Old-Time Fiddle Round Peak Style: History, Tips, & Techniques

These are fantastic transcriptions! I wanted to get into old-time fiddling and didn’t want to just make up my own half-**sed version of it. I am so glad I found this book. The bowings are all indicated clearly and this really makes it clear how to understand and learn the style. It is true that the transcriptions do not have the drone notes indicated. The author writes that he worried that this would clutter the page. But by listening to the accompanying recording you can hear the pulse of the drones and pencil them into the music. I watched some videos about circle bowing which helped me understand how to get these drone notes ringing out and this allowed me to feel like I had all of the pieces of the puzzle that I needed to really start learning the style.

A lot of people would like to play the old-time fiddle, but unless they live in an area where others play and teach it, it is not easy to learn it. The fiddle is the most demanding of all the old-time instruments. In order to write good teaching materials, you not only have to be familiar with the music and the instrument, but you have to have an analytic capability and writing capability. This means that good teaching materials on old-time fiddle pretty much boil down to a couple or three people, and none better than Brad Leftwich. He is a fiddle master as well as having the education and writing skills to not only play what the Round Peak fiddlers played, but to break it down so other people can understand it. This doesn't mean the student shouldn't listen to old-time music played by people like Tommy Jarrell and Fred Cockerham (and Brad's records also), but especially someone who is learning without a teacher or already plays violin but would like to play fiddle benefits greatly from having books like Brad's. Someone complained here about not having a tune list. I don't have time to type one in, but if you are familiar with Tommy Jarrell's tunes, most of them are covered here. Certainly enough of them are included to cover all the fiddle techniques you are likely to need. Someone just looking for tunes might be better off getting Clare Milliner's huge compilation.

Firstly, I just love the way Brad Leftwich plays the fiddle. Secondly, The tunes are played at just the right speed on the CD so that I can learn them and they speed up at the end so that you can hear them at close to full speed. Third, the book is a delight to read and work with.The story about Tommy's dog brought tears to my eyes.The best part is that All the AEAE tunes and other cross tunings are lumped together so that you can go through all of them at once without having to search around for them or keep changing your fiddle. There are 83 tunes after all! The history and guide at the beginning and the stories sprinkled throughout are so touching and fun. And, to top it all off, he has the words for many of these old tunes which is a huge star in my book. The only thing that I had to do which was a bit of a job was to figure out where each tune was located on the CD. There is an index for the CD in the front of the book that you can refer to but I found that it didn't match up with what was shown on my Itunes so, I just marked what number it was on the CD as I went along. Other than that, I am really glad I bought this book. Happy Fiddling!

Many thanks to Brad Leftwich for producing this monumental work that provides insights into the Round Peak fiddle style in general and Tommy Jarrell in particular. The book provides extensive background material as well as brief histories of each tune. The transcriptions and tabulator go a long way to helping you learn the tunes, but careful listening to the accompanying CD is an absolute must.Brad obviously wanted to "get it right," not compromising necessary detail just to get the book out the door, which is what a lot of fiddle book authors do. Obviously he did this out of love and respect for this most influential of all Southern old-time fiddle styles. For this I can't thank him enough.

I have been hacking away at the fiddle for a few years now, just learning by ear. This book has 83 tunes in it from Tommy Jarrell. I would never have figured out Tommy's bowing just by listening. I'm paying more attention to my bowing now and I can tell my sound is much better. This book contains A LOT of information and will keep me occupied for a long while.

Just bought this after a friend recommended it. I was apprehensive about learning old-time tunes from a book, but it has turned out to be a useful companion. The tab has helped me find the notes that Tommy and Brad play on the recordings, and the bowing has a nice flow to it. I do not think I could have started from scratch with this book since a little bit of feel for the rhythm is required to learn the tunes, listening to the CD definitely helps though. Overall, I think it was well worth the money.

This has the music expertly played for student ears as well as lots of the wonderful history and personality that is part of the Old Time Southern Fiddle tradition. Put his on your shelf and you'll find yourself pulling it down to help with the many tunes that are in the pages. Brad Leftwich is an appropriate author for this book because he truly loves Old Time Music and did a good job capturing the character of the people in the charming stories as well the music that they played.

I don't care for this book at all. It's not one a sight reader can pick up and make sense of the tunes at all.

Excellent

Essential book for learning and repertoire of tunes Amazon tells me that I need another twelve words but the first seven says it all

Pour qui veut pratiquer le Old Time Fiddle et aime le style de Jarrell (mentor de l'auteur de la méthode) ce bouquin est un must. Les partoches sont en tablatures (avec le numéro des doigts en première position) avec ce qui est crucial les coups d'archets indiqués. Le CD accompagnant le livre correspond exactement à ce qui est noté. La sélection de morceaux est très bonne: que du très standard. J'avais aussi acheté les 2 DVD de leftwich mais finalement je préfère son bouquin.Chaque morceau est accompagné d'un commentaire judicieux et comporte parfois des variations. Attention la majorité des morceaux sont en cross tuning (surtout LA et RE). Seul regret, je préfère les reliures spirale plus pratiques.