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While I love bluegrass, when playing with others I lean toward old time fiddle tunes, maybe with a bit of grass in style. Examples are:
Liberty
Eighth of January
Grandfather's Clock
The Girl I Left Behind Me
Garry Owen
Red Haired Boy
St. Anne's Reel
And the like.
I like starting old timey and the adding grass licks.In jam situations, these can be really fun as the group usually join in and the music is upbeat.
Any suggestions of old timey jam songs? Any videos?
Salt Creek
Blackberry Blossom
Arkansas Traveler
Chinquapin Hunting
Old Joe Clark
Are you actually playing in OT jams? In that case, make a list of the tunes folks are playing in those jams. The tunes you list above are either not strictly considered OT tunes (though they be fine to play in many jams) or are the old warhorse variety, which i find still fun to play whereas, at many of the OT jams, wuld be rarely resurrected.
Check out and browse around Slippery Hill, for instance, for some great tunes.
Old Time Fiddle Tunes has a bunch of various genres with notation and some sound files.
Or Old Time Jam Machine for a good general list of tunes.
Off to California ! Seneca Square Dance !
In the old time jams here the appeal of the music is that everyone plays the melody together. Some better players may play more notes, but the melody all the same. Improvising from the melody is frowned upon and not well received. There are some old time players that do improvise during tunes, we are not of that bunch. Playing in California several years ago I played with both camps. When they said "mandolin" in the middle of a tune I said "what". I knew what they wanted, but that is not how I play old time music. The other group was playing for a dance, which I also do, and specifically said " we don't do solos". I am fully capable of improvising, but I do it with other music than old time. I look at old time as a music where no one shines, but all play together and there is a wonderful sound that happens when you have a bunch of good players all playing the same thing together, at times it can even get hypnotic.
Perhaps, you're in the wrong country, red7Flag. You've provided a good beginning to a list of tunes played at Canadian Old-Time jams. We don't tend to play "The Eighth of January" much (we mostly associate it with the Hit Parade song, "The Battle of New Orleans," clearly not a battle that we celebrate -- catchy tune though). "My Grandfather's Clock" wouldn't be common, but most people know it and would join in if someone began it. "The Red-Haired Boy" is usually called "The Jolly Beggar Man" up here, except in highly America-influenced circles. And "St. Anne's Reel" is a French-Canadian fiddle tune, and one of the most popular fiddle tunes from coast to coast to coast. New Englanders often overlap with our ideas of Old Time.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim Garber
Great stuff! I'm going to have to check out some of those I don't recognize!... some of my fav's not mentioned:
Big Sciota
Cherokee Shuffle
Bill Cheatham
Or get Waltzy:
Midnight on the Water (a personal favorite)
Kentucky Waltz
Tristan Scroggins put together a cool little book of Good Old Time tunes with mando tabs. It's got some good ones.
I've taken some lessons from Caleb Klauder and he showed me Old Gray Mare and Lost Girl. Both goodns
Go modal, Pretty Little Dog, Kitchen Girl, Cold Frosty Morning, etc,etc.
His signature says "Dickson, TN." That sounds like the right country to me. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Ranald
Red7Flag,
Here is a list of some of our favorite old time jam tunes. Enjoy!! Almost all of these are available on YouTube in one version or another.
Favorites (Nov. 2020)
Angelina Baker D
Arkansas Traveler
Buck Mountain
Camp Meeting on the 4th of July
Chinese Breakdown
Chinquapin Hunting
Gilsaw
Golden Slippers
Green Willis
John Ryan’s Polka
Johnny Don’t Get Drunk
Julianna Johnson
Liberty
Maggots in the Sheep Hide
Mississippi Sawyer
Morpeth’s Rant
New Five Cent Piece
Old Grimes
Over the Waterfall
Petronella
Pumpkin Rock
Sarah Armstrong
Soldier’s Joy
Spotted Pony
Staten Island Hornpipe
St. Anne’s Reel
Whiskey Before Breakfast
Barlow Knife G
Big Sciota
Dixie Hoedown
Flowers of Edinburgh
Flying Indian
Girl with the Blue Dress On
John Brown’s March
Little Dutch Girl
Magpie
Miss McLeod’s Reel
Possum Up a Gum Stump
Sally Ann
Sandy River Belle
Seneca Square Dance
Shoes and Stockings
Shove the Pig’s Foot
Southern Aristocracy
Big Sandy River A
Billy Wilson
Booth Shot Lincoln
Cherokee Shuffle
Devil’s Dream
John Brown’s Dream
Red Haired Boy
East Tennessee Blues C
Billy in the Low Ground
Is that all ????????????? :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Pappyrich
Up until this current Covid era we had two regular monthly OT jams near us, one I ran and another lead by my friend Harry. Here is a combined tune list compiled over the years from those two jams.
I'm not getting nationalistic here, just commenting on the fact that the choices would fit just fine in a a Canadian old time jam. Still, I get your point that they are "not strictly considered OT tunes." I guess that would be true here too, some would not be out of place at Celtic or Bluegrass jams around Ottawa. :mandosmiley:Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim Garber
Crossover tunes are at home in a lot of jams.
you learn the G tune, the A tune and the D tune. You learn the model tunes too. Then advance to the crooked tunes.
Just in Virginia, for example you'd learn, Cumberland Gap, Waynesboro and the Falls of Richmond!
They're just too much fun!
f-d
I want to thank all of you for clarifying a subject that was obviously pretty muddy in my mind. In Pegram, TN there is a wonderful place called Fiddle and Pick, run by a great Nashville fiddler, Gretchen Priest-May (wife of guitar and mandolin great, Tim May). She has regular old time jams (pre Covid) and a yearly event on January 8, Called, yep, you guessed it the Eighth of January. It is a great event with jams that are strictly old time and others with more crossover. Being more from the bluegrass side, I tend to lump the whole group together. But, as many of you pointed out, they often have very different roots. I have really enjoyed the suggestions that you all have provided and plan to work on as many as I can. On a related issue, my wife and I started watching Little House on the Prairie. There is Mr. Edward's song, otherwise known as Ol' Dan Tucker. That has been added to my repertoire. There is a fun version on video by Bruce Springsteen taped in Dublin Ireland. I would post it but am a bit technology restricted.
Just be sure that when you add grass licks you are playing in a bluegrass jam. An old time jam don't want no grass licks. :cool:Quote:
Originally Posted by red7flag
Actually I play in a few jams that would not turn away a bluegrass treatment of a traditional old time tune. We just enjoy playing together and are pretty much not orthodox anything. Wait till we get off into Broadway musicals. Yikes! I also do attend some old time jams that are more orthodox and would not want a grassy version. Sounds like like you play in a jam that is flexible.