origins of old-time music???
Steve S
Irish and African musical material combining into what we recognize as
traditional vocal and instrumental music endemic to the Appalachian regions
of our country. Of course, the story is not that simple. Other immigrant
groups were present in America at the time the musical melting pot began to
heat up and do its thing. Other groups that come to mind are French,
Germans, Swiss (have not 19th c. Swiss immigrant colonies in West Virginia
been documented ?) and Scandinavians. Is not the tune under the double
Eagle of German origins? (For that matter, most polkas in the old-time
musical universe as well as Pennsylvania based tunes sound very Germanic to
me.) Furthermore, on a recent trip to Finland, I heard an accordion player
playing soldier's joy for dancers. He told me the proper name for the tune
is some unpronounceable (for me) Finnish word with many consonants, "that is
called soldier's joy by the English". On the same trip, I spent some time in
the Karelian region of Russia in which I heard music performed by
traditional groups that had a very familiar feel to it. The instruments
used, besides the fiddle (and an unusual instrument whose name I didn't get,
and seemed to be related to the Welsh crwth), included members of the zither
family, namely, the kantele and the guseli.
Could anybody direct me to studies of old-time music origins off of the
beaten Scots Irish and African path? I seem to remember some information
about Swiss immigrants in West Virginia that appeared in the old-time herald
recently. I am particularly interested to know if anybody has looked into
possible Scandinavian sources for old-time Appalachian music.
It's also possible that I've adopted the approach of hearing nearly all
music as just additions to or subtractions from old Joe Clark....
(Please excuse weird syntax and spelling errors... My voice-activated
software really sucks)
s.
--
______________________________________
Steve Senderoff & Trish Vierling
"...Ya run your E string down oh, I don't know, about three frets...anyway,
it corresponds to the third note on the A string...here's ya tuning..."
.........Tommy Jarrell
http://home.comcast.net/~steventrish/start.html
Joel Shimberg
wrote:
> we refer to Scots Irish and African musical material
Odd coincidence -- this miserable word is currently being misused also
on the banjo list. Scots is a good word for more than one person from
Scotland (one Scot, two Scots). It's also a good word for the language
or English dialect spoken by people in the borderlands between England
and Scotland. It's not a good substitute for the good English word
'Scotch' which some (those who believe that plaid tartans are of
ancient lineage and 'belong' to this clan or that) would have
restriced to whiskey. If you bow to that pressure and want a
substitute, Scottish is the word of choice. Ain't that grand!?
>Furthermore, on a recent trip to Finland, I heard an accordion player
>playing soldier's joy for dancers. He told me the proper name for the tune
>is some unpronounceable (for me) Finnish word with many consonants, "that is
>called soldier's joy by the English".
I think that Francis O'Neill, in "Irish Folk Music, A Fascinating
Hobby (what a great title!) says something about Finnish versions of
SJ.
Hi, Steve (and Trish).
Joel
Scott Prouty
> Other groups that come to mind are French,
> Germans, Swiss (have not 19th c. Swiss immigrant colonies in West Virginia
> been documented ?) and Scandinavians.
> Could anybody direct me to studies of old-time music origins off of the
> beaten Scots Irish and African path? I seem to remember some information
> about Swiss immigrants in West Virginia that appeared in the old-time herald
> recently. I am particularly interested to know if anybody has looked into
> possible Scandinavian sources for old-time Appalachian music.
Helvetia, WV, in Randolph Co., is the main town where Swiss immigrants
settled. It takes a real commitment to get to -- an hour or more from
Elkins full of twisty roads and steep hill climbing. But once you get
there it's worth it as it's a beautiful place.
They just celebrated Fasnacht which I've been a couple of times. It's
a real community event - there's a masked parade followed by a dance
which is mostly a square dance but also includes some intermittent
schottiches (usually to the same tune). There's a lot more to the
celebration. Check this page out:
http://www.americaslibrary.gov/cgi-bin/page.cgi/es/wv/fasncht_1
"Fasnacht in Helvetia
A Local Legacy
Did you know that West Virginia has its own version of Mardi Gras?
The period before Ash Wednesday is celebrated in New Orleans and
elsewhere as Mardi Gras, but in Helvetia, West Virginia, the local
people celebrate Fasnacht. Swiss immigrants brought this celebration
to Helvetia in the 19th century. Fasnacht is a combination of the
celebrations of Mardi Gras and the Winterfest of Switzerland, where
Old Man Winter is burned in effigy to speed up the coming of spring.
(An effigy is a crude model of a person or thing, usually someone or
something that is disliked.) The focus of the holiday in Helvetia is
also on scaring away winter.
On the Saturday night before Ash Wednesday, the people of Helvetia put
on scary masks and decorate their homes with scary figures to frighten
away Old Man Winter. Then they gather at a local restaurant, light
colorful lanterns, and walk to the community hall, where they parade
around the dance floor as their masks are judged. They dance until
midnight, when the fiddler announces it is time to burn Old Man
Winter. The prettiest girl gets on the shoulders of the tallest man
and cuts down the effigy of Old Man Winter that is hanging in the
middle of the room. They drag it out into the snow, rough it up, and
throw it onto a bonfire, showing that it's time for winter to end!"
It's quite an experience & loads of fun.
Gerry Milnes produced a video about Helvetia as well as a cassette
documenting the music -- both are sold by Augusta Heritage:
http://www.augustaheritage.com/store.html
In the Scandanavian countries they still use plenty of fiddle tunings
in their music which suggests a connection to old-time music, but
someone who knows more about this would be better off commenting . . .
Good luck,
Scott
David Sanderson
> me.) Furthermore, on a recent trip to Finland, I heard an accordion player
> playing soldier's joy for dancers. He told me the proper name for the tune
> is some unpronounceable (for me) Finnish word with many consonants, "that is
> called soldier's joy by the English". On the same trip, I spent some time in
> the Karelian region of Russia in which I heard music performed by
> traditional groups that had a very familiar feel to it. The instruments
> used, besides the fiddle (and an unusual instrument whose name I didn't get,
> and seemed to be related to the Welsh crwth), included members of the zither
> family, namely, the kantele and the guseli.
>
> Could anybody direct me to studies of old-time music origins off of the
> beaten Scots Irish and African path? I seem to remember some information
> about Swiss immigrants in West Virginia that appeared in the old-time herald
> recently. I am particularly interested to know if anybody has looked into
> possible Scandinavian sources for old-time Appalachian music.
>
> It's also possible that I've adopted the approach of hearing nearly all
> music as just additions to or subtractions from old Joe Clark....
> s.
Most interesting, and by coincidence mirrors a recent email conversation of
mine. I'm acquainted with a Finnish musician named Seppo Sillanpaa, quite
accomplished, plays a number of stringed instruments and performs with his two
daughters. Now the Finns seem to be like a sponge for all kinds of music. He
started playing in a Finnish country band - that is, US country music - and then
got hooked on old time music when the NLCR played in Finland.
In any case, he's listened to and played a lot. In the course of conversation,
I referred him to my Web page and the Mellie Dunham tracks there, about as
straight New England old time playing as you can get. His comment was that it
all sounded Finnish, a complete surprise to me. So there's some support for
what you're saying, though what it all means certainly isn't clear. There were
plenty of Finns around here by the mid-30's, playing Finnish music, but that was
distinctly different from the older indigenous styles. Seppo tells me that he
has now added the fretless banjo to his arsenal, which raises a whole bunch of
interesting connections.
--
David Sanderson
East Waterford, Maine
Ron McConnell
Steve S wrote:
>... origins of old-time music, we refer to Scots
> Irish and African musical material combining into ...
> traditional vocal and instrumental music endemic to the Appalachian regions
> of our country. Of course, the story is not that simple. Other immigrant
> groups were present in America ...studies of old-time music origins off of the
> beaten Scots Irish and African path?
A very interesting thread that you've opened, Steve.
Hopefully, it will produce some good information and lead to more links.
There was a short related thread on greatc...@yahoogroups.com
a few days ago. Other than a general conclusion that when folks
came over to America, they brought their own "country" music with them,
there was not much detail on non-Great British music
and its relation to our old-time "country" music.
> Scott Prouty spro...@hotmail.com
> "... Swiss... Helvetia, WV ..."
A lot of Germans came in by way of Pennsylvania and they or their
children went on down south and west from there, so it shouldn't
be surprising that some Swiss may have done something similar.
Didn't know it before now, though. Interesting.
Gotta look up Helvetia, WV.
On "Soldier's Joy," a musician at a New Jersey bluegrass festival
a couple of weeks ago mentioned that the tune was also known as
"King's Head Reel" - a new one on me. The King's head appeared
on the coins received on the soldier's payday,
so the joy was the coins in this version.
He didn't say which king, but maybe a Finn?
> ...nearly all music as just additions to or subtractions
> from old Joe Clark...
Do you mean that they are not? :)
Cheers,
Ron McConnell
"Real music is out there
and real people are making it."
- Webb Wilder, "Town and Country"
Joel Shimberg
>A very interesting thread that you've opened, Steve.
>Hopefully, it will produce some good information and lead to more links.
I don't know how good this information is any more, and I have no
details, but a friend of mine who lived in the Ithaca, NY, area told
me 20 years ago about a Finnish family or community nearby. They
played music that was apparently accorion/fiddle based and very
likeable.
Joel
Ulf Jägfors
Thanks Allen for your answer
Ulf
Steve
Some valid points despite some work on French Canadian influences on
Missouri music there has not been enough work done on possible
stylistic connections between Appalachian music and French Canadian
based on the river-fur trapping trade in Kentucky Ohio river valley
region. Several points we need to distinguish when tunes entered the
repertoire in the 18th or 19th century, I would assume that Under the
Double Eagle is mid to late 19th century by which time the stylistic
characteristics of the music were fairly set. The style is flexible
enough to encompass diverse 19th century urban repertoire and even 19th
century urban instruments like the dobro, the thumb or flat picked
guitar, and the autoharp which do not have Appalachian origins, The
other factor is that just because an immigrant group is present in the
region it does not automatically mean that they had a musical
presence. We have many cases where minority groups may absorb the
culture of the dominant majority in terms of language at the expense
of their own so why not music.
Soldier's Joy is indeed a tune played all over the North Atlantic
archipelago from Ireland to Shetland to Sweden, but that does not mean
it originated in Scandinavia, the maritime communication circuits
would have complicated where the original transmission derived.
Allen Feldman
"Steve S" <st...@tommyjarrell.gov> skrev i meddelandet
news:6IKdnRCbJL7...@comcast.com...
Carl Baron
Steve S wrote:
> Other groups that come to mind are French,
> Germans, Swiss (have not 19th c. Swiss immigrant colonies in West Virginia
> been documented ?) and Scandinavians.
People studying German influences on old time music
http://www.newminstrels.com/
> Is not the tune under the double
> Eagle of German origins?
Yes, and along with the Chicken Polka, is still played in Germany.
Check out a couple of the flags at
http://flagspot.net/flags/de1848.html
>
> Could anybody direct me to studies of old-time music origins off of the
> beaten Scots Irish and African path? I seem to remember some information
> about Swiss immigrants in West Virginia that appeared in the old-time herald
> recently. I am particularly interested to know if anybody has looked into
> possible Scandinavian sources for old-time Appalachian music.
>
See above for German influences.
Carl
David Sanderson
Well, another connection - was this perhaps the Richard Koski
Finnish-Appalachian Orchestra? Seppo, whom I mentioned earlier, was associated
with this bunch for a while, I believe.
Lyle Lofgren
> Steve wrote:
> > Other groups that come to mind are French,
> > Germans, Swiss (have not 19th c. Swiss immigrant colonies in West Virginia
> > been documented ?) and Scandinavians.
>
> in their music which suggests a connection to old-time music, but
> someone who knows more about this would be better off commenting . . .
I can't add much information, but I'll try to add to the confusion, if
I can. I listened to quite a bit of the Henry Reed material when it
was first posted on the internet, and I thought that several of his
obscure tunes sounded very much like Swedish fiddle tunes. I wrote to
his grandson asking if he knew of any connection Henry might have had
with Scandinavians, and he knew of none. As far as I know, there were
not very many Scandinavians in the mountains? Or were there? The
route my ancestors took to Minnesota was via Upper Michigan iron mines
or by working westward on the railroad. To my mind, the schottische is
archetypally Scandinavian, just as the polka is central European.
Finnish music is interesting, because some of it is influenced by (or
influenced?) Swedish traditional music, and some of it, in a minor
key, is influenced by Russian or gypsy music. Then there's the Finnish
tango craze, which is a whole 'nother thing. I'm sure someone has
studied the subtleties involved here. Even after attending a Kurismaki
film festival this winter, I don't know much about how Finns think.
Lyle
Paul Gifford
through different communities without regard to their ethnicity.
"Under the Double Eagle" was a march written by an Austrian, but
when the two-step was introduced in 1898, marches accompanied it.
The polka was introduced to the U.S. in 1843 from Paris, by a
the leading society dancing master in New York City, Allen Dodsworth,
and the tune that accompanied its spread, the "Jenny Lind Polka,"
presumably by someone of German origin (I think his name was
Wallerstein),
is widespread over the U.S. as a fiddle tune. Does that make it a
German contribution? No. The schottische entered the U.S. in a
similar
manner. Does the fact that the schottische is popular in Scandinavia
mean that it's a Scandinavian contribution? No. A lot of tunes
spread at the high-society level, mostly from Paris. Dancing masters
from Stockholm, just like New York City, would have learned the latest
dances and taken them home. Then they spread through the local
society,
took on new tunes and variations.
This is no doubt how "Soldier's Joy" spread to Scandinavia---with the
popularity of the country dance/contredanse. In the 18th century,
this
was popular at the highest levels of society and spread in a similar
manner.
The Germans who settled in Pennsylvania and Maryland in the 18th
century (those who would have danced, anyway---the Lutherans and
Reformed, not the pietistic sects) would have been exposed more to
British fashions. There is evidence that they were dancing country
dances (aka contradances) by the early 19th century.
There was a popular style in England in the 18th century and early
19th century for Scottish songs. The reel came from Scotland. Does
it thus mean that the presence of these tunes and songs was a result
of Scottish immigration? No. They were popularized in any number of
ways.
The point I'm making is that a lot of music we think of as "folk
music," having origins in the lower classes, actually had its origins
in popular styles in higher society. It spread across ethnic lines.
Paul Gifford
Peter Feldmann
Gifford) wrote:
>The point I'm making is that a lot of music we think of as "folk
>music," having origins in the lower classes, actually had its origins
>in popular styles in higher society. It spread across ethnic lines.
>
>Paul Gifford
Paul,
No doubt you're right, but my guess is that the music traveled
both ways, both up and down the social ladder. JS Bach was
known to invite certain street performers to play 'entre acte'
between performances of his compositions, for example.
Anothe German contribution, I believe, is steel strings for
instruments. Have you ever tried a G-run on a guitar strung
with gut strings? Those things are dangerous!
__Peter
--
Peter Feldmann
http://www.bluegrasswest.com
Bands, bookings, & etc. for old time and
neo-classic country music.
Gregg Kimball
literature on American "folk" music seems hellbent on claiming that
nothing is really folk (or "traditional") music because of various
commercial influences on musicians and their society. These
commercial influences are real, and these books sometimes offer a
useful corrective to earlier work. Some seem to argue for a
dichotomy, however, between folk and commercial or popular music.
Elijah Wald has recently been quoted to this effect regarding his new
book, which apparently argues that blues was black popular music not
folk music. Why does it have to be exclusively either? Can't the
folk culture of homegrown music produced by local people for local
consumption exist at the same time as a commercial continuum of
similar music? And can't each intertwine and influence the other? I
guess the question (or at least one important one) is must the folk
music be "pure" to be "real" folk music. Earlier purveyors of folk
culture seemed to have insisted on this, and thus set themselves up
for a fall, it seems to me.
I hope folks will pick up this thread because I am mightily interested
in this question.
Gregg Kimball
Peter Feldmann <pet...@silcom.com> wrote in message news:<3div40543g02imtog...@4ax.com>...
Peter Feldmann
Kimball) wrote:
>Much of the recent academic
>literature on American "folk" music seems hellbent on claiming that
>nothing is really folk (or "traditional") music because of various
>commercial influences on musicians and their society. These
>commercial influences are real, and these books sometimes offer a
>useful corrective to earlier work. Some seem to argue for a
>dichotomy, however, between folk and commercial or popular music.
There was a strong trend in the 1940s, 50s and early 60s of
folklore publications attempting to sort through commercial
influences on "folk" music. One reason for this was the
overwhelming popularity of the so-called "folk revival"
movement, which ran the gamut from Richard Dyer-Bennet's
classical settings of folksongs reminiscent of Schubert lieder,
to the Almanac Singers, the Weavers (the first world-fusion
band?), Burl Ives (Hollywood meets folk) and the Kingston Trio.
The attempt at differentiation perhaps, was a reaction to such
ensembles and performers. Indeed, the word "folk" became an
adjective that had the connotation "good" to many, and "cash" to
business types. Even hardened country performers such as Bill
Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, and Johnny Cash began to issue "folk"
songs and albums to get in on the sales aspect.
Certainly there was always interaction between urban and rural
musical styles. What has happened in the past century though,
is the use of technology in recording and broadcasting music to
give pop and other commerical artists an overwhelming advantage
over home-made, rural music. But even the early commercial
country artists made use of this advantage, with recordings by
the Carter Family showing up as performances collected 10 - 30
years later by folklorists - who themselves were often
inexcuseably innocent of the influence of commerical 78s on
their "informants".
--
Peter Feldmann
snakefiddler
"Steve S" <st...@tommyjarrell.gov> wrote in message
news:6IKdnRCbJL7...@comcast.com...
read a book called tennessee strings, written by charles wolfe..... it's a
great resource. it was one of the texts for my appalachian music class.
Snakefiddler
Paul Stamler
> But even the early commercial
> country artists made use of this advantage, with recordings by
> the Carter Family showing up as performances collected 10 - 30
> years later by folklorists - who themselves were often
> inexcuseably innocent of the influence of commerical 78s on
> their "informants".
Heck, sometimes it took only a couple-three years between the time a Carter
Family or Vernon Dalhart recording was released and its collection, often
with changes already evident, by Vance Randolph. Who apparently paid little
or no attention to records.
Peace,
Paul