Annotation:Mr. Turner's Academy Cotillion

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MR. TURNER'S ACADEMY COTILLION. American, Cotillion Tune (2/4 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABBCCDCCD.

At intervals I would be in company with a genteel young man who lived with his parents next door to my lodgings. He was a pupil of Mr. Turnner, dancing master. He introducet me in to the school, where I would often go as a spectator or visiter. Mr. Turnner had a great number of scholars of both sexes and wouyld sometimes practice them all together when I would make sure to attend. I learned at once his method and the dances then in vogue. I saw the master's boast lay principally in hornpipes, for he would have his best hornpipe dancer dress'd in a neat sailor's dress. At a practice in the daytime my young friend was one of the hornpipe dancers. In return of friendship I taught him many steps and soon made him the best dancer in the school, by private lessons.

(quoted in Morrison, from dancing master John Durang).

Source for notated version: From A Selection of Cotillions (p.5), published in Boston, 1808 [Morrison].

Printed sources: Morrison (Twenty-Four Early American Country Dances, Cotillions & Reels, for the Year 1976), 1976; p. 53.

Recorded sources: North Star Records NS0038, "The Village Green: Dance Music of Old Sturbridge Village."




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