Annotation:Doctor (2) (The)
X:1 T:Doctor [2], The M:6/8 L:1/8 R:Jig B:Aird - Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign B:Airs, vol. II (1785) Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:G B/c/ | dBG GFG | ABc B2c | dgd dgd | dcB ABc | dBG GFG | ABc B2c | dge dBd | cBA G2 :| |: B/c/ | dgd dgd | dgd dcB | cde eag | fef def | gfe dcB | ABc B2c | dBG EcB | AGF G2 :||
DOCTOR [2], THE. Scottish (?), Quickstep (6/8). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The tune and title appears in the John Buttery music manuscript (sometimes called the 'John Fife manuscript', after a family member) begun in the late 1790's. Buttery was a fifer with the 37th Regiment (British) who compiled a large manuscript of tunes many of which were used for military purposes. In his ms. "The Doctor" is prescribed a 'quickstep', and was one of many tunes Buttery copied from Aird's second collection (1785). In America, it was printed in Charles Robbins' Fife and Drum Tutor (Exeter, N.H., 1812), and it was entered into a commonplace book (entitled "The American Volunteer") by an unknown musician (the ms. is kept in the Hay Library at Brown University). Given these references, it may have originally been employed as a quickstep march, and secondarily as a jig or country dance tune. It appears in the c. 1823 music manuscript collection of Wyresdale, Lancashire, musician H.S.J. Jackson as a jig.
