RE: instruments

I suck at the fiddle and I stay away from woodwinds. Too easy to get winded, especially playing outdoors and/or aboard ship, which I have done and shall do.

I tend to skew the story more towards the instruments a pirate would have encountered in places other than his native land. The Spanish would have exposed a pirate to guitars and their cousins, the Italians to mandolins and their ilk. One of the earlier forms of banjo was listed on the manifest of a pirate ship; one of the crew apparently came across a gourd-type banjo instrument when dealing with Africans or trading with someone.

We need to remember that pirates were the result of the "folk process" of elitist politics crossing with the self-preservationist bent of the average non-rich, non-commissioned sailor.

Thus, they went "out of bounds", socially, politically and legally, and they absorbed a lot of musical, linguistic, sartorial and other influences along their journeys.