The slow “session” that I attend is really just a fiddle class that didn’t end. Although I try to encourage Irish tunes when I can, a lot of our material is American fiddle tunes. Some of these really don’t work well on whistle, but a lot of them are great! We do a tune called “Pig Ankle Rag” which is tons of fun and really quite easy.
I wondered how many other whistlers play these kinds of tunes, and which ones you like.
Oh yeah, and when I was thinking about this topic the other day, the tune that came on the radio was “Old Joe Clark” played by the Cheiftans with Ricky Skaggs (I think?) What a great version, with lots of whistle, of course.
I realize that a similar thread came up before, so only answer if you want to.
If I was a blackbird, I’d whistle and sing…
[ This Message was edited by: Blackbird on 2002-03-17 19:07 ]
I sometimes play a few old time tunes on the whistle. I never considered Pig Ankle but I like the tune. I’ll try it. I often find that the tunes are a little spare for the whistle and prefer notier whistle tunes. Christeison’s Old Time Fiddler’s Repetory has some nice notey tunes. The ones in the key of G are particularly good. I’ve tried a few of those. Bitter Creek is a fine tune which works well on the whistle. I’ve been meaning to try Big Scioty and see if it works on whistle.
Several years ago I took a one hour whistle workshop with Chris Norman. He went over some American tunes and I got onto it from that.
Here are a few of my favorites. I’ve been playing fife since long before I started whistle. I play all of these on whistles when the family needs a break from the volume of my fifing:
Hell On The Wabash, Corn Cob Clog, Barren Rocks Of Aden, Grandfather’s Clock, Bummers Reel, Road to Boston, Crown Point, Devil’s Dream, Old Dan Tucker, Granny Will Your Dog Bite, Drums and Guns, Governor King’s March, Fireman’s Quickstep, Downfall of Paris, Chicken Reel.
Sheet music for all of these (and lots more) can be found at:
“The Fiddler’s Fakebook” is an exellent resource for both IrTrad and American Folk whistle tunes. It is a fine resource with discography and history information pertaining to every tune. Very nice book.
Ashokan Farewell by Jay Ungar is a knockout on a whistle ( I like a midrange like a Bb for this one). You gotta fudge one note below the range of the whistle, but this is easy. This is the tune you heard repeatedly as the theme of Ken Burns’ Civil War documentary some years back.
We have a book called something to the effect of “Ryan’s mammoth – 1050 jigs, reels, hornpipes, strathspeys” etc. The original was published in the mid-late 1800’s, but I’ve seen very few tunes in it that I recognize from the British-Irish tradition. I would have expected a lot more overlap considering how young the US was at the time.
The current edition was edited by Patrick Sky and published by Mel Bay.
On 2002-03-18 05:48, DaveAuty wrote:
I have a book ‘The American Fiddler’ with some great Bluegrass, Cajun and Texas style tunes. Most of the tunes are okay for the whistle.
Could you perhaps provide the publisher, or better still, the ISBN for this book? Having trouble locating a seller.
It’s intresting that some of the old time tunes are in fiddler books and therefore can be made in to whistle tunes in somecases. Some folks I play with before pipe band practice were looking thru one of the fiddler’s books and found " Billy in the Lowground" so our double bass/piper player and I (both of us know old time tunes handed down from the old guys, not out of books) so we said yeah lets play that! (I do play it on whistle, but not the written version.)Well, it sounded NOTHING like the handed down Billy in the Lowgroundthat we knew. Neither does Blackberry Blossom. I guess these written down versions are changed a bit, to A LOT, depending on who’s writing them down. It makes me wonder how much the supposedly Trad. tunes we learn out of books actually sound like the same tunes played by folks who learned them from someone who learned them from someone…
But , back dto the subject, in addition to the above mentioned tunes, I like Down in the Willow Garden, extremly similar to Sally Garden, Banks of the Ohio, Golden Slippers, Battle of New Orleans,Ruben,Gotta See Your Momma on Sat. Nite, actually, most old time tunes do quiet well on whistle.Haven’t gotten brave enough to even attempt Orange Blossom Special though, has anyone out there tried that one?
On 2002-03-18 18:51, chas wrote:
We have a book called something to the effect of "Ryan’s mammoth --I’ve seen very few tunes in it that I recognize from the British-Irish tradition.
I have heard that Ryan’s Mammoth was essentially the same book as Cole’s 1000 Fiddle Tunes. If so, the tunes seem to be mostly norther, probably norteastern US tunes largelely derived from English, Scottish and Irish sources. For the most part they don’t reflect the southeastern or southwestern traditions. For some tunes from the south see Fiddle Tunes of the Old Fronteir which is online. There are several transcriptions from the playing of Henry Reed. Alan Jabbour is responsible for transcribing these and many are now common favorites because of his efforts.
For some tunes which are probably fairly hot in the southern festival circuit see Rich Crew’s tunebook also online. A lot of these versions seem different from the versions that I know but many are tunes previously unknown to me.
Another good source of fiddle tunes on the internet are found at bluegrass guitar websites. Try http://www.bluegrassguitar.com or searches for flatpick guitar. Fiddle tunes are what we play when the “banjer” leaves.
