Annotation:Howard

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HOWARD. AKA - "Howard Hornpipe." American, Hornpipe. A Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). ABBC. The title may possibly refer to Boston's famous old Howard Athanæum, a venue which lasted from 1845 to 1953. Originally an upscale opera house (redesigned in 1846 by Isaiah Rogers in the Gothic style after the first structure burned), the Howard lost audiences to the newer Boston Museum and the Boston Theatre, and began presenting variety shows and, in the first decades of the 20th century, burlesque (beloved by Harvard undergraduates for its strip-tease acts). The identical setting to William Bradbury Ryan's (1883) was printed in Köhlers’ Violin Repository vol. 3 (1885) on the same page with other clearly American titles ("Long Island Hornpipe" and "Bushwich Hornpipe") which seems to indicate an American provenance for the tune.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Cole (1000 Fiddle Tunes), 1940; p. 44. Köhlers’ Violin Repository vol. 3, 1885; p. 195. Ryan's Mammoth Collection, 1883; p. 71.

Recorded sources:




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