My apologies for being late again: this month started badly, and I’m just now digging out from under. Instead of doing my own transcription of this tune, I’m using Mark Wardenburg’s transcription from the fantastic old-time resource Tater Joe’s. There are around a thousand old-time tune transcriptions there, and if you read sheet music or banjo tab, or are looking for Strum Machine backing for an old-time tune, I highly recommend it.

Boatsman (or Boatman) as played by Marcus Martin is clearly related to the minstrel song “The Boatman’s Dance“, but is (in my opinion) more musically interesting. I learned it from Greg Canote at Fiddle Tunes in 2013, but listening to that recording now I see that I have diverged some in how I play it, as usual. Which is as it should be, if you ask me. Wouldn’t it be boring if everyone played tunes exactly the same every time?

The hook of this tune for me is in the way the high part has three variations on the same phrase. I’ve heard people who play it with the first two variations the same, and it still sounds good, but it doesn’t grab me like it does when they’re all a little different. In fact, Marcus Martin’s recording has it with just the middle variation twice on the first time through, without the crooked third variation at all. The recording is so short that there’s no way to tell if that’s how he normally played it or if he was remembering it on the fly as the tape rolled and was more confident in his memory the second time.

I like to end this tune on the same part I start it on. I have no idea who I picked that up from, or if it was my own idea, but it’s the way I’ve been playing it for years. It also sounds pretty good played in a wide range of tempos, from almost a lament to peppy dance tempo (although it’s crooked, so I wouldn’t recommend it for dancing other than clogging/flatfooting).

Oh, and please do give this a try in DDAD tuning if you’re a fiddler. You can play it in GDAE, but it loses a lot.