Freddy Kimmel’s hornpipe

Learnt from Gerry Harrington’s fiddle playing. He cites Julia Clifford as the source, and the title refers to the influential Brooklyn accordion player, also known as “the Irish Dutchman.”

Great hornpipe. Thanks for posting this one.

Julia Clifford called it “Freddy Kimmel’s.” That may have been a mistaken reference to John Kimmel, but this tune is not one that he recorded.

The third part of this tune is identical to the third part of “The Johnson” (or “Johnston’s”) hornpipe, as recorded by Bobby Gardiner.

That would be:

https://thesession.org/tunes/1663

https://thesession.org/tunes/2222

X2 transcribed from Julia Clifford’s playing on Humours of Lisheen - before I realized that the tune was in here as John rather than “Freddy” Kimmel’s 🙁

Added anyway because of a couple of minor differences from X1.

I’d have said.

It seems Gerry Harrington misremembered the title of this tune when he recorded it. I might edit the details in the future.

I wonder whether or not a barndance could have three parts. Hope someone will enlighten me.

https://thesession.org/tunes/972

… or more depending on the setting. But whether that has any bearing on how many parts a barndance tune should have, I wouldn’t know. Barndance dances are usually simple couple dances that don’t need any more than two parts, I think.

In the case of Freddy Kimmel’s, it’s the melodic structure of the second and third parts, and the second part in particular, that seem to shout “I’m really a barndance masquerading as a hornpipe.” The first part seems to be more non-committal. 🙂

Now I remember Peach Blossoms also has three parts. I’ll edit the details.

Barndances evolved out of the schottische and a lot of the latter type of tune had 3 parts, modulating from one key to another, eg G to D to C, and often with unusual structures, such as ABAC. Polkas of that era (late 19th century) often exibit these characteristics too, for instance the Happy Birdie: https://thesession.org/tunes/5415 or for a better known example, the Bluebell: https://thesession.org/tunes/3352 It’s not surprising that Kimmel’s recorded schottisches and barndances exhibit this sort of fancy structure; the barndance of his I submitted here even has a trio section. James Morrison recorded both the Happy Birdie and the Peach Blossoms so no he was obviously aware of tunes like these, but most that came out of folk tradition had but the two parts, as Steve notes.

Morrison followed the Birdie with the Bluebell - only two parts for the latter for some reason.

There’s about 1400 (!) schottisches available for online viewing in the sheet music section of the Library of Congress’s American Memory website, if you want to have a gander at what these odd old tunes sounded like. Almost all were composed with the piano in mind, lots of tinkling glissandos that reach up into the highest registers; a lot are in multiple flats or sharps, too. Very proper. But sometimes you’ll come across one that’s more trad in outlook.

That site also sports about 3400 polkas…and Frankentunetypes like the polka-mazurka. Nary a reel, and about 10 hornpipes. Take that stuff elsewhere!

This Freddy Kimmel tune is probably the result of someone listening to Joe Derrane playing the Showman’s Fancy (3 hornpipes cobbled together into one medley, final tune is the Star which as I noted previously is the first two parts of this tune), then forgetting which prehistoric box player was on the label, along with one of the parts, and garbling Kimmel’s name for good measure.

Nice one Kevin… Not really a barndance, though that term has been applied to may different things, but in the general sense of the usual dances. It fits your description ~ as a Frankenpipe or a Hornkenstein. 😀

Here’s the notation for what Derrane played: http://www.itma.ie/digitallibrary/scorch_file/JOB_IFDM1/9206/900 I’m having to click on “Score for printing” at the bottom to see the whole thing for some reason. In typical Derrane fashion he chose this for his first number when he made his famous Wolftrap comeback performance, instead of warming up with something simple. You can watch that on YT too.

Regarding number of parts for these tunes, James Morrison recorded a 4 part barndance, Granuaile. Back when I uploaded that to archive.org and I need to write it out too at some point. Lovely melody and Jim’s fiddling partner on that side held down the melody while the Professor played a very sweet harmony, one of the first instances of harmonized ITM on record.

Some play other hornpipes as barndances, friends of mine are fond of the medley Bantry Bay/Stack of Barley. You inject a certain quality into them to achieve the transition, they become simpler, or lazier, or more free spirited, or goofy, perhaps. Most barndances sound kind of whacky to me. |afgf fged |A2A2 |A3 (3cBA| in the Stack instead of something more busy and hornpipe-y: |agfa gfed|cBAG AcBA| etc. At least that’s how it seems to me. It’s a bit like the difference between strathspeys and flings, many melodies do double duty there too.

Watch Brogan McAuliffe play this tune on the concertina: http://comhaltas.ie/music/detail/comhaltaslive_399_7_brogan_mcauliffe_luke_daniels

It’s called the Second Star on the clip, which is probably a mistake.

The Second Star (hornpipe): https://thesession.org/tunes/2222

This tune is also played by the Four Star Trio on their album. They just called it Kimmel’s. I don’t have the sleeve notes so don’t know where they got it from. Lovely tune.

Aoife Ní Chaoimh (Fiddle) and Paudie O’Connor (Accordion) first time through on:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKe3hv2adHc

play video

Ornamentation written out in my X:3 version fairly specific to the B/C box as played in the video first time through.