Topic: Mississippi Sheiks Fiddle music

[One-Eyed Ross]

Does anyone out there have a line on where to get the sheet music for some of the Sheiks music?  I'm wanting to get some of this stuff down on the fiddle, but I'm not used to playing in closed positions that much, so it's a bit of a struggle.  If someone has a line on some of their stuff, it would help train my ear.  Thanks in advance...

[Suzy T]

The flat keys can seem daunting if you are coming from a classical music place, but really, the B flat stuff of the Sheiks (and the flat key stuff of Clifford Hayes, Eddie Anthony, etc) is not as hard as it seems.  The first thing to do is to FORGET the name of the note you're trying to play, and just go for the sound.  Just plant your index finger close to the nut on the A string (that will be your B flat) and try fooling around with the notes ACROSS the finger board.  Don't try to play a scale necessarily, just see what you find when you use that index finger as an anchor. Don't put in any open strings for now. Don't worry about playing "in tune".  Just find where those notes are, without paying attention to the names of the notes.

I really think when learning Miss. Sheiks fiddle music, you need to learn it by ear.  The reason has to do with both the intonation and the rhythm.  I've tried writing down some of it for students, but they sound much better  and have better groove when they don't use the paper. When they use the music (even after they stop looking at it) they play much more stiffly. If you need a written aid, try writing it down yourself -- this is much easier than it used to be with the Amazing Slow Downer and other similar softwares.  Just take it one phrase, or even a piece of a phrase at a time.  Listen to it until you can sing it, then write down what you hear.  It probably won't be 100% right but just in the process, you'll listen closely.  What you write down will be more of an aid to memory than  literally what you have heard.  You'll start to notice the little things that the fiddler is playing differently each time.  Don't worry about that, just write down what you hear as the basis for the tune, and go from there.
The rhythm on that fiddling is very subtle, the syncopations I find are impossible to capture on the page. Not to mention the intonation which is absolutely key.  To be able to sound something like that, you need to internalize the music. This is where the immersion listening comes in.  Singing along with what you hear, including the fiddle parts, is a fun and easy way to internalize the music.  Nobody but you has to hear it, it's not necessarily for performance purposes, but rather to get the music right into your body.  Listen and enjoy until you hear it in your dreams, and you don't have to stop then.
Such a wonderful, rich body of work!  You are in for a lifetime of fun exploration!

[One-Eyed Ross]

Thanks, Suzy.  I think I'm just going to plug away at it like you said.  Well, that and practicing some B flat and E flat pentatonic scales for a bit, just to get used to the fingering - and the sound.  That and just listening to the Sheiks.  Great stuff to listen to...and listening never hurts.

[RobBob]

It can be quite scary when you see fiddle music written down, it is music best left to the ears and not the eyes to learn.

[Lastfirstface]

I've been trying to tackle some flat-key fiddling myself lately, inspired by listening to a lot of East Texas Serenaders.

[One-Eyed Ross]

It can be quite scary when you see fiddle music written down, it is music best left to the ears and not the eyes to learn.

I actually enjoy the written notes - well, at least as a starting point.  Once I learned standard music notation, I loved it.  It can help a LOT, at least in giving a starting point.  Admittedly, with traditional music (and blues does fit into that genre) it is ONLY a starting point...but it helps.

[Suzy T]

I'm all for people trying to write down this music themselves, that is a fantastic learning process and then what you write down can serve as an aid to memory.  LastFirstFace, you probably already know this, but there are some very good transcriptions of some of the East Texas Serenaders tunes in Milliner-Koken's fiddle tune book.  I've seen some elsewhere that were not so good. 
I find that the Sheiks stuff is in some ways technically less difficult than the Serenaders music, but it's got an endless amount of subtle cool stuff in it that is challenging in a different way.

[Lastfirstface]

Thanks, Suzy. I learn primarily by ear. I learned Mineola Rag and Babe on mandolin a few years back, so its more a question of getting my intonation and bowing right on the fiddle. I think the Milliner-Koken collection puts Mineola Rag in D, which is where I learned it first on mandolin, but then I relearned it up a half step as I think the original might have been in Eb.

[One-Eyed Ross]

Well, this has been a fun exercise.  I can kinda sorta just about almost play "If you don't love me" and "He calls that religion."  Not note for note, but I can play the melody and I'm working on the grace notes and fill in that gets played. 

I must  say, playing in the closed positions will correct having a lazy wrist position!

[Suzy T]

It sounds like you've already figured out that a lot of the Sheiks stuff in flat keys is played out of closed position.  For me, that was a real epiphany.  It means you can basically play in any key, just plant your index finger on the tonic and go from there.  I think that Clifford Hayes and Eddie Anthony did the same sort of thing on a lot of their tunes, too.
What I particularly like about that approach is that you end up really using your ear, rather than thinking of it in terms of the names of the notes.   

[One-Eyed Ross]

It helps that I have been practicing the Four Finger Closed Position exercises from JazzMando - well, that and listening, listening, listening....