Posted by JanetB, written by Simon Jeffes
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- Play count: 131
Size: 909kb, uploaded 6/2/2019 4:41:18 PM
Genre: Other / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
This is a tough challenge for the old-time Tune of the Week, 5/31/19. Our presenter, Andy Alexis, plays it like a champ and his old band, the Piney Creek Weasels made it a show stopper. I'm trying it once through, based on Andy's tab that really clarified what goes on musically here. I'd call it a quirky tune, but also fun to hear.
2 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 270
Size: 935kb, uploaded 8/12/2017 11:41:27 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
This old-time Tune of the Week for 8/11/17 reminds us in melody of some other traditional songs, such as Gotta Travel On and even Worried Man Blues. The Monroe Brothers recorded this as their first ever recording in 1936 and Bill said that it was commonly sung in Kentucky at the time.
2 commentsPosted by JanetB, written by Nancy Blevins
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- Play count: 498
Size: 897kb, uploaded 2/26/2016 5:38:15 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, North Carolina fiddler Nancy Blevins supposedly wrote and fiddled this dance tune. It's described in a quote by Virginia fiddler Albert Hash, who was related to her and whose grandfather remembers dancing to it as a youngster after the Civil War.
3 commentsPosted by JanetB, written by Tom Clough
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- Play count: 85
Size: 1,555kb, uploaded 8/22/2022 5:21:57 PM
Genre: Unknown/None Chosen / Playing Style: Unknown/None Chosen
A four-part version of the tune also known as Nancy and which resembles Fair Morning Hornpipe.
Add CommentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 262
Size: 705kb, uploaded 10/24/2012 6:00:11 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the Tune of the Week on the Playing Advice: Clawhammer and Old-Time forum. This is based on Isham Monday's version as tabbed by Maya Whitmont.
Add CommentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 227
Size: 2,929kb, uploaded 7/22/2017 5:23:24 PM
Genre: Fiddle/Celtic/Irish / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Napoleon Crossing the Alps is a tune with several names I've wanted to learn for a while. One of them is Bonaparte Crossing the Rockies. This recording has two parts -- the first is in SRB tuning (f#DGF#D tuned up a step) and the second is open G tuning. Adam Hurt taught me that G tunes can often be played well and sound good in the tuning he calls SRB, or Sandy River Belle. Perhaps you'll notice no difference in the two versions, also played on two different banjos, with cello banjo accompaniment.
3 commentsPosted by JanetB, written by Earl Scruggs
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- Play count: 163
Size: 756kb, uploaded 6/16/2019 9:16:49 AM
Genre: Bluegrass / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Here's a bit of an Earl Scruggs classic for the old-time Tune of the Week, 6/16/19. I've always thought it's fine to play in clawhammer style whatever suits me, though others may differ in opinion. The Dm tuning (aDFAD) gives this tune flavor and then it jumps suddenly to a major chord. Great composition!
5 commentsWritten/Posted by JanetB
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- Play count: 285
Size: 1,133kb, uploaded 7/25/2011 10:27:11 AM
Genre: Traditional / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
These were written to continue a tradition of honoring each grandchild with their own song.
1 commentWritten/Posted by JanetB
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- Play count: 636
Size: 861kb, uploaded 3/16/2013 6:02:54 PM
Genre: Other / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Dedicated to Paul Roberts and his creation, the Goldtone Soundbird tenor banjo. I composed this using clawhammer, but no 5th string to simulate a tenor banjo.
2 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 158
Size: 1,353kb, uploaded 3/28/2020 4:31:41 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, 3/27/20, New Money is a Kentucky fiddle tune. I found a version by J.P. Fraley, one of my favorite fiddlers. I'm in the rare tuning of gCGCE which makes a nice open C sound.
3 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 129
Size: 5,624kb, uploaded 2/12/2018 12:37:37 PM
Genre: Country / Playing Style: Bluegrass (Scruggs)
For the old-time Tune of the Week, 2/2/18, this is the Rough & Ready Fruit Jar Pickers sing-along version. Lots of people singing, lots of instruments, countrified style. My solo is minimal, heard after the electric guitar after the first verse. The FJPers disbanded last June. I played every Sunday with this rollicking group for 14 years. We always had an audience with songbooks who flipped through the book as our leader, Everette Burkhard, called out each song number. From gospel songs to old-time to country, we made lots of music over the years, sometimes sounding great, sometimes pretty awful. But it was always about being with friends and having fun together at the Rough and Ready Opry Palace and later at the Grange when they tore down the palace and put up a beautiful fire station.
2 commentsPosted by JanetB, written by Lynn 'Chirps' Smith
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- Play count: 182
Size: 1,472kb, uploaded 12/31/2016 8:08:01 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week this New Year's Eve, from the playing of Chirps Smith, Midwest fiddler. He's a big influence and mentor for one of my favorite fiddlers, Rhys Jones. It's a cheerful, rollicking tune, though mine's on the quiet side. I plan to stay home on New Year's Eve and watch sports and pick banjo!
2 commentsPosted by JanetB, written by John Hartford
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- Play count: 85
Size: 1,544kb, uploaded 12/16/2018 12:38:44 PM
Genre: Other / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Intrigued by the title and the tune as played by Matt Combs, I had to work harder than usual to arrange John Hartford's fiddle tune. It has a Southwest/Latin flavor, though the title takes it much farther up north where John performed at an annual bluegrass festival in Mole Lake, Wisconsin.
Add CommentPosted by JanetB, written by Addie Graham
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- Play count: 181
Size: 1,236kb, uploaded 12/31/2013 9:08:32 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
When Addie Graham wrote this in eastern Kentucky the O and K train line had already been build in front of her home. I'm playing on a Robert Browder small-scale gourd banjo.
Add CommentPosted by JanetB, written by Turlough O'Carolan
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- Play count: 529
Size: 917kb, uploaded 1/18/2012 6:10:21 AM
Genre: Fiddle/Celtic/Irish / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
O'Carolan had a sweet friendship with Bridget Cruise before he was blinded. Later he wrote four airs with her name as the title. He held her hand again one day for a fast moment while helping strangers board a boat he was about to leave. He recognized her hand!
4 commentsPosted by JanetB, written by Greg Canote
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- Play count: 422
Size: 2,202kb, uploaded 5/6/2017 12:05:09 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, 5/5/17, Obama's March to the White House is a stately, but lively tune composed by the fiddling Canote twin, Greg. I heard Adam Hurt's beautiful playing of it before this TOTW made me aware of the Canote Brothers own version.
1 commentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 1529
Size: 926kb, uploaded 11/27/2011 5:57:45 PM
Genre: Fiddle/Celtic/Irish / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
First played in waltz time, then as a hornpipe.
1 commentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 1809
Size: 530kb, uploaded 5/11/2012 5:22:58 AM
Genre: Fiddle/Celtic/Irish / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
By researching this song I've learned about the history of the Irish people. I've known the song since the 70's, but didn't know then I'd be living on the land of Irish immigrants. They came to California seeking to escape harsh conditions and ended up working hard in the mines and on farms, just like in my once-thriving community of Smartsville. For more information about this happy, hopeful tune see this week's Tune of the Week .
4 commentsPosted by JanetB, written by Lloyd Chandler
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- Play count: 281
Size: 1,198kb, uploaded 10/24/2016 12:08:56 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, 10-22-16. Dock Boggs and Ralph Stanley are the two seminal examples of this song. Dock Boggs played it picking style and gave us the common verses we hear and Ralph Stanley's best version was a capapella heard in Oh Brothers, Where Art Thou. I've attempted Oh Death in clawhammer style here on cello banjo, tuned in sawmill, thinking Dock Boggs' words as I play. Its lyrics are an icy portrait of death that could help lead a personal to repentance, as it did the original writer, Lloyd Chandler, a Free Will Baptist minister in the 1920's, after he dreamed it. Check out this week's TOTW for more info.
4 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 672
Size: 1,304kb, uploaded 4/3/2015 8:51:13 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
It's interesting that William Sydney Mount, the famous painter of The Banjo Player, had in his notes and diary this version of Oh Susannah in 1848, the same year that Stephen Foster published the song, too. I'm enjoying studying the great painter who was also a dedicated fiddler.
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