Bronson tunes - Child Ballads

Subject: RE: Bronson tunes - Child Ballads
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 03 Aug 09 - 07:57 PM

Well it's official. It's out!
About time, too....every Child should have a companion. But rathervthan add to this already-lengthy thread, I've started a new one.

Subject: RE: Bronson tunes - Child Ballads
From: Peter Shepheard
Date: 15 Dec 09 - 03:55 PM

The Loomis House reprint of Bronson's The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads is available through Springthyme both in UK and for Worldwide distribution - priced at £22 per volume (paperback) and £28 (hardback):
Link: Bronson: Traditional Tunes - full set for £87

We have also been distributing the Loomis House reprint of Child's: The English and Scottish Ballads for several years - since the first volume was published in 2001.

Bronson: Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads - Special Bargain: POST FREE (to UK and Ireland) : BUY ALL FOUR VOLUMES TOGETHER and be offered a FREE CD with fully searchable files for the complete collection: 2,200 pages of tunes and texts with notation for 4,120 tunes. The bargain of the century!

The Singing Tradition - that is, Bertrand H Bronson's The Singing Tradition of Child's Popular Ballads, is a single-volume, abridged edition of Bronson's four volume The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads.

To create this edition, Bronson selected those tunes and texts which had the strongest representation in the oral tradition, excluding those from the original collection which only existed in print. The volume has an excellent new introduction where Bronson analyses the essential unity of a ballad text and tune and he shows how ballad tunes have evolved to produce tune families. His introduction to the modal structure of tunes in the Anglo-American tradition is essential reading for singers and students of the ballad tradition.

Dick Greenhaus of Camsco Music was the driving force behind the Bronson reprint - obtaining permission from the original publishers Princeton University Press and then working with Loomis House Press to arrange the republishing. Loomis in the United States had already set about republishing Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads and we at Springthyme in Scotland arranged to distribute the Loomis Child volumes through our website. The four volume of Bronson's Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads became available earlier this year and now the condensed Singing Tradition in November 2009 is an alternative for those without the funds or the bookshelf space for the full set.

All these are available from Springthyme - including a special bargain price on the four volume set of Bronson: BUY ALL FOUR VOLUMES TOGETHER and be offered a FREE CD with fully searchable files for the complete collection: 2,200 pages of tunes and texts with notation for 4,120 tunes. The bargain of the century!

Have a look at:
Bronson: Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads
More about Bronson's 'Traditional Tunes' & 'Singing Tradition'

For years it has been almost impossible to get the full set of Bronson (and the cost could be well over £1000) and the condensed edition has been near £100 (paperback) and up to £400 for the hardback. Congratulations to Dick at Camsco!

Subject: RE: Bronson tunes - Child Ballads
From: GUEST,Songbob
Date: 15 Dec 09 - 04:12 PM

So now is my original, pristine set of Bronson worth much less than before? It's (sigh) virtually unused, and sits proudly on a shelf where it does, well, not much good, in that I almost never open it.

What happens to the perceived value of such books when reprints are available? Could I really have gotten a thousand pounds for it before, or could I still get a thousand pounds for it now?

What does happen to values of such items, which are scarce but useful (as opposed to scarce but useless, like diamonds)?

Just wondering.


Bob Clayton

Subject: RE: Bronson tunes - Child Ballads
From: Surreysinger
Date: 15 Dec 09 - 04:20 PM

Picking my set of the new publications tomorrow/Thursday- whoopee. I'm now wondering why I didn't know that my paperback single volume from the 70's was worth so much !! I might have treated it with even more care and concern than I originally did!!

Subject: RE: Bronson tunes - Child Ballads
From: GUEST,Gordon Tyrrall
Date: 15 Dec 09 - 04:23 PM

Great news, I shall be ordering a full set immediately.I've used Bronson a lot - they had the full set in Leeds Public Library until the useless buggers lost it - unbelievable!