# Music by Genre > Old-Time, Roots, Early Country, Cajun, Tex-Mex >  Top Old Time Tunes Played At Jams?

## melodiousthunk

I need to learn a bunch of tunes to be able to participate in a jam this March!  Is there such a thing as a "top 20" or "top 10" list of tunes to learn?
Thanks,
-Ryan

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## Ed Goist

Hi Ryan:
This is probably regionally driven (?).
However, I'd say that the songs represented on Elizabeth Knuth's excellent Simple Gifts Mandolin Tabs and the Mandozine.com TablEdit list of Old-Time tabs would make a great foundation for such a list.
I'm looking forward to seeing the suggestions of others.

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## Ian Brown

I just started a very similar thread. If a moderator felt like merging the two, I wouldn't object.

Mandozine lists the following as "essential" old time tunes.

Soldier's Joy
Liberty
Forked Deer
Angeline the Baker
Arkansas Traveler
Bile them Cabbage Down
Cripple Creek
Dusty Miller
Leather Britches
Bill Cheatham
Wildwood Flower
Will the Circle Be Unbroken
Wayfaring Stranger

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## mandolirius

Interesting. None of those would make the top ten in oldtime jams around here. In fact, most are never played. They'd be more likely to be heard in bluegrass jams.

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## JeffD

> Interesting. None of those would make the top ten in oldtime jams around here. In fact, most are never played. .


See post #6 of the Jam Standards thread.

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## raulb

These are a few of the fiddle tunes we play around here:

Ashokan Farewell
Blackberry Blossom
Bonapart's Retreat
Dennis Murphy/John Ryan's Polka
Jerusalem Ridge
Liberty
Old Joe Clark
Red Haired Boy (aka Little Beggarman)
Red Wing
Rights of Man
Soldier's Joy
St Anne's Reel (to those on the Jam Standards thread, this one should work in both N & S OT)
Staten Island
The Swallowtail Jig
Whisky Before Breakfast

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## woodwizard

If your talking Old-time-I think standards for a OT jam might be in line with these:
1. Hangman's Reel
2. Julianne Johnson
4. Rock the Cradle Joe
5. Big Sciota
6. Yellow Barber
7. Indian Ate a Woodchuck
8. Hell Among the Yearlings
9. Magpie
10. Lantern in the Ditch
For a start  :Smile:

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## Bernie Daniel

> I need to learn a bunch of tunes to be able to participate in a jam this March!  Is there such a thing as a "top 20" or "top 10" list of tunes to learn?
> Thanks,-Ryan


Slightly different take on this.  The top 10 or 20 tunes played at a jam are to my thinking not necessarily "standards".   Aren't standards merely songs that "everyone knows" -- e.g., Liberty, Old Joe Clark, Soldier's Joy etc.  

But while "everyone" knows them they are not as often played because they are just "too common" (I don't mean boring but its something like that). 

But a newbie to OT in his/her first jam could suggest one and all could play it because its a standard.  And if the group is nice they would/should oblige the new player (and cheerfully too?).

 But the top 10 or 20 tunes for the experienced players might be the newer tunes they've learned?

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## JeffD

> But the top 10 or 20 tunes for the experienced players might be the newer tunes they've learned?


Zakly.

It is harder and harder to come prepared to an OT jam. 

The very best thing is to develop the ability to hold your own playing by ear, and record the jam for home practice, or chat up a fiddle player.

I try to get even by keeping a great but relatively obscure tune in my pocket, so that when the time comes that the jam indulges my choice they all get a taste of the newbie feeling  :Smile:

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## Gary S

Old Time music inherantly (though modern communication and travel has changed things considerably) has a regionalism that is important and wonderful(in my opinion) to its essence. The repertoire at a jam in Galax Virginia will be different from that in Nova Scotia or even in the Mts of Kentucky. In North Carolina you are likely to here more music (though hardly exclusively)that you might associate with Tommy Jarrell, The Camp Creek Boys, or Charlie Poole among others. 

Havinng said that, there are some warhorses that seem to be known universally like Soldiers Joy and Arkansas Traveller that I never get tired of playing...Gary

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## JeffD

There are only two old time tunes. One is Soldiers Joy, and the other isn't.

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## Bernie Daniel

> There are only two old time tunes. One is Soldiers Joy, and the other isn't.


I like Soldiers Joy and generally I like the other one too.

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## JeffD

> Old Time music inherantly (though modern communication and travel has changed things considerably) has a regionalism that is important and wonderful(in my opinion) to its essence.


Important and wonderful. And as inconvenient as it sometimes is, where did we get the ridiculous expectation that we could play in a jam 1500 miles from home and know all the tunes?

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## woodwizard

Also an OT tune may have the same name but be played somewhat differently in other states and could actually be a completely different tune/melody entirely. It's nice to know experienced OT fiddle players. I have learned so much from them. Seems like most OT tunes have a really cool history.
Traveled clear across the Pacific to Japan this past Nov. and found some Japanese traditional OT pickers to jam with. We all knew the same tunes. Talk about cool

May have posted this before , sorry ... but this is a cool Big Sciota jam in Tokyo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMXy2AJNEVA

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## JeffD

> It's nice to know experienced OT fiddle players. I have learned so much from them.


An experienced OT fiddler is really a gold mine.

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## woodwizard

> an experienced ot fiddler is really a gold mine.


yes !

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## woodwizard

an experienced ot fiddler is really a gold mine...

And Two of them is really a gas! Like my two OT fiddler friends Doug and Bill here playing "Rock the Cradle Joe". Please excuse the poor quality of the recording but I sure do enjoy learning tunes from these guys. I think this one might be played often at an OT Jam. Good dance tune!

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## John Uhrig

The tunes that we play every time are:

Wesphalia Waltz
Just Because
Red Wing
Faded Love
Yellow Rose Of Texas
College Hornpipe
Amazing Grace
Liberty
Soldiers Joy

Of course the old boy that runs our weekly session has forgotten more tunes than I have every heard. (really, he probably hasn't forgotten them)

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