Fred Wilson’s Hornpipe: Transcribed for Cello with Other Instruments

Here is the famous “Fred Wilson Hornpipe” in a version for cello with other instruments. It is offered here in the following instrumental combinations:

cello with simple chordal accompaniment
cello (equal) duo
cello and violin (equal) duo

In the “equal” duos each player alternates between playing the melody and the accompaniment.

This is not just a great, lively, sparkling piece but also magnificent study material for dotted rhythms. It is especially interesting because the middle section uses triplet (rather than quadruplet) dotted rhythms. This little tune is, in fact, so much fun that we have put together a little study to develop our folk music fiddler skills using this hornpipe in different variants. It can be played with the piano accompaniment audio file but because the study is longer than the piece, we will need to set up that accompaniment in a repeating loop.

Here is a downloadable play-along audio accompaniment played on the piano. Use Amazing Slowdowner or many other programs to play it back at different speeds. It comes with a 2-bar introduction (7 quarter notes).