Dumbarton Drums ~ RSCDS
Dumbarton Drums ~ RSCDS is a Scottish Country Dance. It was devised by Thomas Wilson in 1816 and published in A Companion to the Ball Room, London. It was interpreted by RSCDS in 1929 and published in RSCDS Book 5. It is R8×32 3C/4C, a proper Triple Minor dance. R32.
Wilson writes (on page 40):
SINGLE FIGURE (Tune played straight thro')
Hey on your own sides lead down the middle up again & set to top Cu:
OR THUS Set & change sides with the 2d. Cu: set & back again lead down the middle up again & right & left with the top Cu:
DOUBLE FIGURE (Each strain repeated)
The 3 ladies lead round the 3 gent: the 3 gent: lead round the 3 ladies lead down the middle up again allemande & set 3 across & set 3 in your places
Wilson usually gives multiple figures for a tune, the (R)SCDS appears to have conflated the first figure and the last. They seem to have taken the first 8 bars from the first figure (the hey), and added the last 16 bars of the final figure, except these have been reinterpreted to take up 24 bars.
The music consists of two 8 bar strains.
Wilson defines most of his figures in his An Analysis of Country Dancing.
Hey on your own sides is only defined as part of "Hey Contrary Sides, and Hey of your own Sides" on page 83 and he shows a mirror/reflection hey.
The 3 ladies lead round the 3 gent: may be found on pages 48-49 and means: "all the ladies take hands, lady 1 leads counter-clockwise above, and then behind the men, at bottom looping back to original places."
lead down the middle up again may be found on pages 10-11 and means: "lead down two couples, turn, lead up to the place of the couple who were below (who move up)" Wilson does not specify a hand hold for the lead, nor whether the 2s take hands.
allemande may be found on page 7 and appears to mean going about your partner in a circle. In a later edition of Analysis Wilson adds the phrase "back to back".
This is an unusual meaning for "allemande", but, as best as I can understand, that is what Wilson describes.
set 3 across & set 3 in your places is only described as "set three in their places and set three across" (opposite order) and is found on pages 76-77, and means: "Two lines of three across set, the ones move to their own places, everyone sets again." Wilson does not say whether they take hands when setting. Wilson does not indicate whether the corners set when the 1s move.
The animation plays at 120 counts per minute normally, but the first time through the set the dance will often be slowed down so people can learn the moves more readily. Men are drawn as rectangles, women as ellipses. Each couple is drawn in its own color, however the border of each dancer indicates what role they currently play so the border color may change each time through the minor set.
An online description of the dance may be found here.
The dance contains the following figures: set, lead, hey, parallel hey, allemande round, promenade round, petronella, down the middle and back (and probably others).
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=DumbartonDrums-RSCDS
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1929 by RSCDS. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2023 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International 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.