Oct. 10, 2001, 2:01 p.m. (Message 27838, in reply to message 27829)
Rosemary: I looked at the printing history on my edition of Glasgow Assembly: -- 5th printing, 1990 -- and, who knows, there may have been others since! This must make it one of the most popular books other than the RSCDS publications, some of the eariest of which must have been through multiple printings and editions by now. In looking through the Glasgow Assembly book again, I made two interesting discoveries. Firstly, there is a note about Australian Ladies, which I hadn't noticed before, -- thanking Iain Boyd for the changes in bars 23 & 24 and bars 31 & 32 -- and also for a change in bar 8. I wonder what change that was?? Perhaps the previous version had the dancers finish the four hands across on the sidelines and then dance in for the lead up. The dance was devised in 1967 for four Australian Ladies. Is any one of them a Strathspey subscriber? Perhaps one of them recalls the occasion and the changes. My second observation was how clearly all the dances are described. Bob's descriptions seem to set a standard for how to describe a dance for someone who hasn't seen it danced. I have sometimes tried to work my way through an unfamiliar dance from the written instructions, only to find out that I didn't really know at the end what the devisor had in mind. Bob's clarity often needs more words than there is room for on a "crib". --- Which relates to a previous thread. Should a crib teach the dance precisely from scratch to someone who has never heard of it? Or should it serve to remind a reasonably experienced dancer of the main figures? Ian McHaffie xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxx.xx