Francis, "Parlour' could be considered 'folk', in that it is an 'intimate' 'ritualistic' social performance.
But again this is where we get into the difficulties of defining folk, and wether or not it is the domain of the 'working class'. Reg Hall thinks it is, 'folk music belongs to people lower down the social scale' (Hall 1999 p8). I 'disagree', and would suggest that because of patronage, elites engaged with folk music. This assumes an easy distinction between the classes which is not really a debate for this site, rather their is a wide spectrum of social scales in between our stereotypical assumptions So if we remove the distinction, we see a social relationship that suggest Folk Music belongs to all the people. whatever their class. This cuts through the romantic notion of not just the 'shepherd' but also the 'miner' etc. On the Wright Allan's suggestion that he is playing playing NSP to connect with his roots....nothing wrong with that. If any of us think that playing NSP or any other instrument is 'not' a representation of our identities then we need to look closer. Steve D -------------- Original message ---------------------- From: Francis Wood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > On 26 Aug 2008, at 10:38, Ormston, Chris wrote: > > > whether NSP were ever much of a 'folk' instrument > > Never. A parlour instrument from the very start. > > Francis > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
