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Posted by JanetB
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- Play count: 102
Size: 3,138kb, uploaded 5/29/2021 10:27:59 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
The Tune of the Week for May 28, 2021 is an obscure tune named for a rattlesnake, which could have been a desert sidewinder, and a Texan pony, recorded by an obscure Arkansawyer clawhammer player named Green Berry Horton, shared on the site for Missouri Friends of theFolk Arts. A nice, simple tune it is and I had fun on Garage Band here in California with harmony on my Ryan Navy Carolina Banjo and a Goldtone cello banjo made in Florida. All done in the USA. :)
Add CommentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 277
Size: 933kb, uploaded 9/18/2015 2:15:02 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, 9/18/15, this version comes from the Roan Mountain Hilltoppers. Two descriptions of rattletrap: (1) it was a noisemaker to announce when a tinkerer was coming by to sell his wares; (2) it described the old vehicle the Roan Mountain Hilltoppers used when traveling to perform. The kicker on this tune is the one note (an F) that takes you by surprise in the B part. It must be fun to perform in jams when this part comes up -- everybody seems to sway and smile a bit.
Add CommentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 1453
Size: 863kb, uploaded 10/24/2013 7:26:32 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Based on William Stepp's version and inspired by Rhys Jones, Rebels Raid is the current Tune of the Week. This is the slow and sweeter version. The aggressive soldiering of Morgan's Raiders inspired a slide show video, with the help of Tom Berghan's encouragement and movie-making talent.
Add CommentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 325
Size: 1,196kb, uploaded 10/26/2013 9:43:46 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
This is my first recording of Rebels Raid with a moderate tempo. When making a recording for Tom Berghan's accompanying slide show he asked me to play it rapidly in order to better portray the historic event.
1 commentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 692
Size: 1,627kb, uploaded 2/7/2015 10:03:13 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
The old-time Tune of the Week is from Kentucky -- one of those very old tunes that many in the region played and it's stayed alive and still being passed around. I found it to be very pretty, especially when slowed down some. If you read the thread for the TOTW you find links to a local woman named Lella Todd who played the tune and was also well-known for her kindness to the neighborhood kids. She hunted, fished, fiddled, played guitar and banjo, and was remembered in an interview posted on the thread by a one of the neighborhood children, then already in her 80's. My kind of lady! Check it out: http://www.banjohangout.org/topic/298998 I listened to another regional fiddler, Billy Stamper, to get my clawhammer arrangement.
4 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 55
Size: 1,623kb, uploaded 5/8/2023 3:12:41 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
From the playing of Lella Todd, a Virginia fiddler born before 1900, and learned via two living legends -- John Harrod and Clara Milliner. Red Lick is a town along the Red River in Kentucky.
Add CommentPosted by JanetB, written by Garry Harrison
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- Play count: 1707
Size: 1,535kb, uploaded 1/9/2017 2:25:31 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
I'm attempting to record and upload via my iPhone, as my computer is in the shop. I first heard Red Prairie Dawn by Don Huber's enjoyable band who was playing at an outdoor event. Next I heard it on Adam Hurt's lovely new CD "Artifacts." I worked it out in an odd tuning -- aDGBE, tuned down four steps for cello banjo. I'd like to know more about Garry Harrison who recorded the Dear Old Illinois anthology. He wrote a few tunes, like this one, and seems to have played fast and energetically. Please let me know what you think about the recording quality. Thanks for listening G.
9 commentsPosted by JanetB, written by Jim Reed
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- Play count: 1424
Size: 957kb, uploaded 5/14/2013 6:20:57 AM
Genre: Other / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Jim has posted his incredible music again after a time away from BHO. This is one he wrote a while back and I'm inspired to try and learn it now. The notes flow. A poet could describe its beauty better than I!
5 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 922
Size: 981kb, uploaded 10/22/2011 4:37:02 PM
Genre: Other / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Two songs that remind me of people and places. My mom used to play and sing Finiculi Finicula on piano from the Fireside Book of Folk Songs.
5 commentsPosted by JanetB, written by Turlough O'Carolan
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- Play count: 136
Size: 2,102kb, uploaded 7/6/2023 2:18:49 PM
Genre: Fiddle/Celtic/Irish / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
In my excitement in finding another great resource to learn Turlough O'Carolan tunes, I've begun with two from the book and CD compilation by Art Edelstein called Fair Melodies. Both tunes were written in honor of O'Carolan's "patrons", the people who supported him as he traveled through Ireland in the late 1600's and 1700's earning a living as a blind harper. Both tunes are played clawhammer style on a cello banjo.
Add CommentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 985
Size: 1,268kb, uploaded 3/15/2013 5:43:04 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the Tune of the Week, March 15, 2013, Richmond is related to Cuckoo's Nest as played by Virginian fiddler Roscoe Parish (1897 - 1984).
4 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 128
Size: 1,472kb, uploaded 2/8/2020 12:22:41 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, 2/7/20, Ricketts Hornpipe is an old dance tune. It's said John Bill Ricketts brought the tune from England to America in the late 1800's with his circus, which John Durang of Pennsylvania joined (and had a hornpipe named after him, too). It's said a hornpipe can be slower to allow the dancer more intricate steps.
3 commentsPosted by JanetB, written by Jim Reed
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- Play count: 758
Size: 920kb, uploaded 7/21/2012 12:31:00 PM
Genre: Other / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
As I listened to this original song the first time the melody happily drove along just like the title suggests. But Jim's 3-finger picked melodic song is so incredibly intricate and skillful, I had to simplify it with this clawhammer version so I could enjoy playing it, too.
9 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 136
Size: 1,292kb, uploaded 9/27/2019 11:31:11 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, this arrangement of Road to Boston comes from the musical notation of fifer William Morris at the beginning of the American Revolution. The soldiers must have felt upbeat when they marched to it.
2 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 212
Size: 1,831kb, uploaded 6/5/2015 8:41:20 PM
Genre: Fiddle/Celtic/Irish / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
This week's old-time Tune of the Week coincides with D-Day and was played by a fifer from the British Isles as his troop landed at Normandy. The Isles referred to in the song are the Hebrides west of Scotland. If you look at tourist advertisements for the area it's quite a beautiful region. I attempted to add a rhythmic technique called Scottish snaps which makes it sound Gaelic, so they say. They're basically dotted eighth notes played with the fast part first and the dotted part last.
3 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 126
Size: 1,555kb, uploaded 8/6/2016 5:50:42 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
The old-time Tune of the Week, 8/5/16 is really Rochester Schottische, as played by Tommy Jarrell. I decided to turn the 4/4 timing to waltz time.
2 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 850
Size: 1,136kb, uploaded 8/2/2012 10:00:40 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
I heard this on Ken Elk.'s video recently and it became one I "had" to learn. I'd heard it before, but who knows when and where. West Virginian fiddler Franklin George is credited with it, but he got it from someone else, and so on.
2 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 184
Size: 1,315kb, uploaded 5/18/2018 9:50:00 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, 5/18/18, this tune was learned by a young Luther Davis (1889 - 1986) from his neighbors Isom and Fielden Rector of Dalhart, VA near Galax). Luther said he didn't like it, but learned it out of respect for his older mentors.
2 commentsPosted by JanetB
[download]
- Play count: 181
Size: 1,436kb, uploaded 10/8/2015 10:02:50 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Here's Nebraskan fiddler Bob Walters' tune which was an old time Tune of the Week in 2011. Bob Walters was called the smoothest fiddler he'd ever heard by R.P. Christeson, who compiled hundreds of fiddle tunes in his two volumes called Old-Time Fiddler's Repertory. I first heard Chuck Levy play this and felt challenged to give it a try, as well as learn more about its source. I'm not sure whether the Jordan refers to the river in Israel or a town in the USA. What do you think?
2 commentsPosted by JanetB
[download]
- Play count: 341
Size: 1,412kb, uploaded 7/25/2017 8:30:46 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, 7/21/17, Rolling River comes from the Dear Old Illinois collection from the playing of Richland County, Illinois fiddler Delbar Tarpley, born in 1900. A nice tune, I'd say.
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