I’m not sure where I learned Wild Rose of the Mountain. I thought I had learned it at a jam in North Seattle before Covid-19, but going by the spreadsheet of tunes played there, I don’t think that can be the case. They play other tunes from JP Fraley there (mainly his lovely “Sail Away Ladies”, which I might do as a tune of the month later), but not so much this one. So I probably learned it from YouTube at some point in the last five years.
Transcribing this was tricky: I’m not sure if it’s mostly in a major or mixolydian scale, and there’s an F near the end of the third line that’s not quite sharp and not quite natural, but somewhere in between. Also, crooked tunes are always a little tricky. I went back and forth between lengthening the third measure of each phrase or adding a half measure, eventually settling on the latter. I’d love to hear whether it makes sense this way to anyone else, though.
This tune reminds me a little of “Kitchen Girl”, at least in the high part. And I love that it just hangs out for so long on those notes at the ends of the phrases. It’s not a tune for dancing to, just for enjoying.
No sheet music files available for this piece.