Mary Claire hornpipe

This is a hornpipe (in the Cape Breton style so, to my ears at least, played like a reel) by Jerry Holland and to be found in his “Collection of Fiddle Tunes” (1988, Cranford Publications) in more or less this form. This became a favourite for me from the playing of the Cape Breton Symphony in the 1980s.

I think this is in the key of Bb major and modes are not my strong point but I have selected Cdorian as the stated key on the strength of comments by joesmith here:

https://thesession.org/discussions/12481#comment254493

From a tune-learning point of view and especially if you’ve been concentrating on tunes in, say, D, G and A up to now, I think it’s a neat tune for getting your hand shape into the key of Bb but without having to worry about playing “high” Eb with your 4th finger on the A string yet (the only ones at that level are naturalised so you can play open E – bars 3 and 4). Having said that, the book version of the tune starts with a triplet “edc” rather than the “dc” quavers I’ve notated, so you would need a 4th finger for the Eb in that case.