things, but the biggest impression was a sweeping down up pattern he would use often at the beginning of a phrase. I imitated it, and came up something that sounded Old Time, sounded good, and when I broke it down and analyzed it, it was 3-3-1-1. But I'm not convinced I was nailing Tommy's beginning lick with that, but it sounded good, sounded Old Time, and gave me a tool to break out of the Nashville straitjacket.

Then, I saw Hubbard and Molk. Blew me away. Tight twin fiddling. NO NASHVILLE!!! Lots of sawstroke, but something else was going on.
ALL the accents were on downstrokes, and they had a powerful groove, WITHOUT NASHVILLE. And the tunes seemed to "breathe" better. It took me a while to figure out what they were doing, and I didn't get this from them, since they seemed pretty secretive about their bowing, but throwing in 3 note upbow slurs fits the visual image I have of their playing REALLY WELL. Sawshuffle is basically the same idea, and when I stumbled on it, it gave me most of what I liked about Hubbard and Molks sound. And it fit well with the lick I'd learned trying to imitate Tommy Jarrell that I call "Smoothshuffle". And I could finally ditch Nashville entirely. I found that with just those two licks, I could:

1. Get a sound more similar to the sawstroke based fiddlers I'd heard like Collins, Durham, and George
2. Flip from hornpipes to hoedowns, and do decently well on both
3. Get a sound similar to Hubbard and Molk, my favorite younger fiddlers at that time.
4. Play the vast majority of Old Time fiddle tunes without the need to come up with other bowings, and yet,
THEY DIDN'T MANGLE the melodies nearly as much as Nashville did.

I used mostly just those two patterns for many years, including after coming back to fiddling from 2005 to 2007.
About that time, things started changing.

Tom Sauber, who I mentioned earlier in connection with the L.A. scene and Earl Collins, was kind of the L.A. Old Time guru.
He played fiddle, he play clawhammer, and he discovered cool old fiddlers. So he had my attention, when one day towards the end of a jamming party, he sat me down and showed me a pattern.
1-2-1-2-1-1.

Problem was, even though I understood it as far as the number of notes, I couldn't PLAY it and make it sound like anything.
So I put it on the 'back burner"... for DECADES! But I figured Tom knew what he was talking about, and he wasn't a prankster, so every now and then I tried to play it... with no luck!

Also, at Galax or Fiddler's Grove, I recorded a fiddler from somewhere up in New England named Dave Viddick, and recorded him doing a hornpipey tune called Cheat or Swing. He was using the same pattern thoughout the tune- it LOOKED like Nashville, but it was way bouncier, very suited to making a hornpipe bounce. It wasn't too hard to figure out that it was
1-2-1-1-2-1. So it started like the Tom Sauber lick, but just kept doing the same thing.
Problem: it was a LITTLE easier than the Tom Sauber lick, but I couldn't figure out how to do it on anything but a rather rough version of Cheat or Swing.

Okay, fast forward to AFTER I start fiddling again after stopping for 15 years.
Within a fairly short time after coming back to fiddling, I get on-line, and start doing searches.
Fiddle Hangout didn't exist yet, but Dave Reiner came on another one, started a bowing thread listing a bunch of bowings, and lo and behold, my "Sawshuffle" and "Smoothshuffle" were on the list.
Then I heard about Brad Leftwich and his DVD's, and that my Sawshuffle and Smoothshuffle were the same or similar to what he called "Melvin's Lick".
And that what I learned from Tom Sauber, Brad calls "Tommy's Lick"... from TOMMY JARRELL!!!

So, it was encouraging... my two favorite patterns up to that point were TRADITIONAL.... I didn't just cook them up... I may have discovered them accidentally, but latched on to them as something more than mistakes because they SOUNDED OLD TIME.

And when I watch the YouTube videos of Melvin Wine, I have to say, his bowing looks a LOT like mine... or mine like his...
and this is WEIRD... I NEVER MET HIM or got to see him play!!!

In addition to those confirmations, the general feedback from people, including people from fiddling states and who grew up in the tradition is that my bowing sounds Old Time.

I could have stopped there, but I still had these two patterns on the back burner. I now knew that what Tom Sauber had taught me was a Tommy Jarrell lick.... so that got me stoked to do the work and get in off the back burner... and I LIKE IT.

Once I got that down and integrated, the one I learned from Dave Viddick's playing isn't that much different- within the last year, I got to where I can use that fluidly too.

Okay.... your faceoff with Dogmageek is VERY interesting.... he IS a classic Nashville Shuffle pattern bower. He has a very nice take on it, it gives a very nice danceable groove. It isn't really well suited to listening though, because the Nashvilli-ness covers up the melody somewhat.

Your fiddling Idle: More emphasis on the melody, which makes it better for listening. You phrase well, also good for listening.
You even come up with some cool rhythmic things I like (like that syncopated thing on the end of Old Blind Sow).
I actually like what you're doing.
BUT... you don't have a danceable groove on your own. Well, that COULD be fixed by a guitar BUT, back when taglines were allowed here, someone had this as a tagline:
"An Old Time fiddler is someone who can play for a dance all by himself, and not need any accompaniment".
I like that... to me, that is the essence of Old Time fiddling.

And, looking at your two approaches, I feel I have the best of both worlds- I can "have my cake and eat it too!"

I can lay down a danceable groove, because I have patterns I can make the bow "drum" with.
I have enough patterns that I can pick out patterns to fit the tune, instead of mashing tune melodies to fit the pattern.

So I have my melodies I like, and I have a rhythmic groove too. People like it, say it sounds Old Time, I like it, think it sounds Old Time, it ain't broke, I don't see any reason to fix it!!! Plus I'm nearly 60, and old and set in my ways.

You may seem like a maverick, even to yourself, but you ARE NOT the only one who has the same bowing philosophy.
OTJ and I have been around the mill many times on this, and fiddledan and I a few times too. A fellow named Steve who builds furniture and has an unusual way of holding his fiddle is also "anywhichway" in his approach, and does VERY WELL at it.
When I say "Pattern Bowing" you guys tend to see me as one of the Nashvillites... my terminology is similar.... I use the dreaded word PATTERN.

But when it comes to the way I treat the melody, I treat it with probably as much respect as you guys do... I REALLY like a good melody, and don't want to mangle it. Before the bowing wars started, a certain "anywhichway" fiddler commented favorably on my tunes.... didn't find anything to object to, even seemed to like my bowing choices... UNTIL he heard that I actually advocated the use of PATTERNS.... lions and tigers and PATTERNS!!! Oh MY!!!! And judging by the amount of opponents I get in these bowing threads when they come up, there are a LOT of Old Time Anywhichwayers out there!!!

So it seems like I'm following a middle road.... and in Old Time, it seems like a road less travelled by. However, I seem to be in good company, some of the others travelling that road are VERY GOOD fiddlers.

Also, it's NOT a road less travelled by in other related genres that sprang out of Old Time- Bluegrass, Texas Style, and Contest Fiddling. That MIGHT seem to be a black eye on the approach, but I can't see that the bowing approaches differ that much from the saw stroke based fiddlers I mentioned at the beginning of this post. What makes them NOT Old Time isn't so much the bowing as far as I can see (except for Hokum/Double Shuffle in Bluegrass) it's the modern accidentals and the jazzy backup. The bowing tends to be one of the more traditional aspects- AND... I have never seen a one of them that's an upbower or an anywhichway bower. Since these fiddlers care about technique, that says to me that they've found downbowing to be technically superior. And it's clear to me that they also throw patterns into their down-up sawstroke from time to time.

However... I DO have this long term fondness for Irish tunes.... and I'm working on them... and what works SO WELL for Old Time DOES NOT work the same way for Irish.... I find the training patterns have given me allows me to "land on my feet", but I can't cling to the patterns I know, and if I do happen to use one, I have to phrase it differently and demphasize the accents to make it sound right... so it's just a phrasing trick.

Anyway, for Irish, I find myself doing more "anywhichway".

Well, I'm about to hit "Post Reply"... how long did THIS ONE turn out to be????

Oh dear.... (EDIT).... it may be my LONGEST BOWING POST EVER!!!!

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All patterns can apply to fiddle music, if one applies them to fiddle music.  

Any particular pattern can be rhythmic enough to dance to, as its really not true that only downbows can be emphasized.

Mastery of a large number of tunes is possible.  Its ambitious, but its possible.

If one practices long enough, and plays enough varied tunes, one becomes more familiar with almost anything "pulled out of the air."   I wouldnt discard any pattern, I would just practice more.  That's me.  Im idealistic, ambitious, and seek mastery.

Nashville is one of the defining of patterns of the OT sound,  i dont see how it can be extreme, honestly.  But of course, there is sawstroke and many other patterns in OT.

Your path to how your got to where you are is interesting, but it doesnt mean it's how everyone should approach bowing.  

And i think my tracks are generally danceable.  Much of OT fiddling i see is actually NOT danceable. It's too fast.

Edited by - IdleHands on 06/28/2012 10:58:45

It occurred to me that the previous post is long on emphasizing the TRADITIONALITY of my approach... I learned my bowing licks from other players, young and old, and with a preference for old, or young guys who SOUNDED old.

I didn't do much "analyzing" in that post!

I'm not going to get all into detailed analysis here, but I'm going to give you some summaries.

In looking at the patterns I favor, I've noticed several things:

1. Except for one pattern, I prefer patterns that start on a single downstroke... I think the reason for this is clarity- it's an important note, and I don't like to slur it together with the next, like Nashville ALWAYS does. In fact, I've gotten favorable comments about the clarity of my playing, which I attribute to this.
2. Except for one pattern, the patterns I favor echo the last half of Nashville Shuffle- they end on two sawstrokes, preceded by a slur. The general effect seems something like Carter Family picking in guitar, where the melody rules until the long notes, and then you do the boom-chuck, or boom-chucka, whichever flavor you prefer!
3. Except for one pattern, the patterns I tend to always have a direction change after the first 3 notes, and after the second 3 notes. This pattern of groups of 3 into a 4/4 or 2/4 tune has a long history in American music, in Ragtime which influenced Old Time fiddling, and in Bluegrass which descended from it. It's also related to the concept of "Hemiola"- there's a wikipedia article on that.

I think these similar trends in my pattern choice allows them to hang together well in grooves, but the fact that there are exceptions allows me to catch melody notes outside of the main groove, and also keeps the groove from being boringly monotonous.

So yeah, THEORETICALLY there are lots of other patterns, but if they don't fit in one of these categories, I'll be surprised if I like them.... but who knows???
Also.... I've met some people using "anywhichway" as an approach that seem to flounder rhythmically. It may sound okay melodically, but there's no drive at all, no groove, and I miss that.
I'm not saying all "anywhichway" players are like that, but it's like if getting a groove doesn't come naturally to you, "anywhichway" is NOT going to help you acquire the ability- it's a "sink or swim" situation.

Another aspect of patterns and why I tend to bring them up here. While I haven't taken either classical violin or formal fiddle lessons, I DID take a lot of classical guitar lessons around 1970. So I have a sense to what good instrumental instruction is like, and looking at a pattern approach, it looks to me like it would work well in a teaching situation...
it gives you something more concrete to sink your teeth into than:
1. Listen a lot
2. Just play (and sink or swim)
which seems to be the "anywhichway" approach as applied to Old Time.
It really doesn't give beginners and intermediates much of a path forward.
It's not ALL bad though... I think the first step is a GREAT IDEA!!!
To confirm that, two fiddlers who use a similar approach HAVE brought out instruction books and DVDS-
Dave Reiner and Brad Leftwich.

Like me, many people start on Nashville, get tired of it, and then, they're at a fork in the road. What to do, which way to go?
Some of these people come here with that question. And that is why these bowing threads will ALWAYS come up!!!
One fork, one possibility IS anywhichway. But I took the other fork, at least for Old Time, I've gotten good results,
and because of that, I feel like I HAVE to stand up for it as at least a possibility.
In effect, most of us who care for melody and dislike monotony agree that SOMETHING needs to be done at that point.
In a nutshell, "anywhichwayers" are saying to these people "Leave PATTERNS behind".... and I'm saying "Leave NASHVILLE behind- or at least mix it with something else!!!

Unfortunately, most people using the anywhichway approach find it anathema, and so I get ENDLESS flak for my approach.
But it has roots in the Old Time tradition, it's effective enough to also be used in related traditions, and it SOUNDS GOOD.
And having tried "anywhichway" AND the Multipattern Downbowing Approach, the latter just seems like a more powerful tool, It WORKS FOR ME!!!
I recommend it!

Edited by - fiddlepogo on 06/28/2012 11:30:02

quote:

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Originally posted by SamY

With fiddling you do anything you want. Isn't that where the expression "fiddin' around" came from?

 

BTW, up bows have always naturally  been stronger than down bows for me.

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Put the two sentences together....

You can theoretically do anything you want... but in reality, our physiology, brain wiring, and equipment ISN'T neutral... they conspire in different ways (wrist flexibility, efficiency, pushing vs. pulling, bow balance of bows we can afford, bow grip, and even a little GRAVITY) to make one way or the other more comfortable.  For some reason, all the older fiddlers I saw in the 70's were downbowers.  I don't meet MANY downbowers.  For some reason, "Anywhichway" is  EXTREMELY popular among younger fiddlers.

"All patterns can apply to fiddle music, if one applies them to fiddle music.  "

You seem to be stuck on this... to borrow from Patrick Henry

"Give me bowing liberty, or give me death!'

I don't see that that's the way it was in the tradition, which was a major emphasis in my first real post in this thread that you quoted.

I saw enough downbowing sawstrokers and downbowing pattern bowers in the Old Time tradition,

that I HAVE to stand up for the approach as being both tradtional and valid.

Anyway, as I'm sure others have noticed, I'm old and stuck in my ways, and you seem to be younger, but equally stuck in your opposite ways.  And as wooliver has observed, when it comes to bowing threads, this sure isn't the first time.... lessee:

People have listened to:

OTJ vs. fiddlepogo and Mike Fontenot

fiddledan vs. fiddlepogo and Mike Fontenot

Sam somethingorother vs. fiddlepogo and Mike Fontenot

Strawturkey vs. fiddlepogo and Mike Fontenot

Tonyelder and alaskafiddler vs. fiddlepogo (Mike may have been doing something scientific at that time, I seem to remember him not being as active)

Have I forgotten anybody??? (Dave Reiner is a downbower, and started the first bowing thread on the Fiddle Hangout, but he has had the good sense to "stand above the fray"... except for a rare comment!)

And now, IdleHands (if indeed you are a different person- the resemblance with StrawTurkey in style is phenomenal!)  If you ain't him, you SURE would LIKE him!!!  (Among other thing, your obsession with bowing freedom sounds a lot like his avowed preference for ANARCHY in all things!) vs. fiddlepogo.

In view of that, can you blame people (especially those who've been here for a while) if they go:

"Oh NO.... NOT another bowing thread!!! Let's turn it into a discussion on roadkill recipes!!!"

And, actually, I'm almost 60, feeling it, and I'M starting to feel the same.  And, now, I need to go get ready for a gig, during which I will use LOTS of patterns, and lots of downbowing on anything vaguely Old Time and in 4/4 or 2/4!!!!

 

Edited by - fiddlepogo on 06/28/2012 12:02:14