Dug Road Rag

Dug Road Rag (mp3) (pdf)

A little over a month ago (around April 10th according to the image above) I was enjoying playing some ragtime tunes from the excellent book Ragtime for Fiddle & Mandolin by Stephen C. Parker, edited by Alan Davis. After playing a number of tunes from the book I found myself playing a "new" tune that is clearly an imitation of the work of the masters of the ragtime era. Some bits of it are borrowed from those masters but a few of the phrases are mine.

The image above from my notebook shows how the tune began and the pdf of the resulting sheet music shows where it ended up. (I almost always write music with a pen, partly because I change my mind a lot. If I use a pencil and then erase things as I go along I find that, later, I wish for the ideas that I erased.)

The recording is a no frills statement of the melody on the mandolin without accompaniment.

The Dug Road in Decorah was once an actual road but today is one of the most beautiful parts of the Trout Run Trail.

Hope you enjoy the tune!