That is a very interesting way of getting a group of people to focus on a single ballad and think about it.

The tune written down for any ballad has to be an average of what the original singer sang throughout, because everyone varies it according to the demands of an individual verse. If they didn't it would come out sounding like a hymn, with the phrases straightjacketed into the tune. Sometimes the words noted down are very strange, with six-line verses in a four-line ballad or a sudden change of metre, and the only way of dealing with that is to repeat part of the melody or more likely rationalise the words. Perhaps in those cases the source was reciting rather than singing.

It's interesting that everyone in EKanne's group needed to alter the final line of Jamie Douglas's tune; was that because it was difficult to sing, or because it felt like a bit of an anti-climax?

For our all-day ballad forums in Lewes, we ask all participants to nominate their chosen ballad in advance because we haven't so far planned to study a a single one. This means that we avoid duplication and can weed out anything that couldn't be considered a ballad even if you stretch the definition until your knuckles stand out white under the strain. Every participant sings their ballad and starts a discussion about it. The tutor also chooses a couple to sing, and may bring source recordings or literature to shed light on them. (One of our tutors is taking part in this thread.)

Discussion of everyone's choices covers history, folklore, geography, performance style, emotional content, medicine, religion, and anything else thrown up by the ballads themselves.

This is just one way of many possible ones of encouraging people to think more deeply about what they are singing.

Valmai (Lewes)