The Banks Hornpipe—Colin Botts

I’ve known this tune for many years. “Known” it, as in I recognize it, and like it a lot. I have little hope of playing it at all, let alone like my friend Colin Botts does in this video. I sent him a fiddle version from YTube, and within two days he created this arrangement, played on mandolin, mandola, and octave mandolin. Two contrapuntal parts against the original melody.

I’ve forgotten how to embed videos into this post, so maybe someone will do me the favor. Anyway, it’s on his YT channel, which is just chocked full of brilliant performances.

https://youtu.be/HnS8As2OLGM

https://youtu.be/HnS8As2OLGM

That was easier than I thought.:)

Terrific. I'd never heard of him. Thanks for this.

An amazing arrangement and wonderful playing. A real Baroque feel to it. As Dagger says, a new player to me and certainly someone to follow.

Wonderful! I think this is a virtuosic piece that uses some advanced classical violin techniques especially in the second part. I think it works on mandolin a bit easier. Excellent playing by Colin.

I so glad you folks, in particular, responded. I wasn’t sure where to post this. Colin’s music is hard to categorize. I hope you all got around to Great Dreams From Heaven, the Joseph Spence guitar instrumental that is all over YouTube. Colin plays the only mandolin version I’ve ever heard. Definitely not Celtic.

I am not sure what key people are playing this these days but I believe it was originally composed in Eb major. I didn’t yet determine what key Colin is playing it in. It is often transposed to G for us mortals.

Attachment 204482

Jim, this one is in Eb. I have the dots for Banks (not the counterpoint parts).

Someone could do me a big favor by transposing it to G!

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Originally Posted by Mike Buesseler

Attachment 204482

Jim, this one is in Eb. I have the dots for Banks (not the counterpoint parts).

Someone could do me a big favor by transposing it to G!

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There are versions transposed to G on Thesession.org: https://thesession.org/tunes/922

Colin saw this thread and sent me the notation and tab in G.

Attachment 204501

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mike Buesseler

Colin saw this thread and sent me the notation and tab in G.

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I was fooling with this monster of a tune on fiddle yesterday. Much more approachable on mandolin in Eb. I have it transcribedin that key in a J. Scott Skinner tune collection book I bought in the UK decades ago that I am finally getting around to exploring. Colin sticks to the original key. In that book and elsewhere it is attributed to an Italian fiddler named Parizotti.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jim Garber

I was fooling with this monster of a tune on fiddle yesterday. Much more approachable on mandolin in Eb...

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Possibly much more approachable because the fiddle version includes classical bow bouncing techniques that few fiddle tunes require and fewer fiddlers aspire to. I suspect this tune is so well know because it's in a J Scott Skinner tune collection and was one of his 'party pieces'. Skinner was a showman and somewhat of an egotist (collection title page - 'Talent does what it can, genius does what it must' - a quote from Edward Bulmer-Lytton), and this would have been a suitable showpiece for him. It's the kind of tune a lot of Scottish fiddlers dread being requested, because the reason behind the request is too often the hope that you'll mess it up - like Skinner's hornpipe 'The Mathematician', that goes up to 6th position at the dusty end of the fingerboard). I agree with Jim that it's a 'monster' of a tune, but possibly for different reasons :)

All that takes nothing away from this excellent rendition of it, of course!

Colin Botts is doing a tune a day on his Facebook page. Lots of tunes.

https://www.facebook.com/colinbottsmusic

He has inspired me to finally get around to trying to play Banks Hornpipe, which I have been familiar with for years but never really got the hang of.

Thanks, interesting tune.
It seems to be one of those competition tunes that fiddlers use to determine their level, just as Arkansas Traveller means intermediate mandolinist.

Thanks JimG:
https://thesession.org/tunes/922

Absolutely nothing personal but I couldn’t handle the twenty seconds of adverts (French Christmas toys) so I was unable to enjoy the first vid and unfortunately Facebook doesn’t agree with my constitution (breakfast).

But thanks again, those arpeggios in Eb on the octave are quite a warmup! :)

Glad to see Colin getting some attention! Yesterday morning I sent him a link to a YT video of the banjo tune, Wild Goose Chase, also known as Lost Gander. He hadn’t heard the tune before, but said he would try it on mandola. I love this arrangement. I tried to embed the video, but it wouldn’t accept for some reason.


https://youtu.be/_1eLaCfF0Zk

Great stuff from Colin.

His version reminded me a bit of the late Louis McManus' (1956-2004) 1977 version with the Bushwackers, called "The Cameo" , but sounds pretty much like "The Banks" to me.

Louis (cousin to guitarist Tony I believe) was a fixture around Melbourne in the mid-70s when I first picked up a mandolin, and formed a large part of my idea of what a mandolin should sound like in this kind of music:

https://youtu.be/yPNC7Hbu39U

That's really great playing from Louis, Bren.
I once saw Louis having a tune with Paddy Keenan at the Cambridge Folk Festival. Just the two of them. It wasn't appropriate to hang around and ogle, but he was really good.

Meanwhile Colin Botts is continuing to fire out heaps of tunes on his Facebook page.

As for myself, I've tuned the low D strings on my 10 string Sobell up to Eb to play Banks Hornpipe and it seems to have transformed how it sounds. I find it's actually easier to play much of Banks out of first position, including on the fifth course. I've also been inspired to move up the neck a bit by watching Sierra Hull's current Fretboard Journal video, so I'm finding all this quite inspiring actually!

See what I mean about Sierra Hull getting out of first position:

https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/t...13#post1887313