Best Free Old Time Fiddle Downloads
Free MP3 Downloads and Streams To Help Fiddlers Feel the Music
Oct 16, 2008
Believe it or not, the first step for fiddlers who want to animate their music with that old time sound isn’t practicing their shuffles and double stops. The most important step is actually listening and drinking in every nuance of the style. This step can be taken before a player even picks up a bow.
Some fiddlers were fortunate enough to have grown up hearing the style from an early age. For them, old time playing is second nature. But, for someone who comes to old time later in life, becoming fluent in the style can be just as challenging as mastering a second language.
Listen to the Masters of Old Time Fiddling
Listening is the cornerstone of old time fiddling. Tunes were traditionally passed down by ear. That’s one reason each song has so many variations and interpretations. Another reason is the length of traditional fiddle tunes. They’re short and repeated several times back to back. Talented fiddlers are so at home with the melody and style, they vary the tune slightly each time through to keep it from growing monotonous. To achieve such mastery, the music must first become an integral part of the musician.
There are fewer rules when it comes to old time fiddle playing, but that doesn’t mean it’s a cinch to master. No one is exempt from the all-important step of listening. Violinists who’ve spent years achieving a flawless classical technique will do well to join those picking up a fiddle for the first time and learn from the self-taught master fiddlers.
Free Fiddle Music MP3 Downloads and Streams
The volume of CDs featuring famous fiddlers from the earliest part of the last century to present can seem staggering, but fortunately the Internet offers great sites to drink in the old time style, and they’re completely free!
Sugar in the Gourd features a stream of 26 hours of outstanding old time music. A play list is provided so musicians can check out the groups they discover.
Old Time Music Radio from Live365 is another stream offering Old Time music from “pioneers to contemporaries” of the genre. Links for purchasing musician’s CDs follow along as songs are played. Fiddlers click "play" and let the music soak into their subconscious while they work.
A Tour ‘Round the World of Fiddling is a marvelous anthology of eighty-eight Celtic and old time fiddle tunes. The three CDs compiled by the Fiddle-L list serve are packed with incredible music and absolutely free.
The Old Time Fiddlers Hall of Fame is a site offering biographies and MP3 recordings for several of the most influential fiddlers in the old time tradition.
Friends and students of the master fiddler Jehile have collected over 270 of his recorded tunes and made them available for musicians to share. Fiddlers new to the old time style can learn a lot from Jehile’s toe-tapping, warm, and happy renditions.
Another place to find old time fiddling is the Roots Music Listening Room. Here, hundreds of classic tunes are organized and ready to download all for free. Most of these tunes were recorded nearly a century ago with primitive field equipment. The music is scratchy, but newcomers who want to truly understand the genre should take a listen to the fiddlers of the frontier and the recorders who preserved their tradition.
The next articles will cover specific techniques to make fiddle music dance with that old time sound such as shuffle bowing, double stops, drones, and alternate tunings. But, even with these techniques mastered, unless the music is in a musician’s bones, it won’t flow through their bow. And the only way fiddlers can make that lively music a part of themselves is to listen, listen, listen.
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