'Old Molly Hare'

This week's lesson tune is 'Old Molly Hare'. For me, this has been a quick and easy tune to learn. I like to think that my ear is getting a bit better at picking out the notes and maybe it is, but the tune is admittedly very basic and does have large areas in both the A and B parts that are identical. It also lends itself to an easy shuffle as most of the long and short bows are on the same note (ie, long E, short E, short E).

Below is the melody as I learned it, notated with Finale's PrintMusic®. (BTW, I see Finale just came out with PrintMusic® 2010. Since I just got 2009, I'm up for a free upgrade. It'll be interesting to see what's new.)

This version of 'Old Molly Hare' probably varies slightly from other versions that you may have heard, but isn't that the cool thing about old-time fiddle, after all? There really isn't a wrong version, only a different one!

I also took a look around on the Internet for some lyrics, just in case you might like to sing along to your own fiddling.  The lyrics I've included seem to be the most prevalent off all the versions that I looked at. Like most fiddle tune verses, they are quirky. Enjoy!