Old Time Fiddlers’ Favorite Barn Dance Tunes

Old Time Fiddlers’ Favorite Barn Dance Tunes is a 1928 collection of 74 traditional American dance tunes for violin, compiled and arranged by E. F. Adam of St. Louis, with bowing marked throughout in what the foreword describes as “the Old Time Fiddler’s orthodox style.” The repertoire spans breakdowns, reels, jigs, hornpipes, schottisches, and waltzes, drawing on the core American fiddle canon active in the Midwest during the 1920s. The collection closes with a section headed “Novelties for Violin Alone” (Nos. 71–74), which calls for non-standard cross-tuning and double-stops. Copyright was held by Adam at publication and assigned in 1938 to Hunleth Music Co., a major St. Louis music retailer, which had been in operation since 1901 and closed in 1974. The book is now in the public domain and available via IMSLP.