Hellos apiece
I apologise for my tardiness in replying to so many enjoyable messages but weave been away in heaven (aka Glenelg) and are only just getingt around to emails. Dick, can I turn to you first and say thatas a great idea. Yes, please. As for the rant business, for me the fascinating thing is its popularity in Northumberland - not just for the obvious Morpeth Rant, The Rifleman and Corn Rigs but also dances such as The Dashing White Sergeant, Eightsome Reel and even the Gay Gordons. It canat be overstated that dance provided the backbone for most of the music forms in north Northumberland when we moved there in 1976/77. Whole communities were involved and even as new-comers Carole & I were made welcome and often stopped on Alnwick streets by locals (and sometimes in the road by a particularly zealous Northumbria Bus inspector who halted not just us & the bus he was on but all traffic behind each vehicle) to talk about bookings, dances and music they had heard. During our time at Mount Hooley Cottage there were often two village dances a week. I had great nights at Whittingham, Glanton, Powburn, Ingram, Wooler, Bolton, Low Barton, Rothbury, Alnwick, Lesbury, Warkworth and Netherton. Callers were unheard of and dance floors would be heaving with people that knew what they were doing. There were also what I called "big" dances with visiting bands. These started at 10pm, supper would be served from midnight and the dance went on till about 3am and even 6am on one occasion at Powburn (Hedgely). As for Alnwick Pipers meetings, these were more like a dance band rehearsal. The line up was typically George Mitchell (piano), Will Atkinson, (mouthie), Ron Purvis (fiddle), Will Taylor (fiddle), Peter Corkhill (fiddle), Jack Dodd (banjo), Jimmy Little (pipes & mouthie), Carolyn Dickson (pipes), Joe Hutton (pipes), Carole & me (pipes). Reels were all in the rant style and standard jigs such as aSaddle the Ponya were done in a two-step dance style! When APS had their annual dinner dance theread be at least three different bands so the musicians had more opportunity to dance than play. One on my loveliest memories is of Will Taylor dancing the Morpeth Rant. As a number one man head turn out and rant a lovely arc outside the set to meet up with the number two man to form the arches before the right-hand star, beautiful! When did all this start? Will Taylor took his inspiration from Nancyas grandfather Tommy Marshall so that would take us back to well into the 19^th century but this is fairly academic. The important question is a does this style of playing appeal to the modern ear? Judging by the enthusiastic comments received in response to the session music from Rothbury 90 on the CD, it certainly does! Typical comments such as, arollicking a now I understand the difference between rant and reela and my favourite, aitas great how such disciplined music can sound so excitinga. People can play in whatever style suits them but if people want to do something genuinely Northumbrian they have a choice of the virtuoso Clough/Peacock repertoire (akin to Ceol Mohr for me) or the more accessible, but still non-intuitive, Ceol Beag which, for me, is the dance music of north Northumberland. If anyone is interested, Iam about to redo the session tracks from the above CD pitch-shifted to F without time compensation to make these easier for pipers to play along to. Just let me know if youad like a copy. As aye Anthony -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
