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Posted by JanetB, written by Henry Reed
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- Play count: 1087
Size: 1,089kb, uploaded 8/28/2012 6:20:56 PM
Genre: Traditional / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Henry Reed learned these from the Civil War fifer Quince Dillon. The two tunes are both in Am and one leads easily to the other in a medley.
3 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 338
Size: 978kb, uploaded 8/18/2011 5:55:17 AM
Genre: Bluegrass / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
This was the first song I figured something out with melodic fingering. Bill Monroe is given credit for writing this, though it's very similar to I Don't Love Nobody.
6 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 518
Size: 1,424kb, uploaded 11/1/2015 7:06:46 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
As played by North Carolina fiddler Marion Reece (1874 - 1941). I can hear the scolding in the A part very clearly!
3 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 981
Size: 1,592kb, uploaded 10/8/2014 5:20:52 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
From the Samuel Bayard collection of Pennsylvanian tunes in Dance to the Fiddle, March to the Fife. This medley is played by Mark Tamsula and Richard Withers on their excellent CD "Up in the Batten House."
4 commentsPosted by JanetB, written by Anthony Hannibal Clapp
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- Play count: 278
Size: 2,546kb, uploaded 12/24/2016 2:50:45 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, 12/23/16, Anthony H. Clapp (1749 - 1816) -- said to have been an excellent fiddler and a slave belonging to the family of William Sydney Mount (famed painter of The Banjo Player) -- wrote and named this tune for the town in which he lived. Mount had it in his collections of fiddle tunes, which are kept at the Stony Brooks Museum in Long Island, NY. See this week's TOTW for more info.
3 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 1532
Size: 1,383kb, uploaded 3/14/2012 8:25:34 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Kit and I enjoy this song. Together with mandolin and banjo we're Plinky and Plunky.
3 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 1583
Size: 1,339kb, uploaded 1/9/2013 8:40:22 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
From Edden Hammons fiddling, inspired by Adam Hurt's fiddling (yes, fiddling).
5 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 74
Size: 1,898kb, uploaded 9/7/2018 8:02:03 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time TOTW, 9/7/18, Shaking Off the Acorns comes from the playing of West Virginian fiddler Edden Hammons, who would have been 113 years old today. Most everybody else records it as Shaking Down the Acorns and it's definitely one of my favorite tunes of all time. It's modal and the first part has 12 measures with three 4-measure phrases.
2 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 93
Size: 1,284kb, uploaded 5/27/2023 12:28:42 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
A song recorded in the 20's with wholesome lyrics. I'm playing the words as sung by the duet Burnett and Rutherford. It also goes along with the singing in the key of C on a recording by Clyde Davenport, one of my favorite old-time musicians. Check out the Tune of the Week for more.
Add CommentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 134
Size: 1,196kb, uploaded 12/12/2020 7:19:58 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
The Tune of the Week goes by several titles. I chose two variations, especially since Take Me Back to Tulsa was a fun piece to sing with the Rough and Ready Fruit Jar Pickers. Shear 'Em had a much older resource than Bob Wills, but I liked how and learned from Gail Gillepsie's group, Happy Valley Band, played it like a real dance tune.
Add CommentPosted by JanetB, written by Turlough O'Carolan
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- Play count: 2032
Size: 1,581kb, uploaded 10/10/2011 8:58:18 PM
Genre: Fiddle/Celtic/Irish / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
This was Carolan's first composition at age 21, blinded since 18 years old, and embarking for the first time on his journey as an itinerant harper. The squire at his first stop suggested he compose a song about two neighboring hills where two fairy hosts had battled. Carolan's genius for writing was thus born.
4 commentsPosted by JanetB, written by Turlough O'Carolan
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- Play count: 2311
Size: 2,214kb, uploaded 6/18/2013 12:21:55 PM
Genre: Fiddle/Celtic/Irish / Playing Style: Classical
When I originally learned this I used clawhammer tuned to double D. Then I learned it in open G 3-finger picking style. Now I'm trying it again with clawhammer after more than 30 years. It's coming back to me and I still think it's amongst the prettiest tunes ever written. The story goes that Sheebeg, Sheemore was the blind harpist's first composition in 1691. It's meaning is "Little Mountain, Big Mountain" and was named for a location where a battle between fairy peoples allegedly took place.
9 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 249
Size: 1,065kb, uploaded 2/21/2016 6:12:27 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, 2/20/16, this comes from the fiddling of Emmett Lundy, whose mentor, Greenberry Leonard, was born in the early 1800's and died in 1892. Thus it probably harkens back to before the Civil War. Sheep Shell Corn is recorded as a poem in a 1920's publication called Negro Folk Rhymes, so I can imagine perhaps slaves sang this song as they shelled corn (a tedious job) or as they danced to their own music. I used some of the verses from the TOTW discussion: http://www.banjohangout.org/topic/315336.
1 commentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 136
Size: 1,089kb, uploaded 11/30/2018 11:42:22 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Sounding much like Barlow Knife, Sheep's in the Meadow is this week's TOTW for 11/30/18 and is really old-timey. It's from a recording of Gaither Carlton by Alice Gerrard. Gaither was Doc Watson's talented, gentle father-in-law.
4 commentsPosted by JanetB, written by Jeremiah Carpenter
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- Play count: 1624
Size: 1,096kb, uploaded 8/18/2012 2:41:50 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
This old West Virginia tune commemorates the place where Solomon Carpenter was born in the early 1790's under a rock ledge where his parents were hiding from Indians. His father, Jeremiah, later avenged the death of his brother Benjamin during the Indian raid. This version comes from West Virginians Burl Hammons and Dwight Diller. It's played on a small scale fretless gourd banjo made by BHO member Robert Browder.
12 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 307
Size: 1,388kb, uploaded 9/4/2012 5:39:25 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
A cheerful tune in A with a Bm sound in the B part. My mother still says at 91 years old that good songs always have a minor.
Add CommentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 143
Size: 1,372kb, uploaded 3/10/2020 10:20:21 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
I've loved this tune ever since hearing Mary Z Cox play it. I don't know where Iearned my unique B part, but with Shenandoah Falls as the Tune of the Week for 3/6/20, I decided to learn the more traditional B part, played the second time through here.
2 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 765
Size: 843kb, uploaded 3/8/2012 6:20:53 AM
Genre: Traditional / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Two songs expressing a western theme.
Add CommentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 247
Size: 2,366kb, uploaded 2/1/2015 9:14:12 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, 1-30-15, this old dance tune is named for an old Virginia family home. The fiddler, John Ashby, played with a group he called the Free State Ramblers. It's quite a bit of interesting history I'll continue to learn about from the current TOTW.
1 commentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 153
Size: 3,371kb, uploaded 10/8/2022 10:49:05 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Taylor Kimble, fiddler from Virginia, recorded Ship in the Clouds for the Library of Congress when Alan Lomax was actively collecting tunes. In this clawhammer arrangement I added 2-finger cello banjo accompaniment. The melodic movement of the tune matches the title, in my opinion. It appears to modulate, but not for long -- a ship floating in clouds is a good metaphor IMO.
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