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Posted by JanetB
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- Play count: 750
Size: 1,316kb, uploaded 4/5/2014 5:01:10 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Listening to Ed Haley, it's hard to clearly hear his fiddling. This was Tune of the Week for 3/28/14 and has 3 parts instead of 2 in the other examples of historic recordings for this tune. After looking at a map we found there are actually three forks of the Big Sandy River, so it makes sense to have three parts. I wonder if Ed Haley performed on that river and wish the John Hartford book about his life would be published, even if unfinished.
5 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 167
Size: 2,106kb, uploaded 1/13/2018 3:37:31 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, this is a three part tune from Ohio which reminds me a bit of Devil's Dream. I play it clawhammer style melodically and can see it eventually becoming more rhythmic and less notey. But here it is for now, from the original recording on Slippery Hill by Ohio fiddler John Hutchison who learned it from his father who learned it from another fiddler.
4 commentsPosted by JanetB, written by Jordan Wankoff
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- Play count: 481
Size: 1,328kb, uploaded 10/2/2015 11:18:16 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, 10/2/2015, Tippin' Back the Corn was written by a Chicago fiddler, Jordan Wankoff. This version comes from Lynn Chirp Smith's fiddling. I wouldn't be tipping back the corn, but I do feel its joyfulness!
Add CommentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 1010
Size: 815kb, uploaded 11/22/2011 5:45:29 PM
Genre: Unknown/None Chosen / Playing Style: Unknown/None Chosen
Played on my Deering Calico, learned from James Bryan's fiddling of Tombigbee Waltz and John Hartford's version of Gum Tree Canoe.
4 commentsPosted by JanetB, written by John Goodin
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- Play count: 121
Size: 1,372kb, uploaded 5/28/2022 3:47:13 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Our Tune of the Week doesn't have the familiar sound of a fiddle tune, and indeed, it was written by a mandolinist, John Goodin, of the group Contratopia, who sadly passed away last year. To get his notes I reverted to cello banjo. I understood the banjo player of the group played Too Many Goats with a capo on the seventh fret -- not me. Now that would be climbing as high as any mountain goat. :)
1 commentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 522
Size: 1,627kb, uploaded 6/8/2018 10:33:10 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, 6/8/18, Trouble on My Mind was recorded by Kentucky fiddler John Salyer's sons at home. Salyer never recorded commercially, but was an excellent fiddler. This tune is crooked in the last measure when it repeats and is unusual in having six measures in the A part and eight in the B part.
2 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 886
Size: 981kb, uploaded 4/2/2013 9:00:27 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Played by Doc Watson, this tune was popularized at the same name in Lenoir, North Carolina--not that far from Deep Gap where Doc lived. It's an interesting piece and makes quite a left hand banjo workout.
1 commentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 88
Size: 2,944kb, uploaded 11/12/2024 11:41:58 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
A seasonal title with two versions by Kentucky fiddlers who knew each other -- Buddy Thomas and Jimmy Wheeler.
Add CommentPosted by JanetB, written by Sidna Myers
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- Play count: 508
Size: 1,064kb, uploaded 7/16/2012 9:30:46 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Learned for the Tune of the Week, 7-13-12. This song gives me deja vu!
5 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 140
Size: 2,322kb, uploaded 4/3/2015 8:55:27 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
This tune is notated by William Sydney Mount, dated in 1848. It has a rhythmic sound called "Scottish snaps," which I had to look up in Ken Perlman resources to define. You'll hear them. I'm enjoying learning more about this famous painter of The Banjo Player.
Add CommentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 253
Size: 1,160kb, uploaded 11/28/2015 5:39:34 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, 11/27/15. I learned this from an Arkansas fiddler's recording when she was 93 years old! She's now 99. The title wasn't really Uncle Henry, but she learned it from him. Check out the discussion for more: http://www.banjohangout.org/topic/311807.
2 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 317
Size: 999kb, uploaded 12/22/2014 2:40:59 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Learned for the old-time Tune of the Week, 12/19/14, I arranged this by using notation in the Milliner-Koken American Fiddle Tunes book for Audley Cable's fiddling, as well as Bruce Greene's recording of it on Slippery Hill. He didn't know the name of the tune when Bruce recorded him in 1985, but told him he'd learned it from Mr. Jamison.
2 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 592
Size: 1,044kb, uploaded 4/7/2012 11:33:07 AM
Genre: Other / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
This is a historic marching song for Prussian soldiers. "Plinky and Plunky" are Kit on mandolin and myself, 3-finger picking.
5 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 103
Size: 2,110kb, uploaded 3/11/2023 5:45:57 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
This tune with the strange title goes by several other titles. I chose to learn by using the fiddle notation in the Samuel Bayard book, Dance to the Fiddle March to the Fife, and to play it on the cello banjo in an equivalent tuning to double C.
Add CommentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 111
Size: 3,138kb, uploaded 4/8/2022 9:28:36 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Upper Lehigh was played in the first Brandywine Old-time Music Convention in 1974. Carl Baron was there and heard this lively polka and has presented it as the Tune of the Week. I've added the cello banjo for accompaniment and hope the recording quality is decent enough -- I'm not sure where the static came from.
Add CommentPosted by JanetB, written by Rory Dall O'Cahan, Hank Williams
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- Play count: 659
Size: 1,155kb, uploaded 2/13/2012 10:18:44 AM
Genre: Other / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Two songs from entirely different eras, but with similar themes.
3 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 123
Size: 1,136kb, uploaded 10/26/2019 11:56:37 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time TOTW, 10/25/19, Valley Forge here is from Jimmy Driftwood's fiddled version. It's a 4-part tune where the C part represents to me the tension that must have been felt by Washington's soldiers during that horrendous experience wintering at Valley Forge. Playing it slower might be more effective to impart a story, but as it is, I'm playing at about 70% of the original recording tempo. It's said that Jimmy Driftwood learned the tune from Absie Morrison.
3 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 199
Size: 1,567kb, uploaded 10/25/2018 5:47:24 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, 10/26/18, comes from Kentucky fiddler John Salyer (1982-1952). Vance No More is based on a sad ballad about a murder and a hanging. It's a crooked tune that you get used to.
4 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 231
Size: 1,212kb, uploaded 7/31/2020 6:57:23 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Hobart Smith, the amazing musician we old-time players much admire, learned from sources that placed some of his tunes pre-civil war. Wabash Blues is a tune whose age I don't know, but it's only known to have been recorded by him, which happened in 1963 when Fleming Brown befriended him. Stephen Wade released those recordings of Smith in 2005, "In Sacred Trust," and still enjoys playing this very tune to this day.
3 commentsPosted by JanetB, written by Daniyel Ben-Asher
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- Play count: 179
Size: 897kb, uploaded 7/20/2012 8:53:20 AM
Genre: Other / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Daniyel wrote this song and the cello banjo played along.
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