The music for Morris is important; it is not enough just to be able to play the tune, it needs a special lift and rhythmic quality to allow the dancers to dance at their best.
A good Morris musician will have an empathy and intrinsic understanding of the different Morris dance forms and be able to interpret that in their playing for the dancers to respond to.
- Traditionally there was a sole Morris musician who played either a pipe and tabor (drum) or concertina. Due to the growing popularity of other free reed instruments such as melodeon and accordion with their portability and volume for dancers to hear, these rapidly gained favour as the Morris instruments of choice, either as a single musician or more than one.
- Some Morris Sides choose to include a wider range of instruments e.g. guitar, fiddle, whistles and drums etc to augment the music for the dancers. This requires a great deal of cohesion and discipline to ensure the tempo is kept together and doesn’t `drift’ and so `throw out’ the dancers
- A `Lead’ musician is often used (similar to a lead violin or conductor in an orchestra) who sets the pace, style and tempo for the other musicians to follow. This ensures the tightness and cohesion needed for the dancers. The Lead musician liaises with the Foreman and Squire to set the musical requirements for the dance/dancers and assists the other musicians to achieve the agreed Side style
- North West Morris traditionally make use of brass bands in the northern tradition, and often feature a big drum to emphasise the beat over the percussive clogs of the dancers. Border Morris can also feature a drum, but it is not `traditional’ in Costwold dances
- The dance tunes are drawn from many sources. Some of the Cotswold tunes are very old - for example ' Trunkles ' - while others come from the music hall era (' Getting Upstairs ' and ' Old Black Joe '). It is probably true to say that they were generally popular tunes of the day adapted to fit the dances.
A much-relied upon source book is A Handbook of Morris Dances by Lionel Bacon - most often referred to as the "Black Book". Another good source is the `Morris Books’ published by Dave Mallinson (Cotswold Morris Tunes books 1 & 2) Dave Mallinson's Web Page