Annotation:Old Bachelor's Reel

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OLD BATCHELOR'S REEL. AKA and see "Bashful Bachelor (1) (The)," "Courting Them All," "Rachael Rae." American, Reel. D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The tune was originally published as "Old Batchelor's Reel" in Ryan's Mammoth Collection of 1050 Reels and Jigs (1883), p. 51, although Ryan also printed nearly the same tune as "Courting Them All." The reel was deleted for an unknown reason when Ryan's Mammoth metamorphosed into Cole's 1000 Fiddle Tunes in 1940. The tune is a version of the older Scottish "Rachael Rae" (composed by Joseph Lowe) and the Irish "Courting Them All." Francis O'Neill printed the tune as "Bashful Bachelor (1) (The)" in his Music of Ireland (1903), but whether the alteration of the adjective in William Bradbury Ryan's title was deliberate or not is unknown.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: The Devil's Box, vol. 21, No. 4, Winter 1987, p. 48. Ryan's Mammoth Collection, 1883; p. 51.

Recorded sources:

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