[Callers] Re: About Pepper's Black...

Hi Erik, I know nothing about music so I didn't understand most of your note - but thanks for providing the audio files! The Circle Dances of the period often worked like this: All the couples are in one circle, with your partner beside you. #1 couple leads into the middle, turns and leads out to face #2 couple Couples #1 and #2 execute the figure or "change" Couple #1 then does it to couples #3, #4, etc. "Do this change to all" Couple #2 then dances with each couple "the rest doing the like", then #3, etc. It is not clear whether Couple #2 would wait until Couple #1 had finished dancing with everyone, or would join in as soon as Couple #3 was free to dance with. This is very similar to some modern Appalachian dances. They use the convention that, once you have finished doing some initial moves in the circles, the call is "Odds to the Centre" and every odd numbered couple goes into the centre and turns to face their even-numbered neighbours. Then all couples can do the dance at the same time. Whether they ever did this in the 17th century is not known, but it certainly works well with the modern desire to get everyone involved all the time. You then have a Becket Sicilian. Progression would have been done by falling back from one couple and leading diagonally forward to the next couple (Yearn!). Appalachian dances often use "Circle Left, Slide Left". The "3 x AABB adlib" is a modern interpretation. One dance in the pre-Playford "Lovelace Manuscript" has the line "soe after this manner, they shall goe round as often as they please, the tune is played akording" - I suspect that means that the musicians kept a close eye on what the dancers were doing and played accordingly. Here is my version of the dance - 32 bars and modern styling: Peppers Black V2 (1650) (John Sweeney) Big Set Intro: A1/2: Circle Left (16); Circle Right (16) B1: Partner Set & Turn Single x2 (16) B2: Up a Double & Back to the Middle (8) Odds to the Centre: Lead In (4) & Wheel Around (4) - Evens Fall Back Figure: A1: Up a Double & Back to New Neighbours (Yearn) (8) Partner Two Hand Turn (8) A2: Hey - Men start Left Shoulder (16) B1: Up a Double & Back - #1* Man steals #2 Lady (8) Travelling Right Hand High, Left Hand Low; Left Hand High, Right Hand Low (8) - Ladies just Dip 'n' Dive around the Man B2: Neighbour Two-Hand Turn (8); Partner Two-Hand Turn (8) Outro: Back into Grand Circle - instead of the last Turn As Intro but finish with Partner Turn/Swing * The caller can call for #2 man or one of the ladies to lead the figure. Happy dancing, John John Sweeney, Dancer, England john(a)modernjive.com 01233 625 362 & 07802 940 574 http://contrafusion.co.uk/KentCeilidhs.html for Live Music Ceilidhs http://www.contrafusion.co.uk for Dancing in Kent http://www.modernjive.com for Modern Jive DVDs From: Erik Hoffman via Contra Callers &lt;contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net&gt; Sent: 24 November 2022 08:05 To: Shared Weight - Contra Callers &lt;contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net&gt; Subject: [Callers] About Pepper's Black... Pepper's Black, interesting tune and dance. In looking at this website, some information is confusing and/or outright incorrect. The website writes in the heading tune is in D major but the key signature in the transcription with its two flats suggests Bb or G minor. Or, uh, D Phrygian mode. My curiosity of this melody got me to put the tune in my transcription program, Finale. With Finale I could put the tune in all seven "Greek" modes. I didn't favor D Phrygian, but I liked D major, D Mixolydian and D Dorian. D Lydian was also actually nice. I've made a PDF of this effort along with a few words on modes. I had Finale make an audio .wav file of my transcription. That way you can follow the PDF through the sound of the modes. You can download the PDF and audio files from here: https://www.asuswebstorage.com/navigate/a/#/s/2BD7BDCBD4CC4B37AA41E1C4243767 804 Also the website says the dance is "A circle dance." I'm not sure what kind of circle fits the figures unless it's a Sicilian circle. Then the website says, "3xAABB," but just getting through the dance once with its four figures seems to go through the tune with various numbers of As & Bs: I: AABB then II: AABBB (or is that AABBBB?) then III: AABBBB (or BBBBB?) and IV: AAABBB (or BBBB?). How does any of this except the figures in I fit AABB, and, uh, only 3 times through the tune? (I have yet to refer and analyze the picture of the original Playford description.) Erik Hoffman erik(a)erikhoffman.com <mailto:erik@erikhoffman.com> From: John Sweeney via Contra Callers &lt;contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net <mailto:contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net> > Sent: Wednesday, November 23, 2022 10:35 AM To: 'Caller's discussion list' &lt;callers(a)sharedweight.net <mailto:callers@sharedweight.net> > Subject: [Callers] Re: Dances with fewer swings Re " uses the square dance figure Right Hand High, Left Hand Low" Tony does, of course, mean "uses the Right Hand High, Left Hand Low figure from the 1651 dance Pepper's Black" http://playforddances.com/dances/peppers-black/ It's amazing how old some of these figures really are! :-) :-) Happy dancing, John John Sweeney, Dancer, England john(a)modernjive.com <mailto:john@modernjive.com> 01233 625 362 & 07802 940 574 http://contrafusion.co.uk/KentCeilidhs.html for Live Music Ceilidhs http://www.contrafusion.co.uk for Dancing in Kent http://www.modernjive.com for Modern Jive DVDs _______________________________________________ Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net <mailto:contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net> To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net <mailto:contracallers-leave@lists.sharedweight.net>