Hello, Vic.

The openly expressed assumptions you cite in my article are a working hypothesis, and there's nothing original in the idea I cite of troubadour music being performed in free rhythm. It's been standard fare for decades among medieval music scholars. The key question is: why did troubadour music continue to be written in the non-mensural notation of Gregorian chant after mesnural music was available? This even extends, as the article shows, to the same tune being presented twice on the manuscript page, mensurally for dancing and non-mensurally for singing. We don't know why, but we have to make some working assumptions if troubadour songs are to be sung at all. I don't know anyone who uses rubato and free rhythm better than Martin, so his rendition of Georgie was the ideal choice to show what the free rhythm of troubadour songs may have sounded like, if that's how they were sung, and why it was impossible to notate. I always think having an example makes an idea come to life, rather than remaining a theory in abstraction.

I'd be interested to know what you mean by one sentence I don't understand: "These and other considerations reduce the impact of what is nevertheless an interesting hypothesis." Reduce the impact?

Your example of Charles Joseph "Buddy" Bolden is apposite. It underlines the point about reproducing *any* past music: music is dead on the page, and only comes to life in the hands or on the lips of a musician. However, if we care about investigating musical practice of past eras - as I do - we'll still want to find those sometimes uncertain jigsaw pieces and find it exciting to piece them together and see what picture emerges.

Leadfingers, Jerry and Raedwulf - I know what you mean, but when I play medieval banquets they get medieval music on medieval instruments.