Welcome to Old Time Tune Pack 1 (Classic tunes in G)

• Chattanooga

• Barlow Knife

• Josie-O

• Shove That Pig’s Foot a Little Further in the Fire

• Roscoe

These are popular Old-Time classics you can call at any local jam or on the road. I like to pick these tunes towards the beginning of the jam or as a break after more obscure or difficult selections come up.

The breakdown videos consist of playing through the basic tune with most embellishments left out, but keeping feel of the Old-Time groove. You can learn the notes while still keeping the groove! I play the tune slowly again with more slides and anticipations and other fancy stuff added in. To learn the drones, for each tune I play the basic rhythm of the tune on open strings. I find this is a great exercise for getting the hang of playing two strings and again, keeping the groove. Then I play the tune down-tempo with the drones added in.

These tunes come from different parts of Appalachia as noted. I have included notes to help find original sources on Slippery Hill, Tune Archive, and in the Milliner-Koken collection. The versions I play are from the Baltimore Old-Time community, which mixes the styles of Virginia, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. I learned my Old-Time style in Baltimore primarily from Ken and Brad Kolodner, Julius Thor Bjornson, Rachel Eddy, Dakota Karper, and other Old-Time fiddlers in the mid-Atlantic region.

I hope this course gives you all the information you need to learn these tunes and play them with some Old-Time style. If there’s anything else that would be helpful do not hesitate to email me at meganwobus@fiddlestudio.com. To master the Old-Time sound, I recommend playing along with Old-Time fiddlers, whether with recordings and videos or at jams or lessons. I teach fiddle lessons in Western Massachusetts and online, email me for more information.