Dear Paul
As Philip G. points out, some good points but hardly germane. I think I
made it clear that I was speaking very particularly, in fact here is
the quote from my original email refering to the region I was focussing
on, "the outlying districts of north Northumberland".
I was talking about the people I lived amongst and were the traditional
players of north Northumberland, i.e. the people at the heart of the
discussion. None of the 20th century "musical heavyweights" from that
region were dots readers and had all learnt by ear as had their
predecessors. It was not a general statement; it was a particular one
of importance to those discussing the music of Northumberland in terms
of notated music and drawing conclusions from it.
Cheers
Anthony
--- On Sun, 1/11/09, Paul Gretton <i...@gretton-willems.com> wrote:
From: Paul Gretton <i...@gretton-willems.com>
Subject: [NSP] Re: [BULK] Re: [nsp] file
To: nsp@cs.dartmouth.edu
Date: Sunday, 1 November, 2009, 6:20 PM
Anthony Robb wrote:
>>>dot reading was an extremely rare skill at the time
If you mean specifically among players of the NSP (or the fiddle, then
perhaps - I wouldn't know.
But if you mean in general, then that is a far too sweeping statement.
Musical literacy was my no means uncommon, even among the working
class. You
are ignoring the influence of the Sunday school system, particularly
among
Nonconformists, and the self-improvement movement among the so-called
"better" working class, with the miners being among the leaders. Large
numbers of "ordinary" people could read music - witness the great
Handel
festivals and organisations like the Huddersfield Choral Society.
Cheers,
Paul Gretton
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