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Playford Volume 2 And A Hint Of Volume 3


Pete Dunk

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So for years now the three hundred and odd tunes in the 18 editions of Playford's Dancing Master Volume 1 have been available to all on the internet and in printed collections if you wanted to buy a copy.

 

Did we all know that there were two more volumes of over three hundred tunes each yet to be explored? I didn't and I've been transcribing some of Vol 3 thinking I was only duplicating earlier work. The cat's out of the bag now though. :D

 

Read this!

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So for years now the three hundred and odd tunes in the 18 editions of Playford's Dancing Master Volume 1 have been available to all on the internet and in printed collections if you wanted to buy a copy.

 

Did we all know that there were two more volumes of over three hundred tunes each yet to be explored? I didn't and I've been transcribing some of Vol 3 thinking I was only duplicating earlier work. The cat's out of the bag now though. :D

 

Read this!

 

Thanks for this link Pete, it has provided me with a source for the tune/dance 'The black and the grey' that has alluded me for some time.

 

Regards

Ian

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Thanks for this link Pete, it has provided me with a source for the tune/dance 'The black and the grey'

 

 

You're welcome I'm sure, the whole point of the Village Music Project is to bring these old books and manuscripts back to life and getting the tunes played again!

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  • 5 weeks later...

All done now

 

The Village Music Project has been busy for the last few weeks and here is the fruit of our labours! Volume 2 is massive with 360 tunes, volume 3 is smaller at just 202 tunes and quite a few of these were in volume 2. It's still worth a peruse though!

Playford Volume 2

Playford Volume 3 (only put up on the net today!!)

If anyone would like a PDF version of either or both of these books post here and I'll get on with it!

Pete

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I'm still chortling quietly to myself about the dance instructions for one I did in Vol. 2, 'Sir Foplin's Airs' - for the first 16 bars the direction is

 

First Man opens his snuff-box, then the Tune begins, he offers his Box,
his Partner takes a Pinch first, then he, and snuffs, then closes his Box,
gives it two Taps, and both dance carelessly. First and 2d Men

toss the right, then left Knot of their Wigs, then clap their right, then

left Hand on their Sides, the We. do the same at the same Time, only
they smooth their Hair with their right and left Hands, dance carelessly
and turn single.

 

Long overdue for revival in packed festival ceilidh marquees and dance halls worldwide, I think ...

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I'm still chortling quietly to myself about the dance instructions for one I did in Vol. 2, 'Sir Foplin's Airs' - for the first 16 bars the direction is

 

First Man opens his snuff-box, then the Tune begins, he offers his Box,

his Partner takes a Pinch first, then he, and snuffs, then closes his Box,

gives it two Taps, and both dance carelessly. First and 2d Men

toss the right, then left Knot of their Wigs, then clap their right, then

left Hand on their Sides, the We. do the same at the same Time, only

they smooth their Hair with their right and left Hands, dance carelessly

and turn single.

 

Sounds like men partnering with men. Is this how Morris dancing andThe Ring got their start? ;)

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Thanks for this link Pete, it has provided me with a source for the tune/dance 'The black and the grey'

 

 

You're welcome I'm sure, the whole point of the Village Music Project is to bring these old books and manuscripts back to life and getting the tunes played again!

 

Thank you for the tunes in abc, keep up the good work.

I am working on abc's for the tunes collected at the end of the C19th on the Isle of Man, not strictly part of England but I would like to pass them on to the Village music project when complete.

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I'm sure Chris Partington of the VMP will be very interested in your transcription Ian!

 

If you use ABC regularly and have a Windows PC you might be interested in a newish and very powerful bit of software called MC Musiceditor. Download a zip file and unpack it to your C: drive. Running the mcmusiceditor.exe file opens an editing window and a PDF viewer but the software runs on the web so you can only use it when you are online. The menus and the toolbar at the bottom allow you to input complex code and body text without any in depth knowledge of the abc standard at all!

 

MC Musiceditor

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I'm still chortling quietly to myself about the dance instructions for one I did in Vol. 2, 'Sir Foplin's Airs' - for the first 16 bars the direction is

 

 

Long overdue for revival in packed festival ceilidh marquees and dance halls worldwide, I think ...

 

I'd really hoped to find this on youtube, but alas 'twas not there.

 

ps I found that the dance may be written for the character from a play...

 

"Sir Foplin’s Airs’ from Sir George Etherege’s The Man of Mode: or Sir Fopling Flutter, in which the dance mimics foppish behavior; "

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I'm sure Chris Partington of the VMP will be very interested in your transcription Ian!

 

If you use ABC regularly and have a Windows PC you might be interested in a newish and very powerful bit of software called MC Musiceditor. Download a zip file and unpack it to your C: drive. Running the mcmusiceditor.exe file opens an editing window and a PDF viewer but the software runs on the web so you can only use it when you are online. The menus and the toolbar at the bottom allow you to input complex code and body text without any in depth knowledge of the abc standard at all!

 

MC Musiceditor

Thanks for the link, I will give it a go. I currently use a combination of notepad, abcm2ps and Ghost.

 

Ian

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I currently use a combination of notepad, abcm2ps and Ghost.

 

Ian

 

Ah, commando abc eh? Good man!

 

Did that with Lilipond back then... B)

 

Lots of thanks again for your good work Pete! Can't wait to go through the tunes...

 

Best wishes - Wolf

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  • 1 month later...

Hi Chuck,

 

I've added the ABC files to the Box folder with the PDFs in. The PDFs were exported directly from ABC Explorer and as far as I'm aware no format files are created in the process. Perhaps it's best if you simply produce your own indexed PDFs and I'll adopt those! I'm looking forward to the omnibus edition!

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Update: If it helps Chuck I've just combined all three volumes into one ABC file, sorted it into alphabetical order by title and renumbered the X: fields. It's in the Box folder as Playford Omnibus.abc

 

I'm tempted to create an incipits PDF so that may be in there too by the time you read this!

Edited by Pete Dunk
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