12. Hector’s New Dance Hall / Hector’s Fancy / Durang’s Hornpipe

). Hector’s New Dance Hall may be a much evolved variant of the Irish reel, “London Lasses.” I got it from Allan MacDonald of Bangor (PEI); he learned it from his father, Hector MacDonald (c. 1910-82), who always played it with an extra couple of measures in the B-part (known in local parlance as the “high turn”). Hector provided the music at a little dance hall he built on his property; Allan recalls that and whenever the tune returned to the opening following these extra measures, the dancers would go wild. The tune Hector’s Fancy comes from a home-made tape of Hector MacDonald. Observe that the last measure of each B-part is “short,” making this one of the few “crooked” tunes I encountered on PEI. Durang’s Hornpipe was commissioned by John Durang, a renowned step-dancer of the late 18th Century whose act was popular in an early American circus; the composer is described as a Mr. Hoffmaster of New York City. I was motivated to learn the tune after hearing West Virginia fiddler Franklin George play it; Alan Jabbour then showed me a wonderful variation on the B-part that Franklin used to play, which had to be taken up an octave to fit on the banjo. (Key: D throughout; tuning: gCGCD, capo-2)