Appalachian music. Lost Indian [music transcription]. Note sheet.

Transcribed by Alan Jabbour, from a performance by Henry Reed.
Key: A
Meter: 4/4 (but not steady in its beat)
Strains: 3 (middle-middle-middle, 2-2-2)
Rendition: 1r-2r-3
Phrase Structure: AB QB UB (aba'c a"ra'c uva'c)
Compass: 11 (7 plus drone notes)
Handwritten: This is all he played. Tuned C#AEA
"Lost Indian" is not traceable as a tune, because it is not a typical British-American tune in the first place. It is imitative, and what it purports to imitate is a call of an American Indian--perhaps a communication call for use in the woods. Songs or tunes that imitate or evoke American Indians are long established in the culture of the Upper South; see, for example, "Indian War Whoop" in Knauff's Virginia Reels (1839). Various other songs or tunes titled "Lost Indian" can be encountered in both print and recorded sources in the twentieth century; see for example Ford, Traditional Music of America, p. 124. Henry Reed played this tune because he had been discussing the practice of tuning the fiddle in different tunings, and the fiddle had been placed in the tuning C#AEA. He had abandoned the practice of retuning the fiddle at some point as a young man, and though he found ways to convert most tunes to standard tuning that had been previously played in other tunings, a few specialty pieces such as "Lost Indian" seem to have been lost along the way. But when presented with this tuning, he ran his fingers over the strings to remind himself of the fingering patterns, and the tuning literally reminded him of the tune.