pete_fiddle - Posted - 06/02/2025:  10:28:11

I think learning a crooked tune (Chinquapin Hunting), is teaching me more about my playing and how i interpret a tune, than learning straight Irish tunes. What are your fav crooked tunes?

PS: i call a staight tune 32 bars and no time signature change. Anything other than that seems crooked to me.

farmerjones - Posted - 06/02/2025:  11:09:40

Clinch Mountain Backstep = Kryptonite

pete_fiddle - Posted - 06/02/2025:  11:30:41

Thought I replied to this but it seems not. ???



Thanks FJ (Steve) ! I'm going to have a go at that one. It has been suggested to me before by an incredible banjo player, with an unfeasibley heavy and expensive 5 string

Edit: A Brits Take on it youtube.com/watch?v=-DrKfrS_H84

Edited by - pete_fiddle on 06/02/2025 11:42:11

DougD - Posted - 06/02/2025:  11:38:28

As I've said before, I don't really distinguish between "straight" and "crooked" tunes - they're all just "tunes" to me, and I just try and play them the best I can.
The Slippery Hill website has over 20 pages of tunes categorized as "crooked" if you're interested in exploring some: slippery-hill.com/taxonomy/tun...ked-tunes
I play a few of them, and looking over the list it seems we may have recorded a few more, but I wasn't really aware of it.

pete_fiddle - Posted - 06/02/2025:  11:46:15

Cheers Doug, I edited my former post. I'll Be using this as my source . Does it make sense to American ears?

DougD - Posted - 06/02/2025:  11:47:28

PS - I play a version of "Camp Chase," but not the one I think most people play, "Yellow Gals" from Ron Hughey, and I thought "Quince Dillons High D Tune" was "crooked," but maybe not.

Edited by - DougD on 06/02/2025 11:48:15

DougD - Posted - 06/02/2025:  11:58:24

Seems like a nice clear and clean version - didn't watch the instructional part. The source for this tune is Ralph Stanley - its a banjo piece. I'm sure his playing if it is on YouTube somewhere.
BTW , many people think this is just a "screwed up" rendition of an older old time tune called "Lonesome John" - slippery-hill.com/content/lonesome-john

pete_fiddle - Posted - 06/02/2025:  12:06:36

Those slippery hill tunes seem really idiosyncratic, how many folks would get lost on em do you think?

carlb - Posted - 06/02/2025:  12:53:15

While I have many crooked tunes that I really like two favorites that I play that somehow don't feel crooked when I play them, are:

Avalon Quickstep

The Blackbird (Irish set dance)

farmerjones - Posted - 06/02/2025:  13:48:18

Granny does your dog bite

Does the above sound anywhere close to Everett Kay's version?

Red's version doesn't sound crooked to me.  I didn't think Cumberland Gap,, or Wagoner, or, Billy in the Low Ground were crooked, the way I've  heard them. But the field recordings (slippery-hill) , maybe there's something I can't hear?

Quincy - Posted - 06/02/2025:  14:01:25

I believe the tune I am learning is described as slightly crooked. For me it's difficult to understand what exactly it means...don't know of a good translation for 'crooked'. Is it playing a certain series of notes in a measure - that is not structured the same as
the others, with your own feeling for rhytm? Like you make two long notes sound like a short note followed by a long and continue to do so for certain parts, for example? I don't think I get it. I don't know if I play any crooked tunes and don't hear if I play Queen of the Stars, Child of the Skies 'slightly crooked'.

DougD - Posted - 06/02/2025:  14:52:26

Quincy, many traditional fiddle tunes follow a simple format - an "A" part that is 8 measures long (maybe depending on how you count it) and is repeated, for a total of 16 measures. Then there is a second, or "B" part, which follows the same format, for a total of 32 measures.
This is by far the most common format, but there are tunes that don't follow it, in various ways. Maybe the melody of one part is 9 measures long, or 7 measures, or maybe it has a couple of extra beats that requires a temporary change of time signature to notate it, or it lacks a beat or two. These are referred to as "crooked" tunes.
No to be unkind (we're never unkind here at the FHO) but I think (and have told you) that you have trouble feeling this basic structure - sometimes you extend notes, or ignore pauses. Oddly, this may help you with "crooked" tunes since you hear them (as I do) as melodies requiring their own phrasing, not something totally unusual. This may be why you don't know if you play any crooked tunes.

pete_fiddle - Posted - 06/02/2025:  15:37:13

quote:

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Originally posted by carlb

While I have many crooked tunes that I really like two favorites that I play that somehow don't feel crooked when I play them, are:

Avalon Quickstep

The Blackbird (Irish set dance)

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yep "The Blackbird" is crooked, i'll have a listen to "Avalon Quick Step" Thanks

pete_fiddle - Posted - 06/02/2025:  15:42:05

quote:

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Originally posted by farmerjones

Granny does your dog bite

Does the above sound anywhere close to Everett Kay's version?

Red's version doesn't sound crooked to me.  I didn't think Cumberland Gap,, or Wagoner, or, Billy in the Low Ground were crooked, the way I've  heard them. But the field recordings (slippery-hill) , maybe there's something I can't hear?

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Thats a straight tune to me, it's just got 3 parts?

Lonesome Fiddler - Posted - 06/02/2025:  16:10:21

David Bragger exulted in teaching his students crooked tunes and I got to say I love 'em just as much. There's an unmistakably home-brewed feel to them. By the same token, Classical Music is able to dive into crookedness and create high art.

Old Scratch - Posted - 06/03/2025:  07:36:53

A popular one in the Cape Breton repertoire is Tamerack 'er Down by Donald Angus Beaton.

A lot of Metis/Aboriginal tunes are crooked, including versions of well-known, otherwise-straight tunes. Here's a good take on Albert Beaulieu's version of Fisher's Hornpipe:  youtube.com/watch?v=p1u7Z_zySOU

ChickenMan - Posted - 06/03/2025:  07:58:23

"Bound to Have a Little Fun" is a delightful crooked tune that isn't ridiculous or jarringly crooked.


The way I understand it, Metis fiddlers pride themselves in having their own version of tunes, usually that means crooked on purpose. "Grey Owl" is a Metis tune my bluegrass buddies are all agog about. It sounds like a banjo tune to me, meaning: barely a melody in places. lol

Old Scratch - Posted - 06/03/2025:  10:41:40

"that means crooked on purpose." - My impression is more is that the crookedness just comes natural; it is of the fiddling of people who, for the most part, were not told that tunes were supposed to follow rules, and whose dances didn't require them. A fiddler might add or repeat a phrase for his own twist on the tune, but without any consideration of what that does to its 'straightness'. But maybe that's what you kinda meant.



The issue of strict rules about structure vs a freer approach comes up in this film about a couple of Cree fiddlers from James Bay who make a trip to the Orkney Islands:  The Fiddlers of James Bay

Erockin - Posted - 06/03/2025:  11:18:52

All of my tunes are a bit crooked...

Strabo - Posted - 06/03/2025:  14:38:12

quote:

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- My impression is more is that the crookedness just comes natural; it is of the fiddling of people who, for the most part, were not told that tunes were supposed to follow rules,..

Yah, I've played with folks who make a big deal about crooked tunes. I'm have no doubt that their analysis is quite correct, but I do lots better when I just feel the music and play it.

ChickenMan - Posted - 06/03/2025:  19:23:03

Yes indeed, Scratch, that is what I meant. No constraints. Often solo fiddling for dancers and there's a pretty solid list of "you absolutely must know this tune" in the Metis repertoire, if I recall correctly, and many are tunes that aren't easy to play cleanly at dance speed, like "Devil's Dream."