Folk 'Standard Tunes'?

Subject: Folk 'Standard Tunes'?
From: GUEST,!
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 02:48 PM

Hi all, I'm a musician looking to get into the folk scene and I'm a little overwhelmed by the amount of tunes there are. Are there standard tunes, like on the jazz scene, that people at sessions generally call that I should learn before trying to go to a session? Any particular versions or particular songs? Thanks!

Subject: RE: Folk 'Standard Tunes'?
From: mg
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 02:57 PM

I would go to the session, listen, take notes when a tune is named..then go on the internet and print out a few of them and practice..talk to the people there about the local customs etc. mg

Subject: RE: Folk 'Standard Tunes'?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 03:20 PM

Different sessions have different standard tunes , and some tunes have different names in different areas ! Attending tour local sessions as a listener to get some ideas is a good idea as a list for MY patch may well be meaningless in Yours !

Subject: RE: Folk 'Standard Tunes'?
From: GUEST,Scoville at Dad's
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 03:24 PM

It depends on where you are and who you play with, but, yes; there usually are some core tunes or songs. Ask around at jams to see what they do.

Subject: RE: Folk 'Standard Tunes'?
From: Trevor Thomas
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 08:42 AM

Another idea is just learn a few tunes that you really like and play those. Chances are, someone else will know them, and even if they don't, they'll pick them up after hearing them a few times.

In the same way, if you keep turnng up, you'll pick up some tunes that everyone else plays. This will change over time - tunes fall in and out of favour at random.

The important thing is to keep showing up, don't play loudly if you don't know the tune (but playing along quietly is a good way to learn new tunes) and above all, keep your ears open.

There's far too many tunes for anyone to know them all - part of the magic is that everyone knows different ones - don't be put off, just enjoy the music.


We all love it when new people get interested in the music - I'm sure people will be friendly and encouraging. Good luck with it!

Subject: RE: Folk 'Standard Tunes'?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 09:03 AM

I put a file of standard Scottish tunes on my website. Not a lot of use to you outside Scotland, though. It would be a good idea to have more such collections for other places - not tunes that the compiler *wants* to see played, but tunes that actually *are* played a lot in a particular location.

Subject: RE: Folk 'Standard Tunes'?
From: Trevor Thomas
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 09:17 AM

"Not a lot of use to you outside Scotland, though."

Not sure I agree with you there - people play Scottish tunes in plenty of places outside Scotland. I've heard Scottish tunes in both Sheffield and Vancouver in the last couple of weeks!

Subject: RE: Folk 'Standard Tunes'?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 09:25 AM

A recent thread (I'd search for it but I'm going out) asked for 10 staple fiddle session tunes. I instantly wrote down two sets of 10 whereupon a US fiddler said she hadn't heard of any of them.

Included in my lists were (probably)

Rusty Gully
Speed The Plough
Sweet Jenny Jones
Glorishears
Bacca Pipes
Seven Stars
Sir Sidney Smith
Three Around Three
Scan Tester's
Iron Legs
Kempshott Hunt
Highland Mary
Princess Royal . . .
. . .
. . . and so on . . .

Guest ! (ominous) doesn't say where s/he is but regionalisation of tunes is becoming less and less common as people (and tunes) are ever more mobile (on this side of the Atlantic anyway). Sessions might be predominately English/Irish/Scottish/French/Scandi but many are very mixed (and sometimes acrimonious as a result).

Subject: RE: Folk 'Standard Tunes'?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 10:24 AM

Diane's list kinda makes my point - Speed the Plough is the only one on her list I recognize from the Scottish session scene, but I haven't heard it in years and haven't felt any need to learn it. (I do know The Princess Royal, but I've never heard anyone else play it).

Subject: RE: Folk 'Standard Tunes'?
From: Dame Pattie Smith EPNS
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 10:39 AM

I've learnt hundreds of tunes over the years, not written down the names but remember quite a lot of them, never seen the dots except when I've had to teach them to others. There are session favourites and my advice is to busk along until you recognise them and then ask questions if you want to know more.

Subject: RE: Folk 'Standard Tunes'?
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 10:43 AM

Thanks so much for all of you answering my post! I'm in Staten Island, New York, if that helps. Are there any specific artists or albums I could download (legally) for a good jumping off point? Looking at chord changes and lyrics is great, but I'd definitely like to know some melodies and the basic jist of some tunes before I jump into the session. Thanks!


Josh

Subject: RE: Folk 'Standard Tunes'?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 10:48 AM

If you can find a session locally, you'd be best just going to it to listen for a while, and talk to the regulars to find what sort of stuff they like and how they like to play it.

Subject: RE: Folk 'Standard Tunes'?
From: Trevor Thomas
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 11:00 AM

Other than Speed the Plough (which I haven't heard for years) and Iron Legs (which I've heard but don't know it to play) I don't recognise any of Diane's list either!

Guest Josh, I think the only thing you can do is go along to the session and see what they're playing. If it's New York it could be absoutely anything!

Subject: RE: Folk 'Standard Tunes'?
From: GUEST,Brian Peters
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 11:00 AM

I recognized (and could play, at least to session standard) everything on Diane's list except "Kempshott Hunt". But then I play mostly English music so you'd expect me to know those. Despite Diane's fair point about a degree of globalisation in the session scene, I wouldn't expect an Irish or American Old-time fiddler to know many on that list. If (as I suspect) the session scene on Staten Island is more Irish in character, you might try looking at www.thesession.org which contains loads of Irish tunes and has a forum where you might ask which are the commonest.

But start by learning "Soldier's Joy" - EVERYONE seems to know a version of that.

Subject: RE: Folk 'Standard Tunes'?
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 12:37 PM

GUEST,! - one problem with this kind of question is that a heck of a lot of people who go to folk music sessions have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what ANY of the tunes are called. We listen to what is being played and join in to the extent of our ability. How good or bad a player you might be doesn't necessarily coincide with you knowing the name of the tune. Often a beginner will know the names of the handful of tunes they play, because they have either learned them from dots, from a record, or somebody has taught them a set of named tunes.
Often in a session the opportunity doesn't arise to ask what the tunes are.
Go along to one or more sessions. Listen to what they play. Go back again on a different week. Soon you will start to recognise tunes which are locally popular.
Quack!
Geoff the Duck.

Subject: RE: Folk 'Standard Tunes'?
From: MissouriMud
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 12:51 PM

Besides regionalization (which would appear to be Northeast US)it might help if you could specify what type of Folk music want to start out in as there are totally different groups of well known tunes in various different categories of the genre.   Sessions tend to be oriented toward one or two of these subgroups so if you can figure out either what you like, or what type of session seems interesting and handy it would help - are you looking at apalachian fiddle/banjo intrumental dance tunes, traditional songs and ballads, blues, chanties, more recent singer songwriter compositions or some thing else? Makes a big difference- these arent hard and fast lines and some of the above overlap each other significantly but there are definitley sub groups in folk music that are important to be aware of. I can give you 10 fiddle tunes that would probably be pretty familiar to anyone in the US interested in that typ,of music, but I cant do the same in most of the other categories.

Subject: RE: Folk 'Standard Tunes'?
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Jun 07 - 01:01 PM

Me again, thanks a lot folks, I think at some point I'm going to figure out how to get a real name on this thing so I'm not known as guest! MussouriMud, to answer your question, I'd say I'm most interested in songs and ballads, songwriter stuff. I'm a professional piano player, but my guitar playing is limited to strumming open chords, pretty much, so I don't think I have the chops to hang in there with fiddle and banjo tunes, yet...

Josh