Appalachian music. Frosty Morning [music transcription]. Note sheet.

Meter: 4/4
Strains: 2 (high-low, 4-4)
Compass: 15
Transcribed by Alan Jabbour, from a performance by Henry Reed.
Key: A
Title change: This tune is transcribed after "Santa Anna's Retreat" on the page.
Rendition: 1r-2r-1r-2r-1r-2r
Phrase Structure: ABCD (or ABAC) QRQD (abcd efgh (or abcd abef) qrst qrgh)
Stylistic features: Shifts handling of third phrase after first time through. Long bow.
Related Tune(s): Betsy
Handwritten: Recorded: BABABA. The variation is so considerable that memory is undoubtedly a factor, esp. in 2nd str.
"Frosty Morning" sounds like a classic fiddle tune of the old frontier, but no clear variants of it can be cited from elsewhere. The title crops up elsewhere (sometimes as "Cold Frosty Morning"), but not for this tune. Henry Reed played it twice, and both times he began it with the high strain, showing the predilection of fiddlers in the Upper South for beginning their tunes with the upper strain, often at or near the top of the tune’s compass. In both sets of "Frosty Morning" he tended to conflate the high strain with other tunes--on this occasion, with the high strain of the tune presented elsewhere in this collection under the title "Betsy," and once with the low strain of "West Virginia Gals," which he had just played. On yet another occasion (AFS 13037a16), he began with another tune, the "Breakdown in A," then conflated it with "Frosty Morning."