Chords in Folk?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: folktheatre
Date: 21 May 08 - 09:31 AM

Is it just me or am I the only one who doesn't understand the opening post of this thread?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 21 May 08 - 09:17 AM

To Volgadon - if you want to make the two main divisions of folk "Traditional Folk", and "Composer Folk" (rather than "Contemporary Folk"), I wouldn't cry over such spilt soya!
To Sedayne - Phil and Cath could tell you more, but it's about the late folk-singer John Birmingham, who left money to encourage unaccompanied song-writing. I only saw him, just before he died, at The Bridge, but apparently he also went on Saturdays to The Cumberland - did you know him? And, yes, I am a part of it (a singaround the last 2 years, and a comp. the two before - which may kick-off again next year) in that I participate with my Chants from Walkabouts and my selection of E. trads (here). (One of us should have told you - sorry, but it will, in one form or the other, be on about this time next year, so please do note it in your calendar.)

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Victor in Mapperton
Date: 21 May 08 - 09:10 AM

No Foolestroupe, some Guest posts are quite good. It's arsehole posts that get deleted. Are all yours still there ?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 21 May 08 - 08:55 AM

I seem to remember the policy was 'you will be deleted if you do not use a consistent user guest name'.

:-)

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 21 May 08 - 08:45 AM

Don't they a contest in Newcastle for writing unaccompanied songs? Never been but I keep hearing about it. Are you part of that at all, WAV?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Joe
Date: 21 May 08 - 08:43 AM

If the anonymous guests are making valid statements then whats your problem? If they are abusive it's a different story ...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 21 May 08 - 08:37 AM

I'm not talking about early music, WAV, I'm talking about folk songs with known composers/writers.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 21 May 08 - 08:13 AM

There's too many anon "GUESTS"s in this thread - what about that policy of just deleting them?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 21 May 08 - 07:53 AM

The musical example you cited on You Tube is more modern rather than traditional. The drumming might reflect the traditional earlier styles but the harmonies are influenced by missionaries and hymns.

It's curious to reflect on the multiplicity of cultural confluences that may or may or may not resulted in the one thing or the other, whereby whatever it was that the African people took with them to the New World as slaves morphed by whatever transfigurative process into the musics we now call Jazz (no matter what Bert Lloyd has to say on the subject!), Soul, Blues, R&B and Hip Hop, all of which carry the essence of a continuity that might, at last return to the African motherland in triumph to further transfigure the nature of her native music.

It took a Belgian to invent the saxophone, but it took African-Americans such as Carlie Parker, Ben Webster, John Coltrane, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk (et al) to give it a voice; and in the hands of a native Xhosa tribesman such as Johnny Mbizo Dyani a European orchestral instrument such as the Double Bass becomes as African as any balafon or mbira.

And getting back to chords in folk, and multiphonic voices all in the one mouth, can there be anything so pure as Rahsaan Rolank Kirk's take on I Say a Little Prayer? Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uRnvMwD6jM

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 21 May 08 - 07:40 AM

There are other branches of Early Music, Volgadon...and I thought you might have given something for DS to sing to as he/she knits...Scarborough Fair...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 21 May 08 - 07:30 AM

But what about 18th century songs with a known author/composer? That's not something I would call contemporary.
Also, I wonder why folk music is seen as something artless IE only the top-line should be played with no harmony, with no chords.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 21 May 08 - 06:09 AM

What's that Mike Waterson song - "Stitch in Time"?...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Tangledwood
Date: 21 May 08 - 06:07 AM

"I wonder if you'll start singing a folk song to the rhythm of your knitting?"

Silver threads and golden needles
Little ball of yarn
Green sleeves
Black socks

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 21 May 08 - 05:35 AM

On myspace, M.Ted, we categorise ourselves into 3 - I put "Folk," "Christian" (because I DON'T see my singing and playing with just the top-lines of my selection of hymns as folk music), and "Other" (as I've tried poetry, also). And I'd agree with those who say folk music can be divided into two distinct categories of it's own - Contemporary Folk (known composer), Traditional Folk (unknown composer).
To DS - I wonder if you'll start singing a folk song to the rhythm of your knitting?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 May 08 - 12:31 AM

There is a discussion going on in another thread concerning the notorious 1954 definition of folk music--a close reading of that definition suggests that the hymnal which Mr. WAV is "top-lining" doesn't qualify as folk music at all, because "The term does not cover composed popular music that has been taken over ready-made by a community and remains unchanged" The music in the hymnal being written, arranged, and intended for performance in a standardized fashion--

So whatever sentiments the melodies may evoke, they are composed music, and not, in and of themselves, folk music. When Mr. WAV plays the "top line", he is simply playing a composed piece of music. End of story.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,MikeS
Date: 20 May 08 - 07:37 PM

Well, DS, I sincerely hope you aren't contemplating using more than one needle at once.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 20 May 08 - 06:13 PM

No, I don't think your explanation clears anything up, but that's something I'll have to live with, in my ignorance. Like I said, I'm going to toss away my instruments and probably take up extreme knitting, full time.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,MikeS
Date: 20 May 08 - 06:02 PM

Of course, prior to the introduction of melody into music (around 384 BC), all songs were sung merely on one note, and strictly unaccompanied. Surely we should all be conscientiously upholding this tradition, lest we lose a valuable part of our cultural heritage forever. The later intrusion of what we now loosely refer to as harmony into Proper Traditional music only came about through people's inability to accurately follow the tune, which was, in itself an abherration caused by the inability to maintain monophonic regularity. I hope this clears up any doubt on the matter once and for all.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 20 May 08 - 06:00 PM

Guest says, Cecil Sharp decried the bowdlerization of folk music by popular influences to such a degree that he thought that the five-string banjo changed the music by introducing popular elements. Oh dear, I don't think Mr. Sharp would very much like the introduction of electric instruments into folk then, which means I may as well throw out my 5 string Violectra, and my customised Gibson F-5 , Oh and I consider E.Carthy to be far from uneducated

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 20 May 08 - 05:30 PM

Poppagator said: "I'm quite sure, on the contrary, that many notable collectors did not have recording devices ~ those who worked prior to the invention of (or, at least, the widesprad availability of) recording technology."

I heard the point made recently that the phonograph was a very delicate and expensive piece of equipment, not really up to being trawled around country lanes on the back of a bike. People like Percy Grainger used to have the singers back to his house, where he would record them. Recording in the early-20th century period of collecting was the exception rather than the rule.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST
Date: 20 May 08 - 05:29 PM

The throat singing relies on the voice maintaining the fundamental with another area producing the natural overtones of that fundamental tone. if you analyze the overtones, you find that they are not "tempered" as we know it but some of the tones are in the cracks, so to speak. The idea behind overtones created the basis for the system of harmony that we now know however this example is not a typically harmonized development which came later when musical instruments created tones that were slightly out of tune. Harmony that we hear today is slightly out of tune. Pythagoras was one of the few constructing tones that were mathematically accurate but would sound out of tune to us today. Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavichord" was as are all keyboard instruments slightly out of tune with the overtone series. Some stringed players compensate by playing sharped notes slightly higher and flatted notes lower but the overall harmonic effect has
to be slightly out of tune to get the fullness we associate with chordal instrumental or vocal harmony. The reason it doesn't sound out of tune is that we have been conditioned to hear harmony a certain way which resonates with our cultural appreciation of it.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST
Date: 20 May 08 - 05:15 PM

""Folk music is pop music. How else can a classic tune survive, other than being popular How else can a classic tune survive being collected by a knobhead like Cecil Sharp?"

Cecil Sharp decried the bowdlerization of folk music by popular influences to such a degree that he thought that the five-string banjo changed the music by introducing popular elements.

There is a distinct difference between popular music created for a music market than an expression of a folk tradition that lies outside the music market area. This "knobhead" was responsible for a folk music revival and interest in the field that would have been abandoned by the "music merchants". His efforts were prodigious. He went into the backwoods of the US with just tools for annotating music and lyrics by hand when no one else was interested. To call him a "knobhead" is to reveal a level of ignorance that defies
categorization but is reflective of the general dissipating level of education worldwide.

This lack of education is responsible for the terrible standards of writing and composing in much of pop music today.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 20 May 08 - 05:10 PM

Walkaboutsverse says, but you, too, have not read. Ahh, but I have read, for clarity's sake I read, and my opinion hasn't changed. Music to your ears is it? Personally I find tennis to a very boring game, cucumber sandwiches are bland, jam tarts fattening and I prefer coffee, oh and I do like chords and harmony with my folk music (I sing myself as well as play fiddle and mandolin) and I don't like your poetry. That pretty much sums up my opinions regarding this thread. Poppagator is perfectly correct, just because there's no docunentation it doesn't mean it didn't happen, there are parallels in modern day society in other arenas that illustrate this point.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST
Date: 20 May 08 - 05:07 PM

"Is that true? From my experience Africa is perhaps the most likely place where traditional music is going to be naturally harmonised with the minimum interference from western influences: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3g15n9qCdc"

The musical example you cited on You Tube is more modern rather than traditional. The drumming might reflect the traditional earlier styles but the harmonies are influenced by missionaries and hymns.

If you listen to recordings of earlier African music, you will hear more monody or unison style singing with appropriate effects. Afro-pop, church music and other European influences have found their way into African music such as "High Life" and other forms influenced by American jazz. Traditional music from Dahomey or the Ituri Forest show little influence if any of Euro-harmonic tradition.

The way in which some kind of harmony enters the picture is when you hear a kind of polyphony in the voices such as with the Pygmies in the Ituri Forest but this is in no way
a Europeanized harmonic form as we know harmony from pop, jazz or classical music.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 May 08 - 04:53 PM

I said "traditions exist due to folks being impressed by HOW (e.g. the unaccompanied singing of verses to tell of something, or the playing of a tune for dancers) their forebears did things", Don, so we are, in fact, agreeing here.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Don Firth
Date: 20 May 08 - 04:31 PM

". . . traditions exist due to folks being impressed by how their forebears did things. . . ."

To a certain extent that may be true, but I can't say that I buy that entirely, especially as far as music and song is concerned. I found that the songs appealed to me on their own, not because my forebears sang them. The family I grew up in did not sing the songs their forebears sang. I picked it up from contemporaries who were interested in folk music, and most of them had picked it up from recordings or song books.

And this, incidentally but importantly, was back in the early 1950s, some years before the beginning of the popular folk boom in the United States. Folk songs were considered by most people to be pretty esoteric stuff. I just happen to fall in with a small group of college students, one of whom had first become interested from listening to Burl Ives records while in his early teens (Burl Ives was about the only folk singer who ever got any radio play before the Kingston Trio's recoding of "Tom Dooley" came along in 1958) and liked the fact that the songs were a) different from what he heard on the radio, and b) they told stories.

It was the poetic and aesthetic appeal of the songs themselves, not that they were something his—or my—forebears did.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 May 08 - 03:56 PM

You don't read what I post, PG - please check my last few.
Not just "fondly remembered" - as I've said (but you, too, have not read), I do PARTICIPATE in folk clubs and festivals; However, most of your last post is music to my ears, DS.
"Recording the harmonies wasn't as important, as you can come up with them on your own."...but, Volgadon, there's what folks can do and what they choose to do - "traditions exist due to folks being impressed by how their forebears did things" (me). I really like hearing a good folk-singer sing a trad. song unaccompanied - I'm "impressed" by this way, as have been many before me (that's why we still hear it at folk clubs and festivals and radio - Scottish Gaelic radio a lot, English-language a little). Then there's sean-nos.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 20 May 08 - 03:24 PM

"Surely you accept, PG, that any collector of traditional songs (rather than anonymous poetry) of note (if you'll pardon the pun) would have had a recording device &/or the ability to notate."

I'm quite sure, on the contrary, that many notable collectors did not have recording devices ~ those who worked prior to the invention of (or, at least, the widesprad availability of) recording technology.

And whether or not they had the ability to write musical notation, many transcribers/collectors/publishers of broadsides, etc., gave us WORDS ONLY for pieces they themselves describe as "songs," clearly implying that music existed, even though it may not have been notated.

Look, if you LIKE single-note melodies to the exclusion of any kind of harmony and accompaniment, that's your prerogative and no one begrudges you youe enjoyment.

But I think I speak not only for myself but also for quite a few others that your insistence that harmony singing ~ a very basic aspect of homespun music-making and the enjoyment thereof ~ can't possibly have existed in the past SIMPLY BECAUSE THERE IS NO WRITTEN DOCUMENTATION OF IT is just too exasperating for us to let it pass.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 20 May 08 - 03:11 PM

WAV, you can have the ability to do something without the DESIRE to do so. Recording the harmonies wasn't as important, as you can come up with them on your own.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 20 May 08 - 03:11 PM

Ruth Archer says again, not something that's been collected, but a real, living tradition

My feeling is that Walkaboutsverse is not interested in a vital, living, breathing, growing tradition, but would rather see it preserved in amber, to be viewed as a quaint museum piece, to be fondly remembered over cups of tea, cucumber sandwiches and jam tarts, after a spirited game of tennis down at the local, very exclusive club.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 20 May 08 - 02:58 PM

Even with recorded material, surely the methodology of the collectors (often visiting one person at a time) will have some impact on the nature of the recordings and what they include, or leave out.

Oh! I've just thought of another example. Sheffield carols (again, not something that's been collected, but a real, living tradition) involves large groups of people engaging in spontaneous harmony singing. So that's TWO of the very few living, unbroken singing traditions in England, both of which incorporate harmony singing.

In fact, when you think about West Gallery music, and the fact that people in the 18th and 19th centuries were learning to use harmonies in their sacred music, you'd have to be a kind of loony cultural purist, the sort who thinks that it's actually possible to put clear, uncrossable boundaries around specific areas of cultural and social behaviour, to think that they would not have incorporated that ability to harmonise when singing secular songs.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 May 08 - 02:53 PM

Surely you accept, PG, that any collector of traditional songs (rather than anonymous poetry) of note (if you'll pardon the pun) would have had a recording device &/or the ability to notate.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 20 May 08 - 02:39 PM

"PoppaGator

who in many cases are KNOWN to have consciously omitted harmony parts

Fascinating. Do you think you could give references for that?

See Ruth Archer, above, 20 May 08 11:15 am, for the most recent mention of this common phenomenon. I'm pretty sure that there are other, earlier posts in this thread citing additional specific instances where collectors transcribed melody-only when the songs were actually being performed with either sung harmonies, instrumental chords and/or countermelodies, or both.

Sorry I don't have primary sources. I'm not interested enough in this crackpot theory to do that kind of research. It just seems SOOO obvious to me that written historical evidence should not be understood as "proof" that any aspect of musicality was absent from an oral tradition.

Consider also that there are many many instances where collectors of folksongs recorded only the words, not any musical notation. By WAV's logic, this would be evidence that these traditional songs were recited, not sung, and that the introduction of melody would be somehow inauthentic.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 May 08 - 02:00 PM

African (...) music would tend not to be harmonized since it is not
in the tradition of the culture to do so

Is that true? From my experience Africa is perhaps the most likely place where traditional music is going to be naturally harmonised with the minimum interference from western influences: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3g15n9qCdc

there's no substitute to cooking over a flame

I've cooked with gas hobs, just not in gas ovens; I heartily agree - flames are the boys for cooking.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Stu
Date: 20 May 08 - 01:42 PM

"Sorry to hear this; having never cooked with gas before I was rather looking forward to it..."

It's an old one and not very predicatable, hence the difficulty with roasting. When we moved in we had my mum and her hubby round for dinner and decided on a roast. So having been used to an electric oven that cooked to the minute I checked the bird as we had drinks to find it barely warm.

It took around four hours to cook and by the end we were completely rat-arsed and not hungry in the slightest. Back to an electric for me, albeit with a gas hob because there's no substitute to cooking over a flame.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST
Date: 20 May 08 - 01:36 PM

There appears to be a confusion about harmonization of melodies. Melodies that are definable in so-called "Western" or "Occidental" music for the most part contain harmonic ideas. The fact that some haven't mastered the harmonic structure enough to effectively
highlight these ideas doesn't mean that the melodies are essentially injured by harmony.
All this means is that some who are trying to harmonize these melodies don't have the
musical background to do them justice. Most of the "Europeanized" music lends itself well to harmonization with the above caveat.

Asian, African and Native American music would tend not to be harmonized since it is not
in the tradition of the culture to do so. Harmony is not an aspect of this music. One reason is that quarter-tones are employed which are not "harmonizable" in any sense
of the word that we know of with a Euro-centric view of music.

Even the "so-called" "Church modes" contain harmonic information although not as advanced as when Bach came on the scene. There were many chords that were considered "dissonant" for the early period such as a dominant-seventh chord. Now,
the harmonic pallette is so varied that many chords that were considered dissonant in the early days of music are now commonplace.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 May 08 - 01:34 PM

"Mostly" NOT "all" about the tune (just above), PG. I accept that Coppersongs have been notated as two-part harmony; and Jack, way back, gave "Summer is a Comin'", as well as an old dance-tune, with more than one line of notes.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: TheSnail
Date: 20 May 08 - 01:20 PM

PoppaGator

who in many cases are KNOWN to have consciously omitted harmony parts

Fascinating. Do you think you could give references for that?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 May 08 - 01:04 PM

I'd say it's timbre that's being altered - not two or more distinct notes being produced (i.e., a chord) from the one mouth at once.

Subject: RE: Dyads in Folk?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 20 May 08 - 12:55 PM

Well, we had another great argument-thread a while back about whether TWO different notes sung/played simultaneously should be correctly regarded as a "chord"; the technically correct term is "dyad." It takes three different notes to form a chord.

So I suppose that it might be argued that none of the many many traditional instances of two-part harmony singing, with and without instrumentl accopmaniment, would qualify as "chords in folk," because they're really only "dyads in folk."

I recognize that there is a certain traditional singing style, and a very few specific songs, that sound best with no accompaniment and no sung harmonies. In these cases, it seems preferable to let all posible harmonies remain ambiguous ~ making a choice to sing/play any specific harmonizing note(s) imposes a limitation, makes the music sound one way or the other, whereas the single-note melody retains both/all possibilities.

But to assert that folk music, ipso facto, cannot and should not ever include harmonies ~ absolutely ridiculous! And to cite the written records left to us by collectors, who in many cases are KNOWN to have consciously omitted harmony parts, as evidence that somehow the introduction of harmony is somewhow anathema to folk music ~ even crazier!

It has been astounding how long this discussion has been going on. I've studiously ignored it for days at a time, then resumed reading when curiosity got the best of me. Periodically, my will-power fails and I find myself trying, yet again, to explain a seemingly-obvious premise that is somehow, apparently, beyond someone's understanding.

I was pleased to see this morning that the thread had morphed into a friendly discussion of the culinary arts. But could a return to the exasperatingly simpleminded assertion that there are "no chords in folk" be avoided? Apparently not.

Why am I doing this? I explained myself as well as I could days ago, as have several others. Most recently, Ruth Archer has made the case for sanity from yet another perspective.

If we can't let this thread die its long-overdue natural death, could we at least please get back to a more reasonable subject, such as the roasting of meat by ex-vegans?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 May 08 - 12:40 PM

Damn that html! That should have been an italic close after multiphonic wheeze

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 May 08 - 12:38 PM

Depends how you define chord; it's certainly multiphonic and based on fundamental harmonic intervals. As an asthma sufferer I often wake up with a decidedly multiphonic wheeze; a legion of whistling voices in my larynx creating all manner of devilish harmonies. I've often thought of recording it, were it not for the other symptoms attending such episodes, but maybe when I do at last record it then I might approach it objectively as somehow being music, at least in an acousmatic sense.

I wonder, does Yodelling count? Check this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whIj6mrUGzQ

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 May 08 - 12:03 PM

That's great throat-singing by each individual, above, thanks, Sedayne...but is it chord-singing?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 20 May 08 - 12:02 PM

"Before you go, Ruth "That's right: it's a HARMONY tradition." is, more-or-less, saying: traditionally, in England, no-one ever sung on their own without, at least, the accompaniment of an instrument - that's ridiculous."


The Coppers have an UNACCOMPANIED, VOCAL tradition which includes harmony. I'm surprised, as you were bandying Bob Copper's name about on another thread, that you don't seem to be aware of this.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 May 08 - 11:49 AM

And a similar thing self-accompanied on an accordion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bcLlvP7ZFk

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 May 08 - 11:42 AM

someONE can play chords but how on earth can they sing them (whatever genre they're into)

Have a look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPFYTRRHNyA

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 May 08 - 11:39 AM

always sounded a bit dodgy to me - 7 generations, 7 long years, 7 dwarves, 7 types of ambiguity, 7 the mystic number....if you ask me its one o' those things in the tradition that are a bit too neat.

Then theres the bit where they keep looking over their shoulder.   The judge in geordie looked over his left shoulder, I looked over my shoulder in Brigg fair and saw my love coming tripping down by me.....

why over the shoulder...were they Jessie Matthws fans, did they all have dandruff...? I think not.

Maybe WAV is onto something and they were singing harmony without the use of chords. the whole English tradition is a conspiracy theory - find out whodunnit and you'll know who killed Kennedy, and break the Da Vinci Code.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 May 08 - 11:37 AM

Before you go, Ruth "That's right: it's a HARMONY tradition." is, more-or-less, saying: traditionally, in England, no-one ever sung on their own without, at least, the accompaniment of an instrument - that's ridiculous. Again: having read all on this thread, it's wrong to say English traditional music is ALL about the tune; but it's not wrong to say it's MOSTLY about the tune.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 20 May 08 - 11:15 AM

going back to the very VERY beginning of this thread, can I just point out that there are a lot of clever, learned people here who are actually arguing over the most ridiculous thesis anyone has ever posted? "I heard one recording of Joseph Taylor. It was really old. He was singing in a particular way. Therefore, that is the only way traditional English singers ever sang and the only "correct" way to sing English song."

Admittedly, it's this sort of fact-lite, soundbite crap upon which all of his theories are based. But there are two things I'd like to add:

I was listening to a talk on Vaughan Williams' folk song collecting at the weekend. Vaughan , when listening to village singers and if there happened to be more than one of them, would only note the melody of a song - EVEN IF PEOPLE WERE SINGING HARMONIES.

While the evidence of bygone practice will always be patchy and based on what is extant, I'd have thought that WAV would have some awareness of the Copper Family, as he namechecked Bob Copper in another thread. The Coppers posses one of the few unbroken singing traditions in this country - the current lot are the 7th KNOWN generation to have sung the family songs as they have been handed down. And how have they been handed down? That's right: it's a HARMONY tradition.

Goodbye.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 May 08 - 11:11 AM

Spare my days, WLD, and calm down - someONE can play chords but how on earth can they sing them (whatever genre they're into)?