Rise Up Singing Book II: 'Rise Again'

Subject: RE: Rise Up Singing Book II: 'Rise Again'
From: Joe Offer
Date: 05 May 16 - 12:32 AM

After the Rise Again Songbook came out in August, 2015, editors Peter Blood and Annie Patterson put us to work building a database of information meant to supplement the songs in the songbook. It's not quite finished, but it's now available online. Take a look here:

https://www.riseupandsing.org/songs/lists/chapters

The most significant feature, is a collection links to YouTube recordings of almost every song in the book. Of course, I'm proud of the links to Mudcat threads, the Traditional Ballad Index, the Roud Index, and Wikipedia. That was my part of the job.

Now we're working on a second database, a supplement to the Rise Up Singing (RUS) songbook. I'm having trouble finding online information on many of the songs in RUS. I thought I knew all those songs, but there are many I never knew were there.

-Joe-

Subject: Spotify Playlists for Rise Up Singing Songbook
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 Jul 17 - 02:39 AM

Somebody made up Spotify playlists for the chapters in the Rise Up Singing Songbook. Check these out, and let me know if any aren't working properly.

America
Ballads & Old Songs
City
Creativity
Dreams & Fantasies
Ecology
Faith
Farm & Prairie
Freedom
Friendship
Funny Songs
Golden Oldies
Good Times
Gospel
Hard Times & Blues
Home & Family
Hope
Love
Lullabies
Men
Mountain Voices
Outdoors
Peace
Play
Rich & Poor
Rounds
Sacred Rounds & Chants
Sea
Spirituals
Struggle
Time & Changes
Travelin'
Unity
Women
Work

Subject: RE: Rise Up Singing Book II: 'Rise Again'
From: EBarnacle
Date: 20 Jul 17 - 01:09 PM

Going back to an earlier part of this thread, I have recently come across a rather horrifying [at least to me] version of singing by the book.
There is a local meetup group which gathers each Thursday. It advertises itself as "acoustic" but makes little effort to minimize the amplified performers. There is a mix of performer levels from beginners through advanced.
The real horror is threefold. First, the amped performers make it difficult to hear the others, like the person next to you. Second, the official "book" is a website with the versions of the songs done by the group so that the leader of a song says "Let's do X" and everyone goes to that song in the collection. Finally, there is no encouragement to sing or play harmonies. Everyone works in unison, often poorly.
Lady Hillary attends this group to help her learn harmonica and is also learning mandolin. I wonder when she will decide she has gotten better than what they do and will look for a better venue.
A few weeks ago, when I came to pick her up she called up Mingulay Boat Song for me and their official lyrics were almost unrecognizable.

Joe, as one who sees a shortage of Yiddish songs in the circles I attend, I noted the relative absence of Balkan and Arabic songs in the indices you posted. Is that something to look forward to in Fall over Laughing 3?

Subject: RE: Rise Up Singing Book II: 'Rise Again'
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 Jul 17 - 02:06 PM

Hi, EBarnacle. I think we had five Arabic songs under consideration for the Rise Again songbook that came out in 2015. I think we got one in, and that one was half in English. The fault is partly mine - I spent hours and hours trying to track down people who could give us licenses for publication, and failed. There was one song I remember where I came across several articles saying how litigious the songwriter was in protecting her rights to her works - but I could never find out how to get past the lawsuits and get legal permission. Our publisher, Hal Leonard, didn't want to deal with litigation. There were lots of songs that Hal Leonard already had permission for, but it was my job to track down rights for the ones not already covered by Hal Leonard. I think Hal Leonard gave us March 30 2015 as the deadline for licenses. Any unlicensed songs were dropped. The book came out about August 15 2015.

We tried to stick with songs that people would be likely to learn, and we didn't come up with any Balkan songs. I'm quite proud of the number of Yiddish, Hebrew, Spanish, French, German, and Italian songs we were able to include - Mudcatter Monique worked with me extensively on our foreign-language songs.

But yeah, I failed on the Balkan and Arabic front. What can I say? No Asian-language songs I can think of. A coupla Russian songs, maybe - but no other Slavic languages.

I did get "Mingulay Boat Song" right. I bought an old copy of a Hugh Roberton songbook, and copied the lyrics from there.

By the way, Mudcat was the primary research tool used on the Rise Again Songbook - and I was the primary researcher.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Rise Up Singing Book II: 'Rise Again'
From: EBarnacle
Date: 20 Jul 17 - 02:23 PM

I agree you did a good job. The version of Mingulay they do misses on both scanning and the words themselves. Plus, they insist on accompanying it.

My qvetch is as much about the people who are locked into "their" book as it is about what is the correct way of running a group. If it's a group, all of the participants should be audible, not just the "experts." To me acoustic means unamplified and unmodified. This group fails on several counts.
It does make me appreciate the sound man who works with us [the Sloop Singers] at the Hudson River Revival even more. The sound guy can make or break a group--but that's another thread.

Subject: RE: Rise Up Singing Book II: 'Rise Again'
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 Jul 17 - 03:41 PM

Oh, that brings up another issue. A couple of us insisted that Rise Again should NOT include guitar chords with songs that are traditionally sung a cappella, but we lost that battle. Peter Blood agreed that we might be right, but that chords give at least some idea of the melody. I'll grant him that point; but as a result, you will often see guitarists playing when people are singing sea songs or ballads from our two songbooks.

There are also singers who insist on having everyone sing all of the words to all of the verses on call-and-response sea chanteys. It is to gag for.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Rise Up Singing Book II: 'Rise Again'
From: EBarnacle
Date: 20 Jul 17 - 04:08 PM

A simple solution would be to refer the reader to sites that present the song and not include the chords for a capella pieces.
Presenting chords does not really give the melody to people who don't have an idea of what it should be.
Ignorance is curable, stupidity is not.

Subject: RE: Rise Up Singing Book II: 'Rise Again'
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 Jul 17 - 05:20 PM

Agreed, but I lost the battle, anyhow. The chords won't be removed until the third volume of "Fall Over Laughing" (your words, not mine) is released. Peter and Annie have no desire to do a third volume, but they said I can have the job.
I figured we could make it an all-Mudcat, all-Volunteer, all-Folk effort. Hey, we could call it The Digital Tradition!

Maybe since the second book was titled Rise Again should the third be titled Not Again! ???? But generally, I like both books and I'm proud to be associated with them.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Rise Up Singing Book II: 'Rise Again'
From: GUEST,Mysha
Date: 21 Aug 20 - 05:46 AM

Hi,

I don't have the books with me, but would there be room enough to add markings to the next editions to indicate "a capella; chords for practice only" and "call and response; chorus sing only every other line"?

Bye
Mysha

Subject: RE: Rise Up Singing Book II: 'Rise Again'
From: GUEST,Mysha
Date: 21 Aug 20 - 06:10 AM

BTW, Joe:

If you're involved in the indexes for the books, could you suggest an index that covers both books?

Also, if you are, could you or anyone else check that it's possible to follow the alphabet links on top of the page? E.g. ALPHABETICAL SONG LIST should go to the start of A if the A is clicked. (It wouldn't do that anyway, for a reason that eludes me so far, but that's a different issue.) For me, those links are actually something much more complicated, that don't actually go anywhere.

Bye
Mysha

Subject: RE: Rise Up Singing Book II: 'Rise Again'
From: GUEST,Mysha
Date: 21 Aug 20 - 06:22 AM

Hi,

The question that the post above was a BTW to, which I completely forgot in trying to make the title index work, was:

Do you have a list of "didn't make it in time" titles? I could imagine that some might have given consent after the deadline. And some might still be tried again, or might have alternatives that haven't been tried because all you needed for that one version was the permission you asked for. All this to say: Such a list might play a part for Rise Up Unlimited.

(Place for a BTW.)

Bye
Mysha

Subject: RE: Rise Up Singing Book II: 'Rise Again'
From: voyager
Date: 12 Apr 21 - 03:56 PM

A belated shout out to editor J.O. for editing this great songbook.
This will be a great update to my Fireside Book of American Music that I had to rebind with duct tape this week (lol)

Gone, Gonna Rise Again (Si Kahn)

Sing out
voyager