Fiddle music, along so many other important indigenous musical styles in this country, is an integral part of our cultural heritage.\u00a0 And it comes in about as many distinct musical traditions as we have cultural and ethnic \u201cfolk.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 But, central to the style is the repertoire and playing techniques that date back to seventeenth century immigrants, and their later followers, from the British Isles.\u00a0 Northern European immigrants brought their traditions, as well, but the core of \u201cold time fiddle music\u201d lies in the reels, jigs, and hornpipes of the Celtic tradition. Other dances and sub-styles were added as time went on.\u00a0\u00a0 Of course, there is no difference between a violin and fiddle, with both folk and classical musicians using the two terms interchangeably.\u00a0 It must be said, however, that some traditional \u201cfiddlers\u201d do make minor changes to their instruments from time to time, notably to the bridge, string choices, and to tunings.\u00a0 The basis of the repertoire is dance music, not songs, and thus, the tempos tend to be steady.\u00a0 Everyone likes to kick up the heels after a long week of boring, hard work, so its not surprising that relatively fast tempos are common.\u00a0 Another salient trait that almost everyone can identify is that of incorporating the \u201copen\u201d strings (ones not fingered) simultaneously with the strings playing the tune.\u00a0 There\u2019s nothing like it, and the infectious joy of the whole phenomenon is one of America\u2019s fundamental musical pleasures.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Central Coach Special <\/em>is one of a series of \u201cspecials\u201d that the indefatigable Calvin Custer wrote for American school groups.\u00a0 It is a simple fiddle tune that employs many of the traditional sounds and techniques of the old time style.\u00a0 Notable is the chance that Custer gives the cello section in the middle of the tune to show off their ability to play the same technical challenges that usually only the \u201cfiddles\u201d of traditional performances get to show off.\u00a0 Custer was connected with the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra for many years, and was the arranger and composer of an imposing list of compositions.\u00a0 They are performed all over the country in groups as diverse as junior high school bands and orchestras, and the Boston Pops.<\/p>\n \u00a9 2025 William E. Runyan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"program_note_tax":[107],"class_list":["post-267","program_note","type-program_note","status-publish","hentry","program_note_tax-calvincuster"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program_note\/267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program_note"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/program_note"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"program_note_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program_note_tax?post=267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}