{"id":141063,"date":"2023-09-06T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-06T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/?p=141063"},"modified":"2025-09-14T08:23:20","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T15:23:20","slug":"learn-to-play-big-sciota","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/learn-to-play-big-sciota\/","title":{"rendered":"Learn to Play \u201cBig Sciota,\u201d a Traditional Fiddle Tune Popularized by Flatpicking Master Russ Barenberg\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Flatpicking Repertoire: \u201cBig Sciota,\u201d a Traditional Fiddle Tune Popularized by Russ Barenberg\" width=\"1290\" height=\"726\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/w9hUROMR-AU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cBig Sciota,\u201d originally named \u201cBig Scioty,\u201d is a popular fiddle tune played by pretty much all bluegrass pickers\u2014go to any picking session and you\u2019re bound to hear it come up. While the tune is traditional, it wasn\u2019t until guitarist Russ Barenberg recorded it with dobro player Jerry Douglas, mandolinist Sam Bush, and bassist Edgar Meyer, for the 1993 album <em><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3K5hMyR\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Skip, Hop, and Wobble<\/a><\/em>, that \u201cBig Sciota\u201d was brought into the spotlight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Throughout the 1970s and \u201980s, Barenberg was an active guitarist across the northeast, collaborating with some of the area\u2019s finest musicians and performing regularly for contradances. He learned tons of fiddle tunes while playing in these dance bands, and one of them was \u201cBig Scioty,\u201d which he first heard from harmonica player Mark Graham. In the mid-\u201980s, Barenberg moved to Nashville, where he teamed up with Douglas and Meyer to accompany Irish singer Maura O\u2019Connell. After several years of collaborating, this trio recorded <em>Skip, Hop, and Wobble<\/em>, a collection of original instrumentals, plus the now-ubiquitous \u201cBig Sciota.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I had the pleasure of meeting with Barenberg and talking about this tune. He noted that his playing on the original album version includes improvised variations that waver from the standard melody. Instead of a note-for-note transcription, the notation here depicts the arrangement that Barenberg uses to teach his students. This version is very similar to the recorded one, but its use of repeated sections and fewer stretches in the fretting hand make it easier to follow and learn.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The notation shows Barenberg\u2019s suggested pick directions and fretting-hand fingerings, and the guitarist stresses the importance of both. He prefers alternate picking, where downstrokes are coordinated with the beats and upstrokes happen on the \u201cands.\u201d Picking this way helps give a rhythmic pulse that mimics that of a fiddler\u2019s bowing. The fretting-hand fingerings illustrate how Barenberg navigates the fingerboard, including slides to move up and down the neck and a liberal use of his fourth finger to reach higher frets. He also sometimes opts to play fretted notes even when open strings are available, like the B on string 3, fret 4.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This arrangement is a pull-off and hammer-on workout. The tune kicks off with a triplet hammer-on that reappears in the A section; there are pull-offs throughout from the third to the first finger. Barenberg likes to coordinate pulls to happen with upstrokes, as it helps to mimic the bouncing rhythm of a contradance band.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cBig Sciota\u201d is not necessarily easy to play\u2014especially at the very brisk tempo used by Barenberg, Douglas, and Meyer\u2014so you might consider starting out with a learning application or other utility that allows you to alter the speed of a song without changing its pitch. But if you stick with it, you\u2019ll learn a fun and well-known tune while also developing some powerful chops in both hands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"805\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/AG342-BIG-SCIOTA-NOTATION.png?resize=805%2C1024&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Big Sciota guitar lesson music notation \" class=\"wp-image-141067\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/AG342-BIG-SCIOTA-NOTATION.png?resize=805%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 805w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/AG342-BIG-SCIOTA-NOTATION.png?resize=393%2C500&amp;ssl=1 393w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/AG342-BIG-SCIOTA-NOTATION.png?resize=768%2C977&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/AG342-BIG-SCIOTA-NOTATION.png?resize=236%2C300&amp;ssl=1 236w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/AG342-BIG-SCIOTA-NOTATION.png?w=1079&amp;ssl=1 1079w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 805px) 100vw, 805px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/store.acousticguitar.com\/products\/copy-of-no-342-september-october-2023\" name=\"magazine\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 150px; height: 198px; margin: 0px 20px 10px 0px;\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/001_342_Cover-150px.jpg?w=1290&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Acoustic Guitar magazine cover for issue 342\"><\/a>\n<p style=\"font-family: sans-serif; margin: 0px 0px 15px 0px;\">This article originally appeared in the <a href=\"https:\/\/store.acousticguitar.com\/collections\/back-issues\/products\/copy-of-no-342-september-october-2023\">September\/October 2023<\/a> issue of <em>Acoustic Guitar<\/em> magazine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cBig Sciota\u201d is not necessarily easy to play, but if you stick with it, you&#8217;ll learn a fun and well-known tune and develop some powerful chops in both hands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":141065,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"\u201cBig Sciota\u201d is not necessarily easy to play, but if you stick with it, you'll learn a fun and well-known tune and develop some powerful chops in both hands.","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1655,1151],"tags":[1922],"ppma_author":[1589],"class_list":["post-141063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flatpicking","category-instrumentals","tag-september-october-2023"],"blocksy_meta":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Russ_Barenberg_2008-photo-Eric-Frommer.jpg?fit=750%2C563&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":1589,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"alan-barnosky","display_name":"Alan Barnosky","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Alan-Barnosky.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Alan-Barnosky.jpg"},"author_category":"","user_url":"https:\/\/www.alanbarnosky.com\/","last_name":"Barnosky","first_name":"Alan","job_title":"","description":"Alan Barnosky is a guitarist based in Durham, NC. He performs solo as a songwriter as well as in bluegrass and folk bands."}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141063"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":148715,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141063\/revisions\/148715"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141063"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=141063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}