The Silver Slipper slip jig

A hop jig from John Doherty’s “The Floating Bow (Traditional Fiddle Music From Donegal)”.

The phrasing of the 1st part can sound more like it’s a 6/8 jig, like this:

F2D DDD|F2D DDD|F2A d2A|F2D DDD|D3 F2A|B2G E2G:|

Also recorded by Tommy Peoples on his album “The High Part of the Road”:

X: 1
T: Silver Slipper, The
M: 9/8
L: 1/8
R: hop jig
S: Tommy Peoples
K: Dmaj
F2D DDD F2D|DDD A2F d2A|F2D DDD F2D|F2A B2G E2A:|
F2A d2D d3|F2A d2A Bcd|F2A d2c ~d3|B2G E2G G2E|
F2A d2D d3|F2A d2A Bcd|e2c d2A F2A|B2G E2G G2E||

It’s also on Matt Molloy’s Heathery Breeze in the following setting (first of all in 9/8 for easy comparison):

X: 1
T: Silver Slipper, The
M: 9/8
L: 1/8
R: hop jig
S: Matt Molloy
K: Dmaj
F2D ~D3 F2D|~D3 A2F d2A|F2D ~D3 F2D|F2A A2G E2G:|
F2A d2A ~d3|F2A d2A Bcd|F2A d2c d3|B2G E2G F2E|
F2A d2c d3|F2A d2A Bcd|e2z d2A F2A|B2G E2G F2E||

Stylistically though, Matt Molloy straightens it out so it has more of the feel of a 3/2 hornpipe, or slip polka, as I’ve written it here:

X: 1
T: Silver Slipper, The
M: 3/4
L: 1/8
R: hop jig (played as slip polka)
S: Matt Molloy
K: Dmaj
FD ~D2 FD|~D2 AF dA|FD ~D2 FD|FA AG EG:|
FA dA ~d2|FA dA B/c/d|FA dc d2|BG EG FE|
FA dc d2|FA dA B/c/d|ez dA FA|BG EG FE||

And he also emphasises that thing with the phrasing in the 1st part:

FD ~D2|FD~D2|AF dA|FD ~D2|FD FA|AG EG:|

The Woods of Fanaid https://thesession.org/tunes/7761 is very similar, but I’d say the Silver Slipper is better known. This tune was posted previously here at thesession.org as tune #1999. It disappeared along with the person who submitted it, so I’m reposting it so that we can cross-reference it again.

MMh mmh…
Two Silver Slippers in one month is not usual 😲
https://thesession.org/tunes/8390

You’d look pretty daft wearing just one, two is bad enough, but it hardly ends there. Evidently ‘silver slippers’ used to be all the rage, don’t yuh know… 😉

Now I can’t get this image out of my head, Dow in his silver slippers, with little curly points at the toe and a little silver bell hanging off, but instead of the usual hesters hat a dirty old moth eaten, oil stained, baseball cap ~ and playing his tina… YUCK!!! 😛

‘hesters hat’ should have read ~ ‘jester’s hat’ 😏

Boys of the Loch recorded it in the dim past

Hey, ‘c’, I sent Dow a new baseball cap after it was noted on this site that he could be recognised by his old cap!

Yes, thank you for that, hotspur. I shall treasure it always 🙂

Hey, I never did get a picture of you in your new hat… 🙁

If he has a new hat he isnt wearing it. He is still wearing the old one with the fish on it. cute.

That one with the fish on it is my new one, Beebs. The old one was the same colour but it was fraying and it was 2nd hand and smelled slightly 🙂

I’ve left it at your house. Forgot to pick it up yesterday. Remind me next time.

Curiously, the Boys of the Lough call this the ‘Golden Slipper’ on their ‘Live at Passim’ album, whilst still crediting it to Johnny Doherty / Turlough McSweeney.

This is my transcription of John Doherty’s playing on the album The Floating Bow.

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=RXO14A3U9wU

play video

I don’t think this tune should be written all the way through in 9/8. I believe this way of writing it down (the A in 2/2 and the B in 3/4) is a better way of parsing the rhythmic structure of this hop jig: the A is three two-beat bars, and the B is eight 3-beat bars (with the beat for the B twice as fast as in the A).

I’m reminded of French dance called the “porcher” which is made up of bits in four and and bits in three, danced respectively using Socttish steps and waltz steps.
//
# to swing or not to swing
A lot of the time Doherty “swings” the quavers - where I’ve written “𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮” he plays “𝅘𝅥 𝅘𝅥𝅮”. He does that much more in the A; in the B he plays many of the quaver pairs almost “straight”.
//
# a crooked tune
It’s interesting how the for the B, the second time round, Doherty shortens the last bar; it’s one beat shorter. Making it a crooked tune - something to add to an old discussion on crooked tunes I just came across:

https://thesession.org/discussions/17202
//
# Another crooked recording
Pierre Schryer & Dermot Byrne also do this (shortening the last bar)
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=bFahe7j6_BU

play video

Their version is also close to J Doherty’s because they play it in a set The Silver Slipper - The Lancer’s Jig, whereas J Doherty’s plays it in a set made up of the same two jigs the other way around.