The tune everybody has heard and nobody can name. Two strains, both busy, both sitting squarely where a fiddle is happiest.
This page is a MAP, not a transcription. Traditional tunes have no single correct setting — your version and mine differ and both are right — so publishing one as though it were the tune would be inaccurate and useless. What does generalise across settings is the key, the range, and therefore the geography: where the tune lives under the hand, and what the hand has to do to get it.
Key and range
D major, running from D4 to B5 — 21 semitones, which is 13 notes of the mode. The key leaves G, D, A, E open available to ring underneath, which is a large part of why some keys feel generous on this instrument and others feel like work.
Every note, and where it lives
| Note | Where it lies |
|---|---|
| D4 | open D; G 4 (first position); G 3 (second position); G 2 (third position) |
| E4 | D 1 (half position); D 1 (first position); G 4 (second position); G 3 (third position) |
| F#4 | D 2 (half position); D 2 (first position); D 1 (second position) |
| G4 | D 3 (half position); D 3 (first position); D 2 (second position); D 1 (third position) |
| A4 | open A; D 4 (first position); D 3 (second position); D 2 (third position) |
| B4 | A 1 (half position); A 1 (first position); D 4 (second position); D 3 (third position) |
| C#5 | A 2 (half position); A 2 (first position); A 1 (second position) |
| D5 | A 3 (half position); A 3 (first position); A 2 (second position); A 1 (third position) |
| E5 | open E; A 4 (first position); A 3 (second position); A 2 (third position) |
| F#5 | E 1 (half position); E 1 (first position); A 4 (second position); A 3 (third position) |
| G5 | E 2 (half position); E 2 (first position); A 4 (third position) |
| A5 | E 3 (half position); E 3 (first position); E 1 (second position); E 1 (third position) |
| B5 | E 4 (first position); E 2 (second position); E 2 (third position) |
What the hand has to do
first position covers the whole tune on its own — no shift is required anywhere. That is worth knowing before you learn it: a tune that needs no shift can be learned entirely as a finger pattern, and a tune that does need one has exactly one hard bar in it.
Take the position tables alongside this, and put the shuffle under it once the notes are secure — a fiddle tune with correct notes and no bowing is a scale exercise wearing a name.