National Old-Time Fiddlers Contest
   HOME
*





National Old-Time Fiddlers Contest
The National Oldtime Fiddlers' Contest is an old-time music competition, festival, and musical gathering in the western United States, held annually during the third full week in June in Weiser, Idaho, about northwest of Boise. Within the fiddling community, it is often referred to simply as "Weiser", and the contest draws musicians from across the country. Nearly 7,000 attend for the week and almost 350 fiddlers compete in eight divisions. In addition to the contest there are workshops, performances, a battle of the bands, a parade and a carnival. The contest is held at Weiser High School: the competition is held in the gymnasium, and most of the contestants camp in the school's sports fields. History The contest began in 1953 as the Northwest Mountain Fiddlers' Contest, organized by Blaine Stubblefield, secretary of the Weiser Chamber of Commerce. The contest increased in size each year, and competitors came from farther away. The name was changed to the Northwest Oldt ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in free association with three Pacific Island sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City. Paleo-Americ ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Celtic Music
Celtic music is a broad grouping of music genres that evolved out of the folk music traditions of the Celtic people of Northwestern Europe. It refers to both orally-transmitted traditional music and recorded music and the styles vary considerably to include everything from traditional music to a wide range of hybrids. Description and definition ''Celtic music'' means two things mainly. First, it is the music of the people that identify themselves as Celts. Secondly, it refers to whatever qualities may be unique to the music of the Celtic nations. Many notable Celtic musicians such as Alan Stivell and Paddy Moloney claim that the different Celtic music genres have a lot in common. These following melodic practices may be used widely across the different variants of Celtic Music: *It is common for the melodic line to move up and down the primary chords in many Celtic songs. There are a number of possible reasons for this: **''Melodic variation'' can be easily introduced. Mel ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Tourist Attractions In Washington County, Idaho
Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. The World Tourism Organization defines tourism more generally, in terms which go "beyond the common perception of tourism as being limited to holiday activity only", as people "travelling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure and not less than 24 hours, business and other purposes". Tourism can be domestic (within the traveller's own country) or international, and international tourism has both incoming and outgoing implications on a country's balance of payments. Tourism numbers declined as a result of a strong economic slowdown (the late-2000s recession) between the second half of 2008 and the end of 2009, and in consequence of the outbreak of the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus, but slowly recovered until the COVID-19 pa ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Music Festivals In Idaho
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect of all human societies, a cultural universal. While scholars agree that music is defined by a few specific elements, there is no consensus on their precise definitions. The creation of music is commonly divided into musical composition, musical improvisation, and musical performance, though the topic itself extends into academic disciplines, criticism, philosophy, and psychology. Music may be performed or improvised using a vast range of instruments, including the human voice. In some musical contexts, a performance or composition may be to some extent improvised. For instance, in Hindustani classical music, the performer plays spontaneously while following a partially defined structure and using characteristic motifs. In modal jazz the p ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Folk Festivals In The United States
Folk festivals are an important part of American community life. For the American people, popular folk festivals are important events composed of complex folklore phenomena. Folk festivals are generally used to celebrate folk music and traditional folk crafts, and some folk festivals are embodied in the form of dance and art. Some festivals are used to celebrate the harvest of crops or to gather people to watch performances and enjoy music, dance and folk culture on a specific day. These folk festivals can be categorized into music, dance, traditional culture and art as well as traditional crafts. Some folk festivals have a long history and they have been passed down from generation to generation. Even the folk festivals that have been recognized by people in recent years have received attention. There are hundreds of folk festivals in American waiting to be celebrated, and each festival has its own characteristics and style. As an inclusive country that incorporates a diverse cult ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

List Of Folk Festivals
A folk festival celebrates traditional folk crafts and folk music. This list includes folk festivals worldwide, except those with only a partial focus on folk music or arts. Folk festivals may also feature folk dance or ethnic foods. Handicrafting has long been exhibited at such events and festival-like gatherings, as it has its roots in the rural crafts. Like folk art, handicraft output often has cultural, political, and/or religious significance. Folk art encompasses art produced from an indigenous culture or by peasants or other laboring tradespeople. In contrast to fine art, folk art is primarily utilitarian and decorative rather than purely aesthetic, and is often sold at festivals by tradespeople or practicing amateurs.West, Shearer (general editor), ''The Bullfinch Guide to Art History'', page 440, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, United Kingdom, 1996. As at folk festivals, such art and handicraft may also appear at historical reenactments and events such as Renaissance fairs. ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Cross Tuning
Cross tuning or cross-tuning (aka scordatura) is an alternative tuning used for the open strings of a string instrument. The term refers to the practice of retuning the strings; it also refers to the various tunings commonly used, or in some contexts it may refer to the AEAE fiddle tuning. In folk music traditions, cross-tunings are used to give the instrument a different sound by altering the pitch of string resonances and drones. It may be notated in the normal way, with notes written at the sounding pitch, or the written notes may represent the finger position as if played in regular tuning, while the sounded pitch is altered. In American folk fiddle music Cross tuning is commonly used on the fiddle in folk music of Appalachia, the southern United States and Scandinavia. The fiddle may be re-tuned in any number of ways in these musical idioms, but there are two common re-tunings. While the standard tuning for open strings of the violin is GDAE—with the G being the tuning ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Waltz
The waltz ( ), meaning "to roll or revolve") is a ballroom and folk dance, normally in triple ( time), performed primarily in closed position. History There are many references to a sliding or gliding dance that would evolve into the waltz that date from 16th-century Europe, including the representations of the printmaker Hans Sebald Beham. The French philosopher Michel de Montaigne wrote of a dance he saw in 1580 in Augsburg, where the dancers held each other so closely that their faces touched. Kunz Haas (of approximately the same period) wrote, "Now they are dancing the godless ''Weller'' or ''Spinner''."Nettl, Paul. "Birth of the Waltz." In ''Dance Index'' vol 5, no. 9. 1946 New York: Dance Index-Ballet Caravan, Inc. pages 208, 211 "The vigorous peasant dancer, following an instinctive knowledge of the weight of fall, uses his surplus energy to press all his strength into the proper beat of the bar, thus intensifying his personal enjoyment in dancing." Around 1750, ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Hoedown
A hoedown is a type of American folk dance or square dance in duple meter, and also the musical form associated with it. Overview The most popular sense of the term is associated with Americans in rural or southeastern parts of the country, particularly Appalachia. It is a dance in quick movement most likely related to the jig, reel or clog dance. In contest fiddling, a hoedown is a tune in fast 2/4 time. In many contests, fiddlers are required to play a waltz, a hoedown, and a "tune of choice," which must not be a waltz or a hoedown (typically it is a jig or a schottische). In modern western square dance, a hoedown is a piece of music used for a patter call (a call that is spoken or chanted, rather than sung to the tune of a popular song), or the recording that contains this piece of music. In the early days of the Western square dance revival (the 1940s and early 1950s), most hoedowns were traditional fiddle tunes; since the late 1950s, recordings of simple chord progressions ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Fiddler
A fiddle is a Bow (music), bowed String instrument, string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including European classical music, classical music. Although in many cases violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, the style of the music played may determine specific construction differences between fiddles and classical violins. For example, fiddles may optionally be set up with a Violin construction and mechanics#Bridge, bridge with a flatter arch to reduce the range of bow-arm motion needed for techniques such as the double shuffle, a form of bariolage involving rapid alternation between pairs of adjacent strings. To produce a "brighter" tone than the deep tones of gut or synthetic core strings, fiddlers often use steel strings. The fiddle is part of many traditional (Folk music, folk) styles, which are typically aural traditions—taught "Playing by ear, by ear" rather than via written music. ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Bluegrass Music
Bluegrass music is a genre of American roots music The term American folk music encompasses numerous music genres, variously known as ''traditional music'', ''traditional folk music'', ''contemporary folk music'', ''vernacular music,'' or ''roots music''. Many traditional songs have been sung ... that developed in the 1940s in the Appalachian region of the United States. The genre derives its name from the band Bill Monroe, Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys. Like Country music, mainstream country music, it largely developed out of Old-time music, old-time string music, though in contrast, bluegrass is traditionally played exclusively on Acoustic music, acoustic instruments and also has roots in traditional English, Scottish, and Irish Ballads, Irish ballads and dance tunes as well as in blues and jazz. Bluegrass was further developed by musicians who played with Monroe, including 5-string banjo player Earl Scruggs and guitarist Lester Flatt. Monroe characterized the genr ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Idaho
Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington and Oregon to the west. The state's capital and largest city is Boise. With an area of , Idaho is the 14th largest state by land area, but with a population of approximately 1.8 million, it ranks as the 13th least populous and the 7th least densely populated of the 50 U.S. states. For thousands of years, and prior to European colonization, Idaho has been inhabited by native peoples. In the early 19th century, Idaho was considered part of the Oregon Country, an area of dispute between the U.S. and the British Empire. It officially became U.S. territory with the signing of the Oregon Treaty of 1846, but a separate Idaho Territory was not organized until 1863, instead ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]