Music

Category Editor Paul Burgess

Music is an integral part of singing and dancing and often an accompaniment to other activities like processions and ceremonials.

Folk tunes are very often divorced from their original setting and played just for the joy of it.

Here we can pool information about where the tunes came from, who published them and when, what they were used for, who used them, how they travelled and where they are to be found now.

Books

• 'The Fiddler of Helperby' The Life & Music of a Yorkshire fiddler Yorkshire James Merryweather & Matt Seattle (1994)
• 'Joshua Jackson' Tunes, Songs & Dances from the 1798 Manuscript of Yorkshire Bowen & Shepherd - Yorkshire Dales Workshop (1998)
• 'The Ironbridge Hornpipe', A Shropshire Tune Collection from John Moore's Manuscripts - Gordon Ashman - Dragonfly Music (1991)
• 'Northern Frisk' A Treasury of Tunes from North West England - Jamie Knowles/Pat Knowles/Ian McGrady - Dragonfly Music (1988)
• 'The Coleford Jig' Traditional Tunes From Gloucestershire - Charles Menteith/Paul Burgess - 2nd edition (2007)

Manuscripts

Many musicians over the centuries have written down their repertoire in music books and some of the old ones have survived into the 21st century. The oldest one so far identified was written down by Henry Atkinson of Morpeth Northumberland and is dated on one page - 1694.

Some good work has been done in transcribing these books and making them available as paper published tunebooks or as abc collections on the internet.

Manuscripts by County

Resources

• The Village Music Project
  

A study of English social musicians from the 17th Century onwards from their manuscripts. Contains information about fiddle manuscripts, plus many of their contents transcribed into abc format.
http://www.village-music-project.org.uk/

• The Farne Project
  

A selection of texts, pictures and recordings of Northumbrian Traditional Music, including a number of traditional tune resources. There are scans of one of the oldest tune manuscripts in England written down by Henry Atkinson in 1694. There are recordings by a variety of musicians including Willy Taylor, Joe Hutton and Will Atkinson.
The Farne Project

Traditional Players

Here's a list to kick things off.

England

• Will Atkinson
• Stephen Baldwin
• Billy Ballantine
• Percy Brown
• Walter Bulwer
• Bob Cann
• Bertie Clark
• Billy Cooper
• Jimmy Cooper
• Septimus Fawcett
• Adam Gray
• Tom Hunter
• Joe Hutton
• Bill Kimber
• Arthur Marshall
• Ned Pearson
• Fred Pigeon
• Jim Rutherford
• Willy Taylor
• Scan Tester
• Jinky Wells
• Font Whatling
• Fred Whiting
• Arnold Woodley
• Oscar Woods

Instruments

Fiddle Viola Cello Double Bass Melodeon Piano Accordion Button Accordion Flute Piano Jaw Harp Harmonica