APPENDIX I
The Hornpipe
O
f the 145 tunes in these three collections, 67 are named as hornpipes, and another 16 are of the
same format; in addition 19 tunes are named as ‘Jiggs’ and another 14 are of the ‘jigg’ format.
Thus, between them, these two forms make up almost 80 percent of the total. Whilst the
general format of the ‘jiggs’ may be more or less what today’s musicians might expect, the
hornpipes are not. So what can be said about this music, and what kind of dance did it accompany?
The first thing about Marsden’s collection that will be unfamiliar to today’s traditional musician is the
announcement on the cover that the tunes come ‘with divisions on each’. However, although something
of a lost art today, the making of divisions was once second nature to country musicians. William
Chappell (Chappell, 1895, II, 797) tells us that
”Country fiddlers and pipers perhaps thought more of their bases than of their tunes, trusting to their
facility in making divisions or variations for the latter”.
These ‘bases’ were what art-music calls ‘grounds’. They might be chord progressions, in which case
they would be chosen from a number of named forms such as the ‘bergamasca’ (I-IV-V-I, GCDG),
which Thurston Dart, without, it seems, much real justification, called ‘The Hornpipe’ ground) or they
might be simple melodic lines; either way the ground would be repeated throughout the performance,
even if only in the mind of the solo player, while divisions and variations were developed above it.
Charles Simpson, in one of several manuals on the playing of divisions published during the 17th
century, claims to teach how they can be played ‘ex tempore’ that is, improvised.
Simpson’s manual also makes clear the distinction between ‘Divisions’, that is the expanding and
elaborating of intervals in the ‘Ground’ or repeating bass-line, and ‘discants’, that is the creating of
melodic lines above the ground. It was this latter technique that the ‘old fiddlers’ used, as exemplified
by Marsden (the only example in these collections that includes the bass is ‘Sgr Geminiani’s Minuet’,
#145). Marsden’s ‘grounds’ are so simple, consisting in the main of two notes only, that his ‘divisions‘
are better seen as variations on his ‘discants'. It is worth noting that the ground of Aston’s hornpipe,
which is written out in the manuscript and which Ward gives as AAGG, is a ‘melodic’ ground’ (strictly
speaking it is a ‘tenor’); though it appears to be a ‘double tonic’ sequence, the harmonic structure is an
orthodox I-V-I, IV-II-IV sequence, whereas Marsden’s are all true ‘harmonic’ two-note sequences of
the type that has become known as a ‘double-tonic’ ground. The difference is significant, since this kind
of structure is often said to have been derived from a bagpipe chanter with ‘flat’ leading notes (F
natural in G, producing a Myxolodian scale). The effect is thus to generate two ‘tonics’ a tone apart
(either F and G or G and A in the case of a bagpipe in G), one of which acts as the ‘home’ tonic and the
other of which supplies a ‘substitute dominant’; when played against the drone this produces a
‘cadence’ equivalent to that of the more orthodox V-I (D-G) progression.
Given this harmonic parsimony, few structures are possible, especially taking into account another
feature of hornpipe music, its consistent use of four-bar measures, each made up of two-bar ‘rhyming’
phrases. (Martha Curti (Curti 1979) pointed out that this feature was so consistent that it must reflect
something about the nature of the original dance.) If we use Matt Seattle’s notation (Seattle, 1995,
2003), in which X stands for a bar of the ‘home’ tonic and Y for a bar of the ‘substitute dominant’, then
Marsden’s 25 tunes are made up from only three basic forms, XXXY (#2), XYXX (#3), and XXYY (#7),
though this last can also appear as YYXX (#1).
A further striking feature of the hornpipes in the current collections compared to those familiar today
is their rhythm. For more than a hundred years the hornpipe has been understood as a dance tune in
common, 4/4 time, whereas, with only three exceptions, Marsden’s are all in 3/2, as are almost all the
other hornpipes here. This Appendix aims to trace the history both of the music and the dance it
accompanied.
When we look at the earliest mentions of both the jig and hornpipe, it is clear that they are to be
distinguished from other dances; thus Thomas Morley, having described the Pavan, Galliard and Volto
as a sequence of decreasingly grave dances mentions “other kinds of dances (Hornepypes, Jygges and
infinite others) which I cannot nominate unto you”. Subsequent commentators seem to agree that
these two dances belong amongst the ‘common dancing’ with which a gentleman should have no truck.
This is borne out by the earliest mention of the hornpipe in literature, which occurs in the 15th century
morality play now known as ‘Mind, Will and Understanding’ which calls for music to accompany the
vices. The character of ‘Will’ calls the hornpipe “a sprynge of lechery”:
‘Your mynstrell a hornpipe mete/ That fowl ys in himself but to the erys is swete’.
It is surprising therefore, that the first mention of music calling itself ‘hornpipe’, though it comes
from the same era, appears in a very different context. It is contained in an expense account kept by
one George Chely, who in 1474 paid Thomas Rede, “harper of Calles” (Calais being at that time an
English town) 4s. 10d “for to learne xiij daunsys and an horne pype on the leut.” (notice that even here
the ‘hornpipe is kept separate from the ‘daunsys’).
This record marks the beginning of an art-music relationship with this ‘sprynge of lechery’ which was
to last for at least three hundred years (Thomas Arne wrote a triple-time hornpipe for the 1760
production of The Beggars Opera). Throughout this period it could be both a cultivated performance
on salon instruments and a symbol for all things licentious, as Shakespeare used it in Act IV of A
Winter’s Tale (1611): "There is but one Puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to hornpipes".
Indeed, it was on this ambivalence that the American musicologist John Ward based his authoritative
study of the subject (Ward, 1990). For Londoners in the 17th century, he says, the hornpipe ‘was a
name to conjure with’ and he bases his work on a quote from a play from 1605 where a character
exclaims ‘Oh Master Maybery! Before you Servant to daunce a Lancashire Horne-pipe ...”
This quote reveals that at this time the hornpipe was regarded as peculiarly Northern in origin. Ward
gives another quote that bears this out, from a description of life in Virginia published in 1609 in which
the author, speaking of the dancing of American Indians likens it to “our darbyshire Hornepipe, a man
first and then a woman, and so through them all, hanging all in a round”. Similarly Ben Jonson talks of
“the hornpipes here, of Nottingham and Darbyshire” (see p. 64). In fact, the same could be said for the
jig; in his study of the Elizabethan jig (Baskervill, 1929), Charles Baskervill says “the adjectives Scottish
or northern are so frequently linked with the word jig in its earliest occurrences as to suggest that the
attention of the London public was first attracted by a type of song with dance which came out of the
north”. However, he does add that “to the metropolis, this term probably meant little more than rustic
or provincial”.
Although it is often suggested that the word ‘jig’ refers to the narrative song-and dance act, often of a
bawdy nature, that was performed as an after-piece at the theatre in the late 16th century, Baskervill
says that “by the middle of the 16th century a variety of dance or song and dance acts were current
among the people, taking the name jig from the type of dance most characteristic in them” and that
these ‘acts’ were taken up by comic actors such as Tarlton and introduced into the theatre. He suggests
that the jig may well have been a dance-song like the ‘carol’. Though the details are not at all clear some
kind of relationship clearly existed between the jig and the hornpipe, as suggested by Baskervill,
quoting a poem by Robert Chester (c. 1600) which describes the shepherds entertaining their ‘lord’:
“ A homely cuntry hornpipe we will daunce
A sheapheards pretty Gigg to make him sport”
That the hornpipe dance was first and foremost a ‘round’ is confirmed by a number of quotes which I
have included amongst the music here (pp. 70, 74, 76). It would seem that little else could be said,
either about the hornpipe or the jig, if indeed they could be distinguished one from the other, for at
least 150 years after the hornpipe’s first mention. However, one remarkable record has survived which
provides us with much more. It appears in a collection of poems compiled by a mid-16th century
minstrel named Richard Sheale, a resident of Tamworth in Derbyshire, a retainer to the Earl of Derby,
‘one who carries the harp’, according to his own description. The manuscript, which is now in the
British Museum, was edited by Thomas Wright (Wright, 1926) who dates its contents between 1554
and 1558. The dance description appears in the poem ‘Our Jockey sale have our Jenny, hope I’, written
by John Wallys, whose other works in the collection are mostly satires about women. Surprisingly,
elements of this poem also survived into the late 18th century, a Scottish version being published by
David Herd in 1769; again, it seems to come ‘from out of the north’. I printed excerpts from Wallys’s
long poem in Robin with the Bagpipe (Stewart, 2001) and more in The Day it Daws (Stewart, 2005)
along with the matching excerpts from Herd’s version; I make no excuse for reprinting the dance
description in full, since it does not appear in the Herd version and the manuscript source is not easily
accessible. It remains the only real evidence we have for the nature of the dance in the 16th century.
Then Jocky, when dynner was done,
Begane hyme selffe to advance,
And sayd, "let pypar pype up sone,
For, be our Lord, I wyll go dance.
Jocky took Jenny faste be the hand;
Then pypar lafte the trace;
He playd so myryly the cold not stand
But the dansyd all apace.
The pyper pypte tyll his bally grypte,
And the rowte began to revell;
With that lowde myrth he browth many forth,
Then upstart carll and kevel.
"Now play us a horn pype," Jocky can say;
Then todle lowdle the pyper dyd playe.
Harry Sprig, Harry Spryg, Mawde my
doughtare,
Thomas my sone, and Jone cum after.
Wylkyn and Malkyn and Marryon be nam,
Lettes all kepe the strock in the peane of
shame.
Torn about, Robyn; let Besse stand asyde;
"Now smyt up, mynstrell," the women cryde.
The pyper playd with his fynggars and
thommes;
Play thick and short, mynstrell; my mothar
commis.
"I wyl dance,' said one "and I for the wars;
Dance we, dance we, dance we!"
"Heighe!" quoth Hogkyne, "gyrd byth ars,
Letts dance all for compayne."
"Halfe torne, Jone, haffe nowe, Jock!
Well dansyde, be sent Dennye!
And he that breakys the firste strocke, Sall
gyve the pypar a pennye.
In with fut, Robsone! owt with fut, Byllynge!
Here wyll be good daunsyng belyve;
Daunsyng hath cost me forty good shyllynge,
Ye forti shillynge and fyve.
Torn rownde, Robyne! kepe trace, Wylkyne!
"Set fut to fut a pas," quod Pylkyne;
"Abowt with howghe let us wynde"
"No, Tybe, war, Tom well," sayd Cate;
"Kepe in Sandar, hold owte, Syme.
Nowe, Gaff, hear gome abowt me mat;
Nyccoll, well dansyde and tryme."
"A gambole," quod Jocky, "stand asyde;
Let ylke man play his parte.
Mak rom, my mastars; stande mor wyde;
I pray youe with all my harte."
Hear ys for me wightly whipte,
And it wear even for the nons;
Now for the lyghtly skypte,
Well staggeryde on the stonnys.
"Be sweat sent Tandrowe, I am weary." quoth
Jennye,
"Good pypar, holde thy peace;
And thaw salt have thy bryddes penny."
Then the pyper began to seas
Detail from ‘Village Wedding’ by Jean Brueghel
What is even more remarkable is that we not only have a picture from around the same time, of what
appears to be this dance, in Breughel’s ‘Village Wedding’, we also have the music to accompany it,
although this again comes from a continental source, this time from Paris; Guillaume de Morlaye’s 2nd
guitar book contains the ‘Hornepipe D’Angleterre’
230
Hornpipe d’Angleterre (G. de Morlaye, 1553)
Putting these three elements together should yield an idea of the nature of the hornpipe-jig in the
mid-16th century. The poem however, offers some challenges to the lexicographer. Guided by the
quotes which John Ward supplies, I offer the following comments on the more obscure terms.
Strocke: ”When they were in their dance they kept stroke with their feet just one with another, but
with their hands, heads, faces, and bodies, every one of them had a severall gesture.” (Samuel Purchas,
Purchass His Pilgrames, 1625).
The Scottish version of the poem has ‘stot’ here, an accepted term for a ‘step’ in a dance. This quote
reveals as much about the expectations of a literary observer as it does of the customs of the dancers
observed, since Mr Purchas was clearly familiar with the noble dances where gesture and posture were
an integral art of the dance movements.
Kepe trace: The trace had been a dance, or an element of a dance since the late 13th century. I have
dealt with this term in detail in The Day it Daws (Stewart, 2005). Ward quotes; ‘the tracing of this
round required in the middle thereof a conge’ (John Grange, The Golden Aphroditis, 1577).
Gambold: ‘Such feats of agilities, … leaps, skips, springs, gambauds, soomersauts, caprettes &
flyghts’ (Robert Laneham, A Letter, 1575). Gavin Douglas, in his translation of Virgil’s Aeneid,
describes dancers who ‘gan do dowbill brangillys and gam batis’ (c. 1512). Cotgrave’s Dictionarie of the
French and English Tongues (1611) translates ‘gambader’ as ‘to turn heeles over head..shew tumbling
tricks’ and he translates moulinet as ‘A morris dauncers gamboll’. See also the quote on page 26.
Today, gamboling is largely the preserve of little lambs.
Wightly Whipte: ‘to move briskly’. ‘Wight’ in Scots implies vigour and strength.
It all sounds a pretty rumbustious affair. There are twenty-six people named as participants
(counting Jocky and Jenny themselves) and though the general form does seem to be a round, ‘kepe
trace’ suggests the whole company moving as a line, with occasional turns (‘Torn round, Robyne!’). I
suspect that ‘churchye pege’ means ‘keep in line’ and the phrase ‘Abowt with howghe let us wynde’
surely describes the hey, the interweaving of the line by one or more dancers, as described in Gavin
Douglas’s Aeneid, written at the close of the 15th century, which describes ‘dansys and roundis tracyng
mony gatis [‘ways, directions’]/ athir throu other reland ’ [‘one through another reeling’ ie. a hey.] In
general we seem to have a description of typical medieval peasant dance figures, a description of which
is given by Cotgrave as a translation of brawl; a dance “wherein many (men and women) holding by
the hands sometimes in a ring and otherwise at length, move together”.
We might well ask, what makes the dance Wallys describes a hornpipe? Clearly, ‘’Now play us a horn
pype’ is a call to the musician for music for a particular type of dance, but how specific was Jocky
being? He could have called to the company ‘Menstrallis blaw up ane brawl of France’, as his more or
less contemporary in Scotland did (Lyndsay, Ane Satyre of the Thrie Eastatis (?1530/1550), but there
seem to have been few other alternatives available to the mid- 16th century rural dancer, to whom the
refinements of the Pavane or the Basse Danse were barely dancing at all; they were basically the
Round-dance and the Line-dance, although something described as ‘the country dance’ is referred to
by Thomas Morley towards the end of the century. What makes this hornpipe distinctive is the
reference to solo stepping (“A gambole … stande aside”), a feature the dance has retained into the
present, having at some point abandoned all the other figures. Such stepping was clearly a feature of
some round dances in the past; Breughel’s painting shows a couple who appear to be stepping to each
other in this way, and the same can still be seen in Sardinia, where round dances (to the music of the
launeddas, the Sardinian triple-pipes) include the breaking away of groups of two or three to perform
stepping figures.
The nature of this stepping is described in several texts; taken together they create the impression of
energetic exertions far removed from the stately and refined dances of the court. The Puritan,
Northbrooke, in his Treatise against Dicing, Dancing etc., (1577) says it is ‘a hell to see, howe they will
swing, leape and turne when the pypers and crowders begin to play” and his confederate Stubbes adds
“some have broke their legs with skipping, leaping, turning and vawting”. Meanwhile Shakespeare (in
A Winter’s Tale, IV, iii) has a group of herdsman whose ‘dance is a gallimaufry of gambols”. Two
hundred years later from the poet Keats’s description of dancing he saw in Ireby in Cumberland one
gets the impression that not much had changed regarding style of performance:
““They kickit and jumpit with mettle extraordinary, and whiskit and friskit, and toed it and goed it,
and twirl’d it and whirl’d it, and stamped it and sweated it, tattooing the floor like mad …” (Keats, 1818;
quoted in Ward, 1990)
The only direct description I have traced of a hornpipe step is in Robert Greene’s James IV, (1592), in
which the clown Slipper says ‘one hornpipe further, a refluence [reverence?] backe, and two doubles
forward; What, not one crosse-point against Sundays?’ and though I presume that this is in some way a
description of a hornpipe step, it is not easy to see how it relates to any music we have. In fact, Thomas
Morley, having described the Pavan and Galliard, Almain, Courante and French brawls, says that
“knowing these the rest [the “Hornpipes, jigs, and infinite more”] cannot but be understood as being
one with some of these which I have already told you”, a remark which seems to justify looking at the
steps for dances which seem related. Judging by Morlaye’s tune these would be the Galliard and the
Bransle Gay. According to Arbeau (L’Orchesographie, 1589) the Branle Gay is danced with a pied en
l’air for each of the first three crotchets of a 6/4 bar, with the fourth crotchet having a further pied en
l’air followed by a pause. Thus, the step always begins on the same foot, and requires great agility to do
at any speed. The Galliard is similar, except that it fills the pause with a jump and a posture, where the
weight is carried by both feet, thus allowing a reprise from the other foot. It is also done plus haut et
plus virilemet. Both these steps are to 6/4 type rhythms. That this is related to the hornpipe is borne
out by John Hawkins (Hawkins, 1776) who speaks of the hornpipe’s ‘six crotchets in a bar four whereof
are to be beat with a down and two with an up hand”.
To happily dance such a step in 3/2 it seems necessary to shift the jump to the fifth crotchet, a
suggestion that seems to confirm Roderick Cannon’s suggestion to me that the hornpipe should be
seen as a ’syncopated jig’, that is to say a jig with the bar-line moved one crotchet to the left. This easily
falls into the standard ‘rant’ with two extra steps added thus, LR LR Lhop. This relates closely to the
suggestions made by john offord (Offord, 1985). Solo stepping interludes, as described in Wallys’s
poem, might involve the kind of ‘shuffle’ used in hornpipe steps today, with special features introduced
to augment the ‘hop’ such as ‘gambolds’, whatever they might be; many sources could be quoted, some
of which suggest ‘tumbling’, or even ‘head over heels’.
After the Restoration the hornpipe seems to have caught the imagination of dancing-masters,
including visiting ones from the Continent. They encouraged their pupils to give demonstrations at the
dances they organized of the elaborated steps that they devised, as a means of market the services they
were offering; the result was the display dance that is mentioned increasingly towards the end of the
17th century to be seen in music-booths at fairs and at interludes in theatrical performances, danced by
professionals often with high levels of skill, ‘to the admiration of all’ (see p. 51). Indeed, some actors
became renowned for particular dances; George Daniel in his Merrie England in the olden time
mentions in particular the actor Doggett who was probably responsible for the popularity of the
Cheshire Rounds (see p. 68). The social dances that were set to 3/2 tunes and which appear in
considerable numbers in the first half of the 18th century, were all of the dancing-master type, where, if
the ‘hornpipe step’ were called for, it would be a simple ‘double step’ or combination of singles and a
double.
The first hornpipe music that appears in Britain is that by Henry Aston (c. 1485-1558?). Although it
contemporary with Morlaye’s ‘Hornpipe D’Angleterre’, it looks at first glance to be a very different kind
of piece. Ward takes the rhythm of it to be a ‘broad 3/2’. However, it seems to me that this is strictly a
6/4 piece written with double note lengths; halving the note lengths and re-barring in 6/4 results in a
rhythmic structure similar to Morlaye’s. Aston’s hornpipe has 53 variations, (the last 75 bars of which
are in 6/4); they are carefully contrived into a formal structure, which, if Marsden’s ‘divisions’ are to
taken as representative, was not the case with ‘country fiddlers’, although Martha Curti tells us that
Aston was born and brought up in Lancashire, so it is possible that he was familiar with the local
idiom. I have given the opening strains of Aston’s music here with note values halved as I have with
William Byrd’s hornpipe; this reveals the close connection with Morlaye’s and with that in the Ballet
Lute book (c. 1597). The Ballet lute book contains a good deal of popular music and seems to confirm
that both art-music and country hornpipe music were at that time closely related to the music of the
Galliard. This implies that at some time during the 17th century changes occurred which led to the
emergence of the 3/2 rhythm which prevails in the current collections. It is far from clear how and
when this transformation took place, but I would suggest there was more than one route travelled, with
discernibly different results.
231
A Hornepype (H. Aston, c. 1555)
232
A Hornpipe (Wm. Byrd, c. 1590)
233
The Horne Pipe (Ballet Lute Book, c. 1590)
In fact, some evidence does survive, not only of the old Lancashire music but of a change in fashion
that occurred during the first half of the 16th century. This comes in a remarkable ‘song’ preserved in
the note-book of William Blundell of Crosby in Lancashire, who was a noted soldier in the Royalist
forces. It is ascribed with the date 1641, and titled ‘A country song remembering the harmless mirth of
Lancashire in peaceable times; to the tune of ‘Roger o’ Coverley’. It describes how six couples ‘Tired out
the bagpipe and fiddle with dancing the hornpipe and diddle’. To this gathering are added ‘the lads’
from several of the surrounding villages;
‘The lads of Chowbent were there
And had brought their dogs to the bear
But they had no time to play
They danced away the day
For thither then they had brought Knex
To play Chowbent hornpipe, that Nick’s
Tommy’s and Geffrey’s shoon
Were worn quite through to the tune’
(Gibson, who edited the notebook (Gibson, 1880) says that ‘Thomas Knex was a noted piper’.)
By good fortune a tune called ‘Chow Bente’ survives in two lute manuscripts from the period. This
one is extracted from the tablature in Jane Pickering’s lute book (which carries the date 1616 though
some of it may date from 1630-1650). The lute setting ranges widely over two and a half octaves, but
the tune seems to be (as Ward suggested) a form of the ‘English Hunt’s Up’ (see Ward 1979). I have
included the closing cadence which is not strictly part of the tune but which displays the rhythmic
concept. The tune is also named for a ballad in a play performed in 1639 to the words ‘the old chow
bente/ the new chow bente/” (Ward 1979). It is a ‘galliard’ of the simplest type, which Arbeau calls
‘tourdion’.
Chow bente
234
Here we have the familiar 16th century hornpipe rhythm, which Hawkins described as six crotchets,
‘four with a down, two with an up hand’ (see above), and which is clearly related to the Galliard’s four
steps and a pause. However, Blundell’s poem has more to tell us:
“The Lads of Latham did dance
Their Lord Strange hornpipe, which once
Was held to have been the best
But now they do hold it too sober
And therefore will needs give it over
They call on their piper then jovially
‘Play us brave Roger o’ Coverley’.
This ‘too sober’ tune must be the ‘Lord Strange’s Galliard’ that appears in two different versions in
lute books from the 1590’s. This is the version from the Ballet lute book where it is called ‘Squire’s
galliard’; more or less the same music appears in the Wickhambrook manuscript as ‘My Lord Strange’s
Galliard’. The version of ‘Roger of Coverley’ here is the one printed by Playford in The Division Violin.
Lord Strange’s Galliard
235
236
Roger of Coverly
In his Popular Music of the Olden Time, Chappell says that he possesses a MS. version of this tune
called ‘Old Roger of Coverlay for evermore, a Lancashire Hornpipe’, and in The First and Second
Division Violin (in the British Museum Catalogue attributed to John Eccles, and dated 1705) another
version of it is entitled ‘Roger of Coverly the true Cheishere way’. If we join this to Blundell’s reference
to it then we have the oldest named ‘Lancashire Hornpipe’ so far, appearing as an innovation around
1640. At around the same time a 9/4 hornpipe ‘called the Bag-pipe Horne-pipe other-wise The Knave
of Clubs’ appeared (in the ‘Manchester Manuscript’, MS BRm/832Vu51, c. 1650). The music is directly
related to another piece in the same manuscript entitled ‘Lancashire-pipes’. (Both pieces are printed in
Robin with the Bagpipe. This latter piece is concluded with ‘An Upstroke’ in 6/4; the second section of
Blundell’s song, which is also in jig-rhythm, is set to a tune called ‘the Upstroke’).
So it seems that in the first half of the 17th century the 9/4 hornpipe was in vogue. The process
whereby this could lead to a 3/2 version is displayed in the 1670 edition of Playford’s Apollo’s Banquet,
which includes what Martha Curti points out is perhaps the first collection of published hornpipes. It
contains seven hornpipes, at least two of which are by Matthew Locke, and three of which include the
word ‘Jigg’ in their title. One of these is titled simply ‘A Jigg Horn Pipe’; it has the C.3 time signature in
the original, but looks as if it should be 9/4, and is attributed to Matthew Locke. This tune is revealing
since it also appears in a manuscript now in the New York Public Library (Drexel 3976, no title). with a
second voice added which carries slurs between pairs of crotchets at one bar, indicating very clearly a
3/2 rhythm. This is perhaps the first unambiguous published evidence of this rhythm for hornpipes.
237
237A
A Jigg Horn Pipe
Untitled (A Jigg Horn Pipe)
Another important example of the link between the two time signatures, and how they are related,
appears in the divisions on ‘Tollet’s Ground’ included in Playford’s Division Violin of 1684. The ground
and the majority of the divisions are in 9/4 but there are two interludes one in 6/4 and one in 3/2. The
first I give here followed by the matching bars in 9/4. Despite being marked 6/4, the tied repeated
notes suggest strongly that the first interlude should also be read as 3/2; its last strain certainly should;
this music is reminiscent of Walsh’s ‘Black Mary’s Hornpipe’ (#97). The second excerpt is marked in
3/2, perhaps the first appearance in print of the ‘Lancashire’ hornpipe format which dominates
Marsden’s collection.
Divisions on Tollet’s Ground
238
238A
These are ‘divisions’ on a ground written in 9/4, three dotted minims to a bar. The composer of these
3/2 divisions has changed this to three minims, to be played in the same time. In fact, the opening
strain bears a strong resemblance to another 9/4 hornpipe that Playford was to publish three years
later which he called ‘A Scotch hornpipe’ and which is the same music as Wright’s ‘A North Cuntry
Tune’ (#45 and concordances).
Marsden’s collection includes three hornpipes in 9/4 (#4, 8, 12), and one (#8) of these re-appears in
a 3/2 version (#1); similarly, both his ‘Old Spand’ (#4) and ‘Altringam’ (#12) might be compared with
Wright’s ‘Rolling Hornpipe’ and the Cheshire Rowling Hornpipe in Walsh (#107, in 9/4, wrongly
barred in 6/4), and Wright’s version of ‘John of the Green’ (#32) relates to the later versions of David
Young and John Clare (#157, 158).
The passage from 9/4 to 3/2 is, I would suggest, one path by which the 3/2 hornpipe appeared. Two
further paths might be delineated, both of which are developments of different forms of the Galliard.
The first is related to the form of Galliard such as the ‘Lord Strange’ and to that on which the Ballet
hornpipe is based. The following is from Gervaise’s Sixieme Livre de Danseries.
Galliarde V (Gervaise, 1555)
239
The process whereby this form acquired a 3/2 rhythm is mirrored in the publications of Playford in
the second half of the 17th century. His first hornpipe, ‘The Cavaliers Hornpipe’ appeared in Musick’s
Recreation on the Lyra-Viol in 1652. Five years later he included one in the Dancing Master (1657)
entitled ‘Lady Banbury’s Horn Pipe’, the first hornpipe to be published with dance instructions (a
complex dance for ‘as many as will’) but it has a very different kind of ambiguity, since it is designated
as in common time (4/4).
As Martha Curti (Curti, 1979) points out, it makes much more sense re-barred in triple time. Curti
assumes 3/2, but it seems to me that 6/4 is a better interpretation, since, though some bars make sense
as 3/2, the rhythm of others immediately suggests a piece in the tradition of the Morlaye hornpipe.
Lady Banbury’s Hornpipe (re-barred from 4/4)
240
This ambiguity between 6/4 and 3/2 was actually built into the notation of English music until the
latter part of the 17th century, since the time signature of C.3 could mean either duple compound (6/4,
what Playford in 1670 calls ‘Tripla time by 3 crotchets”) or simple triple (3/2, Playford’s “Tripla Time
by 3 minims”). It is an ambiguity that even the 16th century composers of Galliards and the like had
exploited but nowhere is this more fully explored than in the Courante, a dance which arrived in
England from France. Playford published many of them, of which this is one of the more elaborate.
241
Curant de la Moor (Playford, 1657)
It is not too difficult to see how such developments might have an effect on other 6/4 music. If we
combine these ideas with a galliard such as Gervaise’s it might easily lead us to the tune that appears in
the collection of hornpipes that Playford published in 1670 that includes the ‘Jigg Horn Pipe’ described
above. This is ‘A Jigg Divided 12 Ways' a tune that Johnson published in 1742 as ‘Old Lancashire
Hornpipe’ and of which John Ward said ‘it is not a hornpipe’.
242
A Jigg Divided 12 Ways
Strains 3, 4, 5 and 11 carry 3/2 characteristics, but the remaining strains all seem to hark back to the
6/4 hornpipes of the 16th century, and Pulver unhesitatingly described it as in ‘triple time’ (Pulver,
1914). The same tune appears in the Henry Atkinson manuscript in 1694 titled ‘Reed House Rant’ and
this is the title it has in the version included in the Vickers’ manuscript in 1760, though the tune has
undergone some major rhythmic changes by then. Vickers also supplies us with ‘The Dusty Miller’,
written out in a way which might be understood as a descendant of this form (the original is in 6/8),
although this is not the only possible interpretation. In fact, one of only two copies of the 1670 edition
of Apollo’s Banquet, now in New York Public Library, has ‘The Dusty Miller’ written in the margin by
its former owner. (The other copy of the 1670 edition of Apollo’s Banquet is in the Wighton Collection
in Dundee Public Library.)
243
The Dusty Miller (Vickers MS., c. 1770)
One further path remains whereby the 6/4 galliard may have become the 3/2 hornpipe and it is a
revealing one. This is a development of the simplest kind of galliard, one which is echoed in the Chow
Bente tune. One example is the hornpipe that appears in Jane Pickering’s lute book and probably dates
from c. 1630. On its own it would seem to imply a 3/2 rhythm, but when related to the Chow Bente
rhythm it could still be read as 6/4. The same could be said for the second tune here which comes from
a keyboard manuscript dating from the first quarter of the 17th century.
244
245
A Hornpipe (Pickering MS, c. 1630)
A Hornpipe (c. 1625)
This tune occupies a crucial place in the history of the hornpipe since it seems to be the first
appearance of the name joined with a characteristic melodic pattern quite separate from the other
hornpipes we have seen suggested so far. Here is what may well be one of the oldest surviving
traditional tunes of this type, if the story of its origin is to be believed (see note to tune, p. 115).
246
Adam Glen
It is immediately obvious that this piece has inherited its thematic material from the earlier one, as it
has its ‘harmonic’ pattern, which we might describe as XXXY. I propose to call this form the ‘Border’
hornpipe. Both this melodic shape and the harmonic pattern appear repeatedly in tunes from the
Borders during the 18th century. However, only five of Marsden’s tunes fit this harmonic pattern (#9,
#16, #20, #23, #24) and only one of these really fits this rhythmic pattern (#16). All the rest are of the
form XYXX or some variant of it, most include the crotchet-minim motif, and all have the rhythmic
structure of the ‘Old Lancashire’ (#2), characterised by the three opening minims or three pairs of
crotchets in sequence (‘Spotland’, #13), and first seen in the 3/2 section of ‘Tollet’s Ground’, apparently
a development from the 9/4 hornpipe tunes. I will refer to these as ‘Lancashire’ hornpipes, though the
terms should not be regarded as geographically exclusive, nor are they rigid divisions; hybrids such as
‘R. Key’s’ (#23) do occasionally appear.
These two forms are classically displayed by the two tunes recorded in Scotland with the title
‘Welcome Home My Dearie’; the ‘border’ form is from John Rook’s 1760 collection; the ‘Lancashire’
form is from Neil Stewart (1761). Notice how strain 2 of Rook’s version accommodates the words ‘Long
stay’d away, welcome home my dearie’, whereas in Stewart’s version the ‘Lancashire’ form has the title
‘You’ve been long away, welcome home my dearie’.
247
Welcome Home My Dearie (John Rook)
248
Welcome Home My Dearie (Neil Stewart)
In 1695 Playford published his first hornpipe with the unambiguous 3/2 time signature (Mr.
Eaglesfield’s, #249). In the same year Purcell published his own hornpipes in a similar format (one
from The Fairie Queen of 1692 and two from the music for Abdelazar, 1695, amongst others).
However, like those of John Ravenscroft included in Walsh’s collection, these are rather different
compositions to either of the two forms identified so far. Whilst they take their inspiration from the
‘traditional’ material, particularly that of the ‘Lancashire’ type, the dominant influence here is that of
the Italian baroque style which was sweeping the art music world. They are the result of a cultured
city’s ‘conjuring’ with the irresistible force of ‘Northern musick’.
Mr Eaglesfield’s New Hornpipe (Playford, 1695)
249
Tracing the history of the hornpipe has taken us through a wide range of music, along paths which
are sometimes more overgrown than we might choose; indeed, other paths might well be laid. The
marvel is that so much that might be considered ephemeral has survived. This is chiefly thanks to those
few musicians who included popular music in their lute books. One of the most remarkable pieces is
preserved in two collections. The first is in Jane Pickering’s book, where it is titled ‘The Scots
Huntsuppe’; it is a medley that comprises what seem to be the roots of Border music. The full setting
was published in Out of the Flames (Cannon, Goodacre 2004), and a ‘bagpipe way’ is in The Day it
Daws (Stewart, 2001). Here is the section which seems to be related to the ’Border’ hornpipe music,
together with similar music from the Mynshall lute manuscript (c. 1595). Another medley, again titled
‘Scottish Hunts Up’ and made from the same material, is in the Holmes lute manuscript (c. 1590); in
addition to the material in Pickering’s setting, Holmes includes what looks like the earliest suggestion
of the ‘Lancashire’ type. The two pieces are very similar, but do not appear to be directly related. It
would be extremely interesting to know something about their sources, since between them they give
more than a hint of a very different path for the development of hornpipe music. In speaking of the
border hornpipe, James Allan maintained that this "peculiar measure originated in the borders of
England and Scotland" and William Stenhouse claimed, in his Illustrations of the Lyric Poetry of
Scotland, that these ‘old tunes’ had been played in Scotland "time out of mind”; both these claims seem
to be borne out by the glimpses we get here of this ancient music.
Scottish huntsupe (Pickering; excerpt)
Scotch Huntes suppe (Mynshall; excerpt)
Scottish Hunts Up (Holmes; excerpt)
250
251
252
STOCK AND HORN
So much for the dance and its music. No discussion of the hornpipe however, is complete without
some mention of the instrument itself, though the relationship between them remains obscure. Indeed,
the situation is further confused by those literary sources which describe a musician ‘playing a
hornpipe’; which are we to take this to refer to, the instrument, the music, or both? Some sources give
contextual clues, others leave it ambiguous. One thing is certain; the instrument has a recorded history
far longer than that of the music or dance.
”The name [hornpipe] appears to have been derived from a certain early rude instrument mentioned
by Chaucer in his translation of the Romaunt of the Rose the original of which is in date about the
middle of the 13th century. Chaucer translates 'Estives de Cornoaille' into 'Hornpipes of Cornwailes'
[‘Cornwailes’ here meaning Brittany]. The instrument of this day must have been a pipe made from the
horn of an ox or other animal, which, from a primitive design, most likely culminated in the Stock and
Horn … in common use in certain districts of Scotland and Wales during the earlier portion of the 18th
century.”
So says the entry on the hornpipe that Frank Kidson wrote for Groves Dictionary of Music and
Musicians in 1904. In his Dictionary of Old English Music, (Pulver, 1923) Jeffrey Pulver says that the
word is derived from the Celtic 'pib-corn' or 'piob-corn' (in Brittany, Cornwall and Ireland), or 'pibcorn' and 'corn-bib' in Wales. He cites a manuscript Vocabulary in the Trinity College Library,
Cambridge from the 15th century which translates the Latin cornubium with ‘Hornpipe’ and quotes Ben
Jonson’s Sad Shepherd: “The nimble hornpipe and the timburine” and Dryden’s translation of the
Aeneid: “the shrill hornpipe sounds to bacchanals”.
Kidson’s entry in Groves goes on:
‘Stainer and Barrett in their Dictionary of Musical Terms suggest that 'hornpipe' has been originally
'cornpipe' named from a pipe of straw, and mentioned by Shakespeare in the line, 'When shepherds
pipe on oaten straws', but the present writer would rather refer it to its more obvious original, a pipe
made from a horn.’ ‘Ane corne pipe’ also appears in the list of shepherd’s instruments in the
Complaynt of Scotland, published in 1549, alongside ‘ane pipe maid of ane gait horn’ suggesting that I
this innstance the ‘corne pipe’ may well have been ‘a pipe of straw’.
It seems likely that there are two different instruments being described by the term ‘hornpipe’. The
first is what Burns called a ‘stock ‘n’ horn’. Kidson quotes the letter Burns wrote to George Thomson,
Nov 19, 1794, describing his acquisition of one:
“Tell my friend Allan … I have at last gotten one; but it is a very rude instrument. It is composed of
three parts, the stock which is the hinder thigh bone of a sheep ... the horn which is a common
Highland cow's horn cut off at the smaller end until the aperture be large enough to admit the stock to
be pushed up through the horn, until it be held by the thicker end of the thigh bone; and lastly, an
oaten reed exactly cut and notched like that which you see every shepherd-boy have, when the corn
stems are green and full grown. The reed is not made fast in the bones but is held by the lips, and plays
loose on the smaller end of the stock; while the stock with the horn hanging on its larger end, is held by
the hand in playing. The stock has six or seven ventages on the upper side, and one back ventage, like
the common flute. This of mine was made by a man from the braes of Athole, and is exactly what the
shepherds are wont to use in that country. However, either it is not quite properly bored in the holes,
or else we have not the art of blowing it rightly, for we can make little of it.’1
It is interesting that Burns’ description of the ‘oaten reed’ seems to confirm Shakespeare’s
description. Similar instruments, made with greater or lesser degrees of sophistication, are still played
in various parts of Europe. As Burns says, this is the shepherds’ instrument. Alongside it, and with a
history better-attested, is a more sophisticated version; it survives today in the form of the Alboka (‘the
horn”) and is much played in the Basque country, where it is far from being a rude instrument. It
consists of two parallel pipes one of which can serve as a drone. These pipes have horns at either end,
one of which acts as a windcap to the ‘single’, clarinet-type reeds.
1
In fact, Burns could have seen a carving of a small boy playing an instrument much like that shown top right
page 105 on a gravestone dated 1721, in Kirkmichael, South Ayrshire, less than 10 miles from his birthplace. (see
www.rcahms.gov.uk/highlightgraves.html)
Hornpipe player from the Cantigas de Santa Maria,
Spanish 13th century
From a collection of drawings of musicians in English
churches by Peeblesshire artist Frank Dodman, c. 1957
In fact, such a hornpipe appears in the illustrations to the Cantigas de St. Maria from 13th century
Spain (above left). It is depicted on the 8th or 9th century Pictish carving from Ardchatten, (below left)
and in two 15th century stained glass windows at Norwich. One of these (at St. Mary’s church, c. 1450)
shows two players, one with a double hornpipe and one a single (see the entry for ‘Hornpipe’ in Groves
Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2001). The other (above right) is at St. Peter Mancroft. Note that
the figure on the left is playing a ‘one-holed’ pipe, played by opening and closing its end.
Robert Greene’s Grene's Groatsworth of Witte"
(1596) contains what is probably the only description of
the hornpipe as an instrument being played for what
sounds like a hornpipe dance:
“My young master … desiring them to play on a
hornpipe, layde on the Pavement lustily with his leaden
heeles, coruetting like a steede of Signor Rocces
teaching, and wanted nothing but bels, to be a
hobbyhorse in a morrice”.
Hornpiper from the Pictish stone at Ardchatten,
from a drawing by Leslie Reid
Apart from this there seems little evidence for how
either of these instruments became linked with the
dance, the hornpipe being most commonly danced to
the music of the pipe and tabor in the literature, though
no sources survive from earlier than the 16th century; as
we have seen the term ‘hornpipe’ was in use for the
music by the mid-15th century so the link must go back
at least to the Middle Ages, when presumably the dance,
as a shepherd’s dance, was named after the shepherds’
instrument that accompanied it, in the same way that
perhaps the jigg was named after the ‘giga’, a form of
early ‘rebab’ or fiddle. If the musician on the Ardchatten
stone is indeed playing a hornpipe, then the history of
this music stretches back at least 1200 years.