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:
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.
Last week’s tune:
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
Recent Tunes of the Week:
- 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.
- Reel de Montréal, aka Reel de Sherbrooke. This tune is in G in the A part and D in the B part, causing some of us to refer to it as the GD reel 😉
- Flygg Polska A very nice Swedish polska, the proper name of which is “Flygarpolskan” or in the Swedish tradition, “Polska efter Per Karlsson Viksten”
- In the Great Room, an anthem-like waltz composed by Gianna Marzilli Ericson in and about the “great room” in David Kaynor’s house. See her story of its composition in the Notes section.
- A Week in January. Well it’s February as I post this. Still, it’s a nice time of year to enjoy this quiet slow air by Seamus Egan.
- The Pleasant Beggar, one of Russ Barenberg’s many wonderful compositions for guitar, it makes a great fiddle tune as well.
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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.