Double Bass Old-time/string band bass

[GretschWretch]

Here’s a classic tune with great syncopated rhythms and drive…and a few nice turnarounds. These subdivisions can be incredibly useful in American roots music. Oldtime, bluegrass, blues….

Thanks for taking the trouble to track this down. I couldn't have done it either if I were in a Honda N-Box, especially if my dinner disagreed with me (if you knew sushi like I knew sushi). I *do* think I have this track on an LP, but I had quite forgotten about it. It is a good illustration of what we are talking about (much better than any jugging dome on the Even Dozen Jug Band LP).

I did finally recall the title of the first jug band LP I bought, which is an anthology.

 

[Whit Townsend]

I’ve played quite a bit of BG in my time but very little OT. Once many yrs ago I got recruited for an OT band competition at a large fiddlers convention. About all I remember is that it was a tough gig. I only got 2-3 rehearsals. I remember struggling with the groove, it’s certainly different from hard driving bluegrass, and those quirky crooked tunes were a challenge. We didn’t win anything, and I kinda felt responsible for not catching the groove as well as I would have liked.
But now many yrs later playing not only BG but several other genres as well I wouldn’t mind trying OT again, I feel I might could do it more justice after 20 more yrs of playing experience.

 

[Paul New]

Check out Mr Jason Sypher. This is a really good old time channel, I think.

 

[LEUllman]

||: I V I V I VV I :|| — Breaking up Christmas all day long

 

[statsc]

Check out Mr Jason Sypher. This is a really good old time channel, I think.

Jason’s impeccable timing drives the band!

 

[Paul New]

||: I V I V I VV I :|| — Breaking up Christmas all day long

Wouldn’t I V I V I I V I sound better?

 

[Jeffon]

Coming from pretty trad bluegrass, I used to think old time was boring and cacophonous... nonstop fiddles instead of passing it around... I now think it is very cool and wish I would have played it more when there was a good scene where I lived.

I have been handed the bass in middle of killer OT jams and feel like an idiot! Sounds like a bunch of 1 but man they get slippery/tricky/Crooked!! Amazing how hard it can be. The beat can turn around and leave you flat-footed on the other side... you must listen very hard to play it well.

Just like bluegrass, it is easy to play but difficult to play very well! Got turned on to Natalie Padilla's great 2017 album "Paths & Places" this summer at Rockygrass. Great songs and tunes, not strictly old time but lots of OT with great songwriting and a fantastic production/sound.

 

[Ed S]

I've been attending a couple of camps the past few years, Midwest Banjo Camp andhttps://greatlakesmusic.org/]Great Lakes Music Camp.. (I picked up clawhammer 3-4 years ago as my 2d instrument).

I remember several years ago finding the OT jams as confusing as you suggest. But when I started playing clawhammer, I started hanging with Adam Hurt and his accompanist/collaborator Beth Hartness. For the past 2 years they haven't had a bass curriculum, so I've been taking banjo classes with Adam and Beth, playing bass in the OT jams they lead, and hanging with them over lunch and at other times.

And at Great Lakes I've been spending most of my free time in the OT jams where - even tho I've often felt out of my depth, on occasion pros have spoken highly of my contribution.

If you have the chance to attend a camp like that, you can really get some personalized fast-track experience.

 

[ragesoss]

Just like bluegrass, it is easy to play but difficult to play very well! Got turned on to Natalie Padilla's great 2017 album "Paths & Places" this summer at Rockygrass. Great songs and tunes, not strictly old time but lots of OT with great songwriting and a fantastic production/sound.

Thanks for this recommendation! I listened to this album today, and went straight on to two more Natalie Padilla albums... great stuff!

 

[Jason Sypher]

I'm sorry folks but I'm going to interject here. Do not listen to modern oldtime music. Just don't. Oldtime has really evolved and gone to some beautiful places in the last decade or two. The Berkeley effect has been enormous on the genre. And while I will count myself as someone who likes to take oldtime to new places, the new music hardly captures what was and is truly great about oldtime. For me, my touchstone is Surry County NC, Tommy Jarrell, Fred Cockerham, Robert Sykes, Greg Hooven, Benton Flippen, Dan Gellert, etc. When the hippies met Tommy and started really digging deep into the groove of Oldtime I think magic occured. Of course, this is my alumni class, these are my people. I hit oldtime in 1991 or so, and the shift had not really taken hold. In a sense I am just as much part of the problem as the solution. Just a few years prior people who played oldtime ONLY played oldtime. If someone could even play a twelve bar blues it was like WHOA! People just didn't bring other musics into oldtime. Now of course academics will say that oldtime music is exactly that, the melding of musics to create a new genre. But I'm speaking in a more modern sense. The hippies started to bring rock and roll into the music for sure. They even started to add odd rhythmic devices for fun such as a rhumba rhythm etc. But now you have people who can play their instruments in ways that the old timers from just a few years ago could not imagine. This has greatly changed the music. I mean, if that's your entry point, if you want to listen to Hawktail go right ahead, they are astounding. But if you want to learn oldtime music the way it WAS, go listen to Tommy Jarrells June Apple record.

 

[ragesoss]

I'm sorry folks but I'm going to interject here. Do not listen to modern oldtime music. Just don't.

I don't care what name it goes by, but for me some of the most sublime music ever recorded is modern oldtime — Hawktail, Andrew Marlin, John Reischman. I want more music like that in the world, and more people to play it with.

 

[Ed S]

I'm sorry folks but I'm going to interject here. Do not listen to modern oldtime music. Just don't.

Like Rhiannon Giddens and those infidels she plays with?

 

[Jeffon]

Well I know JS is very accomplished and all that but not everyone wants to listen to crusty old time recordings... sorry if your feelings are hurt by my suggestion of a new recording. I do not propose it as a classic example of OT music. Everyone probably knows the way to learn old time or most trad music is with a group of jammer.

Gatekeep much?!!

 

[garrett2]

I definitely sympathize. There are some kinds of music which live when they are in their native habitat -- pub, taberna, porch -- in a way they don't when performed on stage. You sort of have to be a participant. And I don't really care for Berkeleygrass and find it technically virtuosic and dull.

But... people used to say that about Paco and Camaron and they were wrong. It's just a different wonderful thing. And when you put Camaron in a taberna old men would cry. And if anyone said it about John Hartford's fiddle albums I'd think they didn't have ears. It's all about how you play it.

 

[Don Kasper]

I'm anxiously awaiting Ken Burns' upcoming documentary "Bluegrass"...so I'll know exactly what is and what isn't "Truegrass", a.k.a."Bluegrass".
Sheesh.

 

[garrett2]

I'm anxiously awaiting Ken Burns' upcoming documentary "Bluegrass"...so I'll know exactly what is and what isn't "True(grass", a.k.a."Bluegrass".
Sheesh.

As I'm sure you know, this has been going on in bluegrass long before the Marsalises! But it's going on in jazz since it was a definable genre as well (AFAIK). I recently learned that Max Roach punched Ornette because he hated his music.

 

[Jason Sypher]

I don't care what name it goes by, but for me some of the most sublime music ever recorded is modern oldtime — Hawktail, Andrew Marlin, John Reischman. I want more music like that in the world, and more people to play it with.

I know all the folks in Hawktail. Sublime musicians. But I also know that they fully digested what came before and that is what informs their greatness. If you just START at Hawktail you will be missing a lot of important information. Kind of like when people start learning jazz from Coltrane on, totally ignoring what came before. Coltrane knew what was up. But those who just copied him often lacked the depth of his greatness. I don't want to die on this hill. Everyone can do what they want, what's it to me. Music is music wherever you get it, whenever your time, whatever you feel. But I do find that Oldtime is almost unrecognizable from just thirty years ago.

 

[Jason Sypher]

Well I know JS is very accomplished and all that but not everyone wants to listen to crusty old time recordings... sorry if your feelings are hurt by my suggestion of a new recording. I do not propose it as a classic example of OT music. Everyone probably knows the way to learn old time or most trad music is with a group of jammer.

Gatekeep much?!!

Yeah, sorry about that. I don't really care that much. I'll edit that post to something far less reactionary. I have no interest in gate-keeping. I do hope people go back as far as they can, in any genre, to learn where things come from, but yeah it really doesn't matter at all. Oldtime has changed so radically in the last thirty years. Of course I love where it was when I entered it, as everyone loves their teenage music etc. The modern music would not have drawn me in, as beautiful as it is. Oldtime music was outsider music at one time, kind of like punk was, or any music outside mainstream tastes and norms. It was an amazing thing to discover, a home-made music made by amateurs, created outside the norms. All this said, everyone has their own story and their own path to travel.

 

[Jason Sypher]

Like Rhiannon Giddens and those infidels she plays with?

I would say go back further and listen to the old stuff, DEFINITELY...but listen to whatever you like. I should have just kept my mouth shut, now I can't edit the post out. That's what I get for being stupid.

 

[Jason Sypher]

I'm sorry folks but I'm going to interject here. Do not listen to modern oldtime music. Just don't. Oldtime has really evolved and gone to some beautiful places in the last decade or two. The Berkeley effect has been enormous on the genre. And while I will count myself as someone who likes to take oldtime to new places, the new music hardly captures what was and is truly great about oldtime. For me, my touchstone is Surry County NC, Tommy Jarrell, Fred Cockerham, Robert Sykes, Greg Hooven, Benton Flippen, Dan Gellert, etc. When the hippies met Tommy and started really digging deep into the groove of Oldtime I think magic occured. Of course, this is my alumni class, these are my people. I hit oldtime in 1991 or so, and the shift had not really taken hold. In a sense I am just as much part of the problem as the solution. Just a few years prior people who played oldtime ONLY played oldtime. If someone could even play a twelve bar blues it was like WHOA! People just didn't bring other musics into oldtime. Now of course academics will say that oldtime music is exactly that, the melding of musics to create a new genre. But I'm speaking in a more modern sense. The hippies started to bring rock and roll into the music for sure. They even started to add odd rhythmic devices for fun such as a rhumba rhythm etc. But now you have people who can play their instruments in ways that the old timers from just a few years ago could not imagine. This has greatly changed the music. I mean, if that's your entry point, if you want to listen to Hawktail go right ahead, they are astounding. But if you want to learn oldtime music the way it WAS, go listen to Tommy Jarrells June Apple record.

Stupid post. Must have been in a mood. Listen to what you want. Music is free.