Annotation:Camstroden's Rant
X:149 T:Camstroden's Rant. JJo3.150 B:J.Johnson Choice Collection Vol 3 1744 Z:vmp.Steve Mansfield 2014 www.village-music-project.org.uk R:Rant M:9/8 L:1/8 Q:3/8=110 K:D D2d D2E F3 | =C2=c B2A GE=C | D2d D2E F3 | D2d (Tc2B/c/) d3 :| d2e f2g e3 | c2d e2f gfe | d2e f2g e3 | A2 d (Tc2 B/c/) d2 | d2e f2g e3 | c2d e2f gfe | agf gfe d3 | A2dc2B AFD |]
CAMSTRODEN'S RANT. AKA - "Camstoddan's Rant," "Camstronnan's Rant." AKA and see "Card and Spin," "Countryman's Dance (The)," "Dargle (The)," "Jack in the West," "Mr. McPhadden's Favorite," "Sword Dance (3) (The)," "Thro' the Muir at Night." Scottish, Country Dance Tune (9/8 time). D Mixolydian/Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The melody (with the spelling used in the main title above) appears in David Young's Drummond Castle Manuscript (1734, also called the Duke of Perth ms.), in the possession of the Earl of Ancaster at Drummond Castle. It is inscribed "A Collection of Country Dances written for the use of his Grace the Duke of Perth by Dav. Young, 1734." It also was entered by Edinburgh fiddler and writing master Young in his later MacFarlane Manuscript (c. 1741, No. 123, p. 186). Young's melody is a marvel of mixed tonality, touching dorian, mixolydian and, in the cadences, major modes.
Published versions of the tune (as "Camstroden's Rant") can be found in John Johnson's A Choice Collection of 200 Favourite Country Dances, vol 3 (1744) and John Walsh's Fourth Book of the Compleat Country Dancing-Master (1747). Dancing master Thomas Wilson included it in his Companion to the Ball Room (London, 1816), calling it "Old Irish," although why he assigned it an Irish provenance is unknown. An old English precursor tune called "Sword Dance (3) (The) or Strum" was printed in the first edition of John Young's Second Volume of the Dancing Master, 1st edition and is likely a precursor version. Anne Gilchrist [1] noted that, in her experience, the Rant was a name rather loosely applied of various lively dance-tunes, but properly seemed to her to have belonged to a quick 2/4 time melody. However, as this 9/8 tune suggests, it was applied to a variety of meters.
- ↑ Gilchrest, Anne. "Old Fiddlers' Tune Books of the Georgian Period", JEFDSS, vol. 4, No. 1, Dec. 1940, p. 18