Of Time, Measure, or Cadence.
There are three sorts of
Time
in
Dancing, viz. Common Time, Triple Time,
and
Quadruple Time.
Common Time, is used in Gavots, Galliards, Bouree’s, Rigandons, Jiggs, and Canaries.
Triple Time, is made use of in Courants, Sarabands, Chaconnes, Passacailes, Minuets, and Passe-Pieds.
And Quadruple Time, is made use of in slow Tunes, as appears by the second Tune in the following Plate, and the Tunes called Loures.
To Tunes of Common or Triple Time, a Step is put for each Barr or Measure; and to Tunes of Quadruple Time, you must put two.
It is to be observ’d nevertheless, that in Courant Movements, two Steps are put to each Barr or Measure; the first of which takes up two parts in three of the Measure, and the second takes up the third part; and in the Minuet, one Step is put to two Barrs or Measures.
The Barrs or Measures in Dances, must be marked in like manner with those in Musick, viz. with little Barrs crossing the Tract, which are to agree with those of the Tune.Example.
You will understand by the following Examples, how each Step agrees with the Tune to which they are composed.
Common time
Triple time
Example of Steps which doe agree with the Measure of Common or Triple Time.
Quadruple Time.
Lovres
Example of Steps agreeing with Quadruple Time or Louves.
If it happens that you have occasion to put more Steps in a Measure, than are in the foregoing Examples, the following Rules must be observed.
If, for Example, you would in a Measure of Common Time, or half a Measure of Quadruple Time, which is the same thing, put a Fleuret and a Bound; the three Steps composing the Fleuret, must have a double Tie to join them, and which will shew their Motion to be as swift again, as if there had been but one; the Bound also must be joined to the Fleuret with a single Tie only; by which you will know, that these two Steps are in Effect but one.
Examples.
If you would put the same Step in a Measure of Triple Time, the two first Steps of the Fleuret must only have a double Tie.
When in Dancing some Measures of the Tune, are to be let slip, whether in the beginning or middle of the Dance, it must be mark’d in the following manner, vis. by a little Stroke crossing obliquely the Tract, and as many of them are to be mark’d, as there are Barrs to be let slip; and in describing a half Measure, half the Stroke only must be mark’d.
Three Measures and a half.
The same Stroke longways, parallel with the Tract, is equivalent to four of the foregoing Strokes, and takes up four Measures of the Tune.
Fourteen Measures.
For a Time, half Time, or quarter Time, &c. they may be mark’d in the same manner as they are in Musick.
A quarter Time. A half Time. A Time.
In Tunes, which begin with odd Notes, as Gavots, Chaconnes, Jiggs, loures, Bouree’s, &c. the foregoing Marks must be made Use of in the beginning of the Tract.
The Letters of the Alphabet, which are plac’d upon the Steps in the following Example, and which are also plac’d over the Notes of the Tune, demonstrate the Time or Cadence of a Dance.