Compositions
- The woodcock [comp. Hammy Hamilton], jig ; The Kerfeunteun [comp. Hammy Hamilton], jig
- The itchy cow [comp. Hammy Hamilton], reel
- Villier's street [comp. Hammy Hamilton], jig
- The Watsons of Donegal [comp. Hammy Hamilton], march
- Conor O'Malley's reel [comp. Hammy Hamilton]
Watch: Hammy Hamilton introduces his own compositions / Hammy Hamilton, flute, speech in English ; Séamus Ó Súilleabháin, videographer
Learn: Interactive scores of Hammy Hamilton's compositions, with the composer playing the tunes slowly
Read: Transcriptions of compositions, composed by Hammy Hamilton
The woodcock [comp. Hammy Hamilton], jig
The Woodcock [comp. Hammy Hamilton], jig / Hammy Hamilton, flute
This is the second tune that I composed, and although it's played first in the set, it was actually composed a good few years after the first one.
Learn the tune:
Interactive Score, with Hammy Hamilton playing the tune slowly
Tune Transcription (PDF)
The Kerfeunteun [comp. Hammy Hamilton], jig
The Kerfeunteun [comp. Hammy Hamilton], jig / Hammy Hamilton, flute
The second tune is the Kerfeunteun, and is the first tune that I ever thought of having composed myself. It's a strange name and it has often been corrupted into the Kerfunken jig for some reason, but Kerfeunteun is actually a suburb of Quimper, in Brittany, France and translates as Fountainstown. I was teaching a workshop there in the mid-80s and I was mucking about on the whistle with the guitar player who was teaching there as well, and this tune came out and it stuck in my head. People seemed to like it and they have taken it up.
Learn the tune:
Interactive Score, with Hammy Hamilton playing the tune slowly
Tune Transcription (PDF)
The itchy cow [comp. Hammy Hamilton], reel
The itchy cow [comp. Hammy Hamilton], reel / Hammy Hamilton, flute
Why people compose tunes is a good point. Often you'd come up with a little hook, and think that it would be great if you could put that into a tune, and that's very often how they come about. Sometimes what I tend to do is to compose a tune around a technical concept. In this tune the first part is very restricted in terms of the number of notes that it uses, and then it breaks out in the second part. The tune is called the Itchy Cow and it actually relates to a real event. I used to go fishing on Lough Corrib a lot and I was coming down the long road home, fishless, from Galway, through Limerick and to Cork. I was driving through the North of Galway, near Gort, and I looked over in a field and there was a cow standing with his head bowed in front of a goat who was scratching his forehead with his hoof. I thought it was remarkable.
In these days if you had a mobile phone you'd take a video of it but I decided to commemorate it with a tune instead.
Learn the tune:
Interactive Score, with Hammy Hamilton playing the tune slowly
Tune Transcription (PDF)
Villier's street [comp. Hammy Hamilton], jig
Villier's street [comp. Hammy Hamilton], jig / Hammy Hamilton, flute
I was restoring a very nice flute made by a maker called Goodlad. His workshop was at 25 Villier's Street, in London and that was an address where a lot of very famous flute makers worked, and some very fine flutes came out of that workshop. When I'm restoring 8 keyed flutes, people generally want the low C key to work, so in reality I came up with this tune as a way of testing out the low C on a flute.
Learn the tune:
Interactive Score, with Hammy Hamilton playing the tune slowly
Tune Transcription (PDF)
The Watsons of Donegal [comp. Hammy Hamilton], march
The Watsons of Donegal [comp. Hammy Hamilton], march / Hammy Hamilton, flute
There's a very narrow line between rearrangement and composition. This is a march, I think, based on the air of The homes of Donegal. It was just something that came into my head, and then I realised that what I was playing was a version of this air in march time. In order to distinguish it from the air, and being a man for a pun, I decided to call it The Watsons of Donegal.
Learn the tune:
Interactive Score, with Hammy Hamilton playing the tune slowly
Tune Transcription (PDF)
Conor O'Malley's reel [comp. Hammy Hamilton]
Conor O'Malley's reel [comp. Hammy Hamilton] / Hammy Hamilton, flute
People are often concerned about how strong their bottom D is, but I always like to think that the higher ocatves on a flute are just as important, and very few tunes start up high. This tune came about from that sort of thinking and it actually starts on a high B, but you could play a third octave C natural above that as a leading note. It's a reel and I decided to call it Conor O'Malley's. Conor O'Malley is my dentist, and he's also a flute player so he knows how to look after the embouchure. I dedicated this to him because he's currently doing quite a bit of work on me.
Learn the tune:
Interactive Score, with Hammy Hamilton playing the tune slowly
Tune Transcription (PDF)
About Hammy Hamilton
Born in 1953 in Belfast, Colin Hamilton has been known as Hammy from his early childhood. Initially a singer, drawn to traditional music through the Clancy Brothers, he began to play the flute in the mid 1970s as part of the Belfast flute renaissance.
In 1976 he moved to Cork in connection with ethnomusicological research, mainly supporting himself by busking and becoming a coalman. He later gained a Phd in the area of Commercial Recordings of Traditional Music.
In 1979 he began flute making in the West Cork Gaeltacht of Cúil Aodha, where he still lives, although largely retired from flute making.
He now divides his time between many interests including ethnomusicological research...largely successful, gardening...moderately so, and salmon fishing...not really.
Twitter: @CuilAodhaHammy
Instagram: @hamiltonflutes
Presented by Treasa Harkin, September 2021, with thanks to Hammy Hamilton, Séamus Ó Súilleabháin and Síofra Ní Mhoráin.
