Annotation:Sooner the Better (The)
SOONER THE BETTER, THE. English, Jig and Country Dance Tune (6/8 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. "Sooner the Better" was published with directions for a country dance by London music publishers Thomas Skillern and the Thompson family in the 1780's. It was entered into Mansfield, Connecticut, musician Eleazer Cary's c. 1797-1799 music manuscript collection. The dance directions were printed by Samuel Preston in 1798 in An Elegant Collection of New Figures (Amherst, N.H.), and entered into the commonplace book of Lucy Missey (Vermont, early 1790's). "The Sooner the Better" was also entered in the mid-19th century music manuscript of William Winter, a shoemaker and violin player who lived in West Bagborough in Somerset, southwest England.
