Ducks in the Pond [music transcription]

Meter: 4/4
Strains: 2 (high-low, 4-4)
Transcribed by Alan Jabbour, from a performance by Henry Reed.
Compass: 15 (11 plus low A)
Key: A
Rendition: tag-1r-2r-1r-2r-1r-2r-tag
Phrase Structure: ABA'C QRQ'C (abcd ab'ef qbrr qb'ef)
Stylistic features: Lively pace, slurs predominate in bowing. On a couple of occasions, he begins the second strain with the low first-finger E, not the even lower drone A. Note the failure to use the open G and D strings; he probably either learned this tune with the fiddle
Related Tune(s): Lady of the Lake
Handwritten: Played thru 3 times; 2nd transcribed.
This tune seems to be a variant of "Lady of the Lake," which is also a name used for a dance. Note the possible connection of "lake/pond" in the two titles. "Lady of the Lake" appears in Knauff's Virginia Reels (1839), vol. 3, #7, which seems to situate it firmly in early nineteenth-century Virginia tradition, and Winston Wilkinson recorded a version before 1936 from J. H. Chisholm of Greenwood, Virginia (see Wilkinson, "Virginia Dance Tunes," p. 10). Both these versions begin with the low strain, but Henry Reed's set recasts the tune with the high strain first, reflecting the widespread taste in the Appalachian South for instrumental tunes that begin with the high strain.