G.P Knauff Reel Medley

Comment by Strumelia on February 22, 2016 at 12:15pm

I love that you are all literally bringing these tunes back from the dead.  And I'm humbled and thrilled that you are all my friends!    :)

Comment by Mark Weems on February 22, 2016 at 12:18pm

The fiddle scores do exist - in the hands and minds of fiddlers and banjo players who have been playing these tunes in an unbroken line of succession since before Knauff. Many of these tunes are still being played by old-time musicians right now - even in the same key. Forked Deer is a perfect example - it requires no re-arranging for the banjo and it sounds exactly like people play it down in this region today. Several of them later became Minstrel Stage tunes in spite of people like Dan Emmett claiming to have composed some of them - Boatman's Dance, for example.

Comment by Mark Weems on February 22, 2016 at 12:51pm

None that I or Alan Jabbour are aware of. 

Comment by John Masciale on February 22, 2016 at 2:51pm

I haven't come across very many scores outside of these for many of these tunes. I will say that even the familiar tunes are a little different from what we are familiar with. The bass line in the piano arrangement really changes the texture of the music. Playing some of these on banjo loses that aspect of the music. Some of these pieces were written by Knauff, which means the piano score is his first publication of the music, so looking at the piano score in these cases is very important.

Comment by John Masciale on February 22, 2016 at 4:18pm

A little of both.  It is really difficult to see where some of these came from. It might be very interesting to compare these scores with the scores from the collections of William Sidney Mount and Micah Hawkins.

Comment by Mark Weems on February 22, 2016 at 9:19pm

John, where did you read that Knauff wrote some of these? It is not in any of the articles I have read on the collection.

Comment by John Masciale on February 23, 2016 at 10:09am

Mark, Look under the titles. Most say nothing, some say arranged by George P Knauff, some say varied by George P Knauff,  and some say by George P Knauff.  Look for instance at Indian Whoop. There are some that say "Baltimore, published by F.D. Benteen." Since the Virginia Reels were published by George Willig Jr. it means that Kauff got them from a different publisher and put them into this collection.

Comment by John Masciale on February 23, 2016 at 10:18am

Tim, you have access to the Hawkins stuff?  We have to talk! It is entirely possible that some of these might be in there. As I stated above, some of the tunes in this collection were clearly taken from other sources.

Comment by John Masciale on February 23, 2016 at 10:21am

Tim, you can't go by the titles, you must look at the basic melody lines. They had a bad habit of changing a title and shifting a couple of notes to get around copyright laws, or to sell a new piece of sheet music. It makes the job of chasing down the sources for tunes much more difficult.

Comment by Mark Weems on February 23, 2016 at 12:38pm

John, have you read Alan Jabbour's article on the Collection? It speaks of where and how he collected these tunes.

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