[SCA-Dance] singing accompaniment

[Aaron Elkiss]

On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 10:13 AM, White, John<white at drexel.edu> wrote:

>>Daphne (for Daphne or HIt and Miss, would probably be a bit rushed),
>
> I've got music with words for this, but the issue I have with it is that a) the
> music that I have doesn't have enough repeats of the B-music for Daphne,
> and it doesn't work at all for Hit and Miss ...

I agree. AFAIK, using Daphne for Hit and Miss is an innovation of
Cecil Sharp's, and it requires doing 4 changes of a circular hey in 12
beats instead of 16, which works but not well, in my opinion (c.v. his
reconstruction:
http://www.srcf.ucam.org/round/dances/cdb/cdb4/hitmiss) I don't really
care for the original Hit and Miss music, so I can see why he wanted
to use another tune, but Daphne just doesn't really work.

Also, if you want to sing the ballad at anything approaching a
reasonable dance tempo, it is ridiculously rushed. The two recordings
I have of the ballad, by Owain Phyfe and the Dufay Collective, are
both singing it at about dotted half note = 60, which I think is a
reasonable tempo. Dancing Hit and Miss at a reasonable tempo requires
around dotted half note = 110, almost twice as fast!

-Aaron Drummond