Tune Req: Seneca Square Dance - sheet music/abc?

Subject: Help
From:
Date: 28 May 97 - 09:22 PM

Can anyone help with the music for an old timey fiddle tune "Seneca Square Dance"? I caught it at a festival a few years back but have been unable to find anything on it since.. any help will be greatly appreciated.

Subject: RE: Music for
From:
Date: 28 May 97 - 11:43 PM

I know of two fine recordings of Seneca Square Dance, though I am sure that there are others. The first is by Fiddlin' Sam Long of the Ozarks on County CD 3506, recorded in 1926. The second is by Geoff Seitz of St. Louis, on his 1995 album, The Good Old Days Are Here. It is available from Oceana Productions, 4175 Loughborough Ave., St. Louis, MO 63116, though I know there are other sources as well.

Subject: RE: Music for
From:
Date: 31 May 97 - 09:55 AM

I have a version, but don't know how to send it over the net. Send your mailing address to my e-mail and I'll send a copy to you.

Subject: sheet music/abc file for Seneca square dance
From: B.Booth
Date: 08 Apr 98 - 08:37 PM

Does any one know where I could find sheet music or an abc file for the song Seneca Square Dance? It appeared Ry Cooder's album The Long Riders (1980)?

Subject: RE: sheet music/abc file for Seneca square dance
From: dulcimer
Date: 08 Apr 98 - 09:31 PM

I have it but am not very good at abc. I can send sheet music. You can contact me through personal message e-mail at the top of this forum with your address and I will send it. You might also check celtic sites under the name SSD or John Hoban's Polka. During the US Civil War, it was known as Waitin for the Federals. I play it very frequently as part of American folk or Celtic music, appropriately titled, of course, and often with other Irish polkas.

Subject: RE: sheet music/abc file for Seneca square dance
From: Dale Rose
Date: 08 Apr 98 - 10:16 PM

Since I don't know the Ry Cooder recording, I cannot say for sure that it is exactly the same tune, but Fiddlin' Sam Long recorded Seneca Square Dance in either January or February of 1926. He is generally considered to be the first Ozark musician to record. The song is available on Echoes Of The Ozarks, Volume One, County 3506, 1995. The album is an excellent anthology of mostly Arkansas musicians recorded 1926-1933.

Another good version, derived from Long's, is by Geoff Seitz of St. Louis on his The Good Old Days Are Here CD, Oceana 003. It is not as widely available, but you can get it through Elderly.

Subject: Seneca Square Dance Midi?
From: Nancy
Date: 02 Oct 99 - 10:54 PM

Have searched to no avail for Seneca Square Dance midi, (I want to transpose it with Cakewalk so I can play it too!). Anyone have it or know where I can find it? Thanks! Nancy

Subject: RE: Seneca Square Dance Midi?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 02 Oct 99 - 11:12 PM

http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/cgi/abc/FindTune?P=Seneca

Jon

Subject: RE: Seneca Square Dance Midi?
From: Jo Taylor
Date: 04 Oct 99 - 07:10 PM

Gosh, bit slow isn't it? Seriously, thanks Jon for the link - managed to work my way back to the search page & found a couple of tunes that I can't be bothered to write out! Nancy, you can just punch the dots into Cakewalk (in score view) and make your own midis. Then tastefully arrange for bagpipe, slap bass and glockenspiel... (Ihave been having fun recently!!)
Jo Taylor

Subject: Seneca Square Dance
From: GUEST,Ben Seymour
Date: 14 Aug 01 - 01:04 PM

I know the tune, I just want to find out which came first. Seneca Square Dance or Waiting for the Federals or does it have yet an older name. It sounds almost Scottish. Anyone?

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Seneca Square Dance
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 14 Aug 01 - 01:27 PM

You might like to have a look at the relevant entries in Andrew Kuntz's  Fiddler's Companion:

Result of search for "Seneca Square Dance"

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Seneca Square Dance
From: MMario
Date: 15 Aug 01 - 02:05 PM

refresh - Ben - you might want to tak a look at the Newcomer's Guide and FAQ.

Subject: RE: sheet music/abc file for Seneca square dance
From: Jack Campin
Date: 03 Apr 10 - 11:04 AM

Look on John Chambers' Tunefinder. It's a very commonly played tune, more often known (in Scotland, anyway) as "Waiting for the Federals". Also called "Seneca Mountain Breakdown".

Subject: RE: sheet music/abc file for Seneca square dance
From: open mike
Date: 03 Apr 10 - 12:48 PM

see here: J C tunefinder - great resource! bookmark this!

it might also possibly be similar to cherokee shuffle, chinquapin or lost indian

hey it only took 12 years to get an answer...
hope you are still out there!

Subject: RE: sheet music/abc file for Seneca square dance
From: GUEST,myliszt
Date: 08 Apr 10 - 12:41 PM

Hi,

Check this link for the sheet music
http://www.myliszt.com/index.php?searchstr=Seneca+Square+Dance&sheet=on&download=on

Warm regards

Subject: RE: sheet music/abc file for Seneca square dance
From: Jack Campin
Date: 08 Apr 10 - 01:57 PM

I've never got anywhere with that site - seems to need some sort of scripting I don't usually have enabled. And it doesn't look like it's designed to hand out anything free, which is not an unreasonable thing to ask for a widely played public domain tune from 150 years ago.

Here it is the way I play it:

  X:1
  T:Waiting for the Federals
  T:Seneca Square Dance
  M:C|
  L:1/8
  Q:1/2=112
  K:G
  B4   B2AB|d2B2 BAG2|B4   d3B |ABAG E2D2 |
  B4   B2AB|d2B2 BAG2|ABAG E2F2|G4-  G2z2:|
  g4   gage|d2B2 BAG2|g4   gfga|be2d e2f2 |
  gaba g3e |dg2d BAG2|ABAG E2F2|G4-  G2z2:|

Sometimes played starting much slower, then accelerating a LOT after the first two times.

Subject: RE: sheet music/abc file for Seneca square dance
From: open mike
Date: 08 Apr 10 - 02:09 PM

that last post can be deciphered by using the ABC program...

here is one resource for this...

http://www.concertina.net/tunes_convert.html

does anyone else have another site for ABC ?

Subject: RE: sheet music/abc file for Seneca square dance
From: Jack Campin
Date: 08 Apr 10 - 04:10 PM

http://www.folkinfo.org/songs/abcconvert.php

It uses basically the same software as concertina.net, but I think they've reconfigured it to eliminate some of the silly defaults in the MIDI converter.

Mudcat has a bug in the way it displays preformatted text, so when I lay ABC out readably as above, it's displayed with spaces at the start of each line. This means these converter websites won't recognize a straight copy-and-paste as being ABC. Here's the ugly version you can just copy straight:

X:1
T:Waiting for the Federals
T:Seneca Square Dance
M:C|
L:1/8
Q:1/2=112
K:G
B4   B2AB|d2B2 BAG2|B4   d3B |ABAG E2D2 |
B4   B2AB|d2B2 BAG2|ABAG E2F2|G4- G2z2:|
g4   gage|d2B2 BAG2|g4   gfga|be2d e2f2 |
gaba g3e |dg2d BAG2|ABAG E2F2|G4- G2z2:|