Who’s posting these tunes?

I play fiddle, concertina, piano, viola, and sometimes viola with two bands in central North Carolina, near RDU and the Research Triangle (actually closer to Chapel Hill and Hillsborough than Durham, but anyway, central). You can see these two wedding ensembles at our site Wedding Music in North Carolina...

One is Mappamundi, which means "Map of the World" and which plays popular wedding music of Western and Eastern Europe, Jewish traditions (klezmer, yiddish, hebrew, israeli, sephardic, songs in Ladino) and American swing tunes for dancing and a little bit of Hispanic music as well.

The other is the Pratie Heads, a duo specializing in music of the British Isles (Celtic, Irish, Scottish, English) and early America - but recently branching out into many other traditions as well!

Freylekh fun der khupa – solo viola – Jewish wedding recessional

Another good tune for preludes or possibly a Jewish wedding recessional – fun der khupa means “leaving the chuppah.” “Freylekh” is a kind of dance (the word in Yiddish means “happy”).

I personally would prefer to do this tune with a band, but a lot of recessionista brides, budget conscious, are preferring soloists for their ceremonies. [...]

Jewish wedding music: Araber tanz for solo viola or solo cello

My daughter’s hiring a solo cellist for her wedding ceremony and I wanted to give her some tunes to choose from. This klezmer tune is usually done with a full ensemble, here it’s just solo viola. You can hear a few more of us playing it (including accordion) at this previous post: Araber Tanz played [...]

Nice bridal recessional: Dubuque

We’ve played for a lot of contradances and I think jigs and reels make wonderful happy recessionals as the bride and groom leave for the reception.

wpa_urls.push(‘\u0068\u0074\u0074\u0070\u003a\u002f\u002f\u0070\u0072\u0061\u0074\u0069\u0065\u0068\u0065\u0061\u0064\u0073\u002e\u0063\u006f\u006d\u002f\u006d\u0070\u0033\u002f\u0064\u0075\u0062\u0075\u0071\u0075\u0065\u002e\u006d\u0070\u0033′);Dubuque (contradance reel)

Bridesmaids’ processional: Fentalarick, 18th century country dance.

Here’s a bridesmaids’ request: “Fentalarick,” an English country dance from the 18th century. Can you tell it was utterly freezing out there?

A medley of Irish and Scottish jigs

Pipe on the Hob medley of [...]

Lover’s Waltz, a tune by Jay Ungar and Molly Mason, great for a first dance

I first heard this tune when we (Mappamundi) were doing a show with Jay and Molly at the Hard Rock Cafe in Myrtle Beach, SC. Molly taught me how to do the Cajun two-step in the parking lot.

Mr Beveridge’s Maggot: gross name, great wedding tune

This is one of the few tunes we managed to record at a recent wedding. The bride requested this English Country Dance (also known as a Playford Country Dance) as her processional – she’d heard it on the BBC miniseries “Sense and Sensibility,” or was it “Pride and Prejudice,” I can’t remember. In the 18th [...]

A cute German wedding tune, a zwiefacher

When people dance to these, they have to choose a waltz step or a pivot (or polka) step depending on whether the next bar is a 2/4 bar or a 3/4 bar. Trouble is, you don’t know in advance, which makes for hilarity. For dancing, we’d play this a lot slower.

This dance form has [...]

Ashokan Farewell by Jay Ungar: beautiful wedding tune

Ashokan [...]

Tra Veglia: an Italian waltz for weddings

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