Anyone who is just getting involved in mountain music, should make it a point to watch the movie "Songcatcher." Songcatcher is the story of a woman named Lilly, a music teacher from the northeast who visits her sister in rural western North Carolina. While escaping the pressures of her job as a professor, she discovers that the same old ballads she was teaching in Boston are writhing and pulsing in the mountain people's everyday life. This fairly recent film not only explains the origins and of old time music, it does it in a stunningly beautiful way. Filmed right in the southern Appalachians where the first ballads were discovered, it features several songs you'll be learning on the fiddle in no time. Songs like Pretty Saro, Old Joe Clark, and Sally Goodin. It's important to see the not only the people singing them, but the culture that surrounds it - how the hollers cooked and fermented those old Scott/Irish ballads and made them into something new.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Songcatcher
Anyone who is just getting involved in mountain music, should make it a point to watch the movie "Songcatcher." Songcatcher is the story of a woman named Lilly, a music teacher from the northeast who visits her sister in rural western North Carolina. While escaping the pressures of her job as a professor, she discovers that the same old ballads she was teaching in Boston are writhing and pulsing in the mountain people's everyday life. This fairly recent film not only explains the origins and of old time music, it does it in a stunningly beautiful way. Filmed right in the southern Appalachians where the first ballads were discovered, it features several songs you'll be learning on the fiddle in no time. Songs like Pretty Saro, Old Joe Clark, and Sally Goodin. It's important to see the not only the people singing them, but the culture that surrounds it - how the hollers cooked and fermented those old Scott/Irish ballads and made them into something new.
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5 comments:
I just watched this movie! It was good, though a strange story. The music and setting were the main draws for me too, of course.
I just ordered it from the libarary.. lol.. i hope i enjoy it.. thanks for the recomendation..
hello, nice blog, trully
I adore this movie and have watched it many times. I find myself drawn into it. The music and the mountain life is in my DNA. Please let me know when I can come to one of your fiddle camps. Maggie at bundaflicka@yahoo.com. Thanks!
I finally got to around to watching this at your recommendation. I am so disappointed that there isn't a full version of Emily Rossum singing Barbara Allen though. I love her voice.
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