Appalachian music. The Route [music transcription]. Note sheet.

Meter: 4/4
Transcribed by Alan Jabbour, from a performance by Henry Reed.
Key: A
Strains: 2 (low-high, 4-4)
Compass: 11
Rendition: 1-2-1-2-1-2-1
Phrase Structure: ABAB QRQS (abcd abcd qrsd qrtd)
Handwritten: Played 3 1/2 times thru (beginning of 1st time missed). The C-flats are often in triple high, esp. in measures 1 & 3, but always closer to natural than to sharp. Measure 6 above perh. intended to include C-flat, as in var.
"The Route" has a well-established history in Virginia, having appeared in Knauff's Virginia Reels (1839) under the title "Colonel Crocket: A Virginia Reel." It seems not to be known in the North or the British Isles, but it turns up here and there in areas affected by westward migration from Virginia, such as "Jenny on the Railroad" by the Carter Brothers and Son (Vocalion 5297), from Mississippi, and Hamblen, A Collection of Violin Tunes Popular During the Early 1800's, p. 39, "The Jolly Blacksmith (She wouldn't come at all)," from Texas by way of Indiana but ultimately from family tradition in Lee County, Virginia. Another West Virginia set is Burl Hammons's "The Route," in The Hammons Family (Library of Congress, AFS L65-66), which includes additional citations.This fiddle tune is associated with some vulgar jingles. It is of a form that appears occasionally in Henry Reed's repertory, where the strains seem to be half the usual length but are often varied on repetition (compare, for example, his "Paddy on the Turnpike"). Henry Reed played "The Route" twice in his usual fashion, learned from an old man in Monroe County, West Virginia, and once (AFS 13033b30) in a manner he described as like his uncle's version of the tune. Comparison of the two is interesting, for it reveals how conscious he was of the principle and practice of variation in tradition.