Mari's Tune of the Month - September 2024: 'fancy' contest hornpipe, "The High Level" (J. Hill)

Multistyle violinist and champion fiddler Mari Black shares her "Tune of the Month" for September 2024: a fancy-sounding Downeast Canadian contest reel (though originally written as a Scottish hornpipe!), "The High Level", by James Hill.
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[@robertmarionet]

Thank you very much you make me happy you are a nice person

[@andrewleon57]

Hi Mari, love your tunes. I think I recently and sadly missed a chance to attend one of your workshops - next time for sure. As a child James Hill moved from Dundee to Newcastel upon Tyne which is also where I am from. One of the several bridges over the Tyne in Newcastle is the High Level Bridge which I'm pretty sure is what the tune is named for. I believe he also wrote a tune called Low Level Bridge. This may be referring to the fact that the upper level was for trains and the lower level for cars and pedestrians. Crazy to imagine a tune from Tyneside making it all the way to Canada as a reel and competition tune. Thank you again :😊😊

[@tullochgorum6323]

Hill was a Scot but did most of his work on Tyneside, and the High Level is in the distinctive Newcastle style (written in 1849 to celebrate the opening of the High Level bridge over the Tyne). Hill was quite a character - a bit of a drunken reprobate. Most of his tunes are named after pubs and race horses! It's no accident that his hornpipes make good competition tunes - the Newcastle fiddling scene was very competitive and he wrote to show off his skills. Landlords would sponsor a virtuoso fiddler and aficionados would go on pub crawls to compare them.
Fun to hear another take on this classic - like all great tunes it travels well.
For anyone interested in the original style, here's Newcastle fiddler Kevin Lees playing another great Hill hornpipe. Very syncopated, as you can hear. (Not Tyneside dancing though - he's in Denmark!)
ruclips.net/video/cmRqTW1Jo7U/видео.html

[@andrewleon57]

@@tullochgorum6323 excellent comment, thank you. Kevin is a great player & teacher. I've learned some wonderful tunes from him through Stewart Hardie's North East Fiddle School. 🎻 🎶👍🏼