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User Name Thread Name Subject Posted
Shogun Discovering world legacy of shanties by 'Shogun' (266* d) RE: Discovering world legacy of shanties by 'Shogun' 19 Feb 21


Steve Gardham

Yes, you absolutely right about the word 'fairles', It happens because of two of the things:
One    - is because I probably not understand 100 % of nautical terminology, and tars vocabulary (but I do try hard to do so).
Second - The first verses of songs in "Shanties From the Seven Seas", are written under music notation, in kind of the 'Handwriting fashion', and letters are really small, so I just misread, I checked it again with a magnifying glass, and it confirmed, you right. I will try to ask the admin to change it for me.

I will be really happy if I could add this "fairies" story to my YT Description, it could be great if I can quote your name.

About the conversation between Me and Gibb Sahib, Gibb is the person who is one of my mentors, in fact, He doesn't know about it, but His recording of Stan Hugill book, and gives a billion lines of really knowledgeable pieces of information about shanties, and maritime folk. Even more because now also I have a chance to read his book: "Boxing the Compass" (not finished yet, but already can say is a great source of knowledge), which gives a more formal way for me to deep diving into shanties and maritime knowledge. It is really great news is that He look at my thread, and already pointed out some great details about the "Dialects" of German shanties.

A bit about myself:
I love the shanties and forebitters, but my love for shanties comes from my general interest in music. My first Interest was a protest and freedom songs of Polish Bard Jacek Kaczmarski, was the time when between the civilized world and my country it was an Iron Curtain, and songs from "West" we could listen only in Radio "Free Europe", what transmitted from London (as far as I remember), in those times I took the classic guitar to my hands, and with happiness, I used it till now. The music from the west also was smuggling in the luggage of those lucky people who could travel to "West Countries". I remember it was two types of passports, one for countries of the Warsaw Pact (this one was possible to achieve), and an unlimited one (this one can have very few people). So I played on a guitar till my sailing start, around 1990ish, from this time I play and sing sailor songs, sea songs, and everything that was on Polish sailor songbooks.

The true attention and happiness to real understand shanties is about maybe 2-3 years, this time I try to use a really right academic approach, and more. I try to get all the most important books to read about shanties as close original as possible. My hunting also includes getting all possible original records of Stan Hugill, because I believe, his one song is worth a thousand books. Before every my record I try to imagine work, with this particular shanty, so this is the reason, for crazy movements on some of my records. For example, when I singing capstan shanty, I physically push the desk towards the wall, due to lack of capstan.
Since some times when I realized is that guitar doesn't really been an instrument used on boards of the merchant ships, so I start playing in a concertina. My mentors apart from Gibb, but this time I have contact with them are Marek Szurawski, Simon Spalding, and Jim Mageean, those three great shantymen are so kind to help me a lot on my research.

My last activity to get closer to recreate the original shanty in an authentic way is "Erie Maritime Museum and Brig Niagara Online Sail Training Course", to understand better, work on board, and also get a better understanding of vocabulary.
I hope Steve Gardham will be enough about myself but feel free to ask further questions, and of course, I will be really happy if Gibb Sahib and other mudcat members will be keen to help me achieve my ultimate goal, which is: get back to shanty to people in the way they sound on the greatest time.

NOTE! - my 'fairles' mistake was corrected by the admin, thanks really for this.


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