Sally Will You Marry Me
Key: G | Meter: 2/2 | Tempo: brisk BPM
Key: G | Meter: 2/2 | Tempo: brisk BPM
ABC length: 412 
X:1
T:Sal Will You Marry Me?
C:Melvin Wine, arranged by Rayna Gellert and the Brothers K
M:4/4
L:1/8
K:G
|:"G" g2-g(3g/2a/2g/2-gfed |"D" Bdfd Adef |"G" g2-g(3g/2a/2g/2-gfed |"C" Bded e2f2 |
"G" g2-g(3g/2a/2g/2-gfed |"D" Bdfd Adef | "G" gfeg fedA |"C" Bded e2 z2 :|
|:"G" (3BcB AF G2 B2- |"G" BGAG EFGE | "G" DDEF GGBA | "C" Bded e2 d2 |
"G" (3BcB AF G2 B2- |"G" BGAG EFGE | "G" DDEF GG c2 | "D" BGAF "G" G2 G2 :|

History

“Sally Will You Marry Me” is an American old-time fiddle tune from West Virginia, most closely associated with Braxton County fiddler Melvin Wine (1909–2003). Wine was born in Burnsville, West Virginia, into a fiddling family that traced back several generations, and he lived his whole life in the small community of Copen, in Braxton County.

The tune is not known to have a documented composer. It belongs to the West Virginia old-time repertoire that Wine and other Braxton County fiddlers carried forward through direct family and community transmission rather than print. Wine himself could not read music, so his tunes were passed on entirely by ear, which is typical for this repertoire and makes an exact date of composition impossible to establish.

Wine’s own recording of the tune appears on “Hannah at the Springhouse,” released on the Augusta Heritage/Marimac label in 1989. That recording, from the collection of folklorist Gerry Milnes, has become the reference version for musicians learning the tune today.

The tune has since been printed in several standard old-time fiddle collections: Stacy Phillips’s “Traditional American Fiddle Tunes, Vol. 1” (1994), Clare Milliner and Walt Koken’s “Milliner-Koken Collection of American Fiddle Tunes” (2011), and Bruce Silberberg’s “93 Fiddle Tunes I Didn’t Learn at the Tractor Tavern” (2004). A separate, unrelated tune with the same title was played by Kentucky/West Virginia fiddler Ed Haley — the two should not be confused when looking up settings.

A different sheep-covered arrangement by fiddler Rayna Gellert with guitarist Kevin Kehrberg and mandolinist Jeff Keith simplifies the harmony, replacing the E minor chord under the second strain with a C chord — evidence that even within the old-time revival community the tune has picked up small harmonic variants.

Musical Characteristics

  • A driving, syncopated old-time reel with a strong dance pulse
  • Built from short, repeating melodic cells rather than long lyrical phrases
  • The A part sits high, built around the notes of the G chord; the B part drops down and works around the lower G string
  • Some settings include double stops and slides, giving it a rougher, more “fiddled” character than a smooth session reel
  • Structure is AABB, each part eight bars long
  • Moderate technical difficulty: the tune itself is not hard to learn by ear, but the ornamented fiddle versions (slides, double stops, bowed shuffles) take some work to reproduce convincingly
  • Notable for its two-chord-per-bar harmonic rhythm in places, which gives it more forward motion than many simpler reels

Mode

  • Mode: Ionian (major)
  • Scale: G major (G A B C D E F♯)
  • Modal flavour: bright and open, with no modal ambiguity — this is a straightforward major-key tune, not one of the mixolydian or dorian old-time reels
  • Sessions occasionally play it in A for fiddles tuned up, but G is by far the standard session key

Harmony

Section Typical Outline
A G – D – G – C
B G – Em (or C) – D – G

Accompaniment is typically simple and rhythmic: guitar players tend to keep to G, C and D, with the E minor in the second strain being optional rather than essential — as the Gellert/Kehrberg/Keith arrangement demonstrates, substituting C for Em works perfectly well and is arguably closer to how many old-time guitarists would play it by ear. A steady alternating bass (root–fifth) suits the tune better than heavy strumming, since it leaves room for the fiddle’s syncopation.

Interpretation Notes

  • Play with a firm, driving pulse — this is a dance tune, not a listening piece
  • Old-time bowing favours a shuffle feel over strict swing; avoid smoothing it into a “session reel” legato style
  • Slides into notes (particularly around the low end of the B part) are part of the tune’s character on fiddle and are worth imitating on other instruments where practical
  • Tempo should sit on the brisk side of moderate; it is not a barnburner, but it should never feel laid-back
  • Regional West Virginia old-time playing tends to keep phrasing tight and rhythmically insistent rather than lyrical
  • A common mistake for musicians coming from Irish or English session backgrounds is to “tidy up” the tune’s syncopation into straight quavers — this loses what makes it work

Flute Approach

This is not a tune with an established flute tradition — it comes from fiddle and banjo old-time playing, and simple-system flute is not typically heard on it. That said, it transfers reasonably well if you keep a few things in mind.

  • Breathing: the AABB structure gives natural breath points at the end of each four-bar phrase; resist the temptation to break mid-phrase to accommodate ornament
  • Phrasing: lean into the tune’s rhythmic drive rather than its melodic shape — this is a tune about pulse, not long phrases
  • Ornamentation: standard Irish-style cuts and rolls will sound out of place; if you want to reflect the fiddle original, try short grace-note slides up into notes instead
  • Tone: a firm, slightly percussive attack suits the tune better than a breathy, legato tone
  • Finger challenges: the low end of the B part (around low D and E) can be awkward moving quickly on a D flute — take it slowly at first
  • Musical expression: aim for the insistence of a barn dance rather than the lift of a jig or the lyricism of an air

Guitar / Accompaniment

  • A driving alternating bass with simple strums on the offbeat works well
  • Keep the chord changes clean and let the fiddle carry the syncopation — busy strumming will fight the tune’s rhythm
  • The E minor under the B part is optional; C works as a simpler substitute, as heard in the Gellert/Kehrberg/Keith recording
  • Fingerpicking is less common for this tune than flatpicking or a simple boom-chuck strum
  • Avoid heavy jazz-style chord substitutions — this repertoire responds better to plain, functional harmony
  • Drones on the low G string suit the open, major-key character of the tune

Session Notes

  • This is an American old-time tune rather than a standard Irish or English session number, so it will be less familiar in most UK folk sessions than reels from the core Irish repertoire
  • It travels well in old-time-friendly sessions or as a change of pace within a mixed session
  • Works well set alongside other West Virginia or Appalachian tunes rather than paired with Irish reels, since the rhythmic feel is quite different
  • Usual session tempo is brisk but controlled — this is a tune for dancing, not showing off speed
  • American old-time sessions tend to play tunes many times through in a row (often called “in the round”) rather than moving quickly through a set, which suits this tune’s repetitive structure
  • Worth noting for etiquette: because the tune isn’t widely known outside old-time circles, it is worth calling clearly and perhaps playing through once solo before others join in

Similar Tunes

  • “Bonaparte’s Retreat” — another tune from the Wine family fiddling tradition, learned by Melvin Wine as a boy, sharing the same West Virginia old-time character
  • “Sally Ann” — a widely known old-time tune with a similar driving G-major feel and comparable session function
  • “Cluck Old Hen” — shares the syncopated, dance-driven old-time pulse, though set in a minor key
  • “Sally Goodin” — another “Sally” tune from the wider old-time repertoire, useful for spotting the difference between the many similarly-titled tunes in this tradition

References

  • The Traditional Tune Archive, “Sally will You Marry Me? (1)” and accompanying annotation page
  • Phillips, Stacy. Traditional American Fiddle Tunes, Vol. 1 (1994), p. 213
  • Milliner, Clare & Koken, Walt. Milliner-Koken Collection of American Fiddle Tunes (2011), pp. 578–579
  • Silberberg, Bruce. 93 Fiddle Tunes I Didn’t Learn at the Tractor Tavern (2004), p. 38
  • Slippery Hill Archive (Gerry Milnes Collection), West Virginia fiddle tune database
  • Wikipedia, “Melvin Wine,” for biographical background

Personal Notes

If you come to this tune from an Irish or English session background, the main adjustment is rhythmic rather than melodic — the notes themselves are simple, but the syncopated, slightly rough-edged drive is the whole point. Smoothing it out loses what makes it worth playing.

It’s a good tune to bring to a mixed session as something a bit different, but be ready for it to be unfamiliar to most of the room. Playing it through once on your own first, at tempo, gives everyone else a chance to catch the shape before joining in.

Worth learning directly from the Melvin Wine recording rather than only from the dots — a lot of the character sits in the slides and the shuffle bowing, which don’t show up clearly on the page.