Tag Archives: hornpipe

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.

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

Loch Leven Castle: a reel and hornpipe

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This week the Slow and Steady group took on the challenge of Loch Leven Castle, a Scottish reel that is known in Ireland as a hornpipe.

It is possible to play this tune in a number of ways, for example by including triplet runs in the and a passing G# in phrases in the B part, and these both feature in the two versions. The setting in Kerr’s Merry Melodies for the violin of c.1875 can be found at the Tune Archive. The Irish hornpipe is The Humours of Tuamgraney, or Tuamgraney Castle and can be found in various Irish collections such as O’Neill’s Music of Ireland. Both of these collections are important for building up traditional tune reference material and repertoire.

The versions of the tune are not too dissimilar to each other, but I like the more emphatic key change for the respective endings of the Irish version (B to G and C natural to A; as opposed to C natural to G and C natural to A). The version that we learned is essentially a simple amalgamation of the two and the music for it can be found on the class resources page.

An attraction of this tune is that it draws a direct connection between the structure of hornpipes and a type of Scottish reel that is referred to as a Lowland reel or Scotch Measure in this discussion on The Session, which also references this informative entry on the Fiddler’s Companion web site.

Loch Leven Castle is in Perth and Kinross and has a rich history, including being a prison to Mary Queen of Scots. Tuamgraney is in County Clare, but there is little left of the castle to see.

Photo of Loch Leven Castle by GuruAnt, some rights reserved.