Annotation:Light and Airy (1)
X:1 T:Light and Airy [1] M:6/8 L:1/8 R:Jig B:Robert Ross – Choice Collection of Scots Reels or Country Dances B:& Strathspeys (Edinburgh, 1780, p. 13) Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:F c3 AcA|FAc fcA|c3 AcA|G2A B2d| c3 AcA|FAc fcA|BgB AfA|G2A B2d:| |:(f>g)f fcA|(f>g)f fag|(f>g)f fcA|G2A B2d| faf gbg|faf ege|fed cBA|G2A B2d:| |:cAF (.F2.A)|cAF Acf|cAF (.F2.A)|G2A B2d| cAF FAc|fed cBA|BgB AfA|G2A B2d:|]
LIGHT AND AIRY [1]. AKA and see "Dick Sullivan's Favorite," "Old Woman's Song (The)." Scottish, Irish; Jig (6/8 time). G Major (Cole): F Major (most versions). Standard tuning (fiddle). ABAC (reticule): AABB (Kerr, Mackintosh): AABBCB (Lowe): AABBCC (Cole, Gow, Hunter, Perlman, Ross). O'Neill (1922) remarks that "Light and Airy [1]" first appeared in A Choice Collection of Scots Reels or Country Dances & Strathspeys, etc., published by Robert Ross at Edinburgh, 1780, although O'Neill sourced the tune from the Gow's Repository in his Waifs and Strays of Gaelic Melody (1922, No. 176). Kirkmichael, Perthshire, fiddler and composer Robert Petrie did publish the jig a generation earlier in his Second Collection of Strathspey Reels and Country Dances (1780). O'Neill printed a 9/8 time slip jig called "Light and Airy (2)" in his Music of Ireland (1903, No. 1119), the first strain of which has a curious relationship with Ross's 6/8 jig. The melodic contour and the harmonic structure are generally similar, but there does not seem to be enough points of correspondence to consider them cognate or even related.
