Telephone Tune

Telephone... Telegraph... Tell-A-Woman... That was Richard's reaction when I explained this week's Friday work party theme. Need more background information?

The Friday work crew at Club-E is a smaller, tight knit group, and the pace is different than during the week... cause enough for celebration on its own, but we like to choose a theme and really do something special at the end of our work week. Sometimes we're pretty serious about choosing our theme, and other times we just celebrate that we get to work together. Some of our Friday themes have included Cinco de Mayo, a team member's return after vacation, '25', a Hawaiian Luau...
We have had a lot of Fridays off throughout November and December, and this will be our first Friday celebration of the new year. What to celebrate you ask? After careful research, I came up with a couple of observances...
January 6, 2006 Holidays & Observances:
Telegraph was first demonstrated by Samuel Morse on January 6, 1838.
and then...
January 7, 2006 Holidays & Observances:
Transatlantic telephone service began, 1927
How can we possibly put these two things together for a Friday party? Aha! We'll use the telephone and order out for lunch! I'm so lucky to work with great people at Club-E. The Friday crew usually consists of JT, SZQ, PRS, and our honorary Friday club-mate, TMadd who comes in for the opening ceremonies :) Looking forward to Friday and our special celebrations makes the whole rest of the work week all the more enjoyable!

The telephone tune has an interesting story that is probably true of many good fiddle tunes... where did it really come from? The story in the Portland Collection Volume Two goes something like this... "... Kathy Bowman brought this tune back from Ashokan in 2000, where she learned it from Quebec fiddler Eric Favreau. Eric thought it might be a Marcel Messervier accordion tune, but M Messervier denies any responsibility. About the title: It's a matter of convenience. You have to call a tune something, right? Kathy tells us, 'I played this tune for Mike Schway in Bellingham and he liked it and called me later. I played it into the telephone that my husband held up over my fiddle and Mike recorded it on his MP3'. Dial-a-tune anyone?" Fiddlers out there, try it and let me know if you like it! You can email me at fiddlehedz@yahoo.com It's reported to be a "superior piece of music- fun to play, wonderful to dance to."