"Recently I played with a
group of five fiddlers, all of us playing simultaneously on the same tune, but each
playing his own version. No one showed any other than casual interest in the version of
anyone else.
"Remarks, said
privately to me, were confined to 'Orville was playing a modern way'....'He was playing it
like they do in West Texas'.....'Lee was too slow'.....'I don't like that old time
way'.....No one appeared to have a desire to change his version even one note
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![wpe13.jpg (11480 bytes)](images/fiddler_and_wife.jpg)
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![wpe1A.jpg (11383 bytes)](images/lady_fiddler.jpg)
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"It is possible
that the five fiddlers each went home and privately tried to find the new notes heard.
Knowing the character of the men I would say that two of them were perfectly satisfied
that their versions were the best to be made, but that the other three had some doubts
about theirs.
Out of the remaining
three, one was too old to bother to change and one would not want to trouble
himself."
The Fiddle Book
- Marion Thede |
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"When three fiddlers sit
with a banjo player and guitarist in chairs tight in a closed little ring,
no matter what you've
been taught, no matter your ear,
know when musicians bob and sway
and shake like a flood of sound dammed in a seat,
listen well.
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![wpe24.jpg (12021 bytes)](images/riverboat_fiddlers.jpg)
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You'll hear
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moonshine and mountain joined at
the peak,
a crooked creek crashing its banks,
the quick twist of hindleg catching
brush,
a leathery old rattler slithering
beneath."
Old-Time String Band
Jam
Fiddle
Tunes Ken Waldman |
![wpe27.jpg (10157 bytes)](images/fiddler_on_bench.jpg) |
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![wpe2D.jpg (12922 bytes)](images/girl_with_fiddle_banjo_and_guitar.jpg) |
"You know what
dad told me one time. Dad told me this way back years ago, when I was just a
boy. An' he raised alot of corn, every year he raised a thousand bushel, and he
worked us to death nearly. An' he worked us awful hard. And uh, it'd tickle us
when it would rain a day an' we got to stay in...An' one, one day we had an' old banjo and
pound aroun' on it ya' know. An one day he told me, he said, 'You know rats won't
stay where there's music?' And I said, 'No, I didn't know.' I said, 'Why won't
they stay? "Well' he said, 'Well there's never nothin' raised for 'em to eat
and they'll starve out an' leave. It's the devil's (music) ya' know."
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Ward Jarvis - Quoted by David A.
Brose - Rats Won't Stay Where There's Music
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The Ohio Folklife Group/Ohio Arts
Council
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![wpe26.jpg (17029 bytes)](images/tent_stringband.jpg)
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