Posted by JanetB, written by William Walker & Alexander Means
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- Play count: 1264
Size: 663kb, uploaded 1/11/2012 5:47:04 AM
Genre: Traditional / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
This old hymn of 1835 was in a shape note hymnal.
1 commentPosted by JanetB, written by Dave Carter
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- Play count: 174
Size: 1,783kb, uploaded 12/19/2015 1:36:03 PM
Genre: Other / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
This Tune of the Week for 12/18/15 is a modern song written by banjo player Dave Carter with a striking Native American influence on the lyrics. When he accompanied this with banjo, it played a harmony to the sung melody, which makes a lovely sound that grew on me the more I listened. However, I only used Dave's singing as a guide to this arrangement, except for the very end, which was an instrumental tag. Ironically, Dave died young in 2002, perhaps in synchrony with his own lyrics about "When I Go." "Bear me my brother under your wings, I will strike fell like lightning when I go...Stand in the mist where my fire used to burn, I will camp on the night breeze when I go...Do not worry for my comfort, do not sorrow for me so, All your diamond tears will rise up and adorn the sky beside me when I go."
2 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 254
Size: 1,280kb, uploaded 12/9/2017 7:42:00 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, 12-8-17, a 1924 fiddle recording of Dr. D.D. Hollis produced 12 recordings. I find Whistlebee an odd name and it has odd timing, too. The tune has been recorded with little resemblance to the source fiddler and it's hard to say why. It's fun to play and has a busyness to it that might resemble a bee.
2 commentsPosted by JanetB, written by Kerry Mills
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- Play count: 106
Size: 5,546kb, uploaded 4/15/2024 6:41:46 PM
Genre: Ragtime / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
A Tune of the Week written in the late 1800's, considered a ragtime or tin pan alley tune. It's a tough one to play, especially having just learned it today, but it was also an unusual tune to figure out.
Add CommentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 205
Size: 1,112kb, uploaded 3/11/2017 11:13:17 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, 3/10/17, White Hat is one of the many tunes notated in Harry Bolick and Stephen T. Austin's new book "Mississippi Fiddle Tunes and Songs from the 1930's." We only know that it was from a recording by J.E. Shoemaker of Moss, MS. I can imagine a photo of a Southern fiddler with a white hat on....It's a neat little tune that modulates, and as Mary Z Cox wrote, White Hat would make a good dance tune.
1 commentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 105
Size: 4,126kb, uploaded 7/7/2023 4:08:23 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
J. P. Fraley is definitely a favorite fiddler. This waltz he played is quite syncopated, so with clawhammer required lots of skipped notes and the thumb playing pick-up notes. I'm not sure why I never tried learning White Rose Waltz, but am glad it's a Tune of the Week. It's a beauty.
Add CommentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 80
Size: 1,850kb, uploaded 1/6/2025 12:34:40 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
This is a Canadian tunes. They are often very noted and challenging. My choice of tunings has me baffled, as I just played along with a recording. It's fDFBbD. The key is apparently Bb. It would be interesting to try another tuning because this arrangement feels hard, though not really harder than others pieces I learn. Probably just more time needed here....
Add CommentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 279
Size: 909kb, uploaded 12/5/2015 9:23:46 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time TOTW, 12/4/15, this is my clawhammer arrangement based on Dock Boggs' playing and the 2-finger tab of mojo_monk (Sean Barth). The song reminds me of Fall on My Knees. It has a similar plaintive voice both in the music and lyrics. I'm playing on a Gold Tone cello banjo with the pitch being the same as the Dock Boggs' recording. See the current Tune of the Week: http://www.banjohangout.org/topic/312046.
1 commentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 122
Size: 1,348kb, uploaded 6/25/2022 12:57:02 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
This is a fun little tune, happily re-discovered by Uncle Dave Sturgill years ago after he remembered it as a boy in Piney Creek, North Carolina, then heard it no more until it re-surfaced with an old fiddler in Seattle, Washington. Our TOTW presenter, Andy Alexis, tells us it was a favorite song of his predecessor Piney Creek Weasels banjo player, Rick Abrams, and that Rick had excitedly learned it at the Mt. Airy contests.
Add CommentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 90
Size: 1,216kb, uploaded 11/25/2021 10:58:18 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
The Tune of the Week for 11/19/21 is called Geese Honking. When it was recorded by the source fiddler, Clyde Davenport, he called it Wild Goose Chase. Other tunes have this title and perhaps that's why the title changed over time. Anyway, here's what I hear Clyde playing on fiddle in the key of Bb. I tuned down lower than normal in the tuning of fBbFBbD to match his fiddle. This is the tuning Nick Hornbuckle played in and it was his 2-finger version which really inspired me to learn. I see the geese flying when I drive down to town, as the rice fields filled with water attract many migrating birds. Today being Thanksgiving, I'm grateful for the forthcoming turkey dinner and thankful we have good food to eat this day and family to enjoy it with.
Add CommentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 122
Size: 1,419kb, uploaded 7/28/2023 1:46:30 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
From the playing of Virginia fiddler Taylor Kimble. I like the melody, though it's rather squirrelly the way he played Wild Hog in the Woods. The lyrics -- well, no thanks!
Add CommentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 89
Size: 1,451kb, uploaded 7/28/2023 4:00:43 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
A second arrangement of this Tune of the Week with a more modal sound, plus the use of a capo to put it in its traditional A modal tuning (aEAC#E).
Add CommentPosted by JanetB, written by J.P. Fraley
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- Play count: 401
Size: 880kb, uploaded 2/29/2012 6:18:52 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
This song is the title on one of Kentucky fiddler J.P. Fraley's albums of the 70's, performed along with his wife, Annadeene. It's a different tune from a more common one of the same title.
4 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 1018
Size: 866kb, uploaded 9/22/2013 7:09:33 AM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
J. P. Fraley's album with this title name has a gem of his fiddled tunes. Kentuckian J. P. was influenced greatly listening to Ed Haley as a youngster. Previously I'd arranged this with 3-finger picking. By changing the key it laid out better for clawhammer.
3 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 410
Size: 1,208kb, uploaded 6/28/2019 10:10:47 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
For the old-time Tune of the Week, 6/28/19, Kentucky fiddler Clyde Davenport (still alive and able to play in his 90's) played the banjo for a tune his father, Will, taught him. The source I found for Will Davenport's Tune (actually the title isn't known) is in an excellent DVD called Shades of Clyde. The key is F in the unusual tuning of fFGCD. I don't find many tunes hypnotic, but this one qualifies.
3 commentsPosted by JanetB, written by Carter Family
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- Play count: 1510
Size: 945kb, uploaded 5/25/2012 6:08:40 AM
Genre: Traditional / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
A signature Carter Family song.
Add CommentPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 113
Size: 1,376kb, uploaded 1/25/2020 1:17:08 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
From Lee Stoneking, Missouri fiddler (1907 - 1989) for the old-time Tune of the Week, 1/24/20.
1 commentPosted by JanetB, written by Rayna Gellert
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- Play count: 986
Size: 902kb, uploaded 1/9/2014 7:05:36 PM
Genre: Old Time / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
In Rayna's CD "Ways of the World" I kept listening to two songs over and over--both turned out to be her own compositions. She's an amazing fiddler--one of my all-time favorites.
5 commentsPosted by JanetB, written by Tony Ellis
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- Play count: 272
Size: 2,198kb, uploaded 11/3/2017 2:28:39 PM
Genre: Other / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Here's one of Tony Ellis' pretty 3/4 time original tunes. He said he and his son Bill wrote this after visiting Japanese families in Colorado and wanting to remember the special occasion. Tony wrote it in double C tuning for his gentle, sparse 3-finger picking, but I found it easier in open G for my clawhammer arrangement. The wind chimes at the end are real!
2 commentsPosted by JanetB
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- Play count: 1804
Size: 650kb, uploaded 9/6/2011 8:51:48 PM
Genre: Fiddle/Celtic/Irish / Playing Style: Clawhammer and Old-Time
Originally learned clawhammer from John Burke's Book of Old Time Fiddle Tunes for Banjo, now picked 3-finger style.
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