A new tune each Wednesday (more or less), chosen arbitrarily by your Webmaster, a mixture of traditional and new but traditional in style tunes. Site visitors are encouraged to nominate tunes for this page.
This week’s tune:
November Waltz (Valse du mois d’Novembre). As autumn winds down toward winter (“stick season” here in Vermont) enjoy this beautiful waltz by Québecois fiddler Jean-Claude Mirandette. It has three parts, with the C part appearing only once per repetition. as ABABACAB.
Last week’s tune:
For your Haloween enjoyment, the Zombie Schottische, aka Dance of the Undead in goulish G minor (For guitar, capo-3 and Em, B7 shapes).
Recent Tunes of the Week:
- Hen’s Feet and Carrots, a Danish/Welsh jig, possibly originally a children’s song which somehow arrived in Wales at some point in the 20th century. It was then used as the air to a popular Welsh song and later became popular with Welsh dance musicians.
- Vidita by Portland, Maine fiddler Katie McNally, a sweet new waltz yet squarely in the traditional fiddle tunes genre. What a joy that this ancient tradition continues to thrive even in these ever-changine times!
- King of the Pipers. Her’s a memory-challenge for you, a wonderful 5-part double jig. played AABBCCDDEE, just remember which part comes next. 😜
- Santa Anna’s Retreat: This is one tune for which we can trace back in time from learning it in Vermont to its origin and composer, Steven Foster via Quince Dillon. See this history in the tune’s Notes section. If the tune has an Irish lilt, Mr. Dillon’s name sounds Irish to me and it’s thought that there were Irish mercenaries on both sides of the Mexican War.
- Rainbow Trout, by Vermont’s own John Mowad with sheet music arranged by the composer for the Vermont Fiddle Orchestra.
- Joe Crapeau. No, this is not a rude comment. The title is the Acadian spelling of the French word crapaud, in English, toad, a New Brunswick reel named for Joe “Crapeau” Chiasson.
- Big John McNeil. This great reel in A hails from Cape Breton and likely Scotland. It is said to be challenge for fiddle players, but it’s such a lively, danceable tune it’s well worth the ffort.
- The Pleasant Beggar, another great tune by Russ Barenberg, originally composed, I believe, as a guitar piece but played here by Vermont musicians Susan Reid, Pam Bockes and Leeds Brewer.
- Jimmy o’ the Bu’s Polka, from Orkney. According to site visitor Len Wilson, “In the 1920s and 30s barndances were held at the farm called The Bu’ on the island of Hoy. This was one of the tunes that Jimmy played, sitting on the end of the mill.” See the photo of Jimmy in the Notes section, and hear Jennifer Wrigley play it beautifully in the YouTube video.
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- Background: I started this site about twelve years ago largely for my own convenience, but it quickly grew to be useful for a number of other musicians in my area. Since then it has grown far beyond my original vision, with over 1,100 tunes posted and around 6,000 user sessions per month from more than 30 countries. Until now I have built and maintained the site out of my own pocket but its increasing size and complexity is requiring more outside resources and costs; hence this appeal. So if this site is helpful to you, please consider a small contribution.