aschweigert - Posted - 01/14/2022:  06:16:29

Hey everybody!



Great to be back, hope you're all having a great 2022 so far.



This week I thought I'd do another tune from Southwestern Pennsylvania, since I moved over here to Pittsburgh about two years ago I've been trying to learn some of the traditional tunes from around these parts, mostly from the collections Samuel Bayard made of local fiddlers in the mid 20th century.



The tune I picked this week is called "Old Number Third" and comes from the playing of A.J. Hogg of Armstrong County, Pennsylvania. Don't have a lot of history on this tune, Hogg told Bayard that he learned it from his father and that it goes back in their family to the civil war era. Like many SW PA tunes, it likely started its life as a fife tune before making the jump over to fiddle.



These tunes can be tricky to arrange for banjo but I think this one actually works out pretty ok.



Here's the source recording, collected by Bayard in 1948: youtu.be/XXnlSq94E18?t=75. A printed source appears in Bayard's book "Dance to Fiddle March to the Fife" (I've attached a photo of his transcription).



Fellow-Pittsburgher Mark Tamsula recorded it on one of his excellent recent collections of PA fiddle tunes, Rural Valley Melodies, and also played it on a fairly recent episode of Get Up in the Cool, here's that video: facebook.com/getupinthecool/vi...39062382/



And here's my take: youtube.com/watch?v=Hzi0yFm6eso

Hope you enjoy, have a great week!

Old Number Third - Bayard

VIDEO: Old Number Third - Clawhammer Banjo
(click to view)

Old Number Third - AJ Hogg

 

Stephen Rapp - Posted - 01/14/2022:  07:23:03

Nice job Adam! Great to hear another Bayard tune put together for banjo as well.

JanetB - Posted - 01/15/2022:  10:30:03

Thanks, Adam.  Funny title -- I wonder why not Old Number Three.  You chose a fun little marching type of tune and play it well.  I had some challenges to work out on the up-the-neck part, so found a position that let me keep my left hand in the familiar partial G and D chords at the 7th - 9th frets.  I was happy to get back my very short-scale Docs Banjo this week, at it had popped its head one day as I kept warm by an electric heater at my feet, so you can hear her again now.

In Samuel Bayard's notes about the tune, he mentions a possible relationship to an Irish tune in the O'Neill's book called The Roving Bachelor, so I worked on that arrangement, too, but find the tunes different.  That was Bayard's conclusion, though they'd make a good medley.

Trivia:  Old Number Third is my 34th tune uploaded on BHO with a title beginning with the word "Old."  No wonder this is called the old-time music genre!

Edited by - JanetB on 01/15/2022 10:37:08

Old Number Third (TOTW)

Old Number Third (CH) tab