Playing Songs, Part 1: Western Swing



Playing Songs, Part 1: Western Swing

In a various grass-root musical scenes throughout North America, fiddle tunes in the regional styles remain the typical fiddler’s focus. Fiddle contests and conventions, playing for square dancers and cloggers, featured numbers on shows, and simple self entertainment all give fiddlers good reason to home and expand their skills with the fiddle repertoire, but this is certainly only a part of what most good fiddlers can do. Playing songs, either backing up a vocalist and playing instrumental breaks between verses or using vocal numbers as instrumentals, requires a very different approach from normal fiddle-tune technique, and this article on western swing is the first installment of three (later pieces will cover bluegrass and country styles, each of which has its own bag of tricks) that explores the fiddle’s role in playing songs and working in band context. Fiddling in a vocal-oriented band, whether amateur or professional or something in between provides opportunities for expression in ways very different from playing fiddle tunes, and the interaction inherent in these circumstances can be extremely rewarding both from an artistic and social standpoint. Also, these types of situations are where most professional fiddlers make a living, and the ability to make money with music should not be overlooked.

Western swing at its best combines seemingly disparate genres such as country, old-time fiddle, blues, highly improvisational small group jazz, and swing-era, horn-style dance band standards. Behind the leadership of great western swing pioneers like Bib Wills and Spade Cooley (both of whom played fiddle), all these influences were forged together into an organic, unified music which has traditionally featured a large helping of hot fiddle. Wills always kept one or two additional fiddlers in the band to play harmonies and take jazz solos; his “Texas Playboys” became the training ground and showcase for fiddle legends such as Johnny Gimble and Keith Coleman. (Nashville has had its own version if western swing, also ,with incredible fiddlers like buddy Spicher and Dale Potter, but none of the great bands ever worked out of Nashville.) These western swing fiddlers were all inspired by the fist generation of prominent jazz violinists including Stuff Smith, Joe Venuti, Svend Asmussen, and Stephane Grappelli and also by steel guitar giants like Joaquin Murphy and Jimmy Day.

The eight versions of the Bob Wills/Tommy Duncan standard “Time Changes Everything” presented here give working examples of the fiddle’s role in western swing; following the straight vocal melody are various lead and back up versions for single and twin fiddles. Buddy Spicher told me when I was a kid that one of the biggest challenges in fiddling is to play the straight melody as a great singer would sing it. Considering his words, I finally figured out that the fiddle (and all other lead instruments) must rely on musical content and emotional depth rather than idiomatic gimmicks and tricks which sound flashy but which have no substance. In order for this to happen, the fiddler must first learn the vocal melody and lyrics really well to establish a solid foundation on which solos and back up can be built. The meaning of the song from an emotional, cultural, and compositional viewpoint must be understood (by the way , western swing is essentially a happy, bouncy, “feel-good” style and heavy lyrics are basically absent); to this end the first version presented here (#1) is the vocal melody with the words to the second verse (Which capture the gist of the song). The tempo is medium fast (around 108 beats per minute), and the phrasing is legato.

Version two (#2) presents some ornaments and phrasing idiomatic to the violin with the goal of capturing the essential melody while transforming it into an instrumental. Techniques such as the eight note “A” in measure number three give rhythmic definition without cluttering the tune, and the grace notes throughout prove to be a much more musical way of adding interest as opposed to slides. Slides must be used in western swing (and in most styles) with deliberate intent; mindlessly sliding into and out of notes causes weak rhythm and intonation problems. Slides can definitely be a wonderful expressive tool, but they have to be used consciously. Also, the use of vibrato is minimal (only toward the end of longer notes for the most part) and should never be used on unison notes (measure one of #2, for instance). I should mention one last general performance technique; the bowings indicated throughout each version are not the only ones possible but are solid as a rock and should be followed. I find that some folks have the confused idea that bowing patterns somehow come naturally and need not to be studied. A solid working knowledge of bowing for various styles is the most important but most overlooked aspect of fiddling. Rhythm is the basis of everything musical, and strong rhythm cannot be communicated on the fiddle without correct bowing.

Version three (#3) demonstrates a swinging, contrapuntal back up to the vocal melody. I often hear the old cliché “less is more,” but this attitude can become an excuse to play uninteresting fluff behind the singer. The real challenge is , to one degree or another depending on the circumstances, to create a dialogue with the vocal line (this by necessity means staying out of the singer’s way, which is the true part of “less is more”). Notice the rhythmic interplay between the vocal and fiddle parts, and notice also that the fiddle part is sensitive to play not the singer’s notes (which can cause pitch problems) but a harmony with the melody. Also, make sure to work out who should back up any given verse; the piano and steel guitar and other lead instruments pass this role around in the course of arrangement.

In between verses western swing features swing solos by the various lead instruments in the band, and version four (#4) gives an example of this in the key of G major, just for a change of pace. (the original Tommy Duncan version with Wills is in F major. Ultimately, the key is determined by the range of the lead vocalist; so, this solo as well as everything else presented here is really just an example and not the gospel.) with the jazz-influenced solo comes more harmonic freedom which the rhythm section may explicitly state (see the C major 6th in measure twelve) or the soloist may simply imply (listen for the hint of the G# diminished 7th in measure two or in B minor 7th to Bb minor 7th in measure thirteen). The harmonic content of western swing reflects the swing era work of folks like Benny Goodman.

The sweet sound of harmony twin fiddles in easily one of the most captivating and recognizable ingredients of western swing and the next four versions demonstrate three-part and four-part harmony settings for the melody (with a few reharmonizations) and a horn-style riff chorus to back up a soloist. Version five (#5) uses the traditional country style three-part harmonization with the melody in the middle and the second fiddle playing parallel harmonies above and beneath the lead fiddle part. Version (#6) is close four-part parallel harmony (no double notes) with the melody on top and the successive harmonies beneath (no chod tomes are skipped; each harmony note is simply the next chord tome in descending order). Version six is in c major, and the close harmony style described above works for this and some keys, but due to range limitations on the violin, the harmony style in version seven (#7) must be employed. Here, what would be the harmony note directly beneath the melody (the alto part in classical lingo) in close harmony is dropped down an octave and is now the “bass” note; jazz writing often uses this “drop-two” technique. Finally, version eight (#8) employs close four-part harmony riffs in a horn-section style which can back up swing solos.

I have presented here examples of most western swing fiddle situations, but they are examples only. This style embraces experimentation and a general “go-for-it” attitude; once you have a handle on the basic elements, take the ball and run with it. Find people with whom you can make music; this makes your playing come together. You should also listen carefully to some of the artists listed in the short discography which follows.

Discography

Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys: For the Last Time

Liberty LBX-216

24 Great Hits b Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys

Polydormg-2-5303.

Bob wills and His Texas Playboys: The Tiffany Transcription

Kaleidoscope Records (this series includes ten volumes)

Spade Cooley: Columbia Historic Edition

Colombia Fc37467

Johnny Gimble: Still Fiddlin’ Around

MAC Records MCAD-42021

Columbia CK 36883

Joe Venuti in Milan

Vanguard VSD 79396

Joe Venuti: Violin Jazz 1927 to 1934

Yazoo 1062

Stuff Smith/ Dizzy Gillespie/ Oscar Peterson

Verve 314 521 676-2

Svend Asmussen: June Night

Doctor Jazz Records FW39150

Svend Asmussen: Hot Swing Fiddle Classics

Folklyric Records 9025

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