WHITE
MOUNTAIN
REEL
COMPANIONS
FIDDLE TUNES with CD
Violin Viola Cello/Bass
Arrangements
of Traditional Jigs
and Reels by
Janet
Farrar-Royce
with
Jacqueline
&
Dudley Laufman
Tunes are from the White Mountain Reel book/cd
set of
traditional barn dances by fiddlers Jacqueline & Dudley Laufman, CD recorded by
New England's professional square and barn dance musicians
Two Fiddles and the Sugar River String Band
Go to Janet Farrar-Royce's webpage
Reviews:
Orders also taken through
The String Center www.wwbw.com
Amazon www.amazon.com
INTRODUCTION
These texts are arrangements by Janet Farrar-Royce of the tunes in White Mountain Reel, the book/CD set of New England barn dances with accompanying melodies and dance directions. White Mountain Reel was created to teach New England barn dances to children, families, and anyone who enjoys dancing. But another important goal of White Mountain Reel is to keep traditional dancing fun, social and available to everyone. These instrumental arrangements are presented in a manner that maintains our goals of making traditional fiddle dance music accessible and fun for the greatest number of musicians.
Feb 22, 2004: A few weeks after using the White Mountain Reel Companions with her Fiddle Club, the mother of an 8th grade boy from Bethlehem, CT, called Jan astonished "because Nate can't stop playing the tunes along with the CD! His favorite is Nelly Bly. Now the whole family is excited to come to our Barn Dance next month!
Table of Contents
Introduction
1
How to Play These Tunes
2
The Music
3
The History
4
Fiddlehead Fern (poem)
6
All the Way to Galway
7
Molly in the Wood
8
Marching
Marching Through Georgia9
Low Backed Car
10
Granny
11
Campbells are Coming
12
Old Man and Woman
14
Nelly Bly
15
Ralph Page’s Typsy Parson
16
Ashley’s Ride
17
Reel à Pitou
18
Fiddle Contest (poem) 19
Vocabulary
20
Square Dancing (word search)
21
Resources
22
About the Musicians
23
CD (in back cover)
BK/CD set...$20.00 each
Introduction (continues)
String bands playing jigs and reels for callers in homes, barns and community centers have been the center of New England and European partying for many hundreds of years. When you learn these tunes and play them with other musicians and for others to dance to, you are continuing an important cultural heritage – that of providing a good social time with music and dance. Eventually, with a good repertoire of dance tunes in your head, and, with a solid, earthy driving rhythm to your playing, you could possibly be hired to play for dances. Better yet, gather up your friends and have a dance in your house like Dudley did when he was a teenager.
Every musician should learn the dances that these tunes are used for so that they can understand from the inside out what their music brings to the dancers. It will make them a better dance musician. The CD provided with these Companions are the instrumental-only cuts from the White Mountain Reel CD, the other cuts having the dance calls on them. Teachers and students should consider purchasing the original White Mountain Reel that has Dudley calling the changes to dances like the Virginia Reel and the Portland Fancy. Everyone can dance these dances, no experience needed.
Most importantly, we all firmly believe this music should be learned by ear and played in a manner that supports dancing, that it is not for the concert hall. It is heartening to see an increasing number of classical musicians honestly embracing the values attached to playing traditional fiddle tunes and wanting to teach them to others.
In an endeavor to help promote a real understanding of traditional music among all string players, we have published the White Mountain Reel Companions for violin, viola and cello/bass line, and, recording and production is underway for other book/CD sets similar to these titled the Sweets of May: With and Without Calls and the Sweets of May Companions for violin, viola, cello/bass.
So get your fiddle, viola, cello or bass, sit-in with us and have fun.
Jacqueline and Dudley Laufman
with Janet Farrar-Royce
Go to Janet Farrar-Royce for her schedule & curriculum vitae
Go to White Mountain Reel: With Calls and Without for info of the original text/cd set of dances.
The String Center, www.wwbw.com
Amazon, www.amazon.com
TWO FIDDLES
Jacqueline & Dudley Laufman
PO Box 61, Canterbury, NH, USA 03224
Tel: 603-783-4719 Fax: 603-783-9578
New email as of January 2007:
jdlaufman (at) comcast (dot) net
(Put the @ symbol in above address instead of the word (at) with no spaces and a . between comcast and net to deter spam.)