Orpheus will not be joining the chat. Jane's 15-day post history and her first respondent here was good for a chuckle. Might be she just forgot where she left her computer.

All four of the linked songs above were dance & show tunes before they began turning up as capstan & sailor songs. The word "shanty" does not appear in the same sources.

Having a fiddler or fifer on board was an upper/middle management decision when the ship's company was being formed up on dry land. If you were to be the song leader (boatswain &c) the choice was, at least partly, your own. If you were just another shlep on a capstan bar, you did what everybody else did.