westdance: Shepherds' Holiday

[Matthew Larsen]

>> The B part of the music is problematic because it's seven measures long.
>
> I wasn't listening that carefully to that part of the discussion, but
> I can't name any ECD which has a section of a dance which isn't an
> even number of doubles. So the number of measures of music is always
> divisible by 4.
>
> Can anyone think of an example that breaks this rule?

Yes!  When we were at Known World Dance there was a class that went
through I think three of them, all from First Playford.  I don't
recall the names of them off hand, but I can dig up my packet and
check when I get home.  Shepherd's Holliday was _not_ one of them,
though.

> The music with really weird numbers of measures is lots of 15th
> century Italian, some of Arbeau's bransles, and a couple of the
> English measures.

The ones we did were kind of like Madame Socilia's Alman, where there
was something extra and the music seemed fit.  That said, I haven't
looked at the originals for any of them or done any vetting of the
reconstructions.  And while they more or less worked, none of them was
anything I would call a great dance.

As for Lee's thoughts, I've glanced at the link he gives to the
original, and it's a little hard to tell.  But I think he might be
right.  I'll look at it more later.  It would certainly make things
easier if it were eight measures!

Geoffrey