Money Musk
Traditional, always danced to the tune of the same name
Triple and proper (1,4, etc., active) older contra dances.
Tune: Money Musk
A1 16 Actives allemande right once and a half; go outside, below one couple
A2 8 Forward six and back
8 Actives allemande right three quarters around, to lines of six across the hall
B1 8 Forward six and back
8 Actives allemande right three quarters to place
B2 16 Top two couples (1s and 2s) right and left through (across and back)
Money Musk
Al 1-4 1st right hand star once and half around.
A2 1-4 1s cast down into 2nd place, 2s moving up taking hands in lines of three
(with hands) balance forward and back.
B1 1-4 right-hand turn three quarters around, until 1st man is between the
2s (those three facing down) and 1st woman is between the 3s (those three facing up).
B2 1-4 Taking hands in lines of three across, all balance forward and back (2 bars).
1s right-hand turn three quarters around, ending in 2nd place proper (2 bare).
C 1-8 1s and 2s, four changes of rights and lefts.
Often, the dance is compressed into 24 bars (48 beats), by reducing each forward-and-back to four beats and/or by speeding up the allemandes. Some versions of this compression are given below.
The Money Musk tune has 4 parts, each of 8 bars; and each part is played just once through. For a 24-bar dance, the tune is shortened, usually by eliminating the fourth part.
The tune for Money Musk originated in Scotland in 1776 and the first dance instructions appeared in 1785. By 1792, the tune and dance had made it to North America, and both spread rapidly. (Many of today's dancers first encountered the phrase Money Musk when they were children, reading Little House in the Big Woods; it was a tune that Laura's Pa played on his fiddle.)
Archibald Grant was the 2nd Baronet of Monymusk, and after his expulsion from the Commons in 1732 after the failure of some dubious speculation in mines with the funds of the Charitable Corporation, he retired to Monymusk, where he pioneered advanced farming methods and new crops such as clover. The name means “noxious weed” in Gaelic.