'trad' or 'anon', the difference being?

Subject: 'trad' or 'anon', the difference being?
From: red max
Date: 17 Mar 05 - 08:18 AM

Up til recently I've always assumed that people credited songs "trad" in the absence of a composer's name. But having listened to some Jon Raven stuff recently I notice he uses the two terms above

I know Jon often took lyrics from broadsides & ballad books and set them to traditional tunes, so in effect he was creating something new from old sources, and presumably he didn't necessarily feel these could be deemed part of the oral tradition. But Martin Carthy's being doing that for years, and yet his stuff is "Trad arr Carthy"

Have I got the wrong end of the stick with this? Can you call something traditional if you've no evidence that anyone ever sang it? This could perhaps apply to some of the longer Child Ballads, but I could be wrong

Subject: RE: 'trad' or 'anon', the difference being?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 17 Mar 05 - 08:33 AM

There is one obvious difference which you may not mean. A songwriter publishing anonymously.

For instance, when 'Who fears to speak of 98?' was published it was published anonymously but (at that time) was definitely not traditional.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: 'trad' or 'anon', the difference being?
From: greg stephens
Date: 17 Mar 05 - 08:36 AM

Well, I think most people use trad and anaon for two different things: though they overlap, because trad generally includes anon, but anon doesnt generally include trad.
Trad is used to refer to songs which are passed on from person to person, often aurally, and are usceptible to change, and are not generally considered to be the product of a specific composer. Anon may be an obviously composed arts song, not susceptible to the oral traditional, but it just so happens that nobody knows the author.
"Trad" is a category that sticks: once you're trad, you stay trad. But you're only "anon" till some smartarse PhD student comes along and discovers the copy signed by the composer in the British Museum.

Subject: RE: 'trad' or 'anon', the difference being?
From: VIN
Date: 17 Mar 05 - 08:50 AM

I think we've been here 'afore. Trad to me is a song/tune/dance that is carried down through the generations. For old stuff, many of the original writers/creators of the piece are long forgotten but with modern recording equipment (written or audio/visual), and of course copywrite rules etc, this is less likely to happen. So i reckon a song like Fiddler's Green by John Conolly could now be regarded as 'traditional' as it is sung by many in England and abroad and occasionally altered a bit (as John has acknowledged). Same with many of Ewan McColl's songs and even Bob Dylan's. Of course this could be said of Lennon & McCartney and lots of less 'folkie' (whatever that means - whoops that's another thread i think) writers.

I don't think altering a song/tune makes it less traditional, more like 'variation of theme by......(as in classical music)'. Or even a song adapted from an original etc.

Subject: RE: 'trad' or 'anon', the difference being?
From: GUEST,eoin o'buadhaigh
Date: 18 Mar 05 - 07:15 AM

Look at fleadhs, there is a section on newly composed ballads. They have to be arranged in the traditional style and must be of a content based on modern day. As we know who the composer is, are they any less a traditional song than one that may be anon from x number of years ago?
cheers eoin

Subject: RE: 'trad' or 'anon', the difference being?
From: GUEST,old jazz bloke
Date: 18 Mar 05 - 08:47 AM

its anon dad !!!


.... nah.. dont work

Subject: RE: 'trad' or 'anon', the difference being?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Mar 05 - 08:51 AM

The convention of labelling things by anal retentive types results in label changes over time.

Subject: RE: 'trad' or 'anon', the difference being?
From: GUEST,Paul Burke
Date: 18 Mar 05 - 09:01 AM

I think natural selection is the difference- a 'trad' song has developed by the survival of incremental improvements introduced by mutation. 'Anon' on the other hand usually has the flavour of an 'art' composition, but no known parents.

Subject: RE: 'trad' or 'anon', the difference being?
From: Jeri
Date: 18 Mar 05 - 09:03 AM

You mean labelling results in label changes? Not inevitably, but I agree you've got to have a label in order to change it.

As for the actual subject, I think Greg Stephens got it.

Subject: RE: 'trad' or 'anon', the difference being?
From: GUEST,Michael Morris at work.
Date: 18 Mar 05 - 01:54 PM

I agree that for a song or ballad to be considered traditional, it must be transmitted orally and be sung by non-professional musicians (ie. 'the people', das volk, etc.). It may or may not have a known author. To a certain degree, there should be evidence of recomposition or textual changes specific to various times and places where the song or ballad was sung. A lot of traditional material was printed in broadside form, but many more broadsides never made it into the tradition, or they died out. The question of whether a 'resurrected' lyric set to a new or existing tune is traditional or not depends upon whether that revived / revised song enters the oral tradition. I would say the same thing for recorded hillbilly stuff from the early 20th century. Some was tradtional in origin, some was newly composed but entered tradition, and some remained commercial and non-traditional.

Whether or not the author is known is much less important than what happens to the song or ballad after it is created.

Subject: RE: 'trad' or 'anon', the difference being?
From: Frankham
Date: 19 Mar 05 - 01:20 PM

My view is that "trad" means the communal part of the folk process whereby a song is changed from it's original so often that it becomes a part of a specific folk tradition or an even more general one such as found in a contemporary folk sense. IE: Wildwood Flower which was originally a composed song from England and changed by the Carter Family. Angelina Baker would be another. Most all of the Appalachian dance tunes have origins in minstrelsy and British Isles and have been appropriated and changed with new verses and tunes added.

Anonymous just means that the author or composer has been forgotten or is unknown and the work is unattributable to them.

Frank

Subject: RE: 'trad' or 'anon', the difference being?
From: greg stephens
Date: 19 Mar 05 - 03:19 PM