Happy Go Lucky Clog hornpipe

A tune from the Maritimes: http://tunearch.org/wiki/Annotation:Happy_Go_Lucky Either composed by Dan R. MacDonald, Donald MacLean, or Paul Cranford. Confusing. Great fun to play though, a real virtuostic position shifting fingerbuster. I forget where I got this from, a Carl MacKenzie LP perhaps, Buddy McMaster also recorded it. As these things go it’s not the hardest thing on the violin, lots of open strings to help you not be hopelessly out of tune.

The final bar of the 2nd part is how I’ve always played it, also I usually play (3FGA CF for the opening notes, where did I pick that up from, hmm.

I was practicing the pipes today and this showed up on my list of tunes, prompting me to write out the fiddle setting, here’s what came out of my chanter while we’re at it. Makes for good practice venting those high D notes, and of course I’m sure lots of you pipers collect Cape Breton fiddle recordings so have heard this one tons of times, eh?

Ashley MacIsaac does an excellent job playing this tune… don’t remember which recording now.. thanks for posting.. This hornpipe rocks!

The random mode of my iPod just gave me the answer… Helter celtic track 6… With the independent hornpipe in sequence

Answer to the question regarding the composer of Happy Go Lucky. It was Donald MacLean.