Tag Archives: hornpipe

Sylvia’s Serenade/Blew Bell Hornpipe

 

insect dance_b

 

It’s been a shamefully long time since my last post (see News), but to make up for it, here’s a great set of tunes for fiddling, dancing, whistling (if you’re good enough!) and all-round good-timing. Wonderfully synchopated, fun to learn, and total ear-worms. What could be better for a Sunday afternoon?

Two videos: first, ace English folk trio Leveret playing the two tunes as a set, followed by melodeon-player Anahata with a three-part version of the 18th-century Blew Bell (a 3/2 hornpipe). And as always, you’ll find the usual folk/aural tradition variations in the tunes as played. Just choose your favourite, and off you go!

 

Leveret

Andy Cutting (diatonic button accordion), Rob Harbron (English concertina), Sam Sweeney (fiddle)

From a 2015 concert in Lummen, Belgium. You can hear the set on their album New Anything.

(‘Sylvia’s Serenade / Blew Bell Hornpipe’ YouTube video, 7:08. Published by mattias de smet, Nov 13 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzRwD8Ny4HM)

 

Anahata (melodeon)

(‘Blew Bell Hornpipe – Anahata, melodeon’ YouTube video, 1:32. Published by anahatamelodeon, Feb 15, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAPD1xbyLMM)

 

Gig Alert! Leveret are currently touring! https://www.leveretband.com/gigs

Leveret:  website   Facebook  Twitter

Anahata:  website   YouTube

 

 

Leave a comment

Filed under English folk/traditional, Uncategorized

Durang’s Hornpipe

 

DurangHornpipe

The Hornpipe, by John Durang, watercolor from his Memoir, Courtesy of the York County History Center

Meet John Durang (1768-1822), dancer, acrobat, actor and performer with Ricketts’s Circus across the northeastern United States and into Canada. Born in Pennsylvania of German and French parents, he was George Washington’s favourite dancer.

The tune was composed for  Durang in new York in 1785 by Mr. Hoffmaster, his German violin teacher.

Durang's Hornpipe orig

Here are several different versions from North American musical cultures: two teaching videos (American and Canadian); a performance video (traditional African-American string band); and archive reel-to-reel audio of a West Virginia fiddler.

Choose your favourite to learn!

 

 

Katie Henderson (fiddle)

America: teaching video from Katie’s encyclopaedic New Tune A Day Youtube site.

(Durang’s Hornpipe (Old-Time Fiddle Tune) NTAD) YouTube video, 2:11. Uploaded by Katie Davis Henderson, 20 Sep 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMTzACv31Lg)

 

Patti Kusturok, Shamma Sabir (fiddles)

Canada: teaching video from Patti’s YouTube fiddle tunes vlog.

(‘Day 229 – Durang’s Hornpipe – Patti Kusturok’s 365 Days of Fiddle Tunes’ YouTube video, 2:14. Published by Patti Kusturok, 17  Aug 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNDgl5iws5o)

 

Carolina Chocolate Drops

Justin Robinson (fiddle),  Dom Flemons (snare drum), Rhiannon Giddens (flat-footing)

The wonderful African-American stringband performing at Mass MoCA, May 2010.

(‘Carolina Chocolate Drops – Durang’s Hornpipe’ YouTube video, 2:24. Uploaded by Music Maker Relief Foundation, 31 May 2010. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Mef_qNAj6o)

 

Frank George (fiddle)

Recording by widely-respected West Virginia fiddler William Franklin ‘Frank’ George at the Berea College Celebration of Traditional Music, 30 October 1976.

FrankGeorge

(From the Digital Library of Appalachia, Berea College http://dla.acaweb.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/berea/id/3104/rec/10)

 

More information:

Katie Henderson:  NTADblogspot  website  YouTube

Patti Kusturok:  website  YouTube

Carolina Chocolate Drops:  website

Frank George: Berea College recordings

John Durang:  http://johndurang.yorkhistorycenter.org/

 

Leave a comment

Filed under American old-time, American old-time/traditional, Uncategorized

Clark’s Hornpipe

 

First, a Stop Press Gig Alert! 

Tomorrow, Friday 3 June 2016, 7 pm

Alma-848x400ALMA    Emily Askew, John Dipper, Adrian Lever

CD launch at London’s historic and gorgeous Foundling Museum.

Tickets and details:  The Foundling Museum

And if we’re very lucky, they may play…

…Clark’s Hornpipe

In eighteenth-century England, the two John Walshes*, father and son, dominated music publishing. John Walsh Snr was printing engraved music on The Strand, London, by 1690, and later John Walsh Jnr won what we would now call ‘exclusive rights’ to Handel’s music. WalshHandelSonatas1732Cover

Clark’s was first published in the Walshes’ 1730 tunes collection, under the snappy title The Third Book of the most celebrated jiggs, Lancashire hornpipes, Scotch and Highland lilts, Northern frisks, Morris’s and Cheshire rounds with hornpipes the bagpipe manner, to which is added the Black Joak, the White Joak, the Brown,, the Red, and the Yellow Joaks. With variety of whims and fancies of diff’rent humour, fitted to the genious of publick performers.

Perhaps they took editorial advice, or wanted to pay their engraver less,  but the reprint title shrank to Three Extraordinary Collections, Early 18th century dance music for those who play publick.

Well, ‘those who play publick’ are still playing the Walshes’ tunes – and this particular hornpipe is one of my favourites.

 

Alma

Emily Askew (fiddle), John Dipper (fiddle), Nicola Lyons (fiddle), Adrian Lever (guitar)

Gorgeously textured performance by the London-based fiddle group at Sidmouth Folk Week 2015.

 

(‘Clark’s Hornpipe at The Ham Marquee’, YouTube video, 1.50. Posted by Alma Fiddles, 10 Aug 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aFPA7bo57o)

 

Boldwood

Becky Price (accordion), Tim Perkins (bouzouki/guitar), Richard Heacock (fiddle/viola), Daniel Wolverson (fiddle/viola)

This utterly danceable version is from the group’s 2008 album Feet, Don’t Fail Me Now, available on Spotify (the link is to the full album; it seems impossible to link to the single tune). You can find the sheet music for the tune in their first collection of English and Welsh country dance tunes The Boldwood Dancing Master, available from their website (see below).

FeetDontFail

 

Alma Fiddles:  website  Facebook  Twitter

Boldwood:  website  Facebook

*Read more about the Walshes on Wikipedia and folkopedia (scroll down)

 

Leave a comment

Filed under English folk/traditional, European traditional, Nordic traditional, Uncategorized

Workshop alert: Creative Music Retreat

 

Folk Retreat with Laurel Swift

8-10 April, Thurlby, Lincolnshire

 

Just a few places left on this wonderful multi-instrumental folk weekend. Inspiring classes, home-cooked food, informal sessions and country walks in the Fens. And don’t forget your walking shoes/boots!

zuSnx3n5wP2BEVCoSIKyoz-fFnw

 

Details and booking here (book by 14 February for reduced rate!)

 

For  music by Laurel, see her website, Laurel fiddle

or use the Fiddletails Search (above right)

 

 

 

Leave a comment

Filed under English folk/modern, English folk/traditional, Uncategorized

Quinn Darrow Hornpipe

 

Breezy hornpipe that may have travelled to American and back* before arriving in the playlist of Boldwood’s unissued 2012 album Mudlarking.  (*see Matthew Coatsworth’s Folkmusicnotes)

 

Boldwood

Becky Price (accordion), Miranda Rutter  (fiddle, viola), Matthew Coatsworth (fiddle, viola)

 

 

 

boldwood cdBoldwood’s wonderful CDs are available on their website – along with marvellous tunes book The Boldwood Dancing Master,  ‘a collection of English country dance tunes from 1679 to 1838’.

Current details of recordings, concerts etc are also on their  Facebook page.

 

Use the Search box above to find other great Boldwood tunes.

 

 

 

Leave a comment

Filed under English folk/traditional, Uncategorized

Purlongs

 

Purlongs is an intriguingly crooked tune from Playford’s Dancing Master (1651), and the roots of its inscrutable title are much debated. (Andy Cutting’s definition: ‘Any distance travelled by a cat.’)

However, the word appears to be a Middle English variation of ‘purloin’ – to steal, in a stealthy manner:

Purlong: Middle English purloinen, to remove, from Anglo-Norman purloigner. Noun: purloiner. (Via thefreedictionary.com)

And there you have it. Purlongs. Thieves/robbers. Case closed?

(Perhaps not. Googling purlongs also gave me furlongs/corruption of, and instructions for installing purlins when putting up a roof.)

 

Cut to the chase! Here are two wonderful bands – Leveret and Boldwood – playing the lovely Purlongs.

 

Leveret*

Andy Cutting (melodeon), Rob Harbron (concertina), Sam Sweeney (fiddle)

Purlongs played second in a set with Whitefriars Hornpipe, which was the tune for 28 May (Purlongs: 2:50). Mr Cutting half visible but entirely audible.

 

(‘Leveret – Whitefriars & Purlongs Live in Dursley Town Hall’ YouTube video, 5:41. Posted by Sam Sweeney, 12 Jul 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwCdsI6Qrx4)

The set is on Leveret’s 2015 CD New Anything, available from their website.

*GIG ALERT!

Leveret tourLeveret kick off their UK tour at Cecil Sharp House, London. THURSDAY 1 OCTOBER

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boldwood

Becky Price (piano accordion), Matthew Coatsworth, Kate Moran, Daniel Wolverson (fiddles)

Played second in a set with Fete de Village (Purlongs: 2:10) in a live performance at The Queen’s College Chapel, Oxford, 1st June 2013, featured on the unpublished CD Mudlarking**.

 

 

For news of gigs and recordings, see Boldwood’s website and their lively Facebook page.

**For previously-featured tunes from Mudlarking, see also Jackson’s Shaving Brush (June 2015) and The Miller of Perth (Aug 2015).

 

 

2 Comments

Filed under English folk/traditional, Uncategorized

The Miller of Perth

Boldwood play mainly forgotten tunes from 18th century England, painstakingly researched and liberated from lost manuscripts and the extraordinary (to us) phenomenon of dance fans. This 3/2 hornpipe was discovered by Becky Price in an unpublished handwritten manuscript in the British Library.

 

Boldwood

Becky Price (accordion), Miranda Rutter (fiddle, viola), Matthew Coatsworth (fiddle, viola)

 

(From Boldwood’s 2012 unreleased second album Mudlarking, available on Soundcloud here.)

 

Boldwood-Dancing-Master-front-cover-300x210The dots for The Miller of Perth are published in The Boldwood Dancing Master, available from the Boldwood website – along with a brilliant new CD – and also on  Matthew Coatsworth’s fascinating website ‘English and French Music: an online manuscript’.

For more information and another great Boldwood tune, see Fiddletails post Jackson’s Shaving Brush (June 2015).

 

 

2 Comments

Filed under English folk/traditional