“Shaking Down the Acorns,” also called “Shaking Off the Acorns,” is an old-time fiddle tune from the great West Virginia fiddler Edden Hammons, recorded by a folklorist in 1947. The Hammons family said the tune had come down from a neighbor of an earlier generation.
Played in a cross-tuning, the tune has a circular shape: rather than coming to rest, each strain runs straight on into the next. That unusual form, more common in British tradition, gives it a distinctive, rolling momentum.
The tune is prized among old-time fiddlers.
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