Research Catalog

Title

American antebellum fiddling / Chris Goertzen.

Author

Goertzen, Chris

Publication

• Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, 2020.
• ©2020

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xi, 234 pages : illustrations, music; 28 cm.

Summary

• "This unique volume is the only book solely about antebellum American fiddling. It includes more than 250 easy-to-read and clearly-notated fiddle tunes alongside biographies of fiddlers and careful analysis of their personal tune collections. The reader learns what the tunes of the day were, what the fiddlers' lives were like, and as much as can be discovered about how fiddling sounded then. Personal histories and tunes' biographies offer an accessible window on a fascinating period, on decades of growth and change, and on rich cultural history made audible. In the decades before the Civil War, American fiddling thrived mostly in oral tradition, but some fiddlers also wrote down versions of their tunes. This overlap between oral and written traditions reveals much about the sounds of and social contexts of fiddling at that time. In the early 1800's, aspiring young violinists maintained manuscript collections of tunes they intended to learn. These books contained notations of oral-tradition dance tunes-many of them melodies that predated and would survive this era-plus plenty of song melodies and marches. Chris Goertzen takes us into the lives and repertoires of two such young men, Arthur McArthur and Philander Seward. Later, in the 1830s-50s, music publications grew in size and shrunk in cost, so fewer musicians kept personal manuscript collections. But a pair of energetic musicians did. Goertzen tells the stories of two remarkable violinist/fiddlers who wrote down many hundreds of tunes, and whose notations of those tunes are wonderfully detailed, Charles M. Cobb and William Sidney Mount. Goertzen closes by examining particularly problematic collections. He takes a fresh look at George Knauff's Virginia Reels and presents and analyzes an amateur musician's own questionable but valuable transcriptions of his grandfather's fiddling, which reaches back to antebellum western Virginia"--
• "The only book solely about antebellum American fiddling"--

Series Statement

American made music series

Uniform Title

American made music series.

Subject

• 1800-1899
• Fiddle tunes > United States > 19th century > History and criticism
• Fiddlers > United States
• Fiddle tunes > United States > 19th century
• MUSIC / Genres & Styles / Folk & Traditional
• Fiddle tunes
• Fiddlers
• United States

Genre/Form

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 219-224) and index.

Contents

Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Fiddle tunes in music commonplace books: young musicians illustrate American taste at the beginning of the nineteenth century -- Charles Morris Cobb, William Sidney Mount, and their large manuscript music collections from the 1840s to the 1850s -- Fiddlers noving south, and west, and away from notation -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Call Number

JNF 20-95

ISBN

• 9781496827272
• 1496827279
• 9781496827289
• 1496827287
• 9781496827296 (canceled/invalid)
• 9781496827302 (canceled/invalid)
• 9781496827319 (canceled/invalid)
• 9781496827326 (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

2019031021

OCLC

1141866995

Author

Goertzen, Chris, author.

Title

American antebellum fiddling / Chris Goertzen.

Publisher

Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, 2020.

Copyright Date

©2020

Type of Content

text

notated music

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

American made music series

American made music series.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 219-224) and index.

Chronological Term

1800-1899

Other Form:

Online version: Goertzen, Chris American antebellum fiddling Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, 2020. 9781496827296 (DLC) 2019031022

Research Call Number

JNF 20-95