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 Playing Advice: Clawhammer and Old-Time Styles
 ARCHIVED TOPIC: TOTW 3/21/2025 The Cowboy Jig


Please note this is an archived topic, so it is locked and unable to be replied to. You may, however, start a new topic and refer to this topic with a link: http://www.banjohangout.org/archive/402429

John D - Posted - 03/21/2025:  07:08:39

The TOTW for 3/21/2025 is....The Cowboy Jig. The Cowboy Jig is a trad Irish tune. I first heard it in the early '90s on the album The Road North by fiddle player Alasdair Fraser. It is the second tune in a medley with the jig Calliope House. I learned it by ear and the sheet music from Cole's 1000 Fiddle tunes. I don't see "Hollywood Cowboy" images when I hear this tune. At any rate, it's a great tune!
Lots of versions on Youtube. Here's a few:

youtube.com/watch?v=KXP8j1qWU5g


youtube.com/watch?v=j9S5b38cfaU

youtube.com/watch?v=RPbjA3y7lbk

Here's my CH version in G tuning on a Vega 2:

banjohangout.org/myhangout/med...archived=

John d

dbrooks - Posted - 03/21/2025:  14:45:26

Here's some clawhammer tab in the key of G.



Cowboy Jig Tab - Details and Ratings - Banjo Hangout



David

Owen - Posted - 03/21/2025:  17:34:04

Onto a tangent .... and I've got no "explanation," but the first thing that came to my mind upon reading The Cowboy Jig was, "Ya, probably like Chinese Breakdown."

ndlxs - Posted - 03/22/2025:  05:26:52

That would go really well with this tune:

youtube.com/watch?v=BLC5qldhXwU



Which also goes well together with this one (third part of Cooks is the same as second part of this one):

youtube.com/watch?v=rUVbbl5QZvY

LyleK - Posted - 03/22/2025:  07:19:59

Nice! The closest I can get to playing jigs is schottisches. At least in the Midwest, these are 6/8, but generally a bit slower than jigs.

JanetB - Posted - 03/22/2025:  14:27:55

A fun jig to try, John.  You play it clawhammer style as natural as a cowboy loping on the plains.  For me, 6/8 jig style means that sometimes my middle finger plays twice in a row and sometimes my thumb waits an eighth note before drop thumbing.  If I play the piece enough it feels pretty normal.  This one is still very new so using the tab helped.


VIDEO: Cowboy Jig
(click to view)


Cowboy Jig (CH) tab


dbrooks - Posted - 03/23/2025:  08:08:33

Nice playing and a very helpful tab, Janet.



David

Bill Rogers - Posted - 03/23/2025:  15:58:27

I met John D decades ago and was taken by his jigsaw playing and his clawhammer guitar—years before Molly Tuttle was born.

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