Orton's Ode: a tune-teaching video
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Orton's Ode: a tune-teaching video
created for the 2020 Hardanger Fiddle Association of American summer fest
So many things were cancelled in 2020 (and beyond), including the annual summer fest hosted by the Hardanger Fiddle Association of America. I’ve been to this event many times over the years, both as a student and a teacher, and just love it; we dive deep into fiddle tunes during the day, and then play for dancing all night (sometimes literally all night).
In an effort to do something the summer of 2020, the HFAA (led by the tireless and wonderful Loretta Kelley, who has taught me so much about the Hardanger fiddle) held a virtual camp, and invited me and several others to create teaching videos for people to learn tunes. In my video (below) I teach an old tune of mine called Orton’s Ode, made for my great uncle’s 100th birthday party many years ago (Orton Enstad). I delve into the tuning (it’s in one of my favorite scordatura, BEG#F#, bottom string up) and the details of the ornamenting and bowing, and of course the notes and structure of the tune. I won't say more, here it is:
Below find a few recorded versions of the tune, followed by a transcription to make learning maybe a bit easier:
Also, I play several tunes in an extension of this tuning on the 5-string Hardanger d’Amore (DADF#E); two of them were brand new when I made the video and referenced in passing, and have now been recorded, so check them out (Slow Eddy…, Mary Pitkin Path, in particular):
It’s a wonderful tuning!! Transcriptions for all of the tunes on Fifty Five and many others can be found here.