A Handbook of Morris Dances
by Lionel Bacon
The "Black Book"

Lionel Bacon on fiddle with ...

The purpose of this index is to provide links to Lionel Bacon's "Black Book" tunes in abc notation. Each link leads to an index to the tunes for a particular named tradition, e.g. abcBidford.html, and this in turn links to all the abc version(s) of the tunes in another file e.g. Bidford.abc. At some stage we hope to provide references from the tunes to various CDs (mostly available from the Morris Shop).

  1. Traditions:
  2. Abingdon
  3. Adderbury
  4. Ascott-Under-Wychwood
  5. Badby
  6. Bampton
  7. Bidford
  8. Bledington
  9. Brackley
  10. Brimfield
  11. Bromsberrow Heath
  12. Bucknell
  13. Chipping Campden
  14. Ducklington
  15. Evesham
  16. Eynsham
  17. Fieldtown (Leafield)
  18. Headington
  19. Hinton-In-The-Hedges
  20. Ilmington
  21. Kirtlington
  22. Leominster
  23. Lichfield
  24. Longborough
  25. Much Wenlock
  26. Oddington
  27. Pershore
  28. Sherborne
  29. Stanton Harcourt
  30. Steeple Claydon
  31. Upton-On-Severn
  32. Upton Snodsbury
  33. Wheatley
  34. White Ladies Aston
  35. Winster
  1. Others:
  2. Abbots Bromley Horn Dance
  3. Castleton Garland Dance
  4. East Anglian Molly dances
  5. Flintshire Cadi Ha
  6. Forest of Dean
  7. Great Wishford Faggot Dance
  8. Over the Sticks (Sussex)
  9. Tideswell
  10. Yardley Gobion

Lionel Bacon

Lionel was a founder member of Winchester Morris Men in 1953. he also danced with Cambridge Morris Men (from 1932), was with The Travelling Morrice, and also a member of London Pride and of Whitchurch Morris Men. The 'Black Book', his aide memoire, is the most important book for Cotswold morris dancers since the Morris Dance Books were published by Cecil Sharp. It provides, "a baseline based upon traditional sources" (2nd Ed.). "A Handbook of Morris Dances" was first published in 1974, then with corrections, a Second Edition appeared in 1986. Copies are available from the Morris Ring Shop.

Chris Walshaw's abc Musical Notation Language

Chris keeps a file of up-to-date information about abc musical notation. If you want to use abc you will need to find software for your computer, Chris maintains a list (Web based, Windows, Mac, Palm, Command Line), but also recommends checking Frank's ABC Site Index at http://www.abc-notation.com/index.html.

  1. For Macs, Barfly (Version 1.71 March 2006), by Phil Taylor, which you can get via http://www.barfly.dial.pipex.com/. Phil describes this as A shareware integrated text editor/player/viewer for abc music files. You can also get an English Concertina sound file, maybe less appropriate than an Anglo for the sound of Morris. The program has edit and music display. It also allows transposition of the sound, and outputs of music in various formats (.gif, .png, etc.) You can try it, and run it for free, but it is fairer to send Phil £20 and register your version. I did. The best ABC program out there!
  2. DOS, Linux, Palm, Psion, Unix, Windows users there are a lot of other abc programs which can be found via a search of Frank's ABC Index. However you might like to try Neil Jennings program, Harmony, his program, to quote him ’is the only one I know of which will add chords to a melody‘. This program can make ANGLO Concertina or Melodeon Tablature. Neil danced with Dubai-Sharjah from 1978 to 1982, then started a side in Luxembourg, then danced with Men of Sweyn's Ey.

You have the software, so why not try a source for other abc English tunes, The Village Music Project. {Includes John Clare's collection of Northamptonshire melodies}. Try also, Andrew Kuntz's "A Descriptive Index of North American and British Isles Music for the Folk Violin and Other Instruments", see http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/FCfiles.html

One other thing ... Steve Allen has registered abc notation with IANA and the tunes should be served as the MIME type text/vnd.abc with the WWW server. Most WWW browsers (such as Firefox, not Safari(!)) are then capable of being configured to recognize these links and display them as ASCII text, as sheet music, and/or as audible sound via an abc application such as Barfly. Steve's server is one of the few that works properly!

The 'Black Book' abc files

We owe a big debt (many pints!) to Vaughan Hully of Shakespeare Morris Men for converting all of the Black Book tunes into abc format files. He sent me a complete set of these, he also sent us the information that Shakespeare Morris Men have about the Trunch Dance Tradition from Norfolk. Share and enjoy! For the purpose of this index I arranged the abc files into traditions. If there are errors, musical or otherwise, please tell me - so that I can correct them. You will almost certainly want to adjust the tempo! Change (or insert) a line such as Q:120 {120 beat per minute} or Q:6/8=200. Where Q is absent, a default tempo is set, but it is preferable to define Q. See, Chris Walsall's description of the abc notation, also John Chambers ABC Primer.

Abbreviations used here and in the Black Book

Sources are given as a quote from the Black Book for each tradition, the abbreviations used are also as in the Black Book. Tunes which are named, but for which there is no music given, are shown in a lighter colour, thus..

  1. Generally the same as in Bacon:
  2. ALP - Dr Arthur Peck
  3. BC - Bert Cleaver
  4. CD - Country dance
  5. CJS - Cecil Sharp
  6. DK - Douglas Kennedy
  7. EDS - English Dance & Song
  8. EFDSS - English Folk Dance & Song Society
  9. EMB1 - Esperance Morris Book I
  10. FH - Fred Hamer
  11. GF - George Felton
  12. Jour - Journal of the EFDSS
  13. MB - The Morris Book(s), CJS
  14. MDT - Morris Dance Tunes, CJS
  15. MK - Dr Maud Karpeles
  16. MM - Morris Men
  17. MSS - Manuscripts(s)
  18. News - EFDSS News
  19. OUMM - Oxford University MM
  20. RD - Roy Dommett
  21. RKS - Dr Kenworthy Schofield
  22. RW - Dr Russell Wortley
  23. TM - Travelling Morrice
  24. 6MDJ - Six Morris dances and Jigs
Updated: File update not available