MegaBand Tune of the Month: Notorious
by Bruce Thomson

            This past February we (Hands 5) got invited to play for the Stellar Days & Nights dance in Buena Vista, CO, organized by Eleanor & Andrew Fahrney.  Wow, what a great experience! The camp is located in the Arkansas River valley and is surrounded by 14,000 ft peaks, has great accommodations, fantastic food (Annie Johnston), superb callers (Merri Rudd, with a bit of help from Jim X. Borzym, and Eleanor), and over 100 excellent dancers.  Without a doubt it’s the best dance camp I’ve been to.  If you’re interested in a mid-winter dance camp this is the one to go to.

            We were the local talent; the headliner band was Notorious from Boston, consisting of Larry Unger and Eden MacAdam-Somer, and we split the music duties about equally.  For me the weekend was extra special as I got to know Larry & Eden a bit.  They were very gracious and shared with me some of their thoughts and experiences on their lives as full time professional traditional musicians.

            Larry usually plays guitar and banjo on stage, but is perhaps best known as a prolific composer of traditional tunes.  He’s written over 1,000 tunes and many are published in his own books as well as compilations such as the Portland Collection.  Larry got started on acoustic music in college, first listening to and learning the blues from Etta Baker, John Jackson, and others.  After hearing Mike Seeger play, he got a banjo and started learning old timey music and eventually attended the Fiddlers Grove music festival, which focused his attention on fiddle tunes.  Over 20 years ago he quit a job he didn’t like to give music a try, and hasn’t looked back since.

            Many of us have written a tune or two, but Larry takes it to a whole ‘nother level. He tries to pick up an instrument and noodle around on it everyday to see if any ideas come; if they do he’ll quickly score it out or tape it so it doesn’t get lost.  He will use different instruments while composing, as the flavor of the tunes are strongly influenced by the attributes of the instrument they’re played on.  He’ll write tunes while playing banjo, guitar, mandolin, and especially likes the piano for writing waltzes. While some tunes come to him in as little as a few minutes, more often they take much longer, sometimes months.  He keeps a folder of “works in progress” and says it has hundreds of tunes in it.

            He sometimes will start with a general idea in mind as in trying for a Latin sound, a particular chord progression or a particular key.  He also writes tunes for commission, and will occasionally donate a composition for a fund raising auction at a dance camp.  But more often the tunes just flow off his fingers onto the fret board and subsequently wind up as dots on a score sheet.

            Eden grew up in Houston started with classical lessons when she was little and fell in love with fiddle music when an Aunt took her to a contra dance in Boston.  Since then she’s branched out to old timey, celtic, swing, jazz, Klezmer, and eastern European/Gypsy music.  She does it all superbly.  She continues to have a strong interest in classical and has done a solo concert of violin and fiddle music this spring.  She says some of her teachers and her siblings, two of whom are also professional musicians, don’t understand her interest in so many styles of music, but I sure do; she’s an incredible fiddle player.

            We talked a bit about the mechanics of playing.  Eden says she tries to play at least 4 hours per day, though it’s difficult when they’re on the road.  She takes a long time to warm up and starts with scales and arpeggios, then works on alternate bowings, maybe some etudes, and so on.  She’ll try to play in each of her many styles during a practice session.

            I was somewhat skeptical that a two-person band could provide enough sound and energy for a contra dance, but after the first few moments, such doubts were completely erased.  Larry and Eden will start a dance perhaps with an old timey, swing or even Gypsy tune, but they never play it the same way twice.  After a time or two through the tune Eden will be soaring at the top of the fingerboard, or sliding all the way down to the lowest notes on the instrument.  Because he’s got to hold the rhythm together, Larry is usually a little more restrained, but one tune will find him playing simple two or three chord backup, then the next will have him socking out closed chord swing progressions.  Because there’re just two of them, they both have much more freedom to improvise than if they were a bigger band.  Occasionally Larry will stop playing altogether (I hope Eden gets paid extra for the extra work) leaving the hall filled with Eden’s fiddling and the stomping and swishing sounds from the dance floor.  A very interesting and effective technique, though I don’t know if you could pull it off successfully without pretty good dancers.

            I’ve got their 2006 “Notorious” CD (Black Socks CD 26) in the CD player now, and it’s quickly become one of my favorites.  They’ve got another CD coming out this summer.  It will include the Berkeley Reel found in Larry’s tune book “The Reckless Reel and 101 Other tunes.”

ABC Notation

X:84
T:Berkeley Reel
R:reel
C:Larry Unger
B:Reckless Reel
Z:Transcribed by Mary Lou Knack 1-Oct-1998
Z:Included by permission from Larry Unger
M:C
L:1/8
Q:1/2=120
K:Bm
|:"Bm"Bffe fgfe| "G"dBBA "A"ABcA| "Bm"Bffe fgfe| "G"dBAF "F#m"A2FA|
"Bm"Bffe fgfe| "G"dBBA "A"ABcA| "G"B2dB "D"AFED| "Em"EFED "G"B,2D2 :|
|:"Em"EDB,D E2DE| "F#m"FAAB AFED| "G"EDEF EDB,D| "G"EDB,D "A"A,4|
"Em"EDB,D E2DE| "F#m"FAAB AFED| "G"EDEF EDB,D| "A"FABA "Bm"B4|
"Em"EDB,D E2DE| "F#m"FAAB AFED| "G"EDEF EDB,D| "G"EDB,D "A"A,4|
"Em"EDB,D E2DE| "F#m"FAAB AFED|"Em"EFGE "F#m"FGAc| "G"Bcde "A"fedc |]