Annotation:Jockey Stays Lang at the Fair

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JOCKEY STAYS LANG AT THE FAIR. English, Slip Jig (9/8 time). England, Northumberland. C Major (with F's sharped): D Major (Cocks). Standard tuning (fiddle). AABBCCDD. "A characteristic specimen of smallpipe variations," says Emmerson (1971) of this piece. The tune ends on the subdominant, or hypolydian. The tune is mentioned in an 1804 account of a livestock and hiring fair, in John Sykes' Historical Record (1824, p. 21):

The business of the day began at the Bull Ring, North Shields, by the assembling of a number of gentlemen, accompanied by his grace the duke of Northumberland's tenants all on horseback. The proclamation was first read by the bailiff of Tynemouthshire and the clerk of the market, when the procession moved forward to the market-place; the duchess of Northumberland's own bagpiper, in his proper habiliments, mounted upon a white pony, and playing the favourite air of 'My Jockey Stays Lang at the Fair', in the van...

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Cocks (Tutor for the Northumbrian Half-Long Bagpipes), 1925; No. 20, p. 12. Emmerson (Rantin' Pipe and Tremblin' String" A History of Scottish Dance Music), 1971; p. 191. Peacock (Peacock's Tunes), c. 1805; No. 13, p. 4. Bruce & Stokoe (Northumbrian Minstrelsy), 1882; p. 167.

Recorded sources:

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