# Music by Genre > Old-Time, Roots, Early Country, Cajun, Tex-Mex >  New to Old Time Music (Need a tip or two)

## Daijoki

Hi all,

I sat in an on old timey jam last night and felt lost. Whereas at bluegrass jams I can listen for the chord progression and melody line, I found last night that most tunes were in one chord (e.g., "no progression, just "In A") and never wandered from it. I also found that that the melody lines never strayed more than a few intervals.

What advise do you have for someone who wants to participate, both in terms of chords (strum? chunk? arpeggiate) and melody (do people take breaks or vary? It seemed very "droney").

Thanks,

Scott

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## buckles

> I sat in an on old timey jam last night and felt lost. Whereas at bluegrass jams I can listen for the chord progression and melody line, I found last night that most tunes were in one chord (e.g., "no progression, just "In A") and never wandered from it. I also found that that the melody lines never strayed more than a few intervals.
> 
> What advise do you have for someone who wants to participate, both in terms of chords (strum? chunk? arpeggiate) and melody (do people take breaks or vary? It seemed very "droney").


Hi.... a lot of old time jams are based on fiddle tunes and the fiddler(s) lead the session.  In general, it's an ensemble music, where everyone plays their version of the tune and people don't take solos.

The chording thing....  Many old time tunes predate the use of a chording instrument.  The guitar was introduced to Appalachia late relative to the fiddle and banjo.  Some songs were recorded without guitar.  So, for many fiddle tunes there are no official chords and it's up to the guitar player to decide what the chords will be.  When in a jam and unsure of the chords, watch the guitar player if they seem to know what they're doing.  That said, the guitar player doesn't usually get to do anything they want; there's usually an accepted backup structure for the tune, maybe with some variations.  During the tune, if the fiddler thinks the chords are wrong, they might give thde guitar player some sort of look, or say something if they can talk and play at the same time.

Another thing about old-time sessions is that with players who are truly into old time music, the tune being played will often be a particular version of the tune, "as recorded by so-and-so" or "let's play so-and-so's version of...."  For example, Cumberland Gap.  You might find yourself in a session playing a very generic "festival version" of this tune, or something that sounds familiar but is different in surprising ways, or something that you would never, to hear it, think of as being Cumberland Gap.

Hope this helps...

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## fatt-dad

I play mandolin in old-time sessions all the time and go with the melody line.  The fiddle players put up with me and I try to defer to their lead, but enjoy playing along on the lead.  If you don't have a strong lead presence and it's just clawhammer banjo, dulicmer, guitar, autoharp, then it'll be one big drone.

I'd suggest that if you stick with it, write down the tunes that they are calling and get the tab edit file from www.mandozine.com (most of them will be there) and learn the melody line as well as the chording. That way, you'll have an ability to do either - but the melody is more fun!

f-d

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## Jim Nollman

I also play mandolin in an old time band. The melody is much more central to the performance than in bluegrass. Some purists expect everybody to play the melody and nothing else, as is often done in Irish pubs. Such parallel playing in repetition can be fun if you are a player, and drives me nuts when I'm the audience listening to everybody do the same thing over and over again. 

At some point, in my own band's development, I started introducing syncopated chop chords to a tune. Kind of like what the bluegrass mandolin does when not soloing. One of the old timers hit the roof, kept telling me this music was NOT bluegrass. I kept at it, and even started introducing tango, reggae, rumba, polka, in fact any groove i could dream up.  The old timer finally came around when he noticed that our audiences started dancing more vibrantly when i got into a good groove. At first, I'd pick one groove, and play it through an entire tune. These days I have been listening to jazz and Fusion quite a lot, and tend to mix up the grooves in any single tune, Usually coming back to the initial groove at the end of the tune.

So in any tune, i will often start out playing the melody in parallel with the fiddler or fiddlers.  sometimes we work with two fiddlers or even a fiddler and a tin whistle player. By the second verse I start vamping in syncopation. However, for my vamping to work in performance, it helps if the music has a lot of space meaning I often play alone with just a fiddler, as a duet. If there are more players, some one else — in our case the baritone guitarist and the concertina player — have to take charge of the ONE, plus the passing notes and chords. At some point in this multi-player band, the fiddler backs off, I do an alternate melody version (there are often several alternative melodies to choose from, although these are NOT the same thing as a bluegrass improv). The fiddler eventually returns to the melody, and I will double it with a harmony. At this point, the music can get really interesting, if one of us starts playing odd harmonies. For instance, we do one tune, Church Street Polka, which is a very simple melody, basically three arpeggios.  One of these chords CAN BE a sixth. So one night I started playing a sixth harmony. Great fun. For me, the deciding factor is whether it sounds good. 

If this sounds odd, then realize that a lot of these traditional tunes have been deconstructed by the likes of Mozart, Brahms, Bartok, and lately by so many fiddle/banjo,mando/guitar  based bands.

One thing. This music attracts purists who would shudder to hear this description of our arrangements. But the audiences are far less pure. They don't care as much about the melody as they do for a strong rhythm if its a contra dance. So if the ONE is kept constant by somebody, dancers love it when i push the beat. 

In a stage performance, this music is very repetitious and for many people it can get boring pretty fast  since the melodies are so simple and everyone is playing parallel. It's participatory music at its best. Almost everybody who plays and records this music professionally for audiences, tends to deconstruct it on some level.  Hope this helps.

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## buckles

> ...
> One thing. This music attracts purists who would shudder to hear this description of our arrangements....
> 
> In a stage performance, this music is very repetitious and for many people it can get boring pretty fast  since the melodies are so simple and everyone is playing parallel. It's participatory music at its best. Almost everybody who plays and records this music professionally for audiences, tends to deconstruct it on some level.  Hope this helps.


I really agree with these two paragraphs of Jim's post.

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## Dennis Ladd

The appeal of old time music to me is the _fact_ that the same tune is played over and over and over ... you get the idea. Getting lost in one of these great old tunes with a bunch of other musicians, I can feel my alpha waves getting longer (are are they the beta waves?) and the music starts to play itself. Very sort of Ozarks Zen.

Add contradancers pounding the floor in front of me and watching the patterns unfold ... fantabulastic.

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## mandolirius

I live in a place with a lot of very good old time players. There are two weekly jams and a weekly pub gig featuring a band that does mostly old time. I've thought long and hard about what kind of contribution I can make with a mandolin and have concluded the best thing for me is to go with the banjo players. 

Their type of playing (clawhammer or frailing) has been a challenge to adapt to mandolin, but it's coming along. I don't use that many notes and mostly stay in first position. The key is in how I use my right hand. It's an elbow-driven motion. I try to mimick the right hand of the banjo players. One of the local players, a great player and builder, is Jason Romero (THe Haints Oldtime Stringband). I've learned a ton from listening and watching him play.

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## woodwizard

I play mandolin in an old-time band reguarily and I agree with everything fatt-dad, Jim, and buckles said. I think the mandolin can really color up old-time nicely. Make it more interesting and by not changing the traditional sound that much. Changing up the rythym and playing the melody breaks up the repetition of the fiddlers and all the droning effect that tends to go on. Ofcourse I kinda like that bagpipe droning sound sometimes. Sounds old-timey to me. But when the mandolin does get a turn to play the melody you have to really step up and play it strong. Old-time fiddlers do tend to lead and sort of take over everything if you let them. Lately we have actually been talking about dynamics & arangements some and making places for me and the clawhammer banjer ...especially when we know the tune very well. It can be a challenge to get the fiddlers, (and we have 2 pretty good ones),to give you a spot. I found actually if I keep playing the melody over and over with them they eventially back off a little so I can take a solo break. I've learned a lot of tunes from fiddle players and really love old-time fiddle tunes and the sound of the fiddle. I would suggest to ... 1) learn the melodies 2) learn the chords ... there's usually more than one 3) play alot of open chords but mix it up

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## Tom Mylet

Like some of the others, I have a number of fiddlers I play with on a fairly regular basis. Some play what's become known as Round Peak; others Piedmont type things like Charlie Poole. Others still play rags, tunes from Mississippi and the Ozarks and so on.

In the Round Peak setting I play the "almost bluegrass" chop chords like my hero, Verlon Clifton of the Camp Creek Boys. On a Charlie Poole tune, I might play a simple version of the melody, especially with a second string ringing along in harmony. Other settings I try to play rhythmic open chords like Ed Haley's wife. I love the person's comment about playing the various rhythms.

Old Time music is such a broad category, I'm afraid there isn't a "one size fits all" answer. Ultimately, I listen for a hole or weak spot and try to fill it, especially hoping to help the rhythm while not stepping on anyones toes.

Also, be sure to have fun.

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## Phil Vinyard

I play once a month with a bunch of old time Boone County Missouri fiddlers, and it's something I look forward to all month. I love the old fiddle tunes! But everyone above is right about the variations. They'll tell me the name of a tune we're playing, I'll look up the music later, and it's nothing like what we played. But that's OK, and usually there's a story involved with who they learned the tune from and when. So I listen hard and have learned a bunch of new tunes. They also play at 90 miles an hour, so playing with them always pushes my skills. I switch back and forth between chop chords and melody. I have harmony parts for some of the songs, and I then get to play that as loudly as I want and feel like I'm contributing something special to the sound. 

So...have fun, and try to throw in some harmony parts when you can!

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## lgc

I think that one reason that this problem arises so often is that the context of OT muisc has been almost completely removed.  By and large it served the function of dance music.  If it was being used for its intended purpose AND one knew how to dance in the style that it was shaped around finding a part would be easy.  

I heard some country music from New England a few weeks ago.  It was obvious that the players, while passable musically, had removed the context of the music and were playing it for purely aesthetic purposes.  It was wrong.  Almost unusable-undanceable.  Same with New Time Music.

I would love to see the magic tablets that have the rules to OT music written on them.  People get soo concerned with what it should sound like that they completely loose sight of what it could sound like.  Hence the difference between Earl Johnson or Oscar Preacher Nelson and everyone who is playing OT today.  First find the function, context and meaning of the music and the part will be apparent.

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## Jim Nollman

This music USED to be played for dancing. I mean really, you are talking about hundreds of tunes being learned by players who have grown up listening to many different kinds of music. I grant you that if you read any novel by Thomas Hardy, you will find ample references of  somebody starting a jig on a whistle or a fiddle and everybody in earshot immediately getting up to dance the jig. Not any more. Or are we only to rehearse and then perform this music at a contra dance? 

These days, this old time music is whatever we players decide how to play it. Morpeth Rant, for just one example, lends itself to beautiful counterpoint that reminds me of the Brandenburg Concertos. Pays de Haut can easily sound like a Mozart minuet. Ad infinitum. 

Or lets take this idea totally into the other direction. I  love to get mindless while playing a type of old-time tune that reminds me of what might have been the odd result of Howling Wolf being born Irish or Scottish. This specific genre of tune is almost entirely mixolydian, anchored by some profound hook as memorable as Smokestack Lightning (or anything by James Brown) repeated ad infinitum, sometimes with the curious wobble that occurs only from a chord structure that alternates between major and minor. I'm talking Cluck Old Hen, Sandy Boys, Kitchen Girl. If you have the good fortune to be doubling one of these tunes on mandolin, while  standing beside a fiddle player who has the skill to ooze out the sliding double-stops so they acquire a razor-sharp edge, there's nothing more bluesy this side of a John Lee Hooker boogie. 

I do love to play dances. But the playing is as simple as it gets, and no one cares about parts or variants, or even if you're totally in tune. The primary job of a player is to give the folks a driving beat and let the fiddle crank out the melody at wanton speed. Yet I play some of  these same tunes with my classically trained wife who never fails to add dense chords and feathery filagree on piano. I also love the clinical challenge of playing the same tune in succession as a jig, a reel, a waltz, and a polka. Try this one: Saint Ann's Reel into Saint Ann's Jig into Saint Ann's Tango into Saint Ann's Hornpipe.

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## lgc

Very post modern approach.

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## Jim Nollman

well, post-modern, but the post-modern stuff only ever kicks in after the tune is already learned well, and i am preparing it for a performance of some kind. Like any player, there is a huge unalterable commitment to learning these tunes well enough to be able to decide if it is worthwhile to deconstruct them. 

Few of us still have the pleasure of undergoing our craft's learning process by sitting in the back row of a pub circle with instrument in hand, as better players repeat the melody over and over again. But the learning necessitates the same confounding commitment as it ever did in the pub. I did learn about half my tunes while participating in a weekly group session with some other equally committed players. Yet I learned the other — and perhaps more complicated half of my repertoire — with an ipod bud stuck in one ear and a mandolin in my lap. Pressing the on/off button repeatedly until i get a certain phrase, then moving on to the next phrase. 

But I can mirror a phrase 20 times and still not get it right. Sometimes I do this crazy thing of taking a mental snapshot in my head of how the tune sounds, but way too soon in the process, mostly because I'm too tired or frustrated to even realize that I'm muddying it. When I finally join my band mates to play the tune we've all decided to learn together, they have to get curt with me, just to get me to hear my version as "wrong". Then someone will play it slowly on the piano, and the book transcription makes me learn it the "correct" way. Sometimes I will use both ways in a performance. And sometimes I have to admit that the book way sounds way more evolved. 

But not always. Take a close look of the book version of the B part of Wild Rose of the Mountain. Then listen to it on Youtube as played by two masters. Those fiddlers are changing some key notes from the book to make the end phrase resolve way more smoothly. And yes, of course, I do understand that they never read the book! AND ALSO...that huge 8 beat drone between each of the melodic phrases inspires some inventive harmonizing. 

I am convinced that these mental snapshops, taken prematurely in the learning process, offer one reason why, today, we have so many alternate versions of the same song. So you have to regard the variation process as a bona fide part of the tradition. I think of them as old-timey dialects. 

However, this name, "old-timey", sounds too cute and too HeeHaw for me to want to use it very often to explain this music to anybody who's interested in what our own band is playing. I far prefer to say "traditional" or "ethnic", although i admit that in certain circles that can sound too erudite. And it's hard to call them "fiddle tunes", when we play them about the half the time without a fiddle.

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## JeffD

> However, this name, "old-timey", sounds too cute and too HeeHaw for me to want to use it very often to explain this music to anybody who's interested in what our own band is playing. I far prefer to say "traditional" or "ethnic", although i admit that in certain circles that can sound too erudite. And it's hard to call them "fiddle tunes", when we play them about the half the time without a fiddle.


Jim you have said so much in this thread that I agree with, then you go say this.

It has been my experience that some experiences can be over explained. I don't mean that there isn't an explanation, but rather that a considerable amount of experience is still needed before talking about it can be meaningful.

So if I have an audience that is going to be put off by the phrase "old-timey", I am sure that calling it "traditional" is only going to make them comfortable, its not going to explain anything. "Traditional" is how you describe something to someone who is outside of the tradition - one might ask how much you are going to be able to explain to them anyway.

When folks come to our jam and hear our playing and listen awhile and really get under the covers of the music, to these folks it won't matter what we call it, and to those who don't listen long enough to really hear it, I am not too concerned what they call it.

Or something like that.

 :Mandosmiley:

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## buckles

> ...this name, "old-timey", sounds too cute and too HeeHaw for me to want to use it very often....


I can't remember the source of the quote I'm about to give but I suppose it comes from some festival setting where the next band, an old-timey band, is being introduced.  The emcee says "Old timey music........... it's better than it sounds."

Anyone remember the exact origin?

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## mandolirius

> I can't remember the source of the quote I'm about to give but I suppose it comes from some festival setting where the next band, an old-timey band, is being introduced.  The emcee says "Old timey music........... it's better than it sounds."
> 
> Anyone remember the exact origin?


I've seen it as a bumper sticker. I've also seen: Oldtime Music - The Rehersal that Never Ends.   :Laughing:

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## Jim Nollman

Yah, I guess I agree with you Jeff. How you name the thing is always going to get interpreted differently depending on your personal relationship to it.  Around here, we mostly call them, in general, fiddle tunes, and less generally, by the place of origin or history: Irish tune, Cape Breton tune, Napoleon tune. 

By the way, Jeff, you commented in another thread  a few months back, that you wouldn't change one note of  "Wild Rose". So... everybody in my band went and learned the tune. When we all got together, we realized we had three slightly different versions. The most significant difference was the start of the B part, where some learned it as  A-B-C#-E-A, and others learned it as A-C#-E-F#-A. I'm curious which version you do. I prefer the second way. But I also mix them up during the course of the song.

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## Rob Gerety

> Some purists expect everybody to play the melody and nothing else, as is often done in Irish pubs. Such parallel playing in repetition can be fun if you are a player, and drives me nuts when I'm the audience listening to everybody do the same thing over and over again. 
> 
> At some point, in my own band's development, I started introducing syncopated chop chords to a tune. Kind of like what the bluegrass mandolin does when not soloing. One of the old timers hit the roof, kept telling me this music was NOT bluegrass. I kept at it, and even started introducing tango, reggae, rumba, polka, in fact any groove i could dream up.  
> 
> One thing. This music attracts purists who would shudder to hear this description of our arrangements. But the audiences are far less pure. They don't care as much about the melody as they do for a strong rhythm if its a contra dance. So if the ONE is kept constant by somebody, dancers love it when i push the beat. 
> 
> In a stage performance, this music is very repetitious and for many people it can get boring pretty fast  since the melodies are so simple and everyone is playing parallel. It's participatory music at its best. Almost everybody who plays and records this music professionally for audiences, tends to deconstruct it on some level.  Hope this helps.


Great to read these comments.  I have been an avid contra dancer for a long time here in northern New England which is a hot bed of contra dancing.  As a dancer I agree with all you have said here 100%.  Especially the use of off the wall rhythms, the overriding importance of a driving beat and the boredom that quickly overtakes you when a band just plays the melody and the same cord progression over and over again with a boom chuck straight rhythm.   Drives me nuts.  Now as a player (guitar and a bit of mandolin) I am not yet at a level that permits me to lead things the way you obviously do but I try my best to get the people I play with to move in this direction. 

I would have no interest in playing with a jam where everyone plays the melody over and over without variation and where the chord players never vary from the straight and narrow.

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## buckles

> I would have no interest in playing with a jam where everyone plays the melody over and over without variation and where the chord players never vary from the straight and narrow.


What I'm about to say may not make sense to players who are not steeped in old-time appalachian music, but what Rob describes above can actually be a great musical experience.  It has to do with listening and participating.  To me, Rob's statement is like saying, "I have no interest in drinking more than one shot of fine single-malt scotch.  The second one is boring and the third even more boring."

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## Rob Gerety

Well, I know many folks see it differently.  To each his own. Same principles apply with Scotch - I like lots of it - but not the same brand over and over all night long. Better to sample a variety of flavors though the evening!  Although at some point it doesn't much matter what you pour in the jar. 

I have tons of respect for the traditional approach and the musicians that take that approach, and I enjoy it from time to time.  But for whatever reason I always find myself changing things and mixing things up.  There is plenty of room for both approaches in my opinion.

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## buckles

I agree, Rob.  And of course, I didn't really absorb Rob's point of "the same over and over."  There is and should be some variation.

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## Jim Nollman

There is intrinsic value in getting together with a group of players on a regular basis, with a focus of playing the melodies in parallel over and over again "old-timey" style. It's a good way to learn the tunes. And it's the way it was always done deep into the past, because these tunes were not really written down until quite recently. So people who play parallel, are indeed carrying on an essential aspect of the tradition, which is learning the tunes well enough, to have a foundation for breaking them apart. 

The point I've been trying to make here, is that this music was exclusively participatory, at least until the invention of player pianos, radio, record players. If you didn't play it, you danced to it. And in the vast majority of cases, the social expression of these tunes was the sum total musical experience in most people's lives.  

To make any valid exploration of what is personally possible in this music today, I do believe all of us have to start by understanding the original participatory context of this very old media. We all do well to regard ourselves as keepers and purveyors of a critical art tradition that, fortunately, is now enjoying a kind of Renaissance. 

I am also acutely aware of the very different context all of us also share as modern musicians, who have music from all over the world always at our fingertips. That plays into something important that we all seem to agree on: that playing this stuff in parallel, can be a deadly experience for an audience. 

The performer's necessity to keep it fresh and creative for an increasingly critical and sophisticated audience goes back at least to the Carter Family. Ironically, the way the Carter's deconstructed the old tunes, with vocal harmonies, instrumental solos, intros and outros, seems so stock today, that we sometimes forget that this was as radical a departure from the original as Bill Frissell's inspired performance of Shenandoah seems to us today. 

Bill Monroe took it another direction, obviously influenced by the jazz of Louis Armstrong and the swing of Benny Goodman. By that same process of absorbing the music we know and like, today we have the Punch Brothers and Creaking Tree merging these same old melodies and instrumental ensemble playing in never-before-heard combinations with 12 tone music and hard beebop. It's what performing musicians always do, if they expect to stand out enough from the hoi polloi to make a go of it professionally. 

I'm probably too old to care very much to want to hear versions of this music with high-life and punk influences. But i do love to play it with some obvious inflections lent to me by Bach, Mozart, Bix Beiderbecke, Ry Cooder, Jan Garbarek and a bit of Jaco Pastorius.

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## allenhopkins

> I can't remember the source of the quote I'm about to give but I suppose it comes from some festival setting where the next band, an old-timey band, is being introduced.  The emcee says "Old timey music........... it's better than it sounds."  Anyone remember the exact origin?


It was the motto of *Roustabout*, a DC-area band with Chris Romaine, Lars Hanslin, and Bruce Hutton as the main members.  I have a Roustabout hat with the phrase embroidered on it.

And to take up another subject that's been discussed here at length: remember that the fiddle-based dance tunes are only part of old-time string band music.  There are love songs, novelty numbers, hymns, ballads, comic songs etc.  The original bands that recorded were entertainers -- Skillet Lickers, Charlie Poole's North Carolina Ramblers, Dock Walsh, Kelly Harrell, etc. etc.  They put on a complete "show" as well as playing dance music.  I've sat in on many old-time jams where songs were interspersed with the dance music, or the dance tunes had sung verses in between the instrumental verses.

Go and listen to an excellent old-time "revivalist" such as Bruce Molsky, or pick up one of the New Lost City Rambler recordings, and you'll hear a mixture of repertoire that illustrates the breadth and variety of Southern mountain traditional music.  Many of the more successful "new fogie" bands, like Highwoods or Sweets Mill, emulated the older hillbilly bands by presenting a varied program of songs and tunes.  The eclecticism of a band like the Red Clay Ramblers was not as pronounced a departure from their traditional exemplars as we might think.

What I'm sort of "talking around," is the idea that learning about the whole range of traditional "old-time" music, and keeping a certain flexibility and open-mindedness about what it is and how to play it, is not disparaging or violating the tradition.  At least, IMHO.

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## JeffD

> I can't remember the source of the quote I'm about to give but I suppose it comes from some festival setting where the next band, an old-timey band, is being introduced.  The emcee says "Old timey music........... it's better than it sounds."
> 
> Anyone remember the exact origin?


If I am not mistaken it was Mark Twain who said that Opera was better than it sounds.

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## JeffD

> What I'm about to say may not make sense to players who are not steeped in old-time appalachian music, but what Rob describes above can actually be a great musical experience.  It has to do with listening and participating.  To me, Rob's statement is like saying, "I have no interest in drinking more than one shot of fine single-malt scotch.  The second one is boring and the third even more boring."


There it is!!!!

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## JeffD

One of the joys of music is that you can do absolutely sacreligous things, and the original is still available unscathed for the more traditional folks to enjoy. You could reinterpret Bill Monroe on the sax if you want, and the original music remains for the rest of us.

OT music is about the tune. It is about listening to the tune, playing the tune, experiencing the tune, getting in underneath the tune. Its not about individual expression as much as it is about expressing the tune.  Sure there is room for some ornamentation, but like Irish Traditional, you are trying to decorate the tune in a way that brings out its essential nature more vibrantly, not trying to showcase your musical agility.

It might be hard to understand, if you come from jazz or blues or bluegrass traditions, where individual expression and improvisation are central. In the old timey music, it just doesn't fit. One looks around and wonders, did this person forget the tune at that point and just make something up? Did this person bother to learn the tune? And a tune that has been mesmerizing folks for decades or more, pretty much as is, is not usually going to be spontaneously improved. 

You have to be there for the tune. To let the tune do its magic. If you are looking for ways to improve it, or figuring out what you might do  with the tune, or worse yet, what crazy stuff you could spontaneously compose to the same chord progression, you are not listening to the tune itself.

Every type of music has its norms, and everyone has preferences. No problem. And I am certainly not an orthodoxy enforcer. But I really believe if you approach OT on its own terms, you will experience something very profound, very old, very fundamental. If you come with distracting expectations, or a saxophone, I think you might miss something really glorious and moving. If it still turns out to be not your cup of tea, at least you tried it.

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## Rob Gerety

> I would have no interest in playing with a jam where everyone plays the melody over and over without variation and where the chord players never vary from the straight and narrow.


I think I overstated this.  I'll play with almost anyone who will have me!  What I meant to say is that I start to really have fun playing music when we mix things up and try new combinations, etc.  I completely agree that before you start changing things you really need to know the straight melody cold. And I completely appreciate and agree that it is important to honor the traditions in whatever genre you are playing in. Maybe its the dance band thing - there certainly is a lot more tolerance, even need, for spice when you are playing for a dance that can last upward of 15 minutes. 

I'm a rank amateur player - but I have danced a lot and now that I have started to play I think my experience dancing, and maybe my natural proclivities, affect my musical interests as a player.  As a dancer I started dancing with fairly traditional music but my eyes were opened when I was exposed to some of the more modern dance bands on a regular basis and I quickly become somewhat addicted to the modern sound and now I seek out the modern bands and I will travel a good distance to find the bands.  The main venue we dance at now is the Guiding Star Grange in Greenfield, MA.  There is a LOT of good music on the weekends down there.  Also, I am exposed on a weekly basis to a contra dance band workshop with a local musician of some note, Jeremiah McLane who has been one of the leaders in the good work of taking traditional melodies (Irish, French, Quebecois, Breton, etc.) and melding them with more modern arrangements and rhythms for contra dancing.  Check out some of his work with the bands Nightingale and The Clayfoot Strutters.

This discussion has been going on for ions.  Remind me a bit of Fiddler on the Roof.  I think there is room for all of it.  Perhaps I am missing something that lies deep in the traditions of these various genres.  That is certainly possible.  I have an open mind and ear.  I try to immerse myself as much as I can.  I just seem to enjoy pushing the envelope a bit.  Can't help myself really.

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## Jim Nollman

:Popcorn:

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## JeffD

Its a classic battle, negotiated by every musician individually. We need the respect for tradition, and what is good about it. We also need to make things meaningful to us, today, far from the context in which the tradition was forged. We need the orthodox, the envelope pushers, and the border guards. Sometimes we are the orthodox, the envelope pushers, and the border guards.

Keep in mind the mandolin itself is not exactly central to OT, like it is to BG. We mandolinners go in with a handicap, trying to at least do no harm to the perfect coupling of the fiddle and the banjo.

A little Knob Creek bourbon, (just a little) seems to help round off the corners and make me at once more tolerant and more tolerable.

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## lgc

"Keep in mind the mandolin itself is not exactly central to OT, like it is to BG."

See I can't agree with this assertion.  What abut the Mobile strugglers, or Ted Hawkins, or the Bluesky Boys, or the Mississippi Sheiks or all the hundreds of other OT bands that had mandolin as one of the central instruments.  And what about all the OT music without fiddle OR banjo.  

This whole thing abut calling repetitive fiddle tunes oldtime music seems so bizarre.  It doesn't, with very few exceptions, sound anything like old music.  It all sounds very contemporary to me.  It should.  The material experiences of people playing today are vastly different so the musc should, and does reflect that.  
I can't understand how the discourse of trad. American music has been pigeon holed into meaning fiddle and banjo music.  By calling very specific kinds of Appalachian music OT implies those forms of music were prevalent all through the US.  I know people all over called the music their parents and grandparents played old time music.  

And further, where in America has there been a real musical tradition where people didn't sing.  New time musicians claim all these rules that are essentially made up.  They are not rooted in a tradition but rather in a set of ideas superimposed on someone else's tradition.

THere is no central instrument in OT because it is a collection regional art forms.  The only ubiquitous instrument is singing.

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## sgarrity

That is a darn good post!

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## JeffD

> I can't understand how the discourse of trad. American music has been pigeon holed into meaning fiddle and banjo music.  By calling very specific kinds of Appalachian music OT implies those forms of music were prevalent all through the US.  I know people all over called the music their parents and grandparents played old time music.  .



Sorry about that. I was using the specific definition, i.e. OT as appalachian, and more specifically southern appalachian. When "old time" music as a specific type is referred to, googled or whatever, that is mostly what folks understand it to mean. And with specific reference to the original post, that is what is played, for the most part, in an OT jam.

Less so the New England contra dance music and Canadian fiddle music, which has been referred to as northern OT. 

Though I have heard the phrase old time in reference to any music that is old, Italian Americans referring to the musical traditions of their grandfathers, and newer Klezmer bands refering to the origins of Klezmer music. Heck the phrase "old time rock and roll" is not contradictory.

But no, I was specifically referring to OT as narrowly defined.

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## JeffD

> And further, where in America has there been a real musical tradition where people didn't sing. .



There are many American musical traditions that de-emphasize or don't even include singing. Especially the ones that are focused on dance tunes. But also a lot of jazz etc.

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## JeffD

> What abut the Mobile strugglers, or Ted Hawkins, or the Bluesky Boys, or the Mississippi Sheiks or all the hundreds of other OT bands that had mandolin as one of the central instruments.  .


Or the Louvin Brothers...

Again, I was narrowly talking about the Appalachian fiddle tune tradition. Stuff that one might say is the roots of blues, or roots of country music, while I would not argue could be called old time, would not be in my narrow reference, as I was referring to what we mostly do at OT jams.

The borders of these definitions can get fuzzy, especially as the modern musician has been influenced by all of this stuff.

For example, when someone refers to "old time string band" its interesting how many things that can refer to.

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## Samjessin

This conversation again!  Kentucky String Ticklers - old-time?  Ha!

As an old-time musician, I am with lgc.  For me, old-time music for me as a person who plays it daily refers to the music recorded in the 20's and 30's.  For someone else it might mean only Round Peak style music.  I feel that old-time as a genre is just a doorway into appreciation for different types of music that existed in a different time.  

My recommendation to the Original Poster is this -

Find an old-time community, make some friends in it, you will meet different sages, students, peers, records, cds, mp3's, relatives of old-time musicians, and other sources that will answer your questions.  You may come out of it playing one form of music, you may come out of it playing another, you may get sick of it and buy an electric guitar but the answers are out there.

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## Samjessin

I also see that the OP is from Boston - man, you are in one of the many hotbeds of Old-Time activity.  Do yourself a favor and track down Alan Kaufman!

Head out to the Harry Smith frolic or John Putnam day in Greenfield.  Get down to Lake Genero.  There is tons of Old-time music and people around.  Ask questions in jams like "How did this sound?"  You will get ten different answers and pick the one you like.  Record yourself in a jam, eliminate the stuff you dislike!

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## lgc

"Especially the ones that are focused on dance tunes. But also a lot of jazz etc."

Which dance traditions?  And if nobody is dancing then doesn't the function of de-emphasizing singing become less meaningful.  

I also wouldn't characterize jazz as traditional music any more than I would Mozart.  It is far to diffuse, personal and progressive to have the same relation to tradition as ballad singing or cajun music.  

I think one would be really hard pressed to find even a sizable minority of truly traditional styles  that are devoid of singing or even strongly de-emphasize it.  

I like Sam's advice.  You should also listen to yourself and add the things you'd like to hear.  The great musicians in traditional American music balanced tradition and forward movement.  I hear very little dogma in people like Earl Johnson, Gus Cannon or Charlie Poole.

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## JeffD

> "
> Which dance traditions?  And if nobody is dancing then doesn't the function of de-emphasizing singing become less meaningful.  
> 
> .


I am referring to contra dance, square dance, buck dancing, and also very popular though not strictly speaking an "American" tradition is English Country dance, and Irish dancing, etc.

My experience is that when no-one is dancing the band goes home.  :Grin:

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## JeffD

> "
> 
>  You should also listen to yourself and add the things you'd like to hear.  The great musicians in traditional American music balanced tradition and forward movement.  .


Keep in mind the original post however. He was looking for specific advice regarding playing a specific kind of music in a specific jam. In that context you really can't add the things you'd like to hear.

Also we are all in this music for entirely different reasons. I would have to say I am in it to play with other people. Not to be heard as an individual voice, not to express myself, not to push any envelopes or seriously impress anyone. I am not in it to get better necessarily, or to more accurately emulate any articular musician or style. I am not in it to preserve any particular tradition or style, nor to expand any particular tradition. I am pretty easily satisfied actually - I just to show up and play music with folks. 

So, in that context, I approach music by asking - what is this group playing, and then how can I contribute. And the answers to those questions come in packages with labels on them. I know what to expect if it is an old timey jam. I know what to expect if its a Celtic jam, or a bluegrass jam. etc. I know that I don't do chop chords or take wild breaks or sing much at an OT jam, I keep my jigs and hornpipes for the Celtic jam, I play standing up and don't expect a penny whistle at BJ jams, and pretty much nobody wants to hear my broadway show tunes.  :Grin:  :Crying: 


But the discussion has moved a bit from its original post, which is ok, and in that context I do agree with you, and would expand your thought to all of us: each individual musician, consciously or unconscioulsy makes decisions that balance tradition and forward movement.

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## Jim Nollman

Nice description of why you do it, Jeff. 

Our group plays stuff from many traditions  Irish jigs, old polkas, some waltzes, one or two off-color sea chanties, Scottish laments, Cape Breton, Appalachian reels  whatever any of the members cares to bring to a session. 95% of what we do goes back at least to the 19th century, although one guy occasionally tries to sneak in tunes like Honeysuckle Rose and By By Blues. A lot of what three members bring to a session, is from either of three well known books of "fiddle tunes". One guy in the group is 80 years old and quite fit. He has been playing this music professionally since the 1940s, with some very well-known names among former band mates. He may know as many as 500 tunes on concertina and banjo, and knows the words to 200 traditional tunes. He's also our caller at dances.

 I tend to browse the itunes store at least once a month, listening for tunes that meet my own desire either to learn extraordinary melodies, or wild and crazy dance tunes. We play a different repertoire at contra dances than we do at a farmers market. And we keep some others, just to play when we get together once a week. We all know 40 or 60 tunes, both the melodies and chords. When my wife (who plays piano in the band) and I get together alone, we usually deconstruct any of these tunes to enhance her classical sense of arrangement. I sometimes play sitting down. I usually play with more rhythmic accuracy while standing up. Always stand up at a dance.

I am a music producer. And, perhaps strangely, I don't think our group possesses the technical skills to lay down  an inspired recording of any of these songs. I'd love to make that recording some day, but not anytime soon, since I'd have to get more polished players outside the band to make it work. And I am very content playing and learning with this current devoted lineup of people.

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## Rob Gerety

Man, I wish I could sit in at one of your contra dances Jim.  And maybe dance a few as well.  Have you ever though of booking some dances back here in New England?

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## Jim Nollman

Our dances are fun. But we're nothing special on the musical side of things. Some of us were playing in the national public arena when we were younger. At this point we all see our band as a terrific expression of encouraging local social interaction and also being the keepers of a worthy musical tradition. 

We live on an island which takes an hour ferry ride just to set foot on the North American mainland. Our group has never played a gig outside our island county. We would do it, I suppose, if someone asked us, and covered ferry fare. This weekend we play at a Civil war era "reenactment", where people arrive from all over the Pacific Northwest to dress in 19th century style, and the dance hall is lit by candle chandeliers. We'll use minimal amplification to fit the format. That allows a piano on a small amp, the caller on one mike, and a second mike for everybody else..

What's the payoff? It's humble. For one example, the piano player saved part of her gig money for 6 months and then used it to buy a Yamaha P-85.  

As for your comment, Rob, I can say that 2 of our 6 are from New England. One of us was quite instrumental in the flourishing of the NH and Vermont old-time music scene, starting  back in the 1960s. I didn't start playing traditional music at all until 2006. I played mandolin in my teens and twenties, then played pop and rock on electric guitar for 30 years. When I moved to the islands 25 years ago, like all the many musicians here, I gave up any possibility of ever playing professionally this side of a ferry boat ride. It was a fair trade for being given the opportunity to raise my family in a beautiful location with a rich local culture, no traffic lights, and great garden soil.

Yes indeed, our dances are great fun. If i ever get to Vermont, I'll let you know.

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## allenhopkins

> ...This weekend we play at a Civil war era "reenactment", where people arrive from all over the Pacific Northwest to dress in 19th century style, and the dance hall is lit by candle chandeliers. We'll use minimal amplification to fit the format. That allows a piano on a small amp, the caller on one mike, and a second mike for everybody else...


Would be more authentic if you used a horse-drawn or steam-powered PA...

I've played my share of Civil War balls (mostly on bowed bass fiddle), and nothing's more fun than "dressing up," then playing to a dance floor full of ladies in hoops and men in uniform.  Still had to use a PA, though, and I wonder how 19th century callers got their instructions across.  Megaphones?

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## Jim Nollman

good question, Allen. I was wondering  this same thing while driving to the gig, when who does NPR play on the car radio, but Al Jolson. His voice sounds so bizarre in modern terms. I know enough about acoustics to realize that his weird pinched tone joined to an over-the-top-loud delivery would have been the perfect voice for being heard in a noisy stomping room. Makes me wonder if that style was way more common for every performer in the many centuries before microphones. 

We considered using a salmon-drawn generator, but they are almost all extinct in this bay on Puget Sound. We got 60 kids on a treadmill of 60 bicycles to make 60 cycle current.

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