In naming the project it was difficult to describe the territory that we had in mind without being too narrow or begging preconceived notions. ‘Village Music’ merely refers to the feel of the project, because the terms ‘community music’, ‘urban music’, ‘folk dance music’, etc. don’t describe our raw material with any accuracy. Our music was and is played in towns and villages, for weddings and wakes, by and for most classes in English society. It relates well to the music of our Celtic neighbours and there is much correspondence with similar musics elsewhere in the world. Please have a look at what we are studying and if you have anything to contribute, we would be pleased to talk to you.

Aims

To promote the awareness of the rich history of England’s traditional music, dance and song through the study of it’s manuscripts and recordings.

To elevate the status of England’s rural and urban musical heritage and to relate it to that of its neighbours in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

To encourage the performance of English traditional music, especially by the younger musicians.

To enable original research in the fields of musicology, ethno-musicology, social history and cultural studies.

To encourage the publishing of musical material for the use in education, research and entertainment.

Objectives

To locate original manuscript material and published dance book, and assemble copies in suitable form to enable access to a variety of people for research and performance.

To transcribe original material into more legible forms to enable better usage.

To safeguard precious historic materials by making high quality copies and reducing the need for individual inspection of the originals.

To publish material where possible, using a variety of methods especially multi-media including CD-ROM and World Wide Web but also including printed material.

To attract a variety of assistance, both financial and practical, in identifying, collecting, copying, storing, transcribing, cataloguing and disseminating material.