Paul McDonald has fiddled around with the Puslinch Fiddle Orchestra ever since it got its initial start in 2005.
But in reality, fiddling has been part of McDonald’s life since he was 10, says the 63-year-old, who was raised on a farm in Crieff.
“My mom and dad bought me my first fiddle when I was 10 years old from Sears,” he recalled. “They brought it home and on Christmas, I opened it and it was a violin.”
Fiddles and violins are the same instrument, according to McDonald. The difference is the type of music played. Fiddling relies on the lower notes, while violins are played on higher notes.
The music is distinctively different, where violinists play classical music and fiddlers go for homegrown music like jigs, reels and waltzes.
“It’s old-time country Scottish fiddle tunes,” he said of the type of music used by fiddlers.
“The only difference between a classical violinist and a fiddle player is about $60 an hour,” he quipped.
The price of the instrument used by classical violinists and fiddlers differs substantially. McDonald paid $5,000 for one of his fiddles, while violins can go for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
His mother Donelda was a pianist at church functions and get togethers and it was her guidance and playing alongside her that slowly honed McDonald’s fiddle skills.
“I had no lessons so I played on one string for about six months,” he said. “I didn’t know how to play all the strings.”
His mother asked him to play the music scale and he quickly realized it could not be done playing one string. That prompted him to work hard at mastering the fiddle and its four strings. Eventually he took piano lessons.
“The piano helped me to read music,” he added, something that has made his main love, the fiddle, easier to learn and play.
As a teenager he was part of a band, the Country Squires, that played dances. The band had McDonald on fiddle, a drummer, bass player, and guitar. The group played around the countryside until McDonald was in his early 20s. Due to family commitments, he stopped playing on a regular basis, but continued to play the fiddle at home and at family gatherings.
Eventually he would get back at it on a regular basis, forming the Puslinch Fiddle Orchestra.
“It was January of 2005 we started a group at Duff’s Presbyterian Church just for something to do in the afternoon and we had five fiddlers and that was just local people,” he said. “We set up a schedule and played every third Sunday.”
He doesn’t know how the word got out, but eventually the tiny group was getting inquiries from other fiddle players wanting to join them for jam sessions.
“It started growing and from there people started coming from Brantford, Stoney Creek, Guelph and the surrounding area,” he added.
The church allowed them to practice for free with the understanding they would host an annual concert with proceeds to cover the rental cost.
In 2006 the orchestra and its 43 musicians, including 27 fiddlers, put on their first concert at Duff’s – it was sold out.
The church, according to McDonald, can hold about 220 people and offered the orchestra good acoustics and a sound system. Proceeds from the concerts has gone back to the church to cover the orchestra’s rental. Any additional money is used at the discretion of the church.
Since 2006, the concerts have been expanded to two and, at one point, three shows, with tickets going for $15. They have sold out every time.
“About seven years ago, Paul McDonald started up the Puslinch Fiddle Orchestra to play old time music, as it was played in the country here in earlier years,” local historian Marjorie Clark told the Advertiser in an email.
“There are now approximately 28 fiddlers in the group as well as a pianist (Paul’s wife Wendy) and a few guitarists. They hail from far and wide and they are good.”
McDonald said the popularity of the orchestra has meant more inquiries about putting on concerts at other churches, something they do when they find time.
Other church concerts are done by donation. They have concerts planned for later this year at Millgrove United Church and Knox Presbyterian Church in Acton.
Most recently they’ve had an inquiry about participating in a festival out east, but McDonald doesn’t think the orchestra will hire a bus and make the trek.
Concerts are usually held during the day because members don’t like travelling after dark, he said.
What McDonald has to consider for events for the orchestra is the age of its members and the impact a hectic concert schedule might have. The majority of the musicians range in age from 60 to 90.
By coincidence, McDonald met one of the musicians when he was out on a job for the heating company he works for.
“I was fixing his furnace one day and he asked me ‘What do you do’?” McDonald recalled. “I said I play fiddle and he said, ‘Me to,’ and he started coming out.”
As the main organizer for the orchestra’s concerts, McDonald usually sends out the written music and a CD of the tunes in December that will be used at the main Duff’s concert later the following year.
That allows the musicians to fine-tune each song individually in preparation of practices and the final concert. The concerts also feature solo artists as well as a the full orchestra playing.
McDonald also repairs and makes fiddles using Canadian wood. It’s essential the wood has tight growth rings to get the sound of the fiddle to exacting standards. The wood of choice is spruce for the top panels, and maple for the sides and back. The tuning pegs and fingerboard are made of ebony.
McDonald is proud to acknowledge the fiddles are made from all natural products, including the wood and horse hair bows. Even the glue used to put them together comes from an insect in India.
The instruments have no frets for the musician to follow, as is the case with guitars. He said musicians can buy a fret board to lay on the fingerboard, but that is frowned on.
“That’s a no-no,” he added.
The notes of the strings, from lowest string to highest string, are G,D,A,E, with the E the most difficult to tune, he said.
The strings are tuned a fifth apart, which means the number of tone intervals between one string and the next is five. In practice, this means playing a string together with its neighbour gives a nice sound, a chord in fact. A lot of fiddle players use this “perfect fifth” sound to tune the fiddle, but it takes practice and experience.
Most fiddles are tuned with the pegs and then the fine tuners are located on the bridge. Some fiddlers tune all strings to be fairly close using the pegs, however, McDonald prefers to use the fine tuners on the tailpiece to get tuning accurate.
It also allows him to tune his strings while playing. Some musicians tune the A, then the E, and then the G and the D. They will then re-do the A and E, as tensioning the G and D can change the tension of the other strings.
McDonald has even worked out a routine close to the end of a concert to inject some humour and to thank those who attended.
At one concert he built a fiddle that would explode. Prior to it coming apart, the audience thought it was an expensive fiddle. When they saw it explode they were shocked.
“The top flew off and the people thought it was a new Stradivarius,” he said.
It was a routine he had fun with, although it can only be done at the first concert because the trick would be known to subsequent concertgoers.
Besides playing historical tunes, McDonald said musicians continue to come up with new tunes.
“There’s a lot of fine people in Canada who write good, old-time fiddle music,” he said, pointing out well-known Fergus fiddler Scott Woods.
This year the orchestra is planning its first Christmas concert at Duff’s – tentatively scheduled for November.
“It’s a wonderful group,” he said of his fellow musicians. “It’s enjoyable, the outcome is so rewarding.”
