I attended the Ohio Valley Filk Festival (OVFF) over Halloween weekend in 2004.  I brought along my Lego dulcimer just as an ice-breaker.  It did start a lot of conversations, one of which delved into modes--scales that start at different places on the diatonic scale.  I improvised a few notes in each mode--Mixolydian, Aeolian, Locrian, Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, and Lydian (I was taught the mnemonic "My Aunt Lives In Dallas, Poor Lady" to keep them straight), and the tune starting on the 5th fret, Phrygian mode, stuck in my head.  So I worked it up into the music you hear here.  I actually switch to the bass string and  in the second part of the piece, which either constitutes changing modes or sneaking in an accidental--I'm not enough of a musicologist to know the difference.

Here is a tab for the piece.  It differs in some details of how I play some chords--Some are strummed in the midi version and finger-picked here, others are finger-picked differently.  Rather than worry about which is right, I'll just say they represent my thinking about this music on different days, and suggest how you can play to suit your mood.  I've noticed discrepancies like that elsewhere on this site, and refuse to worry too much about them.  I'm just not such a hot composer that every not in a tab or midi is sacred and immutable.  Heck, if one person actually takes a shot at playing this piece, that's a big enough deal for me--I don't care all that much if you pick your arpeggios from the bass string toward you or from the melody string away from you, so long as you like the music you make.

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