Stewart McCoy  Tue, 11 Jan 2000 21:17:22 -0000
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Dear Lutenetters,

Thank you so much for introducing yourselves in response to Scott's e-mail.
Here is my contribution to the thread.

I live in Wollaton, Nottinghamshire, with a wonderful wife. We have three
sons: a mathematician, a bellringer, and a pianist. From my bedroom window I
can see Wollaton Hall, built in 1588 by Francis Willoughby, who owned the
Willoughby Lute Book. You can imagine how lovely it has been over the years,
being able to play music from [a facsimile of] that book in that Hall, for
formal concerts, for evenings of Elizabethan dancing, or for schoolchildren
enjoying a Tudor Day there.

My interest in early music began one afternoon when I was browsing
absent-mindedly through books in Nottingham Central Library. I happened to
pick up one which had pictures of old instruments: viols, shawms, crumhorns,
lutes, etc. At this time I was tiring of playing bluegrass banjo and
clawhammer styles on the guitar, and needed a new direction. What did people
play on shawms and viols? Could you get hold of such things today? Within a
few weeks I had bought my first early instruments from the Bradford Early
Music Shop: a treble viol and a bass crumhorn, together with some London Pro
Musica music. The instruments were expensive, and I knew nothing at all
about them. That was in 1973.

At this time, if you bought a new viol from the Early Music Shop, they would
pay your first year's subscription to the Viola da Gamba Society. So I ended
up going to one of the VdGS meetings in London, expecting to meet a load of
ancient pedants. I was just 24 years old then, wearing bright red flared
trousers, carrying a copy of The Sun and a treble viol, and yes, there were
a lot of very nice people, who were quite a bit older than me. The first man
I met was Gordon Dodd, a very kind gentleman, who made me most welcome, and
who many years later was to encourage me to edit viol music for the Viola da
Gamba Society. He was also to help me get into King's College, London, to
study for a Master's degree in historical musicology. (That was where I was
to make friends with Antonio Corona.)

At that first London meeting I was advised to learn the viol at the Viol
Summer School in Cheltenham, which I did. This was followed by another five
years on the Lute Society course in Cheltenham, where I made many
long-standing friends, including Martin Shepherd and Gordon Gregory. I
bought my first lute in 1975.

Since those halcyon days I have played in lots of concerts, edited musicfor
the lute and viol, written a few articles and reviews, taught on courses
(including fun times in Latvia, with Oleg Timofeyev one year and Peter
Martin the next). Apart from early music, I still enjoy playing rags onthe
piano, watching Nottingham Forest play football, drinking real ale,
juggling, and trying to study a bit of Italian and Latvian.

Stewart McCoy.