Jody Kruskal plays Off To California, G/D Anglo concertina.
This fine old fiddle tune has origins that are Irish, English and American.
As part of my SLOW is MORE tempo research project, I love to morph tunes by slowing them down until they become something else. Off To California is a classic chestnut, a hornpipe that is often played as a reel but here I have slowed it down by 50% as I doubled the note value. Eighth notes become quarters and now it’s a brisk march suitable for a speedy contra dance at 127 bpm.
You can read more than you might want to know about this tune here:
https://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/off.htm
And here:
https://tunearch.org/wiki/Annotation:Off_to_California_(1)
