Gilsaw
Notation:
Standard Notation
ABC Notation
Banjo Tablature
Mandolin Tablature
Violin Tablature
traditional
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American
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Transcription: by Darryl D. Bush
"Gilsaw", also known as "Gill Saw" is an old-time breakdown in D Major.<br> The parts are played AABB.<br> "Gilsaw" was popularized by central Missouri fiddler Pete McMahan and<br> is on Missouri fiddler Charlie Walden's list of '100 essential Missouri<br> fiddle tunes'.<br> Pete McMahan maintained that 'Gilsaw' was the name of an itinerant<br> ("tramp") fiddler who played the tune while busking for change at the<br> Wabash Railroad depot in Montgomery City, Mo. It was overheard by a<br> fiddling sheriff, by the name of Claude Gregory, an uncle of McMahan's,<br> who learned it on the spot. Before he left the fiddler told Sheriff<br> Gregory that it was "Gilsaw", but it was unclear whether he was replaying<br> the name of the tune or his own name (people with the name appear in<br> the 1900 Missouri census in Callaway County, Mo.). Gregory taught the<br> tune to a young McMahan, who remembered it with the prompting of friends,<br> in his later years.<br> It was printed in Milliner & Koken's Milliner-Koken Collection of American<br> Fiddle Tunes (2011) and<br> Silberberg's 93 Fiddle Tunes I Didn't Learn at the Tractor Tavern (2004)<br> (appears as "Gill Saw").<br> It was recorded by Lynn 'Chirps' Smith on Midwestern Harvest (1994),<br> Pete McMahan on Ozark Mountain Waltz (1987) and Now That's a Good Tune:<br> Masters of Traditional Missouri Fiddling,<br> Rhys Jones on I Got a Bull Dog.<br>
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