Another in the list series, hornpipes this time. Again, no doubt I've missed a few tunes that are among the most widely played hornpipes at sessions, so please help fill in the blanks.
This list includes a few tunes that are more often called set dances, but they fit within the hornpipe form.
Alexander’s
An Comhra Donn
An Paistin Fionn
The Atlantic Roar
The Back of the Haggard
The Banks of the Shannon
The Banks
Bantry Bay
The Beeswing
The Belfast
The Blackbird
Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine
The Boys of Ballycastle
The Boys of Bluehill
The Golden Castle
Chief O’Neill’s Favourite
The City of Savannah
Cooely’s
Cronin’s
Cuckoo’s Nest
The Derry
Down the Glen
The Downfall of Paris
The Drunken Sailor
Dunphy’s
The Ebb Tide
Father Dollard’s
Fisher’s
The Flowing Tide
Galtee Hunt
The Galway
Galway Bay
Garden of Daisies
The Glasgow
The Glenbeigh
The Golden Eagle
The Good Natured Man
The Hangman’s Rope
The Harp and the Shamrock
Harvest Home
The High Level
Home Ruler
The Honeysuckle
Humours of Ballyconnell
Humours of Tullycrine (aka Bobby Casey’s)
The Independence
Jackie Tar
Johnny Cope
King of the Faeries
Kitty’s Wedding
Lad O’Beirne’s
Lass on the Strand
The Last Pint
Little Stack of Wheat
The Liverpool
Miss Galvin’s
The Mountain Ranger
Off to California
The Peacock’s Feathers
The Plains of Boyle
Poll Ha’ Penny
The Pride of Petravore
The Queen of May
The Queen of the West
Rickett’s
The Rights of Man
The Sailor’s
The Saratoga
Sean Ryan’s (aka P.J. Moloney’s)
The Smell of the Bog
The Stack of Barley
Staten Island
Stoney Steps
Walsh’s
The Wee Rabbit
The Western
The Whole Chicken in the Soup
The Wonder
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
I'm not sure how common these are, but then again I haven't heard of about 20% of those on your list:
The Hawk
Her Lovely Hair Was Flowing Down Her Back (Junior Crehan)
The Hills of Coore (Junior Crehan)
Kit O'Mahoney's
The Poppy Leaf
The Quarrelsome Piper
The Stack of Oats (Junior Crehan)
The Stack of Rye (Junior Crehan)
The Swan (Sean Ryan)
Tuamgraney Castle
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
One's that seem to be pretty commonly Played..
Well in our session Anyway,,,
jim,,,,
The Belfast
The Boys of Ballycastle
The Boys of Bluehill
Chief O’Neill’s Favourite
Harvest Home
Home Ruler
Little Stack of Wheat
Off to California
The Peacock’s Feather
The Plains of Boyle
The Rights of Man
The Stack of Barley
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
Here are a few more hornpipes that I enjoy playing:-
Kildare Fancy - Showman's Fancy - Carl Volti's Horpipe - The Manchester - Johnston's - The yellow hairded laddie - The Man from Newry - The Donegal Hornpipe - The Last of the Twins - Tomorrow Morning.
Interesting to see tunes like Lad O'Beirne's - The Stoney Steps - Staten island - The Humours of Ballyconnel memntioned in 'Wil CPT's' list. I would have classed them as reels, unless of course they are different tunes from the reels.
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
Sorry, Screetch, polkas will probably come later. I want to get on to slip jigs and then slides. And if someone else wants to tackle polkas, I'm more than happy to step aside on that one.
Free Reed, if you type the names of your "reels" in and select "hornpipe" in the tune search function, you'll find the hornpipes I mean. Yes, there are reels of the same names, but these are in fact different tunes.
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
With a proviso, please, or a simple request or warning like on a cigarette package ~ more than a few in any one take could be hazardous to their health!!! As much as I love polkas, they are more often than not abused ~ piled on thick and putrid or ground underfoot...
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
Heh, 'c' I've always made lists, as far back as I can remember. Apparently "late in life" for me started when I was 6....
My point in making these lists of tunes isn't to foster marathons of any one form at sessions. All I'm trying to do is get a handle on the most widely played, most common, most "essential" tunes within each form so I can single out tunes to add to my repertoire. And at this point in my checkered career, I'm likely to focus on reels--no shortage of material there.
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
"Hey Will/Ramiro - another great job, as always"
Thank Will, and the people who wrote the 'pr' utility for GNU/linux.
I only spent a few seconds with this.
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
Fire away on the lists but I wonder about the significance. Surely you'll just end with a list of tunes that you play mainly in your part of the world. If other people add in tunes, then you get a sort of hotch potch list which has little national, regional or local diversity.
But what use is it? I mean, I don't think you would suggest a move towards people worldwide drawing from the same pool of tunes. That would be regressive - Viva la difference - I'm only really interested in what people play locally near me and of course, tunes that otherwise catch my attention.
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
Here are some not on your list that get played in our session:
We don't do many hornpipes.
Fairies'Hornpipe
FriendlyVisit
Manchester
Seanbhean Bhocht
Showman'sFancy
Steamboat
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
Wounded hussar, good points, and I've hesitated in doing this precisely for the reasons you give.
So in making these lists I go to a variety of sources--Alan Ng's site which includes a list of the 100 most recorded tunes, the tune archives here, which give some sense of how often a tune has been added to a tunebook and how many recordings it's on (realizing that both of those metrics are severely flawed), my own sense of how recordings have influenced the dissemination of tunes to sessions far and wide, and tapping into friends who've travelled more widely than I have and heard the tunes played in sessions on three continents.
In short, I aim to offer a cross section of tunes well known at sessions far and wide.
My own purely anecdotal, personal (and no doubt limited, myopic, blindered, ingrown) experience suggests that no matter how many of the common tunes I learn, other more obscure tunes will always catch my fancy (or the fancy of someone else in my local sessions) and so end up in my bag of tunes. Given that, and the fact that I don't live in the center of the Irish trad universe, it helps *me* to try to get a handle on which tunes might be among the most well known elsewhere, so when I do travel or play with visitors coming through my town, I have some "common" tunes at hand.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that I've heard certain tunes, e.g., Bucks of Oranmore, Milliner's Daughter, Sargeant Early's Dream, Eileen Curran, etc. at sessions far and wide--Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Boston, Portland OR, Vancouver BC, Butte USA, and so on. And learning those tunes enables me to join in more often than sit out. And I still know hundreds of more obscure tunes.
Maybe a shorter answer is that nearly every tune catches my attention--I want to learn them all. So this is one way to lend some sense of priority, even if I choose not to rigidly adhere to that priority.
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
Yes, I understand Will but I think at session I play in, maybe there's a dozen hornpipes played anyway regularly. I suppose we're the poorer for that but if I were to start on your list above and try to work through it, I'm sure I'd come across some great tunes but I'd have no one to play along with! And if I don't play them reasonably regularly, I lose them.
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
Well, in my backwoods sessions, I keep trotting out the tunes I like in hopes my mates will learn them. And it helps to be able to say "This tune is a standard at many other sessions." They're more likely to learn it then.
Besides, each of these "essential" tunes lists has plenty of tunes to choose from. So we're all still free to just learn the tunes that catch our attention. As you say, no doubt there are some great tunes within these "short" lists. Why not learn them, even if no one else at your local joins in? I've kept Delahanty's (aka the Wicklow) hornpipe alive in my own repertoire for 30 years, even though only one other local player has learned it. I still enjoy playing it. (And am puzzled as to how I left it off the list here....)
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
What I want to know is who turned Reavy's Street Player hornpipe into a reel. I think it makes a great hornpipe, but when ever I start it the other playes drive it into a reel. When I point out Reavy composed it as a hornpipe their eyes glaze over.
fwiw Phantom Button - we play the Street Player as a hornpipe at our sesh. As the evening wears on the titles sometimes gets mangled into "The Street Walker" however...
Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
Another in the list series, hornpipes this time. Again, no doubt I've missed a few tunes that are among the most widely played hornpipes at sessions, so please help fill in the blanks.
This list includes a few tunes that are more often called set dances, but they fit within the hornpipe form.
Alexander’s
An Comhra Donn
An Paistin Fionn
The Atlantic Roar
The Back of the Haggard
The Banks of the Shannon
The Banks
Bantry Bay
The Beeswing
The Belfast
The Blackbird
Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine
The Boys of Ballycastle
The Boys of Bluehill
The Golden Castle
Chief O’Neill’s Favourite
The City of Savannah
Cooely’s
Cronin’s
Cuckoo’s Nest
The Derry
Down the Glen
The Downfall of Paris
The Drunken Sailor
Dunphy’s
The Ebb Tide
Father Dollard’s
Fisher’s
The Flowing Tide
Galtee Hunt
The Galway
Galway Bay
Garden of Daisies
The Glasgow
The Glenbeigh
The Golden Eagle
The Good Natured Man
The Hangman’s Rope
The Harp and the Shamrock
Harvest Home
The High Level
Home Ruler
The Honeysuckle
Humours of Ballyconnell
Humours of Tullycrine (aka Bobby Casey’s)
The Independence
Jackie Tar
Johnny Cope
King of the Faeries
Kitty’s Wedding
Lad O’Beirne’s
Lass on the Strand
The Last Pint
Little Stack of Wheat
The Liverpool
Miss Galvin’s
The Mountain Ranger
Off to California
The Peacock’s Feathers
The Plains of Boyle
Poll Ha’ Penny
The Pride of Petravore
The Queen of May
The Queen of the West
Rickett’s
The Rights of Man
The Sailor’s
The Saratoga
Sean Ryan’s (aka P.J. Moloney’s)
The Smell of the Bog
The Stack of Barley
Staten Island
Stoney Steps
Walsh’s
The Wee Rabbit
The Western
The Whole Chicken in the Soup
The Wonder
# Posted on June 12th 2008 by Will CPT
Re: Some "essential" hornpipes for Irish sessions
LOL, please excuse the typo in the title. Editor!
# Posted on June 12th 2008 by Will CPT
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
Finally, now I can tell everyone my favorite cheesy pick up line.
"Would you like to come back to my place and help me straighten out my hornpipe?"
[bows]
# Posted on June 12th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
I'm not sure how common these are, but then again I haven't heard of about 20% of those on your list:
The Hawk
Her Lovely Hair Was Flowing Down Her Back (Junior Crehan)
The Hills of Coore (Junior Crehan)
Kit O'Mahoney's
The Poppy Leaf
The Quarrelsome Piper
The Stack of Oats (Junior Crehan)
The Stack of Rye (Junior Crehan)
The Swan (Sean Ryan)
Tuamgraney Castle
# Posted on June 12th 2008 by GaryAMartin
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
One's that seem to be pretty commonly Played..
Well in our session Anyway,,,
jim,,,,
The Belfast
The Boys of Ballycastle
The Boys of Bluehill
Chief O’Neill’s Favourite
Harvest Home
Home Ruler
Little Stack of Wheat
Off to California
The Peacock’s Feather
The Plains of Boyle
The Rights of Man
The Stack of Barley
# Posted on June 12th 2008 by FIDDLE4
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
we get a lot of Tailor's Twist here - very uncomfortable
# Posted on June 12th 2008 by airport
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
And my 2 column version
http://www.telefonica.net/web2/deb/2chornpipes
# Posted on June 12th 2008 by Ramiro
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
The Japanese Hornpipe ?
# Posted on June 12th 2008 by pennhorse
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
Here are a few more hornpipes that I enjoy playing:-
Kildare Fancy - Showman's Fancy - Carl Volti's Horpipe - The Manchester - Johnston's - The yellow hairded laddie - The Man from Newry - The Donegal Hornpipe - The Last of the Twins - Tomorrow Morning.
Interesting to see tunes like Lad O'Beirne's - The Stoney Steps - Staten island - The Humours of Ballyconnel memntioned in 'Wil CPT's' list. I would have classed them as reels, unless of course they are different tunes from the reels.
# Posted on June 12th 2008 by Free Reed
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
I like these lists. Can we get some polkas next?
# Posted on June 12th 2008 by Marklar
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
Sorry, Screetch, polkas will probably come later. I want to get on to slip jigs and then slides. And if someone else wants to tackle polkas, I'm more than happy to step aside on that one.
Free Reed, if you type the names of your "reels" in and select "hornpipe" in the tune search function, you'll find the hornpipes I mean. Yes, there are reels of the same names, but these are in fact different tunes.
# Posted on June 12th 2008 by Will CPT
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
WIll CPT:
Many thanks from myself as well.
And I will second the request above for polkas - one can never have too many polkas.
10Q.
# Posted on June 12th 2008 by Rook
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
Well, okay. Maybe I *will* do polkas next....
# Posted on June 12th 2008 by Will CPT
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
With a proviso, please, or a simple request or warning like on a cigarette package ~ more than a few in any one take could be hazardous to their health!!!
As much as I love polkas, they are more often than not abused ~ piled on thick and putrid or ground underfoot... 
# Posted on June 12th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
Isn't there supposed to be a psychological age, late in life, where 'lists' become particularly important?
# Posted on June 12th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
Heh, 'c' I've always made lists, as far back as I can remember. Apparently "late in life" for me started when I was 6....
My point in making these lists of tunes isn't to foster marathons of any one form at sessions. All I'm trying to do is get a handle on the most widely played, most common, most "essential" tunes within each form so I can single out tunes to add to my repertoire. And at this point in my checkered career, I'm likely to focus on reels--no shortage of material there.
# Posted on June 13th 2008 by Will CPT
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
Me too...
# Posted on June 13th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
Hey Will/Ramiro - another great job, as always. Is there an "archives" place somewhere we could chuck these for future reference?
Thanks again!
Tom
# Posted on June 13th 2008 by tomw
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
There must be a few polka scholars on the site - Dan The Man, where are you ??
# Posted on June 13th 2008 by Hup
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
Tom, I've added these "Essential tunes" threads to my member profile so I can find them again with just a few clicks.
I'll get the polkas done by this weekend.
# Posted on June 13th 2008 by Will CPT
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
Isn't Johnny Cope a strathspey? Or do people normally play it as a hornpipe? Is there also a hornpipe version for the Queen of May?
# Posted on June 13th 2008 by jasonb
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
"Hey Will/Ramiro - another great job, as always"
Thank Will, and the people who wrote the 'pr' utility for GNU/linux.
I only spent a few seconds with this.
# Posted on June 13th 2008 by Ramiro
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
Fire away on the lists but I wonder about the significance. Surely you'll just end with a list of tunes that you play mainly in your part of the world. If other people add in tunes, then you get a sort of hotch potch list which has little national, regional or local diversity.
But what use is it? I mean, I don't think you would suggest a move towards people worldwide drawing from the same pool of tunes. That would be regressive - Viva la difference - I'm only really interested in what people play locally near me and of course, tunes that otherwise catch my attention.
# Posted on June 13th 2008 by the wounded hussar
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
Here are some not on your list that get played in our session:
We don't do many hornpipes.
Fairies'Hornpipe
FriendlyVisit
Manchester
Seanbhean Bhocht
Showman'sFancy
Steamboat
# Posted on June 13th 2008 by Lurcherjohn
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
Wounded hussar, good points, and I've hesitated in doing this precisely for the reasons you give.
So in making these lists I go to a variety of sources--Alan Ng's site which includes a list of the 100 most recorded tunes, the tune archives here, which give some sense of how often a tune has been added to a tunebook and how many recordings it's on (realizing that both of those metrics are severely flawed), my own sense of how recordings have influenced the dissemination of tunes to sessions far and wide, and tapping into friends who've travelled more widely than I have and heard the tunes played in sessions on three continents.
In short, I aim to offer a cross section of tunes well known at sessions far and wide.
My own purely anecdotal, personal (and no doubt limited, myopic, blindered, ingrown) experience suggests that no matter how many of the common tunes I learn, other more obscure tunes will always catch my fancy (or the fancy of someone else in my local sessions) and so end up in my bag of tunes. Given that, and the fact that I don't live in the center of the Irish trad universe, it helps *me* to try to get a handle on which tunes might be among the most well known elsewhere, so when I do travel or play with visitors coming through my town, I have some "common" tunes at hand.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that I've heard certain tunes, e.g., Bucks of Oranmore, Milliner's Daughter, Sargeant Early's Dream, Eileen Curran, etc. at sessions far and wide--Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Boston, Portland OR, Vancouver BC, Butte USA, and so on. And learning those tunes enables me to join in more often than sit out. And I still know hundreds of more obscure tunes.
Maybe a shorter answer is that nearly every tune catches my attention--I want to learn them all. So this is one way to lend some sense of priority, even if I choose not to rigidly adhere to that priority.
# Posted on June 13th 2008 by Will CPT
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
Yes, I understand Will but I think at session I play in, maybe there's a dozen hornpipes played anyway regularly. I suppose we're the poorer for that but if I were to start on your list above and try to work through it, I'm sure I'd come across some great tunes but I'd have no one to play along with! And if I don't play them reasonably regularly, I lose them.
# Posted on June 13th 2008 by the wounded hussar
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
Well, in my backwoods sessions, I keep trotting out the tunes I like in hopes my mates will learn them. And it helps to be able to say "This tune is a standard at many other sessions." They're more likely to learn it then.
Besides, each of these "essential" tunes lists has plenty of tunes to choose from. So we're all still free to just learn the tunes that catch our attention. As you say, no doubt there are some great tunes within these "short" lists. Why not learn them, even if no one else at your local joins in? I've kept Delahanty's (aka the Wicklow) hornpipe alive in my own repertoire for 30 years, even though only one other local player has learned it. I still enjoy playing it. (And am puzzled as to how I left it off the list here....)
# Posted on June 13th 2008 by Will CPT
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
What I want to know is who turned Reavy's Street Player hornpipe into a reel. I think it makes a great hornpipe, but when ever I start it the other playes drive it into a reel. When I point out Reavy composed it as a hornpipe their eyes glaze over.
# Posted on June 13th 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
Yep, unfortunately that's happened to a bunch of great hornpipes....
# Posted on June 13th 2008 by Will CPT
Reavy's Street Player
fwiw Phantom Button - we play the Street Player as a hornpipe at our sesh. As the evening wears on the titles sometimes gets mangled into "The Street Walker" however...
# Posted on June 16th 2008 by octogreg
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
The Chancellor - Hugh Healy & Colm Healy paired it with The Western Hornpipe on their excellent CD "Macalla na hÓige".
Also "Thomond Bridge" from the same CD.
# Posted on June 16th 2008 by Laughtonb
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
Laughtonb, thanks for those--that CD is a gem, and right you are to recommend both those hornpipes. Good call.
# Posted on June 16th 2008 by Will CPT
Re: Some "essential" hornpipres for Irish sessions
I introduced Murphy's hornpipe to our local group for a specific reason: it doesn't sound good as a reel. It worked.
# Posted on September 14th 2008 by windybaer