Stepp Down Hoedown

In 1937, an American folklorist and musicologist named Alan Lomax recorded the music of old-time fiddler William Hamilton Stepp on acetate, an early medium for capturing music for posterity. Little did Lomax know at the time, but he was recording a tune that would become one of America’s most recognized classical music themes.

Lomax was Assistant in Charge of the Archive of Folk Song of the Library of Congress from 1937 to 1942. In his first year of field recording, he documented Stepp playing solo fiddle in Kentucky. The tune recorded and logged for the Library was “Bonaparte’s Retreat Across the Rocky Mountains” or as Stepp called it and then Lomax wrote down phonetically - “Bonyparte.” Lomax hired the mother of famous folk musicians Pete and Mike Seeger, Ruth Crawford Seeger, to be music editor and transcriber for a publication entitled Our Singing Country, and it included “Bonaparte.”

In 1941, just after the publication was released, a request from legendary classical composer Aaron Copland was made to the Library of Congress to look at some traditional American folk music. Lomax steered him to “Bonyparte” and Copland transcribed the printed version of Stepp’s performance nearly note-for-note into his score as the “Hoedown” in his soon-to-be American hit, Rodeo.

William Stepp, like many fiddlers of his day, personified the mysterious creativity in American fiddling. He knew his craft and perhaps only his peers (other fiddlers) would know how to fully appreciate his way of handling folk music material. What Stepp had labeled ‘Bonyparte’ on that important recording was perhaps not the tune the archivists had thought, nor was it the traditional tune commonly known as “Bonaparte’s Retreat,” but original music created by Stepp from some of the elements of these tunes and personalized by his own playing and creativity. Stepp’s contraction of each phrase of the “Bonaparte’s Retreat” (something rarely done in fiddling traditions) and his melodic and rhythmic development of these newly created phrases resulted in producing an original idea that was documented in 1937.

Copland did not credit Stepp for this music on his score. He no doubt thought he was using purely a traditional tune from the public domain and, in fact, it wasn’t stated otherwise on the original transcription, nor from Stepp’s own words. Within folk traditions, confusions owing to the naming of tunes usually sort themselves out through the generations, but here we have a documented cultural misinterpretation of Stepp’s view of himself. Many fiddlers will call their re-workings (variations) of a tune by the old familiar name for one of several reasons – perhaps bragging rights to fellow fiddlers about how much of a departure he can invent. Another reason could be simply that a well-known name of a tune would often be called for at a dance or show and keeping the original name would give a fiddler an “excuse” to play his own creation. In the case of Stepp “Bonyparte,” unintentional oversights could have been mere blips on the screen if it weren¹t for the fact that Stepp’s variation (or tune) not only became a classical music piece by America’s foremost classical composer, but also became arguably one of the most recognized themes in American classical music history.

While we can’t know for sure that it was Stepp’s creation by himself, or if the tune came out of the environment of folk fiddlers around him, what was perhaps missed ironically was a fantastic example of significant complexity in the fiddling tradition in the case of this tune! Although the two men never met, this most unusual collaboration of Copland and Stepp produced a masterpiece of American music. With Copland arranging and orchestrating the actual composition of his folkmusic counterpart and contemporary, a result came about that no one could have planned or predicted.

Because of the geographic and cultural separation of Stepp’s Kentucky and Copland’s New York City in the 1940s and the fact that Stepp and many older fiddlers did not care to copyright their work, Stepp never knew what had happened to his tune. William Hamilton Stepp died in 1947, five years after the first production of Copland’s Rodeo, never having heard the glorious sound of his music being played by a full symphony orchestra.

As evidenced by the 1937 recording and transcription, Stepp used a less common fiddle cross-tuning DADD to create and play this tune. Transcribing the tune a further time, bringing it note-for-note into the standard tuning for the orchestral violins as Copland did, alters the authenticity of what a folk fiddler would have played without some further adaptation. The variation (and adaptation) in this book honors the Stepp/Copeland version and is better suited to the authentic style of playing - having the left hand remaining in first position as it did on Stepp’s cross-tuned fiddle, but with the string crossing and fingering more natural to the fiddling style.

From Book II of the O'Connor Method.
www.oconnormethod.com

From The New World

Antonin Dvorak, the famous 19th century Czech composer, was born near Prague and studied music at an early age in a village school. He later studied violin, viola, piano and organ in Prague eventually playing viola professionally in the Provisional Theatre Orchestra. He soon became one of the most successful composers of his time. In 1892, at the age of 50, the already celebrated composer left his native Czechoslovakia and traveled across the Atlantic to New York City. He had been asked by Jeannette Thurber, the director of the city’s National Conservatory of Music, to come and direct the school and, perhaps more importantly, to help Americans find a pathway to their own classical music.

Dvorak wrote to his friends in Prague about his new post: “The Americans expect great things of me and the main thing is, so they say, to show them to the promised land and kingdom of a new and independent art, in short, to create a national music. If the small Czech nation can have such musicians, they say, why could not they, too, when their country and people are so immense? It is certainly both a great and a splendid task for me and I hope that with God’s help I shall accomplish it. There is more than enough material here – another spirit, other thoughts, another coloring – something Indian – and plenty of talent.”

Knowing nothing like it in his native Bohemia, Dvorak was fascinated by Native American culture. He had read Longfellow’s Hiawatha (in Czech) and was inspired by the “Song of the Hiawatha.” Also, people of African descent were rare in his country and the sounds of the African American melodies and plantation songs (spirituals) caught his attention and were deeply inspiring to him. Harry Burleigh, a pupil of Dvorak’s in New York, an African American, was instrumental in introducing Dvorak to this music.

In 1893, Dvorak told the New York Herald that songs like “Deep River,” “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and “Goin’ Home” were the necessary foundation for “the future of music of this country.” On another occasion he said: “I am now satisfied that the future music of this country must be founded upon what are called the negro melodies. This must be the real foundation of any serious and original school of composition to be developed in the United States.”

Knowing of Dvorak’s interest in Hiawatha and his well-known ambition to be a successful opera composer, Ms. Thurber supposedly presented Dvorak with a proposal to compose an opera on this theme. However, evidence suggests that Dvorak decided instead to use the Native American and African American material in his Ninth Symphony, a great expansive work conceived through the prism of a master Czech composer about a new country and its people.

While in America, Dvorak spent some time in the Czech-speaking community of Spillville, Iowa, where he composed chamber pieces including the “American” String Quartet. He also traveled to Omaha, Chicago and Minneapolis-St. Paul before returning to New York, the period that produced his famous Cello Concerto. Dvorak was admittedly homesick after spending just three years in America and, in 1895, he returned to his homeland. However, the music he composed in his relatively short time in America remains among his most popular, and some say his best, work. Presented here are two arrangements of excerpts from the 2nd and 4th movements of Dvorak’s Ninth Symphony which he himself titled “From the New World.”

From Book II of the O'Connor Method.
www.oconnormethod.com

El Rancho Grande

“El Rancho Grande,” more completely “Alla en el Rancho Grande,” is a traditional Mexican ballad in the style known as Musica Ranchera or “ranch music.” Ranchera is a type of song featuring themes of love, patriotism and nature typically sung on Mexican ranches dating back to the time of the Mexican Revolution in 1800. “Alla en el Rancho Grande,” a Spanishlanguage song, has become one of the best-known cowboy songs in the Southwestern United States largely popularized by the 1936 Mexican film by the same name. It has been sung by well-known recording artists from Bing Crosby to Elvis Presley.

People living in the area of today’s Mexico have a rich tradition of musical culture. During the Mayan civilization, ocarinas (flutes) and percussion instruments similar to maracas were used. The Aztec civilizations sang various kinds of hymns. When the Spanish defeated the Aztecs to conquer Mesoamerica (central region of Mexico), they imported a mix of Spanish violin and guitar music and the music of African slaves that traveled with them to Mexico.

When Mexico became independent from Spain at the turn of the 19th Century, Bohemian immigrants from Central Europe began to settle Northern Mexico (today’s Texas) bringing the waltz and polka dances to that area. In the 1830s, German immigrants established the first settlements from the Texas coastal plains into the hill country. This area became known as the German Belt. Bringing with it the accordion along with its waltzes and polkas, this culture mixed with the indigenous, Spanish, African and Cuban musical cultures already there to form the Ranchera style and the Nortenos music (a similar style found in the Northern Mexico).

Before the Mexican revolution, the musical regions of Mexico could be differentiated by what was termed “the nine sons.” Ranchera is an outgrowth of “son jalescenses.” “Son Mariachi” - (dancers on a wooden platform), is the most familiar son in the past. Today, Mariachi is closely tied to the style of Ranchera and has become the best known music of Mexico. Although smaller groups are common, Mariachi music is most authentically played by a band of eight performers consisting of three guitarists (Spanish guitar, vilhuela and guitarron), three violinists and two trumpets.

From Book II of the O'Connor Method.
www.oconnormethod.com

Shenandoah

“Shenandoah” belongs to a category of folksongs known as Sea Shanties, derived from the French word “chanter” meaning “to sing” and often heard on Missouri River steamships. This particular shanty features one of the most beautiful melodies in American music. The lyrics tell the story of an American journey westward.

The ancient Native American legend of the Shenandoah Valley - Daughter of the Stars - is attributed to the Senedo tribe, who lived in what is now known as Virginia. The Shenandoah Valley’s local native population was virtually eliminated in 1732 by the Cherokee Nation, their enemies to the South. When the first Europeans began to settle the area around the same time, the Shenandoah Valley was used only as a hunting ground for the neighboring Shawnee, Iroquois, Occoneechee, Monacans and Piscataways. No tribe laid claim to the land.

The lyrics to “Shenandoah” present a mystery: “O Shenandoah I love your daughter (sometimes ‘waters’), Far away you rollin’ river, O Shenandoah, I long to see you, Away, I’m bound away, Cross the wide Missouri.” One interpretation has a man falling in love with the daughter of an Native American chief (Shenandoah) and having his heart torn as he leaves her and travels a thousand miles to the Missouri River and the West. However, since there were no longer native tribes in the valley by the 1730s, and since most sea shanty songs we know today date back only as far as the early 1800s, the lyrics most probably reference longing for the beautiful rivers of the Shenandoah Valley and not for a woman.

In 1803, heading West became an objective for many new Americans living in the Shenandoah Valley when President Jefferson created initiatives encouraging them to seek their fortunes beyond the Missouri. An ancient Native American route (known as Indian Road or Great Wagon Road) was established in the Shenandoah Valley as a main artery for Westward expansion.

“Shenandoah’s” lyrics exhibit quintessential Americana ideals: reverence for the natural beauty of the land, traveling to find a better life with more freedom and the nostalgia of remembering home. In this song the lyrics sing of the sadness of leaving the “rolling” Shenandoah River, the “daughter” of the stars, for the unknown frontier of the Big Muddy or River of the West - the “wide Missouri.”

From Book II of the O'Connor Method.
www.oconnormethod.com

Dill Pickle Rag

An American music style called Ragtime became popular in 1899 with the publication of Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag.” This music, featuring syncopated (ragged-time) rhythms, evolved from Cakewalks, Jigs, Two-steps and Marches commonly played by African American musicians. “Dill Pickle Rag” (aka “Dill Pickles”) was composed in 1906 by Charles L. Johnson, a successful African American composer from Kansas City, and became the first Ragtime tune to sell more than a million copies of sheet music. It was also one of the first major hits from Tin Pan Alley - the music industry of that time marketing popular songs. The chief device that made “Dill Pickles” so attractive was the 3-note-melody-against-a-4-beat-rhythm pattern that subsequently became a standard motif in Ragtime music.

Many of the early “rags” were in fact Cakewalks, a dance (once called the Chalk-line Walk) that developed on Southern plantations in the 1850s. Fieldhands would hold dances on Sundays and Holidays satirizing the proper Minuets and Quadrilles danced at the fancy balls. The couples or “walkers,” promenading in a dignified manner, would mimic their owners by high-stepping, strutting, bowing low, arching their backs, waving canes, tipping hats and throwing back their heads. Some of the plantation owners found this very entertaining and began to bake special cakes and award them as prizes to the best dancers of the day - coining the phrase: “That takes the cake!”

The popularity of the Cakewalk soon spread to the North and also to Europe. In 1913, legendary classical composer Claude Debussy composed and published “Golliwog¹s Cakewalk,” titled for his daughter's minstrel dolls the likes of which were also becoming popular all over Europe. Early Southern Cakewalk music, often played on the violin, contained both syncopated and Cuban habanera/contradanza rhythms. The music of these Cakewalks and Jubilees are the earliest examples of the use of “swung rhythm,” but it was the evolution into Ragtime that eventually solidified this unique rhythmic sound and feel into an important category of American Musical Art. “Dill Pickle Rag,” like many other Rags, has become a staple in the old-time fiddle tune repertoire.

For this tune and more, check out Mark O'Connor's The Championship Years.
From Book II of the O'Connor Method.
www.oconnormethod.com

Bunker Hill

“Bunker Hill” was written by one of America’s distinguished Colonial musicians, Andrew Law; the lyrics are derived from a poem by Nathaniel Niles entitled “The American Hero.” The ballad commemorates the first battle of the Revolutionary War fought on June 17th, 1775, at Bunker Hill during the Siege of Boston. Law’s melody expresses the intense emotion and tremendous suffering of
the famous battle, and Niles’ words accentuate the urgency of the great cause being fought for at the time: “Life, for my Country and the Cause of Freedom, is but a Trifle for a Worm to part with.”

When the war began, the British knew the importance of the city of Boston to the American colonists and wanted to gain control of it early on. Across the Charles River, in Boston, stood two hills on the Charlestown Peninsula - Breed’s Hill and Bunker Hill. 1500 American colonists were sent to establish defensive positions on Bunker Hill. In the space of just two hours, 2500 British soldiers charged the Colonial patriots (rebels) three separate times. Fighting from V-shaped trenches hastily built overnight, the Colonial forces drove back the first two attacks causing heavy losses. On the third attempt, the British commander ordered a bayonet charge to seize Breed’s Hill. Many of the American militias, lacking bayonets on the their muskets and running short of ammunition, were forced to fall back to their fortified position in Cambridge. The British controlled Bunker Hill.

The American Colonists sustained their greatest number of casualties while in retreat on Bunker Hill. The British army suffered even more casualties, though - forty percent of their forces, including officers, were lost. Great Britain had won the first important battle of the war. The American troops, however, had learned that the British army was not invincible in traditional warfare. The Battle of Bunker Hill became a symbol of national pride and a rallying-point of the rebellion against British rule.

Purchase Mark O'Connor's Liberty! for this tune and more!
From Book II of the O'Connor Method.
www.oconnormethod.com

Cielito Lindo

“Cielito Lindo,” a ballad in 3/4 time composed by Mexico’s Quirino Mendoza y Cortés in 1882, is based on the old Spanish rustic-song carol (villancico) and has become one of the best known Spanish-language songs in the world. The words “cielito lindo,” interpreted literally, mean “pretty little sky,” or “lovely sky.” However, in the context of this song, they are used as an affectionate term for a beautiful young girl. The style of this Mexican music is Mariachi: a cross-pollination of the area’s influx of Spanish culture including violins and guitars, and that of the indigenous Mexican Indian and “Mestizo” cultures featuring hand-built instruments with unique shapes resembling their European counterparts.

The use of the “Sierra Morena” lyric in the opening verse describes where the beautiful young girl is from. The line “two dark eyes like robbers” describes her as a “gypsy thief” from Sierre Morena, Andalucia Spain, a notorious area that became a center for deported Romani/Gypsies hundreds
of years earlier. Because Roma endured ongoing persecution, they often had little choice but to come down from the mountain occasionally to steal food to survive. In writing this song, Cortés either could have visited Spain, or simply remembered stories told through old Andalucian folk songs dealing with these topics. Only this time, the young girl comes down from the chestnut mountain to steal the man’s heart.

From Book II of the O'Connor Method.

www.oconnormethod.com