Books, Articles, and Academic Studies - Music

There are a small number of studies of vernacular instrumental music. These include books, articles, and academic theses, which I will add as I become aware of them.

See also Dance Bibliography for research on Dance.

Addison, Amelie; ‘National airs’ in the life and works of William Shield (1748-1829). PhD thesis, University of Leeds. 2023. PDF

Bartram, Chris; The Fiddle in Southern England [1]; Yorkshire Dales Workshops, n.d.

Bearman, C.J.; The English Folk Music Movement 1898-1914 part of Doctoral Thesis. PDF

Boyes, Georgina (2010). The Imagined Village: Culture, ideology and the English Folk Revival. London: No Masters Cooperative Limited. ISBN 978-0-9566227-0-9

Campbell, Stephen William John; Doctor of Philosophy University of York,Department of Music, October 2012 Reconsidering and Contextualising the Vernacular Tradition: Popular Music and British Manuscript Compilations (1650–2000) PDF

Chandler, Keith; Articles on English traditional musicians on the Mustrad website [2]

Chappell, William; Popular Music of the Olden Time. 1855. 2 Vols. A collection of Ancient Songs, Ballads, and Dance Tunes, illustrative of the National Music of England. With short introductions to the different reigns and notices of the airs from writers of the 16th and 17th centuries. Also a short account of the Minstrels. By W. Chappell, F.S.A. The Whole of the Airs harmonized by G.A. MacFarren. Never out of print! PDF at IMSLP

Cooke, Peter; The Fiddle Tradition of the Shetland Isles; The author's PhD thesis completed at the University of Edinburgh in 1982. The book has long been out of print. Zip file with 34 accompanying tracks. School of Scottish Studies

Cooper, Paul; A very interesting series of well-researched short papers on the subject of the dances and tunes of the Regency Period [3]

Dellow, Becky; Fiddler's Tunebooks; PhD student and fiddle player, Rebecca Dellow, writes about her musicological research into C19th amateur musicians and their manuscripts. [4]

Eldon, Jim; Article on Billy Harrison, fiddler, on the Mustrad website [5]

Emmerson, George S.;Rantin’ Pipe and Tremblin’String: A History of Scottish Dance Music; Montreal:McGill – Queen’s University Press, 1971.

Faulds, Katrina; Invitation to the Dance:Social Dance and Dance Music in the English Country House 1800-1850; PhD Diss, University of Southampton; follow link to PDF

Faulds, Katrina (2015); Invitation pour la danse: Social dance, dance music and feminine identity in the English country house c.1770-1860; University of Southampton, Faculty of Humanities, Doctoral Thesis , 389pp Link

Fleischmann, Aloys and Mícheál ÓSúilleabháin; Sources of Irish Traditional Music C. 1600–1855; New York and London:Galland,1998.

Gammie, Ian and Derek McCulloch; Jane Austens Music: The musical world of Jane Austen; St Albans: Corda Music Publications, 1996.

Gammon, Vic; Manuscript Sources of Traditional Dance Music in Southern England, PhD thesis, published in Traditional Dance 4 (1986): pp53-72. Available, with much else, on Vic's personal web site [6];

Gammon, Vic; Articles on English traditional musicians on the Mustrad website [7]

Hall, Reg; I Never Played to Many Posh Dances; Major work on English Dance music, available as PDF download from Mustrad website [8]

Hall, Reg; A Few Tunes Of Good Music: A History of Irish Music and Dance in London; Major work (1000 pages) on Irish Dance Music, available as a flip book

Harker, Dave; FAKESONG: The Manufacture of British Folk Song, 1700 to the Present Day (Popular Music in Britain) 1985

Heath-Coleman, Philip; Articles on English traditional dance music on the Mustrad website [9]

Hield, Fay; Research in Folk Music. webpage

Holderness, Chris; Articles on English traditional musicians on the Mustrad website [10]

Howson, John; Articles on English traditional musicians on the Mustrad website [11]

Johnson, David; Music and Society in Lowland Scotland in the Eighteenth Century; Edinburgh: Mercat Press, 2003

Keegan-Phipps, Simon; Teaching folk : the educational institutionalization of folk music in contemporary England; 2008; PhD Thesis, Newcastle University; Link

Kuntz, Andrew; Tune History Articles, An extensive series of individual tune histories written as articles for Fiddler Magazine over a long period by A. Kuntz. PDFs

Little, Alice; Research, PhD on the work Of John Malchair [12]

Long, Paul; An Entirely New Englishness. The Post-War Folk Revival and the Renegotiation of National Identity. 2007 Ch.6

Long, Paul; The Fantasy of the Lower Classes: The Post-War Folk Revivaland the Politics of Culture 2008 Ch.2

Marsh, Christopher; Music and Society in Early Modern England, review

Murphy, Judith; SELLING COALS TO NEWCASTLE:The media and publishing in relation to North Eastern folk music, 1945-1975 PDF

Pendlebury, Celia; (2015) Jigs, Reels and Hornpipes: A History of "Traditional" Dance Tunes of Britain and Ireland; [13] MPhil thesis, University of Sheffield. (on the page, go to the box labelled "text" to access). Also contains a useful bibliography.

Plus a thoughtful review of the above [14]

Pickering, Michael; Articles on English traditional musicians on the Mustrad website [15]

Roberts, Christopher; Music and Society in Eighteenth-Century Yorkshire PhD Thesis, 2014, and others. Academia

Seattle, Matt; Harmonic Proportion; Extracted from The Master Piper (3rd edition), Matt Seattle, Hawick, 2011, with permission; "The term Harmonic Proportion, already used in art and architecture, is applied here to a group of ideas or principles which have gradually coalesced from a study of Border pipe tunes"

Stevens, Greg; Article on William Irwin on the Mustrad website [16]

Stewart, Pete; The triple Time Hornpipe; 'The early history of the hornpipe from the middle of the 16th century following its development into the triple time versions of the second half of the 17th century and early 18th century'. Also The Origins of the Common Time Hornpipe and three other papers PDFs at Academia

Summers, Keith; English Country Music: A Tradition in Isolation?; Article on the Mustrad website [17]

Williams, Dave; Stan Seaman, Melodeon Player; Article on the Mustrad website [18]

Yates, Cynzia; Excavating Notes: Archaeology of Canon in Manx Traditional Music, PhD Ethnomusicology, Cardiff University 2013, website

Yates, Cynzia; "…while the others did some capers": the Manx Traditional Dance revival 1929 to 1960, Master of Arts in Manx Studies Final dissertation, University of Liverpool 2006

Yates, Cynzia; The Andreas Flute Book, Batchelor of Music Final year dissertation, University of Wales, Cardiff 2002

Yates, Mike; Articles on English traditional musicians on the Mustrad website [19]

Conference Reports

International Council for Traditional Music:Study Group on Historical Sources of Folk Music. Conference Report, Copenhagen April 1995. Facsimile available at Google Books. You may need to translate some of it!

National Early Music Association, The Hornpipe (© 1993) Papers from a Conference held at Sutton House, Homerton, London E9 6JQ [20]

Play It Like It Is : Fiddle and Dance Studies from around the North Atlantic. Russell , I & Alburger , M A (eds) 2006 , Play It Like It Is : Fiddle and Dance Studies from around the North Atlantic . Elphinstone Institute Occasional Publication , no. 5 , University of Aberdeen, Elphinstone Institute , Aberdeen . PDF

Journals

The Folk Music Journal. The peer-reviewed journal of the EFDSS. Contents pages are on the FMJ website.

Magazines containing published un-refereed learned articles

English Dance & Song is the organ of the EFDSS. It has a web site where extra content is included for each issue.

Musical Traditions (Mustrad) Internet magazine containing many articles and reviews. [21]

See also Dance Bibliography for research on Dance.