LATEST EXPEDITIONS
Meeting roughly fortnightly at the Toowoomba Farmers Markets on a Saturday between 9-12. BYO instrument and a chair(if you have a spare) and enjoy the festivities of a thriving market - Bakers and Baristas are always there.
Fb or Email for MMOT meet dates.
Fb or Email for MMOT meet dates.
SongsOld Time music is an aural tradition, though plenty of folks have made and make use of written resources. |
historywell this little jam started in a backyard in Toowoomba and exploded into the public domain in July 2024. With many many thanks to Robyn at the TFMarket, please do thank her for having us when you see her. |
VenueAt the western edge of the market along the campbell st. Tucked over the hill behind Laundry & Lattes. |
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Get started with...
Angeline the baker (d and G chord)
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Chestnut Tunes
Bangers, hits, top 10. Juliene Johnson (G) Big Sciota ( G ) Kitchen Girl (A & Am, G & E) Cripple Creek ( D G A ) Chinquapin Hunting |
Further Listening
a cultivated Spotify list a recommended podcast - Get up in the cool. Podcast app. Spotify app. Some tunes for your listening pleasure... red prairie dawn Red Rocking chair Dorrigo Sally Anne Whiskey before breakfast st annes reel Greasy Coat Gospel Plough Waterbound High on the mountain been all around this world Hills of mexico Hop high Kitchen Girl (A & Am, G & E) Cripple Creek ( D G A ) Chinquapin Hunting Big Scioty Soliders Joy |
Old Time History
Taken from - https://olyarts.org/2020/01/26/old-time-history/
By Ned Hayes
In 1991, MC Hammer was huge. I was a published music critic; yet I wouldn’t write about Hammer’s platinum hit “U Can’t Touch This.” Instead, I was obsessed with a young, touring folk musician. In an era when hip hop was going corporate and rap and rock bands were increasingly signing their souls away, I heard James “Sparky” Rucker giving his audience a timeless experience. Rucker sang old-time blues, Appalachian music, ballads, Civil War music, railroad songs, slave songs, spirituals, work songs and original compositions, accompanied by banjo, fiddle and picked guitar. These tunes had an authenticity that served as a powerful counterbalance to the corporate monster of the music-industry machine. When I heard his Tiny House Concert, I felt my faith restored: Music could matter; music could echo in our souls long after a concert was over, and it didn’t have to be all about making another buck or selling another album. My headline article for the music section was titled “Can Touch This: Sparky Rucker’s Real Music.” Real music: That’s exactly the revelatory experience one can find at old-time music events today.
“Old-time” is the umbrella term for tunes by musicians like Sparky Rucker, and it’s also the sacred, musical wellspring that has given voice to entire genres of music — from bluegrass and western swing to country and many strains of contemporary rock. In fact, such present-day performers as Brandi Carlile, Mumford & Sons, Old Crow Medicine Show and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros use their music to echo the old-time traditions of acoustic hand-picked instruments, improvisational play and melodic vocals that edge in and out of harmony in joyful and melancholy chord structures. But creating pop stars isn’t the point of this music.
“Old-time music is mainly made by people in their communities, either to entertain themselves or their friends and family, or often for a dance. At its heart it is a folk music,” explains Emily Teachout, cofounder of the Oly Old Time Festival. The word folk refers to the fact that music can be played by anyone on acoustic instruments that they can learn to use by themselves or from another player, and that is shared through an aural tradition.. These instruments usually include fiddle and plucked-string instruments like the banjo, guitar or mandolin. Old-time music is also dance music – it accompanied square dances, waltzes, and individual flatfoot dancers (or cloggers). Yet old-time music also includes both ballads and songs that were often stories or cautionary tales, and not just instrumental dance tunes. “It’s really much more about participation than performance,” says Teachout. “That’s why the tradition includes so much group jamming. Compared to later forms of American music, like bluegrass, where people take breaks and solos, in old time everyone plays the same melody together. This makes it easier to learn, and easier to pass on.”
The original music emerged out of a melding of several cultures on the Appalachian frontier in the 1700 and 1800s. Scots-Irish immigrants brought fiddles and tunes from the British Isles, and in Appalachia, they began to encounter African and Native American musical cultures. African Americans, both slave and free, had brought with them from Africa the original, gourd-based banjo, as well as haunting melodies and improvisational traditions. The African instruments and traditions became the core of new musical interactions. Traditional, Native American circle dances and community dancing mirrored, echoed and changed how the musical community gathered and interacted.
Taken from - https://olyarts.org/2020/01/26/old-time-history/
By Ned Hayes
In 1991, MC Hammer was huge. I was a published music critic; yet I wouldn’t write about Hammer’s platinum hit “U Can’t Touch This.” Instead, I was obsessed with a young, touring folk musician. In an era when hip hop was going corporate and rap and rock bands were increasingly signing their souls away, I heard James “Sparky” Rucker giving his audience a timeless experience. Rucker sang old-time blues, Appalachian music, ballads, Civil War music, railroad songs, slave songs, spirituals, work songs and original compositions, accompanied by banjo, fiddle and picked guitar. These tunes had an authenticity that served as a powerful counterbalance to the corporate monster of the music-industry machine. When I heard his Tiny House Concert, I felt my faith restored: Music could matter; music could echo in our souls long after a concert was over, and it didn’t have to be all about making another buck or selling another album. My headline article for the music section was titled “Can Touch This: Sparky Rucker’s Real Music.” Real music: That’s exactly the revelatory experience one can find at old-time music events today.
“Old-time” is the umbrella term for tunes by musicians like Sparky Rucker, and it’s also the sacred, musical wellspring that has given voice to entire genres of music — from bluegrass and western swing to country and many strains of contemporary rock. In fact, such present-day performers as Brandi Carlile, Mumford & Sons, Old Crow Medicine Show and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros use their music to echo the old-time traditions of acoustic hand-picked instruments, improvisational play and melodic vocals that edge in and out of harmony in joyful and melancholy chord structures. But creating pop stars isn’t the point of this music.
“Old-time music is mainly made by people in their communities, either to entertain themselves or their friends and family, or often for a dance. At its heart it is a folk music,” explains Emily Teachout, cofounder of the Oly Old Time Festival. The word folk refers to the fact that music can be played by anyone on acoustic instruments that they can learn to use by themselves or from another player, and that is shared through an aural tradition.. These instruments usually include fiddle and plucked-string instruments like the banjo, guitar or mandolin. Old-time music is also dance music – it accompanied square dances, waltzes, and individual flatfoot dancers (or cloggers). Yet old-time music also includes both ballads and songs that were often stories or cautionary tales, and not just instrumental dance tunes. “It’s really much more about participation than performance,” says Teachout. “That’s why the tradition includes so much group jamming. Compared to later forms of American music, like bluegrass, where people take breaks and solos, in old time everyone plays the same melody together. This makes it easier to learn, and easier to pass on.”
The original music emerged out of a melding of several cultures on the Appalachian frontier in the 1700 and 1800s. Scots-Irish immigrants brought fiddles and tunes from the British Isles, and in Appalachia, they began to encounter African and Native American musical cultures. African Americans, both slave and free, had brought with them from Africa the original, gourd-based banjo, as well as haunting melodies and improvisational traditions. The African instruments and traditions became the core of new musical interactions. Traditional, Native American circle dances and community dancing mirrored, echoed and changed how the musical community gathered and interacted.
Meet your host - Ayden Roberts local singer songwriter, Old Time music enthusiast & music teacher. 1/4 of Rusty Pickups, below average Windsurfer, reasonable sound engineer. Book a lesson @
