recommend good fiddle duet books?

Subject: recommend good fiddle duet books?
From: NancyZ
Date: 28 Oct 00 - 01:14 PM

Yippee! I have a buddy who wants to work and practice on twin fiddle tunes. We generally like to play Irish, Scottish, English tunes but are open to all suggestions including good old timey American tunes.

Any especially great books you can advise us on? Thanks, Yours in jiggin around, Nancy

Subject: RE: recommend good fiddle duet books?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 28 Oct 00 - 01:36 PM

I improvise my own second parts (and would recommend it as a worthwhile exercise) but there are certainly duet books available; for example, there are a number at  Elderly Instruments.  Ben Paley's Swedish Fiddle Music is particularly worth looking at; Sweden has a more developed tradition of two-part fiddle harmony than does the English/Irish/Scots/American musical continuum.

Malcolm

Subject: RE: recommend good fiddle duet books?
From: alison
Date: 29 Oct 00 - 05:09 AM

"Airs for pairs" published by Dragonfly music. ISBN 1 872277 07 1

20 popular traditional tunes from around the British Isles in 2 parts + guitar chords.... great book

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: recommend good fiddle duet books?
From: Sorcha
Date: 29 Oct 00 - 09:57 AM

As Malcolm says,we usually just work up our own. Thirds or octaves are easy and usually sound OK. I do believe that Mel Bay has a book by Craig Duncan called "Twin Fiddling"

Subject: RE: recommend good fiddle duet books?
From: winniemih
Date: 29 Oct 00 - 12:30 PM

Get a catalog from Fiddler's Crossing (www.fiddlerscrossing.com); they have several listings for duets as well as an amazing assortment of other offerings.

Subject: RE: recommend good fiddle duet books?
From: Barry T
Date: 30 Oct 00 - 12:50 AM

Not to blow my own harmonic horn, but you may find a lot of potential examples in my two tunebooks... The Great Canadian Tunebook (try those French-Canadian and Acadian reels) and Taylor's Traditional Tunebook.

I sequence at least one harmony track in nearly all of my midi files. All you need to do is to use sequencing software to isolate the lead and harmony tracks. Then transpose them into whatever key you prefer and print them off. It'll probably save you a lot of time and effort.

Subject: RE: recommend good fiddle duet books?
From: NancyZ
Date: 31 Oct 00 - 12:53 AM

Thanks for the great response folks!

Malcolm, I'll definetly check-out the Swedish Fiddle Tunes, and you're right , working out the harmony is an excellent exercise, but one I haven't quite mastered yet. I'm still developing an ear I guess.

winniemih and alison, thankyou too, great suggestions.

Barry T, as in TAYLOR? I have been visiting your site forever!!! Incredible site, and a perfect suggestion as I have Cakewalk so I'll dive right in and start separating the lead and harmony tracks now. Perhaps I'll get the "feel" for coming up with harmonies to tunes that way. Oh, thanks to Sorcha also, I've attempted the "thirds" before and it never sounded quite right to me, I'll work on it:) Thankyou all, Nancy