Click here for a paper by Janet Harbison D.Litt., M.A., L.T.C.L., T.T.C.T.
Ancient, Diverse and Still Evolving

In 1980, Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann invited Janet to write the chapter on Irish Harp in their manual for adjudicators, and this started the process of trying to explain the criteria of excellence in the Irish music tradition. Up to then, this would never have been verbalized like much of the process of Irish music-making. This includes what people call the basic ornamentation used by every traditional musician in the interpretation of even the most basic dance tunes - if the ornaments themselves have names, there is a vast variety of descriptives - so writing for tradition 'insiders' presented some challenges.


It was also likely that this manual would be used by Irish musicians in the emigrant communities, such as America, many of whom will have received 'classical' music education.
Immediately, addressing the perceptions of the 'classical' musician and the definition of the differences between the music forms and transmission processes would be controversial as 'classical' music education was commonly held as 'proper music education'! It often proved exceptionally difficult to persuade 'classical' musicians that there were different 'understandings' within traditional music making - particularly regarding the harp when the classical harp technique was persuasively imposed on aspiring harp players no matter what music they aimed to play. Being a classically trained pianist, but a traditional harper, Janet was in a unique position to educate one tradition to the other and visa versa. When employed at the Ulster Folk Museum, she was involved in the setting of the set works for Traditional Music in the GCSE schools curriculum. This also involved the writing of text books for the use of classically trained teachers who needed to teach and understand the mores of traditional music-making in the school classroom.