Over 425 reels, jigs, set-tunes, waltzes, marches, strathspeys, and airs transcribed from the playing of traditional fiddlers make this a must have title

13. The Role of Radio and Recordings -- 14. The Repertoire -- 15. "It's Amazing How Quick It Did Go Down"--16. "If Everybody Does a Little Bit, Great Things Can Happen"--17. "There's Been a Big Revival of Music on the Island" -- Appendix A. Musical Examples -- Appendix B. Lists of Interview Sessions -- Appendix C. Lists of Collected Tunes -- Appendix D. Pronunciation Guide -- Appendix E. Discography and Suggested Listening -- Glossary -- Bibliography -- Index

The island of Cape Breton & its close neighbor, Prince Edward Island in eastern Canada are home to two of the oldest, strongest, and most vibrant fiddling traditions in North America. Cape Breton gave rise to a professional Celtic-based fiddling scene to rival anything coming out of Scotland & Ireland. Prince Edward Island’s traditional fiddlers developed lively, idiosyncratic styles every bit as musically compelling as anything you’ll hear on archival recordings of iconic American old-time fiddlers from the Appalachians. This book features 136 tunes from these two distinct but related fiddling traditions, collected by the author directly from master fiddlers, and arranged note-for-note for clawhammer banjo with as much flavor and nuance as possible. These settings of reels, hornpipes, jigs, marches, strathspeys, airs, and other fiddle tunes are all eminently playable and fully benefit from the author’s half-century of experience playing banjo, arranging for banjo, writing banjo instruction books, and researching fiddle-music traditions. Here’s what you’ll find in this volume. 136 fiddle tunes arranged for clawhammer banjo in clear tablature Over 40 musical examples & exercises Instruction on basic and advanced techniques Fingering diagrams & detailed fingering suggestions A systematic approach to playing up-the-neck A thorough treatment of playing triplets, grace notes, and other characteristic ornaments in clawhammer Guides on how to approach playing various kinds of fiddle tunes A framework for understanding the modes encountered in fiddle music Historical notes on the tunes and musical traditions Biographical information on source fiddlers 169 audio illustrations available online Note: Most audio illustrations for the tunes in this book are drawn directly from the author’s CDs, Devil in the Kitchen, Frails & Frolics, Island Boy, and Northern Banjo.

(Banjo). A complete guide for beginning and advanced banjo players! From Ken Perlman, here is a brilliant teaching guide that is destined to become the handbook on how to play the banjo. The style is easy to learn, and covers the instruction itself, basic right and left-hand positions, simple chords, and fundamental clawhammer techniques; the brush, the 'bumm-titty' strum, pull-offs, and slides. For the advanced player, there is instruction on more complicated picking, double thumbing, quick slides, fretted pull-offs, harmonics, improvisation, and more. The book includes more than 40 fun-to-play banjo tunes.

This comprehensive collection features over 100 note-for-note skillfully-crafted clawhammer banjo arrangements of “old-time” Southern fiddle tunes, in clear tablature - with suggested guitar chords at a wide variety of skill levels. It contains most of the tunes played in concert or recorded by author Ken Perlman and renowned Appalachian-style fiddler Alan Jabbour, plus over 50 more classic tunes from Ed Haley, Edden Hammons, John Salyer and many other iconic roots fiddlers. Also included: • Instruction on basic and advanced techniques • Tips on improving your musicianship • How to play syncopated rhythms and melodies in clawhammer style • Frameworks for dealing with crooked tunes and modal tunes • Historical notes and picturesque backstories • Ken Perlman demonstrates all tunes and most musical illustrations on 124 online audio tracks *Online Audio Includes: 24 tracks featuring excerpts from recordings of the author performing with the virtuosic fiddler Alan Jabbour, to whom the book is dedicated.

North American Fiddle Music: A Research and Information Guide is the first large-scale annotated bibliography and research guide on the fiddle traditions of the United States and Canada. These countries, both of which have large immigrant populations as well as Native populations, have maintained fiddle traditions that, while sometimes faithful to old-world or Native styles, often feature blended elements from various traditions. Therefore, researchers of the fiddle traditions in these two countries can not only explore elements of fiddling practices drawn from various regions of the world, but also look at how different fiddle traditions can interact and change. In addition to including short essays and listings of resources about the full range of fiddle traditions in those two countries, it also discusses selected resources about fiddle traditions in other countries that have influenced the traditions in the United States and Canada.

Over 425 reels, jigs, "set-tunes," waltzes, marches, strathspeys, and airs transcribed from the playing of traditional fiddlers make this a "must have" title.