— Matt Cook

ALTAMONT—A fiddler’s reunion at the Altamont fairgrounds this weekend was set up a lot like June’s Old Songs Festival, with groups of musicians gathered under tents. However there was one difference, besides its smaller size. There was no audience.
"We didn’t come here to listen to the music; we came here to play it," said David Gordon, a guitar player from Northfield, Mass., looking slightly annoyed that his playing was interrupted.

Gordon was one of about a hundred musicians in Altamont Saturday and Sunday for the Black Creek Fiddlers’ Reunion. In the shade of tents surrounding the Old Songs barn, they played tunes on their fiddles, banjos, and guitars, eating, and drinking, and talking.

It was a weekend for musicians, by musicians.
"Really, it’s just a group of friends that gets together and sits around making music," said Mark Schmidt, one of the event’s organizers.

The music they make is called old-time Appalachian, Schmidt said. It’s one of the many traditional genres at the popular Old Songs Festival every year.

Six years ago, Schmidt said, some old-time Appalachian musicians wanted to extend the experience of gathering at the Old Songs Festival. They did away with the formal performances of the festival, opting instead for an informal gathering.

Over the two days of the event, participants camp out, drifting from tent to tent with their instruments, playing a tune here, learning a new tune there.
"We just decided to make it more of a reunion besides an actual formal event," Schmidt said.

Making their own

Brian Sullivan, a fiddler, organized the first reunion six years ago. He spoke with The Enterprise Saturday after finishing a spirited version of a tune called "West Fork Gals," with Lisa Johnson on dulcimer, Ray Alden on banjo, and Kevin Krajick on guitar.
"A lot of this music is old," Sullivan said. "Some of these tunes go back to the 1700’s. They’re generally from an era before TV and before movies. It takes you back to another cultural era when people made their own entertainment."
"One hundred years ago, almost every family had people who played instruments," Johnson said. "You don’t see much of that anymore."

Old-time Appalachian music, as its name implies, was born in the rural areas of the Appalachians, in the central and southern United States. Johnson pointed out that people often mistake it for bluegrass and continue to do so even after corrected.

Old-time Appalachian actually precedes bluegrass, Johnson said.

The old-time genre has made a resurgence lately, the players said. Gatherings like the Black Creek Reunion are evidence of that. One in Clifftop, W.Va., started the size of Altamont’s and has grown to include hundreds of musicians every year.
"All these things are growing," Sullivan said. "People are tired of the mall culture, of the cable TV culture. They want culture that’s not provided by a corporate entity."

Alden said he plays this kind of music for a much simpler reason.
"I like playing music that so many other people don’t like," he said.

While a lot of the musicians this weekend had been playing for years, beginners were also welcome

Krajick, who came up from New York City, said one of the best ways to get started playing old-time music is to come to a gathering like the reunion and meet and talk to people, some of whom are among the most talented old-time musicians in the country.
"It’s something that the whole family can be involved in," Johnson said. "People aren’t just left out. You see kids playing on ukuleles and stuff."

As Sullivan, Johnson, Alden, and Krajick struck up a new tune, musicians in a different tent paused to eat.
"What brings us together is the love of the music," said Susan Sterngold, a banjo player from Suffern, N.Y., who was playing with Gordon, and Steve Kessler, a fiddler from Wurtsboro, N.Y.

The other thing that brings them together, Gordon said, is the quiet and scenic atmosphere of the fairgrounds.
"We also like to play in an environment conducive to the spirit of the music," he said, "with the barn, the mountain, the outdoors."