Kettle Drum
Kettle Drum is an English Country Dance. It was published by John Playford (website) in 1651 in The English Dancing Master. It was interpreted by Scott Pfitzinger (website) in about 2919. It is a Square dance. There is no progression in this dance. It is a USA dance. The dance lasts 72 bars. It is in the key: D Major.
Meet all, and back That again We. meet, giving their right hands, men meet, giving their right hands, then turn every man to his own wo. by the right hand, then men the left hands, we. their left hands, then turn every wo. her own man by the left hand Sides all, back again That again The 2 cu. meet and fall back, then the next cu. meet and take each others wo. by the right hand and fall back into the co. places, then the other cu. meet and fall back, and the first cu. the like, then lead in, taking the we. by the right hand, and cast off to your places Arms all That again All joyn both hands with your we. swing your hands all inward, then break off your hands inward, then turn back to back and kiss the co. we. twice, then swing with the co. we. all outwards, then break off your hands outwards, then turn, kissing every one his own wo. turn and so end
The tune, called Kettledrum, was published in Playford in 1651 and was performed by MGM and Reunion on the album Old Friends.
The animation plays at 113 counts per minute. Men are drawn as rectangles, women as ellipses. Each couple is drawn in its own color.
The transcriptions and interpretations of Playford dances found on http://playforddances.com/ from the various editions of The Dancing Master are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license.
An online description of the dance may be found here.
| I.A1 | 1-4 | Partner lead in and fall back |
| I.A2 | 1-4 | Again: partner lead in and fall back |
| I.B1 | 1-2 | Women into the center and right hands across |
| 3-4 | Men join them, right hands across | |
| 5-8 | Partners right turn to places | |
| I.B2 | 1-2 | Men into the center and left hands across |
| 3-4 | Women join them, left hands across | |
| 5-8 | Partners left turn to places | |
| II.A1 | 1-4 | Right shoulder siding |
| II.A2 | 1-4 | Left shoulder siding |
| II.B1 | 1-4 | Heads meet and fall back |
| 5-8 | Sides right turn half with opposite | |
| II.B2 | 1-4 | Heads meet and fall back |
| 5-8 | Sides right turn half with opposite | |
| III.A1 | 1-4 | Arm right |
| III.A2 | 1-4 | Arm left |
| III.B1 | 1-4 | Join hands with partner, swing hands in, out, in |
| 5-8 | Turn to corner, kiss corner twice | |
| III.B2 | 1-4 | Join hands with corner, swing hands in, out, in |
| 5-8 | Turn to partner, kiss partner twice |
If you find what you believe to be a mistake in this animation, please leave a comment on youtube explaining what you believe to be wrong. If I agree with you I shall do my best to fix it.
If you wish to link to this animation please see my comments on the perils of youtube. You may freely link to this page, of course, and that should have no problems, but use one of my redirects when linking to the youtube video itself:
https://www.upadouble.info/redirect.php?id=Kettledrum
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © ~2919 by Scott Pfitzinger. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2021 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license.
This website is copyright © 2021,2022,2023,2024 by George W. Williams V
My work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Most of the dances have more restrictive licensing, see my notes on copyright, the individual dance pages should mention when some rights are waived.