Annotation:Slip (The)
X:1 T:Slip, The M:2/2 L:1/8 S:Sharp – Country Dance Tunes (1909) Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:C c2G2c2d2 | e3f g2e2 | a2g2 fg e2 | d4 c4 | d2G2c2d2 | e3f g2e2 | a2g2 fg e2 | d4 c4 || |: d2Bc d2G2 | d2 Bc d2G2 | d2e2d2a2 | e3d d4 | e3f t2e2 | f2g2a2A2 | G2c2B2c2 | d3c c4 :|
SLIP, THE. AKA - "Sir Roger." English, Country Dance Tune (2/2 time). C Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). ABB. The melody, with directions for a country dance, was first published by Playford in his The English Dancing Master (1651). The dance and tune were retained in the long-running Dancing Master series of editions through the 18th and final edition of 1728 (then published by John Young, successor to the Playford publishing concerns). "The Slip" was also published by John Walsh in his Compleat Country Dancing Master (editions of 1718 & 1747).
As with many of Playford's tunes from his first publication, "The Slip" has associations with the stage, for it is the title of a playlet that ends Thomas Middleton's A Mad World, My Masters (1605), in which one of the characters, Follywit, pronounces, "The play being called 'The Slip', I vanish too" (Act V, scene 2, line 27)[1]. Dean-Smith[2] points out that it was a ceremonial or departure dance.
