"Keep the definitions coming, I enjoy ignoring them" - now there's an open mind if I ever saw one!
Cap'n - why do you insist on doing this - haven't you got enough bruises already?
I am not just a collector any more than I am just an electrician (any more than I am sure you are not just somebody trying to make a living as a singer). Pat and I set out to meet traditional singers in order to find answers to questions such as this one. Walter Pardon, Tom Lenihan (Clare) and Mikeen McCarthy (Irish Traveller) were happy to oblige and we thought their contributions worthwhile enough to pass on too others, so we made it available via the NSA and ITMA. If you would like to compare it with your own researches you are more than welcome to do so - I would be fascinated to hear your conclusions.
I don't know if there is much more to be collected. Azizi's list summed it up for me, though a couple of categories apply to the US rather than this side of the pond.
Childrens' songs certainly have proved a rich source in the past, but I am not sure how much the one-to-one nature of mobile phone texting has affected the the communal communication that once went on in the schoolyard - I hope it still goes on.
I confess I have always found football chants, while interesting as a study, usually limited to "the blues are great and the reds are crap"; ie. somewhat uninformative and unsatisfying.
Up to twenty five/thirty years ago there were still new singers and songs to be recorded, nowadays I am not sure there are. We virtually witnessed the demise of the singing tradition of the Irish Travellers (somewhere between the summer of 1973 and Easter 1975 when they all went out and bought portable televisions and stopped singing and telling stories around the fire. The pool table, juke boxes and televisions in pubs pretty much put paid to any singing that went on there. The case was the similar in rural Ireland where singing had died out in the home, where the singing mainly took place, again thanks largely to television.
Walter Pardon's family tradition died out sometime between the wars and his magnificent repertoire was the result of his own efforts in painstakingly reconstructing it.
Collector, Tom Munnelly (who died last week), as long ago as the late seventies, described his work as a race with the undertaker and in my opinion his collection of 22,000 songs makes his opinion worth heeding.
I would love to think there are more singers to be found in isolated corners of these islands, but somehow I doubt it.
What there is I believe are large relatively untapped sources in libraries, archives, lofts and garden sheds waiting to be found and made available. The Carpenter Collection, the largest collection of ballads recorded from the oral tradition is an example of one such hoard.
When we decided to assemble a local archive of songs and music here in West Clare, literally hundreds of private tapes (mainly of music) were immediately made available to us with very little effort on our part.
We discussed to some extent the passing on of material on the 'bloggers' thread. The conclusion we have reached is that it requires some time, effort, thought, but above all the generosity of those who have access to such collections.
Here in Ireland the pioneering work of people like Brendan Breathnach, Nicholas Carolan and Tom Munnelly have paved the way for people to receive government assistance and arts council grants for setting up archives and other music resources. I hope that this becomes possible in the UK, but so far there is little sign of it happening.
Jim Carroll