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ABSTRACT

The author, Emilie Carroll. Photo credit: Jeremy Gasowski

It is common knowledge that traditional music and dance are a part of many cultures worldwide, both past and present. When people think of music traditions, however, their first thought might not be of those that exist right in their local communities. But as a fiddle player who has grown up in the New England traditional music scene, I am intimately familiar with the music and dance traditions that exist here, and I have developed a special interest in the New England contra dance tradition.

Arguably the music and dance tradition with the most roots in New England, contra dancing is a unique aspect of this region’s local history and current culture. Contra dancing is a form of folk dancing that has been a part of New England culture since European settlers first came to North America, but like all living traditions, it is fluid and changing. There are many contra dance communities that thrive around the United States, ranging from traditional to more contemporary in terms of the way they operate and the kind of music they dance to.

As a Celtic musician who specializes in Irish, Scottish, and Cape Breton music traditions, I am most interested in the history of contra dance music and how it evolved. Contra dance music consists of New England dance tunes, many of which have influence from Ireland, Scotland, Maritime Canada, Quebec, or other places with Celtic influence. Many of these tunes have been in the New England repertoire for more than 300 years, whereas others have been written and added into the repertoire within the last 50 years. To explore this topic, I received a Research Experience and Apprenticeship Program (REAP) grant from the Hamel Center for Undergraduate Research to conduct archival and fieldwork research on the history of contra dance music and how it has evolved from the pre-colonial period to now.

The way that contra dancers dance to the tunes is dictated by the type of tune as well as the figures in the dance, which are the moves that the dancers perform. In general, contra dancing is done in two opposing lines consisting of sets of two to four couples. Dancers are prompted by a caller, who works with the band and calls out the figures. These dances are often held at a town hall, school, grange, or other central location in the community. Because of the vibrant contra dance scene, there are many instructional camps that help to pass the tradition on to future generations. I did my research and interviews for this project at some of those camps, which I will expand on later.

There is a specific subset of tunes within the repertoire of traditional New England dance music called chestnuts, which I found most interesting. Chestnuts are defined in a variety of ways, but in general they are old, common tunes that often have a long-established choreography that requires a certain tune to be played for that specific dance. Through the lens of these tunes, I explored where chestnuts come from, how their existence has contributed to contemporary contra dance tunes, and how they are still relevant to the tradition today.

Methods

I began my research process with the Milne Special Collections in Dimond Library, specifically the materials in the New Hampshire Library of Traditional Music and Dance. Here, I did archival research in the Ralph Page, Dudley Laufman, Kerry Elkins, and Bob McQuillen Collections. I found manuscripts of both old and newer tunes as well as personal communications and articles, which helped me contextualize contra dance music history and understand chestnuts’ place in that history. I also read two relevant PhD dissertations, as well as several shorter peer-reviewed articles and other relevant sources. That research was interesting and helpful for my own background knowledge of the subject, but my favorite type of research that I did was ethnographic research.

One of the many concerts at Acadia Festival of Traditional Music and Dance, showcasing the talented faculty and staff. 

I attended three weeklong fiddle camps where I participated in the event, observed participants, and interviewed six different experts within the contra dance community. I attended the Acadia Festival of Traditional Music and Dance in Bar Harbor, ME, the Swannanoa Gathering in Swannanoa, NC, and the Maine Fiddle Camp in Montville, ME. The number of attendees at these camps ranged from ~100 to 300 people, and each camp provided classes, chances to socialize, and enrichment activities for traditional musicians and dancers of all ages and ability levels. The camps differ in the kind of traditional music they specialize in; for example, Acadia and Maine Fiddle camps focus on traditional music popular in the Northeastern US, while Swannanoa is more Irish- and Scottish-focused.

Before each camp, I recruited professional contra dance musicians to participate in my research interviews. (This project is certified by the Institutional Review Board for working with human subjects, IRB number # IRB-FY2024-281). I emailed most of my interview subjects ahead of time to ask their permission and arranged interview times at their convenience after arriving at camp. My fiddle teacher and mentor Katie McNally, and my faculty mentor Rose Pruiksma, helped me select and contact these musicians. By the time I finished gathering all my data through interviews and archival research, I had more information than I could use in a single article, so the results I share here focus on the history of contra dance and the purpose, history, and relevance of chestnuts.

The Origins of Contra Dance and the Rise of Chestnuts

Through my archival research, I learned about the origins of contra dance, which helped to contextualize the findings of my interviews. New England contra dancing originated around the mid-seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in upper-class social ballroom dance and music from the British Isles and France. Many sources, however, suggest that these dances actually descend from rural English country dancing. In Music, Dance, and Community: Contra Dance in New England, Dorothea Hast points out that likely before 1500, English country dancing was done to folk music by the rural peasant class and was adopted by the upper class by the sixteenth century and danced in the ballroom (Hast 1993, 44).

When settlers from the British Isles such as Ireland and Scotland brought their music and dance to North America, they gradually incorporated new influences and traditions to create New England contra dance. Similarly, immigrants from Quebec who came to Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine began to play contra dances and used their traditional tunes and dances within contra dance, so French-Canadian tunes such as “Reel de Montreal” and “The Joys of Quebec” were added to the standard contra dance repertoire in New England. In addition, popular music of North America made its way into contra dance music. Songs like “Pop Goes the Weasel” and “Jingle Bells” became very popular contra dance tunes, because people knew the words and melodies, making them more accessible for audiences.

One example of the many old manuscripts of tunes considered "chestnuts" that I found in the archives. The small print under the music is the dance calls used for that tune. (Source: Milne Special Collections- Library of Traditional Music and Dance, Ralph Page Collection) 

During this time, some tunes were so commonplace that dancers performed a specific dance to them: These tunes are called chestnuts. Used as slang, the word chestnut seems to have originated in North America with the phrase old chestnut, meaning an old or overused joke or story (Oxford English Dictionary). This translated into contra dance tunes very early on and dropped the pejorative connotation of the word—creating a phrase that means a well-loved, common dance tune. Part of the intrigue of chestnuts is the fact that they have been around for centuries, and there is not a straight answer for the origins of many of them. However, they were not always categorized in this way. The first documented use of the word applied to contra dance tunes was in 1980 when the album New England Chestnuts by Rodney and Randy Miller was released, although the word was likely used in contra dance circles much before that (Smukler and Millstone 2008).

During my interviews, I asked everyone how they would define a chestnut, and their responses varied. Some musicians say a chestnut is a tune that everyone knows that is played a lot for contra dances but does not necessarily have a dance associated with it. However, other musicians say a chestnut is a tune that is always played for a specific contra dance, so the tune and the dance go hand in hand. Whatever the definition is, most of the chestnuts have been used in the New England contra dance repertoire since the 1800s or earlier.

Some chestnuts were written in other places and brought over to the US. “Money Musk,” a very popular chestnut, was written in Scotland by Daniel Dow in 1775 and then adapted to the New England and Quebecois repertoire when people began immigrating to the US (Risk, 2016). The lineage of other chestnuts is more convoluted, and they are considered traditional New England dance tunes. Some examples of chestnuts that are deep in the New England repertoire would be “Chorus Jig,” “Hull’s Victory,” and “Petronella.” Before the folk revival of the 1970s, chestnuts were so commonplace at most New England contra dances that many dancers would hear the tune start and know the figures right away. Therefore, callers had a different role than they do now: Instead of teaching the dances all the way through, callers would sing or “chant” the figures to the dancers to make sure everyone was moving in time with the music.

I met Dudley Laufman at Maine Fiddle Camp in August 2024, and I was lucky to be able to sit down and interview him, because he is probably the most influential caller of the folk revival alive today. Laufman told me that the art of sing-calling was very popular before the 1970s, and was used to call the older dances, like chestnuts. Laufman emphasized that his sing-calling was highly influenced by Ralph Page (1903–1985), an influential caller in the Monadnock region of New Hampshire during the first half of the twentieth century. Page influenced not only Laufman’s style of calling but also that of other contra dance legends like Bob McQuillen (1923–2014), a distinguished contra dance musician, teacher, and composer who played with Ralph Page’s New Hampshire orchestra, an ensemble who would regularly play contra dances, and later Dudley Laufman’s Canterbury Country Dance Orchestra. Overall, the dancing of chestnuts was a part of the larger pre-revival contra dance culture, which was shaped by greats such as Laufman, Page, and McQuillen, and characterized by localized, smaller dances consisting of older dances called by a singing caller.

The Folk Revival and Changes in Contra Dance

Contra dancing saw a dip in popularity between 1940 and 1970, but the folk revival of the 1970s boosted participation in many traditions, including contra dance. I learned from my interviewees that since that time, many of these chestnuts have not been danced to regularly at contra dances. The reasons for this are multifaceted, but the main explanation is that the way chestnuts are structured is no longer in line with the expectations of the contra dance community. Most chestnuts are either in triple minor or duple minor formation, which means that there are two or three couples in a set, with only one active couple, leaving the other couples to spend most of the dance watching the active couple do the figures. This was an expectation during the 1940s and 1950s, when contra dance was a localized and regular occurrence. However, during the folk revival in the 1970s, contra dance surged in popularity and younger, enthusiastic community members wanted to be as involved as possible. This led to a shift in the structure of contra dance: Chestnuts fell out of fashion, and more modern dances where every couple was active became more popular.

Now, most contra dance callers hardly ever call chestnuts because most post–folk revival contra dancers do not know how they work, and they prefer contemporary dances. Obviously, the meaning of contemporary changes with time, and people have been writing tunes and dances since the beginning of contra dance, which is how we have any contra dances at all. But the writing of both new contra dance music and new contra dances changes the tradition in some way, and when the “contemporary” things become “traditional,” the previously “traditional” things become less relevant in many people’s minds. This cycle of tradition is how chestnuts made their way into, and then back out of, mainstream contra dance culture.

This major shift in contra dance repertoire is a hotly contested topic among dancers of different generations today. I interviewed several musicians with different perspectives on the benefits and drawbacks of this new contra dance culture. Older members of the community, such as Dudley Laufman, prefer the older, more traditional dances. Younger or more modern dancers prefer the more contemporary dances, which are often faster and feature more active couples. Still, there are plenty of younger musicians and dancers who are more traditional and prefer the older tunes and dances.

Having been around for both the pre– and post–folk revival contra dance culture, Laufman noticed that before the folk revival and contra dance surge (around the 1970s), people would often go to dances about three to four times a year, whereas now contra dance enthusiasts go much more frequently, like once a month or even once a week (Laufman). Laufman suggests that the frequency with which people dance affects their level of patience and appreciation for chestnuts, because they can start to lose their shine when you do them three to four times a month as opposed to three to four times a year.

Frank Ferrel, another one of my interviewees, is a Maritime fiddler from Maine and an important figure in New England contra dance. He also grew up before and right around the folk revival, so he too has seen a lot of changes over his lifetime. He expressed a sentiment similar to Laufman’s about the change in contra dance culture, saying that “it has become a thing that people are into, whereas it used to be just what the folks knew how to do in the local communities. Everyone showed up—they knew what to do. They knew how to balance and swing and give weight to their partner . . . and it has kind of become clubby” (Ferrel). Here, Ferrel expresses that contra dancing is now a niche hobby, not something situated within the fabric of widespread New England culture. And thus, to Laufman’s point, people are highly motivated to become “good” at contra dancing, and the more skilled you are, the more you want different, newer, and harder dances. This is how people became motivated to write new contra dances, which means that they incorporate newer and more complex choreography into dances and use contemporary contra dance tunes as opposed to the chestnuts. Popular contemporary dance tunes vary by region, but around New England some examples are “Dancing Bear” (Bob McQuillen), “Catharsis” (Amy Cann), “Amelia’s Waltz” (Bob McQuillen), “On the Danforth” (Keith Murphy), and “Flying Home to Shelley” (Paul Gitlitz), among others.

The Continued Relevance of Chestnuts

Although chestnuts have waned in popularity, most traditional musicians and dancers would argue that the tunes themselves continue to be an important part of the history and continuation of contra dance. I sat down with Lissa Schneckenberger, another influential New England fiddler, at the Acadia Festival of Traditional Music and Dance in Bar Harbor, Maine, to talk about this very issue. Schneckenberger grew up in Maine and now hails from Brattleboro, Vermont. She has played contra dance music since a young age but is also from a younger generation than both Ferrel and Laufman, so she has been alive only for the post-revival contra dance scene. Despite this, Schneckenberger believes that chestnuts are important from a historical perspective. She recorded an album called Dance in 2010, which featured almost entirely chestnuts, to promote this view. She told me that “history is helpful in terms of understanding what we are doing. It does provide important context—knowing what you are reacting to in a modern sense makes it much more interesting. But also, there is just relevance in beauty. A lot of the chestnuts are sweet, wonderful tunes. There is a fun aspect of playing something that is so old that you can feel connected to multiple generations” (Schneckenberger).

Dancing a waltz at a nightly contra dance with one of my interview subjects, musician Emily Troll, at the Acadia Festival of Traditional Music and Dance (my first fieldwork site) in June 2024.

Schneckenberger references the historical importance of chestnuts and suggests that each tune has its own story and can teach us about some small aspects of the contra dance tradition. But she also mentions the fact that chestnuts, because of their simplicity and “sweetness,” continue to be popular among musicians. A lot of New England musicians perform contra dance music without dancing. This is a new setting, but taking the tunes out of the dancing context gives the musician the freedom to interpret old tunes in new and creative ways. Because of this, many New England musicians or bands such as Lissa Schneckenberger, Frank Ferrel, and the Pine Tree Flyers are intentionally playing chestnuts in a performance setting to keep them current within the contra dance tradition.

Another way that chestnuts can remain relevant is by passing on these tunes to a new generation of musicians. I talked to Emily Troll at the Acadia Festival of Traditional Music and Dance about her view on chestnuts. She is very knowledgeable on dance tunes both past and present and is a member of dance bands Anadama and the Pine Tree Flyers, where she plays for dances and performances regularly. Both she and Lissa Schneckenberger are contra dance musicians who have played for dances and performed and taught New England tunes outside the context of dancing. They both mentioned in their interviews for this project that teaching chestnuts outside a dance context is imperative so that students understand the historical depth of the tunes themselves and how they fit within the contra dance tradition. And, furthermore, many chestnuts have a simpler melodic contour than many contemporary tunes, so they are easy to learn aurally—the method by which New England fiddle tunes are often passed down (Schneckenberger). Because of this, it is not hard to find people at a music or dance camp playing chestnuts together just for fun because, danced or not, they are a huge part of contra dance history and culture.

Conclusion

Through this project, I learned many foundational skills in archival, ethnographic, and secondary research. I learned how to conduct interviews and make professional connections, which will be very helpful as a musician in the traditional music world. In the short term, I plan to use my research to get my community at UNH excited about contra dance. With respect to longer-term projects, I would love to continue my work in a different context. Through my REAP experience, I discovered the subtopic of cultural anthropology as it relates to contra dancing, which is interesting to me and beyond the scope of this project.

This research reaffirmed for me that the contra dance community in New England is very much alive and thriving. My ethnographic exploration of the importance of chestnuts in contra dance helps explain the changes in this culture over the past few decades. It has become especially clear to me that in our increasingly disconnected society, social dancing is important because it is a fun, unique way to connect with other people, to build community, and to learn about folk traditions that are a part of our local culture. I am grateful for the opportunity to use my passion to create a grant-funded research project, and I am inspired to do more work with ethnographic research in ethnomusicology in the future.

First, thank you to Mr. Dana Hamel for funding this project and the Milne Special Collections in Dimond Library for allowing me to conduct and publish my research from your archives. Thank you to all my interview subjects who took time to lend me their experience and knowledge for this project: Frank Ferrel, Benjamin Foss, Dudley Laufman, Heather McAslan, Lissa Schneckenberger, and Emily Troll; as well as all the other members of the fiddle community who shared their ideas and helped me with my research! Last but not least, a huge thank you to my research mentor Rose Pruiksma and my fiddle teacher Katie McNally for helping me with my first ever big research project. I couldn’t have done this without you.

Bibliography

“chestnut.” The Oxford English Dictionary, definition 6.  Accessed September 28, 2024.

Brucher, Katherine. “Assembly Lines and Contra Dance Lines: The Ford Motor Company Music Department and Leisure Reform.” Journal of the Society for American Music 10, no. 4 (2016): 470–95. .

Curren, Thomas S. I Believe I’ll Go Back Home: Roots and Revival in New England Folk Music. University of Massachusetts Press, 2021. .

Dart, Mary McNab. Contra Dance Choreography: A Reflection of Social Change. Garland Studies in American Popular History and Culture. New York: General Music Publishing, 1995. .

Ferrel, Frank. Interview by the author. Bar Harbor, ME. June 24, 2024.

Foss, Benjamin. Interview by the author. Camp Neofa, Montville, ME. August 6, 2024.

Gilman, Lisa, and John Fenn. Handbook for Folklore and Ethnomusicology Fieldwork. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2019.

Ham, Lesley. “The End of a Revival: Contemporary New England Contra Dancing and Fiddling.” Routes and Roots (2012).

Hast, DE. “‘Choose Your Partners’! Contra Dance Square Dance Music of New Hampshire—Smithsonian Folkways SWF CD 40126.” World of Music 47, no. 1 (2005): 204–6.

Hast, Dorothea E. “Performance, Transformation, and Community: Contra Dance in New England.” Dance Research Journal 25, no. 1 (1993): 21–32. .

Holden, Rickey. The Contra Dance Book. Facs. ed. Lovendegem, Belgium: Anglo-American Dance Service, 1997.

Laufman, Dudley. Interview by the author. Camp Neofa, Montville, ME. August 6, 2024.

McAslan, Heather. Interview by the author. Bar Harbor, ME. June 27, 2024.

Risk, Laura. “Veillées, Variants, and Violoneux: Generic Boundaries and Transnational Trajectories in the Traditional Instrumental Music of Quebec.” Order No. 28250878, McGill University (Canada), 2016.

Schneckenberger, Lissa. Interview by the author. Bar Harbor, ME. June 27, 2024.

Smukler, David, David Millstone, and Country Dance and Song Society. “Cracking Chestnuts.” Country Dance and Song Society, 2008. Accessed June 18, 2024. .

Troll, Emily. Interview by the author. Bar Harbor, ME. June 27, 2024.

Author and Mentor Bios

Emilie Carroll is a sophomore pursuing a bachelor of arts in music liberal studies at the �鶹app in the Hamel Honors and Scholars College. A violinist and fiddler from Connecticut, she began playing at age five with Suzuki lessons before studying Celtic fiddle for ten years. Emilie recently recorded her second album with the Carroll Sisters Trio, featuring Celtic tunes for fiddle, cello, and piano. At UNH, she is a Symphony Orchestra section leader, a Youth Symphony coach, and co-founder of the Fiddle Club, where she teaches folk music by ear. Emilie is excited about using her research to educate others on folk music and dance to create more inclusive, community-driven spaces. 

Rose Pruiksma has been a lecturer in music history at the �鶹app since 2010. She teaches classes on music history, music in world cultures, film music, music and social change, and a general introduction to music. Her research has centered on music, dance, and identity in seventeenth-century court ballet and opera. 

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