Tunes : Fiddle Club of the World

Tune Session on Sunday, April 21

6:30 – 8:30 and beyond
Leadway Bar & Grill
(5233 N. Damen – in the back room)

Some of us have been getting together to play tunes on (usually) the third Sunday of the month in our first home, the Leadway. The kitchen is open. There are a good selection of beers on tap. And the sound is good. It’s easy to hear.

We’d love for anybody to come play along with all or some of the tunes — or even just sit and listen. All instruments are welcome. We’ll work on that single jig that Jimmy Keane, Jr. taught us at the January concert, Jack Murray’s jig.

I’ll do a little teaching of some of the tunes shared by other recent guests,
like The Rout, from Kirk Sutphin,

and Barres de la Prison, from David Greely.

Here are the list of tunes we’ve done at the last three jams.

(click for full list)

(click for full list)

January jam session
(click for full list)

Filed under: Meeting Schedule,Session Tunes,Tunes by Paul | April 17, 2013 | Comments (0)

Tunes from Kirk Sutphin

Kirk Sutphin & Bertram Levy
Banjos, Bows and Bellows
Sunday, March 10, 2013, 6:30pm
Seman Violins (4447 Oakton, Skokie)
B.Y.O.B. Snacks will be provided.

Fiddler Kirk Sutphin, from Walkertown, North Carolina, joins with banjoist and concertinist Bertram Levy for a unique presentation of old-time tunes from the Blue Ridge Mountains. For more background, visit this earlier Fiddle Club post, or Bertram Levy’s website.

All fiddlers and friends of fiddlers, including players of other instruments, are welcome. $15 admission. Click here to register.

Kirk and Bertram will present a short concert, followed by a jam session. Here’s some of the tunes we’ll play in the session. (Some teaching may happen.)

The Rout learned from Burt Edwards

Here it is a bit slower.
The Rout learned from Burt Edwards

Jump Jim Crow learned from Alan Jabbour

Here it is a bit slower.
Jump Jim Crow slow

Paddy on the Turnpike learned from a recording of Frank Jenkins

Here it is a bit slower.
Paddy on the Turnpike slower

Paul Tyler, convener

Filed under: Session Tunes,Tunes by Paul | February 23, 2013 | Comments (0)

Jimmy Keane brings his accordion to Fiddle Club

Sunday, January 27, 2013, 6:30pm
Seman Violins (4447 Oakton, Skokie)
B.Y.O.B. Snacks will be provided.

All fiddlers and friends of fiddlers, including players of other instruments, are welcome. $15 admission. Click here to register.

Here’s a tune I recorded Jimmy playing on stage at the Indiana Fiddler’s Gathering in 1980 when he was a mere lad of 22.
Frieze Britches aka The Friar’s Breeches, aka Cunnla

And a half dozen years later he played with the also youthful and equally accomplished Liz Carroll in a concert for the Adler Cultural Center in Libertyville, Illinois.
unnamed reel-Limerick Lasses

From that same 1986 concert comes this solo performance of two Cuz Teahan tunes: The Road to Glentowne and The School of Glentowne . . .

Jimmy, of course, has had a long and outstanding career performing and composing wonderful tunes in the Irish tradition. You can find more samples on his own website (click here).

Paul Tyler, convener

Filed under: Meeting Schedule,Preview Tunes,Tunes by Paul | January 21, 2013 | Comments (0)

Fiddle Club Tune Sessions

Five years worth of Fiddle Club of the World guests, a total of 36 from six different countries (and fourteen states in the US of A)! We’ve heard a lot of great music and played a fair amount ourselves. This would be a good time to remember and work on some of the tunes our guests have shared with us.

Starting today, Fiddle Club will hold a Tune Session every month, usually on the third Sunday of the month, at the Leadway Bar & Gallery (5233 N. Damen)–back to our original home. The tune sessions will run from 6:30 to 8:30 (or beyond). Each month, we’ll pick out a few old treasures to work on. A little bit of teaching might happen. Plus we can play anything that strikes our fancy.

January 13, 6:30 at the Leadway
In two weeks, Jimmy Keane will be our featured guest at a concert and session at Seman Violins. So let’s brush up on some of the Irish tunes we’ve learned in the past.

A set of Kerry Polkas from Paddy Jones

The Black Rogue a jig from Liz Knowles

Gone for his Tea a reel also from Liz

Cuz Teahan’s Polka from Kathleen Keane

Check out this set of hornpipes we worked on with Deirdre Ní Chonghaile.

Maybe also
Tripping to the Well & Galway Belle from Frank Ferrel

February 17, 6:30 at the Leadway
Old-Time night. Suggestions?

February 17, 6:30 at the Leadway
A little Klezmer, a bit of Scandinavia and a Ukrainian tune.

Filed under: Meeting Schedule,Tunes by Paul | January 13, 2013 | Comments (0)

Guest Artist for next Fiddle Club meeting

Frank Hall, Old-Time Fiddler
Sunday, September 30 – 6:30p
Atlantic Bar & Grill (5062 Lincoln), in the back room

Founding fiddler of the Easy Street String Band, Bloomington, Indiana’s finest in the 1980s. Frank also played with the Yeah Buddys and the Monks before moving to Ireland right at the start of this century. He’s still playing American old-time tunes along with some of Ireland’s best traditional musicians.

xx
You can register at www.oldtownschool.org and search the class catalog for Fiddle Club. That brings up two choices: 1) a single meeting registration for $15, or 2) a year’s subscription to all Fiddle Club events for $60.

Here are some tunes to learn for the jam session with Frank . . .

Sopping Up the Gravy learned from a 1972 recording of Charlie “Jake” Corns of Battle Ground, Indiana

Jim Shank from Bruce Greene

Frank is a fine dance fiddler. So Fiddle Clubbers get to decide. Do we want him to play a concert set, or should we have a dance? If the latter, we’ll start with the jam session at 6:30, and follow with the dance. Let me know your druthers with a comment below.

- Paul Tyler, convener

Filed under: Meeting Schedule,Session Tunes,Tunes by Paul | September 18, 2012 | Comments (1)

Tune of the Week for July 2, 2012

A classic rag, as played by Les Raber of Hastings, Michigan.
Check out his cool Michigan Fiddler trading card.
Collect the whole set.

(click to enlarge)

(click to enlarge)

Paul Tyler, convener

Filed under: Tune of the Week,Tunes by Paul | July 8, 2012 | Comments (0)

Clarke Buehling Tunes

Clarke Buehling will guest at Fiddle Club on Sunday, July 8 at 6:30 pm in the backroom of the Atlantic Bar & Grill (5062 Lincoln). Click here to register for a single meeting ($15 ), or click here for a year-long subscription ($60) to all Fiddle Club events..

Clarke sent us written music for two tunes. (
Click link to see notation)

Here’s how they sound . . .

Peaceful Henry

Peaceful Henry slow

Spanish Galopade

Spanish Galopade slow

As played by . . .
Paul Tyler, convener

Filed under: Session Tunes,Tunes by Paul | July 6, 2012 | Comments (0)

Tunes from Clarke Buehling

For Sunday, July 8 – 6:30p
Atlantic Bar & Grill (5062 Lincoln)

Banjo King (and Man of Many Costumes), Clarke Buehling, visits the Old Town School on his summer tour for an afternoon workshop in the 19th century styles of class (3-finger picking) and stroke (clawhammer) banjo. Workshop info can be found here (scroll down) here (scroll down). In the evening, he will present a short concert for Fiddle Club of the World, and then work us through a couple of vintage fiddle rags and other Gilded Age tunes. The notes can be found below. Recordings to be posted soon.

Peaceful Henry

Spanish Galopade

(click each thumbnail for a downloadable full size score)
++
You can register for the Fiddle Club meeting for $15 by clicking here, or click this link for the $60 yearly subscription that gives you entrance to all Fiddle Club events.

Note: Recordings of the tunes can be found here.

Filed under: Notation,Session Tunes,Tunes by Paul | June 22, 2012 | Comments (0)

Tune of the Week for June 18, 2012

It’s Battle Ground week! That is, time for the Indiana Fiddlers Gathering in lovely Battle Ground, Indiana, just a couple hours out of Chicago, just off interstate 65. This years festival will be the 40th. I missed the first four, but have only missed two since. Lots of folks look forward to reuniting for a weekend of tunes and friendship. Plus there are concerts on the stage, workshops under the trees and an old-time square dance on Saturday with music by the Bum Ditty Barn Dance Band.

I think the year was 1979 when the Gathering was treated to the music of the Roan Mountain Hilltoppers, a family band from Tennessee. Their tunes were great. Their spirit infectious. And they hawked their most recent album in LP and 8-track tape formats! (Now available on the CD Down Home.) Banjoists take note of the distinctive left-hand style in the picture below. The Easy Street String Band, an outfit from Bloomington, was inspired by a Hilltoppers original, and included it on their LP Money in Both Pockets. (Originally released on the Prairie Schooner label out of St. Louis, it is now available as a CD from Yodel A-Hee.)

Bill & Joe Birchfield
of the Roan Mountain Hilltoppers
Photo by Al Smitley
(click to enlarge)

Easy Street String Band
(click to enlarge)
On the right is Frank Hall, who was the source for an earlier Tune of the Week.

xx
Rattletrap by the Roan Mountain Hilltoppers

Rattletrap by the Easy Street String Band

Paul Tyler, convener

Filed under: Tune of the Week,Tunes by Paul | June 21, 2012 | Comments (0)

Tune of the Week for June 11, 2012

We all need a hero like John Henry.

Howard Armstrong
(click for another view)

Recorded at a Lark Productions concert in Bears Back Room in Bloomington, Indiana in the Spring of 1982. The concert was a double bill of Bogan & Armstrong along with Yank Rachell. Howard took the lead on this number and Ted Bogan played guitar. Yank Rachell may be playing along on mandolin. Yanks accompanist, Peter Roller, was on dobro.

John Henry

Click here for lyrics.

X:24
T:John Henry
M:C|
L:1/8
S:Howard Armstrong with Ted Bogan
K:A
ef | “verse”aa2a- a2f2 | e2=c^c A4 |aa3 =gfec | e6 ef | aa2a- a2f2 | e2=c^c A4 |
“refrain”fe=c^c A2FA | c2c2 A4 | fe=c^c A2FA | A3A- A4 |
fe=c^c A2FA | fe=c^c A2FA |fe=c^c E2F2 | A3A- A2ef |
“verse”aa2a- a2=c’a | c’a2a- a3=c’ | c’=c’^c’a =c’a=f^f | e2e4 =c’2 |
(3c’2=c’2a2 (3f2e2=f2 | (3^f2=c2B2 A4 |
“refrain”fe=c^c A2FA | c2c2 A4 | fe=c^c A2FA | A3A- A2FA |
f8 | f2{=c}^c2 A4 | f2e2 c2d=c | A6 ||

Note: the triplets in the third line from the bottom should be quarter note triplets. Some Abc readers render them as eighth note triplets.

Tune Session on Sunday, April 21

Tunes from Kirk Sutphin

Jimmy Keane brings his accordion to Fiddle Club

Fiddle Club Tune Sessions

Guest Artist for next Fiddle Club meeting

Tune of the Week for July 2, 2012

Clarke Buehling Tunes

Tunes from Clarke Buehling

Tune of the Week for June 18, 2012

Tune of the Week for June 11, 2012

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