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Annotation:Three Little Drummers (1)
X: 1 T: THREE LITTLE DRUMMERS' [1] -- JIG B: Ryan's Mammoth Collection of Fiddle Tunes R: jig M: 6/8 L: 1/8 Z: Contributed 20010527161414 by John Chambers jc:trillian.mit.edu F:http://www.john-chambers.us/~jc/music/book/ryan-cole/Tunes/ThreeLittleDrummersJig.abc K: Amix uA \ | eAA eAA | BAG Bcd | eAA eAA | def g2f| eAA eAA | BAG Bcd | eaf g2f | eAA A2 :| |: ue \ | eaa {b}a^ga | e=gg {a}gfg | eaa eaa | def gdB | eaa {b}a^ga | e=gg g2e | def gdc | BAA A2 :|
THREE LITTLE DRUMMERS [1], THE (Na tri drumadoiride beag). AKA and see "Billy's Awake," "Cock in the Heath (1)," “Geese in the Bog (2),” “Ha'penny Bit (1),” "Humors of Duagh," “Jolly Old Wife (The),” "New Custom House (3) (The)," "Shimmey (The)," "Spirits of Whisky (2)," "Tenpenny Bit (1) (The)," “Up Sligo.” Irish, Double Jig (6/8 time). Ireland, County Leitrim. A Minor (Stanford/Petrie): A Mixolydian (Cole, Mulvihill): A Dorian (O'Neill, Stanford/Petrie): E Dorian (Moylan). Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Stanford/Petrie). AABB (Cole, Moylan, Mulvihill, O'Neill/Krassen): AABBCC (O'Neill/1850, 1001 & 1915). Bayard (1981) identifies this as one more member of the of the myriad "Welcome Home" tune family. See Bayard's (1944) note for "annotation:Red Brick House in Georgia Town" for more on this tune family and related tunes. Petrie (1855) identifies the tune as “a county of Leitrim jig.” O’Neill (Irish Folk Music, 1910) remarked that “Highland pipers seldom play any other Irish jig for dancers but this, and it is to be found in most of their books of bagpipe music.” The famous uilleann pipe virtuoso Patsy Tuohey recorded the tune on an Ediphone cylinder around 1907.
"Humors of Listivain" and "Nuptial Knot (The)" are a similar-sounding tunes, not cognate but working in the same melodic vein, although Samuel Bayard grouped them in the same tune family. See also the first part of “Matt Teahan’s Delight,” notes Paul de Grae.
A distanced version of "Three Little Drummers [1]" is known as "Shimmey (The)" by musicians on the island of Newfoundland.