Canada's Maritime Provinces-An Ethnomusicological Survey (Personal Observations and Recollections)

Abstract

Before 1909, when the late Dr. W. Roy Mackenzie was a young man, he used to frequent the wharves near his home at River John, Nova Scotia, where he loved to hear the sailors and fishermen sing. When he entered Harvard University and found himself a pupil of Professor George L. Kittredge, he became even more interested in the ballads and songs from his native town. And, with the realization that his summers were spent at home in a veritable collector's paradise, he set about to write them down. It took ten years (1909-1919) to result in The Quest of the Ballad, in which he related his experiences as a collector and gave examples of many songs. This was followed in 1928 by Ballads and Sea Songs From Nova Scotia with 162 songs, each with its scholarly note. These were the days of travel by horse and buggy, and Dr. Mackenzie tells how he talked of many subjects before coming to the purpose of his visit, while his wife sat in the carriage awaiting his call to join him in order to help him write down the words line by line. She was a charming and beautiful young woman, who on many an occasion Dr. Mackenzie would allow to do the talking so that any man at her bidding would immediately burst into song. To publish these songs with the proper comparative and descriptive notes, Dr. Mackenzie spent many hours in a Harvard University basement, where old British broadsides had been carelessly left to gather dust. These ballad sheets purchased by the university, had never been properly sorted, so he set himself upon this somewhat tedious task, which ultimately benefited his own research as well as those who succeeded him. While a young man, Dr. Mackenzie had to choose between becoming a concert pianist or a professor of English. He chose the latter so that his