Pseudonymous wrote:
”As a former melodeon player I found WP's claim to be able to tell the ages of songs by whether they ended on a draw interesting/dubious... On his melodeon he had basically the notes for G major and D major. By definition he also has the notes for the relative 'natural minor' keys (E minor and B minor). Modes found by Sharp included mixolydian, aeolian and dorian and some tunes he found to be a mixture of/undecided between both. To play in E or B mixo Pardon would need but not have a major third (g# in Em; d# in B minor). This is does not have. Attempt to play in aeolian would founder on the lack of a major 6th (c in Em; G# in Bm)”

If you were once a melodeon player it must have been a long time ago. It’s very easy to play a Dorian scale in either E or A without even crossing the row. You can also play E Aeolian on the outer row except for the flat 6th, which is a C natural available on the inner row. You can play a mixolydian scale in D using the same C natural, but that ends on a push, so it’s not what we’re about here. Walter Pardon probably knew nothing of the modes identified by Sharp, but, from the songs in his own repertoire, I’d guess he was talking about a dorian scale as used, for instance, in the magnificent tune for ‘A Ship to Old England Came’, which I’ve just played on my trusty Saltarelle to make sure..

”The problem with WP is that what we know about him is so very heavily mediated that it is impossible to know what ideas got into his head through his long and close association with revivalist enthusiasts, some of whom had/have clear ideological agendas.”

I was hoping this tedious stuff about Walter Pardon having been ‘mediated’ might have died the death when the previous thread was closed. Harker’s concept of ‘mediation’ was aimed at collectors who did not do precisely what Yates, Carroll and others did, which was to allow the singer’s own voice to be heard.