Issue 2677: Two versions of Fire in the Rye

New issue submitted

Assigned changed to »anselm« (previously »None«)
Disposition changed to »Being handled« (previously »New«)

The problem here is that there are two MiniCribs but only one dance in the database. Dances can have only one crib per crib source (such as “MiniCrib”), and the way the MiniCrib import works, the last crib in the file that is matched with a dance in the database wins.

As far as I’m aware, the “official” version of Fire in the Rye is the 6-couple version (to go with the 6x32 recording, which IIRC came first). Many dances can be tweaked to suit differently-sized sets – for example, many three-couple dances in four-couple sets also work, with minimal changes, as five-couple dances in five-couple sets with 1st and 3rd couples starting (consider “The Reel of the 51st Division” or “The Music Makars”). It’s therefore not a great surprise that it is possible to “halve” Fire in the Rye, although I’m not convinced it does a lot for the dance other than make it danceable in situations where you only have 6 people. (I wouldn’t expect the 3-couple version to show up on social programmes, for example.)

Generally I’m not enthusiastic about elevating all of these “tweakable” dances (or even an arbitrary subset of them) to have their own separate additional entries in the database, which will only add clutter and tend to confuse users, so that is not going to happen on my watch. There would also be a problem with ensuring that the cribs are matched to the correct dance – right now we’re matching sources and then titles and don’t really look at dance types and set sizes, and the MiniCrib importer is complicated enough as it is. I’ll probably add a special case to handle Fire in the Rye, and keep my fingers crossed that this sort of thing doesn’t become the rule rather than the (rare) exception.

Happy new year! Anselm

Happy New Year indeed!

I very much understand your point, and we don’t want this database to contain all the possible versions of all the dances, if only because that would put a huge work load on all the maintainers of the database. I this case, it is also a bit different because the tweaked version comprises more changes that the average tweak, I would say. Moreover, the tweak seems to come from the deviser as well, although I am really not sure of that.

It is funny that you mention that you wouldn’t expect the 3-couple version to show up on social programmes, because I noticed this peculiarity while working with a MC for the next evening dance in Paris. The MC in question tends to work a lot with the Scottish Country Dancing Dictionary so I suppose that is where the dance came from.

Do I understand correctly: You will keep only one entry for Fire in the Rye and add a special case to the MiniCrib importer in order to import the right cribs for the dance? And you will not introduce a second entry for the 3-couple version? This is of course very fine by me, I just want to know what to expect!

Best, Niols

David Haynes from MiniCrib says he’s going to remove the 3-couple version from MiniCrib. We agree that the 3-couple version is probably apocryphal (according to our knowledge even the 6-couple version hasn’t been published outside of the Strathspey mailing list).

That will make the issue go away when the next version of MiniCrib comes around (which should happen RSN), as the erroneous crib will be overwritten by the crib for the 6-couple version (which will then not be overwritten again by the crib for the 3-couple version).

I’ll keep this issue open for reference until we can verify that this has actually occurred.

Sounds good to me. Thank you for this!

Disposition changed to »Fixed« (previously »Being handled«)

The new MiniCrib version (which omits the 3-couple adaptation of the dance) has now been uploaded and incorporated into SCDDB. The crib in the database is correct. Closing the ticket as “fixed”. Thanks to David Haynes for the prompt resolution of the issue!