Hornpipe rhythm

Whistle
1

I’ve been trying to play hornpipe style songs for a few days now. I’ve read different sites about how to get the rhythm right and ways to practice. But it’s just something I can’t do right now. And it’s killing me because I can play things likes reels and even some jigs with OK or at least decent rhythm but I can’t nail the hornpipes for the life of me.

Here’s a simple example. I’ve practiced with different tonguing patterns like (hoo-kuh-tuh) to get the triplet feel but what happens is I wind up getting either tongue-tied or finger-tied or both when I get a few bars into any hornpipe. I find I do at least a little better when I slur all my notes but that doesn’t feel right either.

This is some of the first line of Fisher’s Hornpipe in D.
dAFA GBAG|FAFA GBAG|FDFD GEGE|FDFD E A|
…^^^^^^

The ^ marks illustrate where I usually end up getting tongue/finger tied. It’s like I can either play the first two bars fluently or the last two. But that transition between the 2nd and 3rd always trips me up. It isn’t just this song either. Any of them. If I were trying to dance to a hornpipe I’d definately fall flat on my nose.

So how do ya’ll play hornpipes?

2

Play notes 1 and 3 in any bar almost twice as long as notes 2 and 4.


~~

A distinctive figure in hornpipes occurs when an established run of eighth notes breaks into a series of triplets, ie, three notes played to fill the time ordinarily taken by two.

Here it is in the fourth bars of each part of Harvest home:

X: 1
T: Harvest Home, The
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: hornpipe
K: Dmaj
|:AF|DAFA DAFA|defe dcBA|eAfA gAfA|(3efe (3dcB AGFE|
DAFA DAFA|defe dcBA|eAfA gfec|d2 f2 d2:|
|:cd|eAAA fAAA|gAfA eAAA|eAfA gAfA|(3efe (3dcB (3ABA (3GFE|
DAFA DAFA|defe dcBA|eAfA gfec|d2 f2 d2:|

This sounds good in hornpipes because the ‘odd’ numbered notes in a hornpipe are already being played twice as long as the even beats, so what had been a stuttering rhythm suddenly becomes a free run of equal notes for the duration of the triplets, adding a sudden ‘headlong’ feeling to the tune.

Are you with me? When you steal time from each pair of eighth notes to create the middle note of the triplet, almost all the time is coming from the first eighth note; the third note of the triplet and the second note of each pair of eighth notes are largely unchanged. What you’re actually doing is splitting the first note in two.*

This is almost an unnecessarily complex explanation, but I labouring over it because the triplets in a hornpipe make the heavily swung rhythm visible. Think of the first two notes of a triplet as ‘belonging’ to the first note of an ordinary bar of a hornpipe, and you have it.

You could even notate a regular bar of a horpipe using triplets while repeating the pitch of the first note, like so:

|:cd|eAAA fAAA|gAfA eAAA||(3eeA (3ffA (3ggA (3ffA|(3efe (3dcB (3ABA (3GFE|
DAFA DAFA|defe dcBA|eAfA gfec|d2 f2 d2:|

This is the B part of Harvest Home with the third bar noted as if it consisted of triplets in which the first and second note repeat the same pitch. If you played it legato, it would sound exactly the same as in the original score.

If you learn to play all ‘regular’ bars of a hornpipe with as if it had that underlying structure, you’ll get the hornpipe rhythm.

~~

  • Note that this is only true of the way that triplets behave in a hornpipe, and is not true of triplets in a reel, etc.
3

Haha hornpipe rhythm makes no sense with actual musical notation. And if it’s written correctly it just looks stupid and confusing. I know learning from the dots is not the preferred way and will never teach good rhytm. But I’m a very visual learner, and I need SOMETHING. It’s a shame that traditional musical notation represents the hornpipe so poorly.

The problem is I can ‘hear’ the rhythm but I can’t reproduce it. I mean I can sit there and hum it and it comes out better than when I pick up my whistle.

This is another big tripping point for me. Are the actual triplets that appear Harvest Home treated like the rhytmically varied quavers? Or are they true triplets? I think I misunderstood what you were trying to say with that. Is the first triplet somehow longer because it falls on an ‘odd beat’? Or is the first and third notes of each triplet elongated? Or the 1st, 3rd, and then middle note of the second triplet elongated? Or do you just blow through all the triplets really fast until you get to the quavers again to pick up the hornpipe feel?

That’s the most complicated way to ask a question. But I’ve played them each way and for the most part the difference is so minimal that I can’t tell whether it’s just my poor representation or what.

4

Each triplet is as long as another, and each triplet is ALSO as long as the pair of quavers it replaces. The quavers are written as if they’re the same, but they aren’t–the ‘odd’ numbered ones take up the almost same time as the first two notes in a triplet, while the even quavers are unchanged in the shift to triplet rhythm.

Any bar of a hornpipe can be thought of as having 12 equal divisions rather than the 8 unequal divisions (or ‘swung’) divisions the notation looks like it calls for.

A triplet run shows this underlying 12 part structure. Each note in a triplet run is played with equal time.

e-f-e d-c-b A-B-A G–F–E
1-2-3 4-5-6 7-8-9 10-11-12

is how the fourth bar of the B part goes. If you think visually, that’s the structure you’re targetting.

The bar before it, however, is written as if it contains only 8 beats, but it too can be divided up into 12, because the odd-numbered notes are twice as long as the even ones.

e-A f-A g-A f-A
1-2 3-4 5-6 7-8

Above is how it’s written. What’s important to know is that 1 and 2 are not equal. 1 is twice as long as 2. 1,3,5 & 7 are equal as is 2,4,6 & 8. 7 is twice as long as 8.

Below is how it’s played. If you write it this way–with the hidden ‘base 12’ structure imposed–all the numbers become equal again.

e-e-A f-f-A g-g-A f–f–A
1-2-3 4-5-6 7-8-9 10-11-12

~~

Note that when I say even or odd, I’m talking ONLY about the written 8 quaver structure. When I alter it to triplet rhythm 2,4,6 & 8 become 3,6,9 & 12.

Argh. This is difficult to explain coherenty.

Look again at the fourth bar of Harvest Home again. The structure is beautifully visible in it. That same structure underlies every bar, only you can’t usually see it because the first two notes of each triplet are always the same.

5

Your last explanation works quite well actually. Thank you. The whole base 12 thing is probably the best way I’ve heard it explained yet.

6

Good.

7

Always good to hear some examples, too, don’t you think?

http://www.worldtrad.org/MP3/WFO2/Billy_Clifford.mp3

http://www.worldtrad.org/MP3/WFO2/Dermot_Grogan.mp3

http://www.worldtrad.org/MP3/WFO2/Peter_Horan.mp3

http://www.worldtrad.org/MP3/WFO2/Mike_McHale.mp3

http://www.worldtrad.org/MP3/WFO1/HANZ%20ARAKI.mp3

http://www.worldtrad.org/MP3/WFO3/Caoimhin_O’Raghallaigh.mp3

and to confuse the issue:

http://www.worldtrad.org/MP3/WFO3/Norman_Holmes.mp3


Kevin Krell

8

As I hear them. It’s the only way, really.

I can’t disagree with anything in Simon’s analysis, but all those time values are really of academic interest. Thinking about how long you are making the notes while you’re playing them is probably a good way to a) get your brain to trip up your fingers and/or b) sound totally stilted.

Saying you’re visual, I would suggest, is another way of saying you’re not prepared to hand over control to your ears! :slight_smile:

If you do put the ears in the driving seat, before long, questions like “how do you play hornpipes?” will sound just as daft as “how long do you make the notes in Twinkle Twinkle Little Star?”…

9

Dude! I forgot that you recorded Peter playing “Lad O’Beirne’s” on WFO2. That’s very high on my list of tunes to learn at the moment, and I’m pretty sure the WFO2 version is the clearest recording of him playing it solo I have. Thank you!

10

I’m not sure about this. Unless I’m too tired to follow Simon’s account accurately—which I might well be—his explanation is exactly the same as what you get when asked to explain how to swing a piece jazz style. But Irish hornpipes don’t sound to me exactly like swing rhythm although I’d say they sound much more like swing rhythm than reels. So, when Simon says that the odd beats should be almost twice as long as the even beats, the difference between ‘almost’ and ‘exactly’ seems to be bearing the weight of what, to me, seems a clearly audible difference. If you program a drum machine to make the odd beats exactly twice the length of the even beats, you get something clearly in swing rhythm, albeit constipated, but in a way that reflects drum machine insensitivity rather than inaccurate notation. It’s not that hard to notate accurately either which is why it is easy to program a machine to do it.

If I’m right about this, then it would help explain why the ears have priority for someone who doubted it. I don’t know how to cash ‘almost’ in complexly-dotted-triplet-based notation so I don’t know how to program a machine to play hornpipe rhythm. That doesn’t mean it can’t be done by someone patient enough to try various trial and error approaches but what would tell you you had it right at last would be your ears. And the notation would be so complex that a student would be better off not using it in the first place. That said, Simon’s explanation might guide a student to what to listen for and, once you heard it sounding roughly as described, you might be in a better position to play by ear.

11

I’m in the school that says the only way to know is to listen. Hornpipes should be in simple notation and the reader (if written music is even used at all) should know how a hornpipe is supposed to be played. Actually, the same can be said for jigs and reels.

12

Hi Wombat

I agree with you that the ears have it when it comes to hornpipes. The title of this thread should be hornpipe rhythms, as most hornpipes have thier own internal rhythm structure which varies from hornpipe to hornpipe, much more than between 2 reels for example.

David

13

That sounds right David. That’d mean that the subtle deviation from the notation Simon suggested would vary from hornpipe to hornpipe and perhaps from bar to bar within them. That would be true of swing rhythms too, but, like reels, not as much.

I suppose the trouble with the answer that a lot of us have been giving—use your ears—is that Anglorfin is using his(?) ears. He can hear the rhythm when listening to a hornpipe but not when playing it. Perhaps that’s where Simon’s explanation is helpful—obviously Anglorfin needs to learn to listen harder and Simon gives him something to listen for which certainly can’t be too misleading.

14

Thanks for the links. I am particularly enchanted with the tune given by the above URL. Would you know what the name of it is?

15

It’s The Plains of Boyle – a hornpipe – I believe.

16

Most of these are from WFO2, on http://www.worldtrad.org/WFO2_CD2.htm

That one was on WFO1, http://www.worldtrad.org/WFO_CD2.htm and is indeed The Plains of Boyle.

I was just trying to provide direct links, rather than pushing the website. But details on the tunes and flutes being played are there.

Kevin Krell

17

Wombat is correct - the weasel words are of critical importance. My advice is only intended to get the player into the right ballpark.

Once he’s got that figured out and can handle a hornpipe well enough to play with other musicians or recordings, falling into the groove will provide the polish.

18

Thanks s1m0n. What I said was actually very slightly wrong, but I’m not going to correct it and confuse the issue by complicating it further in a way that really doesn’t matter much. I think things are best left as they stand as regards the advice requested.

19

Whyen you think about it, Use your ears and Learn to use your ears are the ‘right’ answers to pretty much every possible musical question, but there are plenty of situations in which an answer can be correct without being enormously useful.

20

You already know at least one tune in hornpipe rhythm very well. Try playing Pop Goes The Weasel-- that should help you get a feel for it.