Annotation:Thumbing Bug
X:1 T:Thumbing Bug N:From the playing of Everett Kays (1905-1996, Lawrenceburg, N:Anderson County, north-central Kentucky). Recorded in the N:field in June, 1978, by John Harrod. M:C| L:1/8 R:Reel N:"+" = pizzicato Q:"Quick" D:https://soundarchives.berea.edu/items/show/3451 Z:Transcribed by Andrew Kuntz K:G ef|g2 ga g3e|d2B4ef|gfga ged2|[B4e4]- [Be][Be][Bf]| [B2g2]ga ge d2| edBA G2Bc|dedB AGA2|G3G G2:| |:dc|.B2 "+".[G2B2]."+"B2."+"[G2B2]|"+".B2."+"[G2B2] [GB][GA][GB][GB]|.c2.[G2c2].c2.[G2c2]|.c2.[G2c2]cAdc| .B2 "+".[G2B2]."+"B2."+"[G2B2]|"+".B2."+"[G2B2] [GB]ABc|dedB AGA2|G3 G G2:|
THUMBING BUG. AKA - "Coon Dog (4)," "Thumping Bug." American, Reel (cut time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The sources for the reel are Anderson County, north-central Kentucky fiddler Everett Kays (1905-1996) and Mercer County, central Kentucky, fiddler Cecil Thurman. The opening two measures are readily identifiable as the opening bars to the "Seneca Square Dance" family of tunes, however, the rest of the tune differs materially, and while the opening bars are distinctive markers the tune is not considered a cognate member of the family. Rather, the opening bars can be seen as a 'floating' motif to which other, unrelated, material has been attached. Anderson County, Kentucky, fiddler Vincent Crawford's "Coon Dog (4)" is a version of "Thumping/Thumbing Bug."
Folklorist Stephen Green, in his article "Title, Text and Tune Interrelations in American Fiddle Music", points uses the tune titles "Thumping Bug" and "Jumping Buck" as one example of phoneme-morpheme parallel that occurs in American fiddle music, where syllable patterns in tune titles are retained in repertory, even though there may be no musical relationship between such tunes.