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Tag Archives: Slip Jigs

Drops of Brandy (D)

“Drops of Brandy” is a solid but simple slip jig often played in D or G.  It is #448 in O’Neill’s 1001 (1907), in G. It is in Phil Rubenzer’s Midwestern Irish Session Tunes (2000) in both D and G (pp. 219-20).  James Merryweather, author of Merryweather’s Tunes for English Bagpipes (1989, pg. 47), holds […]

Foxhunter’s Jig (D)

“Foxhunter’s Jig” is a slip jig. The title of this four-part slip jig concerns, of course, an over-hill-and-dale foxhunt.  Thus, a few desultory comments are in order. The earliest known notation of this tune is c. 1847, where it is entitled “Dublin Gigg-a-Jigg” (in A) – both are old spellings of “jig,” and“gigg-a-jigg” is the hoary […]

Dever the Dancer (Edor)

“Dever the Dancer” is a common session slip jig, and has been recorded many times.  It appears in O’Neill’s 1850, tune #1147, and O’Neill’s 1001, tune #431, so it is at least as old as the late nineteenth century. It has long been a popular slip jig in Ireland. As was all too common in […]

Kid on the Mountain (Eaeol)

In the slip jig “Kid on the Mountain,” the “kid” in the title is a young goat, of course, not some human child stranded on some high wind-blown wintry mountain in Jaunary.  When I play it I like to think of the kid as traversing a rocky slope on a nice Spring day. Now this […]

The Butterfly (Edor)

“The Butterfly” slip jig is very popular among (some) musicians and dancers, and shows up in John Sayles’s much-loved film The Secret of Roan Inish (1994). It is a three-part tune and is played AABBCC. Though commonly called “The Butterfly,” it is claimed to also be called “Bill Grogan’s Goat” or “Barney’s Goat.” As the version of “Barney’s Goat” I looked […]