Help: Cultural time - what's yours ?

Subject: Cultural time - what's yours ?
From: GUEST,Les B
Date: 14 Jun 01 - 03:45 PM

I play Americana music - folk, old-timey, bluegrass, country-western, swing, etc. Within those genres, only old-timey seems to have a noticable difference in length. 've heard some fiddler/banjo duos go on for 5 minutes and longer, whereas most of the other genres run around 2 to 3 minutes - except of course for some of the old ballads.

In chatting with a staff member I just learned that the Siamese Shadow Puppet tradition has a show which lasts, non-stop, for 24 hours. I also know that some Egyptian/Arabic song performances are 20 minutes in length.

Would anyone care to elaborate on the time differences in "performance" in different cultures ?

I see the American forms as being shaped by the commercial aspects of radio & TV, but there's also the "squirm factor" - an audience gets tired of sitting in a seat after a period of time. What do you all think ?

Subject: RE: Help: Cultural time - what's yours ?
From: Mark Clark
Date: 14 Jun 01 - 03:50 PM

I think the modern commercial formula came from the amount of time that could be squeezed onto one side of a 78 RMP record. If your particular music didn't need to fit that format, it could be as long as you wished. LP alums and CDs have allowed many modern commercial performers to expand the envelope.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Help: Cultural time - what's yours ?
From: M.Ted
Date: 14 Jun 01 - 04:00 PM

Radio had an impact on the song length, too--in the days of live radio, the programs were often short, often only five or ten minutes, so verses were cut, intro were cut, all so a show could include more that one or two songs, and a bit of chatter--

The Arabic performance pieces are really several different songs and a couple segments of improvisation, but all segued together--

Subject: RE: Help: Cultural time - what's yours ?
From: GUEST,Les B
Date: 14 Jun 01 - 04:11 PM

Actually there is another area where tunes are played for what can seem like and eternity - contra dances. I heard a fiddler saying the other night he played "Arkansas Traveler" for 45 minutes one night for the Virginia Reel, which is a notoriously long dance. Of course some fiddlers medley together 2 or 3 pieces, but it's still a long old haul.

Subject: RE: Help: Cultural time - what's yours ?
From: Burke
Date: 14 Jun 01 - 04:46 PM

Almost any live music for dancers can be played as long as needed to suit the occasion. For contras the object is to let all the couples dance with each other so if the sets are long the dance is long & if the sets are short the dance can be shorter.

I've learned some Hungarian dance sequences that used the whole side of an lp 20-25 min. for a set of dances. I understood that in the real village the dance might go on much longer with some sections quite fast & others slower. I've seen the same suite cut down to between 5 & 10 minutes in a performance situation.

I think you're right about the squirm factor & that's why the Hungarian performing groups shortened up what they were doing. Performers also need to vary things much more to keep an audience's attention than is needed in a participatory sitution.

Another example is hymns that used to run to 8-12 verses. Most have been cut to 3-4 & if a hymnal gives more some are usually marked as optional. Sermons are also a lot shorter than they used to be :-)

Subject: RE: Help: Cultural time - what's yours ?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 14 Jun 01 - 05:59 PM

Ballads notoriously, because they're telling a story, tend to go on for many verses, often resulting in lots of squirm for modern 3-1/2 minute audiences. I've had complaints about the length, for example, of That Strawberry Roan, which only runs about 7 minutes as I do it.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Help: Cultural time - what's yours ?
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Jun 01 - 08:11 PM

didn't take many years to move from songs that took 30-40 minutes to tell a story to TV commercials with 327 half-second images, did it?....and we wonder why out kids' attention span is limited and lyrics run to "oh, baby, yeah, yeah"

Subject: RE: Help: Cultural time - what's yours ?
From: M.Ted
Date: 15 Jun 01 - 04:39 PM

Even still, it seems to me that the popular ballads going back a few centuries have tended relatively short--not always two to three minutes, but often not longer than 4 or 5 verses-- Comtemplator

Subject: RE: Help: Cultural time - what's yours ?
From: GUEST,emily b
Date: 15 Jun 01 - 06:24 PM

Interesting question.

I have a running argument with a fellow band member about length of song. He wants to keep everything to about 3 minutes. I keep pointing out to him CD after CD of folk stuff that have most songs lasting longer than 4 minutes.

Yea! Now we can sing all the verses. Or put in a fun instrumental. If no one starts to stretch the audiences attention span, it won't ever happen.

I am glad that I don't have to sit through 24 hours of anything though.

Emily

Subject: RE: Help: Cultural time - what's yours ?
From: Amergin
Date: 15 Jun 01 - 07:54 PM

i can beat my belly in time with some marching tunes....

Subject: RE: Help: Cultural time - what's yours ?
From: Chicken Charlie
Date: 15 Jun 01 - 08:10 PM

Emily B. has been "reading my mail." I think there's a simple explanation, and being a simple fellow ....

If you were travelling by coach across northern England in the 18th century, stopped at an inn, and had an intinerant folker drop in and start singing, I think you would gladly listen to 17 verses of Barbree Ellen, because that was the only game in town. I keep telling my dear wife, who gets the 3-min-30-sec fidgits, "People in them olde times weren't anxious for the song to get over so they could get on with the entertainment. That WAS the entertainment."

Another version of this same argument rages between me and two of my colleagues. Everytime I switch instruments, say I have to retune, or take a deep breath, my two otherwise wonderful sidemen want to do a "filler" just in case somebody gets bored in those 45 seconds. Drives me cuckoo. But it's generational; I grew up before the 30-sec sound bite and my guitar/tenor guy did not.

CC

Subject: RE: Help: Cultural time - what's yours ?
From: Gareth
Date: 15 Jun 01 - 08:16 PM

I am tempted to say that the cultural span is now limited to the time between adverts on the media (thank the Lord for the BBC)

But if you want a folk tradition that can continue indefinitly try a challange round song such as Crawshaw Bailey (trad SWales) where those who cant remember/invent another verse buy the beer.

I have seen/heard/participated in contests lasting up to 25 minutes.

Gareth.

Subject: RE: Help: Cultural time - what's yours ?
From: Matt_R
Date: 15 Jun 01 - 08:30 PM

I am used to much longer music. A song that is only 3 minutes is too short for me. I like longer songs, between 5-10 minutes, though not ballads, because it's usually very short phrases for each 4 line verse, and there are always like 13 verses. Something so long without musical variation doesn't sit with me very well.

Subject: RE: Help: Cultural time - what's yours ?
From: Irish sergeant
Date: 16 Jun 01 - 07:30 PM

Not all American music runs to the three and a half minute limit. The late sixties and early seventies had many musicians doing ten, twnety and even thirty minute songs. Don McLean's "American Pie" And Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Freebird" come to mind but radio and TV gave us the sound byte and I'm not entirely certain it was a good thing. Give me a good tune and I don't care how long it is. By the way, Amerigin, we might beable to get you a gig on the "Gong Show" if Chuck Barris hasn't died or went to syndication Hell yet. Have a great Saturday night all! Kindest reguards, Neil

Subject: RE: Help: Cultural time - what's yours ?
From: M.Ted
Date: 16 Jun 01 - 10:21 PM

Let us not forget that there is a still a a popular record market in 12 inch singles that are used in dance clubs--most run in the range of 7-8 minutes--

Subject: RE: Help: Cultural time - what's yours ?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 17 Jun 01 - 11:13 AM

"Alice's Restaurant" is in excess of forty-five minutes, and when I listen to it I always regret that it's over. Although I suppose strictly speaking that's not--at least not the whole thing--a song.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Help: Cultural time - what's yours ?
From: GUEST,ADG
Date: 17 Jun 01 - 11:21 AM

Yikes, 45 minutes!

The first version of Alice's was about 18 minutes long. The new one runs about 23.

ADG

Subject: RE: Help: Cultural time - what's yours ?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 17 Jun 01 - 05:53 PM

The version I have on an Arlo CD, I haven't timed myself, but he says something like "I've been singin' this song for forty-five minutes now, and I could sing it for forty-five more!"

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Help: Cultural time - what's yours ?
From: SINSULL
Date: 09 Jul 01 - 08:14 PM

Wagner's Ring Cycle goes on forever.

Subject: RE: Help: Cultural time - what's yours ?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 09 Jul 01 - 08:19 PM

It is 01.20 AM where I am (Hull UK)

Subject: RE: Help: Cultural time - what's yours ?
From: RangerSteve
Date: 09 Jul 01 - 09:48 PM

You can blame the 3 minute rule for old-time country music on the time allowed for a 10inch 78rpm record. There are a lot of country 78's where the musicians are cut off in mid note at the end. Grandpa Jones once did an overly long version of "Roane County Prison" in concert and said that the reason most people don't know the complete version is because of the 3 minute rule.

Subject: RE: Help: Cultural time - what's yours ?
From: GeorgeH
Date: 10 Jul 01 - 10:52 AM

Except that classical music was recorded onto 78s . . Must have made listening to it a less-than-perfect experience.

(Was it "The Iceman Cometh" where the reels were projected in the wrong order on its first showing?)

G.

Subject: RE: Help: Cultural time - what's yours ?
From: hesperis
Date: 10 Jul 01 - 04:35 PM

Dancing definitely needs longer music than a mere three minutes. I've had to put some pieces on repeat... and I know some Sacred Circle Dance facilitators who record what they call "long dance" by putting a piece on repeat and recording a whole 90-min tape with it. "Long Dance" usues the dances almost as a mantra, to deepen the groove. It's pretty amazing.

Subject: RE: Help: Cultural time - what's yours ?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Jul 01 - 05:38 PM

They tended to use bigger 78s than the pop records though. Probably finger grooves as well. It wasn't the same as LPs, but probably made people concentrate more. Couldn't just be background music. Most people had windups which had to be wound up again quite often.

People in the folk world seem to be quite happy to listen to a good storyteller telling stories that last 10, 20, 30 minutes.

But there's another side to the short-attention span thing. Younger people now can read a film narrative far more rapidly than used to be the case, which is why it is possible to get quite a complicated plot into a couple of minutes of commercial for example, which would not have been conceivable years ago.

And something of the same can apply with songs - I think there can be some gain in reducing a ballad to it bare bones. Even leaving out details which you have to fill in from your imagination.

Subject: RE: Help: Cultural time - what's yours ?
From: M.Ted
Date: 10 Jul 01 - 11:32 PM

Maybe we could reduce a ballad to its bare bones, then putting it on repeat for 90 minutes--like a mantra,

Subject: RE: Help: Cultural time - what's yours ?
From: Sourdough
Date: 11 Jul 01 - 02:56 AM

It does seem likely that the 78rpm record helped to set the standards for the expected length of a song although it really doesn't explain the popularity of the 10" 78 over the 12" for popular music. Obviously, there would be some advantages for the seller in materiels, shipping, etc. and there would be some for the end user who would have a lighter, easier to store product.

However, the classical music lover was happy to use the 12" in order to have fewer interruptions for record changes but even then, it was jarring for a music lover to have to hear a Brahm's Concerto break off in mid performance while the record changer whirred and clunked and another disk fell to the turntable and then awaited the descent of the tone arm which would be followed by the "schkerrrrrrr" of the empty track until the needle spiralled in to where the muscic began once again. This was not very conducive for a sublime musical experience and one classical music lover was determined to do something about it.

Years later, I had the chance to talk to him about this. As I recall, he said it was a Brahms piece that pushed him over the edge. His name was Peter Goldmark and he worked for Columbia Labs, he may even have been the president. He generally gets credit as the inventor of the LP.

Later he wanted to extend the joys of music listening into the automobile and he invented a turntable for a record player that would work in a moving automobile as it drove along highways or city streets. It was quite an achievement, reliable continuous sound before there were computer chips to read the music ahead and store it in an anti-skip cache. Unfortunately for him, his invention was overtaken by the cassete tape deck and so remains an engineering marvel that got washed up on the shores of Irrelevantania. (I've always felt comfortable there, myself. I speak their language.)

Sourdough

Subject: RE: Help: Cultural time - what's yours ?
From: Burke
Date: 11 Jul 01 - 08:22 PM

Has the 3 minute standard worked the opposite way as well, a minimum time? Lots of the Lomax field recordings are really short. My Sacred Harp Recordings have lots of track lengths of under 2 minutes & they were made at the singing so it's not as if they were edited. There's a desire to let everyone lead so 2-3 verses is the norm & 1 is not unusual.

Subject: RE: Help: Cultural time - what's yours ?
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 12 Jul 01 - 08:42 PM

We perform longer ballads in our shows, but work the audience up to it. We are sort of on a mission to keep doing ballads because we've been told that modern audiences don't have the attention span. They seem to go over when we perform them, so we must be doing something right. I, too, like a good melody with a story and don't want a good tune to end.