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Originally posted by tonyelder

Oak Ridge Stomp, (Rhys Jones & Christina Wheeler)
Little Brown Jug, (Rhys Jones, Jeff Miller, and Jim Nelson)
Old Dan Tucker, (Rhys Jones, Jeff Miller, and Jim Nelson)

...I like his fiddling. Been working on these off and on for while, and revisitng them now.

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I like his fiddlin' too. Good tunes. Be seeing him in person starting next weekend as he is usually at Clifftop. Getting harder to recognize though as he gets more grey and the beard gets wilder 

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Originally posted by ChickenMan

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Originally posted by tonyelder

Oak Ridge Stomp, (Rhys Jones & Christina Wheeler)
Little Brown Jug, (Rhys Jones, Jeff Miller, and Jim Nelson)
Old Dan Tucker, (Rhys Jones, Jeff Miller, and Jim Nelson)

...I like his fiddling. Been working on these off and on for while, and revisitng them now.

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I like his fiddlin' too. Good tunes. Be seeing him in person starting next weekend as he is usually at Clifftop. Getting harder to recognize though as he gets more grey and the beard gets wilder 

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...britches seem to be getting a little bit bigger too.  But I think its a package deal.  Get one, get 'em all.  

My new favorite tune is "The Sweetness of Mary". A wonderful Cape Breton strathspey by Joan MacDonald Boes. Mary is Saint Mary, the Virgin Mother.

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Originally posted by Fiddler

My new favorite tune is "The Sweetness of Mary". A wonderful Cape Breton strathspey by Joan MacDonald Boes. Mary is Saint Mary, the Virgin Mother.

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Wonderful tune but I prefer it as plain old "Mary" without the religious attachment.

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Originally posted by bagpipe

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Originally posted by Fiddler

My new favorite tune is "The Sweetness of Mary". A wonderful Cape Breton strathspey by Joan MacDonald Boes. Mary is Saint Mary, the Virgin Mother.

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Wonderful tune but I prefer it as plain old "Mary" without the religious attachment.

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Yes, I agree, but this was from the notes of the author of the tune. 

Going to give Devil's Dream a go. I found Louis Boudreault's version on Slippery-Hill with foot perussion, it is just perfect!

Old cotton fields, the first few lines as played in this video, with the two finger method.

youtube.com/watch?v=HjRQdoccfY0

The goal is each day a couple of more parts to add so that by the end of the week I got melody and rhythm right. I tried this video in the past but constantly made mistakes , I need patience and a good ear to get this tune on spot.

Interesting, Anja. I didn't know anybody played this song on the fiddle. Have you ever heard the original by Huddie Ledbetter? youtu.be/hSnuMaA7duo?feature=shared
It was a mainstay of the "folk revival," with recordings by Odetta and The Highwaymen, among others. Then drifted over to country to Johnny Cash and Charlie Pride. Eventually boogied on over to the rock world of the Beach Boys and Creedence Clearwater Revival.
It has a real Cajun feel to me, and I think would sound good that way, although I don't know if its ever been pooular there.
Never heard of the "two finger method" either - I suspect it might be his own invention.

Doug, the reason why I started searching for this tune was because the harmonica player I keep contact with asked me several times : "why don't you try to learn this one on fiddle, everyone knows this one, it should be possible on fiddle as well". That is how a found the video with the two finger method.

The original I must says absolutely rocks and sounds 100% authentic, I get a kick out of it, like I have with the video of John Lee Hooker singing Hobo Blues. And I don't know too much about blues and gospel and all, but I can listen to this kind of music for hours.

I started doing some research on Lead Bellly and went completely crazy when I found this :
youtube.com/watch?v=PsfcUZBMSSg

It has always been my favourite Nirvana unplugged song to sing. I had no idea this was a song that was first recorded by Lead Belly.
In the MTV unplugged series Kurt Cobain - so I notice now - mentions something about Lead Belly's guitar being offered to him for 500.000 dollar, but I find it hard to decide if he is just trying to tell a joke and to make the public laugh or if he is being plain sarcastic when he asks the rest isn't this our favourite performer? or that he is like genuinely admiring Lead Belly. To me it sounds rather deliberately rude and respectless, but I might be totally wrong in my perceptions.

Today I ended up in DDAD to practise Bonaparte's Retreat again and a bit later I started searching for other DDAD tunes. So now I am having a close first look at the Chris Haigh video on the Dry and Dusty DDAD version of Brad Leftwich.

I really wish I could do fast.. I guess it's going to take me another four years to speed up my tunes haha.

I remembered that at one point, I knew the melody to Red Haired Boy on the mandolin. So that's what I went after this morning and I was very surprised. There is only one line...the last section of the A and B are similar from what I can hear but that's the only part I have to make up. I'd like to find the most common version of that tune. Regardless, it's a fun one

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Originally posted by Quincy

Today I ended up in DDAD to practise Bonaparte's Retreat again and a bit later I started searching for other DDAD tunes. So now I am having a close first look at the Chris Haigh video on the Dry and Dusty DDAD version of Brad Leftwich.

I really wish I could do fast.. I guess it's going to take me another four years to speed up my tunes haha.

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Camp Meeting on the 4th of July is another good one for DDAD.

Thanks Tony! I will look it up :)

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Originally posted by Quincy

Thanks Tony! I will look it up :)

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Camp Meeting on the 4^th of July

Black Snake Bit Me on the Toe

Boll Weevil

Midnight on the Water

Washington’s March

Boneparte’s Retreat

Silver Lake (ADad)

no doubt - there are more. ...but I usually play these in ADae. Now that I have fiddles with geared pegs - I may play them in the better tuning.    

Quincy, if you want to learn the Camp Meeting tune I'd suggest you look for the recording by James Bryan and Carl Jones. I believe it was James who introduced this tune to the modern world, and his version has a little quality that I think others may lack (though I certainly haven't heard them all), plus he just has a wonderful "touch." Its on YouTube, but you may have to dig around for it.
Another tune that can be played in that tuning is "Dry and Dusty."

Festival Waltz by Kenny Baker, and Creek’s a Rising by Aubrey Haynie.

"Last Night's Fun" (reel) and having a great time playing along with Enda Scahill (banjo) as I learn it!

Camp meeting on the 4th of July - I just got started:-)))
The Brad Leftwich version of Dry and Dusty taught me a lot about combining 4 short notes with 3 short notes and bow direction possibilities. I start with an upbow and play the first series of  3*4 notes as 4*3 now... don't know if that makes sense the way I try to describe it, but since yesterday I am actually experimenting with bow directions, trying to figure out what I like most. Speeding up is not going to take another four years !!! 

Very happy with these new discoveries :-)))

Quincy - When I suggested "Dry and Dusty" I was just looking at Tony's list - I didn't realize you'd already mentioned it. There's some question about what tuning the Morrison twin brothers actually preferred for this tune, but in any casei it doesn't have to be played in DDAD. Thought you might enjoy this recording of a bunch of us playing it in my living room about 50 years ago. There are three fiddles and I'm sure they're all in standard tuning.

That was very nice Doug and a cool version also! I practise the Leftwich version in D#D#A#D#... For some reason my fiddle ( or is it my ears ?) seems to have a clear preference for slightly different than what is described as most common. For example , my fiddle sounds like it does not like GDGD at all, but one small step up or down and the problem is solved.

I'm not sure what tuning the Morrison Brothers are using either. Hard to tell. I hear a unison high D, but are they two fiddlers? The way they and Doug's recording play the B party sounds like how Kenny Baker plays it, though he plays it in E. I play it in standard too, easy enough that way. I like how Benny Thomasson plays it, definitely in DDad, but nobody I play with knows his version.

Quincy has inspired me... (thanks) 

With the geared pegs on a few of my fiddles now, it's easy to re-tune and play in DDad and DDae tunings. And now I'm discovering some tunes that deserve to be re-tuned...

I'm playing My Last Gold Dollar; Green Willis; LIttle Gal'll Fool Me; and Oak Ridge Stomp in DDae.

...and liking it. Don't know why I didn't do this sooner.  

What tunes are we playing today? Nothing...lol...I' gotta do some mowing...but my thoughts are going back to a tune that I sorta think maybe I made up...could be original...but it sounds so familiar to me...I put it on youtube a while back sort of as a stream of consciousness type thing, just kind of recording as I made it up...it was a cold night, if I'm remembering right, and I called it "Cold Night Waltz." But here lately I've been gazing up into the treetops on morning doggie walks in the woods, and it kept coming to mind this morning so I was inspired enough to take some photos of tree tops and if I get the chance to play it soon (won't be today, tomorrow, or ... well hopefully it'll be sometime before I forget it again) I might use those photos in my youtube recording and call it the "Treetop Waltz." Lol...but I can never know if something that hits me and I play it ... if it's original or if it's some tune or parts of tune(s) I've heard and they're just jumbled up somewhere in my poor ol' brain. Anyway...nobody called me on it when I said it was original the other time I recorded it, so I might try again, and try to make it a smoother, better recording, since after it simmering on the back burners of my mind for several months, I storta have a better idea of how it goes. So, one of these days...gonna try it again...this time, Groundhog's Treetop Waltz. But then again, maybe I wont' get to it at all, ever...lol. How's that for commitment...right now, it's on to the mowing!

Oh but first maybe I'll find that Cold Night Waltz, crude version of what could become Treetop Waltz...for your amusement...lol. And mine. youtu.be/ba2QGsEhPEg?si=QdxejQkyhH2W50ng

Three Forks of Cheat tuned GDGB. I've been slowly working on this one for years as I don't retune much. I'm stealing things from Sherman Hammons, Dwight Diller, and Burl Hammons. Also Sam Rizetta who I think is the first place I heard it. Discovered it works out pretty well tuned GDAE and in B flat. After 25 years or so I might be able to say I know it now. I grew up in the Cheat River "neighborhood". There's more than three forks and more than one tune named after the river.