Melodeon.net is a remarkably interesting and helpful resource if you're a box player. One of the things they do is have a "tune of the month" where members vote on a tune out of a list of four and then everyone is invited to post their rendition of it on [1]youtube.com. The moderators also select a theme, like "Irish tunes" or "wedding tunes" or something like that. I have found this to be a real boost to my learning to play the melodeon, learning tunes, connecting with folks around the world, getting good advice. The remarkable thing is that I haven't come across a negative comment or any comment that wasn't made with the best intentions. Of course, people do have their favorite instruments and styles, etc., and some have their bugaboos, but overall it's a very encouraging internet community.
Perhaps, we could doing something like this here on the NSP newsgroup. If even only a few people think this is a good idea and want to participate I think it would be a good way to keep the conversation going and help each other out. It also gives something for people to work towards, like a competition without the stress and judgement. Perhaps one of the reasons the melodeon group is so friendly is that they don't have competition built into their culture the way pipers do. (For a diatribe on the subject see my editorial at [2]www.theotherpipers.org). Anyway, if this seems like an interesting idea to enough people perhaps we could name a "tune of the month" for June by this coming weekend. cheers, John Dally -- References 1. http://youtube.com/ 2. http://www.theotherpipers.org/ To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
