The Ways Of The World reel

Written I think by William Hamilton Stepp from eastern Kentucky.

For this tune you would tune your fiddle to AEAE tuning so you get plenty of ringing drones and easy double crossing.

Picked it up from Old-Time legend Bruce Molsky.

Here is a video of the tune:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOw5Y1Y30jw

play video

So what does this tune have to do with Irish sessions? I can just imagine the fiddler asking everyone to wait while he cross tunes into AEAE, then launches into this, which no one else will join in on, and then has to re-tune to standard to carry on.

Another useless “addition” to the tune archives (rapidly becoming an archive of random crap).

I personally think it’s a great tune and if you look at the notes it can easily be played in standard tuning. So please jump down from your high horse.

The ringing drones give it quite some scandinavian touch - attention that might be the divil himself 😉

DJF, it’s not a “high horse.” I play loads of Appalachian tunes, but I don’t post them on this site because those tunes are not at all common in Irish sessions. It’s a question of the purpose and intent of the tune archives here. Which you seem to be oblivious to.

Nice one, Dan - fits in nicely with your (and my) liking of Shetland stuff !

post scriptum: where’s the Box Man gone?
https://thesession.org/tunes/7203