strathspey@strathspey.org:40423

Patricia Ruggiero

Cross over two couples. Was: Lead - Right hands or Nearer Hands

Jan. 27, 2005, 3:13 a.m. (Message 40423)

Wilson 1815 agrees with Rosemary as to the track; no barring is given.  The
description and illustration can be found on p. 42.  I copied the URL for
this specific page into this post; but, when I tested it, it didn't work.

You can use this link to get the full list of manuals; scroll to the end to
find the Wilson books.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/dihtml/dicatlg.html
(I just tested this and it does work)

As Rosemary said, by the last decade of the 18th c., the figure used 8 bars.
This agrees with the Early American (late 18th c.) collections that I have,
describing the figure as Rosemary indicated, and using 8 bars of music.

Sometime in there folks started doing 4-bar Rights and Lefts which, to my
tastes, is rather inelegant and, quite frankly, pointless.  (gratuitous
editorial comment)  One wonders why they wanted to dance so quickly with
these 4-bar figures.....

Pat