tune     

audio file or...

notes 

Charlie Kopanski's Polka

written notation jpg 

playedstraight

 (working on identifying the original name of this tune... this audio is a very non-polka-ish version, just for learning the notes.....  )

Down South Medley

pdf written notation

playedstraight 

 "Down Yonder" was composed in 1921 by the Tin Pan Alley star Wolfe Gilbert, a Jewish immigrant from Odessa, Russia who was a great pal of Eddie Cantor. He mainly specialized in 'location songs' and was the composer of "Hello, Aloha, How are you?" and "My Hawaiian Sunrise"; "Swanee River" was written in Pittsburgh in 1851 by Stephen Foster for the blackface Christy Minstrels vaudeville group; "Alabama Jubilee" was written in 1915 by George Cobb, an alumni of Syracuse University who was for many years a columnist for Melody magazine and a NYC Tin Pan Alley regular.

Ellis Island Waltz

playedstraight

playedstraight 

 This tune, once a favored tune of RI Fiddler Frank Moon, is not listed in ASCAP, US Copyright, BMI, or several other databases of sheet music... so I'm guessing that it has another name, or, it may have been composed by Frank.

Flowers of Edinborough 

playedstraight 

a traditional hornpipe/reel tune widespread in Britain and the colonies before the American Revolution...  

Gaspee Reel D, Strawberries and Raspberries D/ Government Reel D/G  

playedstraight

The OFCRI French-Canadian Medley. "Gaspee Reel" is a popular French Canadian reel, probably from the 20th C, which is associated with several well-known musicians including Louis Beaudoin, Phillippe Bruneau, Pete Sutherland, and others;  "Strawberries and Raspberries" (Les Fraises et les Framboises") is another ubiquitous French Canadian tune; "Reel du Gouvernement/Government Reel" was recorded in Oct, 1936 by the well-known accordionist and composer Tommy Duchesne along with fiddler Albert Allard. Tommy was a frequent presence on Canadian radio in the 1930s and 1940s and recorded many tunes, about a dozen of which (l'oiseau bleu, Money Musk, etc, but unfortunately not Govt Reel) can be heard on the excellent website "Virtual Gramophone".  

Opening Medley

playedstraight

 is a slow 'basic barebones' of the five tunes that make up the opening medley played by the Old Fiddlers Club of RI. Tunes: Chinese Breakdown D, Silver and Gold D, Number Six D, Ragtime Annie D,  Washington and Lee Swing G,   

Over the Waterfall

playedstraight 

widely known old time reel/breakdown 

 Welcome Home (or Here) Again

playedstraight

with coaching  

 recorded in a Scottish manuscript of 1734, according to Andrew Kuntz's "Fiddler's Companion", and published in "Cole's 1,000 Fiddle Tunes" and other popular collections.  Kuntz reports a later apocryphal tradition that the tune was composed by Robert Steele, a drummer boy at the battle of Bunker Hill in 1776.