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:
Schottishe á Virmoux, a charming and quite simple French schottische in D taught to us and played here by Doug LaPoint on both mandolin and fiddle.
Last week’s tune:
Corie, a lovely slow air composed by David Kaynor for Corie Pressley, played by Corie, her sister Katie, David and many of their friends in the accompanying video.
Recent Tunes of the Week:
- Maddie’s Pride, I haven’t been able to find much about this tune’s story, but it’s a lovely waltz.
- Bellman’s Jig, first published in the 1790s as a song and march, This is one of the best known tunes in Swedish traditional music.
- Luke the Bear. While we’re on the subject of bears, here’s a jaunty reel by David Kaynor. Don’t miss the YouTube of David himself playing it with some friends.
- Dancing Bear. Bob McQuillen is said to have written this reel for a rather clumsy dancer. Played on solo fiddle, it seems a bit repetitive, but add the chords, especially the C chord at the beginning of the fourth line, and it becomes wonderful. Also, we like to play it three or four times, starting slowly and increasing the tempo with each repetition.
- Leona Tuttle. “[Larry Unger] wrote this waltz for his grandmother Leona Tuttle when she was 90…. When I first met Larry, he told me she was going strong at 108.” –Susan Reid
- The Coffee Tune, Kaffelåten, a Swedish polska we learned from David Kaynor.
- Santa Ana’s Retreat Yes, Texas is a long way from the North Atlantic, but, beside being about a historical event, this tune has an unusually detailed history of its own including a likely Irish connection, see the Region and Notes sections.
- La Petite Marche. I seem to be on a Quebecois roll here. So, this is a contemporary tune by Yann Falquet. Don’t miss hearing Yann play it with his band, Genticorum (with a long intro) at the Bandcamp link in the Notes section.
- Pays de Haut A traditional Quebecois reel. The title translates as “high country” or “upper country” and refers to the watershed territories of the Great Lakes except Lake Ontario in both Canada and the US and probably dating from the era of the fur trade.
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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.