Strum Machine or How to Have Fun Practicing
For most of us, the best part about playing oldtime is playing music with other people. It is a rare joy of human existence to connect with others as we sound...
Turkey in the Straw – harmonica fiddle duet
Seth Shumate is one of a small handful of great oldtime harmonica players. What he can do few others can. Here Seth and Ben Smith (fiddle) sit down to play the...
Review: Bartlett Fiddle Mic
Quick Summary
If you're looking for the Goldilocks of fiddle microphones, then the Bartlett Fiddle Mic might just be it. There are many cheaper mics and pickups, there...
Ten Places to Start for Oldtime Fiddle
Oldtime fiddle - The Devil's Box?
Let's be straight – oldtime fiddle is not for the faint of heart. It might be scratchy and "mossy", played all kinds of ways by generations of folk musicians,...
10+ Ways to Get Better at Your Instrument
Benjamin Smith, James Peterson and Richard Osban
It's an unfortunate truth that the best musicians are usually the ones who are willing to spend some of their...
A Reasoned Defense of Notation in Oldtime Music
There is some controversy in oldtime communities around the use of musical notation – both tablature and standard notation – in learning tunes. What role does notation have? Is it ok...
Get Up in the Cool: Interview with Cameron DeWhitt
How did Get Up in the Cool get started?
I listen to podcasts constantly, and I have for years. I got my first smartphone and then it was...
Oldtime in the Golden Age of Instagram
When fiddler George Jackson first saw a banjo player post an Instagram video of themselves playing “Dorrigo”, an original tune off Jackson’s new record, he was flattered. He didn’t expect that...
“The Mountain Minor” Movie Review and Interview
The Mountain Minor is a fictional film to be released in October 2019 that tells the interrelated stories of oldtime music, family, place, and history in the Appalachians.
Is oldtime out of tune?
Whether we admit it or not, almost all of us have had that moment of listening to an oldtime fiddler – it's almost always the fiddler – and cringing. "Oh good...
