I think the old dogma as it it handed out on the internet about only using cuts and rolls is a bit of a non issue. Did you listen to the Micho Russell clip I linked? It’s all in how you use it.
Here’s another take, somewhat more legato than Micho’s.
I totally agree with that. That’s why I said (or at least tried to say) that it wasn;t so much in the fact of the tonguing, although I do think there was too much in Phill’s version, but in exactly where and how he was using it, which wasn;t the same as Micho was doing. Micho was using a surprising amount though, I thought.
Is that last one someone famous? That one didn’t do it for me, but I guess each to his/her own.
I tried to - but it had crackles and pauses in it which made it hard to listen to, did I do something wrong? or is it a very old recording? I have downloaded it but I should be entertaining now…
I like some of the examples posted, especially Mico Russel’s and MrGumpy’s use of variations, thanks! But why, Phill, did you choose ‘Harvest Home’ as your first hornpipe? I may get lynched now, but I find this tune melodically rather boring. A very simple fiddle tune it seems to be, and a bit more challenging on the whistle to replicate. But still basically just jumping around on the notes of the D chord.
Dum di da di - Dum di da di… is that really the essence of the tune, that one needs to stick to this phrase and not vary it?
How about trying ‘The Rights of Man’ for a melodically far more interesting hornpipe?
I chose it because it sounded easy-ish, and it has a reputation of being a beginners standard, maybe for a reason. I am getting a bit bored with it - but that is due to the number of repetitions that seem necessary to get my fingers trained.
You have done it now Hans, everyone is going to suggest an alternate 
. Though I do like Rights of Man…
I don’t know about boring but as a fellow beginner, though focusing more on the dance tunes, I find that all those pedal notes make Harvest Home hard work compared to other hornpipes that I have tried; as well as finding them technically tricky they make it harder to ‘get into’ the hornpipe rhythm.
Tunes like the Stack of Wheat or the Wexford hornpipe would possibly be a more sensible choice. Or the good old Off to California. But just as easily the Fairies Hornpipe and tunes like that. There are hundreds of them. Thousands even.
On the other hand, they all offer specific things that you’ll have to tackle at one point or other. Best to try a few and start with the ones that come most easily.
Biting off more than I can chew? Well it wouldn’t be the first time. I know Rights of Man a little, but think of it as a slow tune. The name ‘Off to California’ rings a bell.
Maybe I need a rethink. And maybe I should save up for lessons. While the help I receive is most welcome, I feel it would be a bit cheeky to keep asking. I will be relocating soon, and maybe there will be a session in walking distance if I am very lucky.
Though I do not naturally gravitate to faster/dance tunes I think there are lessons in that discipline that I need to learn.
But I have learnt from this thread, and thank all who have helped.
Nothing cheeky about asking!
And the responses are not just helpful to you,
but I think to lots of other folk, myself included.
PS: what are pedal notes?
My whistle has no pedals (luckily? 
), and I have not heard that term before.
I can help there… something I learnt earlier:
thanks Phil! So all those As in “Harvest Home” are the pedal notes (pedalling on the fifth…) I assume. Are those long ending notes on many hornpipes, like the Es in “The Rights of Man” also called pedal notes? Or shall I just quickly forget about this term?
I think “Off to California” was the first hornpipe I learned.
Another interesting hornpipe that’s easy to play is the Wicklow (AKA Delahunty’s) hornpipe.
FWIW, the three I rotated round because they were played as a set locally were Harvest Home, Boys of Bluehill and Off to California. Harvest Home continues to lag behind the others despite extra effort.
Boys of Bluehill would certainly be a standard tune most places, Off to California, Cronin’s, The Liverpool? All worth having a crack at for starters (and a bit of variety). You can easily transfer what you’ve learned about hornpipe playing from one to another and it’s nice to have more than one tune to practice in a similar rhythm at any one time.
Maybe then focus on a good jig, and two or three more of them to get familiar with that feel.
Then a single reel or two…
There’s something to be said for spending a day on different tunes in just one rhythm.
late chiming in here…
Harvest Home, mmmm??? cf: http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/HAR.htm#HARVEST_HOME_1
This was one of the first “folk” tunes I ever learnt, well before I discovered ITM proper. I don’t think of it as an “Irish” tune at all - it’s kind of a generically owned thing and played in different national and local styles to suit, a bit like the multifarious versions of The Cuckoo’s Nest (also a hornpipe, though in many settings played straight, not at all dotted or inegale).
Like many, as my trad experience expanded I linked it up with Boys of Bluehill.
I do think it is an excellent beginners’ tune/exercise as it has relatively simple versions of all the main figures encountered in trad dance music, especially hornpipes - arpeggio passages, scalar passages, pedal passages, “division” into triplet passages… and all falling nice and easily under the fingers. But it rather quickly becomes tiresome and silly! In my late teens when I started on this whole lark my mum actually banned us (me and my brother and sister and musical visitors) from playing it - they too, though not traddies, and in my brother’s case not a wind player at all, picked it up on tin whistle (and much later I got all my 3 kids tootling it). We used to have races to see who could play it fastest! (Straightened out rhythm, not much articulation/ornamentation, but all main melody notes/fingerings present) Not at all musical, but amusing. If it gets played at a session, I’m still prone to such nonsense!
Not at all musical, but amusing. If it gets played at a session, I’m still prone to such nonsense!
One can wonder though, does that say anything about the tune or maybe reveals more about yourself?
Both, of course!
I can play it sensibly, seriously, even sensitively if I want to/occasion demands… and most other tunes don’t tend to impel me to such silliness, prone to it though I be…