Annotation:Hit or Miss Reel

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HIT OR MISS REEL. American, Reel. C Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. "Hit or Miss" was the name in Ryan's Mammoth Collection (1882) but the identical setting was published as "Aria" in George Saunders' 1847 collection, where it is one of the tunes he indicated with his initials as a composition of his own. New York musician, writer and researcher Don Meade finds that Irish fiddler Larry Redican borrowed the second part (albeit with a key-change from C to F) for his composition "Culfodda/Killfadda (The)". The title of a tune called "Hit or Miss" appears in a list of traditional Ozark Mountain fiddle tunes compiled by folklorist/musicologist Vance Randolph, published in 1954. The reel was popularized among Cape Breton fiddlers by Winston Fitzgerald, who recorded it on 78 RPM and on house-party tapes.

Source for notated version: Winston Fitzgerald (1914-1987, Cape Breton) [Cranford].

Printed sources: Cole (1000 Fiddle Tunes), 1940; p. 19. Cranford (Winston Fitzgerald), 1997; No. 120, p. 49. Ryan's Mammoth Collection, 1882; p. 43. Saunders (New and Scientific Self-Instructing School for the Violin), 1847, no. 5, p. 21 (as "Aria").

Recorded sources:

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