Golden Slippers is a favorite at the Bay Area Fiddlers Association. We add new tunes constantly, and we also go back to the fiddle chestnuts of yesterday.
There are fancier versions of this tune. This one is almost a straight ahead cover of the melody as sung, with just a few fiddling changes.
And here is the pdf of Golden Slippers.
The Amazing Grace fiddle notes are comments I make here, not musical notation. Fiddle notes might be tablature, but not musical notation targeted for fiddle.
Dale Morris had a very interesting approach to Amazing Grace. He talked about this when I attended the Texarkana Fiddle Camp way back when. (It was the first year of the Mark O’Connor Camp, whenever that was. I attended both.)
He said that he liked to slur notes together if they represented one word. The first word in the song is ‘amazing’. It is given one note for each syllable. Usually you hear this played with three bows. And that’s the way I’ve published the tune.
His reasoning is good and musical. If you are a beginner, though, it’s a little awkward to get the three notes together in one bow. Since I give this tune to beginners, I make it easier and more conventional.
If you are an intermediate or advanced player, you can stretch this first part out in one bow. In fact, you may choose to do a juicy shift to third position on the third note.
I’m showing the three ways of handling this beginning of the tune in the tabs below. Further along is a link to an mp3 file demonstrating the sound.
You will see an ornamented version of the song in the first fiddle tab chart. Even beginners are encouraged to push into new territory.
Now here is a fragment to show the beginning with the slur covering the first three notes.
And finally, moving into third position for during first three notes.
For the best printing results, here is a pdf of Amazing Grace.
A three minute mp3 file demonstrates the comparative sound of all this: Amazing-Grace MP3.
This has been a popular bluegrass tune since David Grisman’s Hot Dawg, if not earlier. It’s also showed up in a few movies.
Chocolat featured a Gypsy band playing the tune. Even in Julie & Julia, there was a moment of one and a half bars that had the tune playing at the cut to the wedding scene. Then, the music cut again to something else. It was an awkward moment in the film. Maybe it just slipped by.
The tune should be played with a swing feel. I’ve indicated some of the syncopation. Use more if you like.
The way I have the tune here is close to how I play it. I can make no other claim.
The pdf for Minor Swing.
Apparently I was mistaken about Margaret’s Waltz being an Irish tune. An yet, I’m going way out on a limb here and saying this is an Irish reel. Definitely sounds Irish.
I worked out a harmony part in twin fiddling for this, but you need to go into second position to pull it off. That’s one reason for not producing a tab chart. Maybe someday, in music notation.
Some of the bowing may seem a little odd. I arranged it so that the cross string bowing could be up bow on the E and down bow on the A. The bow technique feels more natural.
Here’s the pdf for Julia Delaney.
With the 4th of July and Bastille Day approaching, we will be thinking of our personal liberty.
They say it’s not how much food you have on the table, or how many shoes in the closet that gives you liberty, it’s how free you are from the government poking its armed nose into your business. (Imagine a giant nose with rifles bristling from the nostrils instead of nose hairs.)
The fiddle reel celebrating personal freedom is Liberty. This is a straight ahead way to play it.
Fiddle Tab chart of Liberty
And in the printable version we have the Liberty pdf file.
Here’s a tune that needs no introduction. You can occasionally find a fiddler that hasn’t learned this tune, but not often. This is the way I present Jay Ungar’s popular tune to my students.
We have even played this in an orchestral arrangement at the Richey Community Orchestra. Lately, I added a high harmony part as an extra version.
Fiddle Tab of Ashokan Farewell
The one fiddle playing tip that most fiddlers miss is the slide with the third finger on the A and then the D string. I caught this from Jay Unger’s teaching video.
Here is the pdf for Ashokan Farewell.
For as long as I’ve been going to the Florida Folk Festival, this tune, Whiskey Before Breakfast, has been popular. It’s fun to play and offers lots of chances for variation.
Whiskey Before Breakfast fiddle tab chart
And the pdf of Whiskey Before Breakfast.
One occasion when I got to observe Vassar Clements was when he was promoting his new album at a record store. He was mainly holding his fiddle and chatting with fans, when suddenly Mike Marshall breezed into the store, pulled out his fiddle and got into a hot twin fiddle version of Old Joe Clark with Vassar.
I was astounded, both by the virtuosity displayed, and by the unrehearsed excellence of the performance. It was a clear clue for me of the high musical potential of fiddling.
In my book, 43 Fiddle Tunes in Tab, I have a beginner version of this tune. This chart is a little more advanced, and more typical of how you hear it played.
The fiddle tab chart for Old Joe Clark in pdf.
Today at the meeting of the Bay Area Fiddlers in Dunedin, we played Roxanna Waltz by Bill Monroe. I haven’t written that one out yet. But I do have a popular hoedown, Gold Rush.
I wrote this tab chart years ago. But, I haven’t used it much in my teaching. It’s not an easy tune. Intermediate to advanced, is how I’d call it.
Even though I enhanced it a bit, it still could use some work on esthetics. But it’s accurate enough for playing.
And, of course, the pdf file for Gold Rush.
And, by the way, we also played Lamp Lighter’s Hornpipe. Anson’s choice and a synchronistic one for me.
The only hornpipe in my book 43 Fiddle Tunes in Tab is “Harvest Home Hornpipe.” It’s played with a swing feel, and students like it.
To pull another hornpipe out of the hat, I put Lamp Lighter’s Hornpipe into tab. I look forward to seeing how my fiddle students like this one.
[Update] This is definitely catching on, too. At a lesson with students at the Suncoast Waldorf School, one of the beginning students was humming it after two hearings. It’s a winner!
Here is a pdf of Lamp Lighter’s Hornpipe.
