Posted by fiddlepogo on Saturday, May 15, 2010
I had a crazy intuition to sand some on the ends of my main Knilling's bridge (Booker, the Romanian one) in a certain way, and lo and behold, it improved the tone quite a bit more that I would've thought the little bit of wood removed would accomplish. It seems to have a bit more midrange, but not too much, not so thin sounding. The really great thing is that the fiddle sounds a lot better in the key of D now... before, it would sound quite good in G or A modal, but not so good in D or A.
And that wasn't good, since I know a lot of D tunes.
This has resulted in some long practice sessions with things sounding pretty good.
I tried to do the same thing to Stinky, and it seemed to help the problematic E string, but then I chipped out part of the bridge on the treble side, and it doesn't sound so good now.
I think maybe Stinky needs a new bridge AND a new soundpost- the soundpost has a chip out of it too!!!
Last week I substitute hosted someone else's jam (he had a gig) and it went well, but it felt a lot like one of my jams since mostly my people showed up!
Today was the Old Time jam, and it went pretty well, considering I was tired. Part of it may have been I had a good warm-up practice session beforehand.
We even did more fiddle tunes than normal, which felt good for a change... more like an Old Time jam SHOULD!!!
LATE ADDITION:
Another serendipitous thing: a few days ago I remembered a tune I'd heard years ago and was able to find the notes on the fiddle, but I didn't have a clue what the name of it was.
Then a very short time later, WoodshopFiddler responded to the previous blog entry (THANK YOU!!!) and suggested a website with "Southwest" tunes (Lamancusa's site, I think). I went there, found other tunes besides Southwest tunes, and one of the first ones I click on was Leake County Two Step... bingo, that was the one I remembered.
That sure didn't take long!!!
4 comments on “Various Serendipitous Fiddle things and some not so Serendipitous ones...”
Humbled by this instrument Says:
Sunday, May 16, 2010 @10:00:30 AM
Now tell me which songs are played at the OT jam. Which at the BG jam? I'm gonna make it up there one of these fine days and I want to at least know some of the tunes. Probably do already. Uhm.... I'll most likely be bringing my Gliga Molinari with Helicores. It'll be interesting to hear what you think-- Humbled
Humbled by this instrument Says:
Sunday, May 16, 2010 @10:02:18 AM
In fact, I'd say any FHO member--in good standing--within, oh, a thousand miles, we should all converge upon one of Michael's jams and have a raucously fine time. Anyone? Anyone?
fiddlepogo Says:
Sunday, May 16, 2010 @2:41:10 PM
LOL!!!!
fiddlepogo Says:
Sunday, May 16, 2010 @7:21:51 PM
Tunes we often play at the Chico Old Time Jam:
Seneca Square Dance
Turkey in the Straw
Little Liza Jane (non-Baltimore, with Em chords)
Shove that Pig's Foot etc.
Blackberry Blossom
Cotton Eyed Joe (Bob Wills version, more or less)
Soldier's Joy
Eighth of January
Whiskey Before Breakfast
Arkansas Traveler
June Apple
Salt Creek
Red Haired Boy
Cripple Creek
Old Joe Clark
Bill Cheatham
Cherokee Shuffle
Many of those would work for the local Bluegrass jam too.
We did Temperance Reel last time, and I think we've done Ebenezer
and Walkin' In My Sleep (see my ezfolk.com site- the link's on my home page here.
See my tune list WAAAAY back in my blog-
anything we both know we could do, if I run through the chords once for the guitarists
and banjo players.
Check Folkjam.org for location details and warnings of any cancellations.
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