Down In the Willow Garden

With Valentine's Day just around the corner, I thought a nice waltz might be in order. Rather ironically, however, my favorite waltz turns out to be 'Down In the Willow Garden' - an Irish murder ballad of love gone wrong! Ouch. Seriously, I don't have a morbid sense of humor - I just like the melody. Lots. lol.

To date, my absolute favorite rendition of this tune is perfectly executed (did I just say "executed"?) by the Evil City String Band from Ithaca, New York. Evil City performs 'Willow Garden' in the Key of D while most other versions I have seen transcribed are in either the Keys of G or C and as I have mentioned in previous posts, I am a huge fan of the Key of D.

Just as there are transcriptions in several different keys, there are just as many or more versions of 'Willow Garden' with slight to not-so-slight variations of the basic melody. The version played by Evil City is, once again, unlike most of the transcriptions I have seen online, so this weekend I decided to notate their particular version along with the lyrics. If you haven't heard the Evil City version, you can have a listen at iTunes by clicking the little iTunes logo here -

Keep in mind that my transcription is only the bare bones melody (as near as I can tell) and that both Richie Stearns (on banjo) and Steve Selin (on fiddle) do much to flesh it out with grace notes, hammer-ons, pull-offs, etc. For example, some of the notes which I have transcribed as quarter notes may actually be a triplet or hammer-on combo of a couple of different notes. The quarter note that I have used indicates the main melody note for that particular segment of the tune. Make sense? This way, one can take the basic melody and ornament it as they see fit making it their own unique rendition.

Hope you like it. Oh, and 'Happy Valentine's Day'! '<3'