The Friendly Visit (hornpipe)

  1. Jill McAuley
    Jill McAuley
    One of my absolute favourite hornpipes. Goes nicely played first in a set with The Concertina Hornpipe. Only played once through here because the A course on the mandolin will only stay in tune long enough to get through the tune once, gotta change the strings this weekend, they're in desperate need of it!

    T: The Friendly Visit
    R: hornpipe
    M: 4/4
    L: 1/8
    K: Gmaj
    D/E/F|:G2 DG BGBd|c2 AB cdef|gd B/c/d ecAG|E/F/G AB cAFA|
    G2 DG BGBd|c2 AB cdef|gdBG FAdc|1 B2 GF G2 D/E/F:|2 B2 GF G2B/c/d||
    g2 dB GBdg|e2 cA E3g|f2 ed B/c/deg|f/g/f e/f/e dcBA|
    G2 DG BGBd|c2 AB cdef|gdBG FAdc|1 B2 GF G2B/c/d:|2 B2 GF G2||


  2. Gelsenbury
    Gelsenbury
    Very successful comeback in the Song-a-Week group! I'm not sure I'd have the mental strength for another tune after all those triplets! Great tune, well played.
  3. Simon DS
    Simon DS
    Now that is a charming tune. Love the triplets(?) at that tempo too.
  4. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    What a lift you give this hornpipe, Jill. The tempo is just right and the triplets performed faultlessly. Good to see you finding the time to get recording again. More, please!
  5. Simon DS
    Simon DS
    Interesting too because it’s a hornpipe but the .abc doesn’t seem to have the triplets written 'correctly'?
    I played this on my .abc player too, and quite like it in straight 4/4 time. Sounds a bit English or French like that.

    Yes more is good.
  6. Jill McAuley
    Jill McAuley
    Thanks for the kind words everyone!

    Cheers John, things finally slowing down a wee bit on the farm so was able to steal a few moments to record.

    Re: the triplets as written in the ABC's - I got the ABC's from thesession.org, so was just choosing a version there that was similar to what I was playing as I'm unfortunately too lazy to write out the ABC's for my version!
  7. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    Jill, I used your abc file you posted and then loaded it into Musescore - this function had stopped working for a while with Musescore but they have now got it linked to a different abc converter as a plug-in. As Simon pointed out, the abc notation is straight, so I added the Swing setting to the notation and it sounds really good now, I reckon.

    May just post a version as it is such a lively tune.
  8. Simon DS
    Simon DS
    Am learning it as we speak…

    It’s a trick you can do with dopamine, Dennis.
    Do it every time you find a technique that’s a little bit above your skill level. For me too, the stumbling point is triplets. It’s that sudden change from the end of a DUD triplet back to D-U D-U hornpipe rhythm.
    What you do is hammer it. That’s all you practice, for weeks if necessary until you’ve mastered it. Then each time you see a beautiful, graceful triplet in the next measure, you think: ‘hmmmm nice triplet, hmmm, that feels goooood!’ and there you go, another dose of dopamine… free!
  9. Bertram Henze
    Bertram Henze
    Those triplets really make it a jig in disguise. Lightly and merrily dancing, brightening up the darkest rainy day. A friendly visit indeed.
  10. Simon DS
    Simon DS
    It’s getting to be a bit like a jig, but…
    A really sliding, extended jig might be this:
    https://youtu.be/qRLN0KHNYFo

    A straight jig would be this:
    https://youtu.be/D6Z2geLgaSM

    And a Hornpipe might be this:
    https://youtu.be/6JvqgVLd-e8

    They’re all some sort of jig.
  11. Christian DP
    Christian DP
    Fine playing with well executed triplets, Jill!
  12. John W.
    John W.
    Two lovely tunes, Jill…and as others have said, good to see you posting again. Although having worn strings doesn’t affect the quality of your playing, on this occasion it does mean we didn’t get to hear as much of your playing as we could have done! Look forward to you playing sets with a new set of strings .
  13. John W.
    John W.
    Ps… By coincidence I listened to your posting of Lord Inchiquin a couple of days ago (along with other versions…as it’s one of my next projects…) and this is what you had to say: “Worked on this one today - first ever O'Carolan tune I've attempted, it was great craic and now I want to learn more! Busted out the trusty old Pomeroy for this one. It's still in desperate need of new strings - I've no excuses as I've a pack on the bookshelf crying out to be put on it, but I'm just too lazy!” Looks like you’re not keen on changing strings!
  14. Jill McAuley
    Jill McAuley
    Ha! Never a truer word was spoken! It's one of those tasks that feels daunting so I put it off, but once I actually get the new strings out and change them it only takes less than 15 minutes! In my mind it's a much bigger task than it actually is!
  15. Bertram Henze
    Bertram Henze
    Like with all those tasks that are neccessary but not really fun in themselves, I schedule string change for the last day of every three months sharp to get past it without much squirmotion. A quick calculation will tell you: yesterday was the day, and those 12 strings for the OM and the RTG went by in less than an hour. I might try to expand the time to every four months (since with two instruments, each gets less playing time).
  16. Ginny Aitchison
    Ginny Aitchison
    Nice to listen to such a beautifully played tune - all I can say is wow !
  17. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    In spite of the triplets I cannot hear any jig in this hornpipe, Bertram and Simon. The triplets are performed within the 4/4 rhythm of the hornpipe with a strong 4 beat pattern enhanced by those triplet runs. Scottish Strathspeys also make use of triplet runs to lift the melody.
  18. Bertram Henze
    Bertram Henze
    It's a matter of perception, John. Note how I am counting 1, 2, 3, 4 to start the Aaron's Key jig in my collaboration video with Simon. Playing jigs, I often connect the first two eighths of a triplet to a quarter and have a bouncy rhythm under a large scale 2/4 structure, and I tend to play hornpipes the same way, being aware that this is not how hornpipes are written, but it's how I often hear them played in sessions. Strathspeys, however, are different - the snap somehow prevents me from doing that (I plan to do one next, so catch me trying to inject a jig into that).
  19. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    I was so taken with this tune and with Jill's playing of it that I wanted to have a go at it myself. I have paired it with Off To California, a tune I have been playing for a long time so I only had one to learn! The first tune is on octave and the second on mandolin. I added a backing track on my Lowden guitar. All instruments recorded on Rode NT-1A microphone into REAPER on my old Windows XP-powered laptop.

  20. Simon DS
    Simon DS
    Amazing, breathtaking performance John. Exquisite rhythm section, lovely balance.

    About the Strathspey.
    I actually hear the Strathspey as a slip jig, and can show you my mathematical calculations to prove it.
    It’s all in the Snap. It’s like standing on the summit in the fog and suddenly the clouds clear and the Strathspey takes off.
    But if the Snap is even slightly too long then the whole tune breaks down into a foggy down-beat 4/4 time piece. (I believe).

    It’s triple time that gives it the lightness. I love triple hornpipes (and this tune too) for this reason. The Friendly Visit is a great choice because, among other things, there’s the melodic phrase in the A part that flirts with the rhythm, leaves and then re-joins.
  21. Jill McAuley
    Jill McAuley
    Lovely stuff John, goes really nicely into Off to California, also love the transition from octave to mandolin there!
  22. Bertram Henze
    Bertram Henze
    Yes John, that's as light as the mood of both tunes can possibly get (I picture Paddy paying a friendly visit to California, sitting on the Golde Gate bridge, dangling his feet in the water). And there is that final chord, SRS-style, that makes it Scottish all of a sudden
  23. Frithjof
    Frithjof
    Jill’s playing is very inspiring as usual.
    .. just the same as the playing of John Kelly. The guitar backing supports a lightness in his recording.
  24. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    Sincere thanks, Simon, Jill and Bertram. Jill, thanks to you for introducing me to this tune.

    Simon, you say you hear the Strathspey as a slip jig, but Strathspeys have a time signature of 4/4 and are much more akin to slow reels, quite removed from the slip jig 9/8 signature, I would venture. You are correct in your mentioning the Scotch Snap (semi-quaver followed by dotted quaver) as a defining feature of the Strathspey, and that and its inverse, plus the use of triplets, is what gives this tune its characteristic pulse. I like to call the Scotch Snap the "cut and dot" the term used by pipers, the inverse being the "dot and cut". Here is a link from August last year to a set with a 4/4 march (Scott Skinner's Compliments to Dr MacDonald) followed by a Strathspey (John Stephen of Chance Inn), also 4/4, where you can hear the straight pulse of the march then the very characteristic rhythm of the Strathspey. The Strathspey has all three of the rhythmic groupings - dot and cut, Scotch Snap and triplets. https://youtu.be/Of9ptbQPH0Q

    Bertram, the final chord (and also opening chord or introductory phrase) is something I get from my years of playing in ceilidh bands and I tend to insert it often almost as an automatic gesture in Scottish dance music.
  25. Ginny Aitchison
    Ginny Aitchison
    Ditto.
  26. Gelsenbury
    Gelsenbury
    This is such a lovely hornpipe, and two great recordings here. John, I know you like your pipe marches and strathspeys, but you're also excellent at hornpipes. I've been learning The Long Lane playing along with your YouTube video, and now this tune will join it.
  27. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    Thanks, Dennis. I read a comment by Michael Pastucha yesterday on the Crested Hen thread where he said, "Apparently I must know this song cause there is a video of me playing it in 2010 (unless it's a deep fake!)". I feel the same here as I had no memory of playing or recording The Long Lane till you mentioned it here. Now I am going to play this one again and add it to my regular tunes. I wonder how many others of us have posted tunes that we do not play regularly then completely forget that we ever recorded it? Oh well, I have old age in my defence.
  28. John W.
    John W.
    It’s broadly been said above, John…The tune sounds well on the OM and the merge into the Off to California on the Mando also works well.
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