Past Events
May 2021
Jamulus Meet & Greet
Meet up, discussion, Q&A about live-time internet jamming
We set up a Jamulus Central Server for the festival. It is a private space for the festival with servers running in NYC and Montreal with several “rooms” available for playing. Each room can support 12 players. We wanted something similar to the Altamont Fairground with jam sessions scattered around different campsites.
Jamulus is a free application for playing together with other folks, live, at the same time, hearing everybody all at once, over the internet. Impossible!, you say? Well, give it a try and see for yourself!
Recorded in live time on a Jamulus session with 2 players in eastern NY and 1 in central Connecticut and 1 in Massachusetts
Old-Time Jam in the Key of C
with Tim Rowell, Don Borchelt, John Reddick and John Maguire
This jam started in 2015 after John Reddick and Don Borchelt started meeting once a week to expand and practice their C-tune repertoire. They both appreciated this unique musical mix which included rags, breakdowns, songs and waltzes. And they needed to solve the riddle of why half the players in a jam would decide it was time to head home when a C-tune set would start. They met once a week and Don cooked lunch. John Maguire joined in early 2016 after he retired. Tim Rowell joined in early 2017, as soon as he found out what we were up to (including Don’s lunch), balancing things out at 2 banjos and 2 fiddles. We keep saying we are through with learning new C tunes (nearly 70 on our list), and then another one comes along that we can’t resist.
The key is rooted tonically right at the middle of the fiddle’s first position range, with a very cool inverted-third double-stop on the second and third strings, giving it a sound all its own. If you haven’t explored this key we think that you should start now.
We will include a mix of the well-known and unusual tunes, some easy and others more challenging. We invite you to play along or learn them later from the jam recording or (better yet), from the original source recordings.
C-Tunes we hope to play Friday night:
- Altamont
- Old Mose
- Spider Bit the Baby
- Old Joe
- Waltz In C. (Henry Ford’s Waltz)
- Hell Broke Loose in Georgia
- Four Cent Cotton
- Cranberry Rock
- Rocky Pallet
- L & N Rag
- Texas Gales
- Farewell Trion
- Sally Comin’ Through The Rye
- Monkey In The Dogcart
- Bibb County Hoedown
- Hy Patillion
- Sleepin’ Lulu
- Grover Jones Waltz
- Katy Did
- Henry Reed’s Birdie
- Old Melinda
- Tennesee Mountain Fox Chase
Tim Rowell is a player and teacher from the Boston area. Actively fighting Instrument Acquisition Syndrome. He’s arranged and tabbed about 700 tunes if anybody wants one.
Don Borchelt has been playing the banjo for over fifty years, and is a well-known proponent of the old-time three-finger style of picking, which employs a myriad of left hand roll patterns to provide both melody and a highly syncopated rhythm. He plays mostly on a semi-fretless banjo, with a smooth brass plate installed up to the 5th fret, in order to get “the notes between the frets.”
John Reddick, a native Texan who migrated to New England 25 years ago for damned good reasons, has been dabbling with stringed instruments since his early teen years, beginning with guitar, passing through a mandolin infatuation, a clawhammer banjo delirium, ultimately to become a chronic old time fiddler about 15 years ago. He has inspired many beginning players, some saying after their first jam with him, “I can do better than that.”
John Maguire has been playing at Old Timey music for about 20 years. Retired, he plays with his buddies almost daily. He does love a good tune.
Open Jam and Tune Swap
Jump in and swap some tunes.
Excellent International Jamming
with Su and Jules
UK based Su Mo & Jules Bushell and some of their regular session guests will be joining Terri in an interview and discussion about running a session that has reached an international scale during the Covid-19 pandemic. A strong community has been developed from the wonders of technology using special techniques and hosting skills to make it possible to have a successful online session on Zoom and live stream. The community have been able to share the same Old Time tunes from around the world and here you can hear how tunes are played having travelled once again in this modern day via aural traditions in sessions around the world.
Fiddle Tune in Cross-G Tuning
with Paul Kirk
Join Paul Kirk for this fiddle workshop in which he will teach Hell and Scissors. This tune comes from Kentucky fiddler James W. Day, AKA Jilson Setters, and we will be tuned in cross G. He’ll show you the flavor bits to help you get a sweet “Old-Time sound.” Also, please be sure to check out Paul’s Patreon (patreon.com/paulkirk) and Old-Time TOTW series on YouTube.
Paul Kirk has been playing bowed string instruments for 41 years and has been teaching them for 33 years privately, in classroom settings, and in workshop formats. He has closely studied Old-Time fiddle bowing patterns and techniques and has devised practical methods for teaching them. One of his specialties is teaching Old-Time fiddle to “cross over” students, especially those coming from a background in Classical violin. For many, acquiring the style and sound of this seemingly simple music can be difficult. He will help you get your violin to sound like a fiddle.
Paul gives remote and live private lessons and workshops. For more information please send an email to: FiddlerPaul71@gmail.com
Hammered Dulcimer
with Dave Neiman
Come learn how the hammered dulcimer fits into traditional music. It is set up for keys that are Old Time friendly. Dave will show the arrangement of scale patterns and how they relate to a circle of fifths. It is suited for tunes that are major, minor, and modal. Not only good for playing melodies, the dulcimer works for playing backup for fiddles and other instruments. You’ll be able to play along as Dave plays some tunes.
Dave Neiman, Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been performing and teaching both privately and at festivals since the early 1980’s. His passion for the hammered dulcimer has taken him to music festivals, concert stages, and street performing venues in many parts of the U.S. as well as Canada, Europe, and Japan, where he had the honor of a royal audience. A former National Hammered Dulcimer Champion at the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas, Dave started out playing traditional New England dance tunes on dulcimer but, influenced by his classical and jazz guitar studies, established a reputation for his arrangements of classical and popular pieces. After a bit of a hiatus from life on the road, he is finally restarting his participation at a variety of festivals.
Old-Time Jam in the Key of A
with Craig Edwards and Friends (Jake Wysoski, Charlie Nolan, Sandol Astrausky, Rory Macleod, Bill Stumpf, and mystery guests)
This will be an Old-Time jam starting in the key of A and we’ll see where it ends up.
Open Mic
Tune swaps and schmoozing
Back in the Saddle Again
Ann Downey and Mary Gick of Ottawa, and Ruth Rappaport and Mark Wholley from Boston, will lead us off with some songs about moving on and reaching new heights. Please bring some songs you would like to share.
Mark Wholley is from the Boston area. He has played fiddle and guitar with the Dixie Butterhounds, The Hoot Owls, and other various ad hoc old time and Cajun bands. He has taught at some occasional singing and guitar workshops but mostly just loves to sing and play wherever there’s a jam.
Ann Downey is a longtime Black Creek and Old Songs attendee, on her own and with Finest Kind. She loves to pile in and sing with most anything going, and has sung, yodeled, and played banjo, bass, and guitar all the way from her native southwest to Ottawa, Ontario, and sometimes even gets paid for it.
Ruth Rappaport has been playing traditional music all of her adult life. A singer, guitar player, and pianist, she has performed with The Poodles and The Hoot Owls; with her son, Ben Wetherbee; and anyone else who wants strong backup and good songs. She lives in the Boston area.
Mary Gick was a teen-aged, finger-picking guitar player in a folk music cover duo in suburban Montreal when she first fell in love with clawhammer banjo at Mariposa Folk Festival. Currently living in Ottawa, she enjoys playing string band music with friends and has attended Black Creek off and on since its beginning.
Afterparty
Come say your goodbyes, questions, thank you’s, find out what you missed, and play some tunes, sing one more song, make plans for the summer.