Mr Beveridge’s Maggot has been added to 8 tunebooks.
I play in a band accompanying a country dance class (mostly English, but Irish as well), and the interesting thing is that last week while the dancers were learning their steps the band simultaneously learnt the tune as they watched the dancers, even though none of us had heard the tune before. It worked very well, and perhaps is an ideal way to learn a tune.
The dance teacher told us that the tune is a Playford tune from the late 17th century. What I’ve submitted is as we learnt, and may differ in detail from a printed Playford version.
G minor is the perfect key for this tune; it lies comfortably under the fiddler’s hand for all the notes, and gets a useful resonance from the G and D strings.
A “maggot” in dance music is an old English country dance tune, usually coupled with someone’s name, as it is here.
A “maggot” in music is an old English country dance tune, usually coupled with someone’s name, as it is here.