How to Use Source Recordings for Inspiration
Hi Jammers! Brittany here.
Thanks Shelby M'lynn Mick for the picture
It’s a pleasure to write a guest post for the JamWithLauren blog.
I’ll disclose now that I am a massive fan of Lauren’s—she’s been a dear friend to me for a long time, and the older and wiser I get the more I appreciate just how lucky I am to have her in my life and how incredible she is at what she does! It makes sense though, because she loves music and teaching music so darn much—I think that’s the only way anyone could be that good at music education.
Lauren was already a fabulous pedagogue when I met her about 15 years ago, and it’s been cool to see her develop as a player/performer and now online-teaching expert. She has a deep, intuitive understanding of people and their musical journeys, and therefore has a lot to offer in terms of guidance, as well as a real knack for explaining the nitty gritty details of string playing and music theory. Signing up for lessons on JamWithLauren is always a good idea.
Let’s Talk About Source Recordings
I want to talk to you about listening to old recordings. These days there are many incredible resources available to us—a big one being YouTube. For example, this great video popped up a few days ago of Tommy Jarrell and Fred Cockerham in 1971. If you have only a few spare minutes, check out their rendition of “Cluck Old Hen” just after 9 minutes in.
Another resource I turn to often is Larry Warren’s site, Slippery Hill. This page is great if you’ve learned a tune and are curious to hear other versions of it, or even to hear the “source.” I try to go back and listen to source recordings whenever I remember to think of it. The great Bruce Molsky has always been effective at encouraging this behavior. And in general, it’s a good idea to check in on what’s been done already, what musicians have already figured out.
Use Slippery Hill as a Resource
Slippery Hill lets you search by tune name, by fiddler, by tuning, or by key! This gives you many options on how to use the site—for repertoire-building in certain keys or tunings, diversifying your variations, learning tunes with funny titles, or just going down some of the endless rabbit holes of the internet. I went on there to find an example of the way I most often use it—checking in on a tune I already know to see if there are any important bits I’ve either forgotten about or didn’t know were there. This can happen very easily if you’re learning tunes in jam sessions or from newer recordings where someone’s version might be an amalgamation of different sources. Consulting early recordings is a great way to deepen your understanding of the tune, and in the meantime learn some stylistic ideas and get more in touch with where this music came from. It’s still an aural tradition even if you’re listening on a computer—especially at a time like this where we’re more isolated than normal and music is coming at us through some sort of device.
Let’s Get Learning
The example tune I chose is one that Lauren and I both love and have jammed on a lot: “Walk Along John to Kansas.”
Type that into the search on Slippery Hill and you’ll find two versions, one in ‘cross-A’ tuning or AEAE from K.C. Kartchner in 1943, and one in ‘calico’ tuning or AEAC# from the Canote Brothers (2010ish, from their CD ‘Calico Pie’). So ostensibly Kartchner is the source for this tune. (The Library of Congress also has a recording of this tune from 1941 by Mrs. F.E. & Frank Goodwyn of Hebbronville, TX, recorded by John A. Lomax—Alan’s father, but you can’t hear it online unfortunately.)
Next if you’re like me, you want to know more about this guy K.C Kartchner! Bingo, he’s got an autobiography called “Frontier Fiddler” (click here to buy it, not from Amazon!); he lived in Arizona from 1886-1970. Now that you’ve found him, you can search the whole site by his name, and you’ll find recordings of 11 other tunes—some nice waltzes, and this crazy one that reminds me of Fritz Kreisler playing “Humoresque” (incidentally I really love that recording as well)!
Now you might be thinking….okayyyy, but what have I learned here?
Well, for one you have just listened to a whole bunch of fiddling that you wouldn’t have heard otherwise. So you are broadening your horizons, and I maintain that everything you listen to gets osmosed through your brain and *might* come out through your fingers without you even having to do anything about it. But, it helps if you practice!
Part of the exercise of excessive listening is also about finding out what you like and don’t like. I’ll be honest and say that a lot of the field recordings I heard early on (when I was a young teen especially), I did not appreciate. I found them scratchy and hard to listen to. I wasn’t thinking about the fact that a lot of these fiddlers were quite old already by the time that archivists and music historians “found” them and recorded them (and many of them had hard lives where they were doing way less delicate things with their hands than playing the fiddle all day), or the fact that recording technology was still pretty new for the really early recordings, so it’s amazing that we have them at all. That makes you not mind sifting through the noise as much.
Ok, back to the tune…
Depending on your learning style, you may decide that you just want to listen to something over and over again, maybe hum along, and eventually pick up your fiddle.
Maybe you use the Amazing Slow Downer? It’s a great tool, and especially useful when you need to pitch-shift an old recording (not to mention slowing things down so you can learn in real-time instead of using the pause button).
Or you might prefer to write things down. I am a visual learner, although sometimes this comes as a crutch because it means I only read the music and don’t commit it to memory. But with a tune like this, I find it helpful to have it written down for future reference.
And it might be helpful for you to see it now. So here’s transcription take #1:
I start with just the notes and rhythms.
Oftentimes I don’t even put in bar-lines at first because they slow me down… but with a 4/4 fiddle tune that I already know by ear, it’s easy to get them in there where they belong.
(Side note: I have learned things rhythmically backwards in the past, so don’t be embarrassed if this happens to you! Honing in on what the backup player is doing is really helpful in telling where the downbeats are. Or you might even hear the fiddler’s toes tapping.)
One fun thing about this recording is the first time through the second part, he does a totally different ending. Maybe his bow got caught on something; who knows—but it’s an interesting variation that he only does once.
Once…
I have all the notes down, I’ll usually play along to check it.
And sometimes there will be lots of variations, so I’ll try to get those specifics notated as well. That helps you get into the mind of the fiddler.
(Side note: Ed Haley is a really fun person to transcribe because he has tons of slight melodic variations).
Next…
I’ll start thinking about the bowing. This tune and Kartchner’s style are pretty straightforward. I’m almost never 100% sure that I’ve learned a bowing correctly, but in this case I’m fairly certain it’s like this:
So those groupings of 3 eighth-note slurs are the foundation of this bowing pattern.
If you hear the slurs but aren’t sure if it’s an up-bow or a down-bow, go ahead and try it both ways and see which one feels more natural. Sometimes this may be a personal decision, but often it just sits better in one of the directions.
I’ve notated it without any of the drone open-strings, because it’s much easier to read this way and what you’re seeing is the melody notes.
You can listen yourself to see whether he’s droning on the open string above the melody or below the melody. One spot where it may be helpful to know the probable fingering is here (because in cross-tuning you have options of where to find the notes):
This way uses your open strings as well as your pinky finger, which minimizes the number of string crossings necessary and also gives you some nice double-stops.
Now…
that you’ve got the melody and the bowing, you’ll probably want to know what the chords are, in case you’re going to play the tune with anyone. Teach it to a rhythm-playing friend or find the chords yourself so you can back someone else up on your fiddle!
Here are some nice modern versions of the tune:
Bruce Molsky, John Reischman, & Alison de Groot—check out Bruce’s bowing! Looks a lot like the Kartchner way. And check out 2:02 for some awesome Bruce-style double-stop variations.
Tatiana Hargreaves + band from her 2009 album.
I couldn’t find Rayna Gellert playing it (I learned it from her back in the day!) but here’s her playing another Kartchner tune, Black Hills Waltz.
You may notice that all these modern versions start on the second part that Kartchner plays. So maybe that is in fact the “A part.” It doesn’t really matter as long as you agree about where to start and end!
You may also notice that people mess around with octaves—the low part can be played up the octave with the same fingering (since you’re in AEAE tuning!).
I’ve also heard it played with this fun variation:
So, that’s how I learn/relearn a tune.
Hope this helps in some small way. Feel free to be in touch if you have any questions or comments.
And Lauren teaches Walk Along John to Kansas (tune, chords, etc) in her curriculum if you’d like extra help. It’s a tune in the *Bonus* Module for Cross Tuning. Check out her lesson and then circle back around to this post.
Happy listening & learning.
Jam on (and don’t forget to vote!)
Brittany
P.S. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the online Lomax archives. They are here. This is a really fun part of it that I’ve only just begun to explore.
