Sterboch 1600

English Country Dance

and Early Music

in Rhode Island

Link to Dance Gypsy for news of all new England dances...

Repertory danced here in the last year... many of these dances were composed before 1800. It's great to have tunes and dances that have been done for hundreds of years, and also great to have new composers and choreographers composing new pieces.

Alice (Telemann Siciliano)
Auretti's Dutch Skipper
Bare Necessities Dm
Black Joke
Black Nag F
Blaydon Races
Bonnets So Blue
The Bonny Cuckoo
Bury Fair
Childgrove Dm
Christchurch Bells
Come Let's Be Merry D
Corelli's Maggot
Cumberland Square
Doubtful Shepherd G
Draper's Gardens G
Epping Forest F
Faithless Nancy Dawson
Female Saylor Bb
Freeford Gardens
Galopede(Yarmouth Reel)
Haste to the Wedding
Helena
Heidenroslein
Hit and Miss Em
The Hop Ground
I Care Not for These Ladies
Indian Queen
Irish Lamentation
Jack's health
Jack's Maggot
Jamaica
Jamie Allen (Tullochgorum)
Juice of Barley
Kelsterne Gardens
Kentish Cricketers
Knives and Forks
Lilliburlero
Lord of Carnarvon
Mrs Savage's Whim
Morecombe Bay
Mount Hills
My Love is But a Lassie Yet
Nae Good Luck aboot the Hoose(Thady Gander)
Never Love thee More
Northdown Waltz
Nottingham Swing (Philebelula)
A New Beginning
The Physical Snob
Picking Up Sticks
Pine Cones
Portsmouth
The Queen's Birthday
Queen's Jig
The Ragg
Rakes of Rochester
Rainy Day Waltz Am (Lieberman)
The Rose Tree
Round about Our Coal Fire
Saint Margaret's Hill
Sarah("Agatha" Widmann)
Sellenger's Round
Star of the County Down
Take a Dance
Trip to Canterbury
Trip to Kilburn
Trip to Paris
Waterfall Waltz (Caerdroea)
Waves of Tory
Well Hall
Wood Duck
Wooing Mary
Yellow Stockings
Young Widow

English Country dance is the close cousin of American contradance and Irish and Scottish Set dances. In ECD the dances tend to be more graceful than athletic, or, at least a little less athletic and spinny or hoppy than the other versions of country dance. The English dance tunes are often lovely, simple melodies. The best known English Country Dance band in the USA is Bare Necessities.

PBS: Pride and Prejudice

ECD is played mostly from the Barnes Book of English Country Dance Tunes which is the standard reference for US musicians playing for English Country Dances (available from Peter Barnes, 5 Sandy Pond Road, Lincoln MA 01773-2006 for $15 plus $2 shipping and handling. Please don't rip Peter off by photocopying pages from the book...) ECD tunes tend to be played moderately fast (about 110 -120) and they are in more different keys than is usual in Old-Timey or Irish Ceili music. Unlike American contradance, (but like Irish and Scottish set dance) tunes and dances are not interchangeable. The same tune, and only the same one tune, is played for the dance every time it is done.

above: English Country dance in the PBS production of Pride and Prejudice

Early Music Society of Boston for serious musicians and students of early music.

Boston Recorder Society lots of information about recorder playing, concerts, lessons, camps, jams...

English Country Dance in Rhode Island

recorders cost from $30 to $3000 -- an instrument for everyone!

Laymusic.org links to many groups. A woman with a really nice atitude toward music....

West Gallery Music ... like singing Shape-note , but with melody instruments (voices, bowed strings, flutes, reeds, brass -- a mini orchestra) one listener called it "Folk baroque" -- the music of Thomas Hardy...   This group was a big hit at NEFFA last spring -- for more information, email Bruce Randall or call at  978 373 5852 or go to  West Gallery Music in Boston or the International West Gallery Music Association or email Laura lconrad@laymusic.org , (617) 661-8097 or fax: (801) 365-6574 

Judith Conrad and Fall River Fipple Fluters Typical Early Music in-joke. "fipple flute" is the technical designation for the woodwind instrument called the recorder!

Country dance and Song Society -- supporters of Country dance, folk music and many areas of roots and traditional music. Locally they are Boston Area CDSS.

Ray PRice of PRovidence, Medieval and Court Dance

Other Links:The Nottingham Tunes data base for 1000s of traditional tunes....

West Gallery Concert with awesome string section