Hello Steve

Re ballads and rhythm.

I really did select one more or less at random but forget how. It is a Bodleian one starting Why should We boast of Arthur and his Knights, called St George and the Dragon, and the version was printed in Coventry. It would be just my luck to come up with an atypical example, but you could check it out as it comes up if you go to the site and search for St George. Happy to be corrected if wrong on this.


I accept your points, they make sense to me.

In Roud, Bishop comments that it is interesting how 'ballads' printed without named tunes do turn up sung to different tunes, but that surprisingly many have rather similar tunes, or similar phrases within them.

A fascinating detail from Roud was that some of Sharp's 'tradition bearers' apparently could not recognise their songs when he had 'harmonised' them ie, put simply, had fitted chords for piano to the tunes.

I'm not sure that having motivation and time are two important factors, and also, importantly, the question of whether this is a practice one has contact with.