Tag Archives: contra dancing

Practicing for a fiddle recital

Posted on April 12, 2014 | 1 comment

Yep, a 70-year-old (me) adult student of the fiddle playing a recital with a dozen (mainly) middle school violin students. I have seven weeks to memorize and perfect the rhythms of my two pieces: the American hoedown/reel Shove That Pig’s Foot A Little Further In The Fire, and the Blue Jig, a bluesy version of an Irish jig.

Another adult violin student (a former bass player in his 40s) will be dueting with me and our teacher, James Anderson, is trying to get two or four dancers to illustrate the contra dancing that generally goes with these tunes. Just hope that doesn’t force us to raise the tempo beyond my endurance. Stay tuned.

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Posted in Fiddle Stuff, Music, Texana

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The Bodhran at LOCO

Posted on May 23, 2013 | Comments Off on The Bodhran at LOCO

Eleven folks showed up last night for our weekly pickup contra dance band, including a guy with a bodhran, a Celtic drum, which was a first since I started sitting in on backup fiddle in late February. (Last week there was a guy with a recorder but he didn’t return.)

Most of us, as usual, were fiddlers, though a guitar, a banjo and a mandolin were there to help keep the bodhran on tempo. One fiddler, a guy I like to call the banker because of the way he dresses—as if just coming from the executive suite—was really cutting loose as always, stomping both feet like a Breton fiddler, playing the melody on such pieces as The Hanged Man’s Reel.

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Posted in Music, Texana

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Hammered dulcimer

Posted on April 5, 2013 | Comments Off on Hammered dulcimer

Something new at LOCO’s weekly performance the other night: a hammered dulcimer. That sucker has 48 strings. Imagine the time consumed in tuning it. Comparable to tuning a piano.

The guy who brought it discovered it was out of tune (probably the heightened humidity from the rain that day) and didn’t seem to want to waste time tuning it, so played his fiddle instead. I think he played it once, though. It was hard to be sure, as I was sitting between an amplified fiddle and an amplified mandolin, and could hardly hear my own efforts at fiddle harmony.

I’m getting better at recognizing keys and playing chord voicings contributed by my teacher. Instead of trying to keep up on the sheet music, by counting the beats, I finally figured out what the chords look like on the guitar and now I watch those players, instead. Still a challenge to keep up, though, and I sometimes revert to long, slow bowings of the pentatonic scale in whatever the key is because it fits with every chord.

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Posted in Music, Obsessions, Texana

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Learning stand-up bass

Posted on March 21, 2013 | Comments Off on Learning stand-up bass

Another fine evening with the Local On-Call Orchestra last night playing Old Time for contra dancers. Five fiddles (two melody, our chord viola, and me and another beginner on harmony), two mandolins, a banjo, a guitar and a stand-up bass (also called bull fiddle).

“Well, I won’t have any doubt about the rhythm,” I told the bass player who was standing beside my chair. He smiled. Said he was six weeks into learning the instrument. ‘Course he also reads music and plays piano and electric bass guitar. So why the bull fiddle, I asked.

Said he’d always been interested in it and then a friend wrote a song in which one line went “Ninety percent of playing the bass is owning one.” So he bought one and started playing it.

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In which I join the LOCO

Posted on February 28, 2013 | Comments Off on In which I join the LOCO

Last night I officially (if there is such a thing) joined Austin’s Local On-Call Orchestra, a pickup group of fiddlers sometimes joined by a banjo, mandolin, guitar or even a double bass.

LOCO plays every Wednesday at the Hancock Rec Center on East 41st Street for fifty or so impromptu contra dancers (a traditional line dance that’s sort of square dancing without the square) who rely on the rhythm of old timey tunes like Red Wing, Whiskey Before Breakfast, and Liberty.

Some of last night’s pickup fiddlers were much better than me and consequently played a lot faster (around 112 beats per minute) than I can (more like 60 bpm), so I followed my teacher’s instructions to just play chords, “chunk” the rhythm on the key string (most everything was played in G, D, or A), even improvised a little. I was able to play the two waltzes at the end of the evening.

The dancers rely on the rhythm. They applauded the players at the end of a tune (looped repeatedly for about ten minutes) but otherwise ignored us. So there was no audience pressure as such. I doubt they heard the notes at all, though some of the fiddle players were quite good and helped us beginners sound not-too-shabby. It was a lot of fun. I will go back next week.

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Posted in Music, Scribbles, Texana

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