Fisher's Hornpipe [in D] [music transcription]

Key: D
Meter: 4/4
Transcribed by Alan Jabbour, from a performance by Henry Reed.
Rendition: 1r-2r-1r-2
Strains: 2 (low-high, 4-4)
Compass: 14
Phrase Structure: ABAC QRST (abbc abde qrq's tuvw)
Title change: The title appears on the transcription as "Fisher's Hornpipe." It is transcribed after the continuation of "Natchez [Christmas Morning]" on the page.
Handwritten: Played 1 3/4 times thru. Called the older key for "Fisher's." Slurs more pairs in 2nd time thru.
The hornpipe seems to have developed in the later eighteenth century as a solo fancy dance, with the dancer typically accompanied by a 4/4 tune played on the newly democratized violin at a somewhat slower tempo than a reel. (The hornpipe of earlier British tradition in 3/2 time is a different genre with the same name.) One of the earliest and most widely circulated of all modern hornpipe tunes is "Fisher's Hornpipe." Its name is sometimes taken as a tribute to fishermen as an occupational group, but in fact it is the name of the original composer; the tune first appears in J. Fishar's Sixteen Cotillons, Twelve Allemands and Twelve Hornpipes (London, ca. 1780), p. 48. Fishar was, as the title page explains, "Principal Dancer and Ballet Master at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden."By the beginning of the nineteenth century the tune was already appearing in manuscript tunebooks from America, and it has appeared in countless published tunebooks since then, often set in the key of F. American Fiddle Tunes (Library of Congress, AFS L62) contains further discussion and citations. Henry Reed's sets illustrate nicely the two keys in which traditional sets are usually played--either in G (AFS 13033b07) or in D (here). A comparison of the two illustrates how a tune varies to fit the range and fingering patterns dictated by the key. Yet another set in this collection, played on a C-harmonica (AFS 13705a49), is something of a harmonica tour de force.