Signing up for a Fiddle Competition (Old Billy Hell)

Today we're going to be talking about preparing for a competition and I have lots of exciting thoughts about this . But first a little bit of housekeeping . Sometimes I listen to podcasts and they call it housekeeping when they make an announcement .

You know , Charley and I had an album come out this fall but we had a pretty busy winter and we never had an album release party . So we are finally having our album release party , for our album Broke the Floor . It's going to be in Baltimore on May 30th , which is a Thursday .

It'll be a big contra dance and concert at the Mob Town Ballroom on Thursday , May 30th , from 7 to 9.30 . So if you're in Baltimore or you're nearby , please come out that Thursday on May 30th and hear music from our album and have fun at a big contra dance at the Mob Town Ballroom . So let's talk about preparing for a competition .

So let's talk about preparing for a competition . This is a topic that I have no experience in . You can go back and listen to some of my interviews .

I know Joanna Clare talked about competing in fleadhs in Irish fiddle and Lissa Schneckenberger spoke about how she got into fiddling as a kid and a teenager by doing kind of a circuit of fiddle competitions that were at fairs in Maine and New England .

And a few of my old-time fiddlers who I've interviewed have talked about competing at places like Clifftop and other old-time music festivals . But I've actually never competed in a fiddle competition , and not only that , I've never . I'm trying to remember to make sure I'm not stretching the truth here . I don't think I've ever been to a fiddle competition .

They used to have a little showcase at an old-time fiddle fair outside of Syracuse that my dad would take me to Remember . He'd put me up on stage for that , but it wasn't a competition . Yeah , I don't think I've been to one . I've been to other competitions . I've competed in classical but not in fiddle .

So I decided , partly just because of this podcast y'all inspire me to take on new things because it'll give me something to talk about . On the podcast . I was planning to go to Clifftop this year . My kids will be at camp during Clifftop .

So my husband and I are going to go check it out after hearing about it for years from other musicians in Baltimore who go and who talk about it . And if you play old time music in Baltimore and you're just meeting someone for the first time , one of the first things they'll ask you is have you been to Clifftop ?

And I've had to say no , so I'd like to say yes to that . So I'm going to Clifftop and I thought , well , they have a competition there , why don't I enter it ? And then I'll know what it's like to play for a fiddle competition . I've done a lot of performing in my day .

I've performed well , I've performed classically , I've competed and done orchestra concerts and other kinds of recitals and such , and I've done a lot of performing on fiddles certainly dances for the last 30 years and a variety of other things Mostly dances , I would say Some concerts and stuff like that , open mics .

So I feel pretty comfortable with the idea of getting up on stage and playing for people . That has never been something that bothered me too much . But I didn't quite know what to expect from Clifftop . The first thing I did , thinking about how to get ready for this competition .

I went and I watched videos on YouTube of Clifftop winners so you can look at the videos people have put up Finalist in the Open Fiddle 2016 . Finalist in the Open Fiddle 2018 . And they have these videos that were taken . So that was really helpful because I could see like , oh okay , they play the tune a certain number of times .

Some people have guitar accompaniment , some people don't , and these are the kinds of tunes they're playing , these are the kinds of tempos they're taking . This is the kind of playing that's getting at least to the finals . And there were it wasn't just one kind of old time playing .

There were some people playing really smooth and some people playing with more of a rhythmic style , which was nice for me to see , because I can't really play fiddle totally smooth . I just because I played mostly just for dances . I keep the beat with my fiddle basically for dancing . I haven't really tried not to do that , but I don't think I could .

I don't think I would feel comfortable getting up and playing for people and trying to make my tunes sound super smooth . Some people do that . You know , I get the bluegrass . They do these licks . It sounds great . That's not me . I want it to sound rhythmic , I want it to sound danceable . I found it interesting there were a variety of tunes .

Some people were playing really fast , kind of major breakdowns . There were a lot of funky modal tunes . A lot of them are crooked , so you have to come with a couple of tunes . So I thought , okay , well , go and dig up some tunes . I got to dig up a cool modal tune and maybe some kind of fast breakdown . A couple tunes like that I already know .

Many of them are tunes I learned off my dad's old records . There was a breakdown , kind of old time , maybe more of a bluegrass breakdown , called Snowflake Reel that I play , that I have my own version of . So that might be something I do I play , that I have my own version of . So that might be something I do . And I do know some old modal tunes .

Sweet Milk and Peaches is one I have off of one of his records . I have a couple of others that I learned just sort of straight from those recordings from hearing them so many times growing up . I'm going to listen to some old time fiddle between now and then and develop my playing . I mean I don't think I'm ever going to be an old time fiddler .

When I'm working on other genres outside of New England I'm not usually trying to become that kind of player , but I love playing music with people . I love being able to hang in a jam . If I know half the tunes and I can keep up and my playing isn't sticking out as not matching the style of the other players , then that's enough for me to enjoy it .

So that's usually about what I'm aiming for in Irish that I've been working on in old time , even in French Canadian , which doesn't get played as much down here .

But when I go up north and I play some French tunes , working on getting enough of this style that I can blend in with other people , getting enough of the tunes that I can play a few of them and pick up a few , not be lost the whole time . A few of them and pick up a few , not be lost the whole time .

So I don't think I'm going to become an old time fiddler before August . But I'm going to work on my sound a little bit , try to make sure it sounds reasonably old time , and I'll probably just be listening to recordings and getting myself out to jams a couple of different-time jams I go to around here . I emailed my dad to ask him about tunes .

He had a lot of good ideas . If you are looking around for tunes , if you're thinking about doing a competition or any kind of open mic or performance , you know . He suggested the LPs .

He gave me his collection and pointed out that there's the anthropological like the Smithsonian Institute has a lot of recordings they made and there's also commercial people trying to make a buck . And he said you know , don't ignore the commercial recordings .

There was some good stuff there , said you know , don't ignore the commercial recordings , there was some good stuff there . People were rushing at one point , rushing around the South trying to record folks and producing it to try to meet the demand . You know , in the late 60s , early 70s , the folk music revival .

So they were finding folks and recording them and we have some of those records . There were also folk music revival bands from the 60s and 70s . What do I have ? I have Fuzzy Mountain , Hollow Rock , new Lost City Ramblers , a bunch of stuff , Cranberry Lake , Highwood String Band , Delaware Water Gap and of course a lot of people look on YouTube .

So you've got YouTube , they've got all the CDs up now . You can find so much of that . My dad had another suggestion . He heard that a lot of old-time players would swap iPod libraries with thousands of tunes . So he said , go ask around in your community , see if you can get one of these old libraries that might be from the days of Napster .

Anyway , if you're an old-time musician with a tune library , maybe hit me up . Help me prepare for this competition . So my practice schedule is it's April now and Passover is coming up , which means that I'm a busy lady until May .

So I'll be doing a lot of practicing in May and June getting ready for this , and it'll mostly be working on tunes working out tunes that I want to play , working out my own versions and how I want to play them and if I want to do them in a special tuning and how that's going to work , and working on them with Charley trying to work them up .

We'll see how that goes . I will let you know . Our tune for today is called Old Billy Hell . The tunes this month were pulled from a jam in Baltimore that was at my friend Heather's house a jam in Baltimore that was at my friend Heather's house . I get together with some folks on some Monday nights and we play tunes .

I'm very lucky to have friends who know a lot of tunes from studying the fiddle , and old time tunes especially for many years . So a lot of these tunes are tunes I learned from Brenna and Shane and Heather and John , who I jam with . So this was from a jam and we played Old Billy Hell the way that they played .

It comes from an album called Just Tunes and it's from Claire Milliner and Walt Kokum . You can buy that on their website . It's $15 . It's called Just Tunes . This is a G major reel played in standard tuning . A common source for it is Bingham . Here's the little blurb from Fiddle Archive Old Billy Hell was a euphemism for the devil or hell itself .

As in , we're going to raise Old Billy Hell or get drunker than Old Billy Hell . Bruce Green did a field recording of Estill Bingham . Yeah , so it was Estill Bingham playing the fiddle tune in 1989 . But it's a breakdown from Kentucky area Old Billy Hell . So we'll play this version for you now that we got from Brenna and Shane . You , you , you .

Thank you for listening . You can find the music for today's tune at fiddlestudiocom , along with my books , courses and membership for learning to fiddle . I'll be back next week with another tune for you . Have a wonderful day .