Signs of life in long ballads

Subject: Signs of life in long ballads
From: InOBU
Date: 18 May 02 - 10:12 AM

Not my cup of tea, generally, country western music... but this morning heard Tammy Cocran on the early morning TV news and stuff show... she sang a song, Life Happens. Not a bad song (the high praise given my CD by one Jane Kelton... "Well, Larry... its not a BAD CD..." but back to the point... it was a long ballad with a good story and so, as one who writes long songs... (see the comment to my song in the post "Rape" ... - your song could be shorter, or it's too long or what ever was said...) but the fact is, a song should be as long as is needed to tell the story. We as a culture seem to be sacrificing story telling for brevity as the attention span of folks wains and songs become background noice to folks shouting at each other in pubs. It is good to hear a ballad singer being given her propers on network TV.
Cheers Larry

Subject: RE: Signs of life in long ballads
From: Snuffy
Date: 18 May 02 - 04:34 PM

What do you call long, Larry?

I usually reckon under 3 minutes is short, and long starts somewhere between 4 and 4:30. I occasionally do a couple that are about 6 minutes, and usually get away without too much obvious unrest. But then I'll probably do a sub-two minute on to make up.

It makes nice change to an evening when you've got varying lengths of song, but I wouldn't want to listen for a couple of hours just to long songs.

WassaiL! V

Subject: RE: Signs of life in long ballads
From: Anglo
Date: 18 May 02 - 04:38 PM

Don't worry about yours, Larry, red-headed flute players have a tendency to be super-critical.

Subject: RE: Signs of life in long ballads
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 18 May 02 - 04:38 PM

Length is subjective...

Shakespeare said "Brevity is the soul of wit", but anyone who's ever seen an UNABRIDGED Shakespeare play will tell you, that he was a lot of things, and brief wasn't one of them!

;-)

Subject: RE: Signs of life in long ballads
From: RolyH
Date: 18 May 02 - 05:02 PM

...It spat and rang in her yellow hair,
and there she burnt like hokey green

whew!

Subject: RE: Signs of life in long ballads
From: InOBU
Date: 18 May 02 - 06:09 PM

Anglo! HHHHHmmmmmmmmmm..... Now, there must be a story here! Cheers, another pal of a certain flute player! Larry

Subject: RE: Signs of life in long ballads
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 19 May 02 - 10:18 AM

I take your story as confirmation that we are in the midst of another folk scare.

I love the old ballads and have a number of friends who share the love/obsession. Sometimes we'll do ballad medleys. We'll sing several different versions of our favorites like the two sisters or the cruel mother.

Subject: RE: Signs of life in long ballads
From: GUEST,kathy
Date: 19 May 02 - 12:43 PM

I did have this idea of The Serial Ballads. 3 of us would do The Little Jest of Sir Robin Hood - 468 verses - starting with the first 10 verses at the first festival of the year, and then telling the audience, very briefly, what happens next. The person to go to the next festival would relate what happened in the first 10 verses, sing the next 10 and relate what happens in the remainder etc. Anyone not wanting to hear the end could put their hands over thier ears...... This way the superb yet incredibly long ballads would get an airing.... We worked out we could do it by Christmas if we started in January!!!

Subject: RE: Signs of life in long ballads
From: CapriUni
Date: 19 May 02 - 02:25 PM

A musical soap opera! I love it, kathy!

Announcer: Will Robin ever get together with Marion? Will the Sherriff of Nottingham unmask the Merry Men? To find out, come back next week -- same stage, same time!

Subject: RE: Signs of life in long ballads
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 May 02 - 02:28 PM

For some reason many people seem much more willing to accept a longish story when it's spoken than when it's sung. Not just modern people either - in some cultures the tradition is that the story is spoken, but breaks into song at crucial points. I suspect that may have been how very long ballads may have been presented sometimes.

Subject: RE: Signs of life in long ballads
From: DMcG
Date: 19 May 02 - 02:29 PM

The Little Jest of Sir Robin Hood - 468 verses?
Anyone know the Great Jest? :-)

Subject: RE: Signs of life in long ballads
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 19 May 02 - 02:34 PM

What would you prefer - 486 verses of a folk ballad or 5 whole days of the bloody Ring of the Neiblung? Some people don't know they're born.....

LTS

Subject: RE: Signs of life in long ballads
From: alanabit
Date: 19 May 02 - 02:35 PM

Bob Dylan and Eric Bogle are both in the habit of making a ballad as long as they see necessary to tell a story. I am all for that. The ones that annoy me are the ones which need three verses to tell me how long her lily white scarf was. I just want to hear the story.

Subject: RE: Signs of life in long ballads
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 May 02 - 07:03 PM

Well you would be for that, Alan - as evidenced by Johnny Petto on your CD. Eight verses of nine lines, and 8 minutes. And it doesn't seem that long either. That's because there's no padding.

Things should take as long as they need.

But an eight minute spoken story wouldn't even be thought of as a long story. (So long as it was a good story, that goes without saying.)

I've a piece that started off as a song, but I found it seems to work better as a spoken monologue, and I think one of the reasons is that it seems to go more briskly. I can't understand how that works, but it does seem to work that way. You'd think it'd be the other way round.

Subject: RE: Signs of life in long ballads
From: Joe Offer
Date: 19 May 02 - 11:21 PM

If you're singing a long ballad, I think it's important to remember that you're telling a story. If you sing in a way people can't understand, you'll lose them - and rightfully so. Also, I think that audiences have less tolerance for hearing long, long songs multiple times. The story maybe be teriffic the first time around, but not if you just heard it last week.
John McCutcheon's Christmas in the Trennches is a terrific song - but I'm sure I like hearing it at every McCutcheon concert I attend (I've been to a dozen, I think). Same goes for novelty songs - they wear thin if sung too often.
Oh, if you want to hear ballads sung as if the singer were telling a story, take a listen to Judy Cook.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Signs of life in long ballads
From: DMcG
Date: 20 May 02 - 03:40 AM

Not folk music, I admit, but I did once go to a version of the Chester Mystery plays that took 6 three-hour sessions over two days to complete the cycle. Worth going to, too!

Subject: RE: Signs of life in long ballads
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 20 May 02 - 10:50 AM

As a writer and performer of long songs myself, I sometimes think it's important to remind myself of the ground rules. I am entitled to sing or write songs that are as long as I choose. But nobody is obligated to listen. If my objective is to perform the song/tell the story my way, I have the right to do that, but I may have to get by with a very small audience. If I want to find a meeting place in the middle -- respecting the narrative, but also hoping to encourage some folks to listen -- I need to do some judicious editing.

If I want to perform long songs AND lecture the audience about their short attention spans, I will likely not end up with much of an audience at all.

Subject: RE: Signs of life in long ballads
From: paddymac
Date: 20 May 02 - 11:11 AM

Funny thing is that making lengthy prose or poetry into song (i.e.; linking it to a melody) makes it a lot easier to commit to memory. Well, at least for me. Music as a mnemonic - what a concept, eh? And then there is Seamus Heany's comment about Beowulf - "It was meant to be heard, not read," or words to that effect. There are some folks about who will argue endlessly about the proper length of a song, some in terms of time and some in terms of verses. I don't think there is a "correct" answer. It seems to me the only wise course to read to your audience as you go. If they stay with it, take it to the end. If they seem to lose interest, cut it short.

Subject: RE: Signs of life in long ballads
From: GUEST,Nerd
Date: 20 May 02 - 12:20 PM

Of course, The Lytel Geste of Robyn Hode wasn't actually a folk ballad, nor was it likely ever sung. Even Child says as much in the ESPB. For many of those truly long long Child ballads, there is no tune on record, because Child was rather liberal in some ways about what he included (but very strict in other ways, of course!)So texts got in because they were old, and because their style was similar to ballads...but in all likelihood they were never ballads. The Lytel Geste is one of the few times Child ever comes out and says that a text he put in is not a ballad, however.

I have always loved both singing and listening to long songs, but I think there's a good deal of sense in what Snuffy and Joe have to say; you can't sing ONLY long songs, and you probably won't want to listen to the same thirteen minute ballad over and over again (unless you're trying to learn it!) So the rule is moderation in all things--or at least in some things!

Subject: RE: Signs of life in long ballads
From: Bearheart
Date: 20 May 02 - 07:32 PM

I love the old ballads, and I love singing them, and I love listening to a really fine singer sing them. Some people can bore you in 3 verses, some have you wanting more after 12.