This is something that has puzzled me for years too. I had been led to believe that Kerr's pages were laid out that way to provide suitable music for the foursome reel, which was popular in the latter part of the nineteenth century, but any descriptions of that dance I have seen always have the dance moving from strathspey to reel, but not back to strathspey again. I can't quite believe either that the dance was so popular that it merited the pages Kerr's devotes to it. The Athole Collection follows the same scheme.
As an aside I wonder if the Cape Breton custom of staying in the same key for a set of tunes comes from the use of printed collections? David Francis (44) (0)131 669 8824 Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music & Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
