Annotation:Lady's Plaything
X:2 T:Ladies Play Thing, The M:6/8 L:1/8 B:Thompson's Compleat Collection of 200 Favourite Country Dances, vol. 3 (London, 1773) Z:Transcribed and edited by Fynn Titford-Mock, 2007 Z:abc's:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:G d/c/|B2B Bcd|A2A A2d|G2G GAB|A3 D2d| dgd BdB|GBG D2c|BcB AGA|G2G G2:| |:d|dBd dBd|e2e e2c|cAc cAc|d2d d2d| BGB BGB|c2c c2c|Bc(d d)cB|(B3 A2)d| dgd BdB|GBG D2c|BcB AGA|G2G G2:||
LADY'S PLAYTHING. AKA - "The Ladies Play Thing." AKA and see "General Howe's March." English, Jig (6/8 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The melody appears in Thompson's Complete Collection of 200 Favourite Country Dances, vol. 3 (1773) and James Aird's Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs, vol. 1 (1782, p. 2, where the alternate title "General Howe's March" is given—General Sir William Howe commanded the British army in America during 1775–78).
"Lady's Plaything" also appears in the music manuscript copybooks of Joshua Jackson (Harrogate, north Yorkshire, 1798), John Fife (Perthshire, Scotland, 1780–1804), William Hall Lister (East Boldon, near Newcastle, mid-19th century) and Rev. Robert Harrison (Brampton, Cumbria, 1820, in 40-bar versions), and in William Vickers 1770 manuscript (Northumberland) in 32 bars. In America the tune was printed in Norris & Sawyer's Village Fifer (Exeter, N.H., 1808), and in James Hulbert's A Variety of Marches (1805, Northampton, Mass.) and his Complete Fifer's Museum (Northampton, 1807). An American manuscript version can be found in the music copybook of Luther Kingsley (Mansfield, Ct., 1795–c. 1815). It was entered into the 1788 music manuscript copybook of flute player Ensign Thomas Molyneaux, 6th Regiment (Shelburne, Nova Scotia). Later, County Cork uilleann piper and Church of Ireland cleric wikipedia:James_Goodman_(musiologist) (1828-1896) entered it into Book 2 of his large mid-19th century music manuscript collection, copied from Aird's 1782 volume.
