From 204 Country Dances (~1775), part 1

Straight & Skillern in London published a book of 204 Country Dances around 1775. In format (single line treble melody with succinct dance instructions below), the book resembles editions of the earlier Playford Dancing Master (multiple editions 1651-1728). The music appears to be almost all familiar songs and fiddle tunes, and the dancing instructions are simple, nor by any means ample in detail. Here is a link to the file on IMSLP: link.

Of the 204 numbers, fifteen or so are of interest here. I've divided them into three groups: (1) those with simple ascending lines in a strain; (2) those with more complex lines; (3) special cases.

"The Hot Bath" is in two strains. The first has an internal ascent in the cadence (not marked). The second consists of a rising figure from ^5, repeated. The first time it overshoots its mark, reaches ^10 and then settles to ^9 for a half cadence. The second time it reaches ^8 again in the third bar and stays there for the duration.

"The Nabob" is about as simple a rising line out of the space ^1-^5 as I have seen anywhere. Not only that the ascent to the cadence is used in both strains.

"The Shepherds Jigg" in its second strain makes three attempts (circled) at a simple stepwise ascent from ^5 to ^8, then "gets it right" at last.

"What's that to You" would require an Urlinie from ^3 with an implied ^2 under the traditional Schenkerian rubric. But, even if it is a bit a surprise, the simple ascent clearly can't be willed away as an internal line in this instance.

I'll write about more complicated examples of the rising line in the next post.