Erie Hornpipe
Notation:
Standard Notation
ABC Notation
Mandolin Tablature
Violin Tablature
traditional
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Transcription: by Darryl D. Bush
"Erie Hornpipe" is an American hornpipe in D Major played AABB.<br> The title may refer to the Great Lake itself or to the port city of Erie,<br> Pennsylvania. The tune sounds American and it should not be forgotten that numerous<br> tunes in Ryan's Mammoth Collection have black-face minstrel origins. The "Erie Hornpipe"<br> may be one, especially since nearby Buffalo was the origin of the minstrel troupe<br> the Virginia Serenaders in 1844 and early minstrel performances were recorded in Erie.<br> Since then, Seattle fiddler, researcher and publisher Vivian Williams has found the<br> "Erie Hornpipe" in a violin tutor by George Saunders, a self-described "Professor of<br> Music and Dancing," entitled New and Scientific Self-Instructing School for the Violin<br> (1847, reprinted by Oliver Ditson in the 1850's).<br> Therein 'Professor' Saunders credits himself with composing the "Erie Hornpipe". Vivian<br> writes: "I think Saunders probably did compose the tunes he claimed. In his book he seems<br> quite conscientious about marking his tunes with his initials and leaving the rest<br> unmarked. He comments that he wrote all the cotillion sets himself, and they are all<br> initialled...On the other hand, he didn't initial any of the standard 'Contra, Spanish<br> and Fancy Dances' in the book..."<br> "Erie Hornpipe" is among the tunes entered into the neatly penned c. 1860-1890 music<br> manuscript collection of H.E. Packard of West Halifax, Vermont. <br> It was printed in Cole's 1000 Fiddle Tunes (1940), Ryan's Mammoth Collection (1883)<br> and Saunders' New and Complete Instructor for the Violin (1847). <br> I couldn't live in Erie and not include this one.<br>
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