Wagon Wheel – 1st break

Here’s a lesson on how to play the first break from Wagon Wheel by Old Crow Medicine show. The song was based off a fragment that Bob Dylan (who’s credited as a co-author) performed in the movie Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid.

This is a lesson for intermediate fiddlers; you need to know raised third finger for this tune.

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.

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

Preparation

Warm up with A major scale using A drone.

A major scale (2 octaves): G1-2-H3-D0-1-2-H3-A0-1-2-3-E0-1-2-3

D0-GH3-2-1

A part, first phrase

first phrase: D1-2-A0-1-1-2-2-3-[2-3-2]-2-1-[1-2-1]-[0-1-0]

A part, second phrase

Sign up for a Trial Subscription to access all audio, sheet music, tabs and other learning content.

 

A part, third phrase

Sign up for a Trial Subscription to access all audio, sheet music, tabs and other learning content.

A part, fourth phrase

Sign up for a Trial Subscription to access all audio, sheet music, tabs and other learning content.

A part, fifth phrase

Sign up for a Trial Subscription to access all audio, sheet music, tabs and other learning content.

Other versions on Youtube

 

Further Learning

Workshop

Here’s a call-and-response workshop in which you learn this song by ear. This is a good way to review the tune.

Full Content

Sign up for a Trial Subscription to learn with multi-tempo, sheet music and tabs audio. Sign up for a Trial Subscription to get full access to the course and group lessons for 14 days. https://fiddlehed.com/register/trial-subscription/

Wagon Wheel – Full Tabs & Sheet Music

First phrase: D1-2-A0-1-1-2-2-3-[2-3-2]-2-1-[1-2-1]-[0-1-0]

Second phrase: D1-2-2-1-2-H3-A0-0-1-2-3

Third phrase: E0-A2-E0-1-0-A2-1-0-1-0-1-0-E0-A0-3-0

Fourth phrase: A2-3-2-1-0-DH3-2-1-2-A0-D2-GH3-D0-GH3-2-1

Fifth phrase: G2-H3-H3-[H3-4-H3]-H3-2-2-[2-H3-2]-2-1-1-H3-2-2-1-1

Sheet music

Sign up for a Trial Subscription to access all audio, full sheet music, tabs and other learning content.

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 Fingering And String Crossing 5 >>

Wagon Wheel – 2nd Break >>

Return to top of Module 2.8 >>

Leave a Reply

5 responses to “Wagon Wheel – 1st break”

  2. This is the order I’ve been learning Part 1 of Wagon Wheel (and when learning a tune I will be applying this same order to other songs on your platform)…

    1. Learn Notes and Intonation
    2. Memorize Notes
    3. Add Bowing Patterns
    4. Add Double Stops

    Or would you recommend practicing in a different order? Or, should anything go together? For example…

    1 (notes and intonation) and 3 (bowing patterns) happen at the same time?

    I’m just trying to find the most efficient way to practice and learn tunes.

    Thanks! I love your videos, sheet music, and practice tracks!

  4. Have been a subscriber for a little while, and then stumbled upon yuthis r wagon heel lesson. It’s great! I have signed up but am a little puzzled on how your website works. Having some troubles (Safari?)

    Suggestions?