Blackberry Blossom

Blackberry Blossom is a standard fiddle tune called frequently at bluegrass jams.  Like most standard fiddle tunes, there’s no one “right” way to play this song. Listen to a few versions by different artists and you’ll hear a slightly different melody from recording to recording. These variations make Blackberry Blossom a great song to study thoroughly. Additionally, this is a great tune to practice rapid chord changes! While this is often referred to as a beginner fiddle tune – in my opinion, it’s more of an intermediate to advanced fiddle tune.

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Chord Charts for Blackberry Blossom

Here’s some charts for this song breakdown

• Melody Version 1
• Melody Version 2 & 3
• Harmony

Listen to Blackberry Blossom

The first step in learning is always listening. Here’s a few great recordings of Blackberry Blossom to check out:

• Norman Blake, Tony Rice, Doc Watson
• Fiddle Fiddle Fiddle album
• Mark O’Connor
• String Cheese Incident – some interesting harmonies on this

Form for Blackberry Blossom

Blackberry Blossom follows the standard fiddle tune format of AABB. This means you play the A part twice and then the B part twice. One thing to note is the A Part is in G major while the B Part is in E minor.

Chords for Blackberry Blossom

Below is a simplified chord chart for Blackberry Blossom. As you can see, the chord change pretty quickly throughout the A part and the second half of the B Part. Changing the chords on time can be tricky for beginner mandolin players – especially when moving from chords like the Big G Chop to D and etc. Being familiar with the various chord shapes and using guide fingers can be a huge help here. I recommend reviewing both my mandolin chords library here and also reviewing my post on guide fingers.

Main Melody

The main melody for Blackberry Blossom is essentially just following a G major diatonic scale. I like to look at this tune in sections.

• The first two beats are the notes G (A) B G (the A note is played in the “alternate version“), the next two beats are the notes F# G A F#, and the next two beats are E F# G E. These are same just shifted down a note in the G major scale for each phrase.
• The next two beats (beats 3 and 4 in the 2nd measure) is a short run before repeating the same idea.
• Measure 3 starts with E F# G E then D E F# which is similar – but then the phrase changes to a standard ending riff on measure 4. This pattern repeats with a small change on the ending.
• The B Part essentially starts by playing an E minor 7th arpeggio (E E B D B E D) for 3 measures, then a short riff on the 4th measure.
• The second half of the B part starts the same with two measures of E minor 7th arpeggios followed by a 2 measure riff to end the part.

Alternate Melody

As I mentioned, there’s a lot of ways to play this song. So here’s a slightly different version

Harmony for Blackberry Blossom

Playing a harmony line on Blackberry Blossom sounds great but since there’s so many different versions of this song, it can be a little difficult. I’ve written out an option for a harmony part and kept the melody below.

Video Breakdown of Blackberry Blossom

Wrap Up

Blackberry Blossom is a great fiddle tune to get under your fingers. Aside from being called at jams really often, it’s packed with things you can learn. This is a great tune to practice your G major diatonic and pentatonic scales. You can rapid fire the arpeggios of each chord off. The possibilities are endless. If you enjoyed this breakdown, please leave a comment here.

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