Blackberry Blossom is a great standard fiddle tune.  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.  

For newer players, this is a great tune to practice quick chord changes and has a fun melody that is relatively easy to learn. 

For more advanced players, learning multiple variations of this song can be great to help broaden your solos and melodic ideas.

While this post currently focuses on a specific version, I’ve written out a couple variations of the tune and posted them here too.  At some point, I’ll try to make a video of the variations.

The main version of Blackberry is based around one that I’ve heard at bluegrass jams often and I believe stems from Jack Tuttle’s version of the tune.  Here’s the full chart

Blackberry Blossom Chart – Jack Tuttle version

When learning the tune, I would stress to learn the A and B parts by learning the smaller phrases in those parts. Finding the phrases is pretty easy here, but generally if you sing the melody, a phrase would end where you take a breath.

Below I break this version down step by step.

Alternate Versions
Continuous Motion – this version of Blackberry Blossom has a continuous string of 8th notes in the A part which give it a “moving” feel in my opinion . This can be a great version to practice when you want to build some pinky strength too. 

Alternate A part – continuous motion – Blackberry Blossom Alternate A

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