Hundred Pipers jig

From the New England Fiddler’s Repertoire. A well-known tune.

“Wi’ a hundred pipers, an a , an a,…..” what a concept!
There seems to be a lot of this New England Fiddler’s repertoire coming from Scotland!
A version of this tune is played in Kerry as a slide, according to Johnny Leary’s book of tunes . It has the unlikely title of “The Hair Fell off Of Me Coconut” - try singing it to the tune:

“The Hair Fell off Of Me Coconut”,
The Hair Fell off Of Me Coconut“ ,
The Hair Fell off Of Me Coconut“,
Now wouldn’t you like it baldy ?“

Would I make this up ?

A lot of Scots must have ended up in New England! Any confirmation from our friends in the USA?

trevor

I think that Scottish jigs in rhythms like this one, and tunes like “Cock Yer Pistol Charlie” sound better as slides. Maybe the Irish thought so too.

Kenny, I was just browsing through the Johnny O’Leary collection the other day, and I’ll back you up on that.

Any rockers from the 50s still around will be familiar with the Lord Rockingham’s 11 version of this tune known as “Hoots Mon there’s a Moose Loose aboot this Hoose” - a great tune for saxaphones but not a version the purists would approve of !!

~ a colleciton compiled by Randy Miller and Jack Perron:

https://www.fiddlecasebooks.com/
https://www.fiddlecasebooks.com/store/c2/Books.html

This tune is the Regimental March of the Royal West Kents (dispanded) It is also known in Ireland as ‘I’ll eat no more of your Barley Bread’

edited by Terry Moylan
The Lilliput Press, Dublin, 1994
ISBN: 1-874675-42-2

Another transcription of this as a slide:
Page 79, tune #135: “The Hair Fell off my Coconut”

As mentioned previously by Kenny & granama…

X: 2
T: Hair Fell Off My Coconut, The
T: Hundred Pipers, A
M: 12/8
L: 1/8
K: AMaj
|: AB |\
c2 E E^DE F2 A A2 f | e2 c cBA c2 B B^AB |
c2 E E^DE F2 A A2 f | e2 c BcB A3- A :|
|: AB |\
c2 e ece f2 a a2 f | e2 c- cBA c2 B B^AB |
cee ec/d/e faa agf | ecc B^AB =A2 G A- :|

R: slide

AB rather than AABB

X: 3
T: Durham Reel, The
M: 6/8
L: 1/8
R: jig
K: Amaj
A/B/ |\
c2 E E>FE | F2 A A2 f | e2 c c>BA | B2 B B2 A/B/ |
c2 E E>FE | F2 A A2 f | e2 c B>cB | A2 A A2 ||
c/d/ |\
e2 e e>ce | f2 a a2 f | e2 c c>BA | B2 B B A/B |
c2 E E>FE | F2 A A2 f | e2 c B>cB | A2 A A2 |]

Descriptions for the dance can be found in several sources inlcuding EFDSS’s “Community Dances Manual 3”

For an earful, here’s an arrangement that exists online in Sibelius Scorch, you can view and listen too ~

Violin 1
http://www.sibeliusmusic.com/cgi-bin/show_score.pl?scoreid=30011
~ the arrangement
http://www.sibeliusmusic.com/cgi-bin/show_score.pl?scoreid=29850

Key signature: G Major
Submitted on December 6th 2008 by ceolachan.
https://thesession.org/tunes/9146

Submitted on September 9th 2009 by Mike Ferris.
https://thesession.org/tunes/9883

It was also recorded by Leo Rowsome

Thanks Alex, I’m going to have to dig out that recording and consider a transcription. 😉

B: “Dances of Donegal”, collected by Grace Orpen, D.M. Wilkie, London, 1931
The first few pages of this book, and its first tune & dance:
“The Fairy Dance” - https://thesession.org/tunes/424

ITMA: Irish Traditional Music Archive/Taisce Cheol DÚchais Éireann
http://www.itma.ie/
Grace Orpen’s Local Donegal Dances, 1931
http://www.itma.ie/digitallibrary/print-collection/donegal-dances-1931
“Dances of Donegal” collected and edited by Grace Orpen, 1931
Click on ‘32 Pages’ to view them, with Grace Orpen’s ‘Figures’/illustrations…
http://www.itma.ie/digitallibrary/book/dances-of-donegal

Related and also used in this dance, a 4/4 march transcription from the same source:
X: 3 “The Hundred Pipers March” (4/4)
https://thesession.org/tunes/9146

Dance: The Waves of Tory
Tune: A Hundred Pipers (6/8 & 4/4)

Longways (proper) for any equal number of couples.

Tune I (6/8 - jig)

Steps - - - - - - - - - Description - - - - - - - - - Bars

- - - The dancers stand as in Fig. I. Introduction as in Fairy Reel.

1 - - - Advance and retire. Repeat. (a line of women facing a line of men/partners facing) - - - 8

2 - - - Advance and cross over to opposite side of set, partners passing right shoulders, men raising their arms to form arches (for the women to duck under). Dance in place. - - - 8

3 - - - Advance and retire. Repeat. - - - 8

4 - - - Advance and cross back to own side of set, passing right shoulders (the women might raise arches for the men) as before. - - - 8

5 - - - Hands across, joining in groups of four (from the top). (‘by the book’ - right hand star/wheel CW; then left hand star/wheel back ACW = 4 + 4) - - - 8

6 - - - Dancers turn so that the 1st couple are the leaders. They “cast off,” i.e. turn away from their partners and follow their learders (1st woman & 1st man) to the bottom of the set. Partners join hands and advance up the middle. Repeat. - - - 32

7 - - - 1st couple followed by the other dancers lead to the left down to the bottom of the set and up the middle to place. - - - 16

8 - - - “Waves.” Tune II (4/4 - march)

- - - 1st couple face the bottom of the set and raise their arms; 2nd couple pass under the arch to the top of the set while 1st couple pass downward to meet 3rd couple. They pass under an archway made by the 3rd couple and so on alternately over and under until they reach the bottom of the set. On reaching the bottom or top of the set, dancers turn and continue back again passing under first when moving up the set and over first when moving down.

- - - This step is continued until each couple have travelled the length of the set twice.

- - - All dance in place until last couple have returned. - - - 48 ( * )

- - - ( * )The amount of music taken to dance this and the two preceding steps will depend on the number of couples dancing.

<[ NOTES: Clearly related, by name and figures, to the ‘official’ version of this dance found in An Coimisiún le Rincí Gaelacha’s collection/book. “Ár Rinccidhe Foirne: Thirty Popular Figure Dances”, page 54: “Tonnaí Thoraigh” / “The Waves of Tory”. There are some important differences, but also an important part missing from the above description - ‘progression’. The formation is the same, longways proper. The music differs, as the book calls for reels and marches. Parts 1(A) and 3(C) above are identical, ‘Advance & Retire twice’. There is no ‘cross over’. Instead part 2(B) is part 5, right hand star/wheel round clockwise for four bars, turn, and left hand star/wheel back anti-clockwise. Part 4(D) is basically the same, but instead it begins with a left hand star/wheel, returning with right hands in and back to places.

Next, by the book, is 7(E), all couples facing up and taking inside hands with their partner to follow the 1st couple round, but the 1st couple leads the other couples to the right from the top, instead of left, and around clockwise to the bottom and then back up to places. Also, unlike Grace Orpen’s description above, this does not repeat.

Next is 8(F), “The Waves”.

And finally ‘the progression’, which is the “Cast Off!”, 6(G). There is an important difference from the description given for 6 above, the missing ‘progression’, which most often happens in the final moves of a dance, as it does ‘by the book’. For that progression, couple 1 drops their hold and cast round to the bottom, the 1st man to the left and ACW, the 1st woman to the right and CW, followed by the others, the men up and around ACW following the 1st man, and the women the same CW. Here’s the change, couples 1 & 2, ‘by the book’, on reaching the bottom take hands across, uncrossed, to make arches, a bower, for the others to dance around and then up and under back up to the top. 1st and 2nd couples remain at the bottom and the dance begins again with a new 1st couple, previously the 3rd couple.

I’ve seen that bottom bower/arches formed two different ways, either started with 1st couple beginning to lead up, so that the last couples are the original 1st then 2nd couple, or with a change, where the arches are made as they arrive, 2nd couple at the front of the bower and 1st couple at the back, reversing positions so that on eventually reaching the top again 2nd couple will be 1st. One other way I’ve danced this, and one has to be clear about how the stars/wheels change, formed with the couple on either side alternatively, was that there weren’t two couples at the bottom making an arch but just one, the same basic progression at the end of another ‘by the book’ longways proper, major progression dance, “Baint An Fhéir”Haymakers Jig“, page 45.

One solution to bring the Orpen description to a progression conclusion could be to repeat 6 at the end, after “The Waves”, but following something similar to (G) from the book, options given above.

Letters in parenthesis are from the Coimisiún’s book “Ár Rinccidhe Foirne”. ]>

Fig. I - O = man / X = woman

X-X-X-X - - -
1- 2-3 -4
O-O-O-O - - -

Bannerman: “Any rockers from the 50s still around will be familiar with the Lord Rockingham’s 11 version of this tune known as “Hoots Mon there’s a Moose Loose aboot this Hoose” - a great tune for saxaphones but not a version the purists would approve of !!”

Well - here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wioh5qUj7fM

play video

Thinks: They don’t make ’em like that any more …. 😉

Hmm … probably just as well … 🙁

Enter Bluebottle in Highland kilt made from mum’s old drawers

Thanks for the interlude Mix, I smiled all the way through it and forgot about the knife in my back, the pain of an old dance injury that has been causing me to either lose sleep or sleep restlessly.

Is that the fly or the microphone 5stringfool? I quite like the idea of a microphone wearing a kilt. What tartan? 😉

Just to keep things open, there is more than one way to conclude the course of these figures with a ‘major progression’ (1 or 2 couples progressing from the top to finish at the bottom). Another I’m familiar with is where all the other couples give hands across to raise arches and form a bower for the top couple (or 1st & 2nd couple) to dance under or swing down to finish at the bottom before starting the dance again.

This seems to be nearly the same tune as “Market Town”:

https://thesession.org/tunes/3772

Don’t forget it’s also a Jacobite song, lyrics attributed to Lady Carolina Nairne. The full story behind it + lyrics here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hundred_Pipers

HELP! I feel like this is a fairly common slide, but all my attempts to locate it on the session have so far failed. Let me know if you have a name for it!

It’s known in Scotland as “Wi a Hundred Pipers” https://thesession.org/tunes/1232