strathspey@strathspey.org:43936

John Chambers

Re: Scottish dancing

Jan. 29, 2006, 6:31 p.m. (Message 43936, in reply to message 43931)

Richard Goss wrte:
| I agree that what makes it for me with a lot of Scottish country dances i=
| s the Scottish traditional music.
|   =20
|   At the same time, one must keep in mind that the sources for most of ou=
| r traditional music in Scotland comes from South Britain. If you check th=
| e various collections, they were published in London, because the Scots i=
| n Scotland could not make any money doing so.

Actually, it's a whole lot messier than that. The music may have been
published  by  London  print  houses, but the music itself could have
come from anywhere.  The publishers generally weren't  too  concerted
with  petty details like this, and were content to attribute the tune
to whatever name was on the manuscript.  Musical scholars  have  long
lamented this sloppiness.

There's an old musical tradition that, if you hear a good  tune,  you
steal it. You adapt it for your own uses, teach it to others, and the
next generation thinks it was your tune.

A tune gets  labelled  "Scottish"  because  they  were  learned  from
someone  with  a Scottish-sounding name (who may well have learned it
in Athens or Hong Kong).  Or because the editor  thought  it  sounded
Scottish.  Or because the dance teacher liked the tune, and the dance
was labelled "Scottish".  Or because Playford labelled it "Scottish".
Some  publishers  have automatically inserted the word "Irish" before
the word "jig", and "Scottish" before "reel".  And on and on.

An example I like to use is that I've played for  a  fair  amount  of
Morris  and Rapper-sword dancing.  If you ask the Rapper dancers what
are the best tunes for their dance, they'll often say  "Irish  jigs".
This is curious, since the dance form is quite English in origin. But
there's a reasonable explanation.  What they really want is the  busy
6-note  sort of jig, played far too fast for "country dancing" due to
the fast clogging footwork.  I've tried playing some ECD tunes of the
sort  that  should  work, and they don't like it.  The reason is that
they are all ECD dancers, where there's often  a  strong  association
between  a  dance and a specific tune.  When I play an ECD tune, they
think of the dance - and it's distracting.  What they  want  is  that
sort  of tune, but not a tune that their subconscious associates with
any dance.  They know that there are lots of  good  Irish  jigs  that
work.   There  are  also  Scottish  or Quebecoise jigs that work, and
they're happy with those.  It's  just  "English"  jigs,  i.e.   those
associated with ECD, that don't work.

This is an ideal situation for confusion over tune origins. Imagine a
reporter  covering  an  event  with a Rapper team or two.  The writer
learns that this is an English form of sword dancing. The writer also
asks  the  musicians  about the music, and gets a list of a few tunes
that were played.  The tunes are then reported as being "English".

It's all very messy, and filled with very sloppy history.

In any case, pretending that all these forms of "country dancing" are
distinct  is  not really very good history.  It's obvious at a glance
that the RSCDS-style dance is a very close relative  of  the  similar
English, Irish, French, and New-England dance.  It's more interesting
to read about the ways they became semi-distinct.  Not that it's easy
to get reliable information about this.