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Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier: The Henry Reed Collection
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Item Title
Cluck Old Hen
Author/Creator
Collector: Jabbour, Alan
Performer: Reed, Henry; fiddle
Created/Published
May 06, 1967
Reed family home, Glen Lyn, Virginia (Giles County)
Notes
"Cluck Old Hen" is a well-known tune and song through the Appalachian South, quite distinct from another barnyard evocation, "Cackling Hen," which is played in G. The song "Cluck Old Hen" consists of a series of playful verses. As an instrumental tune, it is popular on both fiddle and banjo. On the fiddle, one of the tune's special features is the "cluck" made by left-hand picking of the strings. In this, Henry Reed's second performance, the "cluck" is the open E-string, though other fiddlers use both the E and A-strings, or even the E, A, and D-strings. In his first performance (AFS 13037a17), he does not do the left-hand picking, but the set shows interesting variation among the repetitions of the second strain. It seems clear here that the variation is a matter of conscious creative modification, not unconscious changes.
Key: A
Meter: 4/4
Strains: 2 (high-low, 2-2)
Rendition: 1r-2r-1r-2r-1r-2r-1r-2
Phrase Structure: AB QR (aba'c qrq'c)
Compass: 10
Spoken: [before tune]/MAN: . . . Keep going, get the keys./ALAN JABBOUR: Get the keys.[after tune]/HENRY REED: Quit before I miss it. Eh?
Recording chronology: 126
Duration: 1 minute, 5 seconds
Subject
Breakdowns
Reels
Fiddle tunes
Instrumentals--fiddle
Ethnography
Music
United States--Virginia--Giles County--Glen Lyn
Object Type
Medium
sound recording
Language
English
Call Number
AFC LWO 5379 reel 1B, AFS 13703B:26
Digital ID
afcreed 13703b26
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/afcreed.13703b26
Related Audio
Cluck Old Hen [AFS 13037a17]
Cluck Old Hen [transcription] [Transcribed]