shal0mnurh0me - Posted - 07/15/2011:  12:02:18

Was the fiddle played in the early colonies? What tunes might you have heard in the 1700's? I know Ernie Carpenter and Tommy Jarrell have talked about learning X tune from their father who learned it from his Grandfather and so on. So there must have been old English fiddlers in the early colonies of the 17th century. Perhaps Dutch as well up in New York.

Edited by - shal0mnurh0me on 07/15/2011 12:07:38

Dick Hauser - Posted - 07/15/2011:  13:05:01

There shouldn't have been a shortage of fiddlers.  Some navies had fiddlers on their ships.  The fiddler provided entertainment, and provided rhythm for work crews.  Many of the tunes we play are probably old tunes.  As with many things, tunes probably change some from generation to generation.

Chuck Naill - Posted - 07/15/2011:  14:17:38

quote:

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Originally posted by shal0mnurh0me

Was the fiddle played in the early colonies? What tunes might you have heard in the 1700's? I know Ernie Carpenter and Tommy Jarrell have talked about learning X tune from their father who learned it from his Grandfather and so on. So there must have been old English fiddlers in the early colonies of the 17th century. Perhaps Dutch as well up in New York.

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 Buy this book, it will answer many of your questions, books.google.com/books?id=mmbq...p;f=false 

DougD - Posted - 07/15/2011:  14:35:05

You might also try Googling "Colonial America fiddle." There's lots out there. Tunes like "Soldier's Joy," "The White Cockade" and others are certainly that old., and some familiar hornpipes go back to that period. "Stony Point" is about a battle in the American Revolution, and "Peter Francisco" was a hero of the battle of Guilford Courthouse I think. Thomas Jefferson played the violin, and George Washington liked to dance. I have this book that has some music from that period, including some dance tunes: amazon.com/MUSIC-THAT-WASHINGT...000MHVXSY  Your local library might have it. Here's a CD of music from the late 18th century frontier:  chriswig.com/cds/cs.html  I think Chris may be a member here too. One of the earliest collections of English dance music is "The English Dancing Master" by John Playford from 1651. There are several versions online:  pbm.com/~lindahl/playford_1651/

Also check out sources about dance, since the fiddle has always been a dance instrument, like this:  books.google.com/books?id=JhXN...p;f=false

Edited by - DougD on 07/15/2011 14:41:39

Mandogryl - Posted - 07/16/2011:  04:58:53

Thomas Jefferson, the third president, was an enthusiastic violinist/fiddle (until he fell off a horse in Paris in 1786 and broke his wrist).
He was said to have had some fine instruments including a Guarneri Del Gesu and a Guadadnini.
Some of his favorite tunes include Bunker Hill, Soldiers Joy, and Devils Dream.
Occasonally someone will surface with one of his fiddles, open to speculation, of course.

fiddle and banjo player - Posted - 07/16/2011:  11:16:14

shal0mnurh0me - You might try village-music-project.org.uk/ , if you click on the 'published collections room' on the right, you can download hundreds of 1700's period tunes for free, (I like Peter Thompson's collection of dance tunes the best).

Thank you SO much DougD, for sharing that link to Chris Wig, he has some GREAT music!  Do you know of any way I could get sheet music for some of those tunes?  I have recently started playing at a local Living History Site/Reenactment near me, (late 1700's-early 1800's) so if there are any other cd's/resources you have that are similar to Chris Wig's period music, I would really appreciate it!

Thanks

carlb - Posted - 07/19/2011:  06:56:36

If you like, I, and the Goschenhoppen Historians, published the hand written manuscript book from James Frill, a fiddler in the early 1800s from Reading, PA (tunes are definitely from the 1700s). He played with other musicians (like a regular jam session). Anyway, the manuscript is now in easy readable form and can be optained from me (242 tunes). You'll recognize some of the tunes and some have harmony parts. Contact me by direct message, if you'd like to buy a copy or if you like to see a sample page, I can upload it as an jpg to my FHO home page.

Edited by - carlb on 07/19/2011 08:23:32

carlb - Posted - 07/19/2011:  08:21:39

Ok, as requested I've uploaded a couple of pages from what I published, the handout that I prepared and a copy of an original page from the manuscript. Just a note, the published manuscript was printed as photo offset of pages that I printed from the original program. Each file only contained one tune, so that the page was printed one, two or three times got all the tunes on the page. I've had to recreate what a page would look like by cutting and pasting images from the program so that the appearance is really close to what the published manuscript looks like. The manuscript is an easy open plastic type binding (not spiral but one that uses little rectangular cuts; I don't know what it's called).

Ricketts & Fishers HPs - from original manuscript

Frill p. 48

Frill p. 20

Frill Handout

wherearethebees - Posted - 07/21/2011:  18:21:51

that old book is cool - any hints on interpreting the notation?

carlb - Posted - 07/22/2011:  08:07:41

quote:

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Originally posted by wherearethebees

that old book is cool - any hints on interpreting the notation?

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 My published version if just that.

RobertScott - Posted - 07/22/2011:  08:50:17

Another wonderful source for old tunes and songs with background info is:

contemplator.com

He has a large collection of songs from Ireland, Scotland, England, Canada, Australia and the US laid out historically and by genre. Most songs have midi so you can pick up the tunes.

Best regards

Bob
Baghdad

DougD - Posted - 07/24/2011:  08:14:07

Bob, I believe the "Contemplator" is actually a "she."

fiddle and banjo player - As far as sheet music, you might try contacting Chris Wig directly. I don't know if his main source, the Hamblen collection, is available anywhere. Its somewhere at the Library of Congress I guess.

Two of the tunes, "Peter Francisco" and "Gaston" are from George Knauff's 1839 collections "Virginia Reels." They are available online here: lib.unc.edu/dc/sheetmusic/  (search for the title).

Some of Hiram Stamper's tunes are in the book Chuck linked to above. Its a great work, already a classic. There's also a page about him at Berea, with some recordings - I don't know about transcriptions: berea.edu/hutchinslibrary/spec...amper.asp

"Pompey Ran Away" is in the book on dance I mentioned above (very interesting) although it doesn't seem to be the same tune that's on "Chadwell's Station." Some of the other tunes, like "Cumberland Gap," "Flowers of Edinburgh," and "White Cockade" should be fairly easy to find. I don't know about the Marcus Martin tunes.

Two other sources of old tunes are Henry Reed: memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/reed/  Alan Jabbour has transcribed some of those tunes. And Emmett Lundy, who was born in 1864, but learned from an older fiddler:  timesaintliketheyusedtobe.blog...yson.html

There are more modern interpretations of some of these tunes by the Hollow Rock string band and the Fuzzy Mountain string band, available on CD or download.

Edited by - DougD on 07/24/2011 08:19:41

M-D - Posted - 07/24/2011:  10:15:22

Abbie and Absie Morrison knew tunes that were passed along through the generations in their family. A couple of them, from Absie, are recorded and available in the Wolf Collection at Lyon College.