If you haven't been playing long, or you're new to a jam, you should start the tunes. Seems backwards, right? But it's not.
I'll meet a relatively new musician -- not even necessarily a beginner, just someone who's new to this music -- at a jam or a festival, we'll take out our instruments, and I'll say, "Great! Start a tune."
"I don't know very many tunes," he'll say. "You start one."
Think about the arithmetic.
There's a book called Cole's 1000 Fiddle Tunes. Suppose you've been playing for a while and know 100 of them. One out of every ten. You meet someone else who's just learned his first tune. What're the odds that if he starts it, you'll know it? One in ten.
What're the odds that if you start a tune, he'll know it? One in a hundred.
If he starts a tune, it's ten times as likely that you'll both know it and have fun playing it.
If you can't start any of the tunes you know, learn to start one. Just one. It's an icebreaker.
If you can start one, learn to start one in each key. "Each key" just means D, G, A, so that's not as big a job as it sounds like. If you're in Mississippi, it probably means learning to start one in C, too. If you're in New England, in F. Okay, even that's only five.
A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.
And vice-versa: a journey of a thousand steps starts with a single mile. "Mile" started as the Latin "mille," or "thousand," because the Roman army measured distances in marching steps. A mile is a thousand steps. Okay, actually, it's a thousand paces, where a pace is two steps, but it's still worth turning the saying around. A mile is 1760 yards, so that gives you a rough estimate of the stride length of the Roman soldier.
Wait. Where was I? Oh. Sorry.
The odds are actually even better than I just made them sound. If you only know one tune, it's almost certain to be a common tune; if you start it, everyone else will know it.
You might be thinking, "I might make mistakes. He'll see I'm not very good." Well, yeah. If it turns out you just met someone who doesn't want to play with anybody who isn't as good as he is, you might as well find that out as fast as possible. It'll let you move on to find nicer folks more quickly.
The rest of us are fine with it. Sure, most of the people I know were born experts, but the rest of us actually started as beginners, too. Teenagers will tell parents, "You just don't know what it's like to be my age!" What? We were born old?
But it's deeper than that.
I'm told that Road to Boston, a relatively common tune, was what the Rhode Island militia marched to on its way to the battle of Saratoga. General John, "Gentleman Johnny," Burgoyne wrote The Dashing White Sergeant. And Garfield's Blackberry Blossom? President-to-Be Garfield, then only a Major General, whistled it while riding to the battle of Chickamauga.
This music has been handed down, musician to musician, for hundreds of years. It's not learned from books. I know Yankee Doodle because someone taught it to me, who knew it because someone taught it to them, who knew it because, someone taught it to them, who ... stretching all the way back to at least our Revolutionary War.
The Illiad and Beowulf used to be stories that parents told their kids. Now, you only suffer through them in literature courses by professors who deconstruct them, telling you what they wish the words meant.
The first time a generation doesn't pass American dance tunes on, it kills our music forever. I feel a deep, moral obligation to pass them on to you. It is our, unique, aural tradition, and I'm just a link in the chain. You too.
Some folks are born knowing this. When I met Molly McGowan, she was still in high school and had just started playing. "Start a tune," I said. She immediately ripped into Forked Deer. Not too fast. Not too notey. No hesitation. No "You start one. I'm just a beginner." It was, pure and simple, a tune she knew.
If you meet her, ask her if she'll teach it to you. Bet so.
