In the late 1950’s, my Dad came home with a good looking fiddle. He informed me that Leo Sullivan had bought the fiddle for him from one of the O’Brien boys for $50.00 while they attended a house party the night before in the Quadeville area.
Soon after, I informed my Dad that I would like to learn how to play this instrument. He tried to give me some lessons, but I could not grasp his technique. Years later in Toronto, I still had a love for the fiddle. Someone once said, the fiddle is the musical instrument that most closely resembles the human voice. So, speaking with George Heinl while looking at his fiddles, he recommended that I contact Eleanor Townsend, wife of Graham Townsend, and take some lessons. Upon doing so, she informed me that first I had to learn how to read music, bowing technique, ear training, finger positioning and scales. I found it nearly impossible, or at least very difficult, to learn how to play. I could only imagine how talented my Dad, James P., must have been.
In April 1987, my Dad passed this Fiddle on to me. It’s label reads “Antonius Stradivarius 1713”. I can only play one of James P’s tunes, but I can’t tell you the name of it. I asked him to play it for me one day while he visited me at my cottage in the mid 1980’s, so that I might record it. The recording is James P. playing the fiddle solo with the tramping of his foot on my kitchen floor. I played it once for Graham Townsend, but he didn’t know the name of it either.
Recently, I gave a tape recording copy of this tune to my Old Time Fiddle Instructor, Mr. Jamie Snider. He loved the tune, but couldn’t put a name to it. He said that it sounds like an Ottawa Valley tune. He has put it on sheet music, showing the fiddle notes as well as the piano and guitar chords. When our whole class plays this tune I seem to get entranced under a sonic spell.
Jamie has asked my permission for him to include it on his next album and name it simply “James P’s Tune”. Don’t be surprised if some day Natalie MacMaster or Ashley MacIssac opens one of their shows playing this tune – perhaps on Late Night with Conan O’Brien.
Short Stories by Bryan Madigan