strathspey@strathspey.org:24447

Anselm Lingnau

Re: Red House, was Right of Reply and Vat man

Jan. 22, 2001, 10:14 a.m. (Message 24447, in reply to message 24442)

Richard Goss <xxxxxxx.x.xxxx@xxx.xxx> writes:

> There is nothing wrong with using the same music for
> different phrases. My point is that the RSCDS was using
> different music for the same phrases and then retaining it
> for the next phrase as evidence of the error in their interp
> of Red House.

Yes, but it appears that in the meantime they have seen the light. If
you check the various recordings for Red House in DanceData, some of
which give the order of parts in the tune, you will find that it has
been recorded the `correct' way even before the RSCDS book was updated.
(I meant to listen to a few recordings from my collection over the
week-end but didn't get around to it.)

> I can't remember the dance, but there is
> one in quad formation where there is a 4 bar phrase followed
> by and 8 bar rights and lefts, and then another 4 bar
> phrase. As this sixteen bars is ABAB and the dance is ABBA,
> there is an uncomfortable spot at the second A when the
> dancer wants to stop at half rights and lefts.

There are lots of dances that follow the general pattern

    8 bars to get 1st couple to 1st corners
    8 bars for 1st couple to do something with 1st corners
    8 bars for 1st couple to do something very similar with 2nd corners
    8 bars to fix up the progression

(see, for example, the Reel of the 51st Division, Music Makars, The
Laird of Milton's Daughter, and Follow Me Home, to name but a few very
well-known dances). In principle all of these would suggest to use music
in ABBA (or ABBC) form. However, Scottish dance tunes being what they
are, usually the A part can be thought of as a `question' and the B part
as an `answer', so playing a tune in ABBA order usually leaves a certain
`dissatisfaction', and thus the music for these dances is always played
ABAB, or AABB, or AAB with a 16-bar B part. (As for the ABBC idea, we
would probably run out of tunes very quickly because most Scottish dance
tunes only have two parts.) And it turns out that most dancers don't
really seem to mind. Another case in point is Mairi's Wedding, where the
diagonal half reels of four of bars 9-24 would strongly suggest playing
the tune like ABBAB -- but it seems that music for Mairi's Wedding is
invariably played (and recorded) ABABB, and going to the `correct' order
would presumably throw people off.

Having said that, the situation that you subscribe -- 4 bars of
something, then an 8-bar figure that crosses a `phrase boundary' (as it
were), then 4 bars of something else -- is much more of a problem than
the 8-bar sequence issue detailed above. This has to do with the fact
that, in Scottish dance tunes, the division into two 8-bar parts is much
more definite than the division of an 8-bar part into two 4-bar phrases.
Dancers are conditioned to expect that a dance figure will finish when
an 8-bar phrase finishes (or should be, anyway), and to carry on dancing
in spite of this can be difficult. It seems to work in some dances where
the music doesn't have quite that decisive a difference between the
first and second 4-bar phrase (the Twa Minute Reel comes to mind, to
Kerry Mills' Whistling Rufus -- incidentally not a Scottish tune to
begin with), but in general dance devisers probably do better to stay
away from 8-bar figures across `major' phrase boundaries.

> Of course your comment does not address my point of the
> original error in the first 8 vs 16 bars which caused the
> problem in the music in the first place.

This is not an error but an issue of interpretation. Red House is really
one of the more clear-cut dances in Playford, and it would be difficult
to arrive at the RSCDS version of the dance `by mistake'. Hugh Foss, in
his `Notes on Evolution', contrasts the two versions (RSCDS and EFDSS).
My opinion in the matter is that, from an academic point of view (EFDSS)
the `long' version is closer to Playford, but from a practical dancing
point of view (RSCDS) having the supporting couple basically stand
around for 40 out of 48 bars while the 1st couple are exerting
themselves may be too much of a good thing (even with the current RSCDS
version some people are complaining). I wonder how the English dancers
do it -- if you start near the bottom of the hall in a `longways' set
you must be stone cold and bored stiff until you reach the top if you
ever do ...

Anselm
-- =

Anselm Lingnau ......................... xxxxxxx@xx.xxxxxxxxxx.xxx-xxxxxx=
urt.de
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