The Harvest Home hornpipe

The melody of this tune is kind of insipid and I can understand why a lot of people don’t like it. Still, it’s a lot of fun to play and it’s a great tune for practicing triplets.

I heard some joker of a fiddler in Australia play this tune in d minor. I’ve been doing it lately, and it’s pretty fun. Especially if you stick to the gypsy-esque flattened 6th kind of minor rather than the modal kind. (Sorry, forgot all my theory in high school or I’d be more specific). Start in d major, and just as everyone starts to groan, go middle-eastern on them.

Heh, heh. That’s pretty funny. I’ve done the same myself with some other oft-played tunes. You know those polkas that Planxty did, Denis Murphy’s, etc.? They can be fun to turn into eastern-sounding minor things.

For some real fun, play “The Boys Of Malin” with every note pushed up a semitone *except* the open strings (works best on a fiddle or banjo, I guess). I call the result “The Secret Agents Of Malin”.

I took transcribed this direct from a copy of fwd’d sheet music. This is a setting by Paddy Killoran, it follows suit to most Sligo settings I’ve heard…

T:Harvest Home
M:C
L:1/8
S:Paddy Killoran
R:Hornpipe
K:D
vcud | vD2 FA (DA)FA | vd(ef)c (dc)BA | v(e/f/g)fa (ga)fg | ve(dc)B (AG)FE |
vD2 FA (DA)FA | d(ef)c (dc)BA | (e/f/g)fa (ge)cA | d(gf)e d2 AF |
vD2 FA (DA)FA | d(ef)c (dc)BA | (e/f/g)fa (ga)fg | ve/uf/vedB (AG)FE |
vD2 FA (DA)FA | d(ef)c (dc)BA | ve/uf/vgfa (ga)fg | d(gf)e d2 cd |
v(eA)A/A/A (fA)A/A/(A | gA)fA eAA/A/A | v(e/f/g)fa g(gf)g | edcB A(GF)E|
vD2 FA (DA)FA | d(ef)c (dc)BA | (e/f/g)fa (ge)cA | d(gf)e d2 cd |
v(eA)A/A/A (fA)A/A/(A | gA)fA eAA/A/A | v(e/f/g)fa g(af)g | e/f/ed/c/B A/G/AF/G/E |
vD2 FA (DA)FA | d(ef)c (dc)BA | (e/f/g)fa (ge)cA | d(gf)e d2 |

Personally, I think this is a real beaut of a tune! Fab on the fiddle. If it aint no good - how come its on so many albums eh?

I too think this is a great tune, and as a flute player, it is a good challenge, especially to roll the repeated ’A’s in the second part at speed with all the accompanying jumps….

“The Cliffs Hornpipe” / “Fred Wilson’s Clog”
Submitted on December 4th 2001 by Mad Baloney.
https://thesession.org/tunes/412

“The Old Harvest Home Hornpipe” / “The Cliffs Hornpipe”
Submitted on July 16th 2003 by PCL.
https://thesession.org/tunes/1824

The “Cliffs” / “Fred Wilson’s” is also collected and played in the key of F Major (one flat ~ Bb)…

Submitted on January 27th 2004 by gian marco.
https://thesession.org/tunes/2441

I’m having a lot of trouble with Harvest Home… In general should you use one bow for the dotted eighth-sixteenth sequence? Somehow I can’t get it to sound smooth. Any advice? This also applies to hornpipes in general. Thanks in advance.

Gabe

youtube entry:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Hi2WRvtzsg&mode=related&search=

play video

I’m amazed that nobody has mentioned that The Harvest Home is also, and always was, known as ‘The Cork Hornpipe’

and your evidence for that is……………….?

JC tune finder brings up a Cork Hornpipe in G from an irish site which is not Harvest Home, and one in D which is …….
(In the tune collection here Cork HP is lsited as an alternative name - or did that just get done?)

Chris

Kenny - Evidence …Forty years playing for old dancers who wouldn’t feel comfortable dancing a hornpipe unless it was either The Cork or The Boys of Bluehill and would ask for it by name.

http://comhaltas.ie/music/detail/cork_hornpipe/

i just learned on the mandolin after playing it numerous times on the guitar. i have a much greater appreciation for this tune.

I love playing this song. Try this followed with O’Donnell’s Hornpipe.
James Galway & Kevin Conneff recorded this under the name “Belfast Hornpipe” on the “Dances For Flute” cd.

Does anyone know the earliest reference to this tune? There is a Harvest Home that appears from the 1690s to the 1750s, but it’s not this tune (Simpson, Claude M. “The British Broadside Ballad…” [1966; Rutgers, New Brunswick] pp. 289-90.) I’m looking to date this hornpipe to it’s earliest appearance. Any music historians out there who’d like to take on the search?

Have those more knowlegable about the origins of these tune ever happened across the Cincinnati Hornpipe? It must have been derived from Harvest Home or vice versa?)
You can find a TablEdit file of Cincinnati on the Mandozine site and probably find a midi search in the net. Anyway I thought I’d mention it - being from Cincinnati (<:

Cincinnati Hrnp is in Ryan’s Mammoth Collection

more info @ Fiddler’s Companion:

http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/CIA_CNU.htm

I played this in D minor at last night’s Hallowe’en session. (*Such* an improvement over the Dmaj version.) I’d been referring to the minor version as “The Evil Harvest Home” until a fellow musician dubbed it “Children of the Corn”, which is so much better.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_the_Corn

B part is similar to that of the ‘Balladrum House’ Strathspey (which I just heard minutes ago):
https://thesession.org/tunes/2229/comments

I know the comments that this is relevant to were posted back in 2007 but..
.. other evidence for the name the ‘Cork Hornpipe’ can be found on Jean Ritchie’s ‘As I Roved Out’ (Field Trip - Ireland) album which is available on the Smithsonian Global Sound website. She recorded the tune known as the Cork Hornpipe from a tin whistle player called Tommy Makem. This was released back in 1960.

I don’t know if I should add this as an alternate setting, it seems a little more than that…anyway here’s my attempt at transcribing the version from Nomos’ album “I won’t be afraid anymore” where it is expertly played by Niall Vallely and Liz Doherty. If you use concertina.net’s converter (the Tune-O-Tron) I think you have to split it in two halves for it to manage to chew the whole thing down….

X: 1
T: Harvest Home
S: Niall Vallely & Liz Doherty (Nomos)
R: hormpipe
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
K: Dmaj
DAFA DAFA|defe dcBA|eAfA gAfA|(3efe (3dcB (3ABA (3GFE|
DAFA DAFA|defe dcBA|eAfA gAfA|defe d2z2|
AFDA FD (3FGA|defe dcBA|eAfA gAfA|(3efe (3dcB (3ABA (3GFE|
DAFA DAFA|defe dcBA|eAfA gAfA|defe dA (3Bcd|
eA (3AAA fA (3AAA|gAfA eA (3AAA|eAfA gAfA|(3efe (3dcB (3ABA (3GFE|
DAFA DAFA|defe dcBA|eAfA gAfA|defe dA (3ABc|
eA (3AAA fA (3AAA|gAfA eA (3AAA|eAfA gAfA|(3efe (3dcB (3ABA (3GFE|
DAFA DAFA|defe dcBA|eAfA gAfA|defe d2z2|
AFDA FD (3FGA|defe dcBA|eA (3AAA fAgA|(3AAA fA gA (3AAA|
FA (3AAA FAGA|(3AAA dA fAdA|eAfA gfec|defe dAAF|
DAFA DAFA|defe dcBA|GBAG FAdA|^GBed (3cBA (3=GFE|
FA (3AAA FADc|defe dcBA|eAfA gfec|defe dA (3Bcd|
eA (3AAA GAEA|fA (3AAA FADA|eA (3AAA fAgA|(3AAA fA gA (3AAA|
FA (3AAA FAGA| (3AAA dA fAdA|eAfA gfec|defe dA (3Bcd|
eA (3AAA fA (3AAA|gAfA eA (3AAA|eAfA gAfA|(3efe (3dcB (3ABA (3GFE|
DA (3FGA DA (3FGA|defe dcBA|eAfA gfec|defe d2z2|
AFDA FD (3FGA|defe dcBA|eAfA gAfA|(3efe (3dcB (3ABA (3GFE|
DA (3FGA DA (3FGA|defe dcBA|eAfA gfec|defe dBAF|
DAFA DAFA|defe dcBA|eAfA gAfA|eAfA gAfA|
FA (3AAA FAGA|(3AAA dA fAdA|eAfA gfec|defe dA (3Bcd|
eA (3AAA fA (3AAA|gAfA eA (3AAA|eA (3AAA fAgA|(3AAA fA gA (3AAA|
gA (3AAA gAfA|dA (3AAA fAdA|eAfA gfec|defe dA (3Bcd|
eA (3AAA fA (3AAA|gAfA eA (3AAA|eA (3AAA fAgA|(3AAA fA gA (3AAA|
gA (3AAA gAfA|dA (3AAA fAdA|eAfA gfec|dAFA D4||

Edel Fox plays a lovely, pipery version of the tune in the key of G, on her lovely CD, “Chords and Beryls.”
No dots here for it but it’s easy enough to learn it by ear. I believe it’s Mrs. Crotty’s setting. Very worth learning.

“ A tin-whistle player named Tommy Makem”-otherwise totally unknown

X:4 from the piping of Tommy Reck. Play as tight as possible to emulate him.

Tommy Reck plays the Harvest Home (@ 7:50)
http://source.pipers.ie/Media.aspx?mediaId=24200
(I think it’s not exactly the version written down as V:4)

On the home recording I took that setting from he plays it consistently that way, the main departure from the usual setting is BGec dcBA instead of defd dcBA etc. On the version at the NPU site he plays it both ways, treating BGec dcBA more as a variant. I also wanted to write out some of the variations per se he played.

Setting as played at the Golden Guinea pub session, Bristol, UK.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIvCA9jRCTQ

play video

Here’s a rough transcription of the setting Edel Fox plays on Chords and Beryls, as mentioned a couple of years ago by David Levine in the comments above. Setting 6.

T: Harvest Home
S: Edel Fox
L: 1/8
M:4/4
K: G
|:BdGd BdGd|gbab gfed |eAab c’abg |(3aba (3gfe dcBA|
BdGd BdGd|gbaf gfed|(3efg ab c’afa |g2 gf [1 gedc:|[2 gd (3efg||
ad (3ddd ed (3ddd|c‘ (3ddd ed (3ddd|eAab c’abg|(3aba (3gfe dcBA|
BdGd BdGd|gbaf gfed|(3efg ab c’afa |g2 gf [1 gd (3efg|[2 gedc:|

There’s a Scottish hornpipe called ‘Champion of the Seas’, composed by Pipe Major William MacDonald (1850-1907), that sounds pretty much the same as ‘Harvest Home’. Are they known to be connected?

Harvest Home is very old with notated versions going back to at least 1837 in Shropshire and the 1840s in the US (see Fiddler’s Companion http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/HAR.htm scroll down almost to the end)

this is the way I always played it, just minor variations on the original setting here

This setting is the solves the problem of hornpipes being played too fast. The trick is too add more triplets! This version works well with tenor banjo (and mandolin), as tenor banjo players are encouraged to play triplets with hornpipes or to not play at all!

Local setting

I think it sounds kinda dorky with triplets. Anyway, you can find a swell version on YouTube by Neil O‘Boyle, recorded in 1937 - I have it on a cd called “From Galway to Dublin”. He follows it with “The Green Mountain Reel” (The Maid Behind the Bar)". I play it, starting with The Listowel Hornpipe, followed by The Harvest Home, then The Fairies’ Hornpipe. All in O’Neill’s, as is The Green Mountain.

Of all those versions above, the nearest to how we play it is X5 or as in fluther’s excellent clip: maybe a couple more triplets, but dotted rhythm for sure. Most of the other versions are written “straight” but are they actually played dotted/swung?
I know there are other tunes that are written “straight” but everyone seems to know instinctively to play them dotted.
It does however pain me to hear this tune sometimes played as a fast reel with no hint of dottiness!

The intro to the revised O’Neill’s explains how to play a hornpipe - they are written straight, but played “dotted”. That’s really not a correct term here, the timing is a little different from a dotted eighth/sixteenth. Sorta like a swing beat, it’s written as straight time.

That’s what I suspected, Stephen. One esteemed workshop tutor told us the hornpipe rhythm was in fact closer to 12/8 than to 4/4 with dotted quavers, which is how the triplets (as many or as few as you want!) work with it.

12/8 is much harder to read than 4/4. Think of all the jazz that’s written straight but swung.

Written in 12/8, the notes become separated, rather like the fashion in some vocal scores to have all syllables beamed separately. Written in 4/4 with dotted quavers and semiquavers (dotted eighths and sixteenths) the notes can be beamed together, but not if you write it as played with crotchet/quaver (quarter/eighth) triplets. Or you can go the jazz route and just write it as straight eighths but play it swung. You can always put a metric modulation indicator at the beginning to help the uninitiated.

This is played by Oasis (yes, the 90’s Manchester rock band) on the outro to ‘It’s Good To Be Free’, apparently by the bands rhythm guitarist Bonehead on the melodeon during some studio down time.

Cathal McConnell’s version as transcribed from Nomos

↑Bookmarked!

Have fun Jeff! Will we try it in some dark corner in Gothenburg in November?