Annotation:Ypsilanti Hornpipe

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YPSILANTI HORNPIPE. AKA and see “O’Kelly’s Fancy,” “Thames Hornpipe (The).” American, Hornpipe. B Flat Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The city of Ypsilanti, founded in 1823, is the second oldest in the state of Michigan. Kerr prints the tune twice; as an untitled hornpipe in Merry Melodies vol. 1 (c. 1880's), then again in vol. 3 as “Thames Hornpipe (The),” although there is nothing remotely of Scottish character about it. The tune appears in the Boston publisher Elias Howe’s Ryan’s Mammoth Collection (1883) as “Ypsilanti Hornpipe,” and it may be American in origin (there was much interplay between the Kerr and Ryan collections, albeit Ryan seems to predate Kerr). It could also have been composed in England. At any rate, it has the character of a ‘composed’ hornpipe, i.e. a melody by a trained composer specifically for a stage production or show performance.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Cole (1000 Fiddle Tunes), 1940; p. 98. Ryan’s Mammoth Collection, 1883; p. 133. White’s Unique Collection, 1896; No. 126, p. 22.

Recorded sources:

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