Where's The Hornet? A Song History

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"Where's The Hornet?" sits tenth among the fourteen titles in DulciFlute 2, John Keane and Karen Keane's second book of duets pairing mountain dulcimer with Native American flute, issued by Fingers Of Steel; in the listing it comes directly after "The Cactus Incident."[1] The product description calls the book's contents original songs for the two instruments together, but it attaches no composer's name to individual pieces, so the listing does not say who wrote this one.[1] Buyers get the full 25-page book, a separate PDF for each song, and 28 MP3 tracks recorded as the music is written.[1]

Etching of three butterflies with patterned wings and a small wasp between them

Wenceslaus Hollar, Three Butterflies and a Wasp, etching, 1646. A wasp rather than a hornet, shown in fun; it has no connection to the tune.

The Keanes, from Shreveport, Louisiana, play a range of music that runs from Louisiana traditional tunes and bluegrass to Delta blues and comic novelty numbers; both hold music education degrees from Northeast Louisiana University, now the University of Louisiana-Monroe, and between them they count more than seventy years of teaching.[2] The tune does not appear on either Dulcimer Stories (2012) or Moonburn (2013), two of the duo's albums on Apple Music.[3][4] Apart from the book and its MP3s, the sources consulted here turn up no recording of the piece and nothing about how it got its name.[1][2][3][4]

Our book that contains the song "Where's The Hornet?"

Sources

  1. Fingers Of Steel: "John Keane And Karen Keane, DulciFlute 2".
  2. DulcimerDownloads: "John Keane".
  3. Apple Music: "Dulcimer Stories - Album by John and Karen Keane".
  4. Apple Music: "Moonburn - Album by John and Karen Keane".
  5. Image: Wenceslaus Hollar, Three Butterflies and a Wasp, etching, 1646. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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