This collection includes banjo, guitar and mandolin tabs, standard musical notation and sound files to a variety of Christmas tunes. While the expected completion date for the entire Collection is December 2010, you can download the works that have been completed to date.  More will be added shortly. HAPPY HOLIDAYS from Fretmentor.com.  

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This folder contains tablature and standard musical notation for the song entitled "Arkansas Traveler"  Fretmentor's original transcriptions of this piece include tablature for guitar, mandolin (standard notation for fiddle) and banjo.  Coming soon will be recordings for all instruments in slow and standard speeds.

History:  The song "Arkansas Traveler" is a popular and one of the best known American fiddle tunes that originated from a play or story dating to 1850 in Salem, Ohio¹.  The play features an Arkansas Traveler who becomes acquainted with a squatter who is playing the fiddle.  The squatter has trouble remembering the second part of the fiddle tune and it is the Arkansas Traveler that helps him with the second part.  Many credit Colonel Sandford C. Faulkner with the words and music.

¹The Fireside Book of Favorite American Songs

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This folder contains tablature and standard musical notation for the song entitled "Under The Double Eagle"  Fretmentor's original transcriptions of this piece include tablature for guitar, mandolin (standard notation for fiddle) and banjo.  Coming soon will be recordings for all instruments in slow and standard speeds.

History:  Pending Further Research

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This folder contains tablature and standard musical notation for the song entitled "Dark Hollow"  Fretmentor's original transcriptions of this piece include tablature for guitar, mandolin (standard notation for fiddle) and banjo. 

History:  Pending Further Research on this Song

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This folder contains tablature and standard musical notation for the song entitled "I'll Fly Away".  Fretmentor's original transcriptions of this piece include tablature for guitar, mandolin (standard notation for fiddle) and banjo.  Coming soon will be recordings for all instruments in slow and standard speeds.

History:  "I'll Fly Away," which was written by Albert E, Brumley in 1929, is a hymn and is one of the most popular recorded gospel music songs.  The hymn has been covered by numerous singers, but usually associated with country, bluegrass and gospel genres. This tune was recently featured in the movie "Brother Where Art Thou".

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This folder contains tablature and standard musical notation for the song entitled "John Hardy"  Fretmentor's original transcriptions of this piece include tablature for guitar, mandolin (standard notation for fiddle) and banjo. 

History:  Pending Further Research 

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This folder contains tablature and standard musical notation for the song entitled "Loch Lomond"  Fretmentor's original transcriptions of this piece include tablature for guitar, mandolin (standard notation for fiddle) and banjo. 

History:  Loch Lomond is an traditional tune published in 1841¹. Various performers have recorded this tune. Various stories exist of how it was written with a general view that a Scottish soldier wrote the words while returning to Scotland from war. Fretmentor's version is in the Key of G.

¹James J. Fuld, The Book of World-Famous Music: Classical, Popular and Folk, p. 336.

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This folder contains tablature and standard musical notation for the song entitled "Nine Pound Hammer"  Fretmentor's original transcriptions of this piece include tablature for guitar, mandolin (standard notation for fiddle) and banjo. 

History:  There are a variety of songs that reference an American folk hero named John Henry, a black man who worked with a 20 lb hammer in his hand.  The song "Nine Pound Hammer," refers to the hammer that killed John Henry.  Charlie Bowman, an old-time fiddler from Appalachia in the 1920s-1950s,  is thought to have written the song Nine Pound Hammer.

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This folder contains tablature and standard musical notation for the song entitled "Old Joe Clark"  Fretmentor's original transcriptions of this piece include tablature for guitar, mandolin (standard notation for fiddle) and banjo.  While the guitar and banjo perform in the Key of G, the mandolin is written in the Key of A.  Both Guitar and Banjo players would capo to the 2nd fret to accomomdate the mandolin and fiddle.

History:  Further Research Pending

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This folder contains tablature and standard musical notation for the song entitled "Shady Grove"  Fretmentor's original transcriptions of this piece include tablature for guitar, mandolin (standard notation for fiddle) and banjo.  Coming soon will be recordings for all instruments in slow and standard speeds. 

History:  Shady Grove is an 18th century folk song that has been performed in folk, bluegrass and Celtic genres.  The melody is usually played in minor, yet, the song has been played in major as well.  Fretmentor's version is in the Key of Dm.

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This folder contains tablature and standard musical notation for the song entitled "Under The Double Eagle"  Fretmentor's original transcriptions of this piece include tablature for guitar, mandolin (standard notation for fiddle) and banjo.  Coming soon will be recordings for all instruments in slow and standard speeds.

History:  Austirian Josef Franz Wagner composed this 1899 march, in rerference to the double eagle coat of arms of the Austrio-Hungarian Empire, is also the official regimental march of the First Austrian Regiment #2.  The march was favorite of American composer John Phillip Sousa. The original German title for this composition is  "Unter dem Doppeladler". The American version is entitled Under the Double Eagle.

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This folder contains tablature and standard musical notation for the song entitled "Wildwood Flower"  Fretmentor's original transcriptions of this piece include tablature for guitar, mandolin (standard notation for fiddle) and banjo.  Coming soon will be recordings for all instruments in slow and standard speeds.

History:  While "Wildwood Flower," an American song, is recognized as being recorded and performed by the Carter family, the original title was "I'll Twine 'Mid the Ringlets" and was written in 1860, with words by Maude Irving and music by Joseph Webster (1819-1875). A variety of artists have since adapted the song with their own variations of the composition.

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This folder contains tablature and standard musical notation for the song entitled "Will the Circle Be Unbroken"  Fretmentor's original transcriptions of this piece include tablature for guitar, mandolin (standard notation for fiddle) and banjo.  

History: Pending Further Review

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