Here’s a wee little schottische written for our 25th (silver) wedding anniversary. Composed on the concertina – it fits really nice on pipes and fiddle as well.
Recorded in the loft whilst in COVID isolation – the room service was excellent ..
Tag: northumbrian music
XYZ – James Hill Hornpipe?
Reading and researching old music manuscripts takes a lot of effort and is very much a specialised interest – but just occasionally it all comes to life in unexpected ways. I was recently playing in Devon and was sharing some music with some friends, when fiddler Paul Burgess played a lovely G minor hornpipe that felt strangely familiar:
Paul had it from an 19thC manuscript as ‘A Modal Hornpipe‘ – whilst I’ve always known my version as a James Hill hornpipe called ‘XYZ‘ and commonly played in A minor a bit like this:
I eventually found the G minor transcription in the William Irwin manuscript at the Village Music Project. Irwin was a fiddler in Langdale and two of his books dataed 1838 & 1850 were partially copied in the early C20th but the original MSS have been lost. The question then becomes which came first; Irwin’s Modal Hornpipe or Hill’s XYZ?
XYZ was a famous racehorse born in 1808 who won numerous races in the North East from 1811 to 1814. James Hill was born in c.1810 and wrote music through out his short life but many the sources and attributions to James Hill come from much later – a challenge addressed in Graham Dixon’s wonderfully presented & encyclopaedic book ‘The Lads Like Beer‘.
The tune explicitly named XYZ appears with a direct attribution to Hill in the Jock Davidson (Kielder Jock) manuscript and the Clough family manuscripts – both sources from the early C20th. Unattributed but named versions appears in both the Robert Davison and William Green manuscripts; both c.1850. The RD version titled ‘X.Y.’ is much closer to the Modal Hornpipe than many:
In all of the earlier versions there are musical curiousities and what can only be called mis-transcriptions. The c.1850 version from Collingwood is transcribed in A Major and the Robert Davison version (included in the PDF) has a particular ‘double flat’ in the B part!
There’s nothing definitive in any of these manuscripts to say which (if any!) is the primary source and a good tune is still a good tune to be played and enjoyed – but I’ll still keep my ear out for such coincidences as they’re a constant joy. Here’s a PDF with three transcriptions: XYZ and Modal Hornpipe
Old Year’s Night – 30th Dec 2012, Wall Village
Update: Now sold out – wait list on returns
The ever popular annual village night out returns as anticipated & expected on the 30th December – “Old Year’s Night” is an evening of Northumbrian Music, Songs & Stories that continues to feature some of the best of local performers. Supper will be a Bring and Share affair to start the evening and then we’ll get going with the entertainment as soon as people have eaten and we can clear a little space.
I’ll be hosting and throwing in a few tunes and will be able to introduce yet another fine of talent who have been persuaded to come and perform this year:
- Singer, Storyteller & Musician Johnny Handle – a simply masterful entertainer
- Andy May – nothing short of a musical genius on the pipes
- As local & as popular as can be; singer and storyteller Graham Dick
Tickets are just £7 and everything starts at 7.30pm in Wall Village Hall. Contact me if you’d like more information / tickets. (Advance booking is essential!)
Full Size Poster (PDF)
And by way of a bit social history: 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 |
Re-released as Digital Download!
It’s just over two years since Veteran Records release my CD: O’er Lang at the Fair. Traditional music is very much a niche musical audience; physical CDs are still very much the norm and I’ve probably met a fair number of the people who’ve bought the CD (thank you!).
Through the wonders of modern technology and by properly keeping up with music cataloguing standard, John has now made the whole of his catalogue available as digital downloads. All of this means you can now find me on loads of digital download services: play.com, emusic, amazon (and also once the catalogues update: hmv.com, itunes, napster)
John is also distributing the recordings from the sadly short lived Kyloe Records label – on which you can find the marvellous Andrew & Margaret Watchorn (Lecchemede) and the virtuso playing of Mr Chris Ormston on ‘Time Out of Mind’ . Sadly the Kyloe recordings aren’t available just yet – fingers crossed we’ll be able to keep these recordings available.