Welcome to Twin Town 2026 FESTIVAL TUNES!

For all the musicians out there - in order to create a common jamming repertoire for this year’s festival, we asked some of our 2026 Twin Town Festival Staff to send in a tune in advance so participants could learn them prior to the festival. Below is a collection of ten tunes. Each tune is played at speed and also slowly so you can try and learn it by ear. If you want to slow it down further, you can use the settings/gear button on YouTube to adjust the playback speed. And of course, you can rewind and replay the videos as many times as you want.

Learning these tunes is 1000% OPTIONAL. You do not need to even look at them! We just wanted to offer this up as an experiment to see if it’s fun or helpful to have a common repertoire. Let us know what you think!

Accompaniment players (guitars, pianos, etc) - some of these have back up, some don’t. We’ll try to add some videos with backup in the coming weeks to give a sense of the chord progression.

On Saturday of the festival weekend there will be a series of small, facilitated jams with festival staff. These will be an opportunity to jam on the festival tunes (and any other tunes you want) with a small group of people. Look for the sign up sheet at the registration table Saturday morning.

We also hope you will play these tunes in any and all jams throughout the course of the weekend, if you feel so inclined.

On Saturday at 4pm, we’ll be doing a special Happy Hour jam to honor the musical legacy of the great Iowa fiddler Alan Murphy. Four of the tunes below are tunes we’ll play at that jam. Those are Marching Down Broadway, Uncle Herm’s, Boating Down the River, and Rugged Road.

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  • Marching Down Broadway
    • 3/12/26

    Marching Down Broadway

    Marching Down from Broadway with Marc Janssen. This is a tune Marc learned from Al Murphy, whose music we’ll be celebrating at the Happy Hour jam on Saturday, April 18.

  • Uncle Herm's Tune
    • 3/15/26

    Uncle Herm's Tune

    AJ Srubas gives us Uncle Herm’s Tune from Gene Goforth by way of Al Murphy. This is one of the tunes we’ll play on Saturday at the Happy Hour Jam.

  • Fox Family Reel
    • 3/12/26

    Fox Family Reel

    Fox Family Reel with Ruby John! Maybe from Andy Dejarlis, or John Arcand. Either way, definitely a Métis tune.

  • Silver Lake Polka
    • 3/14/26

    Silver Lake Polka

    Silver Lake Polka in two keys with Lindsay McCaw and Joel Jackson (and a little cat friend). From Jesse Downs, one of last year’s Twin Town artists. Jesse says he learned it at a session in Duluth as a youngin.

  • Doc Brown's Dream
    • 3/13/26

    Doc Brown's Dream

    Scrivner and the Bold Characters (David Scrivner, Emily Boldman, Hawkin Boldman, Mason Herbold) teach us this tune from Ozark's fiddler Bob Holt, via Doc Brown, via a nightmare in a buggy!

  • Shove That Pigs Foot a Little Farther in the Fire
    • 3/11/26

    Shove That Pigs Foot a Little Farther in the Fire

    Joe Z Johnson gives us Shove that Pigs Foot Further in the Fire. [Editors note: per the Traditional Tune Archive, the first known recording of this tune is from North Carolina fiddler Marcus Martin.]

  • Piano Tuner's Polka
    • 3/18/26

    Piano Tuner's Polka

    This is one of Mike Sawyer's contributions, though he does not appear in this video :) This tune is from the Upper Midwest Folk Fiddler Tunebook, Volume 1, page 61. The annotation says it is from Viola Lee, and it "came from a blind piano tuner who used to come by the house when Viola was little."

  • Round Polka
    • 3/18/26

    Round Polka

    This is another contribution from Mike Sawyer, though he again does not appear in the video :) This is also from the Upper Midwest Folk Fiddlers Tunebook, Volume 1, page 59. This tune is from Minnesota fiddler Elmo Wick. Per the annotation, Elmo got this polka from his father, Andrew, and he notes that it was from Norwegian immigrants who came to MN in the 1860s.