Guy Drollinger: Transcript

Fiddler
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My name is Guy Drollinger from eastern Iowa, Iowa City. And I got started playing the fiddle in 1976 was when it really overwhelmed me. I went to a bicentennial celebration where my grandfather, Charlie Drollinger, and a lot of the musicians from eastern Iowa were all performing. And up to that point, I had played tenor banjo and guitar behind fiddlers. And I think there was some, you know something just hit me. It was on the, in front of the Old State Capitol in Iowa City the Capitol building. And I was out there on the lawn and we were playing, and all the fiddlers looked like they were having so much fun. And it just looked like, I thought, you know, I want to learn to do that. There was that, and then the combination, I think, at that time, the first time I saw John Hartford. He just seemed so amazingly at ease and relaxed, and tap dancing and his head was bobbing around. And he was just playing this crooked version of some old Missouri tune that I’d heard. And I just thought, “I want to do that.”

Well, my granddad had asked me to play the fiddle when I was in second grade, and I took it to school and some kid said, “Oh, you’re a violinist.” And he pushed me down in a mud puddle, and I came home covered with mud. And I told my grandmother, “I’m not going to play the violin.” And I think it was, like I say, I was 23 years old and decided in 1976, “I’m going to play the violin.” [music]

You know, so, I was around fiddle music for all of my life. You know, first early memories I heard Granddad playing either his banjo or his fiddle. And I just remember another time when it clicked in the mid-seventies; I was out at a jam session and people were playing “Flop-eared Mule,” and nobody knew what key it went into. I says, “Oh, it just jumps over and goes up into A.” And everybody looked at me like “Well, how would you know?” And I thought, “Well gosh, I first played that when I was about nine.” [music]

Well, Iowa City has an amazing music scene. I think that the arts in Iowa City are very important to, generally more, I would say than other communities, than a lot of other communities, maybe not all. I think, you know, it reflects in the kids in the symphonies. My two daughters, Hannah and Megan, have went to the symphonies in high school and in the Preucil school. And it also reflects in the folk music around the area. Old time music and folk music in Iowa City is just as strong as anywhere in the country. Your average jam session will have a world class recording musician in it. And when you’re playing and someone like Greg Brown comes in or Bob Black, and starts playing, you tend to sit up in your chair. And you tend make sure you’re in tune. And you don’t want to walk all over what they’re doing. [music]

There is actually an Iowa style. An Iowa style of fiddling has no, it’s no frills. I had a conversation with a musicologist one time, and we had a little disagreement about their being an Iowa style. He says, “Well, would—do you think that people would really know an Iowa style as opposed to a Missouri style or a Texas style?” I jokingly said, “Another Iowan would!” Well, I think that another Iowa fiddler could tell. I think there’s so many definitions you could give to old time music—it’s really hard to say exactly what it is. It’s what people do together. [music]

The reason that I play old time and the reason I play fiddle music—it’s something that you can do with people. It’s healthy, it doesn’t hurt anyone, it’s not bad for your cholesterol—and it’s fun.