Touchstone Lesson

London, 1780

The firm documentary starting point is page 93 of Charles and Samuel Thompson’s Twenty Four Country Dances for the Year 1780. The digitised page pairs The Touchstone with its melody and dance directions; “Victory” shares the facing space. This is direct evidence of an English country-dance publication in London, not merely a later tune collector’s attribution.

The original melody is in D major, 2/4, and two eight-bar strains, each marked to repeat. Its opening D–F♯ arpeggio and the descending G–F♯–E–D answer correspond exactly to Whisflo’s C–E opening and F–E–D–C answer after transposition down a whole tone.

A dance title is not a composer credit

The Thompsons were major London music publishers. Their name and date securely identify the book and publication, but neither the page nor the archive proves that Charles or Samuel composed this melody. “Published by Thompson” is therefore responsible wording; “written by Thompson” is not.

Country-dance books were practical social media: a compact tune for musicians sat beside figures for dancers. The directions for The Touchstone describe actions such as heys, circling hands, leading through, and casting. Melody and choreography were designed to circulate together in an active room, not as a concert miniature by a named art-music composer.

From triple minor to revival repertory

The original choreography is a triple-minor longways dance: three couples form the working set, and the active couple progresses through the larger line. In 1931 W. S. Porter, Marjorie Heffer, and Arthur Heffer interpreted it for The Apted Book of Country Dances, part of the twentieth-century return of historical English social dances to clubs and balls.

Modern interpreters adapt formations and describe the tune with practical labels. Colin Hume lists it as a “reel,” while contemporary dance pages keep the Thompson 1780 and Apted connections visible. That label describes how modern musicians feel its even pulse; it does not overturn the English print evidence or prove Irish origin.

Which “Touchstone”?

The title uses the ordinary word for a stone that tests precious metal and, figuratively, a standard of judgement. A shared title alone cannot link the tune to Shakespeare’s jester Touchstone, later films, bands, or unrelated archive entries. Identity comes from melodic correspondence and publication context.

Here that correspondence is unusually strong: strain lengths, contour, cadences, and repeated structure all align between Thompson’s D-major page and the local transposition. The safe identification is therefore the 1780 English country-dance tune The Touchstone.

Whisflo’s C-major version

Whisflo moves the source down a whole tone but restores its original metre and pulse: historic D major becomes C major, still in 2/4 at 100 BPM. The sixteen written bars span F4–A5, use all seven natural notes, and contain 67 slide-free attacks. The source’s tiny grace turn before the B strain is omitted from this clean teaching line.

Bars 1–8 form a 36-attack A strain and bars 9–16 a 31-attack B strain. Both repeat, restoring the print’s A–A–B–B form: 134 performed attacks. The high A5 occurs only near the final B-strain cadence, but it returns when the repeat is observed.

Practise the form before the speed

Begin at 64 BPM. Loop bars 1–2 and 5–6 until the C–E leaps stay small and all eight sixteenth notes in bars 2 and 6 remain even. Then isolate bars 11–12, keeping B–C–B–A light. Practise bar 15’s F4–A5 leap separately with steady air rather than extra force.

At 80 BPM, play both strains twice without stopping. Say “A-one, A-two, B-one, B-two” at each boundary so the form becomes physical memory. Move through 92 to 100 BPM only when both repeated endings remain clear.