Annotation:Black Almain (The)

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BLACK ALMAIN, THE. English, March or Processional (6/4). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABBAB. The tune was written in the 1550's. Merryweather (1989) states the dance of the title is an English imitation of a dance style originally German, while the tune is, he believes, from Parisian publishers and printers Gervaise and/or Attaignant. His version is in 4/4 time, and insists this is the way he learned it, although 6/4 appears to be the original signature. The Black Almaine is the name of a country dance that appears in a c. 1630 manuscript (containing complied by John Ramsay entitled Practice for Dauncinge. Ramsay was admitted to the Middle Temple of the Inns of Court in 1606, and was participatory in the masques and revels of that institution. The tune also appears in a manuscript by dancing master Butler Buggins entitled A Copy of the Old Measures in ye Inner Temple, dated c. 1672-74 (a 'measure' in this context was a short, reprized melodic phrase). According to Andrew Sabol (Songs and Dances from the Stuart Masque, 1959), the tune also appears in a manuscript from 1577 from Strasbourg, and can be found as the vehicle for ballads of that time: "You London Dames, Whoe Passying Fames" (in a collection by Collmann, 1570-1), "Agaynst Rebellious and false rumors" (from an anonymous collection of black-letter ballads from 1570), "A Pleasant Posie" (another collection of black-letter ballads from 1572) and "Maid, wil you marrie" (from Handefull of Pleasant Delites, 1584). Sabol believes "Black Almain," dance and tune, was used for the revels portion of a masque.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Merryweather (English Bagpipe), 1989; p. 25.

Recorded sources:

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