Appalachian music. British Field March music transcription. Note sheet.

Meter: 4/4
Strains: 2 (high-low, 4-4)
Transcribed by Alan Jabbour, from a performance by Henry Reed.
Key: A
Title change: This tune is transcribed after "Georgia Camp Meeting" on the page.
Rendition: 1-2-1r-2-1r-2
Phrase Structure: ABAC QRQC (abac abde qrse qrde)
Compass: 11
Stylistic features: Slurred bowing, somewhat slower pace; lots of use of fourth finger.
Handwritten: Played times thru, with the 1st str. repeated except for 1st. time.--1st time thru transcribed.--The tune seems to be a version of card "Take Her Out & Air Her"--Tendency toward See card "Take Her Out & Air Her"
This and the following tune ("Santa Anna's Retreat," AFS 13035a33) are both marches that Henry Reed learned from Quince Dillion, an elderly fiddler and fife player from whom Henry Reed acquired many tunes as a boy. These two were specifically identified as fife tunes, and a trill at one juncture--not a normal feature of Henry Reed's fiddling--must be an echo of the fife original. In calling this piece "British Field March," he said that it was the march used by the British to retreat in the Battle of New Orleans, where Andrew Jackson and his American forces routed the British contingent. The tune is in fact an old British air that crops up in various forms, particularly from Irish sources; for instrumental sets, see for example Petrie, The Complete Collection of Irish Music, #397 "Take Her Out and Air Her"; O'Neill's Music of Ireland #1388 "Touch Me If You Dare--2nd Setting" and #1593 "Kit O'Mahony's Hornpipe"; Joyce, Old Irish Folk Music and Songs (1909) #42 "Miss Redmond's Hornpipe"; "Manuscript Collection of Dance Tunes [ca. 1775-1800]" (Newberry Library, Chicago), p. 63 "Lovely Molly"; Ford, Traditional Music of America p. 43 "Gilderoy."