Miss Thompson’s hornpipe

A request.This is a mixture of the Battlefield Band’s and Sharron Shannon’s versions,with a touch of Fisher’s Hornpipe.

It’s a hornpipe.

The Battlefield Band play it fast, and Sharron Shannon’s version isn’t exactly slow either.She plays it the in the same fashion that De Dannan play a lot of their reels,in that dotted eighth rythym ,halfway between a reel and a hornpipe.

The standard version from the northeast is slightly different:

|:(3ABc|d2df edcB|A2AB AGFE|DFAF DGBG|DFAF GFED|
d2df edcB|A2AB AGFE|DFAd fedc|d2dc d2:|
|:cd|ecec Acec|fdfd Adfd|gege fdfd|edcB A2DG|
BGBG DGBd|AFAF DFAd|FAde fedc|d2dc d2:|

Roger Landes just taught me this at Skenachy, and said that it’s hornpipe from the Northumbrian piping tradition. Great tune!

it’s amazing how many these days play it as a reel in sessions just because theyv’e heard sharon shannon play it that way…doh !
this is so obviously originally a hornpipe, it’s so rigid and unatural to play as a reel, (totally kills the tune). it’s full of the typical lines of a north-west or north-east english hornpipe.

Hear a version almost exactly as given by Dr Dow on ‘track’ 8 here: http://www.folknortheast.com/radio-farne/radio-farne/programme-eight

The mp3 link opens as a playlist in Windows Media Player.

Cover note info in the Comments for this recording https://thesession.org/recordings/4241 gives composer as Errington Thompson.

https://thesession.org/recordings/4241

Notes on this ~ from the back of the LP jacket:

"The Sheffield Hornpipe", "Miss Thompson’s Hornpipe", "Liddle’s Hornpipe" are all to be found in "The Charlton Memorial Tunebook", published by The Northumbrian Pipers’ Society, and a very popular source of material for Northeaster Musicians. "Miss Thompson’s" and "Liddle’s" were composed by Errington Thompson, the maker of Joe Hutton’s pipes."

From the notes by Tony Wilson and A.L. Lloyd.

S: Chorley Traditional Music Sessions: Slow and Steady Workshop Volume 1, page 4

http://chorleytradmusicsessions.org.uk/wp/
http://chorleytradmusicsessions.org.uk/wp/tunebooks/
http://chorleytradmusicsessions.org.uk/Download/ChorleySessionsVolume1.pdf

We used to play this straight and at a good clip for contras in the North American fashion of playing hornpipes, but we still called it a hornpipe, and the basic structure of it, straight or swung, defines that clearly…

Pauline Cato’s book "Northumbrian Choice" has Miss Thompson (hornpipe) and lots of other beautiful tunes
from the North East as well as some tunes commonly played there. Primarily for pipers but plenty to find for
other instruments. Advice about buying and playing bagpipes too.

my transcription of Mary and Sharon Shannon’s version

Not exactly necessary, shanachie. Your setting, X:4, differs from Dow’s second setting only in the phrasing of the first three notes. Otherwise it is identical.

Miss Thompson (my great grand mother) was daughter of Errington Thompson who made the silver and ivory pipes that Joe Hutton had. Family tradition has it that Miss Thompson helped turn the (hand powered) lathe that made them. They lived at Sewingshields in Northumberland. That set of pipes was made for Pears John Liddell (of Liddell’s Hornpipe fame) who became her husband. I doubt that the tune that are attributed to Errington Thompson, above, were written by him (our family would be full of it). The local view would attribute these two at least to Whinham who was well know to them.
Christopher Wancke