Chadwell’s Station

I know my transcriptions are often idiosyncratic, and this is a prime example. Chadwell’s Station is a tune which doesn’t really lend itself to transcription, at least not the way I learned it. The first part works out evenly if I put it in 3/2, but it doesn’t feel like it’s in three-based meter. Most sheet music I’ve seen puts it in 2/2 with a measure of 3/2 at the end of each part, but it doesn’t feel like the phrasing aligns with the measures when I do that. My instinct is to leave out the bar marking entirely and just have each part be its own very long phrase, like they do in the Milliner-Koken Collection, but I find that even more difficult to read. So this is my compromise. That said, this tune is probably best learned by ear, not from sheet music.

Interestingly, in the manuscript this tune comes from, the tune isn’t crooked. It has a rest at the end of each part to pad it out:

Is that how it was played? As far as I know, there are no recordings of anyone who played this before it was revived in the 1970s from the sheet music, so there’s probably no way we’ll ever know. I’ve certainly never heard it played with that rest at the end, anyway.

The introduction of the Hamblen Collection, as the manuscript is known, says of this tune (and two others) that it was:

played by David R. Hamblen (1809-1893) of Cumberland Gap, Lee County, Virginia. It is believed they were never published except as they were passed by ear from one local player to another and were composed by some local musician of that region. Mr. Hamblen moved to Brown County, Indiana, 1857. No one outside the Hamblen families ever knew or played them there.

And of “Chadwell’s Station” itself, it says that:

Chadwell’s Station is a small village located on Highway 58 about six miles east of Cumberland Gap, Lee County, Virginia. A prominent family by name of Chadwell were pioneer settlers near the place which later took their name.

There may have been a village known as Chadwell’s Station there in the 1950s when that was written, but if so, it isn’t there now. There is a road about two miles long named Chadwell Station Road which passes by Chadwell Station Church, just west of Ewing, Virginia, which probably marks where the village was, though.

Christian Wig wrote a piece about the Hamblen collection for the Old-Time Herald which you can read on his site at http://www.chriswig.com/hounding_hamblen.html

I love this tune and how odd it is. I think it’s one that just feels weird to play for a while until something clicks and it feels natural, so if you’re struggling with it, I recommend putting a recording on and playing along on repeat for a while.

(Photo of Chadwell Station Church from Highway 58 © 2022, Google)