What follows is testimonial. The forum certainly has value in my book. It was through this forum and the NPS that I found the encouragement and advice necessary to start playing the NSP. In Mississippi, USA no less. It is also how I found my set which arrived from Italy. Talk about globalization!
I am surrounded by a small but devoted band of Celtic (mostly Irish) trad musicians and none of us had even really heard of NSP or were familiar were the musical traditions surrounding the instrument. We are admittedly pretty disconnected as we are in the deep south of the US. But we are a well traveled group for the most part. Here Old Time trad, Delta Blues and Irish music are king but the genetic lineage of early folk here is from the border region of England/Scotland. David Hackett Fisher's book "Albion's Seed" provides a nice discussion of the settlement of the south by border folk. I grew up playing old time fiddle band music which was certainly not overtly Irish influenced until only very recently. But Irish music has become the international representative of music from the British Isles (no offense intended). It is nice to be exposed to the other even older living traditions. Since I started playing NSP through this forum I have discovered a world of tradi! tional music that is in fact related to the music I grew up playing. It is nice to know that the majority of the old time fiddle tunes I know are actually rants! Forums like this one serve societies like the NPS whose mission it is to preserve traditions through shared discussions and meetings. It may not be the exact best place to build a "how to" guide for all things NSP but it is the best place to discuss and promote the living tradition. It seems to be effective doing that. Promotion might mean promoting other websites maybe. The NPS forum is not in competition with other sites from my perspective. It seems to be helping to bring them into existence. Congratulations then on a job well done! Having said that, I do often get frustrated with the huge blocks of emails that hit my inbox. I am considering making a devoted gmail account for this forum alone for that reason. I think it is worth the effort for everyone's personal interests even to keep this forum going. Maybe I don't understand the real purpose of the list but it is a great place for people to promote other discussions and events etc. They just don't need to be hostile about it maybe. Reid On Jun 16, 2011, at 3:55 AM, "Alan Corkett" <a...@bcorkett.freeserve.co.uk> wrote: > Dear All > "Hear, Hear!" Julia! > Alan Corkett > > -----Original Message----- > From: lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu [mailto:lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu]On > Behalf Of Julia Say > Sent: 16 June 2011 09:43 > To: Dartmouth nsp list N.P.S. site; Dave S > Subject: [NSP] Re: divorce > > > > On 16 Jun 2011, Dave S wrote: > >> This list served the purpose of introducing the beginner(shy >> fence-sitter to brash young expert) to light >> conversation/disagreement/proposition on all subjects around the >> wonderful instrument known as the NSP. It has done this well for a good >> number of years, > > I think it will continue to do that. I have noticed over many years that > after > any..er...altercation, the list goes very quiet for a while as we all tiptoe > away > and let things calm down. (Well OK most of us. I'm sure the early archives > would > show me doing regular foot in mouth exercises before I learnt to shut up > occasionally). > > I expect the same to happen again this time. > > And like Francis, I think the lists and the various forums and groups are > complementary. It's a shame that there have to be so many as it's > time-consuming to > check them all, but on balance I think that over the years they have helped > a lot > of people to a greater understanding of the piping world and introduced a > lot of > people to our instrument. > > Julia > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > > > > > >
