It looks like this week's volunteer won't be able to post at all, so I will post a quick emergency back-up tune.
That tune is Sheep Shell Corn (aka Sheep Shell Corn by the Rattling of His Horn). It comes to us from the fiddling of Emmett Lundy.
EMMETT LUNDY
Emmet Lundy (1864-1953) was born in Grayson County, Virginia. He took up the fiddle as a teenager and learned primarily from an older man named Green Leonard, who had been born in the area around 1810. Emmett was recognized as an excellent fiddler throughout his life but never pursued music professionally save for one trip to New York City in 1925 to accompany Ernest V. Stoneman during an Okeh Records recording session. Other than the two sides released by Okeh that featured Emmett's fiddle playing, the only direct record we have of his music comes from a 1941 Library of Congress field recording session conducted by Alan Lomax.
Lundy is regarded as a vitally important source of traditional southwestern Virginia fiddle tunes and techniques, perhaps giving us a glimpse - through his apprenticeship with Green Leonard - of the region's music dating back to before the Civil War. He greatly influenced numerous younger fiddlers and passed on many tunes that might otherwise have been lost.
Sheep Shell Corn is in the key of A, and follows the typical AABB pattern.
Its title is a phrase that occurs in a number of Southern folk songs and poems. The most complete and detailed of those works is probably the song "Sheep Shell Corn" which is included in Thomas Talley's groundbreaking 1922 book "Negro Folk Rhymes", and which contains the stanza
Oh: When de sheep shell co'n wid de rattle of his ho'n
I wishes to de Lawd I'd never been bo'n;
Caze when de Hant blows de ho'n, de sperits all dance,
An' de hosses an' de cattle, dey whirls 'round an' prance.
When used as a song lyric, the phrase is usually part of a collection of simple floating verses, as in this typical example (used by Bruce Hornsby and Ricky Skaggs on their 2007 self-titled collaboration):
Never seen the likes since I've been born
Sheep shell corn by the rattlin' of his horn
Bowls in the cupboard and butter in the churn
Never seen the likes since I've been "burn"
Sheep shell corn by the rattlin' of his horn
Never seen the likes since I've been born
Sheep shell corn by the rattlin' of his horn
Never seen the likes since I've been born
Sheep shell corn by the rattlin' of his horn
Swing that girl with the red dress on
Richard Matteson has included a thoroughly researched history of the tune and its lyrics on his Bluegrass Messengers website: bluegrassmessengers.com/sheep-...tion.aspx
Even he, however, cannot answer one mystery - how exactly a sheep would shell corn by rattling his horns. It seems to be a curious phrase whose ultimate origin is unknown.
A few weeks ago I accidentally discovered that this tune works out in a satisfying way on banjo and I played around with it for a few days thinking it would make a nice TOTW. :)
Looking forward to listening to the examples you posted. Thanks!
Lucky for us, Brett, someone backed out of their TOTW turn. You always choose interesting tunes. My imagination lets me picture black slaves singing this song while either shelling corn (a tedious job, I'd think) or while dancing when having time to enjoy themselves.
The photo is Emmett Lundy's mentor, Greenberry Leonard's, funeral card. It has the year of his death as 1892. I've enjoyed several tunes recorded by Emmett Lundy, thanks to my introduction to his fiddling by Adam Hurt during our Skype lessons.
Nice pick Brett, and very nice picking (and singing!) Janet.
For those who have not yet taken the plunge with this tune in aEAC#E tuning (or G with capo at 2nd fret) you might try aDADE tuning (double C with capo at 2nd fret) instead. The tune is one of those many modulating tunes where one part is in D (in this case the "B" part) and one part is in A (in this case the "A" part). "Forked Deer" is a prime example of one of these modulating tunes, and I think most play it out of aDADE tuning. The fingering for the whole "Sheep Shell..." seems to work better out of aDADE and you can get some fuller chords without having to use as many fingers in your chording hand.
Nice pick Brett, and very nice picking (and singing!) Janet.
For those who have not yet taken the plunge with this tune in aEAC#E tuning (or G with capo at 2nd fret) you might try aDADE tuning (double C with capo at 2nd fret) instead. The tune is one of those many modulating tunes where one part is in D (in this case the "B" part) and one part is in A (in this case the "A" part). "Forked Deer" is a prime example of one of these modulating tunes, and I think most play it out of aDADE tuning. The fingering for the whole "Sheep Shell..." seems to work better out of aDADE and you can get some fuller chords without having to use as many fingers in your chording hand.
Thanks for the insight -- I never thought of Forked Deer as a tune that modulates, going to have to consider that the next time I play it (for that matter, a great thread topic would be a list of tunes that feature this).
Thanks for posting, ERB -- cool tune. The A part reminds me a bit of the B (I think) part in "Hangman's Reel." In fact, there's a tune by the title of "Sheep Shell Corn" (minus the rattling horn) that the Burris Bros' band Southern Pride does. It's played at ramming speed and actually sounds like a three-part tune, only having the "Hangman" part in common with "Sheep."
In an intro, James Burris remarks of the tune's name, "we'll let you think about that title while we play it."
Lucky for us, Brett, someone backed out of their TOTW turn. You always choose interesting tunes. My imagination lets me picture black slaves singing this song while either shelling corn (a tedious job, I'd think) or while dancing when having time to enjoy themselves.
The photo is Emmett Lundy's mentor, Greenberry Leonard's, funeral card. It has the year of his death as 1892. I've enjoyed several tunes recorded by Emmett Lundy, thanks to my introduction to his fiddling by Adam Hurt during our Skype lessons.
Glad you enjoyed the tune, Janet. Thanks for your version, and for that Greenberry Leonard funeral card - that's a really interesting detail to add to the tune's history!
Nice pick Brett, and very nice picking (and singing!) Janet.
For those who have not yet taken the plunge with this tune in aEAC#E tuning (or G with capo at 2nd fret) you might try aDADE tuning (double C with capo at 2nd fret) instead. The tune is one of those many modulating tunes where one part is in D (in this case the "B" part) and one part is in A (in this case the "A" part). "Forked Deer" is a prime example of one of these modulating tunes, and I think most play it out of aDADE tuning. The fingering for the whole "Sheep Shell..." seems to work better out of aDADE and you can get some fuller chords without having to use as many fingers in your chording hand.
Thanks for pointing out that the tune is in both A and D - I overlooked that. And I was not familiar with the term "modulating tune" - much easier to say than "the A and B parts are in different keys", which is what I usually say to describe such tunes.
Nice pick Brett, and very nice picking (and singing!) Janet.
For those who have not yet taken the plunge with this tune in aEAC#E tuning (or G with capo at 2nd fret) you might try aDADE tuning (double C with capo at 2nd fret) instead. The tune is one of those many modulating tunes where one part is in D (in this case the "B" part) and one part is in A (in this case the "A" part). "Forked Deer" is a prime example of one of these modulating tunes, and I think most play it out of aDADE tuning. The fingering for the whole "Sheep Shell..." seems to work better out of aDADE and you can get some fuller chords without having to use as many fingers in your chording hand.
Thanks for the insight -- I never thought of Forked Deer as a tune that modulates, going to have to consider that the next time I play it (for that matter, a great thread topic would be a list of tunes that feature this).
Thanks for posting, ERB -- cool tune. The A part reminds me a bit of the B (I think) part in "Hangman's Reel." In fact, there's a tune by the title of "Sheep Shell Corn" (minus the rattling horn) that the Burris Bros' band Southern Pride does. It's played at ramming speed and actually sounds like a three-part tune, only having the "Hangman" part in common with "Sheep."
In an intro, James Burris remarks of the tune's name, "we'll let you think about that title while we play it."
Glad to hear you sing a few verses, Janet!!
I have not heard that Burris Brothers tune - I'll have to see if I can track it down.
I've been thinking about the title for a week now - still can't figure out exactly what it means!
Thanks again for choosing this tune! I've really had a good time experimenting with it over the last week. I'll go ahead and add a quick video (from mid-week) and a recording (from this evening) as my contribution to the thread.
I started out using a lot of drop thumb, opened the tune up a bit (happens in the video), played around with a pull-off, and decided that I really like the drop thumb. :)
Yesterday, I went back to the Lundy recording for inspiration and seemed to hear him adding a nice "&" before the downbeat. It seemed like a 5th-string thumb note could take on that role and once I started thinking about the tune in that way, it seemed to start to come together. I'm not sure it SOUNDS all that different--it would take me months to begin to feel like I could put any polish on it--but it sure FEELS a lot better.
>Yesterday, I went back to the Lundy recording for inspiration and seemed to hear him adding a nice "&" before the downbeat. It seemed like a 5th-string thumb note could take on that role and once I started thinking about the tune in that way, it seemed to start to come together. I'm not sure it SOUNDS all that different--it would take me months to begin to feel like I could put any polish on it--but it sure FEELS a lot better.
Such fun!<
It is huge fun. And also a hugely informative exercise to go back and listen to Emmett Lundy and others of the older generations who we are fortunate to have recordings of their playing. Theirs are the earliest echoes. And it's not just the additional single beat or lead note you heard; so often we find their versions of a tune contain flourishes, phrasing and rhythmic idiosyncracies that have been lost in what are sometimes referred to as 'festival' versions of these tunes we commonly hear all around us today. These additions do not necessarily constitute 'melodic' or overly 'notey' styling - just different, wonderfully distinctive older versions.
Why buy soda when you can drink freely from the spring?
This is a title that I can't resist. Plus, it's a pleasantly archaic sounding tune. So I came up with a version, using Lyle's advice on tuning. Fun to play, kind of short, though.
