On Friday, May 25, 2001 at 9:41:24 AM UTC+2, John Macdonald wrote:

Dear Group

I Had the good fortune to recently talk to an Ex Pipe Major of the "Royal Irish Rangers", who was playing through some less well known and possibly unrecorded material for me. Amongst what he played to me was a Irish
Hornpipe called "THE MARCH HARE".

I have never heard this tune before despite having been in the active piping world for the past 25 yrs, and having been brought up with the subject as a boy . My friend does not recall that he himself ever saw it in a written format and does not recall that it was ever recorded by anyone to his knowledge. He also included the "NORTH IRISH BRIGADE" book of tunes which does not exist in a commercial form.

I have carried out a tune search in Dr PEKAAR'S excellent tune encyclopaedia and the "online" tunesearch facilities, only to draw a blank; which is what
I anticipated.

I have the ability and patience to sit in front of my friend to record the tune for posterity which I will then put in B.M.W. on the "VIPERPIPER SITE. However,- before I go down this road does anyone have a written record or a recording of this Tune??- or even any knowledge of it?????

My friend claims it is an old old Irish tune. If I cannot get a recording (written or electronic) I will write it down in BMW format because , having heard the tune, I feel that it should be played more widely and is probably one of those latent little gems which has laid hidden in various pipers memories and handed from piper to piper over the decades, but never actually written down and played infrequently. -These tunes do actually still exist
in the memories of people from different musical / piping traditions. I believe it will be of great interest to the Irish piping and Music scene in general particularly in the U.S.A.!!!!

I recall hearing of an example of this latent tune existence when i was a boy listening to the piping programme on the "WIRELESS" with my father in
the Highlands about 30 yrs ago. I recall that the subject revolved around some tune which had been known about from the middle of the last century. A newspaper artical had been written about the tune which was known to exist and had been played on the fiddle for what was thought to be at least 100 + yrs. However, nobody could find any written record of it despite the possibility that it was some 200+ yrs old.

It was then apparently discovered by some travelling musician in the early part of the 20th century . This musician apparently had travelled through KENTUCKEY or some such state in America where there had been a large transplantation of people from Scotland who had remained very much in isolation since their transplantation/ emmigration. I believe the musical term or tradition that is used is "Hillbilly or Bluegrass"??. The tune apparently had remained within the memories of fiddlers within this
community for all those years and so, remembering this example, I always sieze on items such as this if i ever run across them -which is a rare occurrence due to the vast amount of recorded material that exists in contemporary times.

Any assistance would be welcome

Yours aye

JOHN MACDONALD

Hello from Piperjames from Cape Town in South Africa.
I was taught this tune when in the 1st Battalion Irish Guards at Windsor in the late 1980's, but it was not a tune used by the band. I was taught it by the great Piper Major Jimmy Johnston of Ballygowan. Jimmy called it the Mad March Hare. It is one to
master that is for sure and if I am honest I play better on the practice chanter than I do on the pipes, but I will get there. Its one of those tunes that one tinkles with every other day to get it just right on and off over the years lol! It comes with
with lots or runs up and down the chanter. God bless from Piperjames.My email is piperjames@live.com

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