Shanty singing on The Fold soundtrack

Subject: Shanty singing on The Fold soundtrack
From: GUEST,Georgia
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 07:43 AM

Hello,

I'm writing from The Electric Shadow Company, a film production company. Last year we made our first feature film, called The Fold, which is set in Cornwall. At the heart of The Fold is it's music. We filmed a 30 person choir in Truro Cathedral, a folk band on the beaches at Gunwalloe, and of course we couldn't make a film about Cornwall without shanty singers. The Fold features a beautiful new arrangement of The Farewell Shanty sung by Anthony Gilbert and David Muirhead.

We would like to make the music of The Fold available to a bigger audience so we've launched a Kickstarter campaign to help us raise the money we need to master a soundtrack album.

I've copied the link to the campaign page below. Please take a look, I really hope you'll like what you hear. Any support you can give would be so much appreciated, whether it be sharing the link with anyone you know who enjoys shanties and folk music, spreading the word on Twitter and Facebook, or becoming a backer for the project.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/328289010/the-fold-soundtrack?ref=live

The Fold is being released in cinemas in the spring next year, and you can find out more about it on our website www.followthefold.com

Thank you so much for your time and I hope you enjoy the music!

Best wishes,

Georgia

Subject: RE: Shanty singing on The Fold soundtrack
From: GUEST,Squeezer
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 12:35 PM

Looks good, sounds good. I've signed on, and will ask my film club if this is one they would be interested in screening next year.

Subject: RE: Shanty singing on The Fold soundtrack
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 07:17 PM

The music is fine, and good luck... but I don't see any shanty-singing here. It's a bit of false advertising that way.
Go for it without the false advertising, because people looking for shanties are more liable to be disappointed. On the other hand, people looking for something else may be pleasantly surprised.

Subject: RE: Shanty singing on The Fold soundtrack
From: GUEST,Georgia
Date: 28 Nov 13 - 11:20 AM

Thank you for your support Squeezer, that's brilliant. And please do get in touch if your film club are interested in screening the The Fold.

Subject: RE: Shanty singing on The Fold soundtrack
From: GUEST,Squeezer
Date: 28 Nov 13 - 05:14 PM

Gibb, although the origins of the Farewell Shanty (or the Padstow Leaving shanty as it's also known) are a bit obscure, and certainly the tune (which is a bit different from the arrangement in The Fold) is an admitted composition, I think it's fair to say that in the UK it's recognised as a shanty in as much as it's in the repertoires of a lot of shanty groups. And there are of course a great many other songs which are "honorary shanties" too, like Rolling Up, Rolling Down, and Shantyman, and a good many others.

Certainly someone who didn't have a solid historical background in shanties and hadn't studied the various collections could be forgiven for assuming that the Farewell is the genuine article, and I'm not sure that it has been definitely proved that it isn't.

Subject: RE: Shanty singing on The Fold soundtrack
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 29 Nov 13 - 04:18 AM

Squeezer,
Whether that song is an "honorary shanty" (whatever that is?), much less whether someone "could be forgiven for assuming that the Farewell is the genuine article" (huh? Where does this come into play?), is not relevant to my comment.

The soundtrack is claimed to be of interest to people interested in shanties - this is the promotional tack. However:

1) It seems just ONE song on the entire album might be imagined as a shanty; and,

2) That song actually isn't a shanty.
3) Neither does it have the typical characteristics of a chanty.
4) Importantly, neither is it sung in the style(s) of chantey-singing
5) Less importantly, prior well-done recordings of the song are available.

The song, and its performance, stands on its own. Simply does not need to be framed as a "shanty." And because even if some (not I) consider the composition "honorary shanty" because "shanty groups" (sea music performers? folk groups?) have performed it, the performance is hardly "shanty-singing" and it makes up too small a portion of the album to recommend to shanty fans.

This is why I say there is no reason to undercut the quality of the performances and compositions. But if someone doesn't like being called out on the disingenuousness of promoting under the guise of shanty-singing, that is altogether too bad.

Subject: RE: Shanty singing on The Fold soundtrack
From: GUEST,Squeezer
Date: 29 Nov 13 - 06:45 AM

Gibb, Well, I admit you won't find the term "honorary shanty" anywhere else. I just made it up off the top of my head. What I meant by it, as I tried (obviously unsuccessfully) to explain, was a song which was never sung at sea but has been deliberately composed in the style of a shanty. Examples might be Rolling Up, Shantyman, Blood Red Roses. Actually, I don't know for sure that the Farewell isn't a genuine shanty - I suspect it isn't but perhaps we will never know for sure.

I used the term "honorary" because these songs are accepted by a lot of singers, including shanty singers (yes, sea music performers, folk groups, guys in the shower), into their repertoires as if they were real shanties. I could have called them "fakes", but I didn't want to denigrate their qualities as great songs, which in my view carries more value than historical authenticity. You say "imagined as a shanty", another acceptable way to describe such songs.

With regard to your "not having the characteristics of a shanty" and your "imagined as a shanty" description, could the Farewell not be imagined for capstan?

It's true that only one song in the film is of this type, but to be fair to Georgia who started this thread she never actually said "This is a film with lots of shanties sung in it". In her first paragraph she mentions the Farewell along with other the other music in the film. Her thread title is quite correct, as long as the Farewell is accepted into the shanty canon, which of course is a matter of personal taste. Sorry if you feel you have been deceived by a young lady trying to promote a film she thought might appeal to folkies among others, but I don't think we can get her under the Trade Descriptions Act.

I merely added the comment that someone who is not familiar with folk song in general and shanties in particular could be forgiven for assuming that the Farewell is the genuine article in order to cut Georgia and the composer a little slack. Folk- and shanty singers swim around in a very small pond compared to the huge ocean of music out there, and while some issues might be vital to us (such as whether a certain song should be defined as a shanty or not) to everyone else they are arcane and esoteric. My view is that I am delighted that some kind of folky song - which is the kind of song I love above any other - is going to be heard by thousands of people who would never have heard it, and perhaps some of them will be sufficiently enthralled to try to hear more.

As for Georgia not liking being called out, she hasn't actually complained. I suspect she isn't going to.

Subject: RE: Shanty singing on The Fold soundtrack
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 30 Nov 13 - 02:43 AM

Squeezer,

Please quit being obtuse and/or disingenuous. This is a very simple matter of information, correcting where needed, and adjusting for audience - not philosophy, blame-placing, forgiveness, classification, or any such debating. One ant in your house does not equal an infestation. Nor is it of interest to entomologists.

I gave my time, my reaction, and a suggestion - as a potential audience of this. You rushed in and tediously came as White Knight to the rescue of some perceived slight, lecturing me in the most pedantic way on irrelevant matters of epistemology. Overkill much? Shall we now go through the purely pedantic exercise of arguing how this could be an album for Blues fans, too, or how this song could be imagined as a Blues? I'll pass, thanks.

Subject: RE: Shanty singing on The Fold soundtrack
From: GUEST,Squeezer
Date: 30 Nov 13 - 12:29 PM

Strange isn't it how you write what you think is a pleasant sort of e-mail explaining something in what you believe is a reasonable way and the other fellow gets all hot under the collar for, as far as you can see, no apparent reason. I really dislike e-mails for that reason - they just don't communicate tone and expression in the same way as, e,g, a chat over a pint.

In fact, I didn't think I or anyone else had been slighted, but I did think perhaps my use of the word "honorary" was rather clumsy and needed a bit of explanation after your comment "whatever that is". I suppose that's what you mean by epistemology. Oh well, like you Gibb, I'm not really that interested, and anyway I get the feeling that whatever I say you will get even angrier for no good reason, so maybe we should close this thread here.

Subject: RE: Shanty singing on The Fold soundtrack
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Nov 13 - 12:51 PM

Come down, you "Bunch of roses" is a chantey. "Blood red roses" is a changeling seemingly born of Lloyd.