Cripple Creek

Old-time and Bluegrass Reel in A Major
Beginner > Module 1.5

🎯 What You’ll Learn

In this lesson, you’ll learn the classic old-time and bluegrass tune “Cripple Creek” in a simple, beginner-friendly way. We’ll break the tune into small, manageable chunks so you can focus on one section at a time without feeling overwhelmed.

You’ll use repetition and looping to lock in the melody, and by the end, you’ll be able to play both the A and B parts of the tune at a steady pace. This is a perfect first step into the world of jamming and traditional fiddle music.

🛠 Key Tips

  • Warm up with an A major scale before diving into the tune—it helps get the sound in your ear.

  • Take one half of a part at a time, and loop it until it feels natural.

  • Play along slowly with the video to build muscle memory and confidence.

  • Don’t worry about variations yet—focus on the simple version first.

  • Pause the video and practice a tricky bit on your own before moving forward.

❓ Common Questions

Do I need to learn the A major scale first?
It’s not required, but it helps a lot. Playing the scale warms up your fingers and trains your ear for the key of the tune.

What if I can’t keep up with the video?
No problem—just pause and practice small sections at your own pace. Slow and steady will get you there.

Are there other versions of Cripple Creek?
Yes! Fiddle tunes have hundreds of variations. Start with this simple version, and you can explore fancier ones later.

Cripple Creek Call-And-Response Lessons

Learn the tune through old-school call-and-response. I’ll play something, then leave you a space to play it back. Use these lessons to learn, improve or review the tune. I encourage you to struggle a bit with learning this by ear before referring to the music.

Learning chunks 

I’ve made some “Learning Chunks” to help you learn more easily. These focused exercises contain sheet music, tabs and mp3 snippets to guide you on your fiddle journey. The idea is to start with small musical bits, get good at those, and then put them together into bigger pieces until you have the whole tune. I call it Micro-practice.

Preparation

Warm up with the A major scale and phrases from the tune (once you’ve learned it) using a A drone: 

For those of you who read (or want to read), all snippets use this key and time signature:

 

A part, first half

Warm-ups
Key intervals:
E1-1-3-3

A2-2-E0-0

↓

First half: (E0-1)-3-3-0-A2-3-E0-1-0

A part, second half

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Interlude

Let’s pause for a moment and pay attention to how we practice.

Creativity, Fun and Adventure?

Always try to find creative ways to make practicing fun. How can you practice the same thing in different ways? Can you learn to enjoy the sound? Can you even learn to enjoy the struggle?

If you explore different options for playing the same thing, then you will be able to enjoy practicing that for a longer time. Remember, the brain gets bored easily, but the hands need lots and lots of time to learn things.

B part, first half

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B part, second half

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Other versions on Youtube

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Sheet music video

Learn to intuitively read sheet music with this animated video. If you’re an absolute beginner, then I suggest you don’t worry about fo it for the moment.

This is here for continuing students who want to learn about sheet music. It’s part of the Note-Reading For Fiddlers course.

Continue on to Pentatonic Scales Introduction >>

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Leave a Reply

14 responses to “Cripple Creek”

  1. Really enjoyed call and response on this tune.
    Was totally lost on the first two calls
    Then started ove a few times..made it right through..this won’t be the last time..lots of fun…..how come I hated music lesson# back in the 1950’s..sh3 kept whacking me on the head at lessons if I made a mistake, plus I hated that classical stuff.

  6. Fun tune (even if “Cripple Creek” makes me think first of The Band from back in the day)! Seems easy to play, even with some swing in there. Maybe I’m actually getting better little by little! 😅

  9. I’m confused.
    When I look at the A scale I see the third finger on the D string is G# But is seems that you are playing a G.
    How can I figure this stuff out when I’m just looking a sheet music?
    Thanks!