Recreating versus memorizing a song

Subject: RE: Recreating versus memorizing a song
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 12:50 PM

No one knows what the "original" version was like, M. Ted. But, in many songs, I see no reason to put my own "spin" on an old song, or rewrite it to make it "better."

And yes, songs do preserve me. Music preserves me. It helps to keep me grounded, it reminds me of all that I have to be thankful for, it helps me to see the humor in difficult times, and it can help to restore my faith in people.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Recreating versus memorizing a song
From: Peace
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 02:12 PM

It still hasn't taught you to spell humour. Alas . . . .

Subject: RE: Recreating versus memorizing a song
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 02:44 PM

Many of the songs I found and chose to sing over the years were the ballads like "Belle Starr"--ie. "East Texas Red"---"the Hobos Last Ride"---"The Pokegama Bear"---"Billy Vanero"---"The Death Of Robin Hood", etc.. Sometimes a word or two would get dropped in favor of making it scan better in any given performance of a song, or possibly, I just needed to take a breath, or an extra breath in a given place in a song. Those moments would change my performances of a song so that I never, or rarely, did songs the same way twice. Extra instrumental bits in between lines or verses were often ways that songs got changed, and I could always use that ploy as a way to take the extra breath and/or make an unruly line "fit".

Therefore, I was always recreating songs on the fly!!

Whatever, do it your way----and it will come out feeling right for both you and the audience. That's a big reason why I was always a solo performer. It's easier to be individual and personally eratic outside the confines of a group.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Recreating versus memorizing a song
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 02:53 PM

Jerry,

I always felt that you ALWAYS recreated the song to fit your different drummer---if ya know what I mean.

Your temos were usually quite q bit different, even when you tried to slavishly recreate a performance. That was how you MADE your own personal musical cliches.

And those personal cliches, along with what you bring in from mentors and favorite performers you strive to emulate, those taken altogether, are where what others think of as our personal styles come from.

That's just how it looks to me from here.

Art

Subject: RE: Recreating versus memorizing a song
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 03:14 PM

Gee, Peace, my Websters Dictionary spells it "humor." Maybe they spell it humour in Canada. I've always been lousy with foreign languages.

Hey, Art; The problem with communicating is that we have to use words. In the context of this thread, the emphasis has seemed to be on rewriting songs. I do believe that we all make the songs our own, in one way or another. It happens through time. But, it happens for me (and you I think) in a more organic way... as we live with a song, and are playful as we play it, we find ways that we change a line, or a chord progression or a rhythm. I have never tried to imitate anyone else, and I don't believe that you have either. I have never had the desire, patience or gift to sit down in front of a machine and try to reproduce a song the way it was recorded. But, I think that there is an essence to a song that you assimilate through time as you let it become a part of you. It's not as much a conscious decision to rewrite a song as it is to put on the song and let it fit you.

Somewhere in all these words, I'm trying to express my appreciation and respect for the old songs. If I make them mine by changing the accompaniment, shortening a line (in order to be able to get it out)and combining verses from more than one version, it's still the same song in my mind and heart... like your old rifle that you've had for years, even though you've replaced the lock, stock and barrel.

I know your love for the old songs even exceeds mine, Art. While they may evolve in the way that we perform them, we want to carry them on.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Recreating versus memorizing a song
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 06:52 PM

At the Getaway I frequently noticed that the (singing) audience muted their input until the lead singer's phrasing became clear. (I am in awe of FSGW and the Mudcatters in those audiences.)

With my singing partner, I frequently alter phrasing that strikes me as awkward or silly. I know a woman (Heavens forbid- NOT KT!) who sings 'comfort' in 'How Can I keep from Singing' as 'com FORT'. Now, tell me that ain't silly.

Same reasoning with 'Tennessee Waltz'. I sing 'beautiful' as one recognizable word by holding the space after it just a tad longer. I don't like the oft heard, plodding 'bee yew tee full'.

Subject: RE: Recreating versus memorizing a song
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 08:05 PM

Darn, Ebbie: I agree with you. I think people who say Bee You Tee Full are downright Ugghh a Lee!

Jerr-ee

Subject: RE: Recreating versus memorizing a song
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 08:37 PM

hahah I agee!

Subject: RE: Recreating versus memorizing a song
From: GUEST,Whistle Stop
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 08:21 AM

"That's a big reason why I was always a solo performer. It's easier to be individual and personally eratic outside the confines of a group."

Great point, Art. That's one of the reasons I love performing solo; it allows me to give my quirks free rein.

Jerry, I think that songs can change naturally or "organically," as you describe, and that's a great thing. I also think it's perfectly legitimate for the change to occur deliberately. I sometimes really enjoy putting songs through a radical restructuring; words and music are both fair game, in my book. It doesn't necessarily make my version better or worse than the original, but it does sometimes allow me to make a deeper personal connection with the song. And I figure it's those deep personal connections that allow us to realize the full meaning of music.

In the end, though, we all have our own approaches to this, and I'm happy we do.

Subject: RE: Recreating versus memorizing a song
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 09:48 AM

I'm wih you, whistlestop. While I care deeply about the old songs and approach them in the way that is most meaningful for me, everyone pursues them in their own way. I love the songs, but they are not sacred to me. I really liked what Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps did with Frankie & Johnnie many years ago. It rocked out, but it was still Frankie & Johnnie.

In my mind, you've made the ultimate distinction in approaching old songs... do them in a way that allows you to "make a deeper personal connection with the song." If you sing the song exactly as it was recorded, imitating the vocal timbre and dialect of the musician, let me know when you're finished so I can come back in the room. If you change a song beyond recognition, I'll approach it for what it has become. Just make some acknowledgement that it's an old song, and that you've changed it to make it your own.

Dang, think I'll sit down right now and rewrite Barbara Allen and make it Bobby Joe Allen with a rousing chorus to sing in a bar!

Jerry

Subject: RE: Recreating versus memorizing a song
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 12:02 PM

In 1962 a friend and I were traversing the USA for the first time when we met Del Bray in a bar across from our hotel room near the old train station in Cheyenne, Wyoming. I had my guitar with me and was looking for folk songs. We decided to buy a 6-pack and swap some songs in the hotel room because the bar's juke box was just too loud to compete with. Del Bray was a retired beat up old cowboy. I mentionmed that I was looking for the old story songs---and he sang his "Cowboys's Barbara Allen" for us. I wrote it down the best I could on a found piece of paper and stashed it in my duffle bag.

I never found out from Del Bray where he got his song. He might've written it. He went home that night, and we headed to San Francisco and Mexico City. I put the song to what I remembered as the tune he used---but who knows? It could well be a mixture of tunes I'd heard the ballad "Barbara Allen" sung to. BUT Del's song was definitely a cowboy version of the ballad. It's in the DT.

The first verse hooked me in---and I was blown away by it even though I was really quite young---just 20 years old.

Near Medicine Bow where I was born,
There was a fair maid dwellin',
Made all the boys ride saddle sore,
And her name was Barbara Allen.

In 1976 or so I put Del's song on my first LP----Kicking Mule Records KM-150. Fantasy Records owns the entire Kicking Mule record label now, and they've shown no signs of putting it out until I pass on or whatever. SOOOO, I included a different performance of the ballad on my 1998 CD called "The Older I Get, The Better I Was" for Waterbug Records. www.waterbug.com

Possibly Del Bray re-wrote the old song to fit his life and what he knew. The Library Of Congress Archive Of Folk Song issued a whole LP of various collected versions of "Barbara Allen"--many different sets of words and different tunes. Samuel Pepys said in his diary that he'd heard B.A. sung in London --- in 1666. And here was Del doing it for us in Cheyenne almost three hundred years later.

Folks forgot words and tunes and patched it together as best as they could. Why? Because they liked the tale about two young lovers and their failure to honestly communicate their emotions and feelings---and the sad repercussions that led to. The lesson, I guess, was to not be like them!

Recreating and memorizing has a real part to play in the process called the oral tradition. Now it is an "electronic oral tradition" --- with recordings, of all types, greasing the interaction --- like K.Y. jelly !

And always remember, as I'm fond of saying, "When your memory goes, forget it."

Art Thieme