Talk:Rigaudon

Copyright violation

Sorry to say that the changes in edit - 07:08, 24 October 2006 User:MCt4 - including the images, have been taken from The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, article "Rigaudon", by Meredith Ellis Little. The short paragraphs on "Etymology" and "Other Uses" are not from the Grove's article, but I've reverted the whole edit to the previous version as I don't see that we can trust the editior to not be violating copyright in that edit. -Insouciance 21:59, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

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current version seems to quote brittanica, though —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.87.166.130 (talk) 03:50, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Reference style

I recently changed this article to use ref tags for citations, but my change was reverted. I think articles that use ref tags are easier to read than parenthetical references, and they are also used very widely across Wikipedia, whereas parenthetical references are unusual. What would other people prefer to do? (Jerome Kohl: ping.) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 05:43, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Have you actually read WP:CITEVAR?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:55, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, this would be the part about "seek[ing] consensus for a change on the talk page". I'm assuming from your revert that you don't agree with switching to ref tags, but I'm not sure why. CITEVAR is a good guideline for avoiding edit wars about citation style, but it doesn't really address the reasons for using a particular citation style, and that's what I'm interested in here. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 06:07, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

OK, since you ask: Parenthetical referencing avoids the distraction for the reader of having to jump all over the article in order to discover what sources have been used to document it. This makes articles easier to read than those with ref tags, which typically require three-point jumps to find the requisite information, after which finding the way back to the starting point in the text is virtually impossible. Parenthetical referencing is by no means unusual in Wikipedia music articles. In the present, very short article, the reader's eye can move much more rapidly than the hand can click on links, in any case. In longer articles, there can be an advantage in linking from the inline reference to the source in an alphabetical list. In this case, too, parenthetical references (using the harv or other templates) have an advantage over footnotes because there is one fewer click to reach the source listing. Naturally, this supposes short-footnote format. Full-footnote refs (as usually practiced on Wikipedia, at least) have the disadvantage of leaving the article without an alphabetized reference list for the reader's benefit, in order quickly to judge both the quality of the references being used and any conspicuously missing items. Once again, this matters more in a long article than in a short one like this.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:05, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

where in the illustration is the rigaudon step

I did not understand anything in the accompanying illustration plate as a rigaudon step. It might be nice, in a rigaudon article, to show an example, in feuillet notation, of the actual step. --AJim (talk) 03:10, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

I think there may be a misunderstanding here. This article is about a dance called "rigaudon". Its choreography, shown in the illustration, contains many steps, none of which are named after the dance, as far as I am aware (though I am far from being a dance authority).—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:02, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

I will get back to you with an example. The pas de rigaudon is one of the steps usually seen in a rigaudon dance from the period. AJim (talk) 02:52, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

As I said, I am not a dance authority. It would be interesting to see what you have got.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:48, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

OK. Here is an example from the period of a rigadon choreography that actually includes rigadon steps.

final rigadon couplets of The Submission by Kellom Tomlinson

This is a photocopy of the sixth and seventh couplets of The Submission, a ball dance for a couple, composed in 1717 by the English dancing master Kellom Tomlinson, and published by Walsh*, with music by Loeillet. In the sixth couplet the musical form has changed from a minuet to a rigadon, and continues in that form to the end in the seventh couplet. In bars one and two of the sixth couplet the partners are downstage, facing the presence, and holding inside hands to execute a rigadon step together. In the seventh couplet the partners come face to face in bar 7, take both hands, and perform a rigadon step, which ends in bar 8. This is the characteristic step which takes its name from the dance. Perhaps it is not obvious from the notation, but the step does not travel, and so is used sparingly. (*Walsh's engraver is a little more elegant and clearer than Feuillet's.) AJim (talk) 22:39, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. Who identifies those particular steps as "the rigadon step"? I am not myself familiar enough with feuillet notation to be able to follow your description, but if a reliable source unambiguously identifying the pattern is available, then it should be added, as you suggest.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 06:53, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Addressing the question of "Who". For historical sources the English are most accessible to me. Here is one comment, originally by Pierre Rameau, taken from from John Essex's manual The Dancing-Master (London, 1728), which is a translation of Rameau's Le Maître à danser (Paris, 1725).

Chapter XXVIII
Of the Bouree Step and Fleuret
.............
FOR Example ; the Rigaudon Step is taken from the Rigoudon, a Dance very much used in Provence, and which the Natives dance naturally, and every District different from another, which I observed while I was  in that Country.
.............

Here is a copy of the original page, taken from the Library of Congress site, from Orchesography by John Weaver, showing the step as part of a table of contretemps.

rigadon step included in a table of contretemps on p74 of Weaver's Orchesography

Just to be clear, here is the rigadon notation by itself from that table. I think this should let you recognize the step in the dance choreography, even though the engraving style is a little different. Note that in the actual dance there is an additional hop in the next measure, not shown in the figure, that is generally considered part of the step.

first measure of the rigadon step in Feuillet notation, left and right versions

One of the best modern references is pages 226-7 of Wendy Hilton's, Dance of Court and Theater: The French Noble Style 1690-1725 (Princeton Book Company, 1981) ISBN 0-916622-09-6.

AJim (talk) 21:34, 3 July 2017 (UTC)