Does anyone play old time music on whistle? Anyone know of recordings of old time music with lot’s of whistle?
Thanks for any info.
-Brett
Clip 1: harmonica, D whistle, and bouzouki
Clip 2: harmonica, D whistle, and bouzouki
Clip 3: harmonica, low D whistle, and mandolin
Clip 4 (this link is to a page): whistle and Autoharp
Walden, those are wonderful!
(Now tell me more about the Chet Atkins diet.)
Best wishes,
Jerry
I do. It’s great.
This area is well known for old time (and bluegrass) and I have only met a couple others that do old time on whistle.
I like to alternate whistle with bones as it seems the aim is to play the tune to death (and see how close toghther they can get their heads without getting poked in the eye by the fiddler) and only one tune at a time and always in the same key.
I do a few in D and G but I don’t know a whole lot in A, I don’t think. Of course I know tunes, not keys.
I do tunes like:
Soldier’s Joy
Over the Waterfall (great tune on uilleann pipes)
Liberty
Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine
Old Joe Clarke
Cluck Old Hen
Hop High Ladies (Miss McLeod’s Reel)
Red Haired Boy
Golden Slippers
Fisherman’s Hornpipe
Sometimes something will just pop out that I have no idea of the name, but I do mostly Irish except for a few fiddlers conventions I attend.
I’ll second the above and add-
The Banks of the Ohio
Sourwood Mountain
Down in the Willow Garden
Cripple Creek
John Hardin
Black Eyed Suzy
Gotta See your Momma every Saturday Night
Pig in a Pen
Pretty Polly
and my very favorite-
Billy in the Lowground
The only old time I’ve heard is strictly string band - usually fiddle, guitar, and banjo. (There is some controversy about whether acoustic bass is proper in old time. It’s not 100% traditional, but I think it adds a nice touch.)
I wouldn’t presume to play whistle in a pure old time band, but I have played around with several of the tunes mentioned by fancypiper and cowtime.
I actually was wondering about this also. I was at a really great old time session a couple of weeks ago (3 banjo players - not all playing at the same time though - and guitar, bass, and fiddle) and although I could figure some of the tunes out (they were playing in C), I didn’t want to just jump in, because the whistle has such a different sound to the stringed instruments there - I figured that it’d be really obvious, especially since I wasn’t entirely sure of the tunes. How common is whistle in old time?
On some early tapes of Helicon, Chris Norman plays a few old time tunes on whistle but mostly on flute. He plays Liberty on whistle. Sandy River Belle and Kitchen Girl are also on the tape but I can’t recall how much of those he plays. He also plays Bitter Creek and Leather Britches. The latter is really Lord McDonald’s Reel and I think both of those are on flute. On his man with a wooden flute he plays several old time tunes including Chinquapin Hunting, Frosty Morning and Dry ond Dusty but those are all on flute. I have a tape of Bruce Green who plays some tunes along with a fifer playing a C fife. Frankly, it’s not very good although Bruce is a very fine fiddler ordinarily. One of the most interesting pieces I’ve heard with whistle is on a Mike Seeger album called Fresh Old Time music. The tune is Boatman played with a fretless gut-strung banjo whistle and some sort of percussion. The percussion sounds like an empty wooden box. It’s really quite nice. The album notes speculate that the banjo and whistle might not be without precedent in the 19th C but no real evidence of that is given.
There are now some books out from which you can get some of the more unusual tunes. I’ve tried a very nice one called Grand Picnic but haven’t really learned it yet.
Steve
That reminds me of 5-string banjo player Stephen Wade’s album called Dancing Home. There are some tunes there with Keiran O’Hare on UP and flute. They play an interesting old time tune called Rye Straw. The banjo and pipes work well together. There is a picture on Mick Moloney’s banjo history site of a piper and banjo player together. If you look closely at the banjo you can see the fifth string peg. It’s higher on the neck that normal-close to the seam on the shoulder of the guy’s jacket. I don’t think it’s known what style the banjo player played but his hand position resembles the clawhammer position.
http://www.standingstones.com/banjo.html
Steve
Not sure if this will help.
My dad showed me a couple of CDs he recently picked up. His taste in music is usually not mine, but I think you might find this artist of interest.
David Kincaid
- The Irish Volunteer
- The Irish-American Song
These albums contain I-A songs, mostly ballads from Civil Wars times.
My dad doesn’t know how much whistle is there, but why would he, he doesn’t pay attention to whistle. My guess is there’s plenty.
Mike
Works fine. When I joined the band I am in, last October, the playlist included some of the tunes SteveK mentioned above like Sandy Boys, Kitchen Girls, Cold Frosty Morn, Salmon Tails up the Water etc. I didn’t even know any OldTimey so I didn’t recognize them as such until we started playing them. I guess the main thing is to have a strong fiddler, which we did, then you fit right in.
What I’ve found in the little I’ve done in the style and is that the choice in whiistle contributed to it working as well as using the whistle in moderation and in in some counter melodies and harmony. I like my Burke Composites for this, even better than some of my wooden whisltes…but that may just be an excuse to keep more whistles.
I’m certainly no expert but thats been the result of my little experience.
jim
There is a lot of flute and whistle in some old time music; but perhaps not strict Old Time. Contra Dance music is a mixture of old time, english, blue grass, and irish dance music. Many of the songs mentioned above are played at contra dances.
My first real exposure to Irish jigs and reels was through playing in the Baltimore Folk Music Society's Open Band that played for area contra dances. If you pick up the Fiddler’s Fake Book, or the Portland Collection, both are filled with a mix of these tunes. One of the major flute players in our area is Marty Taylor. She gave me my first flute lesson one of The Catoctin Music and Dance Weekend. and also was the first to explain what separated irish style playing with it lack of tonguing and use of ornamentation. Her love of playing for dancers is infectious.
So if you want to hear a mix of old time, irish, scottish, and other dance tunes try your local contra dances. Most dances have ‘beginners’ lessons to learn the basic steps a 30-60 minutes before the main dance starts.
Seeing and feeling the music set feet to moving if worth a visit.
Here’s a link to start with if your looking for Contra in your area.
Country](http://www.cdss.org/grp_addr_list.html%3ECountry) Dance and Song Society’s List of Group Affiliates and Related Links.
The list is sorted by state and includes for example:
Bloomington Old Time Music & Dance Group
Bill Hayden, PO Box 3238, Bloomington, IN, 47402
(812) 332-3073; > botmdg@bloomington.in.us >
<a href=> http://www.bloomington.in.us/~botmdg/>Bloomington > Old Time Music & Dance Group which lists dances every Wednesday and some Saturdays.
The only true old time music I’ve heard had fiddle, guitar and banjo - either singularly or together. Now you could add a little mandolin and a spoon player if available but that was pretty much it.
I think whether or not someone jumped in with a whistle nowdays would depend on where you were. I know, when I get together with my brother and whoever is playing with him, anything that can carry the tune or add to it is welcome. That’s when we are “makin’ music”. But, if we wanted to play one of the tunes and actually have it sound traditional, then the whistle, or anyother odd instruments, would have to be put down.
But, for the most part, anyone I know is glad to have another player- regardless of the instrument.
I do play some old timey tunes on the whistle.
I also play with a new Contra Dance group here in NE MO, and only play a few tunes on the whistle that fit that (for now). It is a good place to hear, learn and practice tunes.
I also play bass fiddle for any music they’ll let me. LOL!
I’m all for “Traditional”, but I’m for celebrating and sharing it, not being ruled by it.
I play some old time tunes, mostly on Steve’s list, out of the need to play music with other people. IrTrad players are few and far between around here, sigh. The only one I play regularly I haven’t seen mentioned is Sandy River Belle.
NancyF
I think that two things contribute to the thought that whistle might not go well in old time music and both have little to do with the realities of music making in the communities from which the music derives at and before the time when it was first recorded.
First, I think that a certain rigidity in instrumentation has come in as a product of revivalist fervour. I suspect rural communities would use any instrument that came to hand and I think it likely that whistle- and flute-like instruments would have been used quite commonly. Often, what we think of as traditional is closely conditioned by accidents concerning who turned up for early recording sessions, what the companies wanted and what the engineers felt comfortable recording. For years it was thought that the tuba rather than the string bass was the more traditional instrument in New Orleans jazz. This impression was just a mistake based on the fact that tubas were easier to record and that bass players used them for outdoor marches.
Second, it’s well known that, in the south eastern states, African-American musicians played flutes, fifes, pan pipes and harmonicas. It is also well known that black and white musicians shared repertoire and influenced eachother much more than many realise today. This influence can be traced clearly through recordings made in the 20s and 30s. To give just one example, take the music of Darby and Tarlton and ask where that came from. More recently, this crossfertilisation has been played down.
I think whistle sounds just fine on music played in old-timey style. I also think that one can mimic fiddle parts by combining low whistle and concertina and that the results work really well. Now, I’m certain that isn’t authentic but, if it sounds good, who cares.
Many old time tunes can be played on whistle. Most sound quiet good with this addition. In my neck of the woods, at the average music makin’ no one would care a bit if someone played whistle(as you rightly suggest in your post). The more the merrier is the motto around here.
However, I feel confident in saying that no traditional band would use whistle if they were trying to produce a traditional sound because it’s not an instrument that was ever used around here in the old days. I am confident of this because if it had ever been seen or heard of around here, then someone here would have figured out how to make the things and we would have that tradition here. They figured out how to make "homemade "versions of the other instruments. Whistles would not have been an exception.
I really like the addition of whistle to oldtime. The tunes are so close that many sound great on whistle. Heck, some of the tunes are the same.
Now in other parts of the country? I don’t know. I can only vouch for here.
That’s a very interesting observation, Cowtime. I can’t think of very many historically important African-American performers who came from your area but I might be overlooking someone. In any even, it’s much more likely that black performers in an area would have used locally available and popular instruments than that they would have introduced instruments popular elsewhere. Would harmonica have been used at all in old-timey music in your area?
Prior to the recording era and for a while afterwards, African-American musicians made a living playing for white parties and dances as well as for black parties and dances. Their instrumentation and repertoire reflected what was popular in both communities. The concentration on blues and guitar playing was an artefact of the recording era and the phenomenon of the race record. Many early blues musicians were only permitted to record a tiny and unrepresentative fragment of their repertoire. Certainly harmonicas and flute-like instruments were popular in rural communities further south well into the '30s and beyond.