Annotation:Miss Blair's Reel (2)

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X:1 T:Miss Blair's Reel [2] M:C| L:1/8 R:Reel B:Robert Bremener - A Collection of Scots Reels or Country Dances (London, 1757, p. 5) Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:D {d}T(f>ef)d eBdA|T(f>ef)d B/B/B B2|T(f>ef)d eBdA|(B/A/B/c/ d)F D/D/D D2:| |:(D/E/F/G/ A)F BGAF|GdFd E/E/E EF|(D/E/F/G/ A)F dFAF|GBAF D/D/D D:|]

MISS BLAIR'S REEL [2]. AKA and see "Roll in the Haycock." Scottish, Reel. D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. Emmerson, in Rantin' Pipe and Tremblin' String, notes the tune appears in a MS collection of 1768. John Glen (1891) finds the earliest appearance of the tune in print in Robert Bremner's 1757 collection. It also appears in David Rutherford's Compleat Collection of 200 country Dances, vol. 2 (London, 1760, p. 80), and Joshua Cushing's The Fifer's Companion No. 1 (Salem, Mass., 1805, p. 63).

The reel was included in the c. 1800-1817 music manuscript copybook kept by Joseph Hooves, David Melvenz, and an unknown third person, of Ipswich, Massachusetts. Country dance directions for the tune appear in several American late 18th century publications and copybooks. Multi-instrumentalist John Rook, of Waverton, near Wigton, Cumbria, entered the tune under the generic title "Highland Reel" in his large 1840 music manuscript collection, then entered it again some twenty pages later as an untitled reel. Northumbrian musician William Vickers also penned the reel into his 1770 music manuscript collection under the title "<incipit title="load:roll" width=850 link="https://tunearch.org/wiki/Roll in the Haycock">Roll in the Haycock</incipit>."

Another "Miss Blair's Reel" appears in James Gillespie's Gillespie Manuscript of Perth (1768).

Additional notes

Source for notated version: - ship's fiddler William Litten's music manuscript book (1800-1802) [Huntiungton].

Printed sources : - Bremner (A Collection of Scots Reels), 1757; p. 5. Huntington (William Litten's Tune Book), 1977; p. 12.

Recorded sources: -

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