Index talk:The English Dancing Master-John Playford-1651.pdf

Quick notes

• Use {{ls}} (long S, ſ)
• Use curly quotes
• Use {{u| · }} for  · , {{u| : }} for  : , and {{u|∴}} for ∴
• For the simpler figures, use tables like so:

  <table class{{=}}"__figure-table">
  <tr><td>☉</td><td>☉</td><td>☉</td><td>☉</td></tr>
  <tr><td>☽</td><td>☽</td><td>☽</td><td>☽</td></tr>
  </table>
  

  ☉	☉	☉	☉
  ☽	☽	☽	☽

  <table class{{=}}"__figure-table">
  <tr><td>☉</td><td>{{rotate|90|☾}}</td><td>☉</td></tr>
  <tr><td>☾</td><td></td><td>☽</td></tr>
  <tr><td>☉</td><td>{{rotate|90|☽}}</td><td>☉</td></tr>
  </table>
  

  ☉	☾	☉
  ☾		☽
  ☉	☽	☉

  The direction of the crescents shows the direction that the dancers are facing and should be preserved.

• For score syntax, see page 182 of the 1686 edition.
• It is tricky to impossible to transcribe some features of these scores accurately. See the first edition talk page for details and tips.
• There are more scans of this and later editions at https://imslp.org/wiki/The_Dancing_Master_(Playford,_John). Content in successive editions overlaps heavily; copying content, for instance from Index:IMSLP278935-PMLP144608-the dancing master10.pdf, may save a lot of effort retyping things.

More notes

Playford calls this a "hold" or "close" in his Skill of Musick [p.38]. It seems to be a breath mark.

A more faithful rendering of the scores would be possible if task T289651 were resolved (see score-source comments in this page). For previous work, see

• Wikipedia:Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music theory/Archive 7
• Wikipedia:Help_talk:Score/Archive 2#Some Renaissance notation bits don't seem to be working

A software program like Denemo (free) can make entering notes faster, once you learn the interface (tutorials really help).

Playford tells use what sections get repeated, but not how often or in what alternation, information needed for making the midi file accurate. For a more modern-notation version, see https://playforddances.com/. The author, Scott Pfitzinger, may already have entered these melodies into a Lilypond-compatible format; we could ask if he'd be willing to let us use them as a starting point for rendering the original notation.

Unfortunately the midi playback won't automatically unfold repeats, and has to be entered separately; see Page:The English Dancing Master-John Playford-1651.pdf/8 for an example.

There are recordings of many of these melodies under open licenses. Notably, Toby Darling has released his own arrangements, and recordings of them; for where to download, see Commons:File:Under The Greenwood Tree, Sawny was Tall, Westmorland, Well-Hall (PLAYFORD).webm. If we can chop these apart, they'd be a good addition to the pages; we would have the midi, and also an actual human playing the thing with expression. HLHJ (talk) 23:52, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

@HLHJ: The MIDI playback will unfold repeats automatically if you tell it to—see Page:IMSLP278935-PMLP144608-the dancing master10.pdf/193 for an example of how to do this. —CalendulaAsteraceae (talk • contribs) 06:12, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, I will work on that at some point! The original text is ambiguous as to the number of repeats, but the dances (and sometimes the later editions, which say "this to the first strain of the tune" etc.), and sometimes, I think, aural tradition, constrain them. Reconstructions of the number of repeats can be found indexed at https://playforddances.com/dances/.

The quick note at Index:IMSLP278935-PMLP144608-the dancing master10.pdf is linking to itself, and I'm sorry, but I'm not sure where to edit it. HLHJ (talk) 22:35, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

I set up Index talk:IMSLP278935-PMLP144608-the dancing master10.pdf#Quick notes so it just transcludes the quick notes for this index. IMO the self-link is OK. —CalendulaAsteraceae (talk • contribs) 20:09, 20 October 2024 (UTC)