Sedayne : Fiddlesangs 2010

Fiddlesangs is my New Year's Resolve to learn a bunch of new songs & overhaul some auld yins for sessions, singarounds and (of course) Soundcloud.  So this is just me singing with my fiddle - by which I mean violin, rather than crwth or kemence, even though I play them better than I play the violin, but it's the violin that seems more suited, if not more versatile.  Someone recently pointed out that I play the crwth more like a violin, and the violin more like a crwth - asking what tuning I used to get my 'drone effects', but it's all in  the standard tuning.   It's all live too - no overdubs.  I can't really sing any other way, so all the accompaniments are pretty basic, and whilst the voice / fiddle dynamic is pretty tight it's not in the least bit rigid.  I am an improviser at heart, and the nature of Folk Song is fluidity *.

The other anomalous factor here (apart from the extraneous scrapes & drones inherent in my lack-of fiddle technique) is the use of an electronic shruti box to provide a drone.  Sorry if you don't like it, but I grew up in Drone Country. where as a child I learnt to weep to airs on the Northumbrian Smallpipes or else have my soul stirred heavenwards by the Strathspeys and Piobaireachds of the Highland bagpipe.  If soul I have, it is a modal one & this reflects in my approach to the fiddle, which is my own , rather than an attempt to be in any way 'authentic' with respect of a particular 'tradition'.  Being human is tradition enough, and authenticity is best served by model railway enthusiasts whose protoypes are at least corporeal.  That said, my style is a universal Folk style in the best sense of the word, and I rejoice in the idiosyncratic wonder of popular music making and to this end might acknowledge the influence & inspiration of Jim Eldon, Michael Hurley and a hundred unnamed folk-fiddlers the world o'er.

Sedayne - Jan 26th 2012

PS : I might add that whilst all of these are freely downloadable as MP3s, if you want them in higher quality then I can do them on CD-R for £5 a disk. Contact:

fiddlesangs@sedayne.co.uk

PPS : I tune my violin with a tuning fork, but maybe I should be using a pitch fork instead? It makes a sort of sense, because a tuning fork gives you the right pitch - but a pitch fork is something quite different. Maybe that's the thing to do to get closer to what Brutadelic Folk Music is - to simply tune one's fiddle with a rusty old pitch fork... 

* "All products of the primitive mind that are orally preserved and are not written down are in a perpetual state of flux. The very conditions of their existence postulate change and growth."
- Cecil James Sharp. English Folk Song: Some Conclusions.

I've been playing guitar since 1964 - folk music, blues, ragtime, jug band music, jazz, rock'n roll, funk & soul and all styles in between. I also play mandolin, tenor guitar & tenor banjo, fiddle, Appalachian dulcimer, blues harp, bass and keyboards.

Will Fly is following