the community that keeps tunes alive would probably have a lot in common with those who played tunes a couple of hundred years ago.

Interesting comment there, Les. I suspect that there were many varied social occasions for people playing their fiddles, etc., in years past. I mentioned the Alnwick gatherings where Billy Pigg and his mates played. Families would gather and provide communal food and drink, have the crack, do some dancing, listen to the musicians, go to sleep, wake up and set to a second time. (You can read all about this in the extensive and valuable sleeve notes on the original album "Billy Pigg" the border minstrel").

In Dickens and Hardy, there are quite a few scenes described where a lone fiddler or two fiddlers play all the tunes for a social dance ("A Christmas Carol", "The Pickwick Papers", "Under The Greenwood Tree", etc.). And I suppose music would have been played in public houses and inns - though I can't recall offhand anything in fiction that describes that. Other suggestions?