There are many tunes, especially slip jigs, and quite a few Peacocks, which as written, end on a note that implies we're about to go back to the beginning and start again, but isn't really in itself an endi- ... Many players stop there on the last time through, and don't play the note which seems to want to come and end it, pointing out that it ain't in the script so you don't play it. It's a matter of taste whether you like a hanging in the air, imperfect/interrupted/whatever cadence, type of ending, or whether you like to add the extra back-home note on the last time. Since I've only got dots and some recordings, mostly of modern players, to go on, I have no hard evidence as to how it was really done back in the day. Some tunes I like that way, with others my instinct is to add the implied final note, especially if playing for dancers. (It doesn't have to be a Jimmy Shand type "Taraaa", of course!) So I wonder if it's done that way because it really was traditional, or because people who, like me, only have what was written down, are slavishly not playing un-written dots, despite the fact that we happily accept that dots are necessarily an imperfect shorthand, (Cf hornpipe rhythms, non-notated grace notes in many traditions, and so forth); so we stop because the person notating it didn't bother making an extra "last time bar". Or did the traditional musicians who'd learned it from their great-uncle who had it from - and so on, actually play it that way? Please could those of you, like Anthony and others, who have played with the survival of the "living tradition" (whichever one!) offer any help? Thanks and best wishes, Richard. --
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