Old-time fiddle question

[sbfluter]

Sorry this isn't about Irish, but I have been looking with no luck for a video that shows me how to bow for an old-time sound. I have been watching the other fiddlers I play with and can't figure out what on earth they are doing. I asked one guy to show me and it still made no sense. I'm hoping to find a lesson on how you get that rhythmic sound. If you know of any good resources, I'd love to see it.

[JS]

I don't have a dvd rec, but a suggestion that might help. When I first got interested in playing OT fiddle, I just couldn't get the bowing to sound right. I spent an embarrassingly long time one summer just listening to cds and practicing the shuffle rhythm-that long-short-short long-short-short pattern. Not even tunes. Probably drove everyone within earshot nuts. Then it finally came, and that made the old-time sound much more available to me. There may be other views out there, but I think the standard shuffle pattern is pretty basic at least to general parking lot OT fiddle, and once you begin to hear it on the cds and in your playing, things will get a lot more rewarding. There's some syncopation in there--to my ear, a bit of a drag on the LONG bow stroke. Once you've got it locked in, you can make tunes sound like you want them to, and you can get a bit fancier--what a teacher of mine called the "pump handle" where you drop the bow hand on the first short stroke to pick up the string higher than the one you're playing. But why rush it? Fiddling's the definition of patience rewarded (just too bad that sometimes it takes so darn much). And the best recommendation I ever heard in a workshop was Pete Sutherland arguing for a "slow cook" style of learning. If it wasn't so late and everybody in the house asleep, I'd play a nice comfortable version of "Sandy River Belle" just to remind myself to take it easy.

[s1m0n]

There's no small number of bowing styles that can honestly be termed "old-time". Do you know which they play? OTOH, I suppose if you knew the answer, it wouldn't be hard to figure out what they're doing.

Does the Georgia Shuffle sound like what you're hearing?

[crookedtune]

Buy the tutorials by Brad Leftwich. He's a master, and probably the best teacher of old-time fiddle bowing.

http://www.bradleftwich.net/

[sbfluter]

I suppose the Georgia Shuffle sounds similar. I don't think they are all doing the same thing. Some of the guys at the jam seem more adept at just sawing away some kind of rhythm and having the tune come out. Some barely move the bow and others are like sawing it back and forth. Others look like they're trying really hard to make all the notes of the tune come out and somehow the rhythm comes out as a byproduct. If that makes any sense.

[JS]

Yep. that makes sense. If you have a basic shuffle rhythm (or whatever variety) locked into your wrist and sort of superimpose the tune over it, there you go.

[Padre]

AFAIR Bruce Molsky published a DVD like that
I'm not sure but I think that in a description of it was mentioned that he uses different tuning to get the hounting sound.