Minstrel Tunes in Howe's Books

Comment by Tim Twiss on October 6, 2010 at 7:10am

Wow, thanks Ian. I picked up on Walk Around "Brudder Bones". No particular reason, other than it seemed pretty cool and had not heard of it yet. It has those wide double stops, which looked interesting. I played it Gm / Bb in Briggsthink.

Comment by Ian Bell on October 6, 2010 at 2:00pm

I think it's Hans Nathan in the Dan Emmett book who describes the function of these walk rounds in a show. The first part to accompany bits of comic business or palaver and then the dance section to shake things up with some fancy hoofing and the break to bring it around again. It's neat to see this music laid out with these instructions. Ontario and Quebec stepdancers still sometimes call the last couple of bars of a section of music the "break". This is where the steps change from the patterns established in the previous section and wrap up with something different and usually rhymically punchy before starting a new set of steps on the next go-round of the tune.

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