Download as ABC · PDF · MIDI Play MIDIPlease make it stop PauseResume N.B. MIDI is a terrible way to learn a fiddle tune!
Also known as:
The Four-Note Tune
What's fascinating to me about this tune is how much it does with so little. The second part feels like a revelation, like the sun coming out after the overcast of the first part, and yet they're so very nearly identical. Each part has what I think of as being a "Stonehenge" structure, with a phrase repeated and then capped by a second phrase.
Obviously the mystery resides in the performance. For intonation, rhythm and variation — for the soul of the tune, that is — please listen to Styrbjörn Bergelt's beautiful version on YouTube which is embedded in this page.
I play this in D, but I think Bergelt plays it in A. I just like the way it sounds and falls under the fingers in D, and since the recording isn't played on the fiddle, I feel comfortable to do whatever feels right. In the recording, there's a drone on the Dominant below the melody, which is a bit harder on the fiddle, so I drone on the A string more than on the A below, because I do not want the bother of retuning. But you could retune your G string up to A: that would sound great if you don't mind the faff.
Or — and I haven't tried this, but — you could play it in A, retuned to CAEA: then you'd have the Mediant above and the Dominant below!
