This exciting new series for violin by Santorella Publications will bring enthusiasm to lessons, practice sessions & recitals. Veteran author & educator Larry McCabe has filled each book with wonderful arrangements that are stylistically authentic, full sounding, yet technically accessible as each arrangement is in the first position. We also offer a separate accompaniment book for each volume. Expand your artistic horizons while exploring the magic and diversity of these wonderful styles.
The Magic of Appalachian Fiddling from Santorella Publications features an assortment of traditional Appalachian fiddle tunes chosen to represent our historical roots in early American culture. This collection of Reels, Gospels, Waltzes, Mountain Songs, Minstrel & Civil War Songs, Rags, Blues& Tin Pan Alleys are very rarely found in print.
Every one of these twenty-four authentic “Mountain Fiddle” tunes captures the sounds of a simpler time and provides a unique look into the cultural development of rural America. This Santorella Publication is perfect for practice & performance and provides an opportunity to explain to every student the significant role their instrument played in our country’s birth.
Reels and Other Dances; Flying Cloud Cotillion • Fisher’s Hornpipe • Haste to the Wedding Jig • Jenny Lind Polka • Sally Ann • Miss Macleod’s Reel (Mountain Reel) • Cabin Creek • Ebenezer • Modal Tunes; June Apple • Hog-eyed Man • Gospel; Amazing Grace • In the Sweet By and By • Waltzes; Country Waltz • Tombigbee Waltz • Mountain Songs with Fiddle Solos; More Pretty Girls Than One • Free Little Bird • Minstrel and Civil War; Stony Point • Angeline the Baker • Dixie • Lorena • Rags, Blues & Tin Pan Alley; At A Georgia Campmeeting • Pig Ankle Rag • Waiting for the Robert E. Lee • Rising Sun Blues
FOREWORD by the author, Mr. Larry McCabe
During the earliest years of our nation history, the daily demands of life allowed little time for composing original music. Consequently, the pioneer immigrants sang and played mostly traditional sacred and secular songs of the British Isles. Later, especially in the years following the Revolutionary War, Americans began finding time to add their own original songs and tunes to the older repertoire of British hymns, ballads, jigs, reels, and hornpipes.
When settlers pushed westward into the mountains of southwestern Virginia, they took the old British and new American tunes with them, and Appalachian musicians also contributed original songs and tunes. The sparsely populated mountains were at the edge of the frontier, and many mountaineers experienced a remote existence virtually cut off from civilization. Native southern mountain tunes often have a lonesome, haunting modal tonality that reflects this isolation.
In the mountains, hymns would be sung at home, at Sunday worship, and at camp meetings. Mothers would hum gentle ballads white rocking their babies to sleep. After the work was done, neighbors would sometimes gather for an evening of spirited fiddling and lively dancing. Whatever the setting, the music must have produced a magical, if temporary, relief from the extraordinary hardships that were then part of daily living.
As the years passed and new musical styles emerged, mountain musicians incorporated minstrel music, Civil War songs, ragtime, blues, and vaudeville tunes into their regional repertoire. Through it all, honesty, integrity, and individuality remained trademarks of southern Appalachian music.
Previous books on Appalachian fiddling have dealt admirably with breakdown fiddling (reels), but have failed to acknowledge the full spectrum of musical styles embraced by mountain fiddlers, While it is true that any old-time concert or recording will feature an abundant selection of fast reels, it is also likely to offer a sampling of the music-injected with a rural flavor, that was commercially popular in America during the hundred years from 1830-1930.
The Magic of Appalachian Fiddling attempts to capture, in a concise manner, some of the diverse sounds that help to make mountain fiddling the exciting art that it is today. We hope the book will help you begin a journey of musical discover one that will enable you to add your own voice to the vital, historic sounds of the Southern hills and hollows.
About the Author
Larry McCabe is a professional music teacher with over sixty published books to his credit. Larry’s music method books cover blues, rock, country, and jazz guitar; banjo; autoharp; ukulele; dulcimer; mandolin; fiddle; songwriting; theory; children’s books; and more.
As an amateur historian, Larry spent three years interviewing members of the Greatest Generation about their experiences during the Depression and WWII. His Pearl Harbor and the American Experience (Xlibris Pub.) contains over 160 interviews with people who recall the FDR era, their reaction to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and how their lives were impacted by the attack.
Larry lives with his wife, Becky, on an old eighteen-acre farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Larry & Becky’s mutual interests include traditional music, regional history, working on their land and chasing critters through the woods with their redbone coonhound, Rufus.
