New Chanties Documentary

Subject: New Chanties Documentary (2023)
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 09 Jun 23 - 04:24 PM

Hello: Posting to announce the release of a documentary video that I produced—

_Songs of the Windlass: Singing Chanties on Gazela_ (33 minutes) narrates the interdependent development of sailors’ chanty genre and shipboard technology. At its center is the historic vessel Gazela of Philadelphia and an experiment of singing chanties while raising anchor with Gazela’s antique windlass.

The movie is free to access, as well as to distribute/share/use with appropriate credit given.

Here are several ways to access the movie (choice of versions, choice of platforms).

Standard version:
Vimeo

YouTube

Subtitled version:
Vimeo

YouTube

All details/credits are in the attached links.

Gibb

Subject: RE: New Chanties Documentary
From: Hagman
Date: 09 Jun 23 - 06:26 PM

Nice opening, Gibb. Look forward to taking in the remainder this evening.

Subject: RE: New Chanties Documentary
From: StephenH
Date: 10 Jun 23 - 11:40 AM

Well done, a nice little documentary.

Subject: RE: New Chanties Documentary
From: Thomas Stern
Date: 10 Jun 23 - 09:25 PM

very interesting and informative, thank you!
Thomas.

Subject: RE: New Chanties Documentary
From: Lighter
Date: 12 Jun 23 - 08:44 AM

Brilliant, Gibb. The best short introduction to chanteys there is - even if it's confined to the brake windlass!

Subject: RE: New Chanties Documentary
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 13 Jun 23 - 11:07 AM

Can't wait to have a look at this!

Subject: RE: New Chanties Documentary
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 13 Jun 23 - 11:08 AM

Tom Lewis was sing its praises on Facebook the other day

('scuse the pun)

Subject: RE: New Chanties Documentary
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 14 Jun 23 - 04:18 PM

Absolutely superb piece of filming. Anyone remotely interested in chanties should see this. I'm recommending it to all who attend our chanty workshops. Has it been entered for any awards? If not it should be. As an unequalled historical documentary it deserves high accolades.

Subject: RE: New Chanties Documentary
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 16 Jun 23 - 11:40 PM

Thanks for the comments, everyone. I really appreciate it.

Steve, you're very kind to suggest the award thing. It's a bit rough around the edges, so I think maybe not; moreover, I wouldn't know where to start! Rather, my hope is that some museum-type place would be interested to include a portion of the movie in their program. I tried to create some sections that might be excerpted, especially to good use by the local maritime museum in Philadelphia; will reach out to them in time, without any presumption.

***
[WARNING: Verbose, extraneous commentary incoming!]

The brake windlass story was my focus, and I could not flesh out any kind of “history of chanteys” that would satisfy many audiences. Nevertheless, I had to set it up somehow, since my thesis is that the brake windlass was of significance at a particular point in a story about the trajectory of chanteys’ development.

The stark, direct framing of "roots in Black people of the Americas" (and the more familiar story of the misunderstanding of slaves’ singing) in that brief background intro is to set up the tone I'm trying to create: one that brings a degree of "seriousness" to the subject that I find wanting in other media. It's not that I want to remove the fun element, but rather that as I see it, the topic of chanteys in popular media is almost exclusively jokey and silly. That has its place, but my thought is that too much jokiness has alienated the demographic of people who work on ships. Whereas "they" like play and fun, too, I sense a kind of embarrassment on the part of many, that provokes them to distance themselves from the genre. A common perception (and not unreasonable, though a generalization) is that singing chanteys is something that comparatively clueless landlubbers do, which doesn't truly "respect" what the sailors do (their skills, knowledge, hard work, courage). I don’t claim it's like that for everyone, I’m just observing a *general* divide between chanteys as they manifest in the general public vs. among ships' crews. I’m afraid that (some) folk singers think that because they’ve read up in Hugill on what work applications were, they are honoring the mariners’ tradition. I genuinely don’t find *fault* in that (who am I to criticize, anyway?). It’s not an intentional thing, it's in good faith, nevertheless I think the unintended effect is revealed in how sailors feel about it all.
I want to bring "dignity" to chantey singing that comports better with sailors' perceptions of their identities so that they can find a way to better identify with the songs and, maybe, begin to start incorporating chanteys more in their activities. So it doesn't feel silly or pretentious to sing chanteys but more genuine and more in a way where the sailors can shape the narrative and presentation.

I am addressing my belief that although chanteys do "function," they are not "needed" as such. I think, intuitively, sailors balk at landlubbers' emphasis on a narrative of chanteys filling a practical need and which doesn't jive with "need" as they understand it. That misaligned understanding of need is what makes chantey singing feel pretentious (and open to ridicule). There is some irony in that one might think that emphasizing practical function gets us closer to the "seriousness" of practical function and away from (superfluous) "entertainment." Yet, that configuration of the idea of need feels like a lie. The need is something less tangible, like a cultural need or way-of-life. We sing more so because it's "who we are," it's "what we do," it's "how we feel at home in the world," it’s "how we express ourselves." Chanteys, then, function within that construction of one's physical and psychological set up; they make "things," in general, go well rather than specifically serve a given work task. I suppose that's the sort of relationship to singing that was notable among (although not exclusive to) early Black Americans and which spread to other communities with chanteys, and which was "lost" when chantey practice departed from ships.   

Whereas the most explicit aim of the movie is to make my argument about the brake windlass's significance accessible, the "shadow" motive is to inch toward a repair of the connection between different communities who sing (or might sing) the songs. I don’t have any thought-out prescriptions for what anyone “should” do. I just feel that the genre has been uprooted from sailing culture, re-planted in sailing fantasy, and that maybe this is fine and inevitable but it’s worth trying to see who might want to put it back in the sailing culture, especially if that has been obstructed by poor exchange of information.

I recently saw social media posts on behalf of a certain traditional ship’s crew that was saying something like “If you’re able to sing a chantey, you’re not working hard enough.” That kind of misunderstanding, and how we got there, seems to me a shame.

Subject: RE: New Chanties Documentary
From: meself
Date: 17 Jun 23 - 11:35 AM

I would think that, more generally nowadays, anyone singing outside of a more-or-less formal performance context is seen as, at best, eccentric, at worst, pretentious; I would expect this to apply as much at sea as elsewhere - with the added element that explicit singing of chanteys and sea-songs might suggest being caught up in some kind of romantic fantasy about the very life and work you're involved in.

Just watched the doc - excellent work!

Subject: RE: New Chanties Documentary
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 18 Jun 23 - 05:11 AM

I think I agree, meself.

Hauling a topsail halyard, however, presents an interesting case. What we understand to be the customary hauling method of the past (the time when chanteys were sung ordinarily) is intimately intwined with chantey singing. It's more or less impossible to do *without* singing a chantey.

So... nobody hauls that way nowadays. I see there being two issues with this that legitimately deserve consideration by today's sailors of traditional ships.

1) The traditional hauling method, I firmly believe (based on experience) is better. Now, it doesn't even occur to today's crews to do (why would it?), so how could they begin to discover for themselves the benefit of it? The world isn't going to end if they use a less-good method, but it's frustrating to think that the better method doesn't see a chance simply because they don't have this information (rather than it was tried and rejected).

2) I presume that much of the activity of being involved in traditional sailing ships, at least for some, has connects with, well, the traditions of sailing. It's not as if anyone is being forced to accept traditional ships as a means of conveyance and then making up new ways to sail what they're stuck with. Rather, there is interest in doing stuff as it was done. Sailors, moreover, are conservative and have all kind of things they do purely out of custom. I can't imagine why they would want to willfully reject the traditional custom, so I assume they don't do it because they don't know about it. The subject of chanteys introduces people to it.

These issues are more acute with the topsail halyard example, which is why I used it. But they are also relevant to the method of working the brake windlass. I have seen people absolutely fumbling with the windlass, whereas if they applied the chanteys or at least were introduced, through the discussion of chanteys, to the traditional method, things would go better.

I think this line of reasoning, which argues for why sailors did what they did, moves us toward a place where knowing about chanteys--like so many other things seasoned sailors are expected to know about--saves us from pretense.

Subject: RE: New Chanties Documentary
From: GerryM
Date: 18 Jun 23 - 05:50 PM

Haul on the bowline
We sang that melody
Like all tough sailors do
When they're far away at sea.

Subject: RE: New Chanties Documentary
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 19 Jun 23 - 05:07 AM

If you’re able to sing a chantey, you’re not working hard enough. –– Hortative song… management sings the verse. Labour does only the chorus. Not too hard, not so easy.

As ancoras tenaces väo levando,
Com a nautica grita coftumada,
Da proa as vellas fos ao vento dando,
Inclinian per a barra abalifada: [II-18]

“Weighed are the biting anchors, rising slow,
while 'customed capstan-songs and shouts resound;
only the foresails to the gale they throw
as for the buoyed bar the Ships are bound:”


Alevantafe nifto o movimento
Dos marinheiros, de hua & de outra banda
Levam gritando as ancoras acima
Mostrando a ruda força que fe eftima. [II-65]

“Meanwhile the sailors to set sail prepare;
all work and either watch its anchor tends;
the weighty irons with willing shouts are weighed,
and sin'ewy strength, the seaman's pride, displayed.”
(Luís de Camões)
Os Lusíadas (1572)
1880 English translation by Richard Francis Burton.

Gazela is Portuguese. Everything from the glossary to the naval science to the arts isn't a documentary style match for the Anglo-American song & narrative in the video, however correct, or not, they might be. There were at least two dozen Portuguese words for sailors' work songs. Nary a one of them was borrowed from the English or American maritimes.

Subject: RE: New Chanties Documentary
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 19 Jun 23 - 05:00 PM

Obrigado, Phil. That English poetical translation of nautica grita into capstan-songs is something I neglected, indeed.

Happy Juneteenth!

Subject: RE: New Chanties Documentary
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 19 Jun 23 - 11:44 PM

Nicely done,Mr Gibb.

I listen to such things to drift me off to sleep.

Here, in the longezpst days of the year, my eye-lids did not droop.

Nice narration, without opinion.
Nice sound balance.
Most enjoyable..

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Sleep still evades me ... but ...

Subject: RE: New Chanties Documentary
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 01 Jul 23 - 09:11 PM

Reposting from the other thread - 1851:

“Ships' Capstans.-There were exhibited two specimens of Ships' Capstans, worked like fire-engines, with a pump handle motion, instead of the old capstan worked by handspikes, which the men pushed against while they ran round to a lively tune of the ship's fifer, with great exertion, tremendous stamping noise, and occasionally serious accidents, from the weight of the cable overpowering the men, and flinging the handspikes in all directions. This old-fashioned capstan has been superseded in the Navy by some one or other of several patent machines. The full-sized one exhibited by a London house seemed very good; the turning power, obtained by simple friction-bands, making no noise on the return stroke, worked by two arms that require no shipping and unshipping, which is always so dangerous on a dark night: it has the great advantage of simplicity––there is nothing to clog.”
[The Great Exhibition, Year-Book of Facts in Science and the Arts, 1851]
Great Exhibition (1851)

Note: Windlass/capstan, hard to tell in some places. Been looking at 1851 Exhibition images but nada so far.

Subject: RE: New Chanties Documentary
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 18 Sep 23 - 06:16 AM

From A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties –

Me/Gibb: >>Neither did the sailors on the Gazela call them "shanties." Their 2400+ year histories and traditions are not about African-Americans, cotton screwers or the Gulf of Mexico.<<

What do "them" and "their" refer to?

Them: The rhythmic sounds that any sailors made when going about tasks in unison.

Typical:
“PORTUGUESE
5175. ZALOMAR, v. to sing out
SPANISH
3481. Zalomar, v. to sing out
[A Marine Pocket Dictionary of the Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and German Languages, 1799,]

“Celeuma, sf. (naut.) a seaman's cry when hoisting.
Celeumear, vn. to cry as seamen do at work.
Zalomar, va. (naut.) to sing out.”
[A Dictionary of the Portuguese Language in Two Parts, Elwes, 1884]

Their: In context, Scots and/or Portuguese. In general, +99% of all recorded history. Even for 19th century Anglo merchant marine, “anchor/capstan/windlass song” &c were more common than “chanty/shanty.”

Scope? Thomas Moore (or his editor or publisher) chose Quintilian for the Canadian Boat Song's epigram - Et remigem cantus hortatur. The Portuguese zalomar's etymology shares the same roots.

Subject: RE: New Chanties Documentary
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 18 Sep 23 - 06:16 AM

From A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties –

Me/Gibb: >>Neither did the sailors on the Gazela call them "shanties." Their 2400+ year histories and traditions are not about African-Americans, cotton screwers or the Gulf of Mexico.<<

What do "them" and "their" refer to?

Them: The rhythmic sounds that any sailors made when going about tasks in unison.

Typical:
“PORTUGUESE
5175. ZALOMAR, v. to sing out
SPANISH
3481. Zalomar, v. to sing out
[A Marine Pocket Dictionary of the Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and German Languages, 1799,]

“Celeuma, sf. (naut.) a seaman's cry when hoisting.
Celeumear, vn. to cry as seamen do at work.
Zalomar, va. (naut.) to sing out.”
[A Dictionary of the Portuguese Language in Two Parts, Elwes, 1884]

Their: In context, Scots and/or Portuguese. In general, +99% of all recorded history. Even for 19th century Anglo merchant marine, “anchor/capstan/windlass song” &c were more common than “chanty/shanty.”

Scope? Thomas Moore (or his editor or publisher) chose Quintilian for the Canadian Boat Song's epigram - Et remigem cantus hortatur. The Portuguese zalomar's etymology shares the same roots.

Subject: RE: New Chanties Documentary
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 21 Nov 24 - 06:06 AM

The companion research article for the film, with an expanded range of topics and the sources, has been published in _American Music_ 41(3). (For some reason, the reason issues of the journal are dated 2023 rather than 2024).

https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/uip/am/article-abstract/41/3/357/39201

If you don't have access to an academic database, you may request a copy from me.