Ashokan Farewell

I’ve had a request from a student to learn a tune called Ashokan Farewell – sheet music, as well as some recordings of mine of this well known tune can be found below.

Ashokan Farewell, a lovely waltz written by the American fiddler Jay Ungar, is a really popular fiddle tune. Not only in the States, but all around the world. It’s a sweet (perhaps bittersweet) waltz, normally played at a steady tempo with an emphasis on the melody and a good tone.

Jay wrote the tune at the end of one of his Ashokan Fiddle and Dance camps, as a bittersweet lament for the end of the event. But the tune’s popularity owes a lot to its use on Ken Burns’ landmark PBS documentary The Civil War aired on American television in 1990. Burns had heard the tune on an album by Fiddle Fever – Jay’s band. As a result of that show, Jay explains:

“the tune seems to have taken on a life of its own. Now considered an American “folk” classic, it is played by fiddlers and classical musicians worldwide. In the British Isles, a recording of Ashokan Farewell by Her Majesty’s Royal Marines has remained high on the classical charts for several years”

Indeed, I’ve several time heard the tune referred to as an old American waltz, from the period of the Civil War, presumably a myth that comes from the TV series.

Ashokan Farewell Sheet Music

I have included below three different transcriptions of Ashokan Farewell sheet music in pdf format. The notes are the same in each case. The first is just the sheet music, with musical notation alone. The notes here represent just one ‘setting’ – or version – of the tune that I might play, with just a few indicative ornaments and chords included, to give an idea of what you can do with this tune. This is a little more detailed than many of the examples of Ashokan Farewell sheet music that you can find on the internet, and should help you to get a better understanding of how the tune can be played with a little more swing and style.

Next, I have provided sheet music for Ashokan Farewell, with numbers and letters below each note to indicate the correct finger and string for each note. For example, a G note on the musical stave — to be played on the D string with the third finger — will have a ‘3’ (3rd finger) and a ‘D’ (the string) written below the note.

Finally, I have included sheet music, with the note names in letters beneath each note.

Hopefully these different versions of the sheet music for Ashokan Farewell will mean that everyone can learn the tune, even if you can’t already read standard musical notation. (And see my page, Can you play the fiddle without reading sheet music?). Feel free to download the sheet music PDF files, but please do attribute the transcriptions to me and link to this site if you use them anywhere.