Dance Red Fox [music transcription] - Public domain musical sheets

Meter: 4/4
Strains: 2 (high-low, 4-4)
Transcribed by Alan Jabbour, from a performance by Henry Reed.
Compass: 12
Key: G
Stylistic features: Slurred bowing.
Rendition: tag-1r-2r-1r-2r-1r-2
Phrase Structure: ABAC QRQC (abcb abde qrst qrd'e')
Related Tune(s): The Welsh Jig
Related Tune(s): The Priest in His Boots
Related Tune(s): Tivoli--Jig
Handwritten: Recorded: aabbaabbaab
"Red Fox" is an unusual, and so far untraceable, tune in Henry Reed's repertory. It may be that some of these fiddle tunes of the old frontier began life as jigs and were converted to the prevailing reel-breakdown meter in the Upper South. Compare, for example, Longman & Broderip's Fifth Selection of the Most Admired Dances, Reels, Minuets & Cottilons (1780), p. 11 "The Welsh Jig"; Riley's Flute Melodies (ca. 1814), p. 6 "The Priest in His Boots"; One Thousand Fiddle Tunes, p. 52 "The Priest in His Boots--Jig," p. 60 "Tivoli--Jig." The oscillation between tonal centers in D (most of the first strain) and G (the second strain) is known in British tradition but less familiar in the Upper South.