Bluegrass Tunes – the essential bluegrass fiddle tune repertoire
Bluegrass was invented in the US, more or less, and is played around the world. Vocal harmonies lie at the heart of bluegrass, along with a core set of bluegrass fiddle tunes. The 50 tunes listed below will be known (mostly) by good bluegrass players everywhere. Learning them will take a long time.. but all the good players have put in a similar effort to build their repertoires. Tabs (and audio) for some of the tunes are at Harmonica Academy, other good resources are Steve Kaufman’s 4 hour bluegrass workout at Homespun Tapes and Bluegrassguitar.com
Here are the Tunes
Alabama Jubilee
Angeline the Baker
Arkansas Traveller
Beaumont Rag
Big Mon
Big Sciota
Big Sandy River
Bill Cheatum
Billy in the Lowground
Black Mountain Rag
Blackberry Blossom
Boston Boy
Cherokee Shuffle
Clinch Mountain Backstep
Cripple Creek
Devil’s Dream
Dixie Hoedown
Eighth of January
Fishers Hornpipe
Flop Eared Mule
Flowers of Edinburgh
Forked Deer
Girl I left Behind
Goldrush
Hell Amongst the Yearlings
Jerusalem Ridge
June Apple
Katie Hill
Liberty
Miss McCleod’s Reel
Monroe’s Hornpipe
New Camptown Races
Old Joe Clark
Over the Waterfall
Ragtime Annie
Red Haired Boy
Red Wing
Roanoke
Sail Away Ladies
Sally Ann
Sally Goodun
Salt Creek
Shady Grove
Soldiers Joy
St Annes Reel
Stoney Point
Temperance Reel
Texas Gales
Whiskey Before Breakfast
Wildwood Flower