Please note this is an archived topic, so it is locked and unable to be replied to. You may, however, start a new topic and refer to this topic with a link: http://www.fiddlehangout.com/archive/36131
fiddlepogo - Posted - 01/06/2014: 18:48:28
In another thread, OTJ mentioned slides as being an essential part of Old Time Music. I see them as being something like condiments for burgers and fries. Some people slather on the ketchup, others use moderate amounts, some very little, and some none at all.
I tend to use slides sparingly.... there are only a couple of tunes where I use the slide during the tune. One is Wednesday Night Waltz, aka Cowboy Waltz. I have a really hard time imagining that tune being played without a slide to the first note.
Aside from that, I use slides when I end a tune on a unison in D or A... it makes the last note sound a bit more dramatic and final, somehow.
How do YOU use slides in Old Time?
Do you use a little or a lot?
Who is your favorite Old Time fiddler that slides up a storm?
For instance, on the County recordings of Tommy Jarrell and Fred Cockerham, at least one of the recordings featured Oscar Jenkins as well. All three played some fiddle, and some banjo.
Of the three, I recall Oscar Jenkins using the most,
then Fred Cockerham,
then Tommy Jarrell.
groundhogpeggy - Posted - 01/06/2014: 19:05:51
Do you think we can get 31 pages on this? I think I tend to just slide around all over the place, but it's more habit, or subconscious or something...I'm usually surprised when somebody says something about it oe else I hear it on a youtube and think, "yee-haw, what's all that slidin around about!" Not sure how I got into that, because I haven't been playing long enough to really gave formed habits. But it just happens. And what do I think about it as opposed to what I might do? Well I think I tend to prefer more moderation than how I do it...but I like a fair amount. I also do hammerons...and I like those...but not sure they are really so fiddly. I'm pretty tired tonight and can't think of what old time fiddkers I like do...I think maybe John Morris uses them some, but they are more gradual/ subtle, I believe.
Edited by - groundhogpeggy on 01/06/2014 19:08:01
bwright - Posted - 01/06/2014: 19:22:34
Slides are fun, I add a slide in Elk River Blues and I'm sure there wasn't one to begin with, but I think it fits. IMO they have their place in certain tunes.
Fiddler - Posted - 01/06/2014: 20:30:17
Go to have a slide on Trombone Rag!
fiddlepogo - Posted - 01/06/2014: 20:41:16
quote:
Originally posted by Fiddler
Go to have a slide on Trombone Rag!
Well, YEAH!!!
Do you play Trombone Rag on fiddle?
Inquiring minds want to KNOW!!!
fiddlepogo - Posted - 01/06/2014: 20:44:33
quote:
Originally posted by groundhogpeggy
Do you think we can get 31 pages on this?
Not likely.... we might not get enough Luddite pontificating on this one to stretch it out... unless I play the role of the Luddite pontificator. 
irfiddler - Posted - 01/07/2014: 00:51:40
I really love sliding into double stops - It can sound impressive for very little effort. I think I use slides fairly sparingly these days - used to use them a lot more till I heard myself played back and realized I was overdoing it. and it really sounded as if I didn't know what else to do. . Now I think of a slide as another ornament or embellishment to spice up a plain vanilla tune. and I find it very effective - especially in waltzes. Bridget's Waltz for example, sounds wonderful with that very first deep B note played with a slide and then again on the next B note one octave higher.
In Lost Indian, Kenny Baker uses slides in the B part when he plays them several times on the F#'s . Of course Kenny plays deceptively fast. It sounds so easy till you try to keep up with him.
I've sometimes thought that maybe IN THE BEGINNING, LONG BEFORE WE WERE ALL BORN, a lone fiddler sitting on his front porch somewhere was fooling around with his fiddle, sliding around trying to find the right note and thought - This sounds pretty good - I'll just keep doing it. And maybe that's how it became part of oldtime fiddling tradition.
carlb - Posted - 01/07/2014: 05:03:34
I use slides not only for going into notes but also for rhythmic effect (i.e. sliding back and forth).
OTJunky - Posted - 01/07/2014: 06:20:40
quote:
Originally posted by Pathfinder
Here is a good example of where a slide works well in Sally Johnson by Clyde Davenport,youtube.com/watch?v=jHS-kRjkiRA
Davenport's such a good OT fiddler. Thanks for posting this...
--OTJ
Fiddler - Posted - 01/07/2014: 07:14:59
quote:
Originally posted by fiddlepogo
quote:
Originally posted by Fiddler
Go to have a slide on Trombone Rag!
Well, YEAH!!!
Do you play Trombone Rag on fiddle?
Inquiring minds want to KNOW!!!
As a matter of fact, YES. I play Dwight Lamb's version. I do like how Clark Kessinger plays it though!
carlb - Posted - 01/07/2014: 07:17:47
quote:
Originally posted by fiddlepogoDo you play Trombone Rag on fiddle?
Inquiring minds want to KNOW!!!
I do.
groundhogpeggy - Posted - 01/07/2014: 07:47:03
Wow...great examples!!! Well the Clyde Davenport seemed to barely have any slides to me, except on the double notes, with what I call hammer-ons just before that. Sounded good, though...very nice fiddling. The Ky Waltz fiddling was an example of BG I can live with, and really love...double stop slides on very sweet harmonies...very nice. I can't stand the hectic, mad pace of so much BG, gets on my nerves like rock n roll....lol...but the stuff slow enough to allow things to come out beautiful like this...that's some fiddling I truly love! The slides made it beautiful.
fiddlerjoebob - Posted - 01/07/2014: 07:51:44
quote:
Originally posted by fiddlepogo
quote:
Originally posted by groundhogpeggy
Do you think we can get 31 pages on this?
Not likely.... we might not get enough Luddite pontificating on this one to stretch it out... unless I play the role of the Luddite pontificator.
Hey, this is not Luddite pontificator hangout...or, well, um, I guess that is just what it is...thankfuly.
Pathfinder - Posted - 01/07/2014: 08:03:50
quote:
Originally posted by groundhogpeggy
Wow...great examples!!! Well the Clyde Davenport seemed to barely have any slides to me, except on the double notes, with what I call hammer-ons just before that. Sounded good, though...very nice fiddling. The Ky Waltz fiddling was an example of BG I can live with, and really love...double stop slides on very sweet harmonies...very nice. I can't stand the hectic, mad pace of so much BG, gets on my nerves like rock n roll....lol...but the stuff slow enough to allow things to come out beautiful like this...that's some fiddling I truly love! The slides made it beautiful.
Glad you liked Mr. Davenport. That was the only example I could find. His playing partner there, Tommy Fulcher refers to him sometimes as "Clyde the Slide".
I agree with your preference for the second video. If truth be known, what you are seeing is more of a Texas fiddling style than BG. Franklin plays with Kenny Sears who is a Texas prodigy with a masters in music from North Texas State. These guys are not back woods like you and me, Peggy. They've been steeped in classical music.
I have to start working on third position so I can do those slides with some accuracy, but to date, not using a shoulder rest and chin rest is holding me back as I come back down as it wants to pull the fiddle away from my body. I know there is a way since those contraptions weren't't always employed.
DougD - Posted - 01/07/2014: 08:30:38
There are a couple other videos on YouTube of Clyde Davenport from that same concert. They should come up as suggestions along with that one. I also don't see much sliding in that video, but there is a shift at one point - maybe we're using the term "slide" with different meanings. The guitar player is Bobby Fulcher, and I've heard him refer to Mr. Davenport as "Clyde the Glide," which I thought was a reference to the seemingly effortless smoothness of his playing, using a basketball metaphor (to Clyde "the Glide" Drexler).
What Peggy does is what I think of as a "slide" in playing, where you move into a note, usually from below. I don't do it too much myself - I think a little of that goes a long way.
Edited by - DougD on 01/07/2014 08:39:34
yadayada - Posted - 01/07/2014: 09:19:36
where to use them is the priceless question, imho. Music is fascinating to me. You can have a five note sequence, and by just changing the note you slide will completely change how it sounds.
fiddlepogo - Posted - 01/07/2014: 09:33:58
quote:
Originally posted by irfiddler
I really love sliding into double stops - It can sound impressive for very little effort. I think I use slides fairly sparingly these days - used to use them a lot more till I heard myself played back and realized I was overdoing it. and it really sounded as if I didn't know what else to do. . Now I think of a slide as another ornament or embellishment to spice up a plain vanilla tune. and I find it very effective - especially in waltzes. Bridget's Waltz for example, sounds wonderful with that very first deep B note played with a slide and then again on the next B note one octave higher.
In Lost Indian, Kenny Baker uses slides in the B part when he plays them several times on the F#'s . Of course Kenny plays deceptively fast. It sounds so easy till you try to keep up with him.
I've sometimes thought that maybe IN THE BEGINNING, LONG BEFORE WE WERE ALL BORN, a lone fiddler sitting on his front porch somewhere was fooling around with his fiddle, sliding around trying to find the right note and thought - This sounds pretty good - I'll just keep doing it. And maybe that's how it became part of oldtime fiddling tradition.
You bring out an interesting side point... which now that you mention it seems perfect for slides:
the role of OVERDOING SOMETHING as a learning tool, and then learning to BACK OFF at some point to find that golden balance.
This is probably one of the things that recording does really help with.
Unfortunately, some people NEVER learn to back off on a particular technique and use it only appropriately.... they're like these people that drown their french fries in ketchup!!!!
In terms of the lone fiddler.... probably not. Not from what I know of American history. Or maybe the lone fiddler on the porch was an African American.
1950's.... "color lines" were still in place. Rhythm and blues bands are making great music, but due to the race barrier, couldn't sell beyond an African American market. But the radio waves were unfettered, and some white kids started listening and learning the songs.... and got hits with them. Rock and Roll was born. But that wasn't a new thing, this phenomenon was a work all the time the color line was in place.... in fact, you can view Minstrel music as an outworking of the phenomenon.
The slide is a part of African American music. African music has a natural third, which is flat compared to the tempered European third. Exposed to both kinds of music, it seems that playing with that third in different ways became a key element in lots of African American music, starting with the folk music. Of course, the 7th can also be major or minor, so that gets played with too.
There is also possibly the influence of trains..... trains figure prominently in African American folk music. (Freight Train, Railroad Bill, John Henry) The whistles blowing sounds low farther in the distance, and as they approach, the pitch goes up. To get imitate that on the fiddle, you've GOT to slide. I had forgotten, but I just remembered that a couple of years ago, I figured out that a double stop with the third below the tonic, if it is slid to pitch, and done twice, sounds a lot like a train whistle. I was doing it for Reuben's Train at jams, and after a while for a joke, I was likely to do it on any train song.... and there are a lot of them that get played at folk jams. (Blow Your Whistle Freight Train, City of New Orleans, 500 Miles, etc)
I use to really NOT like slides, but about 15 years ago, go into the blues after hearing B.B. King do that All Detergent commercial. On electric guitar, the slides become BENDS but that's just a technical difference, really- sonically it's the same thing. Due to the frets, bending is the only way you are going to get the effect.... unless the guitar has a "whammy bar" installed.
So I learned to like bends AND slides, but I'm particular.... I want it to start not lower than a minor third, and definitely NOT go higher than the major third. The problem is that people who are pitch-challenged sometimes use slides as a way of fudging the exact intonation. The problem then is that if they couldn't hear the right intonation to begin with, they sure as the day you were born are NOT going to start OR end the slide on the right pitch. Such sliding tends to make me queasy.... and actually, it also abounds in electric guitar playing where the initial note may not be too low, because it's a fretted instrument, but they will bend sharp of the final destination.
Hmmm.... maybe not LUDDITE pontificating.... but it'll have to do!
Edited by - fiddlepogo on 01/07/2014 10:18:24
strokestyle - Posted - 01/07/2014: 09:45:27
Beaver Slide Rag by Old 78's.
"Who is your favorite Old Time fiddler that slides up a storm?"
Billy Mathews was a banjo player before he pursued fiddle. He uses all his banjo tricks on the fiddle. He slides and hammers. Thinking about the tune Monkey in a Dog Cart, it lends itself to some real monkey slides for sure:) There are lots of old time tunes played with slides:)
ChickenMan - Posted - 01/07/2014: 09:59:56
Ed Haley used them, especially with a unison open note. I do that some and also like sliding into the 3rd like in D sliding into the F# on the E string or the C# when playing A notes.
fiddlepogo - Posted - 01/07/2014: 10:26:53
quote:
Originally posted by strokestyle
Beaver Slide Rag by Old 78's.
"Who is your favorite Old Time fiddler that slides up a storm?"
Billy Mathews was a banjo player before he pursued fiddle. He uses all his banjo tricks on the fiddle. He slides and hammers. Thinking about the tune Monkey in a Dog Cart, it lends itself to some real monkey slides for sure:) There are lots of old time tunes played with slides:)
Even before I read this, I was thinking.... there must be a fretless banjo connection too... playing with a fretless banjo player, or being able to play both as so many Round Peakers did and do, is going to have to encourage sliding.
There ARE lots of Old Time tunes played with slides... however... I DO believe there was an older generation of Old Time fiddlers and fiddling that doesn't have much African American influence. I think William Stepp and Luther Strong epitomize this kind. I don't think doing that kind of tune with slides adds anything to them. (Eh... that's probably as close to Luddite pontificating as I'm going to get!... naw, wait.. I can do better than that.... WHY, it would be like an Irish Trad player playing a Double Shuffle in Drowsy Maggie!!!
Was that Luddite enough?) But the raggy stuff, YEAH... slide ON!!!
Edited by - fiddlepogo on 01/07/2014 10:31:04
strokestyle - Posted - 01/07/2014: 10:52:57
Pogo not so sure I understand what your trying to relay, but Billy Mathews and The Old 78's are very far from round peak stuff. Actually they have the syncopation and rhythm of the what we perceive to be the music the slaves brought to us. Have you ever listened to any Skirtlifter music? Here is a link to one of my favorites
There are several more of these Skirtlifter tunes and songs in that link at the Library Of Appalachia. Enjoy them all!
Pathfinder - Posted - 01/07/2014: 11:08:33
quote:
Originally posted by strokestyle
Pogo not so sure I understand what your trying to relay, but Billy Mathews and The Old 78's are very far from round peak stuff. Actually they have the syncopation and rhythm of the what we perceive to be the music the slaves brought to us. Have you ever listened to any Skirtlifter music? Here is a link to one of my favorites
There are several more of these Skirtlifter tunes and songs in that link at the Library Of Appalachia. Enjoy them all!
I enjoyed the recording, interesting and enjoyable. Thanks for posting. 
fiddlepogo - Posted - 01/07/2014: 11:57:32
quote:
Originally posted by strokestyle
Pogo not so sure I understand what your trying to relay, but Billy Mathews and The Old 78's are very far from round peak stuff. Actually they have the syncopation and rhythm of the what we perceive to be the music the slaves brought to us. Have you ever listened to any Skirtlifter music? Here is a link to one of my favorites
There are several more of these Skirtlifter tunes and songs in that link at the Library Of Appalachia. Enjoy them all!
No, I'm not saying they are, just that fretlessness in a banjo would encourage slides in any style, and the fiddler playing with the banjo player (in any style) would certainly consider the possibility of matching the banjo player slide for slide, since the fiddle can do it.
robinja - Posted - 01/07/2014: 11:57:35
I am a compulsive slider. Hopefully in a tasteful way, but who knows? I think I mostly slide into the first note of a phrase, especially if I'm holding that note a little longer, but I'm sitting at my computer right now, and not my fiddle, so what I think I do and what I actually do might be different. Some slide-y fiddlers that I enjoy are Mick Kinney (my teacher/mentor), Benton Flippen, and Tommy Magness. I'll try to find some clips later to post - I know there are plenty of the first two on Youtube.
Judy
Zachary Hoyt - Posted - 01/07/2014: 19:03:40
I learned to slide because I wanted to play Florida Blues. I can't play it as fast as Arthur Smith but I'm working on it a little at a time.
Zach
tonyelder - Posted - 01/07/2014: 19:59:17
Optional. Generally speaking, I like slides. I add them where I think they belong - but not everywhere I can.
Bradford - Posted - 01/07/2014: 20:31:19
Too many makes it sound like a slide whistle, too few makes it a bit wooden.
Worse is when the slide is too big, that's really tacky.
RobBob - Posted - 01/08/2014: 09:09:01
All I am going to say on this thread is a quote from the late John Hartford. "If you don't stop, you are not out of tune."
Peghead - Posted - 01/08/2014: 10:13:21
I feel the same way about slides as I do about vibrato. It's an effect. If they add something musically or as a needed accent -great. If they're exaggerated or done habitually it's just an annoying mannerism. Some people slide into every 3rd, and it always bugs me. I've never heard a tune suffer from not enough of them unless it's an essential feature of that particular melody. It's also not an excuse for not being able to hit the note dead on.
Carter - Posted - 01/08/2014: 11:38:54
Slides are interesting. When I was taking lessons (Old Time lessons) it was suggested that they tend to work best when sliding into a unison note (droning an open string of the same note). It's been a while since then and I still think this is really good advice. I try to use them little elsewhere.
I've also found that It's difficult to realize when I'm sliding too much. Often it doesn't become obvious until I listen to a recording of myself at which point, if it's in excess, it becomes almost painful.
Sliding is easy to do because it requires less accuracy with intonation. Just slide into those notes! However, if you aren't careful, it can get out of hand.
robinja - Posted - 01/08/2014: 16:46:46
I guess I will reluctantly agree that slides are not essential to old time music, but I prefer slide-y fiddlers personally. And it may be a matter of taste, but I think that if you're good at them and they become part of your style, they almost can't be over-done. Not everyone will like your playing, but that would be true no matter what.
Here's a great illustration of Benton Flippen. At about the 2:45 mark, they start talking about his left hand technique. Then he plays the A part of Polecat Blues starting at about 3:30 - if sliding is bad, I don't want to be good!
youtube.com/watch?v=QWGvecsg4rM
And here is my fiddle mentor Mick Kinney fiddling in his wonderful greasy style. There are loads of videos of Mick playing on YouTube in a more professional manner, but I chose this one because so many of the tunes Mick plays are built for slides, but this is a tune that you wouldn't necessarily play this way, but it works for me:
youtube.com/watch?v=m2Pof_vCj1Q
Here's a more typical clip of Mick:
youtube.com/watch?v=_wDYgdMXHCo
Sliding may not be everyone's cup of tea, but sliding is integral to the style of many great old time fiddlers - these are just two that sprang immediately to mind.
Judy
Edited by - robinja on 01/08/2014 16:53:24
OTJunky - Posted - 01/08/2014: 16:59:13
Robinja,
Thanks for all those clips. I hadn't seen the Benton Flippen one before.
And the last one's gonna change the way I play Four Cent Cotton. I'd only heard the Skillet Licker's do it.
--OTJ
Carter - Posted - 01/08/2014: 17:48:55
Yeah, great links Robinja! I admit, I really do love that stuff as well. When I was considering the original question I hadn't actually considered that greasy style of fiddling, which in general I think of as it's own vein of old time, but still old time nonetheless.
One of my favorite fiddlers around is Dan Gellert and he has also really nailed this style in a way I love. Take for example his version of Black Jack Grove.
youtube.com/watch?v=o2sW8tCFjPI
OTJunky - Posted - 01/08/2014: 18:03:09
quote:
Originally posted by Carter
....
One of my favorite fiddlers around is Dan Gellert and he has also really nailed this style in a way I love. Take for example his version of Black Jack Grove.
youtube.com/watch?v=o2sW8tCFjPI
That pretty much sums it up...
--OTJ
blockader - Posted - 01/08/2014: 18:24:28
Thanks for the Benton clip, Judy! And count me in as a bluesy slide grease lover.
Edited by - blockader on 01/08/2014 18:24:46
