arranging folk songs

Subject: arranging folk songs
From: Fay
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 12:21 PM

I'm about to start a bit of work arranging folk songs (probably English folk or the English/Scots ballads) for main folk style type voice (ie not classical) and string quartet or chorus (classical).

It could be a bit contentious, and I don't want to do something really unappropriate with the songs,I generally sing unaccompanied and that is the way I like songs, but I'm interested in playing around with them a bit.

What d'ya'll think?

Subject: RE: arranging folk songs
From: treewind
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 12:53 PM

Why not? My first reaction is that a particular treatment won't necessarily work best with all songs, but there's a fair amount of variety to be had with a string quartet and chorus.

My next reaction is: it's been done before. Is it going to sound like Vaughan Williams or Grainger, or maybe like Britten, or like Cecil Sharp's arrangements for voice and piano? Er, I hope not entirely like that!

Alistair Anderson and Matt Seattle have done similar instrumental projects (concertina and border pipes respectively, with string quartet amongst other groupings)

I won't really know what to think until I hear the result. So I hope that will happen. Do let us know!

Anahata
(who has a fairly classical approach to arrangements and has recorded solo cello accompaniments to songs, for instance)

Subject: RE: arranging folk songs
From: Allan C.
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 01:06 PM

As it is often said in the music world, "Play it like you feel it." In other words, do whatever sounds good to you. I will add, though, that I think it is difficult to do folksongs in choral arrangements without their becoming what is, in my opinion, too polished-sounding. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't. Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians did Lolly Toodum and the Robert Shaw Chorale did Aura Lee rather successfully in my opinion. But don't get me started on what Mitch Miller did to folksongs! I guess it is sorta like 101 Strings playing "Hits Made Famous By The Beatles". Some things just don't work.

Subject: RE: arranging folk songs
From: curmudgeon
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 01:44 PM

Read the notes on accompaniments/arrangements in the Penguin Book of English Folk Songs.

Subject: RE: arranging folk songs
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 02:17 PM

Fay,

Do whatever you want with it.

Martin Carthy explains better than me:

By 1971, I had come to understand that folk music could survive anything that, or anyone else equally well-intentioned could do to it. The sort of mix-up that occured when the folk and rock worls met is the sort of mix-up that has always gone on in folk culture. It is utterly ridiculous to try and keep folk music pure because it has never been pure, it is a mish-mash. The idea of a there being a folk pedigree is a joke

Subject: RE: arranging folk songs
From: GUEST,Martin Gibson
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 03:51 PM

I guess your arrangements will have no instrumental breaks..........

Subject: RE: arranging folk songs
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 03:56 PM

Arrange it how you damn well like. The current dominance of guitar arragements has no grounding in English tradition so there is only a tiny minority of purists who could make any valid complaint about "authenticity".

Subject: RE: arranging folk songs
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 04:22 PM

Arrange it how you damn well like

Hear, hear.

GUEST says all that needs to be said on this topic.

If anyone finds your arrangements 'contentious', ignore them or tell them to bugger off.

Your music will stand or fall on whether it is any good.

Subject: RE: arranging folk songs
From: pavane
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 04:28 PM

How much of it is actually FOLK music is also questionable (however you may define it)

Subject: RE: arranging folk songs
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 06:20 PM

One thing I'd be careful of is how the chorus enunciates. Some of those highly-trained singers can take the heart and feeling out of a song with their clipped precision. Get them a bit drunk before recording.

String quartet: great. Have a listen to that record Jim Eldon made (Jim Eldon and the Sharp Shooters, I think it was?) for an object lesson in dynamic string quartet accompaniment for popular song. And early Electric Light Orchestra, too (seriously). Cellos need to be allowed to growl and bite.

Subject: RE: arranging folk songs
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 07:42 PM

You might want to listen to some of Custer Larue's efforts. I am not a big fan of "arranged" folk songs, but I consistently like her efforts.

Subject: RE: arranging folk songs
From: CraigS
Date: 02 Oct 03 - 04:54 PM

I wouldn't recommend you go further until you have researched the combination of Bill Caddick and Webbs Wonders (should stop the wheel from being reinvented).

Subject: RE: arranging folk songs
From: MartinRyan
Date: 02 Oct 03 - 05:08 PM

Saw a TV program the other night on Frank Harte, an (or the, if you know of him) unaccompanied traditional singer par excellence . The only accompanist he tolerates is one Donal Lunny because "he accompanies the singer in such a way that he still feels unaccompanied!". I think he meant it as a compliment! Apart from the flexibility of time required, he clearly felt that the use of counter melody was a vital part of how it worked.

Just a thought.

Regards

Subject: RE: arranging folk songs
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 03 Oct 03 - 01:13 AM

I've got my folk songs arranged on the shelf in alphabetic order, arranged by classes, Australian, American, British, etc.

Robin

Subject: RE: arranging folk songs
From:
Date: 03 Oct 03 - 02:25 AM

If I may chime in, I'd suggest it's very important to keep in mind the meaning of the lyrics and the original intent of the song. Nothing worse than taking a simple, plainspoken song and making it into some flowery, overblown artifice.

I cringe the same way when I hear Sinatra's recording of "Saturday Night is the Loneliest Night of the Week"--a sad song--done as such a snappy, swingin' pop tune--as if he hasn't given any thought to what he's singing about.

But I really like, say, interesting harmonic directions or chord substitutions to get away from the obvious ones.

Subject: RE: arranging folk songs
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Oct 03 - 04:31 AM

Listen to the last track on "I am Jim Moray" (by Jim Moray) for simple, subtle, but masterful string arranging. I believe he studyed orchestration at university.

Also, listen to "A Quiet Eye" by June Tabor. OK its for brass, but its still really good. You could listen to anything Huw Warren has done with June actually. Genius.

Failing that, listen to Penderecki, Serenade for tenor, horn and strings by Britten, and Tom Waits, orchestral moments.

Subject: RE: arranging folk songs
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 03 Oct 03 - 05:31 AM

Try tracking down Elvis Costello singing with the Brodsky String Quartet. The singing coincides with the accompaniment, but is not constrained by it.
Quack!
Geoff the Duck.

Subject: RE: arranging folk songs
From: Fay
Date: 06 Oct 03 - 06:31 AM

Thanks all good advice, and very encouraging. I'd better get myself off to the listening library with armfulls of CDs...

Love Fay

Subject: RE: arranging folk songs
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Oct 03 - 06:46 PM

You just have to get to hear Anthems in Eden with Shirley and Dolly Collins and the Early Music Consort of London (led by David Munrow) - and this gives more details about it. An extraordinary record, showing a completely different approach from pretty well everything that has happened since, so far as I am aware.. I hope it's just whatb you are looking for, because I'd love to think someone somewhere could pick it from there.