Annotation:Black Almain (The)
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BLACK ALMAIN, THE. English, March or Processional (6/4). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABBAB. The tune was written in the 1550's. Merryweather (1989) states the dance of the title is an English imitation of a dance style originally German, while the tune is, he believes, from Parisian publishers and printers Gervaise and/or Attaignant. His version is in 4/4 time, and insists this is the way he learned it, although 6/4 appears to be the original signature. The Black Almaine is the name of a country dance that appears in a c. 1630 manuscript (containing complied by John Ramsay entitled Practice for Dauncinge. Ramsay was admitted to the Middle Temple of the Inns of Court in 1606, and was participatory in the masques and revels of that institution.
Source for notated version:
Printed sources: Merryweather (English Bagpipe), 1989; p. 25.
Recorded sources: