The Pigtown Fling reel

The tune is pretty easy. The only tricky thing is jumping the octave at the start from the low G to the high. It’s probably easier on the whistle than on the fiddle.

The version I’ve shown here is very bare and unornamented. There’s plenty of room for rolls and triplets, but if you end up playing the tune very fast (which is fun) it’s probably better to play it straight without too much ornamentation.

There is a great version of this tune on "Live at Matt Molloys". Fisrt track second tune, after Jackie Colemann’s.

I learned a little bit different version some months ago and have been playing it since then.

K: Gmaj
G2ge d2ed|Bdge dBAB|1 G2ge d2ed|B2Ac BGEF:|2 g2ge d2ed|B2Ac BGG2||
Beed e2fe|dfaf gfed|Beed e2fe|1 dfaf g4:|2 dgfa gedB||

It’s a simple tune and there’re lots of possibilities for variations and ornamentations. I usually put a roll on high and low Gs.

K: Gmaj
|: E>F |
(3GAG g>e d2 e>d | B*dg>e d*BA>B |
G2 g>e (3ded e>d | B>GA>c B*G:|
|: (3fed |
B*ee>d e>gf>e |1 d*fa>f g>d (3edc |
B>(ee)>d (3efg f>e | d>fa*f (3gb/a/g :|
2 d>fa*f g>fg>a | (3bag (3agf (3gfe (3fed |
B*ee>d e2 :|

That damned asterisk again ~ just to let those unfamiliar know, the ‘less than’ sing doesn’t work in this area except as an HTML tag, doing strange disappearing acts with the notation, so, and asterisk is being used above to show you where you might ‘snap’ it…

I have carried this both ways, including as a set, changing from the flung version into the single reel version, which was fun…

P.S. - (3GAG can also be (3GGG, as I had learned it in the past, as well as (3ddd as an option for (3ded…

M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: highland fling
K: Gmaj
|: (3DEF |
G2 g>e (3ded e>d | B>dg>e d>BA>B | G2 g>e (3ded e>d | B>GA>F G2 :|
|: (3Bcd |
B>ee>d e>fg>e | f>g (3agf g>fe>d |1 B>ee>d e2 g>e | f>ga>f g2 :|
2 G2 g>e (3ded e>d | B>GA>F G2 ||

I played Rolling In The Ryegrass into Pigtown as flings in a session the other day. The other musos were trying to speed up and make them reels, but I wasn’t having any of it 🙂

Stubborn, who you, me? I hadn’t put the two together previously but gave them a go, both ways. Yeah!, they’re fun together, especially, I can imagine, amongst folks who know them only as reels. I suspect and hope, given your reputation, you gave them a good swingin’ too…swing em high and swing em low…

I did I did I did. There was one muso there who knows them both as flings. She wasn’t playing at the time as she was busy having a smoke, but she knew what I was doing, and I knew she knew, and she knew I knew. The others probably thought I was just in the mood for playing my reels too slowly that day 🙂

Hmmmm? Now tempo I can imagine that maybe they thought you’d taken too much Valium and would let it pass without comment, but swingin’ them? ~ and if you put any snaps in, well, I’m surprised they didn’t confiscate your pint… Did anyone say anything, or even just swear under their breath or moan and roll their eyes? Tell us more of the tale. Did you get any converts?

Yeah, it’s fun to play the two tunes together. I tried to record the set of these *reels* for Might Craic Online some months ago. I might work on it later.

I have my own idiosyncratic way of playing this. I don’t overdo the snaps, but they’re there at the end of the A-part:

X: 1
T: Pigtown Fling, The
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: Fling… as in, Pigtown *Fling*
K: Gmaj
|:G2g>e d2e>d|B2g>e d>BA>B|G2g>e d2e>d|B>GA>G E*GG2:|
|:B>ee>d e2e>g|f>ed>f e>dB>A|B>ee>d e2e>g|f>ga>f g2g2:|

Nobody said anything or rolled their eyes, but I could tell they were trying to make me speed up. Only one person said something at the end, along the lines of "that was lovely", but that someone realised what I was doing. The others probably thought I was trying to disrupt their flow of reels. Which I was, of course 🙂

Actually that was a lie, I’ve found I go |1 B>GA>G E*GGF:|2 B>GA>G E*GGA|| at the end the A.

I sometimes find myself snappin’ it so:

1 B*GA>G E*G :| (3DEF
2 B*GA>F G4 || (& possible in the last bar of the B-part’s second ending…)

& in the B-Part, and starting after that pregnant pause:
|: B*ee>d ~

Shocking isn’t it? I don’t think my version has passed through that stage of evolution, ‘c’. All your twiddly endings and fiddly snaps would be far too much for my little brain to cope with.

Really, ‘twiddly endings’? Have you forgotten your catechism already? ~ not the ‘second coming’ but the ‘second ending’? It is a marker for the form ~ "Highland Flings". As mentioned in previous chats on this, it isn’ t an accident of birth but fits the dances that the form defines and electrifies. It actually helps the dance and dancers. Sometimes it is four bars, sometimes two, sometimes a return to the ending of the A-part of the 16 bar melody. As a marker it is also one of those things that can show up highland flings that have been ‘reel-ized’, put to that alternate use.

I can’t tell you how disappointed I am in you… ;-P

"Have you forgotten your catechism already?"

I got some more from the chemist this morning. Does wonders for that nervous twitch of mine but it’s so annoying that you can’t just buy it straight over the counter.

I brew my own, an old family recipe… Anytime your short you know all you have tuh do is ask…

For all I know you’d cut it with something like rat poison or broken glass. No thanks ‘c’, I’m happier buying from a reputable sauce. *Twitch*.

Both sisters were so distracted by their own problem that they overlooked the fact that goats were everywhere, jumping through bushes left right and centre, and destroying every rose bed in town. The real solution would have been for the farmer to cull some of the goats that were ready to eat, and then everyone in the town and neighbouring villages could have had a feast, and all lived happily ever after. Only problem was, the farmer was asleep and nobody could wake him up.

But the real problem was that the narrator was in a rush and half asleep https://thesession.org/tunes/4612.

Hahaha, god you must think I’m weird, but I’m just stupid 😀

Half asleep? Who me? No, as you imagined, it was the Warferin, the rat poison I was cutting the stuff with. How the hell else did the penultimate part of the ‘two sisters tale’ get here? Now this one piece of the tale only survives here, in mystery. Too bad, the rest of the tale went bye-bye with Dafydd’s triplication (#4612) of "Caitlin Ni Aedha":

https://thesession.org/tunes/377

Did anyone copy my little tale about the sisters? I didn’t, but it is actually true, with only a few points changed in an attempt to protect the guilty…

Not you, silly. The second narrator who hijacked the 1st narrator’s story and posted it in the comments of the wrong tune was half asleep. Now they’re going to think we both need to be placed in care :-\

DUH! ~ "DOW!" You did it… I should have read further that "Both sisters ~ " and the next comment. It isn’t the ‘penultimate’ edition, but your contribution to that multi-entry tale now cast into Jeremy’s digital dustbin.

I like the kebab solution to the sisters’ problem, but it would have made things worse, as while there were plenty of sheep and other such things, only the one sister actually had goats. Now can you imagine, Armageddon in the valley when she finds out her goats are being served up as Donar Kebabs?

For those of you who come across these fragments in your innocence ~

This is about "The Tale of Two Sisters", who when one’s goat got through a break in a stone wall, both their neglects, and destroyed a rose bed, lead to both sisters not talking to each other, not playing music together, not dancing together, not going out on the town together.

The Aesoppy bit is that it affected their little part of Eire, bringing all celebrations to a halt, as these two families were the music and the dance and the regular house parties in the valley. Once they’d had this falling out over a goat and some rose bushes all that came to a crashing halt. Their pride and stubborness was too strong to allow either to apologize, to give a centimeter’s worth.

So, what’s the bit at the end, well, taking DOW’s solution, take up Greek music and dancing, open a taverna with climbing rose bushes in the next valley over and serve them goat…

And the real irony of the whole thing is that the story was a self-fulfilling prophecy, and the farmer *did* cull the goats, and the story with it! Fortunately one of the sisters kept a copy of the manuscript and hid it in her shed where the farmer wouldn’t notice it. That sister learnt that if you moan persistently enough about the goats destroying the rose bed, the farmer will eventually notice and kill the goat for you, just to stop you whinging. Problem is, the farmer doesn’t let the people of the village feast on the goat, even though they’re all close to starving. Instead he takes it away and it’s never seen again. Nobody knows where the goats go or what the farmer does with the goats. Dark or what. And that’s "Goat Town". I haven’t even told you the one about "Pig Town" yet 🙂

Another porker…

I heard this tune is known to bluegrass fiddlers too. Does anybody know how they call it?

Here’s some backup chords to try on this tune. Note that I’ve changed them slightly with each 4-bar repeat.

a part:
| G / / / | / / / / | / / / / | A / D / |
G / / / | / / / / | C / G / | D / G / |

b part:
| Em / / / | / / / / | / / / / | D / G / |
Em / / / | / / / / | C / G / | D / G / |


This tune is pretty common in American old-timey, where it’s known by a bunch of different names. Some of the ones I was able to dig up are Buck Creek Gals, Goin’ Up Caney, Old Dad, Stoney Point, Wild Horses, and Wild Horses at Stoney Point.

Don’t know what Pigtown the title refers to. There’s one in New York and one in Boston, I think. Is/was there one in Ireland or Scotland? I learned this in memory of my home town, Cincinnati, Ohio – which came within a boar’s bristle of naming themselves Porkopolis in the waybackwhen to commemorate their meat packing industry. Glad they settled for naming the city after a revolutionary war society, which in turn was named after a Roman dictator.

Anyone else think they’re basically the same tune in different formats?

This is a Mayo tune.I love the octave at the begining.

Any proof? Did bluegrass fiddlers learn it from "Music at Matt Molloy’s"?

Here’s a Youtube video of the American version of this tune:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps33GREaf3M

play video

You’ll notice there’s an extra part squoze in between the two of the Irish version. I know someone who knows a fourth part. If I can get it off him I’ll see about posting it here.

Because its always played in Mayo.Its one of the Big tunes where im from. As for the Bluegrass fiddlers I haven’t a clue.

Key signature: G Major
Submitted on April 22nd 2003 by Kenny.
https://thesession.org/tunes/1608

I love the rendition of this tune done by Michael Tubridy, my favorite fluter for the chieftains on their 2nd album. He’s accompanied by Peader Mercier. Beautiful in every way.

There is also a version called ""Wild Horse in the book "Old-Time Kentucky Fiddle Tunes". It was in the notes there, that I discovered that "Kelton’s Reel" in "Ryan’s Mammoth Collection" is an alternate name.
http://slippery-hill.com/M-K/GDAE/G/WildHorse-Salyer.mp3

There is an interesting three part North American version here: https://www.slippery-hill.com/system/files/recordings/139-StoneyPoint.mp3?download=1

Interesting that the previous post and this one both point to slippery-hill.com.

I’m hearing 4 parts to that, not just 3. Very interesting.

Here’s another American (Central Missouri) version from legendary fiddler Lyman Enloe, from about 1973. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rjqOGy6i6Q&list=PLqic3U1o6bhxVQfwlhYocDXVelzdQWw5S&index=9&t=0s

play video