Annotation:Over the Stump and Back Again

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OVER THE STUMP AND BACK AGAIN. American, Breakdown or Reel. D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. Collector Samuel Bayard recorded in his Hill Country Tunes [1] (1944):

The story Mrs. Armstrong tells concerning this tune illustrates the extremely casual was in which a country dance tune can acquire a new name. On one occasion, when the player was a small girl, her uncle Laney Gray was sitting in their home playing this tune on his fiddle. Someone came into the house with the news that old Dan Riffle (a local character still well remembered by many people in the Derry neighborhood) was trying to drive a team back and forth across a stump. The team was reluctant, and Dan was yelling and swearing at the animals in a great passion. When Laney heard this, he at once exclaimed, 'There's a name for my tune--'Over the Stump and Back Again!' Mrs. Armstrong did not state that her uncle had composed this air; in all likelihood he was merely casting about for some suitable name to give to it, and this little incident inspired him!

Source for notated version: Mrs. Sarah Armstrong, (near) Derry, Pennsylvania, November 18, 1943 [Bayard].

Printed sources: Bayard (Hill Country Tunes), 1944; No. 66.

Recorded sources: