# Music by Genre > Old-Time, Roots, Early Country, Cajun, Tex-Mex >  Grandfather's Clock -- Anyone play it?

## sgarrity

This tune popped into my head the other day after years of not playing it.  I learned it when Tone Poems came out but never heard it played in jams.  I really like Grisman's version and I play something close to that.  Whe else plays this one?

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## AlanN

A great version is on the Seldom Scene Live At The Cellar Door. They start it slow, then pick up the tempo, twice, I think. When it's time for Duffey's solo, he does this blue note thing at the end which is pure, well, pure Duffey.

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## Fred Keller

I've played it in jams a couple times.  I can't claim to really have a nice version of it down but I can get through it and make it sound like music  :Wink: .

Sadly, the worst part of the tune for me is that--in jams where it pops up--it's usually a hot-shot bass player aching to show off his slap skills.  The other instruments play a pleasant melody but the bass player beats on it like it owes him money.  After two or three times round the circle, one feels a little like one is playing under machine gun fire.

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## PaulD

My mother used to sing this to me when I was a tyke, and it was my now 17 y.o. son's favorite lullaby. I've played it on the mando for years, and there's a local clawhammer banjer player who makes it a lot of fun to jam on. It can be fun to play slow as a song and sing the words or pick up the tempo and play it as a "fiddle" tune.

pd

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## Fred G

Great tune, we played it once at an assisted living gig and everyone sang along...

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## allenhopkins

> Great tune, we played it once at an assisted living gig and everyone sang along...


Yeah, I've had the same experience, though it's a bit creepy to hear a bunch of seniors singing "the old man died" with gusto.

Written by Henry Clay Work, a well-known Civil War era composer (_Marching Through Georgia, Kingdom Come_ etc.), who came out of songwriting retirement at the behest of some friends who were starting a music publishing company to write a few more songs.  _My Grandfather's Clock_ became his biggest hit, though _The Ship That Never Returned_ also lasted a long time, lending its melody to _Wreck Of the Old 97_ and _Charlie On the MTA._

I have also heard that the large stand-alone clocks were referred to as "floor clocks" or "tall case clocks" until the song came out, and took their subsequent name of "grandfather clocks" from the song, rather than the other way around.  In any case, one of the great American popular songs.

It's also a nice cross-picking piece, in the key of D.  I usually sing it in F, with Autoharp.

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## Jordan Ramsey

> It's also a nice cross-picking piece, in the key of D. I usually sing it in F, with Autoharp.


Jack Tottle also has a pretty cool cross-picking version in the key of A in his _Bluegrass Mandolin_ book.  It works well in that key for using the melody on the 3rd string with lots of drone possibilities for the 1st and 2nd strings, and allows guitarist who usually know it in G to just capo up.  

Jordan Ramsey
http://www.myspace.com/crosspicker
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'08 Gibson Sam Bush

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## Fred G

We started doing those gigs and worried about singing "bury me beneath the willow", "walkin cane", "i'll fly away", etc. but they requested them...

interesting stuff about grandfathers clock, thanks.

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## Dave Reiner

My family band plays and sings GFC in G.  Fine tune, with an interesting story told by the lyrics.

Dave

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## Bruce Evans

Ever play it??

It's a standard around here. People play it so much nobody wants to play it anymore.

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## JeffD

Its an old standard here too, and for the "tic tok" break in the B part one is encouraged to make all kinds of irrelevant rythmic noises.

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## DryBones

my instructor has me playing 12th fret harmonics on the D and G strings for the tick-tocks, sounds pretty cool!

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## AlanN

Yes to the harmonics for the tick-tocks. I do frets 12, 7 and 5, in various inversions, usually with finale on G5 harmonic.

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## JeffD

I usually pick a string or two below the bridge, to get that broken clock sound.

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## Carleton Page

Kind of spooky timing on this thread.  I didn't see this till just now, but yesterday morning at the same time this thread started I felt the need to transcribe the first break of the tone poems version! ( Up to where Tony Rice takes the melody.)  I love this song. I have heard it slow, fast, in between and I think  it sounds good regardless.  Which I think is a fairly rare quality for a tune. 
Can anyone recomend any vocal versions?

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## AlanN

> I usually pick a string or two below the bridge, to get that broken clock sound.



There was an oldtimey band in NYC called Major Contay and the Canebrake Rattlers. The mandolin picker would do that. A very unpleasant sound. 

YMMV, IMO, etc.

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## Tracy Ballinger

Never heard it/heard of it, but I found a version on YouTube with a nice mando solo (and the aforementioned bass solo! lol)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F51WsAXRcKc

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## JeffD

> There was an oldtimey band in NYC called Major Contay and the Canebrake Rattlers. The mandolin picker would do that. A very unpleasant sound. 
> 
> YMMV, IMO, etc.


Yea, its not musical, its more making a funny. It works better in a jam, where you are enjoying playing with others, rather than a performance, where you are playing for others.

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## mandolinlee

Our group plays this tune, as an instrumental, in the Key of G. After the tune has ended I usually play the G string pair as a split string couple with one string open and the other fretted at the first fret with a slow tempo like a clock striking the hour. Fretted this way it sounds similar to an old mantel clock striking the hour.
Lee

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## Tom C

I originally learned it from Tome Poems but it is too slow and more notes had to be added.
I play the harmonics on the G4 and G5 frets. though it is hard to pull tone out of them.

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## Bruce Evans

> People play it so much nobody wants to play it anymore.


Too subtle?

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## DryBones

> I usually pick a string or two below the bridge, to get that broken clock sound.


can't do that as I have silencers on the strings below the bridge so no sound available there!  :Cool:

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## John Ritchhart

Country Gentlemen version - Duffy again.

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## Ken Berner

We play "Grandfather's Clock" quite often. We play a mandolin & guitar duet in G and it sounds right good.

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## woodwizard

That's a great song that can be very beautiful slow or can really burn it up fast. I also play that one in G.

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## Eddie Sheehy

I play at an Exile's party once a year and one of the older guys always sings this one...along with "The Little Shirt Me Mother Made For Me".

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## Mike Bunting

> a standard around here. People play it so much nobody wants to play it anymore.


I didn't know that Yogi Berra was a member of the Cafe society!

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## ApK

I just learned this song from American Fiddle Method Vol 1 a couple years ago when I took up fiddle.  Love the song, and now, I realize I've heard it for years and never noticed it (it was on and old Twilight Zone, for example).

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## Barb Friedland

I play it in G as well but as an instrumental. Warning: guitar content- this makes a great fingerpicking instrumental on guitar.

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## mrbook

I first started playing it while in a band with an autoharp player, and worked out what I thought was a nice version on mandolin. When he left, we stopped playing it, and I later had to play it on the banjo in a couple other bands. Just recently I've been called back to playing it on mandolin again, and I'm reminded how much fun it is to play.

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## Phillip Tigue

John Hartford has a great version...a little less old time and with lyrics.  Classic John nonetheless.

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## Ken Olmstead

Here is my wack at it. The best part for me is my father-in-law is accompanying me on the autoharp that he made! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACmsCwY-LkU

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## JeffD

I don't really remember not knowing the tune - its one of those things we sang in grade school, maybe even earlier. Like "Tinsie Weensie Spider".

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## Bruce Evans

> I didn't know that Yogi Berra was a member of the Cafe society!


Thank you. I hate being ignored.

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## Phillip Tigue

> John Hartford has a great version...a little less old time and with lyrics.  Classic John nonetheless.


Okay...sooooooo. Apparently, I must have an early onset off Old Timers or something.  I was thinking of Cuckoo's Nest, not Grandfather Clock.

I do remember playing it at one time...but I can't remember the song now!

Raise your hand if you're like me and wish you could remember all the songs you've forgotten!

Especially these old time tunes, change one note and it's a new song.

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## sgarrity

My iMac is finally working again.  So here is my attempt.

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## Bernie Daniel

Tony Williamson has a very nice version of GFC played on a Gibson K-5 mandocello -- it is on the video (also CD now?) entitled "Sound of the American Mandolin".  

Sound of the Am. Mandolin is a great song project that is worth having to hear all the various vintage mandolins, mandolas and mandocellos -- including direct comparisions of virizi and no virzi F-5's and F-4's.

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## John Hill

> This tune popped into my head the other day after years of not playing it.  I learned it when Tone Poems came out but never heard it played in jams.  I really like Grisman's version and I play something close to that.  Whe else plays this one?


Tone Poems is where I learned it as well. I enjoy playing Grisman's version because of the tremolo workout. A smooth, controlled & emotive tremolo can be very tough...ok, it _is_ very tough.

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## Michael Wolf

I like this version a lot:

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## AlanN

Wonderful crosspicking there, bud.

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## Jack Roberts

This is one of the first songs I taught myself to play.  I heard my mother in law singing it to herself and thought "that could sound great on mandolin."

I play it in G  with a G string drone played once a measure to sound like the clock striking.

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## Jordan Ramsey

Very weird.  I have never heard of the guy playing the crosspicking arrangement above, but we have the same first name, the same mandolin, and we're playing a very similar arrangement.

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## Michael Wolf

Marvelous, I like this a lot, too. It's really very similar. Very nice versions both of these and very good players both of you.

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## Tracy Ballinger

> Very weird.  I have never heard of the guy playing the crosspicking arrangement above, but we have the same first name, the same mandolin, and we're playing a very similar arrangement.



Another of those fascinating stories of twins separated at birth??  :Smile: 

You're both fabulous!

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## Mike Bromley

> Wonderful crosspicking there, bud.


Indeed!  Nice Hosses as well.

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## Roland Sturm

It's a bit too popular a song/tune, so I wouldn't suggest it for a jam (just like twinkle, twinkle, little star or Irish washerwoman at a fast ITM session). GFC is THE bass solo, the equivalent of Rachmaninov's piano concerto for a bluegrass slapper. So after that, who needs to hear more.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk4CzOfMJVs

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## Jordan Ramsey

> Another of those fascinating stories of twins separated at birth??
> 
> You're both fabulous!


Thank you Michael, Tracy, and Mike for the kind comments!  I really enjoy my twin's ( :Grin: ) arrangement, a little bit faster than mine with a free right hand to boot.  Both arrangements come from Jack Tottle's book _Bluegrass Mandolin_ on Oak Publications, although the other version is quite different from Jack's original in regards to pick direction, right and left hand technique, and overall sound, I'm almost positive it has been adapted from Tottle.  The breaks that I play are copied from Jack's _Backroad Mandolin_ album, which has an accompanying tab booklet that lays out melodies and solos from the recording.  If you can find it (vinyl only), buy it, it's a wonderful collection, and a great representation of Tottle in his prime.  I really appreciate the album; what other mandolin player do you know today that would take the time to write out, print, and include transcriptions to all the melodies and solos on their album?  A true educator!  I was lucky enough to take lessons from Jack while at ETSU.  He's still there part time for a few years, so if you have the opportunity, go get some lessons before he retires.

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## Dan Cole

Ditto on the Jack Tottle version in his book "Bluegrass Mandolin".  If you can find his album called "Backroad Mandolin" he has a full version complete with the break tabbed out in the book.  That album also came with tab for all the songs, so you end up with at least 2 nice breaks.

I have the book, album, tab, and a copy on CD.

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