Well said Margaret! There was also, in addition to the list you
gave, the "Emmerson" manuscript from Whittingham. You might remember
publishing 4 tunes from it in the first Alnwick Pipers Tune Book.
Balanced against all this, of course, is the wonderful quote from
Willie Taylor, "I know nothing about music"! I suspect there have been
dozens if not hundreds down the ages who might have made similarly
inaccurate claims!
Just to make it quite clear - it seems to me even the dots-literate
people were immersed heavily in the music and jotted tunes down to aid
their own memory as much as anything else. Very good idea but
whether such players learnt their material primarily from the dots
rather than the musicians around them is an interesting question and
the starting point of my original thread.
The second point is that because most players weren't dots-literate it
is difficult to draw concrete conclusons about their everyday
repertoire.
What a pity we took so long to develop decent sound recorders!!
Cheers
Anthony
P.S Once the Duchess's School became comprehensive they dropped Chevy
Chase the song and got me to play it on the pipes which I did until I
left in 1993. I was a good boy in those days and eschewed bribes form
the staff to pipe the Duchess in with "Keep Your Feet Still Geordie
Hinny". An opportunity lost I fear.
--- On Mon, 2/11/09, Margaret Watchorn <marga...@wyngarth7.fsnet.co.uk>
wrote:
From: Margaret Watchorn <marga...@wyngarth7.fsnet.co.uk>
Subject: [NSP] Re: [BULK] Re: [nsp] file
To: nsp@cs.dartmouth.edu
Date: Monday, 2 November, 2009, 4:02 PM
I've found the recent comments about music in north Northumberland very
interesting. I grew up among those who learned and played by ear (Joe
Hutton, Will Atkinson, Jimmy Little, the Cheviot Ranters band in its
various
line-ups, and my dad, among many others) and owe them a great deal -
including dozens of splendid tunes which still live in my head, if not
on
paper.
When I was learning the pipes in 1974/75 with Joe at Alnwick Pipers
Society,
it was clear that he could also 'read the dots' when necessary. George
Mitchell of the Cheviot Ranters was a very competent (and beautifully
neat)
amanuensis for other members of the band, and it's evident from some of
the
old sheets of manuscript I have that Willy Miller (fiddle player) could
also
jot down a tune when necessary.
There are a few wonderful hand-written manuscripts from north
Northumberland
from the early and mid nineteenth century which indicate that some
ordinary
folk were competent music readers and writers. William Dobson of West
Thirston (a joiner and fishing rod maker) filled his manuscript book
with
favourite tunes for the fiddle, including second parts for some
melodies,
beautifully written over a period of at least thirty years. The
inclusion of
about 20 hymn and metrical psalm tunes notated in up to four parts in a
West
Gallery style (tune often in the tenor line) indicates that he had some
connection with a non-conformist chapel.
William Darling of Bamburgh (c. 1810) also kept a manuscript book. His
own
attempts at composition are sometimes rudimentary - bar lines in the
wrong
place, note lengths not always accurate etc - but he clearly understood
the
basic principles of notation, as did John Readshaw and George Wallace,
just
over the border into Cumbria.
So there's definitely evidence of people being able to read/notate
music in
north Northumberland, as well as plenty of examples of those who play
(or
played) by ear.
Best wishes
Margaret
PS As Anthony pointed out in a different thread, the school song of the
former Duchess's Grammar School in Alnwick was Chevy Chase, the first
and
last verses of which we sang at every prize giving. If the duchess took
too
long to process through the hall and reach the platform, we were
instructed
to sing the first verse again - nobody thought of teaching us the
remaining
90+!!
From: Anthony Robb [mailto:[1]anth...@robbpipes.com]
Sent: 02 November 2009 09:32
To: [2]...@cs.dartmouth.edu; Paul Gretton
Subject: Re: [NSP] Re: [BULK] Re: [nsp] file
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 <[3]i...@gretton-willems.com> wrote:
From: Paul Gretton <[4]i...@gretton-willems.com>
Subject: [NSP] Re: [BULK] Re: [nsp] file
To: [5]...@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
To get on or off this list see list information at
[6]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
__________ NOD32 4565 (20091102) Information __________
This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system.
[7]http://www.eset.com
--
References
1. http://uk.mc5.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=anth...@robbpipes.com
2. http://uk.mc5.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=...@cs.dartmouth.edu
3. http://uk.mc5.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=i...@gretton-willems.com
4. http://uk.mc5.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=i...@gretton-willems.com
5. http://uk.mc5.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=...@cs.dartmouth.edu
6. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
7. http://www.eset.com/
