50 PART 1 | FROM COLONIZATION THROUGH THE CIVIL WAR
Also known as “Sailor’s Hornpipe,” “College Horn-
pipe” was fi rst published in London in 1766. At least
six different American versions were printed in the
years 1801–25, and in 1870 thirteen of the twenty
American publishers in the Board of Music Trade
listed editions for sale. Several decades later, com-
poser Charles Ives (see chapter 8), remembering the
fi ddling at barn dances he had attended as a Con-
necticut boy in the 1880s, quoted “College Hornpipe”
and other dance tunes in the “Washington’s Birth-
day” movement of his Holidays Symphony. Today
books of fi ddle music still carry “College Hornpipe.”
And in cartoons, the appearance of a sailor on the
screen is likely to call forth this tune.
“Irish Washerwoman,” “College Hornpipe,” and
most other Anglo-Celtic fi ddle tunes are in binary
form; that is, they typically have two repeated strains
of eight bars each (aabb). Owing to their identical length and form, many tunes
used to accompany country dancing—or its later incarnation, contra dancing,
still popular among folk enthusiasts throughout the United States and especially
in New England—are more or less interchangeable, in the sense that a set of steps
designed for one tune may be danced to many other tunes instead. A Scottish
tune that doesn’t fi t that pattern is “Money Musk” (LG 2.2), whose odd structure—
three strains of only four bars each—has kept it tied to the original country
dance of the same name. The frequent appearance of “Money Musk” in Ameri-
can manuscript and printed tune collections suggests that both tune and dance
were popular on this side of the Atlantic in the decades around 1800. Indeed,
“Money Musk” still appears a favorite “chestnut” at contra dances. And in March
2009 contra dancers in the United States and several other countries created an
“International Money Musk Moment,” when groups were enjoying the old dance
more or less simultaneously worldwide.HOME AND AMATEUR MUSIC MAKING
Although documentation is sparse, there is evidence of music making in early
American homes. Colonial Boston records indicate that many citizens owned
musical instruments—keyboards (especially harpsichords), plucked and bowed
strings, wind instruments, trumpets and drums—and the painting A Musical
Gathering, most likely an eighteenth-century American work, depicts a home
ensemble in action, with the punch bowl ready to be visited.
The scarcity of professional performers gave colonial Americans all the more
reason to make music and hold dances in their homes. Like dancing masters,
music masters, either itinerant or based in cities, supplied the necessary instruc-
tion, giving lessons in singing or on parlor instruments of the day: harpsichord,
violin, fl ute, and guitar. In the years before the American Revolution, amateur
music making seems to have increased, with dealers offering instruments,
accessories, and printed music for sale and teachers advertising their services
in the public press. A musically minded colonial who could pay for lessons had a
decent chance to become a competent amateur performer. 1. Steady, driving tempo.
2. Duple meter, either simple (2/4), as in the reel
or hornpipe, or compound (6/8), as in the jig.
3. Regular phrases of predictable length, usually
four or eight bars.
4. Binary form: two repeated sections, called
strains, of eight bars each, aabb.
Characteristics of Country Dance Music
A CLOSER LOOK
LG 2.2172028_02_044-062_r3_ko.indd 50 23/01/13 8:13 PM