@Gapbob totally agree, not tradition for tradition's sake but because it sounds SO GOOD!

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Originally posted by ShawnCraver

 And then a huge respect for bluegrass fiddlers like Kenny Baker or Clark Kessinger...
 

Don't think I've ever heard Kessinger classed as a bluegrass fiddler.  Do you say that because of his later recordings backed by three-finger banjo, some element of his style, or did he have some local reputation I'm unaware of?

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Originally posted by bacfire

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Originally posted by ShawnCraver

 And then a huge respect for bluegrass fiddlers like Kenny Baker or Clark Kessinger...
 

Don't think I've ever heard Kessinger classed as a bluegrass fiddler.  Do you say that because of his later recordings backed by three-finger banjo, some element of his style, or did he have some local reputation I'm unaware of?

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I always hear him referred to as an Old Time fiddler. As I understand it, he and Mike Humphreys were two of the quintessential Old Time players in Galax history. That's certainly how it was described to me at a jam in Galax. 

I was waiting for someone to comment on me categorizing Kessinger as a bluegrass fiddler. That was not intentional...more a bad sentence structure thing. A hot fiddler though.. A lot of 'hot dogging' in style and performance style...

I hear everybody call everything Bluegrass so much I never even think about it...lol. Kessinger BG...why not? People have even called me BG...that word seems just very generic where I live...lol.

Back sometime in the seventies when I'd get asked what kind of music I play I'd usually answer "bluegrass". Several times I got the response "you mean like John Denver?" To which I always said no. I think bluegrass deserves a pretty narrow definition exemplified by the core players from the early days, and those who cleave to that style. I play a little bluegrass today I guess, but I make a distinction to anyone who cares between it and old time. Old time is perhaps harder to define, but the distinctions are still worth making.

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Originally posted by Brian Wood

Back sometime in the seventies when I'd get asked what kind of music I play I'd usually answer "bluegrass". Several times I got the response "you mean like John Denver?" To which I always said no. I think bluegrass deserves a pretty narrow definition exemplified by the core players from the early days, and those who cleave to that style. I play a little bluegrass today I guess, but I make a distinction to anyone who cares between it and old time. Old time is perhaps harder to define, but the distinctions are still worth making.

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You could have replied. "No. Like Tina Turna."

An interesting study would be Kessinger playing Salt River in the 1920s with the Kessinger Brothers compared to his 1960s recording. Seems he liked the bluegrass instrumentation style. I think I might likes the 60s recording  better than the 20s . .This is a good one, too... https://youtu.be/EAp6TJ6fBIY?list=RDEAp6TJ6fBIY   That ending?! haha 

I guess a mix of A and C would be the answer. Somewhere between Old-Time and really traditional-sounding Bluegrass and Country. I'm not much of a fan of really fancy and polished fiddle and tend to prefer the fiddlers who moreso focus on driving the rhythm for the dancers than trying to play like the people in modern times in the studios and in the contests, and I like a strong banjo accompaniment rather than quiet/subtle, but that's probably because I'm primarily a banjo player.

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Originally posted by NCnotes

So here’s a question I’ve been pondering lately…

POLL
What fiddling style do you aspire to?

A. A style rooted in history, tradition and authenticity, aka “playing like the old geezers” :-)
B. A modern ‘band’ style, inspired by bands that are in and current popular albums
C. Your own style…whatever appeals to you
D. Other?

( I think I started with B (trying to play like Kevin Burke, Lunasa, etc) but at the advanced sesh I led a modern “band-style” set and then after me this really great young guy started a set on his concertina and his was so ‘true’, with gentle old-fashioned lilt and a laidback rhythm, that made me feel like my set was overdone and vulgar. So I’ve been listening more to “old geezers” and classic albums lately…)

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Paraphrasing the skunk from Disney's Bambi, "That's alright. He can call me a bluegrasser if he wants to. I don't mind." 

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Originally posted by groundhogpeggy

I hear everybody call everything Bluegrass so much I never even think about it...lol. Kessinger BG...why not? People have even called me BG...that word seems just very generic where I live...lol.

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Wow stylistically how much has changed in BG fiddling from Kessinger's 1960's recording, with mostly single note melody, to the current BG fiddling, replete with all sorts of double stops and improvisations.

@Gapbob what a great experience in St Looie! There
still seems to be a great Irish scene there but absent those luminaries you mentioned.

I see you're about an hour from Ann Arbor-- do you ever get over to Conor O'Neills on a Sunday evening? There's also a Plymouth session on Wednesdays.

I'm sure I've mentioned this more than once, but I found myself in the OT Fiddle universe when I impulsively bought a violin after my wife threatened to throw me out of the house because of my endless (and poor) piano playing. Putting in another way, my jones for playing music was just too strong to simply stick to the instrument I'll always be best at, the steel string acoustic guitar. Long story short -- I providentially came across an ad by David Bragger in the local underground newspaper. OT is what Bragger taught, and that's what I started playing. I still love the genre, too!

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Originally posted by wrench13

Wow stylistically how much has changed in BG fiddling from Kessinger's 1960's recording, with mostly single note melody, to the current BG fiddling, replete with all sorts of double stops and improvisations.

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Ignoring the Kessenger-as-a-BG-fiddler thing, I'm gonna opine that BG fiddling was double stops and improvisation from the start.   First generation fiddlers Jim Shumate, Chubby Wise, Benny Martin, Bobby Hicks, etc., and even the very early proto-BG work of Art Wooten and Tommy Magness, all played double-stop heavy with much improv.  Some of their classic breaks on vocal numbers didn't even hint at the melody of the song.

As far as Kessenger's style, pretty much nothing changed in his style for over forty years.  Most old fiddlers I ever knew way down south didn't seem to care what was backing them up and how they were doing it as long as it was rhymically solid.  That's still mostly the case in the SWVA/WNC area where OT music is still something of a living style.  Three finger rolls behind Galax style fiddle, near BG-style rhythm on F-style mandolins, drop-thumb styles on resonator banjos, and other things that would send the average Clifftop revivalist into convulsions are run of the mill there.  Of course, you probably know all that if you've been around the southern mountains.  I've seen it around more local contests and pickings all through Appalachia.

OTOH, I agree that a lot of BG fiddling is tasteless and overplayed these days.  Heck, for the last several decades.

I don't care what they call me...lol...I'm just glad to be called at all! For a while when we first moved up here I got acquainted with the archivist in the library where I worked and he called me a "Balladeer." He was a big enthusiast for anything Kentucky...that was his job, really. Anyway he got me a few little bitty gigs playing for some of his educational stuff he did and even though he called me a Balladeer, the others, who often introduced me to the small audiences, still called me BG. And one time the guy misread the paper and even introduced me as "Peppy," instead of Peggy. I kinda liked that name...shoulda kept it...lol.

I agree with you on all counts bacfire...except on Kessinger's playing being a little different in the 60s, though. Seems he did, too. From the liner notes of The Legend of Clark Kessinger..."Kessinger considered the recordings of his youth far inferior to his mature playing and would probably have preferred to be remembered for an album like this, recorded soon after his reemergence, with vigorous bluegrass-style accompaniment by banjoist Wayne Hauser and guitarist Gene Meade."

I've always put any difference in his later playing (maybe a little more drive and "aggression") down to extra motivation from his accompanists, but maybe I need to go listen some more.
I am glad to see more of Kessinger's influence blossoming in the OT world. Youngish WV fiddlers like Jake Krack and Tessa McCoy have got his style nailed down and are using it to max advantage. Raistlin Brabson over in East VA has it as well. The days of total Round Peak dominance of the OT world have definitely passed.

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Originally posted by JonD

@Gapbob what a great experience in St Looie! There
still seems to be a great Irish scene there but absent those luminaries you mentioned.

I see you're about an hour from Ann Arbor-- do you ever get over to Conor O'Neills on a Sunday evening? There's also a Plymouth session on Wednesdays.

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McGurks was great (the best!) throughout the 80s, until the early 90s, and still good after that, but when Joe Burke left, the upper echelon of Irish musicians did not come as often.  (Joe Burke left acrimoniously, having slugged the manager, or so I was told).  

I have gone to Conor O'Neill's a few times, but my Irish repertoire is not large enough for that fine, rather esoteric session, add in that the last time I was there I had a hard time hearing well enough to tune well, and then there is the hour drive there and back.

I went to Plymouth once, but that time it was focused on students and only lasted like 1.5 hours, with much of that time spent on encouraging the students of the Irish Music Institute.  (Which is fine, but again, it is an hour drive or so.)

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Originally posted by bacfire

I've always put any difference in his later playing (maybe a little more drive and "aggression") down to extra motivation from his accompanists, but maybe I need to go listen some more.
I am glad to see more of Kessinger's influence blossoming in the OT world. Youngish WV fiddlers like Jake Krack and Tessa McCoy have got his style nailed down and are using it to max advantage. Raistlin Brabson over in East VA has it as well. The days of total Round Peak dominance of the OT world have definitely passed.

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Round Peak dominance was rather regional, in the Midwest we knew of it and played some of those tunes, but it was not "dominant."  I found it amusing and somewhat embarrassing that in the mid 90s to early 2000s, most of the winners at the Clifftop fiddle contest were from the Midwest, who, IMHO, did not depend on the Round Peak patterned bowing to drive their tunes.

There was a fellow named Doug who was from Philly, IIRC, who lived in St. Louis a while and made the statement that "the only old-time fiddle music is that from Round Peak."

We all grinned and laughed about it afterwards.

Difficult questions, I wouldn't know, I'm already delighted if I can bring a typical old time tune with a little bit of an own touch and can handle a few techniques that are just very fiddley to my ears  I want to dive a bit into other styles than  strictly Appalachian old time, maybe a little touch of Cajun, a few sea shanties and some of the very old timey Irish stuff, since that cool tune you posted I felt some weird strong desire to try this out ... and some Scottish tunes also!!

For a long time I thought I had to dive deeper and deeper into the same hole, but I changed my mind. Maybe focusing on other genre tunes will bring me better insight in cool techniques to play with, rhythms to follow, melodies to be played.

Unfortunately I haven't been playing for a long time due to a possible covid infection and the aftermath OR there is something wrong with my ears or maybe it's just both. Can't wait for the moment I really feel like the old me again. I miss it to play.

It seems like there's a bit of animosity between the Midwestern and Southern Appalachian camps. I enjoy both and am kind of looking to do a sort-of "best of both worlds" thing where it has the really rhythmic bowing of Round Peak but is really polished and the melody is a little more front and center like the Midwestern guys. I preach playing simple and clean, but, unfortunately, I think I end up playing complicated and sloppy.

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Originally posted by gapbob

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Originally posted by bacfire

I've always put any difference in his later playing (maybe a little more drive and "aggression") down to extra motivation from his accompanists, but maybe I need to go listen some more.
I am glad to see more of Kessinger's influence blossoming in the OT world. Youngish WV fiddlers like Jake Krack and Tessa McCoy have got his style nailed down and are using it to max advantage. Raistlin Brabson over in East VA has it as well. The days of total Round Peak dominance of the OT world have definitely passed.

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Round Peak dominance was rather regional, in the Midwest we knew of it and played some of those tunes, but it was not "dominant."  I found it amusing and somewhat embarrassing that in the mid 90s to early 2000s, most of the winners at the Clifftop fiddle contest were from the Midwest, who, IMHO, did not depend on the Round Peak patterned bowing to drive their tunes.

There was a fellow named Doug who was from Philly, IIRC, who lived in St. Louis a while and made the statement that "the only old-time fiddle music is that from Round Peak."

We all grinned and laughed about it afterwards.

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Sorry to hear, Anja! Hope you feel better and get back to making music soon!

Soppingravy, yea I think we wind up taking what we like from various players/styles and then that slowly, eventually becomes our ‘own style’…

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Originally posted by gapbob

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Round Peak dominance was rather regional, in the Midwest we knew of it and played some of those tunes, but it was not "dominant."  

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Probably so.  I didn't know much at all about the Old-Time/revivalist/everybody-plays-at-the-same-time scene until the 2000s.  I grew up in bluegrass and in the local fiddle music of north Alabama.  When I first began frequenting OT events it seemed to me that most everybody was playing Round Peak, both repertoire and style.  

Interestingly, there was a long-running connection between the fiddle scenes of N. AL and MO.  I assume it came, at least in part, from Stephen F. Davis and his involvement in the TN Valley OT Fiddlers Convention at Athens, AL, and in The Devil's Box magazine, which tended to focus at lot on both areas.  My fiddling uncles knew several MO fiddlers in the 1970s and '80s and a good many competed in the larger AL contests.  Pete McMahan was probably my favorite fiddler in the world when I was a teenager.

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Originally posted by NCnotes

Soppingravy, yea I think we wind up taking what we like from various players/styles and then that slowly, eventually becomes our ‘own style’…

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True.  Also, John Hartford said that our styles are a product of our limitations.  That's definitely so in my case.  If I weren't so limited, I'd be stealing errybody's styles!  ;^)

It's amazing to hear all the opinions about fiddling and fiddling styles. I respect the amount of time anyone puts in to master an instrument. Regardless of Genre. I laugh when I hear people dogging on Bluegrass Fiddling though. To me, there is probably some envy there? I don't get it. I get loving and sticking to Genre...it's like being on a team. Fiddle on... :)