Trad Song

Subject: Tech: Trad Song
From: GUEST,Mike D
Date: 18 Mar 09 - 07:57 PM

I've written a traditional song that I want to record using a synthesiser and electric bass but my friend has told me that if I use electric instruments the song isn't traditional and I will not get any royalties. Will it help if I record it accarpella or should forget that its traditional?

Please help I find this very confusing.

Subject: RE: Tech: Trad Song
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 18 Mar 09 - 08:08 PM

Have a care, sirrah, thou windest up ye very Mudcat ytselffe.

Subject: RE: Tech: Trad Song
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 18 Mar 09 - 08:08 PM

If you have written it, it's not traditional. May be a very good song, but with or without drums or electric instruments, it's not traditional.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Tech: Trad Song
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 Mar 09 - 08:19 PM

I thinketh that thomeone attempteth to pulleth my leggeth.

...or thomething like that...

Please do use the electric bass - then you can call it a singer-songwriter song and copyright it and earn royalties and save the economy. It's the patriotic thing to do.

-Joe-


Oh, and remember to use the same name, every time you post.

Subject: RE: Trad Song
From: Barry Finn
Date: 18 Mar 09 - 08:27 PM

And if it's yours, no matter how you treat it, it ain't gonna be traditional. If you're lucky & it's good enough, revival singers that sing traditional songs may pick it up & start singing it but that still won't make it traditional but it'll be pretty damn good if they start to take it on but that probably won't happen if you're thinking of going with trying to back up what you'd like to have as traditional sounding song written in a traditional style & then backing that up with a rock kit composed of synthesiser and electric bass.

Good luck with it, no matter how you choose to go

Barry

Subject: RE: Trad Song
From: artbrooks
Date: 18 Mar 09 - 08:34 PM

MikeD, you have stepped into an on-going and sometimes nasty "discussion" here. The general (but not universal) opinion is that "trad", by definition, means that a piece of music is in the public domain, that it has been around for a long time (otherwise not denominated) and that the author is unknown. Of course, that eliminates anything written by O'Carolan, but that's apparently all right. "Acoustic instruments" goes without saying. You might be able to get away with calling it "traditional style" if you stay away from non-acoustic, but I'm sure that there are those who will argue that point.

The whole discussion of trad meaning that no royalties need be paid if somebody else records it is a different, if related, issue.

Subject: RE: Trad Song
From: Leadfingers
Date: 18 Mar 09 - 08:47 PM

Keith Marsden (who was a VERY good songwriter) introduced one of his very early songs as 'Traditional' because he thought he wouldnt be believed if he claimed authorship , and then had the Devil's own job getting his royalties paid when 'Bring Us A Barrell' was being sung in nearly every Club in U K !

Subject: RE: Trad Song
From: Artful Codger
Date: 18 Mar 09 - 08:50 PM

You sing accarpella? Do you sing (widemouth) bass? ;-}

Subject: RE: Trad Song
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 18 Mar 09 - 08:58 PM

MikeD, you have stepped into an on-going and sometimes nasty "discussion" here.

Methinks MikeD knoweth what he doeth perfectly damn welleth.

Subject: RE: Trad Song
From: artbrooks
Date: 18 Mar 09 - 09:15 PM

Thou thinkith?

Subject: RE: Trad Song
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 19 Mar 09 - 05:21 AM

What an excellent question! Give yourself a jolly good kick up the bottom!

Subject: RE: Trad Song
From: Mr Happy
Date: 19 Mar 09 - 05:35 AM

GUEST,Mike D

If you jump into your electronic synthetic time machine & crank it back to the 16th century, tweak the lyrics a little so there's piles of 'ye's, thy's, thous, defunct dialect words, then visit the nearest tavern, whaling ship, remote parts of Ireland, Scotland, the Appalachians etc & teach your composition orally to the assemblages - then with luck? some collector, such as C# or Child[e?] will pick it up, then it'll become part of the 'living tradition'!!

Subject: RE: Trad Song
From: Mr Happy
Date: 19 Mar 09 - 11:32 AM

So then, do I take it that if the author of a song is known, it cant't be a folksong nor can it be traditional?

Subject: RE: Trad Song
From: Mr Happy
Date: 19 Mar 09 - 11:56 AM

So the songs of Solomon are off the menu then?

Subject: RE: Trad Song
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 19 Mar 09 - 12:14 PM

Methinks thou taketh ye pysse.

Subject: RE: Trad Song
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 19 Mar 09 - 12:15 PM

I just realised that if The Song of Solomon was written these days it'd probably be banned for being obscene.

Subject: RE: Trad Song
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 19 Mar 09 - 12:17 PM

Or, perchance, thou takest ye pysse, forsoothe. Knowest thou notte that thou treadest a verie mynefielde, heere ?

Subject: RE: Trad Song
From: Mr Happy
Date: 19 Mar 09 - 12:32 PM

'I just realised that if The Song of Solomon was written these days it'd probably be banned for being obscene. '

Has anyone told the Beeb? In case something obscene pops up during 'Songs of Praise'!

Subject: RE: Trad Song
From: BobKnight
Date: 19 Mar 09 - 12:38 PM

Lose the "ye" if you want to be authentic. Purely as a matter of convenience to early printers, who, rather than carve an extra letter to denote the "th" sound. It was called "thorn" and looked like an upside down "y." However, the "y" sound became a part of everyday speech and thou, thon, thonder, became you, yon, yonder.

Subject: RE: Trad Song
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 19 Mar 09 - 12:45 PM

Ye Obscene Songs of Praise. hosted by Russell Brand mayhap?

Subject: RE: Trad Song
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 19 Mar 09 - 12:57 PM

'Please help I find this very confusing.'

Mike, the problem is that the word 'traditional' is used two different ways.

1. It means a song has a familiar, folksong form and sound. Verses followed by a chorus, maybe. Simple chords. It's either old or it sounds old.

2. It means a song it not copyrighted by the composer. Usually it's too old, and any copyright has lapsed. Such a song is in 'the public domain.' On a CD, for example, the credits will just say 'trad.' and we know it was not copyrighted. The composer is probably unknown, and use of the music is free.

If you wrote a song, it may fit under definition 1, but it doesn't fit definition 2. You may copyright it, no matter whether you do it acappela or use acoustic or electric instruments.

The purpose of copyright is to reward creative effort, and if you wrote a song, you made the creative effort.

Subject: RE: Trad Song
From: theleveller
Date: 19 Mar 09 - 01:07 PM

Mike, there's a very simple solution. Change your name to Anon.

Subject: RE: Trad Song
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 19 Mar 09 - 01:56 PM

"Mike, there's a very simple solution. Change your name to Anon"

or, perhaps Trad. Arr

Subject: RE: Trad Song
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 19 Mar 09 - 02:57 PM

The fact that most folk songs have no known author is purely an accident of history - and is otherwise irrelevant.

Subject: RE: Trad Song
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 19 Mar 09 - 03:12 PM

no sense of humour...hmmmm?

Subject: RE: Trad Song
From: Jim Lad
Date: 19 Mar 09 - 03:16 PM

"Mike, there's a very simple solution. Change your name to Anon"
or Dominic.

Subject: RE: Trad Song
From: Stringsinger
Date: 19 Mar 09 - 04:10 PM

Yes, and Beethoven has written be-bop. Bo Didley sang Mozart. I have written a
two-thousand year old song yesterday that goes back to the Elizabethan times.

Subject: RE: Trad Song
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 20 Mar 09 - 05:42 AM

Mike D, congratulations. That's the funniest post I've read on Mudcat in ages.

Subject: RE: Trad Song
From: Harmonium Hero
Date: 20 Mar 09 - 08:53 AM

Reminds me of the classic Rolf Harris ditty "Someone's Pinched Me Winkles!", which started off with the spoken line "Right lads, this is an old, old, traditional cockney folk song that I've just written, and the basic rhythm goes something like this...." (cue wobble board - which, as any fule kno, is an old, old, traditional aborigine folk instrument Rolf invented)....

I'll get me old, old, traditional coat. JK.

Subject: RE: Trad Song
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 20 Mar 09 - 09:39 AM

To write traditional songs you need to be dead for about a hundred years, like Bob Dylan

Dave H

Subject: RE: Trad Song
From: Suegorgeous
Date: 20 Mar 09 - 02:37 PM

Mike's gorn very quiet... or is he just cackling silently from afar?

Subject: RE: Trad Song
From: Stringsinger
Date: 21 Mar 09 - 12:15 PM

The purpose of a copyright is not always used to reward creative effort. It's a business device whereby the holder receives compensation whether they did the actual creative work of not. There are bad stories about many writers who have been bilked out of their potential income from copyrights.

The traditional song is not served by copyright law. The purpose of it is to remain in public domain and be accessible to "the law of the commons" whereby anyone can use it.

Subject: RE: Trad Song
From: High Hopes (inactive)
Date: 21 Mar 09 - 01:11 PM

as this "guest" apparently has never returned one is led to the conclusion that the whole thing was a wind up in the first place

Subject: RE: Trad Song
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 21 Mar 09 - 05:22 PM

You will all go directly to Hell, do not pass go and do not collect a banker's pension!

Subject: RE: Trad Song
From: JohnB
Date: 22 Mar 09 - 11:04 AM

Maybe if you wear an Arran sweater when you sing it. It will look more Traditional, especially if you put your finger in yourear (Sp. deliberate)as well.
JohnB.

Subject: RE: Trad Song
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 22 Mar 09 - 06:14 PM

Would you believe that I gave the Clancys the FIRST Aran sweater they ever had, or had worn, or seen? 'Twasn't very long before they were all wearing them, as a uniform it seemed!