Music of Sussex

The historic county of Sussex in southern England has a rich musical heritage that encompasses the genres of folk, classical and rock and popular music amongst others. With the unbroken survival of its indigenous music, Sussex was at the forefront of the English folk music revivals of the 19th and 20th centuries. Many classical composers have found inspiration in Sussex, and the county continues to have a thriving musical scene across the musical genres. In Sussex by the Sea, the county has its own unofficial anthem.

Perhaps the first known musical instrument from Sussex is the so-called 'Sussex horn', a variant of the Bronze Age Irish horn. Dating from around 900BC this instrument was found in the late 18th century at the bottom of a well in Battle.

Of all the counties in England, it is Sussex that appears to have drawn the greatest attention from folk song collectors over a period of some 130 years. This was due to a flourishing tradition of folk dance, mummers plays (known in Sussex as Tipteers' or Tipteerers' plays) and folk song, but also in part because of the rural nature of the county in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and yet its relatively close proximity to London.

Passed on through oral tradition, many of Sussex's traditional songs may not have changed significantly for centuries, with their origins perhaps dating as far back as the time of the South Saxons. Writing in 1752, John Burton commented on the "sharp pitch" and "goatish noise" of the Sussexians, which William Henry Hudson thought still held true when writing nearly 150 years later.

What strikes me as the most curious and interesting about their singing - their love of high-pitched voices, and, in many of their ballads their go-as-you-please tuneless tuneful manner, with the prolonging of some notes at random and "bleating out of goatish noises" - is its resemblance to the singing of the Basques, which is perhaps the most primitive kind of vocal music that survives in Europe. This Basque singing in its turn reminds me of all the Indians' singing I have heard in South America, including that of the Tehuelches, the Patagonian nomad race... The Basques and the red men, like our Sussexians, are fond of shrillness and acute sounds, but do not, like the East Indians, cultivate falsetto.

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