Materials
This page contains materials relating to the Cathie Whitesides 2000 Workshop
on Northern Fiddle Tunes for contra dancing.
Recent changes
We played the
Ballard Eagles
on January 5.
See our tunelist for this event.
(12/26/00)
A tunelist,
compiled by Cathie from our collective suggestions,
was used as the basis for the December dance.
(10/17/00)
The pages containing tunes have been
reorganized, into separate tunelist
and session pages.
(10/17/00)
A discussion and install
instructions for the abc format and conversion software, to dots
and MIDI. Do check this out. If you're local, I can get you a
CD-ROM with the links filled in. Send me
mail.
(11/22/00)
More tunes, including Spootiskerry, Scollay's,
Swallowtail. MIDI for all that have dots. Still need to add a
bunch more transcriptions. Tempos are arbitrary.
(10/19/00)
The tunes
whose transcriptions are
posted here are all believed to be in the public domain, except as otherwise
noted. If you believe
otherwise, please let me know.
All other materials relating to the course, including the arrangements of these tunes, are copyright 2000 (c) Cathie Whitesides.
Manifesto
Her manifesto describes the agenda for the course.
Tunes
This section describes the transcription portion of the project.
Lists of tunes, with transcriptions and MIDI, are available
for the
tunelist for the dance
and for other tunes.
Generally, transcriptions will be posted as I get to them,
with priority to the tunes immediately assigned.
The tunes are available here in various formats:
- abc This is a barely-scrutable text format, which available
utility programs can translate into nice printed output or even MIDI.
See
Chris Walshaw's abc page for details.
I've provided the abc for the tunes here in two bulk files, the
dance tunelist
and the other session tunes.
- PostScript
I've provided individual, large-font single-page
versions of each of the tunes in Adobe PostScript format. I've
also provided two bulk files, the
dance tunelist tunes
and the other session tunes,
with the tunes in a smaller, straight-up format.
- Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) Use
Acrobat Reader, provided free by Adobe, to read these files.
I've provided single-page versions in landscape (nice and large!),
as well as two bulk files, the
dance tunelist tunes
and the other session tunes.
- MIDI
Most of the files are also available in MIDI format.
Note! The tempo markings on the printed pages are the tempos
used in these MIDI files. Use your favorite MIDI player, or check out
MidiGate, a low-cost
shareware program. The MIDI flies slickly add a boom-chuck based on the
chords, which only means I needed to make up some chords and add them to
the tune. (You may well disagree with my choices.)
All tunes transcribed here
are believed in the public domain, except as noted. All tunes not in
the public domain that are made available here are
solely for the use of students in Cathie's workshop.
Students in the workshop who want transcriptions of other tunes
we've encountered, please
send me e-mail. For difficulties
in arranging printed copies, please also send mail.
The transcriptions to PostScript and translations to MIDI
use the 'abc' format,
developed and popularized by
Chris Walshaw. The conversion utilities used were written by
J.R. Allwright, and are particularly well done, I think. Thank you!
These tunes go through a revision process as I transcribe them
(basically, Cathie fixes the mistakes!). Send me mail
if you would like to be on an
e-mail notification list.
Otherwise, you should check back here periodically.
Sources
Cathie mentioned various books and groups and recordings. All of the
below (except Stuff Smith) are available from the
CDSS catalog, and no doubt elsewhere.
Tunebooks
- The New England Fiddler's Repertoire
- The Portland Collection
- The Fiddler's Fakebook
- The Waltz Book (and The Waltz Book II)
Groups/recordings:
- New England Chestnuts I and II (Laurie Andres, accordion, Rodney
Miller, fiddle, playing Chorus Jig
- Wild Asparagus
- Nightingale
- Stuff Smith
discography (at Excite)
and
buying info (MusicSearcher search engine)
History
Cathie's been teaching people to play dance music for years and years.
I first caught on to the treasure of her workshop in 1996, at the
Let's Dance weekend. Life hasn't been the same since.