Appalachian music. Shooting Creek [music transcription]. Note sheet.

Key: D
Meter: 4/4
Transcribed by Alan Jabbour, from a performance by Henry Reed.
Compass: 12
Strains: 2 (high-low, 2-2)
Title change: The title appears on the transcription as "Shootin' Creek." It is transcribed after the continuation of "Sandy River Belle" on the page.
Rendition: (2)-(spoken)-1r-2r-1r-2r
Phrase Structure: AB QR (aba'c qrqs)
Related Tune(s): Walk Around
Handwritten: Played twice. 2nd time tr.--Note lack of 4th, & only 2 uses of 7th as passing note.
Shooting Creek rises at the Blue Ridge, along the Floyd County-Franklin County line, and flows down the eastern flank of the mountain into Franklin County in the Virginia Piedmont. The hollow along Shooting Creek had a reputation for moonshining in the earlier twentieth century. Another tune entitled "Shooting Creek" has been recorded along the creek itself and in other locales in Virginia and West Virginia. Both strains of this tune end on the fifth degree; see Person, A Collection of Popular Airs (1889), p. 15, "Walk Around"; J. W. (Peg) Hatcher, Ferrum, Virginia, AFS 2740a2; Oscar Wright, Princeton, West Virginia, AFS 13034b19. Henry Reed's "Shooting Creek" is similar enough to be compared to the other tune, but different enough that it cannot be flatly called a variant. His two sets of "Shooting Creek" vary between themselves; this one ends by descending to a low D on the D-string in the second strain, while the other (AFS 13037b01) ends the second strain on a D on the A-string, an octave higher. The tune is of that simpler variety, lending itself to performance on the banjo, that seems especially popular with musicians along the Blue Ridge.