Author Archives: Gordon

Chief O’Neill’s Hornpipe: a fluter’s favourite

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The final tune of the term is Chief O’Neill’s Favourite, named after the influential collector and publisher of Irish traditional music who was also the Chief of the Chicago police force.

He played flute, pipes and fiddle and not only wrote about his collecting activities but has been the subject of books and even a play. More on him on Wikipedia. This particular tune came from fiddler Edward Cronin of County Tipperary who had no name for it so dedicated it to O’Neill.

Shifting modes and keys

I was confused about the version that I know, which contains some F naturals in the B part and swings between C# and C natural throughout. O’Neill’s original version has two sharps throughout but Geraldine Cotter’s has some C naturals and sharps, but with the F always sharp. The version we looked at is a mixture between Geraldine Cotter’s and one published in Music for the Sets — the yellow book*. Be aware that people may play this one way or the other, critically in the opening of the B part, so it’s good to confirm beforehand.

(*The Session.org has some discussion on this series of excellently played music for set dancing and the cassettes and books that came from them. It may be possible to download copies of the tapes from this site.)

Resources

So how to play that F natural?

On a keyed flute it is fairly straightforward, although maybe not with a short F key. The lead-in notes are D and E. To play the F natural short key, you’ll need to move the E finger out of position to access the key and in so doing you’ll play F#. This is why the long F natural key was developed.

To get around the problem, you’ll have to tongue or stop the E a little short to allow you to swiftly move the finger without playing a note. Alternatively, skip the E altogether and take a breath there while moving your finger into position.

For whistles and keyless flutes it is much more of a problem and requires advanced teachnique. The standard ways of flattening a note are to “half hole” or veil the hole. Experiment finding the best way of doing this with a tuner. In the class we found the large hole needed to be maybe 80-90% covered by the E finger. You can rock the finger sideways or slightly draw it back. Either way it is not a strong note and nor is it accurate.

You could try flattening the F# a few more percentage points by leaving the D finger down in position, but it is still not satisfactory. You will have to experiment with both of these approaches and find the best compromise. On the fly, either option is hard to execute and takes practice.

Image: Francis O’Neill, via Wikipedia, some rights reserved.

A Shetland midwinter tune

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Da Day Dawn marks a fitting end to the term and the year. A Shetland tune traditionally played by the nightwatchman in the streets of Lerwick before dawn on New Year’s Day, Mairi Campbell describes it as a generous tune that can take all interpretations.

Although I had come across it in tune books in the past, I didn’t really look at it properly until I came across it in the Scots Music Group’s Songbook in which there was an arrangement of a song that was written to this tune. The song was arranged by Mairi Campbell for the Sangstream choir with instructions for a free and loose arrangement, which immediately caught my imagination. The modern lyrics are by Jane Hazelden and catch something of the spirit of people sharing hospitality in midwinter while moving out of darkness and towards Spring.

So I adapted the idea, transcribed the tune into a flute-friendly key and added some very simple harmonies in the spirit and take an approach inspired by Mairi Campbell’s arrangement.

I learned this on a melodica at first, then flute, piano, whistle. I find that each time I play it, it is different, which is always attractive about a tune. Here’s a version I recorded on a Bb flute with Sean Paul Newman on keyboards:

There are a number of versions of the FluteFling group playing this together on my Soundcloud page. Resources are up for this, with Adelheid Cooney playing the melody on the recording after learning it at the class last week.

This week we’ll be at the Dalriada Bar in Joppa from 9pm to have a few tunes at the end of the class. Hope to see you there if you can make it.

Photo: New Year’s Day 2012 – Sunset over Standing Stones of Stenness (c) slynkycat Some rights reserved.

The Belfast Hornpipe and some tricky triplets

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This week’s tune is The Belfast Hornpipe, a three part tune with some technical challenges that has in its time been a showcase tune.

Hornpipes

Hornpipes are an unusual type of tune that form a smaller part of the repertoire than jigs, reels, strathspeys and marches, certainly in Scotland. However, they are an old form of tune, perhaps originally in 3/2 time which can still be found in tunes from Northumberland and the Scottish Borders.

An introduction on Wikipedia explains the different sorts of hornpipe quite neatly. There is a relationship with some Scottish reels as well. Loch Leven Castle is a Scottish reel that we covered a while back and is known in Ireland as a hornpipe called Tuamgraney Castle. Hornpipes seem to be related to barndances, and some long dances or set dances and clog dances too, so playing hornpipes is a way into those less obvious tunes.

Here’s the famous Alla Hornpipe in 3/2 from Handel’s Water Music, dated 1717:

Here’s footage from 1963 of John Cullinane, from County Cork step dancing the Liverpool Hornpipe; Seán O Cearbhaill from Limerick on the fiddle & looking on are the members of the Tulla Céili Band.

And here’s the version of the Belfast Hornpipe played by The Dubliners that was the inspiration behind the request to look at this tune, a very different way of playing:

Our version of the tune comes from Miles Krassen’s edition of O’Neill’s Music of Ireland. This is the controversial “updated” version of the 1,850 tunes collected in the early 19th Century by Captain O’Neill of the Chicago police. An ABC version of the original book can be found on John Chamber’s web site. You may be able to get the original from music shops in Edinburgh or online at Custy’s Music Shop (Ennis, County Clare), Walton’s (Dublin) or even Amazon (I have a shop). If you’re not sure, check with me first.

We play the tune with a dotted rhythm (long-short) and hornpipes are often played this way, although not always notated so. Try putting more breathe on the beat (the longer notes) to help generate a pulse. This is useful practice for reels.

Much of the melody sits on a series of broken chords and this is the key to understanding where the fingers go because the direction at times seems counter intuitive. Many hornpipes became showpieces for technique and this is most apparent in the third part, which consists of strings of descending triplets. Beware speeding up here, which is very common. Instead, try to focus on the underlying sense of the tune by substituting triplets with the main notes; in ABC notation, this means

| 3(fgf 3(ede 3(ded  3(cdc |

becomes

| f2 e2 d2 c2 |

Once you have this secure in your playing, introduce the triplets once more and it should be easier to maintain the rhythm (emphasise the first of the triplet notes with more air) without the tune running away under your fingers.

Although we had no problem with finding space to breath, if you wish to do so it is possible to play the first note of the triplet and drop the remaining two. Having done the previous exercise it should be possible to do this without too much thought.

Finally, we considered how much air to give the triplet runs. While there is a practical consideration to gradually decreasing the volume of air over the phrases — and running out of air is another reason why people speed up on this — there is a more compelling musical reason too as it adds contrast to the passages. Hornpipes can sometimes be dramatic and stagey, which may be related to their popularity in the 19thC.

The Resources page has music and recordings for the tune.

Hornpipe titles tend to be a little apart from those of other tune types. They might celebrate ships (The Great Eastern, The Great Western, Royal Belfast) as well as more far-flung places (Off to California, The Saratoga Hornpipe), which are also celebrated in ship names and reflect the expansion of the western world during the 19thC. The Belfast Hornpipe has a few names too: http://www.tunearch.org/wiki/Belfast_Hornpipe_%281%29

Vernacularisms

On the subject of Belfast, concertina player Jason O’Rourke writes short stories that draw inspiration from his observations of Belfast life and is highly recommended. If you’re ever in Belfast, you may be lucky enough to catch one of his Vernacularisms walking tours that takes you to the locations in which the stories are set. He’s also a dynamic musician.

Main photo: mural collage from the Household Festival, Belfast 2013 (c) Gordon Turnbull

Laridé de Portobello

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This week we covered the Laridé de Portobello, a nine-part piece for flutes, whistles and other folk instruments based on a traditional Breton two-part tune that had no name. This is a tune I have taught previously and the intention of the multiple parts is to encourage group play, improvisation and performance. With the end of a term of hard work coming up, it’s good to focus on such things.

I will eventually put the music up on FluteFling but I recently taught this at Callander and have written up some notes for that here, along with some links to resources.

News: It’s that time of year when we look to play somewhere interesting, especially having missed the summer excursion. Hopefully we can make Dalmeny Kirk again before Christmas, but failing that, in the New Year. We may get out to a pub for a tune too. Here’s what we did last year, including the Laridé de Portobello:

Photo of Cobbled street at Dinan, Brittany, France by William Warby, some rights reserved.

Pull the Knife and Stick it in Again

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An usual title for this Irish jig that completes our pair of spookily-titled tunes (see The Haunted House). Pull the Knife and Stick it in Again is in E minor or E Dorian, depending on your take on it, which contrasts nicely with a G major tune.

It was Matt Molloy who first put it into E minor from A minor and he gives the story that there once was a witch who used to ambush riders by dropping on them from the treetops. The way to break her spell was to stab her and leave the knife in, and as long as one ignored her pleas to ‘pull it out and stick it in again’, one was safe. It was follow to comply with her request, for once the knife was removed the spell resumed. According to the Fiddler’s Companion, the title apparently refers to a County Clare saying that relates to the Hag of Balla, which appears to be near Castlebar in Mayo as far as I can tell. It seems that the tune may also be related to a reel in A minor called Castle Kelly.

The tune goes below the bottom D of the whistles and flutes and there are two strategies that can be adopted when approaching this. One is substitution of the phrase for a different one that both fits the instrument and makes sense within the tune; the other is to more simply play the note an octave above the written one. This is the common approach with this tune.

Resources for the tune are now up. Our version is a little unusual and differs slightly from others in that it shifts into D in phrases, creating some strong contrasts within the melody itself. It is worth checking out the version on Fiddler’s Companion (above) for comparison.

Photo: Our version of the tune written out in the traditional music notation system that forms the basis for ABC notation.(c) Gordon Turnbull