Flatpicking Fiddle Tunes-"Big Sciota"-part 3 of 20

Today I'm going to be showing you two different ways of playing the classic fiddle tune Big Scioto. Hey there, it's Aaron Jaxon coming to you today, and I want to welcome you to part 2 of a 20-part series that I'm doing around classic fiddle tunes for flatpicking guitar. And today the tune that we're going to cover is called Big Sciota. I think I'm pronouncing that right. I've heard some people call it Big Skiota, but you know, the way I say it with my part Texas and part Tennessee accent is Big Sciota. Anyway, this is a really cool tune, and the first place that I ever heard this was on an album that came out in the '90s from Jerry Douglas, Edgar Meyer, and Russ Barenberg. And, uh, Russ just plays a beautiful, killer version of this tune. And I really think Russ is one of the most underrated players in this style. He's just such a brilliant player here. But that was the first place I've heard it. Since that record came out, this tune has become really like a flatpicking guitar favorite. If you get a bunch of flatpickers that are jamming together, sitting around, someone is probably going to call Big Sciotta at some point. So down in the video description, I'll link to the version played by Russ Berenberg, and I'll also link to a couple of my other favorite recordings of this tune. That way you can check them out and just get a little context for this tune. And remember, you can get the tabs for this lesson down in the video description and in the top pinned comment. So like I'm doing with all of these tunes here, I'm going to give you a basic melody version, and then I'll give you another more advanced version where we take the melody up or down an octave and take just a little bit of liberty with it in key places. So let's go ahead and start with the basic melody version here, and I'll play it up to tempo with the backing track. I'll throw the chords up on the screen here for the A and the B part of this tune. And remember that the chords that you see on the screen will get 2 beats each. All right, that'll sound like this. All right, so let's jump in here and learn the basic melody to Big Siouxsie. That's gonna go like this. We're gonna go 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. And then we'll just play that again.

So that's the A part to the basic melody here.

Of Big Sciota. I like throwing in the little, the little, um, kind of triplet hammer-ons there at the beginning. Um, if you get to playing this and you decide that you, you don't want to do that, you don't have to do that. You could just do 1, 2, 3, 4. You can leave that out, or you could do like a slide. That'll work too, but I like the little—

just gives it a little more bounce in my opinion.

But you You can experiment with it and try it some other ways if you don't like that. Okay, so let's learn the B part here, and that's going to go like this. 1 and 2 and We'll do that again.

Okay, so there we go there.

So that B part is kind of open to interpretation. I think the version that I'm playing there is, you know, it's part of some stuff that I came up with and also part of a version that I think I learned from, you know, Banjo Ben a couple of years ago there, which I know we all know and love Banjo Ben. So It's just the B part to this tune is kind of subject to interpretation. I think Russ Berenberg plays it more like— that's not exactly how he plays it, but I do think he— you know, whereas— So same general idea, but again, open to interpretation. That's the basic melody version that I like there. Again, feel free to learn that, and again, feel free to check out some of the recordings that I've got down in the video description for some other interpretations of this tune. That's our basic A and B part to Big Scioto here. So one more time, let me play this up to tempo with a backing track here, and that'll sound like this. Okay, so now that we've got that basic melody version down, let's, um, you know, let's do a little bit more of an advanced version here. What I'm mostly going to be doing with this version is I'm going to be moving the melody up and down an octave, and in a couple of key places I'll be throwing in some licks and phrases just to spice it up just a little bit here. So, all right, but before I teach the second version to you, let me play it for you up to tempo and with a backing track. Okay, so let's learn this second version of Big Scioto. Here we'll start off with the A part, and that'll go like this. 2 and 3 and 4 and Okay, so again, I'm mostly just moving the melody up and down an octave up here.

That's just same deal.

And then right here. Okay, so again, um, you know, taking the melody down but also throwing in a little bit of a lick in there. All right, and then once I get here again taking the melody down an octave. And then to end it with, I'm just going to go back to the original melody version that we played in the first version here. Okay, so there's the second version, um, there's the A part to the second version there. And again, mostly just moving the melody up and down an octave. So now let's go into the B part of the second version, and that'll sound like this. 1 and 2. And there we have it there. So again, kind of the same deal there. I'm taking the melody down in certain places, and in a few places there I'm throwing in some licks and passages, like at the beginning here, right here. So I'm targeting the chord tones here. Okay, and especially watch that. The, the idea is simple because I'm just kind of going through a C major triad, but playing that, especially up to tempo, is really challenging. Okay, and then after that, where the chord goes to E minor And then all I'm doing after that is we're taking that main melody that we learned in the first version, we're taking it down an octave. Okay, so same deal, just taking that melody down an octave there. So one more time, let's hear that second version up to tempo with our backing track. Okay, so I love this too. Tune. It's so much fun to play. And like I said, ever since the Skip Hop and Wobble version, which is the name of the album that Jerry Douglas, Edgar Meyer, and Russ Barenberg did on this tune, uh, this, this tune has really kind of become like a flatpicking standard. So, you know, you can go to pretty much any jam and people will know this tune, and it's so much fun to play. And I've given you two different versions here that you can learn and you can, you know, apply to your repertoire. You can build your vocabulary with this, but also check out some of the recordings that I have to this tune down below. That way you can get some other interpretations of it here. Remember that you can get the tabs for this lesson down in the video description and in the top pinned comment. As always, I want to thank you for hanging out, and I'll see you next time.