groundhogpeggy - Posted - 02/13/2012:  11:36:27

Taken from our Old Time Jam dot Com list... picked out objectively by my little grandson... here is the tune we will be working on from February 15th (or earlier if you want since I jumped the gun on the picking of the new tune ceremony!) to March 15th.  It's not too hard a tune, but lots of fun to play and just mess around with... so let's get goin' with this one and see what kinds of fun stuff we can come up with: youtu.be/Q-YdyIrIRH4

NCarolinaFiddler - Posted - 02/13/2012:  11:47:50

Hey. Your grandson picked a great one. Now off to learning this cool tune.

Edited by - NCarolinaFiddler on 02/13/2012 11:48:18

DougD - Posted - 02/13/2012:  11:50:23

That's my favorite of your YouTube clips. Its nice to see you happy and relaxed!

outoftunes - Posted - 02/13/2012:  15:19:39

Dramatic drawing! I was thinking that I should learn Mississippi Sawyer b/c it's supposed to be one of the easier ones, so now is a great time. Thanks, Peggy!

squawkeye - Posted - 02/13/2012:  15:41:31

Great video!

And an exceptional tune choice.

fiddle and banjo player - Posted - 02/13/2012:  16:32:08

What a funny video - great way to pick the next tune!    Mississippi Sawyer it is....Wow, I haven't played that one in a LONG time - I'm going to have to practice!

Andah1andah2 - Posted - 02/13/2012:  17:02:53

A great choice.  You can't get any more old timey than Mississippi Sawyer.  You can almost hear the antiquity in that tune.  I got to find how I'm gonna groove it.  To me, this is not a tune that should sound refined, it should "swing like a rusty gate".  

groundhogpeggy - Posted - 02/14/2012:  03:55:26

Well it sounds like those gears are already clicking...rusty gates already swinging...it's gonna be fun! I have played it here and there and I might still have a YouTube if I didn't get annoyed enough to take it off when I get hit with those YouTube wipeout moods...lol...but I think the real fun here will be to take such a happy, and fiddly tune and see what kinds of fresh, current things we end up doing within a month of messing around with it. Gonna be fun!!!! It's not too hard to play, so we got ff lucky this time!

Mojohand40 - Posted - 02/14/2012:  05:06:21

Here's a recording from 1916 of it:

archive.org/details/Don_Richar...wyer_1916

groundhogpeggy - Posted - 02/14/2012:  09:15:54

By the way I've lived right on a riverbank of one kind or another most of my life...now, who can tell me what a river sawyer is???? But enough trivia...come on, let's get going with this great tune! To work, to wrk, to work!!!!

outoftunes - Posted - 02/14/2012:  10:28:58

That's a great version with lots of drive.

quote:

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Originally posted by Mojohand40

Here's a recording from 1916 of it:

archive.org/details/Don_Richar...wyer_1916

 

 

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outoftunes - Posted - 02/14/2012:  10:32:44

1882    Society 7 Oct. 8/1   ‘Snags’ and ‘sawyers’, which mean trees swept away, the end of the ‘snag’ being fast in the mud of the river, and the ‘sawyer’ bobbing up and down.

1786—1882 

from the Oxford English Dictionary (though that's probably cheating)

I think that you can hear the "bobbing up and down" in the song itself.

quote:

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Originally posted by groundhogpeggy



 who can tell me what a river sawyer is???? 

Edited by - outoftunes on 02/14/2012 10:33:41

groundhogpeggy - Posted - 02/14/2012:  10:41:50

Yep, I think the tune bobs and see- saws jst like a big ol' chunk of tree in the river current!

groundhogpeggy - Posted - 02/14/2012:  16:20:37

Well here is a simple little backup track I put up that I might fiddle around with some to get started on this tune.  Old Time Jam has excellent backup tracks, of course, and I will also use theirs... this one here of mine is just a little on the spot homegrown picking out of D, and probably goes slower than Old Time Jam's, plus fingerpicking gives you a different groove to work from... just for a different perspective.  I might add a banjo track if I have another day of just messin with music in the near future like I had today!  I don't count on many of those days, but they sure are fun!  Anyhow, here's the quick little track I might mess around with some in addition to messing around with Old Time Jam's tracks and messing around with soloing on the fiddle with Mississippi Sawyer.  Also, I think this tune would be cool for trying out some twin fiddling, which I haven't tried... but who knows what we'll all come up with in a month?  youtu.be/saijT-ZLUDI  By the way, I should add that probably two years ago this track would've been way too fast for me to fiddle with... lol... and if anybody here is in that situation and would like for me to make a slower guitar track, just holler cause I wouldn't mind at all doing that.  I coulda used a really really slow track a couple of years ago... still prefer them on the slow side monstly now... but I'm finding fast to be a different kind of fun too, thanks to the Old Time Jam tracks I've practiced here and there with.  Whatever you do, however you mess around with it... come on, let's just get started!!!  Yee-haw!

groundhogpeggy - Posted - 02/15/2012:  06:35:08

Ok well the gears are startin' to click here and I'm beginning to immerse myself in the Mississippi here and figure out what kinds of things I wanna do with this.  I made another little video here this morning...not that great, but tried to keep it simple to work with so I can maybe try, if it works out at all, a little twin fiddling along with this just to see if it's doable, or if it causes a great flood or disaster of some sort...lol... and then I'll stop on that idea.  This is not anywhere near my final version or anything... not sure the fingerpickiing backup is easy for me to fiddle along with... plus of course in my own amatueristic non-technical way, I create echoes and sound lags trying to use and re-use youtube, mainly because I'm no good at figuring out the better technologies for recording, and with what time I can find for my own stuff, I'd MUCH rather play than sit and cuss at some buttons and stuff... so anyway... I also plan to fully explore what I might do with this with Old Time Jam's professionally done backup tracks, and any other way I can think within a month of focusing on this to try to play it.  I do have a youtube up somewhere with old time jam of Mississippi SaWYER, but we all know that's technically cheatin', so I ain't gonna link that one... I'll just come up with new and fresh ideas!  Anyway, here's my poor ol' experimental youtube so far of my fingerpickiing backup attempt on one youtube, with a basic fiddle part laid over that on a second youtube... echoes and lags and all, and I might see what happens if I try to fiddle another part with it... we'll see!   Here we go to get started from my end... hope you guys are all thinking about this too... a month flys by so fast!!!!  youtu.be/pToGhBGES6o

groundhogpeggy - Posted - 02/15/2012:  09:29:41

Welll I can't seem to stop this layering of youtubes nonsense I've gotten into... LOL..., but here is one more where I added my banjo to the previous two, even though I had intended to try adding another fiddle part... well, I'll get to that later... we've got lots of month left right now.  Here's the one where I added the banjo... lol... I know the qualtiy is terrible, and as you can see, so is our house... all torn up right now and we've spent too much time on other peooples' and not enough on our own... we'll get to it one of these days... hard to live in right at the moment ... here's the youtube: youtu.be/KW0-cyrrDLk  Anbd now, as much as I'd like to keep messin aroudn with the music... I got other stuff I better get going with!!!!

fiddle and banjo player - Posted - 02/15/2012:  16:19:52

Sounds great Peggy!  (I can tell you're having LOADS of fun with this already!)  

groundhogpeggy - Posted - 02/15/2012:  17:05:21

...yes, scary, ain't it????

NCarolinaFiddler - Posted - 02/15/2012:  17:30:45

Been sawin' away on it today or at least the A part that is trying to get it down.  Don't have it yet but its coming along slowly.

groundhogpeggy - Posted - 02/16/2012:  04:59:48

Keep at it, NC... I've been messin around with this one for a couple of years so it feels sorta like " cheatin" for me...I'm sure I'll get my payback with the next tune...probably be something I have never even heard of...lol...but that's why I thought we might like having an entire month to work at these things! Lookin' forward to your Mississippi Sawyer when you get it ready! It's one of the more fun tunes, to me!

groundhogpeggy - Posted - 02/19/2012:  04:47:26

...tick- tock, tick- tock...how's those Mississippi Sawyers comin' along?

NCarolinaFiddler - Posted - 02/19/2012:  06:50:39

I'm able to play both A and B parts now. So that's an accomplishment.  Going to try and record it within a week.  Maybe a video, not sure yet.

groundhogpeggy - Posted - 02/20/2012:  05:11:30

It's been a busy weekend of work, today the last day of it...then maybe I'll get some time starting tomorrow! Husbands spring break is in march and we'll have an entire week of hard work sun up to sun down, no music, no email, no Internet...just work! I'm glad we got a tune I sorta already know pretty much...not much time this time around. I will try to get something on YouTube soon though!

Andah1andah2 - Posted - 02/21/2012:  18:35:51

Ok, just want to get the ball rolling here.  As with the last tune, I'm posting my first take on this tune and it is rough.  Especially the B part, which is hard to decipher and I just got something down a few minutes before posting.  

This is a version that I got from an old Ozark fiddler named Emmanuel Wood from Taney County, Missouri.  He passed away in 1981, but I got the recording off of a CD I have.  The recording is scratchy to hear, but it is a really cool, unique version that almost sounds crooked and goes AABCC.

I'll be working on it in the future, but for now, here ya go:

youtu.be/b3TiT5mBSVQ

squawkeye - Posted - 02/21/2012:  19:06:09

Great, Stew - nice to hear a unique, crooked take on it. Thanks for getting the ball rolling :)

groundhogpeggy - Posted - 02/22/2012:  04:16:33

Wonderful!!! Thank you! I think you played it in a contemplative style ( many things done crooked strike me as contemplative) and it goes extra good in the lighted kitchen through the world's darkness. Ok, sorry for the dollar and a half poetry, there, but it was very nice fr all of those reasons...and nice to hear an old, long- forgotten (almost!) Ozark way of playing Mississippi Sawyer! Good job! Who's next, maybe me? Lol...gonna see if I can try to get the time fr t today, but not sure if I can. Who else???

groundhogpeggy - Posted - 02/22/2012:  04:17:50

Oh, by the way...we're you crss- tuned?

martynspeck - Posted - 02/22/2012:  05:14:59

Here's a version I picked up to work off off.

youtu.be/_E4v-D6q7yE

Edited by - martynspeck on 02/22/2012 05:16:36

Andah1andah2 - Posted - 02/22/2012:  05:22:42

Thanks,

Nope, not cross tuned.  I guess cross tuning was not very popular in the Ozark style. The Ozark fiddle music book I have by Drew Beisswenger lists that of all the tunes he collected from old timers for the book almost 90% are in standard tuning.

groundhogpeggy - Posted - 02/22/2012:  07:03:16

Oh thanks, that's interesting to hear about Ozark standard tuning. I've found that many very old timey people seem to have stuck pretty much with standard... A lt more than would seem. Even Henry Reed seems to have mostly played that way. Oh, and matryinspeck... Rex McGee's playin will make you lose your mind...he is way, way, way beyond good! Lol...I can't even come close to thinkin about his or John Morris's playin when I pick up mine...kinda like with Doc Watson on the guitar...ugh...just don't think about that and go on and play...lol...those guys are all way too good! Thanks for the link, though, I always
I've hearing him play! As to this day...looks like no music for me today...people needing my help and I gotta run! Another day I'll get to it!

Edited by - groundhogpeggy on 02/22/2012 07:05:37

NCarolinaFiddler - Posted - 02/22/2012:  07:30:04

Sounded good Andah. Not heard it like that before either. 

fiddlepogo - Posted - 02/22/2012:  10:44:29

I tried playing it, and I realized my version of Mississippi Sawyers is REALLY rusty!!!

groundhogpeggy - Posted - 02/22/2012:  13:30:51

Well, the way anda1&a2 put it when we first picked put the tune, it should " swing like a rusty gate,". So rusty might be good, hey?

Andah1andah2 - Posted - 02/22/2012:  14:48:13

Yep,  it's just a rusty tune to me.  I guess just the opposite of a "dandy" or "fancy pansy" tune.  

BTW,  Ol' Elmer really bangs it out here:

youtube.com/watch?v=dNzuvt6BI5c

Gotta love Elmer!  Still going strong.  

BTW, I think typing andah1and2 is a pain for most, so please feel free to call me Stew

Edited by - Andah1andah2 on 02/22/2012 14:53:55

groundhogpeggy - Posted - 02/22/2012:  14:59:03

Stew, I thank you, and my iPad thanks you! And well that Elmer Rich feller playin like that at 91... Should give us a little hope...like if I live that long maybe I'll get that good???? Naaahhhh! But at least we know it is physically possible!

fiddle and banjo player - Posted - 02/22/2012:  18:55:01

Good job andah1!

I haven't really done much with Mississippi Sawyer since I was about 12, so.....I really got some work to do!    I like the links with different versions posted here - giving me great ideas.

groundhogpeggy - Posted - 02/23/2012:  08:17:29

Well I had a little time this morning so I put another Mississippi Sawyer up real quick... kinda messed up at the end, trying to be a smartie, which always gets me... LOL... but here we are for right now.  Maybe I'll get to practice up some and get another one up at some point... I still wanna try to do twin fiddle with this, but haven't had the time to mess around with that yet  ... here we go for today's effort!  youtu.be/pvMzSXB2Qn0   oh by the way I should add that I would like to have used the OldTimeJam backup track for this but our downstairs where we have the big computer is such a construction zone by now it's just not very practical to try to do anything down there, or, here, it's where I have to come to link a video too... also wanted to add I'm using the incredibow on this particular video today!  Come on, better keep 'em comin' because Februrary is running away from us and then we just have two more weeks after that!

Edited by - groundhogpeggy on 02/23/2012 08:19:31

NCarolinaFiddler - Posted - 02/23/2012:  08:25:22

Sounded good Peggy.  Every video I've seen people also play it on the lower strings like you did which I can't figure out.  Anyway I'm gonna record my version Saturday or Sunday when I have more time.

Andah1andah2 - Posted - 02/23/2012:  09:04:36

I really like it Peggy.  You got them slides in there which sounds great on this tune.  I find it interesting that this tune just makes you want to shuffle (adding to the rustiness of the gate).  I found myself kinda shuffling even though it wasn't my original intent.  I don't know enough about bowing to see if it was your intent but I see some nashville moves in there and it sounds great.  

I thought I saw a Chihauhhahaha once before, how many dogs do you have?

groundhogpeggy - Posted - 02/23/2012:  09:34:39

Hey there again...NC fiddler, that ones kinda tough on the lower strings unless either your pinky is Godzilla and can rest on that top string to make it sound good or you cross tune...or just flatout cheat, my personal preference, so that you rearrange the notes in some sneaky fashion that you hope will come across as close enough and then close your eyes and jump in there ad hope for the best! I think this tune is easy enough until you try going down to the lower octave...then at least to me...seems like it gets tough and when your going along on that low octave you're just hanging on for dear life until you can make your way back to the comfort zone...lol...at least that's my experience with this one! Anda1&... er, Stew, I mean...I tend to Nashville Shuffle my way through life...bt yeah, I do think this tune seems just right for it! The little Chihuahua lie creature is situated behind me, Snoop, the black, constantly licking and moaning Cocker Spaniel, is our only ther dog...he never stops moaning if I'm playing the fiddle...not sure if you could hear him or not!!! Half the time we are also babysitting for our daughters dog, but he missed out on today's fun!

outoftunes - Posted - 02/23/2012:  10:51:08

quote:

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Originally posted by groundhogpeggy



 youtu.be/pvMzSXB2Qn0  

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 Nice work--a really good listening version. I would love to sit out on a hot day with a sweet tea and listen to that version on the fiddle.

The version I'm practicing (from dots in Craig Duncan book + overall flavor from oldtimejam.com) feels  jumpy and frenetic. I like the jumpy, but I'm working on toning down the frenetic. (I'm also working on hitting the A on the E string with proper intonation, instead of the super-sharp just short of Bb A that I usually hit).

Keep fiddling!

groundhogpeggy - Posted - 02/23/2012:  11:22:55

I know whatcha mean...some old time stuff can seem frenzied... Although I am just being able to experience a taste of the thrills involved because I've been putting on old time jams fast backup tracks and just hanging on however I could, for a few months, and it is sometimes as crazy as being on some wild roller coaster...somebody linked Rex McGee playing Miss Sawyer, but if you can find him playing Hangman's Reel on YouTube my gosh you can see the thrills and chills because his paying is good enough to pull it off...but mostly I'm not into fast stuff. But I gotta say pushing myself to keep up with the old time jam fast backup tracks since about last summer has vastly improved my playing...then, when I wanna slow things down I just feel more secure in my playing. I know I still screw up quite a bit and have a long ways to go, but that's ok because I can't seem to get into practicing, i.e., playing something over and over again, in the same way, etc. I seem to be happiest with the thrill of not quite knowing what t s I'm gonna do next, but...lol...I have a lot of crash and burns as a result! Anyway, when I play at the tempo I like best, it's usually slower than most.

jsfiddler - Posted - 02/24/2012:  06:46:18

Great job everyone! Will have to sit this one out, but maybe next month?!

groundhogpeggy - Posted - 02/24/2012:  09:00:01

Oh, sorry you're not playing this one...tell ya what...sit back, have anther cold one and enjoy listening, and you might just change yer mind! But if you don't, let's hope for next time!

martynspeck - Posted - 02/24/2012:  12:40:26

Yeah, I've been working with Rex McGee. I've got him slowed waaaaaaaay down to hear what's going on. His videos also have a nice shot of his fingers which is helpful.

groundhogpeggy - Posted - 02/24/2012:  13:02:52

Have you been able to crack the McGee code at all yet?

mojo_monk - Posted - 02/24/2012:  13:05:18

As threatened in the previous thread, here's my quick and dirty version of Mississippi Sawyer. 

It's mostly based on an old recording I have of an unknown fiddler from S. Illinois made back in the 40s - everything else comes from throwing the dozens of versions I have in my Old Time mp3 playlist at the wall just to see what would stick.

This is fun!

-Sean

Mississippi Sawyer

squawkeye - Posted - 02/24/2012:  13:07:15

Hey folks, I now have the prize for this month's Virtual Fiddle Festival - I wasn't sure when these were gonna come in, but now that they are I'm announcing that this month's prize drawing winner will receive.....an oldtimejam.com t-shirt with this design:

If that doesn't motivate you to enter I don't know what will!!!

Josh

squawkeye - Posted - 02/24/2012:  13:09:35

wow, Sean, that was great!  Sounds like it's 100 years old - and I mean that as a high compliment!!