Wednesday Tune Fix: Boys Around The World

This tune comes from the Missouri Valley Region. I’ve heard it played many times by Dwight Lamb and Cyril Stinnett. It has a unique rhythmic feel, atypical of hoe-downs and reels, and may well have come from a Danish polka, as the area is home to descendants of Danish Immigrants from the late 19th Century. Of course, there’s no objective evidence for this — just one of my musical hunches.

This isn’t a particularly notey tune, but does have a little “up-the-neck” bit on the second part. Don’t let it deter you. Get the transcription here: http://www.charliewalden.com/Dots.htm.


4 comments

  1. Bob Walters also played this one. I think that Cyril may have learned a lot of tunes from him.

  2. Charlie, you might *think* this is Danish, but not after you go to http://giffordmusic.net/DulcimerFiddle.html and then go down to no. 7, “Miner’s Quadrille,” recorded in 1957 by Archie Barnes, accompanied on dulcimer by his sister Elizabeth Palen, and see what you think.
    The Barneses were pioneers in Meridian Township, near where Michigan State University is today, and there were no Danes around there.

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