"Chinquapin Hunting" (from Hiram Stamper) - Old-Time Fiddle

This rare tune comes from Hiram Stamper (1883 - 1992) of Knott County, Kentucky

Tuning is FCFC

Hiram lived in a mountain cove outside of Hindman, in Knott County. Johnson (1953) writes that the Stampers, of English origin, settled in this area around 1800. His mother was a Stewart, of Scots-Irish descent. Hiram learned to play these more ancient pieces from Civil War veterans like Shade Slone, Si Terry, Black Hiram Bagley, and his Uncle Daniel Triplett. In his youth, he was well acquainted with the now legendary fiddlers Luther Strong and Bev Baker, and talked often of playing against them in contests. Hiram was a fiddle master and rolled his bow in the typical southeastern Kentucky old-time way that was lost to the generations that came after and played band music.

"A banjo picker I worked with at Berea told me about a fiddler named Hiram Stamper, who could still play the old tunes. He and his wife Martha lived back in one of these little mountain coves, and at that time the road in there was so rough I had to walk in for almost a mile, crossing a creek and a spring branch to get there.
Hiram’s style, with local and regional variations, was probably the dominant fiddling style throughout the southern Appalachians. It developed as it did because at the time, the fiddle was mostly played without accompaniment. This allowed the fiddler a great deal of freedom in timing and self-expression through idiosyncrasies of tune structure and variations in the melodies.
The instruments commonly associated with the fiddle - the banjo and guitar - did not appear much in eastern Kentucky before the Civil War, and the early 1900's, respectively. The fiddle music of areas such as southwestern Virginia is closely entwined with the rhythms of the banjo and guitar. In contrast, Stamper's playing requires an accompanist to adapt to his sense of timing and tune structure. Many of his tunes are not well suited to accompaniment at all.
Stamper's bowing was very vigorous and energetic. There was strong emphasis on the push, or up stroke, giving a strong pulsing beat, especially when beginning and ending phrases of tunes and between parts in tunes. Phrases are ended with an abrupt upward motion of the bow, drawing out the last note as long as possible, then returning to the tune with a long downward stroke that again would draw out the melody in a way that gave the rhythm of the tune a pronounced pulsing, or wavelike feel. He also used long sweeping motions of the bow interspersed with more explosive bursts of quick back and forth sawing patterns that often gave a rather syncopated feel. He wielded the bow with his elbow held fairly high, allowing most of the bow work to be achieved by his elbow, wrist, and finger movement.
He tuned his fiddle about a full step below standard pitch, which is the way people play in the old days because the strings couldn’t stand the high tension. It makes the fiddle sound very different, it makes it growl, Hiram’s bridge was cut with a very shallow curve as well. Both of these practices allowed him to play two and sometimes three strings simultaneously, and gave his playing a very full, deep sound. This, and his sense of timing, gave many of his tunes a very dark, mysterious quality which has always been closely associated with older Appalachian fiddling. He was completely uninfluenced by any music that came later than about 1920, his music was as close as you can possibly hear to the music that was brought in by the settlers.
Hiram lived to be 98 years old and played the fiddle right through into his last years. He was truly the last of the old school of nineteenth century Kentucky mountain fiddlers".

Bruce Greene

A Chinquapin is a small tree native to Appalachia, also called a Dwarf Chestnut. It has one nut in a burr that opens into two halves which gives the tree a distinctive chestnut look. Old-Timers would collect these trees for their own use before most of them died out due to the Chestnut blight that happened in the early 1900s.

Here's a link to hear Hiram Stamper play this tune, recorded by Bruce Greene in the 1970s.
   • Chinquapin Hunting by Hiram Stamper  

Hiram's son, Art Stamper, played a square version of this tune that is commonly played in standard pitch tunings, typically AEAE, ADAE or GDAE. Here's a link to watch Art play Chinquapin Hunting at Clifftop in 2003.
   • Art Stamper ,Chinquapin Hunting  

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