Appalachian music. Old Joe Clark [music transcription]. Note sheet.

Meter: 4/4
Strains: 2 (high-low, 4-4)
Transcribed by Alan Jabbour, from a performance by Henry Reed.
Stylistic features: Slurs in bowing.
Key: A
Compass: 11
Rendition: 1r-2r-1r-2r-1
Title change: This tune is transcribed after "Unnamed" ["Ebenezer"] on the page.
Phrase Structure: ABAC QRQC (abac abde qrst urde)
Handwritten: Played thru 2 1/4 times; 2nd time transcribed. Note variation & distribution of C# & G#. C# consistent, tho' usually low, in 2nd str. G# only at cadence leading into A.
"Old Joe Clark" seems, from the vantage point of the later twentieth century, to be one of the most widely known of all Southern fiddle tunes. Indeed, it is one of those Southern tunes that has to a degree become part of the national repertory. One may hear it in bluegrass jam sessions, old-time fiddle sessions, and country dances throughout the United States. But though it may date back into the nineteenth century, one cannot find sets older than the turn of the century. It is possible that it circulated first in children's tradition and in play-parties--which might account for its playful and sometimes outlandish verses--then erupted into the fiddle and banjo world. Henry Reed's set shares with most old-time fiddlers from the Upper South the movement of the melody to the high octave (A) by the third phrase of the high strain, and the drop of the melody to the lower dominant (E) in the second phrase of the low strain.For other song and instrumental sets, compare Perrow, "Songs and Rhymes from the South," Journal of American Folklore 25, p. 152 ("sung by E. Tenn. Whites, 1905"); Brown, The Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore vol. 5, pp. 65-66 (#89 and 990); Bennett, "A Study in Fiddle Tunes from Western North Carolina", p. 72, played by Fiddlin' Bill Hensley, near Asheville, North Carolina; Sharp, English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, vol. 2, 259 (#183), Beechgrove, Virginia; Thede, The Fiddle Book, pp. 28-29; Lomax, American Ballads and Folk Songs, p. 277; Thomas, Devil's Ditties, pp. 106-107. Additional discussion and citations may be found with a Louisiana set in American Fiddle Tunes (Library of Congress, AFS L62).