Welcome SEMSA and SEMYO students!
This online workshop will teach a hoedown, waltz and rag. The easiest melody is Wagoner’s Lad, the waltz. The next easiest is Driftless Hoedown, so I have put them in order of approachability. Each piece has sheet music, a play along video to practice with, and a teaching video where you can copy each phrase by ear after I play it. There are also accompaniment parts I’ve created for you, which are generally a little harder than the melodies (with double stops and fiddle rhythm techniques etc). Advanced students may also try learning this long version of Bonaparte’s Retreat, which would be a challenge to try to get all by ear (use the sheet music as much as you want though).
I hope you enjoy these materials and let me know if you have any questions or just send a note to say what has worked well for you. I would be curious to hear your feedback as I’ve been teaching for 18 years, but this pre-recorded format is new to me. I will be quite happy to hear from you about this if you do send something.
—Zack Kline
Wagoner’s Lad - Phrase by Phrase
Wagoner’s Lad - Play Along
Wagoner’s Lad Sheet Music
More about the tune
Many of the recordings you’ll find under this name use a different melody and lyrics. I learned this version from a bootleg concert performance by John Hartford. I loved the melody and thought it was perfect for students. Pete Seeger also sings a version that is quite similar, so that would be the easiest reference recording to find. Not only is the name Wagoner’s Lad used for multiple tunes, but the melody I’ve taught here appears under other names like Jack of Diamonds, Rye Whiskey, Drunken Hiccups. We refer to related tunes as families of tunes, and you can see it can be a complicated family tree!
Driftless Hoedown - Phrase by Phrase
Driftless Hoedown - Play Along
Driftless Sheet Music
More about the tune
I wrote this tune for students so I could include all the techniques I wanted to teach in one piece…bow lifting, syncopated phrasing, using a lower string double stops etc. The style I’ve chosen is what we call old-time, which I would say is a little sparser than other American styles like Bluegrass (which tends to be super fast and notey) or Texas Contest Style (also quite flashy). The borders are never really too rigid (espeically in the age of recordings) so you’ll find some overlap in styles, much the same way we all speak English but different groups and areas of the country may speak a little different.
Highway 52 Rag - Phrase by Phrase
Highway 52 Rag - Play Along
Highway 52 Sheet Music
More about the tune and style
I couldn’t find a rag to teach that was at just the right level so I once again wrote my own. Thinking historically, I find it very interesting to imagine Ragtime, which started on the piano (and became a craze in the 1890’s) making its way into fiddle repertoire. I imagine fiddlers wanted to join in playing the hot new sound of the time, and adapted it to their instrument accordingly. I learned rags as a young student without thinking of them as a newer addition relative to some of the other things like hoedowns and waltzes. It is a similar story with the blues, which also seeped into fiddle playing (especially Bluegrass).
Bonaparte’s Retreat - Phrase by Phrase
Bonaparte’s Retreat - Play Along
Bonaparte’s Retreat Sheet Music
More about the tune and style
The Aaron Copland arrangement which I demonstrate at first is probably the most famous version of this tune, and he got it from a field recording of William Stepp that was made by Alan Lomax. It is a bit faster, but the old Ed Haley version I teach here was somewhat rescued by John Hartford and is much more of a march. The two versions are very different and are hardly recognizable as the same tune. John Hartford recorded it on “The Speed of the Old Long Bow” and that is where I got the arrangement. He was somewhat of a wild bower, and I have chosen more challenging bowings here are a bit like that.