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This song, which climbed to #4 on the US country charts in 1945, has an easygoing lilt to
it and prominently features a relaxed style of fiddle playing in between the verses.
Dunham, who spent the early part of his career playing a variety of genres in recording
sessions for film and records in various Los Angeles studios, calls on the aural history of
both country music and jazz to differentiate between the two styles. As he puts it, you
need to have a sense of the American vernacular to feel the difference between country
and jazz.⁶⁴

Example 3.13: Viola Sonata, First mvt., m. 51

Throughout the B section there are variations of the pentatonic guitar-riff passages.
Larsen does not directly use any material from artists such as Les Paul and Leo Fender,
whom she cites as influences, but you can hear elements of their sound in the music. In
particular, the layout of ascending fourths and thirds is more idiomatic to the guitar
(which is tuned in fourths with one third) than the viola. The improvisatory feel also
comes from the alternation of sustained pitches and swung sixteenth notes between the
viola and piano, which is heightened with occasional bent pitches and “scooped” notes,
as demonstrated in Example 3.14. Throughout the B section, none of the melodic material
is derived from the motives of the opening section; however, the harmony in the piano
continues to be largely comprised of the (016) trichords from the opening.

⁶⁴ James Dunham, phone interview by author, 28 January, 2010.

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