This discussion reminds me of a CD assembled by a friend, containing 14 different versions of "Smells Like Teen Spirit". My personal favorite was a female choir doing it a cappella.
This discussion reminds me of a CD assembled by a friend, containing 14 different versions of "Smells Like Teen Spirit". My personal favorite was a female choir doing it a cappella.
Explore some of my published music here.
—Jim
Sierra F5 #30 (2005)
Altman 2-point (2007)
Portuguese fado cittern (1965)
Jeff [and other contributors], what a great thread. The thoughts in the first post, and additional comments, have been bouncing around my noggin since this thread first started.
I've been in a good position for some of these old songs ... after growing tired of them on guitar, I deliberately skipped quite a few songs as I switched to mandolin. Only recently, as I build my fiddle tune repertoire to completion [of songs I'll encounter regularly], have I gotten around to learning anything beyond the rhythm parts on many of the worn-out standards - having some time away, spending some jams just playing rhythm, I'm looking at these tunes with a more fresh eye.
This thread is great in that context, as it has me thinking about how to make them jump up and grow some hair so-to-speak - not just have the correct notes. I know these tunes on another instrument - I'm looking far beyond competency when I learn them, I want people's feet to dance after ignoring the tune for years.
Of course, now that I'm finally getting some of them down at proper speed, I'm aware of the rolling eyes when I suggest them at a jam Oh well, hopefully my smile as I nail it the first time will be infectious, and hopefully some of the ideas this thread got into my mind have added some touches that open the ears of the most jaded pickers.
The reason many tunes are so over played is, in most cases, because they are great tunes. They engaged us before we knew it wasn't cool to be engaged by those tunes.
If one can find a way, as Steel Wheels did, of re-engaging us, surprising us into re-experiencing what was great about the tune in the first place, that is the trick I think.
I remember I think it was Jean Redpath, in an interview, talked about the integrity of traditional music. That if you were at a loss to figure out a way to present a song, (in her case a traditional Scottish song), you really couldn't go wrong presenting it traditionally. NOT at all to suggest that a traditional setting is the lazy man's arrangement, not at all. It's that a traditional tune or song has survived because it can deliver the goods, and you don't have to do a lot besides get out of the way and let it do what it does.
This is not an argument against innovation either.
Its an argument against innovation for its own sake. Try what ever you want, but you will know you have succeeded when it sounds like it has always been done that way.
I recently bought the cd, "Saturday Night Waltz," by mandolinist, Joe Walsh, which I saw mentioned on the Home Page of the Cafe. He does a really nice version of Whiskey Before Breakfast, reworking the tune in a very nice way.
Nick Royal
Santa Cruz, CA
On the bluegrass scene The Country Gentlemen worked up a great version of an old timey tune, "Aunt Dinahs Quilting Party" and my band plays it at most shows and people enjoy hearing some of the old songs that they knew as a kid....There are quite a few old timey songs out there that make good fillers to put on a CD, something for all walks of life , I guess....
So what do you think? Angeline the Baker qualifies as a war horse that if I hear it again I will scream. And here it is new again:
Ooh, that's so pretty it hurts.
Ha, ha! keep time: how sour sweet music is,
When time is broke and no proportion kept!
--William Shakespeare
Yeah, but if this is an 'old timey challenge' how is that even remotely 'old timey'?
It's an interesting reworking of the tune, but it veers into what I think of as 'insurance company commercial music'.
I think I know what you mean. What I think of when you say insurance company commercial music, is stuff that is not meant to be heard, just kind of backgroundy music. Stuff you could turn your back on and not miss anything. There isnt any part of Sarah's playing there that I could turn away from.
Here's a version of Kitchen Girl/Cluck Old Hen i recorded about a year ago.
those opening sounds are cowbirds. Common birds where i live. They lay their eggs in other birds nests. The eggs hatch and push out all the mother's babies. The mother of that different species then feeds them until they fledge.
Explore some of my published music here.
—Jim
Sierra F5 #30 (2005)
Altman 2-point (2007)
Portuguese fado cittern (1965)
Look at this. OMG. I guess I am late to the party. You Are My Sunshine by a band called The Dead South. It brings out a darkness that has always been there in the "original" lyrics and but not emphasized before brought out. Wow. Just wow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MevYCdn5S8
Last edited by JeffD; Oct-11-2021 at 10:12pm.
Oh and of course we cannot forget the Punch Brothers doing Church St. Blues, being discussed in this thread. What is important to this thread is it is an example of taking an old tune and made it interesting in a new way.
That is a good trick to change up a standard from major to minor. Also works to Klezmerify with a Jewish mode.
Jim
My Stream on Soundcloud
19th Century Tunes
Playing lately:
1924 Gibson A4 - 2018 Campanella A-5 - 2007 Brentrup A4C - 1915 Frank Merwin Ashley violin - Huss & Dalton DS - 1923 Gibson A2 black snakehead - '83 Flatiron A5-2 - 1939 Gibson L-00 - 1936 Epiphone Deluxe - 1928 Gibson L-5 - ca. 1890s Fairbanks Senator Banjo - ca. 1923 Vega Style M tenor banjo - ca. 1920 Weymann Style 25 Mandolin-Banjo - National RM-1
Speaking of cello, here is Joe Walsh playing an original song that morphs into Solly's Little Favorite. Solly's favorite may not be that all common of an old time tune, but I love this version, maybe because I really like cello in a string band, and I like how the song and the tune are integrated bit by bit until they just jump fully into the fiddle tune.
see Joe Craven "Camptown"
Stormy Morning Orchestra
My YouTube Channel
"Mean Old Timer, He's got grey hair, Mean Old Timer he just don't care
Got no compassion, thinks its a sin
All he does is sit around an play the Mandolin"
Jazzy version of a fiddle tune. Is this sort of what you had in mind?
D.H.
Here's a cut from an old album of mine. The album is definitely a creation of the recording studio. All the fiddle tunes therein were deconstructed to some extent, with arrangements strongly influenced by techno, free jazz, and ambient music. I originally learned Swinging on a Gate while playing for contra dances. The tune includes a looped intro, and a long improvised section in the middle that is all over the map in terms of harmony, meter, and feel, but which eventually swerves back to the melody. The mandolin I'm playing is a BRW 3-point oval hole, built for playing jazz. Enjoy.
Explore some of my published music here.
—Jim
Sierra F5 #30 (2005)
Altman 2-point (2007)
Portuguese fado cittern (1965)
Check it out. Simple dare I say boring tune: Found something in its incessant lyric that makes it. Sometimes all that takes is to play it like you mean it.
Thanks for tha, Jeff. That is one of the first songs, if not the first, that I ever learned from my mom as a very little kid
"To be obsessed with the destination is to remove the focus from where you are." Philip Toshio Sudo, Zen Guitar
Re-arrangement of Red Haired Boy in a medley with My Maggie:
RH BoyMyMaggie.mp3
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