Sarah Armstrong's Tune played by Modal Tease.
The tune is in key of D using the one, four, five chords of the D scale: D, G, A. This is a square tune with two parts of equal length, each played twice (AABB structure). The low (first) part alternates the D and A chords, while the high (second) parts uses D, A, G, A, then D, A, G, A/D. This tune was written by Sarah Armstrong from central Pennsylvania. There are no known recordings of Sarah Armstrong, but a Penn State professor visited her and transcribed her tunes in 1943 [TuneArch].
Walt Koken and Claire Milliner at home in PA. Walt was a member of the great Highwoods Stringband in the 1970s [FolkStreams]. Claire and Walt published the Milliner-Koken Collection of old time fiddle transcriptions. See MudThumper. Claire and Walt host the annual Brandywine Revival.
Fancy solo fiddle by Gary Sizemore [utoob].
Christen Blanton Mack overdubbed five instruments. Her video [YouTube} shows the fingerings for all of them. Another fiddler made a very slow instructional video with just fiddle and metronome [utoob].
Amazing fiddler Roger Netherton performed this tune when he was very young [YouTube]. You can watch the guitar player's chords.
This fiddle & banjo duet [YouTube] figure it out pretty much.
Most old time jams don't play the chords or the notes as written out at The Session.
Here is a simple version using only quarter notes for saw stroke bowing in key of D. Fiddle Fingers Notation.
Low part (play this twice).
E|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----||
A|----|----|----|-010|----|----|000-|----||
D|----|-020|1122|1---|----|-020|---3|2100||
G|1122|1---|----|----|1122|1---|----|----||
High part (play this twice).
E|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----||
A|333-|----|0130|----|333-|----|0130|----||
D|---2|111-|----|210-|---2|111-|----|210-||
G|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----||