Ashoken Farewell Tutorial

This is a great piece to end summer sessions.

Most of us know it from the Ken Burns Civil War documentary series, and it seems old. But actually it's not. (Here's a clip from the doc with the tune under it.)

It was composed by Jay Unger in 1982, and became a closing tune for fiddle camps run by he and his wife Molly in upstate New York.

Here's a link to Jay & Molly and friends playing it:

Ashoken Farewell video

This tune, whether done simply or more complex, stops folks in their tracks. So why not learn it!

Here in an audio track of the melody that you can strum along to:

Ashoken Farewell - melody track, guitar picked

It's done slow to be easier for playing along with. Remember to turn the volume down on the online player.

Just added - melody track on mandolin. About 54 bpm. Metronome is kind of loud. Entire tune repeated twice with different ending. Excuse the duffer tremolo. 

I developed this tutorial for a new uke student (with piano training) who wanted to fingerpick this tune in key of D on uke. We encountered the uke dilemma of how to pick notes below High G on 4th string of soprano uke without wanting to re-string to Low G. Here's the link to a post about experimenting with DROP TUNING ON UKE as a possible workaround for this.

Below is the sheet music. Chords indicated. You can also try to pick out the notes. Have fun with the rest of your summer!