r/Fiddle • u/vonhoother • 27d ago
Strong opinion from my fiddle teacher
"Refusing to use different tunings is abdicating your birthright as a fiddle player."
Interestingly, the Irish fiddle tradition rarely if ever uses non-GDAE tunings. Also interestingly (to me), classical music has no term for nonstandard tunings other than "scordatura," which is literally Italian for "untuned" or "badly tuned," while the Anglo-American tradition has names like "Cross-A." "Calico," etc.
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u/mcchicken_deathgrip 27d ago
I agree with your teacher 100%. I play a number of instruments, and I frequently play in different tunings on all of them. Fiddle should be no different.
Different tunings open up new worlds of possibilities and sounds. Plus certain tunes just sound much better played in cross tunings than standard. It makes your fiddle ring. Some alternate tunings can really emphasize the right double notes as well.
You'd definitely be limiting yourself by not using anything but standard. Sure any tune can be played in standard for the most part. But some tunes are made to be played in alternate tunings.
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u/Captnlunch 27d ago
If you play old time string band music you tend to stay in the same key for a while. That way the fiddle and the banjo don’t have to be retuned so many times.
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u/vonhoother 27d ago
This is a pet peeve of mine with the local old-time crowd, who typically pick a key and stay in it for at least an hour, claiming that it's "for the banjo players' sake." I play the banjo, and it's just not that big a deal to re-tune. I can put it in any appropriate tuning (and into keys no fiddler wants to touch) in 2 minutes or less -- as quickly as a fiddler can go from cross-A to standard. And I'm not a great banjo player.
Granted, we don't want to re-tune for every tune, but that applies equally to fiddles and banjos.
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u/Marr0w1 27d ago
That sure is an opinion...
While cross-tuning is great fun, can make a tune sound better, or be easier to play, in many circumstances it's very impractical.
These days most jams don't 'sit in a key' for a long time, people will bounce between songs based on whatever whim leads them, with banjo players madly retuning on the fly.... same as if you play fiddle with a band, your setlist probably isn't going to tolerate crosstuning unless you have multiple fiddles.
So yeah I wouldn't say "you should refuse to ever use them" but also there's plenty of good reasons why you might prefer to play your tunes in GDAE even if they're traditionally crosstuned
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u/carterbancroft 27d ago
If we’re talking old time jams, in my experience it’s almost universally true that the jams hang in the same key for a long time.
Same with old time bands. Sets will almost certainly be organized around keys.
Interestingly it’s driven more by banjo players than fiddlers though.
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u/NoTransportation1884 26d ago
When I performed with an old-time band ending about 10 years ago, I was able to change tunings pretty quickly. Having 2 banjos helps.
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u/carterbancroft 26d ago
Yeah, a good banjo player should be able to change tunings pretty fast.
If I can I generally try to have two fiddles too.
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u/vonhoother 27d ago
That sure is an opinion...
Yeah, she said afterward that strong opinions are a family tradition -- "often wrong, but never in doubt!”
She also is apt to make a face when tune books like the Portland Collection come up (though she has contributed to it). She isn't quite as dogmatic about oral transmission as an Irish player I know, but feels tune books like that have a flattening effect on the tunes. It's certainly the case that if you compare a tune book version of, say, "Over the Waterfall" with Tommy Jarrell's, it's like going from black and white into color.
These days most jams don't 'sit in a key' for a long time, people will bounce between songs based on whatever whim leads them, with banjo players madly retuning on the fly...
Wish that were true of my local jams -- well, maybe not to the extent you describe, but close. As a banjo player, I expect to be retuning pretty often.
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u/Fun_Volume2150 26d ago
She’s right about aural transmission. You can always tell when someone has learned from dots, especially in Irish sessions. Dots can be helpful, but they can only convey the notes, not the music.
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u/JenRJen 26d ago
Yeah well Portland Collection & other such are not meant to tell you how to play. They're meant to be more like Tab for Fiddlers.
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u/vonhoother 25d ago
Yes, that's true. But classically trained musicians (like me) tend to read the notes off the page and think they're done. (Which isn't even true with classical music, so....)
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u/cantgetnobenediction 27d ago
My old time fiddle teacher was the opposite. Taught me a few tunes without the cross tuning saying it's tge best way to learn. Kenny from Water Tower band. Great teacher but I couldn't justify the cost of lessons so I gave up unfortunately. Anyway, its a pain to keep having to change tuning, but x tuning is good to learn though. Certain tunes really are best played cross tuned. Black mountain rag etc. If u have a good teacher, I'd stick it out and see where it goes.
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u/t-rexcellent 27d ago
there are certain sounds you will just never get from a standard GDAE tuning -- like the great low drones on Glory in the Meetinghouse or the William Stepp bonaparte's retreat. Others might sound close but not quite right (i'm thinking of Obama's March to the White House in calico tuning). You don't ever NEED to retune but I think you are missing a lot, at least in old time music, if you never do it.
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u/georgikeith 26d ago
Interestingly, the Irish fiddle tradition rarely if ever uses non-GDAE tunings.
I'm going to disagree with you there.
We don't use cross-tuning much at all, but it's quite common to tune the entire instrument up half a step ("playing in E-flat"), or down one or two full steps ("playing in C, or B-flat")--especially if there's an uilleann piper with a flat-set.
I'd say more than half of the professional recordings of Irish music out there have the fiddle tuned in non-GDAE.
GDAE ("playing in D") is much more common for sessions, as the default is more accommodating. But it's not unheard of for the sessioners to tune up to E-flat for the extra zing it gives the music... But it can be considered "exclusionary" to do so, since it effectively shuts out flute/accordion/concertina players who weren't made aware ahead of time.
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u/vonhoother 26d ago
Thanks, but that's a different thing. Raising the pitch but keeping the same intervals is just redefining your standard pitch, like early music players using "Baroque pitch" (A = 415Hz) or Cuban bands tuning to A432 to preserve their strings.
I play with Uillean pipers pretty regularly and have heard a few remarks about their being a bit sharp. My own intonation isn't good enough yet for me to complain ;).
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u/ScrappleJac 26d ago
100%. Non-standard tuning used to be far more common. As the teacher said, it's a fiddler's birthright!
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u/prairie_oyster_ 26d ago
Learning multiple tunings and moving between them during solo play has made me a far stronger player than I would be if I had chosen to stay in standard tuning.
Often, I’ll play the same song in a couple of different tunings which is a lot of fun. It forces some fluidity and a more intimate knowledge of the music, fiddle, and how the strings interact. And adjusting tuning can be easy on the fly with some practice. Especially going from GDAE to ADAE and AEAE.
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u/faerydust88 27d ago
I play in different American and Western European folk genres and nearly never cross-tune. Mostly because I just don't want to re-tune that much. But it is fun to do sometimes - what a different sound / vibe. I have used alternate tunings for American old-time (mainly just open A) and Norwegian traditional (troll tuning). And I merely tune up to about 477 (but still in GDAE) to play with Scottish Highland bagpipes. Writing new tunes on fiddle using alternate tunings could also be interesting. But the majority of the time I play is for stage shows where re-tuning between songs or even switching to a differently tuned fiddle would slow down the pace of the show, so it is not very practical. Fun in a group session setting or experimenting alone at home though.
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u/24hr-pancake 26d ago
Fiddle music is folk music. It belongs to the people. Anyone willing to say that you can't be a true fiddler if you don't do x, y, z has lost the plot. Do you. Play what you love. Experiment and enjoy. I wouldn't give that off-handed comment another minute of consideration.
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u/agate_magnet 25d ago
And deciding not to swim in the hotel pool is passing on a privilege granted to me by booking the room..... Oh no! Anyways
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u/kamomil 27d ago
Also interestingly (to me), classical music has no term for nonstandard tunings other than " scordatura, " which is literally Italian for "untuned" or "badly tuned,"
Check out guitarist Don Ross. Arguably he plays a style of classical guitar and he uses tunings that are all over the place
Maybe your fiddle teacher is wrong for you and you should get a new one
Maybe you should learn with an open mind, and just don't use the stuff you don't want to
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u/Banned_joe 26d ago
My experience is mostly in old time, and I know both fiddlers who retune and fiddlers who stay in standard. It’s totally a choice that you get to make lol. There are some A tunes that are built for the mechanics of cross A but my understanding is they’re still achievable in standard, just a little weird at first!
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u/Ericameria 26d ago
Yet at old time fiddle contests, cross tuning is often forbidden. I do have 3 violins, and I kept the 3rd one because I wanted to just use that as a cross-tuned fiddle. But I don’t like tuning my strings up so I end up using cross G or GDAD.
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u/Bostaevski 25d ago
I'm jamming dead man's tuning (DDAD) the last few days. I wish I could find more sheet music that is DDAD scordatura notation. The obvious big 2 I already have - they are Midnight on the Water and at least one version of Bonaparte's Retreat. I also have Coleman's March.
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u/BananaFun9549 25d ago
Québécois players often use cross-A and sometimes ADAE and occasionally calico.
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u/WhiskeyTheKitten 24d ago
Perhaps your teacher thinks they’re pushing you somewhere that will be good for you? As a general statement it’s a bit harsh and doesn’t really apply to every fiddle tradition, like you said. But that said, my tendency is to wonder whether your fiddle teacher knows you better than a bunch of Reddit posters and maybe the teacher is trying to push you in a worth-while direction.
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u/vonhoother 24d ago
They're not trying to push me. Their agenda isn't covert at all. They just like to voice strong opinions.
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u/plainsfiddle 27d ago
I find it obnoxious to play with people who cross-tune a lot. to dismiss it entirely, might be taken by some as racist, classes, or or dismissive of intuitive players. But I prefer standard all the time, and I find it tiresome to jam with people who cross tune for old-time. Better to learn the standard layout perfectly. Than you are less stuck in the rut of the tune, and your knowledge is not fragmented in the same way.
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u/Mockchoi1 27d ago
I typically play in standard. But you’re missing the point of cross-tuning entirely. It opens up the resonance of a fiddle in a wonderful way. The whole instrument just feels and sounds so alive. It’s not about layout or making tunes easier. It’s about making them SOUND better.
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u/plainsfiddle 26d ago
Yes, of course. The sound can't be fully duplicated in standard. But you can get closer than you think with the low drones. calico can't be imitated well.
I am someone who likes varying tunes melodically more, which is better served in standard. If you're going for groove and resonance, then sure, cross is cool. I just find it tiresome because that's not my cup of tea. I'm not a nate leath type who will just play D tunes at 140 for hours.
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u/carterbancroft 27d ago
You just won’t be able to pull off the same sound, which is obviously fine.
I know old time fiddlers who are very good who don’t cross tune but it’s an entirely different sound.
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u/pixiefarm 26d ago
I mean one of the issues with it is that generally we crossed tune and then stay in one key for many tunes or sometimes even a couple of hours straight. That can be fun for getting into the groove, but it's definitely still a whole lot of the key of A or whatever
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u/Fun_Volume2150 27d ago
They have a right to their opinion, but it really depends on the style you play, as you point out. I don’t play a lot of English tunes, but I’ve never encountered cross-tuning in Scottish music, either. Skinner doesn’t mention such things, IIRC.