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email: matt mcConeghy
Rhode Island Music Roots Music in Rhode Island, Eastern Connecticut, and Southeastern Massachusetts, USA
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Many Links, Concerts, Performers, etc. Archives of old notices
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Of Note... Hi Sorry, because of problems at my ISP website, this entire site may pretty soon shut down or move. Whatever. At present, I cannot change or update any part of the site. Matt Neighbors, etc... Not exactly neighbors, but good stuff... ----------------------- Below are Jim B and Falmouth Fiddlers on stage at the Arts Alive Festival on Cape Cod. And the Quiet Corner Fiddlers were snapped at the Railroad Museum concert, and the Old Fiddlers Club of Rhode Island in Scituate...
Quiet Corner Fiddlers near Willimantic, CT, June 2007 and Old Fiddler's Club of RI at Scituate Gazebo, July, 2007. Photos: A. Manso My $0.02 worth!... Hornpipes fast or slow? Waltzes oom pah pah or not? Modal Tunes Reviews or comments Various Camps and Fiddle Weeks Page including Catskills Irish Arts Week - an account of the week and photos of my class with Matt Cranitch , Review of Nov 4, 2007 Fiddle Hell Link to Random finds... some great wwweb finds of fun music stuff, etc. More fun stuff on YouTube - 'Ape Breton, and others www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvN7tUtSGcI and www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmjGDBWZZFw Jam Sessions The Falmouth Fiddlers, Quiet Corner Fiddlers, Roaring Jelly and other groups keep up an active list of jam sessions around the region. Check their individual websites above for dates and times. ALWAYS call ahead before driving a long distance. Irish/ Celtic Sessions - There's a long list of Celtic music sessions in our extended neighborhood, too many for me to cover, so for more info, check the comprehensive links available through the Celtic Music page. Two excellent local seisuns are Tuesday at Patrick's Pub in Providence and Wednesday at St James Pub in Fall River. Bluegrass Jam Sessions - the Boston Bluegrass Union maintains a very current and active list of Bluegrass-oriented events around New England. ------------------------ Mondays at the Daniel Packer Inn in Mystic 10PM to closing (around 1AM). Some very up tempo and fun old timey music. Led by Charlie and Craig, this session is the exact opposite of a slow session. Everything is played at maximum speed. There is no teaching of tunes, except that most of the players are good listeners and most of the tunes are simple -- simple note-wise, but not simple in the bowings. So, if you want real Southern fiddle music, not folk-violin, and you want to get a bow arm workout. This is fabulous. and if you just want to hear what Appalachian fiddling is supposed to sound like (plus an odd bongo or concertina) then this is the place. Intermediate to advanced Southern style. 2nd Mondays - (this jam is ended) old time fiddle jam at the Legion Hall, Kingston, near URI. Thanks, Harry, for eight years of tunes! First Tuesdays - 6:30 PM - July 3rd and monthly - Connecticut College Bluegrass Jams - CTBGMA - From Boston and the East: Take I-95 South. Just over the Groton Gold Star Bridge, take Exit 84 North from southbound I-95 to Route 32 North. College entrance is one mile on left. From Worcester and points North: Take I-395 South to Exit 78 onto Route 32 South. College entrance is 3 miles on right Tuesdays - Willimantic CT Novice Old Time Fiddler's Jam -- The Quiet Corner Fiddlers, a friendly and supportive informal group of more than a dozen fiddlers from beginner to ex-champions, holds "Not So Quiet Fiddle Sessions for Novice Fiddlers" at members homes tuesdays from 7 - 8:30pm where the group takes turns picking traditional tunes to practice and learn. For more information call Chuck Morgan at 860 423 5403 or email chckmrgn (at) juno.com (with Quiet Corner Fiddlers as the subject line). This group just keeps getting better and better under Chuck's skilled leadership.
Quiet Corner Fiddlers play out in Willmantic... photo by Amanda Manso Nov 2005 3rd Wednesdays - Barrington -- Old-timey fiddle, banjo or guitar folks interested in a quiet jam at a Barrington retirement home should email me and I will ask for you to be put on the email list. This is a friendly, relaxed jam that began last fall, not a slow jam per se. Tunelist includes mainly old-time American fiddle tunes with occasionally some Irish, Cajun and French Canadian thrown in! Advanced beginner to intermediate. 3rd Wednesdays - the band "Railroad House" is hosting a "Bluegrass and Beyond!" jam on the third Wednesday of every month at Stone's Public House in Ashland, MA. http://stonespublichouse.com. At 8 PM The band performs a set that is an eclectic mix of Bluegrass, Swing and lots more. Then, from 9 PM to 11 PM musicians are welcome to join in an open jam circle. Though it's a bluegrass jam; it's not limited to bluegrass by any means, so come with your voices, acoustic instruments, and whatever tunes you want to pick, ready to have some fun in this cool old haunted New England Inn where the food is great, and the beer selection is stellar! (Jonathan Campbell) Thursdays 8pm Mulligan's Tavern, Westboro Country Club, 121 W Main St (Rt 30) Westborough, MA for info call 508 870 0824 www.mulliganstaverne.com Singing and playing...beginners practice tunes at 7:15 3rd Thursdays - East Greenwich - Bluegrass Jam at Main St Music in East Greenwich, 6-8pm on 3rd Thursdays. All musicians welcome. Info 401 884 1430. Fridays Bluegrass Jam 7PM to closing. Open group jam Starting Nov 16, 2007 At the Dartmouth VFW at 144 Cross Road in North Dartmouth near Exit 12 of I-195. There is a bar with cheap beer... A lot of the players will be familiar to fans of the Bluegrass Invitation Review Fridays - Acoustic Open Mic at The Coffee Depot, 501 Main Street, Warren, RI (phone 401-694-0411). Every Friday, Open Mic starts about 7:30 pm and follows the featured artist's 8:00-8:45 pm performance until 10:00pm. 2nd Friday - September to May at 7:30 - Labyrinth Java Jam(?) open mic . Located in the Gardiner Building behind Seekonk Congregational Church, 600 Fall River Ave., Seekonk. All musicians, poets, comics, etc. welcome. (508) 3364858 for more information.
Fridays - Concord, MA Monthly Slow Jam Sessions of Scottish Tunes "Marvelous tunes at moderate tempos" . Next session Jan 25th 3rd Saturday Open MIC 7:30 to 10:30pm starting Sept 15 at the Woodland Meeting House (formerly Maple Glen) 115 East Killingly Rd Foster RI 401 647 3838 - Bluegrass oriented open mic hosted by Paul Dube. 2nd and 4th Sundays 5pm to 8pm Jimmy Devine will host an Irish Session at "Local 121" 121 Washington St in downtown Providence (just a few steps from URI's Shepard Building and the Providence Convention Center) Info: 401 274 2121 (NB December 2007 will be 2nd and 5th Sunday because of Xmas...)
1st Sundays - Plymouth BG Jam, MA Carver Mass BlueGrass Bluegrass Jam. 1st Sundays Foster, 2 - 7pm "Woodland Meeting House" 3rd Sundays -3:30 - 7PM - "Gaelic Club" (Cape Breton music, local musicians. third Sundays, Oct.- June,) - Canadian-American Club, 202 Arlington St., Watertown (978)858-3792 4th Sundays Falmouth Fiddlers 2 - 5 pm Jam Session Falmouth MA Fiddlers also, see their links to other frequent jams on Cape Cod. Advanced beginner to intermediate. Sunday Old Time Jam 2PM, Hudson, MA -- Ed Hetzler is the originator and manager of the fabulous fiddle web resource known as Hetzler's Fakebook. He and his wife host a monthly acoustic slow jam at their home in Hudson, Massachusetts if it does not conflict with their performing schedule. Because it is at a private home there is limited space -- you must call to see if there is space that day... This jam is for fiddle, banjo, guitar, mandolin and mountain dulcimer players. All skill levels are welcome. The emphasis will be on Old Time fiddle tunes. This slow jam is for acoustic string instruments only. Sunday - Rehoboth Old Time Jam and (approx) monthly dance Rehoboth Jam - about 7 - 9pm - Friendly Rehoboth, MA Old Time Jam... has taken on a unique character of its own. Mostly they play from written music -- the Portland Collection and the Waltz books I, II III. often play rather slowly, with a lot of waltzes, some reels, polkas, hambos, a few Swedish pieces... fiddles, recorders, clarinets, whatever...whatever! - for more info, call Bob Elliott 508-669-5656. They have a learn-to-waltz dance about once a month. Some Advanced beginners up to ex-classical players who want to keep their fingers limber with a little folky dance music -- Need to read music at least a little bit... ------------------- Connecticut - a list of some CT jams is maintained by the CT Bluegrass Music Assn at their website (check the "events' link). It includes jams in East Hartford on 1st, 3rd, 5th Weds; Windham on 3rd Tuesday; Bristol on 3rd Sat; Torrington on Sats; Norwich on 2nd, 4th Tuesdays; Bridgeport on last Thursdays... Fall-River - New Bedford bluegrass/Old Time folks should contact Frank Silva about the excellent jams that occur almost every week in that neighborhood. Frank can be reached at the email address Random finds - recently unearthed fun stuff.... Virginia's Crooked Road music sites, The Old Time Music page in case you haven't checked it out lately... Woodsongs - this is a website of a radio/concert show from Lexington KY. It has hour long streaming videos of just about everybody you could want to see, on stage, live in Lexington. Free. Mark O'Connor, Gaelic Storm, Laurie Lewis and Tom Rozum, Sparky Rucker, Paul Geremia, Michelle Shocked, Girlyman, Happy Traum and many more... The toll for this service is that you have to watch the MC of the show do "a little thing I wrote myself" on his banjo before the guest comes on stage. OK, everything good has its price! Mark O'Connor doing Devil's Dream at 192bpm is worth a few minutes wait... Natalie McMaster Video on line video of a show with Natalie and her uncle, Grand Master Cape Breton fiddler Buddy McMaster -- Gotta Love this web!!!! Berea College Fiddle Page another amazing net resource! A large collection of original recordings by folklorists of Appalachian fiddle, banjo, ballands, etc. etc. Much ofthe collection can be purchased as CDs for a very modest fee! (Thanks to Sandol for tipping us off to this!) Thow Away that Old Violin! just when I thought I was beginning to get the hang of this thing, they change all the rules! (from Michael P.) Virtual Gramophone - I'be been mining this excellent Canadian music resource. Online access to scores of Canadian 78rpm recordings from the 1910's to the 1940s. The searchable database allows you to zero in on reels, hornpipes, galops, or artists like Don Messer or Joseph Allard. Or try Philip Presner, George Wade, Jose Zaffiro (excellent hornpipe medley from 1918!) or J.B. Roy. Honking Duck is a rough American equivalent. Classics online there include Jimmie Rodgers' 1928 "In the Jailhouse Now", "Rough and Rowdy Ways" from 1929; Uncle Dave Macon doing "Rabbit in the Pea Patch" from 1927; Charlie Poole's "Shooting Creek (Cripple Creek)"; the Skillet Lickers "Slow Buck (Chicken Reel); plus versions of "Forks of Sandy", "I am a Man of Constant Sorrow", "McKinley", "Possum Up a Gum Stump", "Little Birdie" by the Coon Creek Girls, and many other treasures... Irish Fiddle - cultural musical archive and Irish Regional Styles - And how fast for Irish fiddling? -- an article on the great Clare fiddler Bobby Casey "In listening to his published recordings...speed is not a high priority. Reels are played in the 106-112 bpm range, jigs in the 118-124 bpm range and hornpipes around 86 bpm." top ten recorded fiddle tunes, Fiddler Magazine survey 1995 - the Most Popular Fiddle Tunes Top Favorite Guitar Picking Tunes - no surprises! Brown's distinguished Professor of Ethnomusicology Jeff Titon, lists the 20 "essential" albums of Fiddling by Authentic Old Timers in the South and his website on the graceful fiddling of Clyde Davenport Fiddling Around the World connections to different styles of fiddling! Interesting! "Fiddle - L" -- for some years Brown University has hosted a very active email list called Fiddle -L. It is definitely worth reading for anyone interested in fiddle lore, styles, etc. There are a lot of extremely knowledgable readers and also some jerks who will flame you if you enter a question or comment that they consider off topic, ignorant, or whatever pulls their chain. West Gallery Music ... like singing Shape-note , but with melody instruments (voices, bowed strings, flutes, reeds, brass -- a mini orchestra) one listener called it "Folk baroque" -- the music of Thomas Hardy... This group was a big hit at NEFFA last spring -- for more information West Gallery Music in Boston or the International West Gallery Music Association or email Laura at lconrad (at) laymusic.org , or go to http://www.laymusic.org/ or (617) 661-8097 here is a link to a practice session video... "Old Time or Old Timey" refers to the music played in rural America from about 1800 until about the 1940s, and continuing up to this moment in revival groups and dances around the country. Much of Old Timey is instrumental music played on guitar, fiddle, banjo and mandolin. For over 200 years small bands have played for dances in rural areas from New England to Louisiana and on the furthest reaches of the Western Frontier. Many of the tunes have been passed down for generations, derived from older traditions such as the dance music of Scotland, Ireland, French-Canada or rural England. The music of Scandinavia, Central Europe and African American traditions have also influenced the repertory. This music started to enter the commercial market in the 1930s as radios became common (exactly as shown in the recent movie "Oh Brother Where art Thou?") and eventually got transformed into Country/Western, and into the highly polished virtuoso performance music known as 'Bluegrass." But, thousands of musicians continue to play the original tunes of 50, 100 or 150 years ago, and many thousands of dancers continue to enjoy the contradance and square dance traditions. For many Old Timey musicians, playing music is a historic tradition, and for many others, it is just plain fun! |
Rhode Island Old Timey Fiddle, banjo, mandolin, dulcimer, cajun, bluegrass, country dance, contradance, and all traditional music and dance.
| old notices and postings are on the Archive page --- return to Dr McConeghy's home page |
Fiddle, Banjo, Guitar, Mandolin, Celtic and Old Time Music, Links to tunes,
tabs, jams, venues and artists... Cajun, French Canadian, Cape Breton, Irish, Bluegrass and other North American traditional music genres....
Jimmy and friends at Local 121 - Nov 2007