Tom Tinker

Tom Tinker is an English Country Dance. It was published by John Playford (website) in 1651 in The English Dancing Master, London. It was interpreted by Scott Pfitzinger (website) in about 2019. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. It is a multipart dance. The minor set lasts 48 bars. It is in the key: D Major.

Playford writes:
Lead up all a D. change places with your we. keeping them still in your hand, faces downward Lead down a D. change places as before, facing to the Presence First man slip down before the 2. man, the 1. wo. slip down between the 2. wo. the 1. cu. turn off round into the 2. place, the 2. cu. into the 1. place The 2. cu. do as much to their places

First man march towards the wall, his wo. following him, while the 2. wo. marches towards the other wall, the man following her, 1. man take his wo. in his right hand, facing to the Presence falls back a D. Now the 1. cu. being in the 2. place, and the 2. cu. in the 1 place, meet and pass through, the 1. man cast off to the left hand and fall into the 2. place of the two, side, his wo. following him, while the 2. wo. casts off and falls into the 1. place, her man following her First man and 2. wo. cross over, the 1. man going about the 2. man to his place, and the 2. wo. about the 1. wo. First man and 2. wo. take both hands, the 1. co. come in between your arms, the 2. man as much, kiss and arm each with his own, the 1. cu. in the 2. place, and the 2. cu. in the 1. place

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.

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.A11-4Lead up a double and wheel around (men backing up)
I.A21-4Lead down a double and wheel around
I.B11-2M1 slip down inside as M2 slip up outside
3-4W1 slip down inside as W2 slip up outside
I.B21-4Partner two hand turn
I.B31-2M2 slip down inside as M1 slip up outside
3-4W2 slip down inside as W1 slip up outside
I.B41-4Partner two hand turn
II.A11-21st corners march to their walls, partners follow
3-41s face up, 2s down, take hands fall into each other's places
II.A21-21s lead up, 2s split and move down
3-41st corners, followed by partners, cast left and go halfway round the set
II.B11-41st corners loop neighbors
II.B21-21st corners meet in the middle and take hands
3-42nd corners move between to face partner
II.B31-2Kiss partner
3-8Partner arm right to progressed proper

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=TomTinker

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © ~2019 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 © 2022 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
Creative Commons License 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.