Bluegrass Tunes

Simple Gifts

February 24, 2018 by Cy...

Peaceful image of the ocean of the B.C. coast.

“Simple Gifts” is a well known tune. Even if you don’t know it by name, or you don’t know the lyrics, you’re probably familiar with the melody.

Joseph Brackett wrote the original song in 1848. While the tune was written in the USA, it is often thought to be from Ireland or Scotland.

However, Brackett lived his entire life in the state of Maine. He was an elder in a religious community called the “United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing”. Commonly known as “Shakers”.

Newsletter

The Tune

Simple Gifts was originally written as a dance tune, but it’s often sang as a hymn. Therefore, it is found in many hymnals. The tab I’ve written below is a basic version of the melody in the key of G.

Listen to Simple Gifts for the mandolin:

Simple Gifts

Downloads:

Tabs & Music Download

Just the Tab Download

Just the Music Download

If you feel you can help support this site with the donation of a dollar or two, It would be very much appreciated…

If you don’t wish to donate at this time, I totally understand – Enjoy!

Simple Gifts – Lyrics

Here are the original lyrics for Simple Gifts. Or, at least something close to the original!

‘Tis a gift to be simple, ’tis a gift to be free.
‘Tis a gift to come down where you ought to be.
And when we find ourselves in the place just right
It will be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gained
to bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed.
To turn, turn will be our delight
‘Till by turning, turning we come ’round right.

In the early 60’s, Sydney Carter came up with some completely different lyrics, and put them to Brackett’s melody. He called it “Lord of the Dance“. Michael Flatley used that tune in his Irish musical production by the same name. As a result, the original is not as well known as Carter’s version. Probably one of the reasons why so many people think its a traditional Irish tune.

Don’t Miss a Beat!

Join our mailing list for new tabs, practice ideas and study material.
Keep informed of new projects. Its free!
No spam, ever. That’s a promise!

Top of Page…

Rock the Cradle Joe

February 17, 2018 by Cy...

Image of a 2-point mandolin — Buckskin Leathers

Old Time Song

Rock the Cradle Joe is certainly one of those tunes that has that “old-time” flavor. It can get your foot tapping along quietly while you listen to it.

Later, it’ll be stuck in your head for the rest of the day, no matter what you do to try and get rid of it. You’ll be whistling away while making a sandwich in the kitchen, or singing it quietly while driving to work.

There are words to the song, I’ll print them out below the tab. At least, I’ll print out what seems to be the most common lyrics. I’m guessing there’s probably a lot of different versions. And, they’ve probably changed several times over the years. I’m not sure how old this tune really is.

Newsletter

The Tune

Rock the Cradle Joe sounds good on the mandolin, and it can be fun to play. It also sounds good on the clawhammer banjo. I guess it just adds to that “old-timey” sound.

One of my favorite versions of this tune, as an instrumental, is on Adam Steffey’s Album “New Primitive”. I believe his wife plays banjo on that album. It has some other great tunes as well – Chinquapin Hunting, Squirrel Hunters, New Five Cent Piece.

My version of “Rock the Cradle Joe”, tabbed out below, is definitely influenced by Steffey’s playing on that album.

Listen to “Rock the Cradle Joe” for mandolin:

Rock the Cradle Joe

Downloads:

Tab & Music Download

Just the Tab Download

Just the Music Download

If you feel you can help support this site with the donation of a dollar or two, It would be very much appreciated…

If you don’t wish to donate at this time, I totally understand – Enjoy!

Lyrics – Rock the Cradle Joe

Gotta go to bed, gotta go to work,
Gotta get up in the morning
What ya gonna do when the baby cries
Rock that cradle Joe

What ya gonna do when the baby cries
I don’t know
What ya gonna do when the baby cries
Rock that cradle Joe

Thanks for visiting, I hope you enjoy learning this tune.

Cy…

Don’t Miss a Beat!

Join our mailing list for new tabs, practice ideas and study material.
Keep informed of new projects. Its free!
No spam, ever. That’s a promise!

Whiskey Before Breakfast

February 12, 2018 by Cy...

Whiskey Before Breakfast is a great old fiddle tune. Years ago it seemed like everybody was recording it. I remember having albums by different artists with various arrangements of the tune. It has certainly become an acoustic standard.

I remember trying to learn it on the guitar, off a Norman Blake album. I had been visiting my sisters in Boulder, Colorado and purchased the album in a little record store downtown, along with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s “Will the Circle be Unbroken”. At the time, both those records were impossible to find back home.

Newsletter

The album title was “Whiskey Before Breakfast”, but it didn’t really seem like the featured song on the record. It was actually the second tune in a two-tune set. In the end, I gave up on it. I was more a finger-picker than a flatpicker. I did come away with something, but it didn’t sound anything like Blake’s arrangement!

Later on, I did figure out a respectable version on banjo, and more recently adapted it to mandolin.

The Tune

I always thought “Whiskey Before Breakfast” was a traditional Irish tune. It would seem that may not be the case. In fact, the tune has been attributed it to the late, great Canadian Metis fiddler Andy DeJarlis. I do know that he recorded the tune on more than one album, and I understand he originally recorded it under a different name (Ok, I read that part on the internet).

However, DeJarlis wrote a lot of other great fiddle tunes as well, like “The Buckskin Reel“, “Sitting Bull”, “Caribou Reel“, “Louis Riel”… and a good number of waltzes and jigs.

Anyway, have a listen to “Whiskey Before Breakfast” on the mandolin at 150 bpm.

Here is a slower version:

Whiskey Before Breakfast

Downloads:

Tab & Music Download

Just the Music Download

If you feel you can help support this site with the donation of a dollar or two, It would be very much appreciated…

If you don’t wish to donate at this time, I totally understand – Enjoy!

If any downloads or images are missing please let me know. I’ll get on it as soon as I can.

FYI

“Whiskey Before Breakfast” can also be found in the Fiddler’s Fake Book. It’s on page 290 of my copy.

Hope you enjoy the arrangement. Please feel free to comment.

Don’t Miss a Beat!

Join our mailing list for new tabs, practice ideas and study material.
Keep informed of new projects. Its free!
No spam, ever. That’s a promise!

Top of Page

Liberty

October 18, 2017 by Cy...

Liberty is another classic fiddle tune. You’ve probably heard it. It’s a fairly popular tune at jam sessions and one that is often included in beginner books for almost every bluegrass instrument. Therefore, it’s one of those tunes that you probably want to learn.

I’ve heard this fiddle tune played in a few different keys. I’ve found the key of D to be very common, so that’s what you’ll find on this page. Since there’s nothing too tricky in this arrangement, you should find it easy to learn.

Listen to the tune “Liberty” for mandolin:

Liberty

Download:
Tab and Notation
Just the Music
Just the Tab

Beginnings
I learned this tune many years ago on guitar and banjo, and although I’ve seen it sometimes called “Liberty Hornpipe”, I’ve never discovered it under any other name. I always just thought of it as an old American civil war tune. However, when I decided to put it on the website I thought I might take a quick look into the history. I found that, like many old tunes, it’s true origin has become somewhat muddy over the years.

The tune’s birthplace varies, depending on where you get your info. Some say it came from Ireland and was at one time called “The Tipsy Parson”, which of course is very possible – many Irish and Scottish tunes have made their way to America. Elsewhere, I’ve read that Liberty was originally a French Canadian fiddle tune called “Reel De Ti-Jean”. I found nothing on who might have written the tune.

Of course, that’s nothing unusual. There are thousands of tunes out there that have lost most of their history, and we play them every day. Liberty is just one of them.

Wherever it came from, it eventually made its way to America where it is recognized by, or in the repertoire of, most North American fiddlers and musicians.

image of a Bluegrass Mandolin

Squirrel Hunters

April 4, 2017 by Cy...

retro image of an ad for the Daisy air rifle.

A Likeable Melody

Squirrel Hunters was a request from a site visitor. It’s an old fiddle tune that has a few different little twists, so it caught my attention as something that might be of interest to everyone.

It was easy enough to come up with something I could tab out, but when it comes to the key and the chords, it tends to take a few diversions from the standard.

I’m a big John Hartford fan, and I got some help from an old video I found on YouTube. In that video, Hartford explains this very tune as played on the fiddle.

Newsletter

The Tune

While Squirrel Hunters seems to be in the key of A, all the G’s are natural, not sharp. The tune starts off on an E chord (the fifth) and ends on a D chord (fourth). The second part starts with an A chord.

Listen to Squirrel Hunters for mandolin.

Squirrel Hunters

Slower

Squirrel Hunters

Downloads:

*Tab & Music

*Just the Tab

*Just the Music

If you feel you can help support this site with the donation of a dollar or two, It would be very much appreciated…

If you don’t wish to donate at this time, I totally understand – Enjoy!

A Few Simple Variations

Adding just a single note to a few bars can make a solo sound a little different. Inserting a slide, double stop or pull-off etc., can also make a difference to the ear, thus adding “color”, or “embellishing” an arrangement. I’ve included a few very simple variations for you to try.

The A Part

In the very first bar, try adding a slide from the 5th fret to the 7th.

showing a variation for the beginning of squirrel hunters. — Slide from the 5th fret to the 7th

In addition, you might try adding just a single note to the fourth bar (an ‘A’ after the ‘D’ on the second string), thus turning that first quarter note into two eighth notes.

variation for the fourth bar by adding a note — Adding a single note.

If you want, you can also add an open ‘A’ after the C#, filling that fourth bar with eighth notes.

The 5th bar is a repeated phrase (same as the 1st bar), as a result you can add the same slide to the fifth bar as you did in the first.

The B Part

The second part can also start off with a slide in the 10th bar. So, it would look like this:

Another single note can be added to the end of the eleventh bar so that the flow of notes continues into the next bar.

variation for the tune squirrel hunters — Adding another single note.

The 13th bar can be treated in the same manner as the 4th bar, adding a single note.

And finally, we can change the quarter note in the 14th bar into two eighth notes. As a result, the flow of notes continues well into the 15th bar.

Another variation to the tune squirrel hunters. — Keep the flow going.

So, that’s just a few simple variations. Give them a try and see what you think. Maybe see what you can come up with on your own.

Here’s the result:

And, the slower version:

Downloads:

*Tab & Music

*Just the Tab

*Just the Music

Make Sure It’s Not Too Much

After making changes and variations, it’s always best to step back and take a look at what you’ve done. Make sure you haven’t made it too difficult or complicated. Make sure it’s not too “notey” (if that makes sense). In most cases you don’t want a tune that’s overly busy. Less is more.

Thanks for visiting. Please feel free to leave comments.

Cy…

Don’t Miss a Beat!

Join our mailing list for new tabs, practice ideas and study material.
Keep informed of new projects. Its free!
No spam, ever. That’s a promise!

Big Sandy River

August 18, 2016 by Cy...

Big Sandy River is another classic fiddle tune made famous by Bill Munroe.

It gets its name from a river in the United States. Two tributaries in Kentucky and West Virginia (the Levisa Fork and the Tug Fork) join together to form the Big Sandy River. It flows northerly, for a little less than 30 miles, along the borders of Kentucky and West Virginia, where it empties into the Ohio River.

An area along the Tug Fork tributary, that flows into Big Sandy, is well known as the site of the famous Hatfield-McCoy feud.

Big Sandy River is in the key of A. The following version should be fairly straight-forward. It’s in 4/4 time with a typical down-up-down-up picking pattern (down on the beats). The most difficult part, for some, may be fretting the notes on the 6th fret. A common question is “should I use my ring finger or my pinky on the 6th fret?”.

Try using your ring finger for both the D, at the 5th fret on the second string, and the D-sharps at the 6th fret. Use the same finger for the G# at the 6th fret of the D (or third) string.

Listen to Big Sandy River for mandolin:

Big Sandy River

Download:
Tablature and Music
Just the Notation
Just the Tab

Variations
A-part
You’ve already seen a simple variation in the A-part. Instead of playing the 6th bar exactly the same as the 2nd, I’ve put in a slide from the 5th to the 6th fret (D to D#).

But, you could try adding some notes in these bars. I always find myself adding a few notes. It’s funny because I often take notes out of a piece to add pause, or a little change to the flow. Then, when I’m playing, I tend to add them back in as I keep the down-up-down-up pattern going. Okay, not so funny.

By adding a couple open notes to the 2nd or 6th bar, you could get something like this:
Variation to start of big sandy river

I don’t actually strike the added open notes as hard as the the others, so they’re not nearly as loud. In fact I just touch them.

B-part
You can see that the 11th bar and the 15th bar are the same except for the added G-sharp in the 11th. Just switch those two bars around and you may notice a different feel to the start of the B-part.

Also, try adding a D# (2nd string, 6th fret) to the 13th or 17th bar like this:
another variation for big sandy river
Another great variation to try is moving the whole B-part down an octave. You’ll use mostly the same notes, but start on the 4th (lowest) string. Give it a go!

A bluegrass mandolin — Bluegrass Mandolin

Simple Gifts