If you’ve never tried playing in DDAD tuning, Camp Meeting on the Fourth of July is a great tune to start with. All of the notes can be played on the middle two strings, which don’t change for DDAD, so you don’t have to learn any new fingerings (although playing an E with the first finger on what would normally be the E string is something I do), but you get the benefits of both the high and low drones.

The tunes comes to us in the modern era from James Bryan, who traces it back to an evening processional tune for 19th century camp meetings in Alabama. I got it from the Canote Brothers, who changed it a little bit, and I think over the last ten years I’ve changed it a little myself.

Here is James Bryan’s version:

And here are the Canotes playing it just a little before I learned it:

If you really don’t want to try DDAD tuning, here is a version in standard tuning:

But I really do recommend trying DDAD out, if you’re a fiddler.

You can get the ABC sheet music (with an interactive player) at https://baz.link/campmeeting