Oh, no. It’s happening again…
More info - NOW!
Well, it all began innocently enough, with me having a very good time calling a few more old time tunes and consequently playing more fiddle than flute at the lunch hour session. Then I thought maybe I ought to put on the new set of strings I’ve had sitting in the case since last fall; they sounded really good and cross-tuned very nicely too. Out came the Highwoods String Band, Fuzzy Mountain, and Hollow Rock String Band cds, and I was pretty much lost. Then I found myself checking out http://www.fieldrecorder.com/ and http://www.sugarinthegourd.com/ and http://www.oldtimemusic.com/. Looks like it’s all over but the shuffling.
Or, blame it on the weather. If you don’t play Cold Frosty Morning these days, what do you play?
CFM sounds good on flute too!
Yes, great fun to play that tune on flute. You know, it’s such a good tune, I think it would sound fine played on the vacuum cleaner… (But you’d miss those A-string/E-string shuffles in the second section.)
Sheesh, Jim, what are you doing starting me off on this? There must be…I don’t know, just a whole lot…of video versions of this tune on youtube. And I was planning on getting some sleep.
On cd, I’m partial to the Fuzzy Mt. String Band recording, and Christ Norman’s take on it.
On the black hole that is youtube, you’ll also find this trailer for Nikolai Fox’s documentary about old time fiddlers in Vermont, Music for the Sky: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytUoymI4ZyE The whole film is about an hour, with some deleted scenes also available. Wild stuff. Available from Elderly Instruments or direct from the director.
Ah, but these are American fiddle tunes played on whistles and flutes.
Here’s another from the same weirdo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO-19ONE2C4&feature=channel_page
Curiously, Cold Frosty Morning was the tune we learned in clawhammer banjo class last night.
Its those modal tunes that really make me wish I had a banjo with no frets. If they made a cello banjo sans frets I’d fling myself at one in wild abandonment and probably never come up for air again.
I believe CFM was written by Scottish immigrants to America toward the
end of the 18th century. It is about a battle in which a Scottish army
of 10,000 (I think) was massacred by a larger British Army that proceeded
to murder lots of civilians too; hence the immigration. It’s about
that cold frosty morning, you see. So it’s one of those tunes
that’s drenched in blood and I do think there’s something
demonic about it. I guess it’s my favorite American tune.
Here it is on clawhammer banjo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Sg2QKwE-6M
Here it is on flute.