The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #124936 Message #2767600
Posted By: Brian Peters
17-Nov-09 - 05:31 AM
Thread Name: Music of the people..Don't make me laugh
Subject: RE: Music of the people..Don't make me laugh
>> There is a great danger of placing too much importance on the link between tunes and texts. Singers who have been part in a living tradition have stressed to us that they considered the tunes as merely vehicles for the stories <<
Looking at the older ballads in particular, Jim, I'm well aware of a certain interchangeability of tunes and texts. At least one example comes to my mind of a single singer having used different tunes for a ballad on different occasions.
However if you look at alternative versions of songs, like the aforementioned 'Henry Martin' and 'Ship in Distress', in the old collections such as those now available at the 'Take 6' archive, the striking thing is that the tunes are all recognizably the same beast, even though significant details like the mode may be different. If indeed the tunes were disseminated by itinerant ballad sellers or labourers, we still have to allow for individual shaping of melody (and quite possibly text as well), in the new location. To my mind a switch from Ionian to Dorian mode conveys such a change in mood that it's hard to imagine it having occurred accidentally, but maybe that is just my perception as a musician in 2009.
Paul, can you tell us more about this device (software) for comparing tune shapes? I knew such a thing existed but had understood it was desperately complicated to use.