Introduction and Background Information
Frank and Jane Gabor West Virginia Folklife Center’s Trunk of Tunes
If you Google the query, “What is Appalachian music?” you will find a multitude of descriptions. Most of the definitions will describe the music in dry and unemotional terms as a southern Appalachian heritage that is mostly based upon Anglo Celtic folk ballads and instrumental dance tunes as well as underlying African rhythms. That’s like saying the dash between the birth and death dates on a tombstone reflect the totality of a person’s life.
In reality, Appalachian traditional music is folk art that is an expression of deep emotions, historical accolades of earlier events, people, and places, and a way to remember the past. It is a soulful music that touches both musicians and listeners deeply. Embedded in the music are the memories of a harsh life that every day required determination and strength just to survive. The music relives those days and honors them as the bedrock for the gentler lives we live today. It was precisely this hardscrabble life that provided the deep soul of the music. As Gerald Milnes says, “The oldest fiddle music in West Virginia captures a disposition of people, a representation of time, and a portrayal of place. Folk music is folk art. It is faithful to cultural values and identity. It reflects tradition and expresses emotion found in the folk community from which it comes. For many people, traditional folk music, both tune and song, expresses emotion unequaled in the realms of performance and visual arts. An element of truth in the music touches some essential place deep inside. Traditional folk music involves an ageless musical expression of feeling and emotion over which, at times, the artist seems to have little control. Because of its profound emotional effect and despite a continual barrage for more than a century and a half of popular musical forms, the music of traditional folk musicians lives on.”
The music was played in an oral tradition as there were few professional musicians in the mountains. Thus, the music was passed on through a listen and play type of instruction. This style of teaching, while passing on particular tunes that were often widely known, allowed the learner to capture specific nuances that each particular musician added to the tune. It also provided enough flexibility for players to add small embellishments of their own while still maintaining the general integrity of the tune. Old-time musicians past and present scorn the “paper trained” method of learning to play music because they maintain that it removes the spontaneity and individualism of the tune that gives the music its spirit. Instead, learning to read music induces homogeneity and conformity which erases the essence of the music. Additionally, the regional musical dialects – with their subtleties of bow speed, pressure, and ornamentation, and their small variations in fingering patterns – have few or no corresponding symbols to represent them on the printed page. Oral accounts of older generations remain the richest sources for interpreting the winding path that musical traditions have traveled in this region up to the present time (Marshall). As deceased fiddler Lester McCumbers said, “It ain’t the idea of doing it to suit somebody…never was my idea. It is just to play the way I wanted to play and the way it comes natural. The little bit I play comes natural for me, you know, and if I hear somebody play a tune, I pick the fiddle up if I want to learn that tune. I don’t try to play it like he did. I try to play it the way I play it…You can hunt this country over and you won’t find nary two fellers that plays the same tune exactly alike.” It is the consensus among musicians that when written notation is the main means of transmission, there is a greater likelihood that musical conformity will triumph over individuality. (Marshall).
Among players of old-time music, the compulsion to share music – to “pass it on” - is a strong one. It is a way to keep their music from being forgotten as well as a way for themselves to be remembered. In honor of the great gift they have received in the learning of the music, before beginning to perform, musicians will always acknowledge the person from whom they learned the tune. This not only honors their receipt of the tune, but it also alerts listeners as to the subtle style and “diddles” (or specific skills) that may be present because of learning from a particular person. Interestingly, older fiddlers and singers in West Virginia are not interested in knowing who wrote or composed the pieces they play or sing. Instead, they are concerned with where and from whom they learned their musical repertoire. The paths of musical transmission, as traced through oral histories, are held in higher regard than any details pertaining to the original song or tune authorship (Marshall).
In West Virginia, traditional music is not just music. It is a historical narrative of our past, our roots, and the bedrock of our current music. It shares grief, sorrow, joy, and fear. It provides an emotional outlet and relief from the struggles of life. As one favorite uncle once explained, “this old guitar is my best friend”. Barbara Harmon-Schamberger, Cabinet Secretary for Education and Arts in West Virginia from 1992-1997 said, “The difficulties of the lives of West Virginians have led them to express their joy in surviving through music. The resilience of their lives matches the resilience of old-time music.” And deceased fiddler Ernie Carpenter summed it up beautifully when he explained it this way:
Music was a great gift – one of the greatest that I think anybody could have. Because it’s something that nobody can take away from you. No way can they touch it – they can’t take a note away. It don’t make no difference if you’re a tramp or how low down you are. If you play music you can still keep it. That’s about the only thing that’s let that the politicians can’t get in on. So they can’t take it away from you – they can’t touch it and money can’t buy it. You can’t even give it away yourself hardly. That is, I mean, if you just want to just turn it over to somebody. You could learn somebody, but you can’t even just turn over what you know to somebody – just give it to ‘em as a gift like you would a piece of money or something like that. It’s a very precious thing, I think. I think it’s very precious.