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The Devil Among The Tailors / The Fairies Dance

I've been looking through the Fiddler's Companion website recently and - beside virtually every tune - there's the comment: The dance itself has 2 separate parts - basically chorus 40 bars 8x verse 48 bars chorus 40 bars Most bands would play "the De'il Amang the Tailors" for first and last tunes. Try to keep adjacent tunes in different keys, have a few minors, and try to arrange for the change from 4th to 5th "verse" to be distinctive in some way - a "lift" either through key change, or familiar tune, or both.

That's the part of the dance where the "ladies in the middle" bit finishes and "men in the middle" starts. Though he does mention an earlier spelling Spootskerry but always as one word. Damn good tune anyway and one I remember took no time to learn. Incidentally it can all be played on the black notes of the piano apart from one passing note in the second part. It always seems a shame to me when you have got a crackin tune going on that really fits the dance, to have to leave off after only two or three times through to go on to another that does not fit quite as well.

Many tunes would 'do', but as has been said, the real skill is in selecting the 'right' tune to fit the dance whatever you play Mind you, I have ancestry from 17th century Edinburgh, so I'm actually with 'em Playing twice through each tune after an intro means that each couple has their own bit of music to dance to and if they get left behind the next couple still know when their bit starts.

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This can also be a help to a caller if you have one. Mind you we do give it some welly!


  1. The Tailor in Heaven.
  2. The Shy Bird (Good Habits Book 1).
  3. Speedy Pirans little adventure along the Pilgrims Way (Speedy Pirans Little Adventures Book 6);
  4. Shift Into Your Season;
  5. Master Chronology of JFK Assassination Appendix XIII: Jack Ruby.

Whether we'll call them or not will depend on what we find when we get there We would certainly only do an 8some to dancers who know it already. These sort of tunes are so old and with coloured histories that any claim to sole origin authenticity is not going to stand up. Without responding to anyone in particular. Think carefully about the ending in Miss Macleod of Raasay - it doesn't actually finish..

More by Fred Hanna

Morpeth Rant is from Northumbria and has a specific kind of dance locally associated with it, which is not a Scottish reel. Speed the Plough certainly has been played in Scotland for years, but the dances it's most commonly used for in England will be different. There are plenty of tunes that an English dancer will unambiguously identify as Scottish reels, so there's no need to risk muddling people up with tunes that have multiple associations.


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    Dance: The Deil amang the Tailors | SCDDB

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