Sarah Armstrong

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. 

Chords

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|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----||