"The optimum length of a song is three minutes."
Bert;
I assume this is the limit of your attention span.
Coincidentally, the BBC adopted the 'three minute' rule back in the sixties, on the basis that this was the maximum length of time an audience could be expected to listen to a song. There was a heated debate about it at the time. To me, is smacks of patronising arrogance.
If my postings at too long for you - please feel free not to read them.
I was a little surprised at the response to the 'hand over ear' technique. There are illustrations of it being used in England as early as Tudor times; Tuer's 'Street Cries of Old London' has a half a dozen examples in woodcut form. It was used by many singers in the early revival, Ewan and Bert being the best remembered. I have always assumed it was introduced by Lloyd though his work in Eastern Europe, where it was a common technique.
Folk Police.
Not a term I use or like, and certainly not confined to lazy journalists.
I have always considered it a phrase used for scoring points and diverting attention from an argument by people running out of ideas.
To me, it is the myth of being 'instructed' how to sing and what to think, rather that the reality of vociferous argument.
The nearest I ever got to 'folk policing' was to be told on this forum (a couple of weeks ago) that what I (and many others) have been listening to, singing and studying over the last four decades 'can have no possible relevence to modern life' - now there's a descision made on my behalf!
If some people find Fascist (and even Nazi) acceptable terms to be used when discussing music, well..... it takes all sorts I suppose.
Personally, I thought I'd left juvenile name-calling back in the playfround of Birchfield Road Junior School all those years ago.
Jim Carroll