Ok guys. I never played squirrel hunters and don't remember ever hearing it, although it seems sorta uncommon going by real life and the internet both, except for in the playing of John Hartford. He gave a concert at my college sometime in the early 70s...don't remember exactly when, so he mighta played it then but I don't remember. I was so fascinated with the dancing and fiddling at the same time....not to mention the vest and hat. Anyway, a few years back I learned it off of the BG Daddy site, although it was so notey and fast I didn't quite catch it all...but to me, with my love of rearranging tunes as I want to...lol...and my self-given permission to be free to do that, and my hope other people can enjoy that freely too so we can all have a good time playing music...I did limp my way through it one time on youtube, and only had played it long enough beforehand to be able to limp through in a sorry way and have never played it since. But today...unbelievably...a rare day...I had a chance to grab a fiddle...grabbed the one in standard tuning and thought to give squirrel hunters another try. By this time, I see what bugged me about squirrel hunters the other time around...I love the tune...but it has a chromatic feel that bugs me...so I was messin' with it for about 12 minutes (lucky when I get that much) and realized that could easily be changed to less chromatic feeling...then, I know John Hartford did long bows...not my thang...so when I had done it for YouTube my bowing seemed too choppy with it...my usual bowing based on n. shuffle and its natural spin-offs just wasn't clicking in for me. here's a link of how I did it back then, 9 years ago...don't get upset if you don't want a link, just pass it on by...and thanks... youtu.be/oOowbZd6k6c?si=oG2VIwZo_2ngGGB7
So now, this morning with coffee in hand...well, I set the coffee down for a while and ended up playing some, I realized the chromatic feel plus the n. shuffle feel, along with a slower tempo, which I'm always in favor of...it just sounds less hectic to me, not just this tune, everything, just about...anyway, I discovered in my 12 minutes of freedom this morning that I think I could make this tune work for me, looking at it again now, when it just didn't before. So that's my story for today.
Before that happened, our internet was out so I had been grappling to find how to contact the place to get it back on, talking to AI robots for hours and listening to terrible music in between robots, looking up passwords and secret codes and all that ... and apparently a centipede dropped into my coffee while I was on the phone. So after getting off the phone and hurriedly picking up a fiddle to try squirrel hunters while I had the chance, I took a big swig from the coffee and had something strange in my mouth...I gagged and spit everywhere...lol...sorry, it was gross...I had almost swallowed a centipede. Fortunately the fiddle was not harmed in this whole scenario. Not sure about the centipede...I don't know where I flung him...lol...I hope s/he's ok.
For the past 4 months I've spent hours and hours on phones, talking to AI robots and looking up all our secret codes and passwords and whatever... being frustrated because I just hate all that stuff...everything from medical bill calls to when somebody rammed me from the left lane at a high speed on a windy two-lane double yellow-line road as I was turning left with my turn signal on...dealing with the collision center's robots and the insurance's robots and the other person's insurance robots, etc. I've spent so much time with AI robots, filling out forms and trying to make sense...I'm starting to feel like one of the ol' AI gang now, myself. So I'm chalking up long days on the phone robots and trying to manage all the stuff here...the car rental place says I should have taken my red Jeep rental back a week ago, after they had given me a stinky busted up white Nissan days before, while the collision cent who has had ou car for a while contacted me to tell me to bring our car in for repair or make an appointment...and it was hard to find a human who I could tell that they already had our car, or another human in the rental place that they didn't give me a red Jeep, etc., It's all so crazy I can't make sense of it. Doctors told me to stop being so stressed out...yeah, yeah...easy enough, hey?
Oh yeah, then I thought later, wasn't it Sartre who said you could wake up any random day and find a centipede where your tongue should be? Sorta illustrating the agony of existentialism?
Hey GHPeggy - I tried to email you but not sure that it went through. There's a story behind the tune "Squirrel Hunters" that you might find interesting.......
Thanks, Mark. Interesting reading! For a while I worked in regional archives dept of the library and transcribed correspondences between people in the area and this makes sense of some of the letters sent back and forth during the war...lol. I had only fractions of details plus a LOT of opinions to see in those letters.
Well it's also interesting just how much music came about during those Civil War encampments around the country.
I guess I'm kinda glad the tune isn't about hunting squirrels...lol...although I grew up eating squirrel all the time, spitting out buckshot and all...they were my favorite until I was probably about 12 years old. At this point in my life though, we have dozens who hang out here and I feed them and talk to them and take care of them...lol...so...yeah I know they did taste good, but they are now my cherished neighbors and friends...so...well I'm not happy the intention was to shoot people either...lol...but it's a good thing Lincoln did get around to that Emancipation Proclamation...speaking of Lincoln, one of my favorite fiddle tunes is Booth Shot Lincoln...and I know from reading the letters back and forth in the archives dept as I was transcribing them, Lincoln was really a despised figure among a lot of the area...but having a fiddle tune by that name seems really crass to me. I've heard people calling it just plain old Booth, but I'm like, hey why don't we call it just plain ol' Lincoln instead? Anyhow...I'm getting all sappy as I age I guess. And I'm veering off topic...but just sayin'...it's interesting that we do get so creative during times of war and other stressful times. Thanks for the link!
(quote) ............and I'm veering off topic...but just sayin'...it's interesting that we do get so creative during times of war and other stressful times. Thanks for the link!
Chromatic? Maybe I'll have to look up the definition of that word.
Have you listened to the WV versions? Here's Ernie Carpenter's He got it from Dan Friend who was a relative of mine from around Clarksburg.
It's very similar to the way I know it. : https://www.slippery-hill.com/content/dan-friends-piece
I learned the tune iat jams in WestVa and Western Maryland in the early 90s.
Going to yer YouTube now.
Edited by - ShawnCraver on 07/02/2026 20:41:04
I'm picturing a ship at sea with yer arrangement Peggy..... some choppy waters...pirates playing a little low key music in a minor key. a bit of rum sloshing in their bellies. I like the creativity this tune allows for.
THat is a very cool tune!
Peggy’s version is the first version I have ever heard, so I don’t have much else to say…
GReat that you are fiddling and making some music again, Peggy!
MEaning of ‘squirrel hunters’ was interesting to read. :-)
Lol...wow...we went from Civil War encampment parties to pirates laying low...lol...that's funny. Yeah...I'd call that a tune with a lot of room for ideas. Well thanks for the Ernie Carpenter recording. As I said before, I never heard the tune that I can recall except when the BGDaddy guy had the John Hartford version and gave a lesson from that on his site, back a few years ago.
Maybe chromatic wasn't the right word...as far as I can remember there's a little walkup in the second phrase of the A part...it strikes my ear with a chromatic twang...lol...maybe the notes aren't exactly...not sure, but somehow it disagrees with my ear. It also disagrees with my bowing. Ernie Carpenter sounded like he used a quick and choppy bowing on that and John Hartford used a lot of long bow...I'd like to find a middle ground that gives it the ol' Hank Williams type rhythm and tempo that I never got past...as I said, I have little opportunity to play at all, but I'm thinking about that one a lot for whatever reason...maybe just the fact that I really like the tune and can't play it in a way that sounds like what I wanna do with it. Maybe I should rename it: Pirates among the Tapers at the ol' Encampment Protecting the Union.
NC, thanks for replies. Yes, it's a neat tune...I guess it kinda yells out "Play that Fiddle" to me when I hear it. Now I've heard of another version....lol...life gets more interesting!
I joined up BGDaddy during my short stint with a little local amateur BG band. Since I hadn't played fiddle very long by that time (or even by this time...lol) and was just pretty much bull-headed self-taught back porch style old timey person, I felt like I should try to learn some useful stuff for the band...I mainly played guitar, but I don't play BG style guitar either, and they were just desperate for a guitarist who could also play the fiddle. So anyway, it was expensive to join up BGDaddy but I did learn quite a bit of useful stuff there. But here's how his lesson for Squirrel Hunters went. To me, the pace is frantic, hectic...it bothers me... like I said before, I'm all in with the Hank Williams pace to hear or play in. Anyway, regardless of specifics, the tune as I heard it there on his site for what I beleive was the first time struck me as something cool to learn. Here's how his lesson went... youtu.be/Peto830CvnM?si=4OydJVpGZ6JbjTL_
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