How Many Songs Does an Old Time Musician Know?

     How many tunes does an Old Time musician have memorized?  Some of us were discussing this after the Wednesday Night Morgantown Brew Pub jam, and some of the people who are relatively knew to Old Time assumed that it must be some huge number of songs.  Hence they were surprised that some of the veterans figured it was not that many, maybe a hundred or so, and that those were usually an accident.

      In classical music, everyone is obliged to play exactly the same way, note to note, and for that reason, the music must be written down.

      But in Old Time, someone (usually the lead fiddler) has to know the basic melody, and the rest is made up on the fly.  There are literally an infinite number of variations possible, based on what the other musicians are doing and the musical sensibilities of each musician.   Different musicians have different ways of approaching music.  Some no doubt just intuitively know what notes sound good together, whereas other musicians have a more technical approach.  But very little of Old Time is transferred via note for note transcription and memorization.   Somehow, Old Time musicians, especially fiddlers, have ESP and can know in advance when the chord is going to change and where the song is going.  

     Here is a case in point, a fantastic jam with Andy Falco (guitar), Cody Kilby (guitar), Britanny Haas (fiddle), and Jeremy Garrett (fiddle).  I don’t know any of them personally, but my guess is that that the guys have played together before, and have invited the babe to jam with them.  Naturally, they picked a song that they can absolutely destroy, but Britanny is doing this song with them probably for the first time.  From Britanny’s facial expressions, you can tell that she is figuring out how to play the tune the first time through.   Then by her second or third time through, she is dishing it out with the boys, adding complex variations to the basic tune.  Basically the four musicians are each having fun with the tune, adding different sounds and textures each time through.  By the end of the video, smoke is curling from the instruments, the sky is darkening and the camera is shaking as the earth trembles.  Well, okay, maybe it’s not that dramatic, but you get the idea.   All four musicians are playing together but at the same time challenging each other with different sounds and variations on the basic tune.   And no, they would not be able to write down note for note what they played.  Without recording equipment each version would be impossible to recapture. 

    

Mississippi Sawyer

  What in the world is a Mississippi Sawyer?  There are a few different theories.  Literally, it is a person who saws wood for a living.  Another possbility is that it is a partially uprooted tree that posed a hazard to barges going up and down the Mississippi River.  It's also possible that it is simply a fiddler, or someone who "saws" away at the fiddle. 
    In a book called Southern Mountain Dulcimer, Wayne Erbson cites Ira Ford, in Traditional Music of America (1940), with the story that the name comes from a saw mill operator who was also a fiddle player.  He played the tune at a giant four-day long celebration of the opening of the saw mill.  The original name of the tune was The Downfall of Paris, but ever since that party, the tune was known as "Mississippi Sawyer"  after the owner of the sawmill.  ( http://books.google.com/books?id=oakbS2YVosEC&pg=PA64&lpg=PA64&dq=mississippi+sawyer+ira+ford&source=bl&ots=RwdK8yjFb5&sig=Q_DzL4bRl3E0hkbrA2nYai3ICsA&hl=en#v=onepage&q=mississippi%20sawyer%20ira%20ford&f=false / ).  

     This makes about as much sense as anything else I've seen on this song, so I'm going with that as the best explanation.   

      The Downfall of Paris was published in England in 1816.  In some cases, the song was still known by that name even in the US in the 20th Century, although the title  "Mississippi Sawyer" was also well known in the 19th Century, consistent with the story about the party at the sawmill. 


   There were lyrics in French (Ca Ira) which celebrated the French Revolution, but these apparently have nothing at all to do with Mississippi or sawyers.  Likewise there have been a few attempts to create English language lyrics for the song over the years, but none of them have stuck.  Mississippi Sawyer is an instrumental tune. 

   Here is a version from my friends Rachel Eddy and Kristian Herner from Sweden, with Bill Fahy. This version is kind of laid back, and It's perfect for playing along with.

I also like this version by Annie and Mac, which is played at a nice even tempo, with a perfect view of the left hand technique for banjo and guitar,  This is really helpful for those of us trying to learn the song....but Annie and Mac are playing in the key of C rather D. I think that most of the known world plays this song in D, so if you learn via Annie and Mac, you will want to capo on 2 in order to coexist with the rest of the world.  
   At the Trolley Stop, we are always in D, and we generally kick it up a notch or two. 

 
A PART 

D---   D---   G---   G--- 
D---   D---   A7--- D---
 
B PART

D---   D---  A7--- A7--- 
D---   D---  A7--- D---