AndrewH said

BillyG said
@thegael -Ahhh - I just HAD to go check it out - how cool is THAT ! 

Obviously an old, noisy recording, but you can sure get the feel of his fiddling !   It's a tad faster than my own (attempts) at Soldier's Joy     You must be proud to have such a musical heritage !

"Tendency to ramble" - nah - not at all - you're a beginner at rambling.... it's an art that develops the more time you spend on the forum.  And just to prove it - 

As a Scot, until I joined the forum, I was never really fully aware of the various musical traditions of America - I'm searching for the correct word here - I (probably incorrectly) refer to all such styles as "Americana", be it old-time, bluegrass, blues, gospel, Appalachian and so on....    [ waits for the flame wars to start ! LOL ] - really - all I'm doing in a sense is decoupling all of that great music and tunes that I hardly know, from my own culture and musical exposure which of course is rooted in the rhythms and feel of trad Scottish and Irish airs, jigs, reels, strathspeys and so on.

Soooo... Since the forum is largely populated by folks from the other side of the pond, a lot of my initial fiddle tunes belonged to those "Americana" pieces.  I too play by ear (largely - although I'll initially resort to sheet, often to uncover the B part of a tune - the A part usually seems (for me) to be the bit that sticks in my head).   So, other than my initial stumblings of some simple Scottish tunes, I got pulled-in to working on pieces more familiar to my American colleagues!

I started with a couple I actually DID know - like Red River Valley, Tennessee Waltz, Red Wing etc....    

I soon moved on to things like Turkey in the Straw, and yes, Soldier's Joy and so on - and the really strange thing is that some folks commented "Nicely played, but it's got a Scottish twist to it"   - Aye, ye can tak the lad oot o' Scotland, but ye cannae tak Scotland oot o' the boy.   

But, that's exactly what fiddle is all about.   You take something, shake it around a bit, add your own embellishments, ornaments, maybe even mess with the timing, and you come to "own it" in your own way, and it has become unique to you.

So, you see, these ramblings, such as the above, all do have a point to them in the sense of sharing experiences, learning, and background.  It's all good ! 

Ramble on !  

In my case, literally all the fiddle traditions are foreign to me and I'm only just starting to figure out how to tell the difference between them... but that's because I lived in Dubai between ages 3 and 12 and the music I heard there was mostly Bollywood, a little rock, and a little Arab folk music. No violin in any of them. (Gulf Arabs didn't adopt the violin the same way the Arabs of the Fertile Crescent and North Africa did.) Didn't hear any fiddle tune from beginning to end until I was 19 or 20. These days I can sort of identify Hungarian, Romanian, Irish, Scottish, and Texas styles by sound, but not 100% reliably... 

So that's how I ended up being a late starter and still almost purely a classical player, playing even fiddle tunes with mostly classical technique.

Most of the traditional music I hear is Mexican -- but mariachi violinists aren't fiddlers. Even though they may improvise some, their whole technique and playing style is that of a classical concert violinist. It's the only way they can be heard over trumpets.  

BillyG said
@thegael -Ahhh - I just HAD to go check it out - how cool is THAT ! 

Obviously an old, noisy recording, but you can sure get the feel of his fiddling !   It's a tad faster than my own (attempts) at Soldier's Joy     You must be proud to have such a musical heritage !

"Tendency to ramble" - nah - not at all - you're a beginner at rambling.... it's an art that develops the more time you spend on the forum.  And just to prove it - 

As a Scot, until I joined the forum, I was never really fully aware of the various musical traditions of America - I'm searching for the correct word here - I (probably incorrectly) refer to all such styles as "Americana", be it old-time, bluegrass, blues, gospel, Appalachian and so on....    [ waits for the flame wars to start ! LOL ] - really - all I'm doing in a sense is decoupling all of that great music and tunes that I hardly know, from my own culture and musical exposure which of course is rooted in the rhythms and feel of trad Scottish and Irish airs, jigs, reels, strathspeys and so on.

Soooo... Since the forum is largely populated by folks from the other side of the pond, a lot of my initial fiddle tunes belonged to those "Americana" pieces.  I too play by ear (largely - although I'll initially resort to sheet, often to uncover the B part of a tune - the A part usually seems (for me) to be the bit that sticks in my head).   So, other than my initial stumblings of some simple Scottish tunes, I got pulled-in to working on pieces more familiar to my American colleagues!

I started with a couple I actually DID know - like Red River Valley, Tennessee Waltz, Red Wing etc....    

I soon moved on to things like Turkey in the Straw, and yes, Soldier's Joy and so on - and the really strange thing is that some folks commented "Nicely played, but it's got a Scottish twist to it"   - Aye, ye can tak the lad oot o' Scotland, but ye cannae tak Scotland oot o' the boy.   

But, that's exactly what fiddle is all about.   You take something, shake it around a bit, add your own embellishments, ornaments, maybe even mess with the timing, and you come to "own it" in your own way, and it has become unique to you.

So, you see, these ramblings, such as the above, all do have a point to them in the sense of sharing experiences, learning, and background.  It's all good ! 

Ramble on !  

Here's that fiddle now, in the Mars Hill University in Mars Hill NC . They aquired it to preserve it. 

Fiddlerman said

Leicester.
Are you familiar with that area?  

Never been through it but I lived in Weaverville in 2008. Marshall is right close to it.. Avery Creek is where my great- grandfather had his cabin. That's so cool.