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    The Semantic Index of North American, British and Irish
 traditional instrumental music with annotations, formerly known as
                          The Fiddler's Companion.
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Old Dan Tucker went to town,
Ridin a goat and leadin' a hound;
The hound give a yelp and the goat give a jump,
And set Dan Tucker right a-straddle of a stump.
Old Dan Tucker

Played by: Just Folk
Source: Soundcloud
Image: The original 1843 sheet music, featuring Emmett and the Virginia Minstrels

Old Dan Tucker


was a popular tune throughout the 19th century and into the next, and is mentioned fairly frequently in publications. Several older fiddle-players have said the "Old Dan Tucker" was the first tune that they learned to play, according to Mike Yates (2002).

It was recorded on a dance card as a square dance played at a "Grand Select Quadrille at City Hall, Lima, Ohio, on Thursday Evening, Jan. 13th, 1870," and "Old Dan Tucker" was given as one of the "category" tunes played in an 1899 Gallatin, Tenn., fiddle contest-the fiddler who played the best rendition won a prize (C. Wolfe, The Devil's Box, vol. 14, No. 4, 12/1/80). The title appears in a list of traditional Ozark Mountain fiddle tunes compiled by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph, published in 1954.

Elizabeth Burchenal prints a circle dance of the same name to the tune, and Ford (1940, p. 207) also prints a dance called "Old Dan Tucker." Indeed, Paul Tyler reports that Old Dan Tucker is the name of a square dance figure—"It's something like the Nine-Pin Reel, a 4-couple square dance with one extra dancer in the middle"—with the active male dancer being known as the 'Tucker'.

Recorded versions in the 78 RPM era come from Uncle Dave Macon (in the early 1920's), Al Hopkins & His Buckle Busters (1928), and the Skillet Lickers (1928).

...more at: Old Dan Tucker - full Score(s) and Annotations



X:1 T:Old Dan Tucker M:2/4 L:1/8 R:Minstrel Air B:Thomas Briggs - "Instructions for the Banjo" (1855; p. 11) Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:G GB/d/ GB/d/|GB/d/ GD|GB/d/ AB|DD EG|GB/d/ GB/d/|GB/d/ GD| GB/d/ AB DD EG!fine!||:[G,DGB]>B d2|AG EG|[DFA]>A d2| DD EG|[G,DGB]>B dB/d/|c/d/B A/d/G|[DFA]>A d2|DD EG!D.C.!:|]

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Who Builds the TTA

Who Builds the TTA

Although we are not trained musicologists and make no pretense to the profession, we have tried to apply such professional rigors to this Semantic Abc Web as we have internalized through our own formal and informal education.
This demands the gathering of as much information as possible about folk pieces to attempt to trace tune families, determine origins, influences and patterns of aural/oral transmittal, and to study individual and regional styles of performance.
Many musicians, like ourselves, are simply curious about titles, origins, sources and anecdotes regarding the music they play. Who, for example, can resist the urge to know where the title Blowzabella came from or what it means, or speculating on the motivations for naming a perfectly respectable tune Bloody Oul' Hag, is it Tay Ye Want?
Knowing the history of the melody we play, or at least to have a sense of its historical and social context, makes the tune 'present' in the here and now, and enhances our rendering of it.
Andrew Kuntz & Valerio Pelliccioni

Please register as a user to make the most of the many functions of the TTA, and enjoy the many ways that information about traditional tunes can be elicited and combined, from simple to complex situations. Users may make contributions, which, when reviewed by an editor, become part of this community project. Serious user/contributors may become editors through the TTA's promotion process, in which quantity and quality of entries allows increased levels of permission to edit and review the entire index.
Above all, the developers wish you joy in the use of the TTA.

Help Getting started

Navigation: Registered users can navigate the Traditional Tune Archive for information in a number of ways.

  • Search. The Search function is located at the top right, and can be used to search the entire index for any key word. See Search help pages
  • Alphabetically by tune title. Under “The Archive” on the SideBar on the left is “The Index”. Click on it to open up the list of tune titles in the TTA arranged in alphabetical order, 200 titles to a page. At the top of the page is an alphabetical breakdown that serves as a shortcut to pages. Clicking on any title will bring one to the music and tune fields. Once the tune appears, clicking “Tune Discussion” at the bottom of the page (below the notation) will open up the narrative information on the tune.
  • Query the Archive. The “Query the Archive” function under “The Archive” in the sidebar can be used to draw down reports from the TTA in either in single items or in a number of combinations. One might, for example, use a single item query to run a report in the TTA for a particular composer/core source. Clicking on the arrow at the right of the bar draws down a list of composer/core sources, or one may be typed in. For example, clicking on “Bill Pigg” and then the “Run Query” tab at the bottom left will result in a list of all compositions listed in the TTA that the Northumbrian piper either composed or is the core source for. Reports may also be run in combinations, as, for example, by selecting “William Marshall” as a composer/core source, “Three Flats” for the number of accidentals, and “Major” for the Key/Mode. This will result in a report of all Eb Major compositions of Scottish fiddler/composer William Marshall that are indexed in the TTA.
  • Tune Books/Magazines in the TTA can be accessed under “Publications” in the left side bar. These are reproductions of publications for which access has been granted to the TTA by the copyright holder, under the Creative Commons license.