Arkansas Traveler

In the continuing vein of demystifying incredibly notey tunes, this week's lesson tune is Arkansas Traveler (and as long as I don't think about a big, purple dinosaur singing about a bumblebee, it's a pretty cool tune. lol.).

My teacher seemed to think that Arkansas Traveler would be a great follow-up to Whiskey Before Breakfast. I guess they do seem to have a pretty similar tune structure and each does have a decidedly good amount of shuffle built in.

Like Whiskey Before Breakfast, I can see that it is really not that difficult to streamline some of the extremely notey areas while still retaining the essence of the tune. Nothing is really lost.

And if you stop to think about it, wanting to play every little note correctly, right out of the gate, can really hold you back. As long as you have a good grasp of the basic structure and the basic melody, you have the tune. You can play with others - even if they are playing more notes than you are! The intricacies can come later when you've had a chance to develop your bowing and your fingering dexterity.

I've learned this the hard way and still struggle from time to time with wanting to play pieces that I'm really not technically prepared to play yet - and get every note in. However, learning that some of my friends, who have played for years, still leave out a few notes here and there on some of the more difficult tunes makes me feel a bit better about letting go of perfection.

Anyway, off my soapbox and back to our tune. One thing that I particularly love about Arkansas Traveler is that it gives you lots of string crossing practice. Additionally, it gives you plenty of time on the lower strings and I just love the sound of a fiddle G string.

As far as difficulty goes, I had no problem getting the A part up to a decent speed in a relatively short time - my fingers just seemed to take to it without a problem. The B part, however, was a lot slower to come to me and I still stumble a bit on the descending part every couple of times I play it. But maybe that's just me!

As an interesting note, according to Wikipedia, the tune was written by a Colonel Sanford C. Faulkner in the 1800s. The lyrics, however, weren't written until 1947 when Arkansas Traveler was set to become the official state song of Arkansas. I have included those lyrics for your enjoyment along with my notation.

Happy fiddling!