| The second festival at Blackwood, VIC drew a good sized crowd of old time music players and friends. What a delight to connect with my old time friends down under. Here's a sizeable batch of tunes for sharing. Much of the fine fiddling is the work of Liam Wratten from Daylesford, VIC. |
| These were recorded over the weekend of February 19, 2010. |
| This first batch are crosstuned GDGD or AEAE on the fiddle. The finger patterns are the same for fiddle and banjo, since the tone ratio is identical. The GDGD is a tone lower and sounds more appealing to some. There's a little less stress on the instrument. And, banjo players who've forgotten their capos can still play along. There is some angst, though, for fiddles in standard tuning and mandolins who may have a different stretch for some notes. To make my life a little easier, I'm not going to note which is which. Most of them are more commonly played in cross A. |
| Georgia Row From Buddy Thomas, according to Liam. |
| Ride Old Buck |
| Double File |
| Brown's Dream not John Brown's Dream |
| Brushy Run Bobby Taylor taught this at a workshop at the National Folk Festival 2 years ago. Nicely led here by my friend Flick Law. |
| June Apple |
| Pretty Little Girl _GDAE |
| Paddy on the Turnpike |
| Coming from cross A, some folks like to tune the high E string down to a C# for these next 2 tunes. Being that we were coming out of GDGD, the fiddle tuning translates to GDGB. A great high drone. Commonly called 'Calico tuning', after Calico. |
| Calico |
| Indian on a Stump |
| Sandy River _AEC# |
| Here's some tunes in standard tuning, key of G. |
| Walk Along John |
| Poor Old Napper from the playing of Harvey Sampson, although, as I understand it, he played many of his tunes in GDGD |
| Shove That Pigsfoot a Little Further in the Fire Really a reference to steel making. Really. |
| And, finally, we capped off the weekend with an open jam on the verandah of Lerdies restaurant. |
| Hawks and Eagles _D my fiddle tuned ADAE |
| Got a Little Home to Go To My fiddle is tuned ADAE for this D tune. We might call this Ain't No Hell In Georgia back in the US. |
| Spotted Pony _D my fiddle is tuned ADAE |
| Turkey in the Straw _G GDAE |