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columnHeader Cold Frosty Morning is an Appalachian old-time fiddle tune whose haunting melody has become very popular among bluegrass players as well. Played in the key of Am, it is sometimes simply called Frosty Morning, and comes to us through the fiddler Henry Reed.

One of the keys to playing this tune is realizing that once you have capoed the 5th string up to A, you can roll across the 5th, 3rd and 1st strings without having to fret a full Am chord and create a very driving, bluegrass banjo sound. (See measure 1.) By not fretting the 2nd string, you are leaving your index finger free to use in the hammer-on on the 3rd string, which adds greatly to the driving sound of the roll. Also, by avoiding the 2nd string, you are leaving out the third of the chord, which means this sound will work equally well against A major or minor.

The melodic style runs in measures 4 and 7 are reminders that the key of Am is the relative minor to C major, meaning that you will find your fingers falling in many of the same positions when playing in either key.

ianPhotoThe trickiest part of this arrangement is the first measure of G in Part B, which involves some single string work on the 2nd string. This phrase can also be played melodic style as shown in Ex. 1. This makes the right hand a little easier by allowing you to play a roll across three strings, but it involves a large stretch with your left hand, so choose whichever way suits you best. In this particular situation, I prefer the more staccato sound of the single string approach.

You can hear an MP3 of the tab on the BNL website (www.banjonews.com) and see a video of the left hand positions on my site at ianperry.ca. I would also like to thank my friends Andy and Billie Bregg for introducing me to this wonderful tune. And until next time, keep on picking!

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Key of Am. Tuning: aDGBD. Arr. by Ian Perry

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