Notes from the VP
Hello Music Friends!
For those of you that were not able to attend the May GPDA meeting, there was quite a bit of discussion and concern about changing the Traditional Playlist. Please let me assure you, I will not be changing the list!! It’s a great list with tunes we all know and enjoy playing. Those that worked so diligently to create the tab for all those tunes – my hat goes off to you! You did an incredible job of building all those tabs and putting the playlist together!
The new tunes I’m providing for you all be added to the “New” tunes folder in groups io. I will bring the latest additions to the club meetings for anyone who doesn’t have the ability to print them from our io page. Please let me know if there are songs you would like to add or share – I’m your girl to help make that happen!! 😊
Going forward, I will attempt to have a “beginner” version and a little more advanced version that I’ll refer to as “intermediate”, in an attempt to make the songs playable by all. I hope to have some history of each tune, and I’m sure there will be some Paula comments and tips. What you do with the tunes is entirely up to you! I hope you will enjoy at least some of them. 😊
One more thing – these tunes will be traditional, or, I will have permission from the composer to use them. Now, enough business, let’s talk about this month’s tune – “Old Yellow Dog”. I first learned this tune at a “Shoo Goo” jam, an old-time jam that used to happen once in a while at the Girl Scout Cabin in McPherson. The song was enjoyed by many of us and popular for a while, at least till the next great new tune came along. 😊
Here is a little history on the tune…. OLD Yellow Dog, AKA – Old Yeller Dog, Old Yeller Dog Went A-trotting Through the Meeting Room. A fiddle tune sourced from Charlie Acuff who learned it from his grandfather, also named Charlie Acuff. The tune is a variant of an old minstrel song called “Down in Alabam”. A version of the song was used as a campaign song for Abraham Lincoln, called “Old Abe Lincoln came Tearing Out the Wilderness”. Fiddler Earl Johnson recorded a version as “Old Grey Mare Kicking Out of the Wilderness.
Here is just a portion of the lyrics;
Old yellar dog went trottin' through the meetin' house,
Trottin through the meetin' house,
Trottin through the meetin' house;
Old yellar dog went trottin' through the meetin' house,
Down in Alabam'.
Have you ever taken your dog to church with you?? It seems that “dogs trottin through the meetin’ house” were quite common. Read on………… The presence of dogs in a house of worship may seem incongruous to many, but the practice was not rare at one time, particularly in the South. South Carolina minister Charles Woodmason found it necessary to bar his congregation from bringing their animals with them to church in the late 18th century. Not only were they troublesome, he explained, but they were also "an affront to the Divine Presence...to mix unclean things with our service." Interesting!! Now you probably know way more then you really wanted to know about this tune!! 😊
Tips from Paula;
Learn the beginner version first
Learn and practice just the chords. This tune can move right along in a fiddle jam. Chords are a fun and great way to
along. I LOVE chords!! I do quite a few hammer ons, I don’t think about it, it just happens. I find it helps me play faster.
HAVE FUN with this tune!!
**I’ll bring copies to the June club meeting
