This month's poll was a tie, so I am proclaiming the winner to be Her Long Hair Flowing Down Her Back, which was submitted as a hornpipe. Also known as Annie Russell’s, Flowing Down Her Back And The Colour Of Her Golden Hair Was Black, Her Golden Hair Hanging Down Her Back, Her Golden Hair Was Black, Her Golden Hair Was Hanging Down Her Back, Her Golden Long Hair Flowed Down Her Back, Her Long Black Hair, Her Long Brown Hair Flowed Down Her Back, Her Long Golden Hair, Her Lovely Hair Flowing Down Her Back, Her Lovely Hair Was Flowing Down Her Back, Moll Ha’penny, With Her Long Hair Flowing Down Her Back, With Her Lovely Long Hair. Here is a link to 9 settings of this tune on thesession.org
Thank you for allowing me to be the first to post my version of this tune! I wasn't familiar with it before, but it's not too difficult. And the more I played it, the more sense it made and the more fun it became! Just audio and no video this time - it's quicker that way. I used a Fylde Touchstone Walnut mandolin, an Ibanez M510 mandolin, and a Blue Moon octave mandola. The pick in all cases was a Hawk SB. I used the pointed corner for melody and the rounded one for chords. Let's hear your versions!
This has a nice and easy flow to it, Dennis, the rhythm as hornpipey as it can get. Very good playing.
Well done. I am working on my version. The more I play it the more I like it. I know what you are saying about video. It takes me quite a bit of time too.
That is nice playing and a nice arrangement. It has all sorts of good stuff to listen to
Thank you, Bertram, Robert, and Brian! In a couple of Barbara's meta-threads about this group, we have talked about how comments are just as valuable for this group as the music submissions themselves. Your input and encouragement are appreciated and will always be welcome. Bertram, do you remember how you coaxed me to become a member of this group with a hornpipe? I love playing hornpipes, I just don't know enough of them! Robert and Brian, the arrangement was quite easy and quick to do because I didn't use video this time. I just recorded the melody, chords, and tremolo parts straight into Audacity and had the MP3 ready after some minimal editing (silencing unwanted noise, making the tremolo louder and the octave mandola quieter). With video, the synchronisation of audio and video would have taken quite a lot of additional time.
Really nice recording Gelsenbury. I like the slower pace also. Congratulations
Nice multitrack recording indeed, Dennis. I decided for mandolin solo:
Nicely played Frithjof. The trplets sound good too. I like this tune more everytime I hear a new version.
Lovely versions lads - I do love Junior Crehan tunes!
Nice one, Frithjof! It's a little workout for triplets and the little finger, isn't it? You somehow manage to land perfectly on the high B every time.
Clean playing, Frithjof, especially (as Dennis said) on triplets and pinky usage (though never at the same time, but I understand that, hardly ever doing even one or the other myself).
Thanks to all of you. I’m happy that my efforts to improve the abilities of my pinky are successful. Three month ago I had not enough power in the pinky to use it so often in one tune.
Nice playing, Dennis and Frithjof! Mine is a bit faster, and with less pronounced swing than yours -- the two tend to go together. Chords from thesession.org. The tune was written by Junior Crehan (1908-98) of County Clare, who apparently called it "Flowing Down Her Back And The Colour Of Her Golden Hair Was Black", not the most catchy (or sensible) tune title. Unsurprisingly, it tends to get shortened in a variety of ways. Recorded on mandolin with tenor guitar backing. Additional mandocello on the repeat. 1921 Gibson Ajr mandolin Vintage Viaten tenor guitar Suzuki MC-815 mandocello Martin
Nice, Martin. I like the mandocello on the repeat.
Very nice Martin. Great Photos too. Are those yours?
Well, It took me a while but here is my take.
Sounds sweet and relaxed, Robert. And with matching accompaniment.
Thanks Frithjof. I am starting to relax a little when I record now.
Thanks, Robert. Your recording is very nice -- I probably should have put more swing in mine, as you have, for a more relaxed feel. The photos are all of County Clare, but not mine, I'm afraid, although I have visited there. I'd like to think that I saw Junior Crehan play in a pub session in Doolin very late in his life, but I can't be sure it was him as I didn't know of him by name back then. This was in the early 1990s (August 1991, I think) -- the pub was packed with the usual mix of locals, backpackers and tourists and some decent session players mixing it up over the background noise. Pleasant but not particularly memorable until suddenly this very ancient guy came in together with a younger man (his son or possibly grandson, I thought) and everybody immediately stopped playing and talking. The players made space and somebody reverently handed him a fiddle, which he went on to play to hushed silence with everybody listening intently to every note. It was on a different planet to the playing that went before -- not anywhere as energetic, loud or fast as the session players, but with a depth of feeling and a tone none of them could touch. It was the best fiddle playing I have heard to this day. After a few tunes, first solo then with the others gently joining in (still to hushed silence), he got up and left. I never found out who he was -- he clearly wasn't a regular at that pub and nobody had expected him that night, although everybody knew him -- but Crehan lived about 15 miles away and would have been 83 at the time (he died in 1998, aged 90), which seems about right. He looks about right as well from what I recall. Martin
Lovely version Robert and nice smooth triplets in there too!
Nice playing there, and a good story from Martin. This feels a bit like a pub session now!
Thanks All! I too enjoyed Martin's story. It sounds like a very special moment. Jill - After reading your info on triplets and paying close attention to how mine sounded I did find that whenever I came to a triplet I would rush through it thinking it had to be faster than it was just as you indicated. I am still working on it of course but that was a big help. Thanks!
great versions everyone,another one im working on. great to see the group being very lively at the moment
really enjoyed learning this one, it had me moving out of the first position on longer scaled instruments , which amused me no end as its something i never do, i had great fun with it. playing on the mandolin here, though i did cheat a little and moved the whole thing up a string, cutting out the need for any pinky work.
Why not change the key? It sounds great anyway. Very fluent and smooth.
Great version. I do envy your smooth triplets. I thought this was a fun tune to learn too.
Nice versions everyone! I especially like Robert's mandolin-and-guitar version. Great sounding mandolin. A two-pointer still lacks in my little collection...
Thanks crisscross. My mandolin is a Weber Bighorn with a cedar top. It is a great sounding mandolin.
Lovely stuff Lawrence!
Played on my SS Stewart mandolin scale banjo.
Solid work on the banjo, David. And impressive slide show of all these longhaired beauties.
These are all really nice versions of this tune. I am not all that familiar with hornpipes and don’t really know what the characteristics of a hornpipe should be. All I know of them is that a hornpipe is a form of whistle. What type of mandolin playing makes a hornpipe, “hornpipey ?”
I am definitely not an expert but I believe they should have a dotted rhythm kind of like you are skipping along. Maybe some one who is better versed in these things can clarify.
Thanks Robert, your analogy of skipping is a good one. In researching this I eventually ended up looking at and listening to You Tube hornpipe dance (and tap dance) video's. I discovered that these dances are associated with sailors, and hard soled shoes: that is what lead me to looking at tap-dancing videos. Another great resource in learning about this music was Colin Hume's website https://colinhume.com/hornpipe.htm There he had one of the best definitions :"A Scottish hornpipe is what I would call a rant. My definition of a rant is “a tune which ends dubber-diddy dubber-diddy dum, boom boom”.
There are several dances called hornpipe, which doesn't make things easy. Here in England, hornpipes in 3/2 time are still common in sessions, but now more commonly called "three two" to distinguish them from the more popular 4/4 hornpipes. Examples include the Old Lancashire Hornpipe and the Rusty Gully. Among 4/4 hornpipes, there are differences too. Some have a lot of bounce/swing (e.g. Harvest Home), others much less (I was going to mention the Staten Island Hornpipe as an example, but now I'm not even sure if that's still technically a hornpipe). If you compare Martin's version and mine in this thread, you'll clearly hear the differences between little bounce and lots of it. People who know more about this than I do will be able to tell you about some properly defining characteristics of 4/4 hornpipes, which have to do with properties of the melody and the corresponding dance steps. But when Bertram referred to my playing as "hornpipe-y", I'm sure he meant the swing in the rhythm. Some notation of hornpipes even has the dotted rhythm written into the eighth notes, but most are written in straight eighths and just played dotted. If reels are "Black and Decker" (no bounce), the hornpipes that we hear as hornpipe-y are "Humpty Dumpty" (lots of bounce).
Further to Dennis's very lucid explanation, I note that there is an inevitable tendency for the "bounce" (or swing) to be evened out the faster a tune is played. Thus, tunes that are hornpipes or strathspeys when played slowish mutate into reels when played faster. That's a common theme when comparing Scottish tunes to their Irish equivalents. Martin
Dennis, Martin, Robert: Thanks for the responses to my question. The sheet music only gives so much information and on most of it even the tempo is not given. When I first looked into hornpipes the only part I noticed was that a hornpipe was a whistle. When I realized that the whistle could be attached to a bagpipe, I knew I had to dig deeper. Now I have a fairly good understanding of what a hornpipe is, and I think that is important if I am to have any chance of playing this well.
Here is my try at this one
