Old Town Road – Fiddle Cover

Pop song in G# Minor | Intermediate

Here’s a fiddle cover of “Old Town Road,”a hip-hop country song by Little Nas X featuring Billy Ray Cyrus.

It’s the debut performance by KittyFiddler, a strange new character roaming the hills and valleys of San Francisco. While bringing unexpected joy to casual passersby, KittyFiddler’s very presence has also incurred the wrath of local dogwalkers.

I’m giving away an mp3 of this for your listening pleasure:

Performance notes

The original tune is in G# minor, which is a difficult key for fiddle. Because there are no open strings, you need to use a lot of low fourth and raised third fingering. It’s also easier if you learn something called half position, in which the first finger is placed in low first position. More on that below.

After learning the tune on this page (in G# minor), you can play along with the original video (embedded below).

In addition to the original G#m version, I made play-along tracks, sheet music and tabs in G minor for folks who are still learning to play. This version (found lower down the page) is quite a bit easier. If you are a beginner or intermediate player, I recommend starting with the easier version.

Preparation

Start by playing the G#/Ab minor scale with some fun variations. {overlay drone screencast at bottom} This will get the sound of the notes in your head and the feel in your fingers.

Lower octave, in half position: GL1-L2-L3-L4-DL1-L2-L3-L4

Upper octave, in first position: DL4-AL1-1-2-H3-EL1-1-2

Learning chunks

Full play-along track

Use this to play along with the tune.

A part

This part is in standard first position.

First quarter: (AH3-H3)-H3-2-1-DH3-H3-AH3-2-2-DH3-3

Second quarter: A2-1-2-H3-1-L1-L1

Third quarter: (AH3-H3)-H3-2-1-DH3-H3-AH3-2-2-DH3-3

Fourth quarter: A2-1-2-H3-1-DH3-H3

B part

This part is in half position.

First half: GL4-DL1-L1-GL4-DL1-GL1 | GL3-L4-L4-L3-L4

Second half: GL3-L4-L4-L3-L4-L4 | GL4-L3-L4-DL1-GL4-L3-L1

[Play two times]

C part

This part is in half position.

First half: DL1-L1-GL4-L4-DL1-L4-L1-GL4

Second half: GL1-L1-L1-L1-L1-L4-L3-L2-L1

[Play two times]

Low fiddle play-along track

Use this once you’ve learned the tune. You will here more of your own fiddle. If you get lost, stop playing and listen to the recorded fiddle to find your place.

Sheet music

Old Town Road Fiddle Cover – pdf

Beginner / Intermediate version

Note: if you are an absolute beginner, then this will still very challenging. Ideally, you want to have started learning low first finger, which is in Module 2.4 of the main FiddleHed course. Other than that, the tune is not too technically challenging.