Annotation:Blacksmith's Morris (The)
BLACKSMITH'S MORRIS. English, March (4/4 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. "Blacksmith's Morris" is a morris dance or processional tune from dancing master Daniel Wright's Extraordinary Collection of Pleasant and Merry Humours never before Published, Containing Hornpipes, Jiggs, North Cuntry Frisks', Morris's, Bagpipe Hornpipe's, & Round's with Severall Additional fancis added. fit for all those that play Publick[1] (London, c. 1713, No. 33). John M. Ward posits that this tune is a branch of "Staines Morris (1)" that "begins with a twice-stated variant of the model's bars 1-3 compressed to two, continues with three one-bar variants of the tune's bars 5-6 transposed downward, and ends with a cadence on 'c'"[2]. Ward notes that it is the only time "Blacksmith's Morris" is identified in print as a morris tune. Wright also included two versions of "Staines Morris" in his volume, as well as another offshoot of the tune's family, "Ye Wild Morris."
- ↑ John M. Ward, "The Morris Tune" (reference below), takes Wright's volume to be a "sampling of village dances...advertised as 'fit for all that play Publick'", by which Ward believes to mean for dancing on the green and similar places.
- ↑ John M. Ward, "The Morris Tune", Journal of the American Musicological Society, vol. 39, No. 2, Summer 1986, p. 311.