Cold Frosty Morning — Mandolin Tab

Mandolin tab and sheet music with synced audio · Key of Am · 220 BPM · 4/4 time · Celtic · Beginner

Chords used in this arrangement: Am, G, F, E.

Cold Frosty Morning has got a surprisingly deep paper trail for a tune nobody knows who wrote. According to the Traditional Tune Archive, the melody actually shows up as early as 1687 in John Playford's Apollo's Banquet under a completely different name, and it pops up again in a 1737 London opera called Flora. That seems to be where the title "Cold Frosty Morning" first stuck in print. Scottish collections picked it up through the 1700s, and an American musician even copied it into his personal notebook in 1782. By the time it crossed the Atlantic fully, it had planted roots in both the old-time Appalachian world and the Irish session scene, which is pretty rare because most tunes pick a lane.

This page includes mandolin tablature, standard music notation, and a chord chart — printable as PDF and playable in sync with the original recording. Change the key, slow the tempo down, and loop the bars you want to practise.