Annotation:Oreck's Scotch-measure

Back to Oreck's Scotch-measure

---

ORECK'S SCOTCH-MEASURE. Scottish, Scots Measure (whole time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. The melody appears in Henry Playford's 1700 collection of Scottish dance music [1], which contains the first printed references to the a "Scotch Measure." 'Scotch Measure' refers to a cut-time dance tune similar to a reel (some say it is an older form of a reel), however, having the characteristic three quarter-note pattern in the melody in either the first three or the last three beats of the measure, interspersed with measures comprised mostly of eighth notes. The genre, if indeed it can be distinguished from reels, has fallen out of favor and has been replaced by reels.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Playford (A Collection of Original Scotch-Tunes, Full of the Highland Humours), London, 1700; No. 15, p. 7.

Recorded sources:

See also listing at:
See the Scots Measure danced on youtube.com [2]

---