Source singers - definitions

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: TheSnail
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 11:54 AM

Oh, for goodness sake! Just sing what you enjoy. Find it where you can. That's what the "source singers" did.

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: Grimmy
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 12:21 PM

I think we are getting too hung up about this oral tradition business.

There wasn't some committee of medieval ploughmen legislating that songs had to be passed on orally. In the past, in a rural culture where community singing was an everyday activity (now gone, sadly), people learned the songs by listening to others. There was no other way.

Today, we have other means at our disposal and it would be folly to ignore them.

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 12:44 PM

I sing because I enjoy singing,I have been listening to traditional music for so long,That I dont think it makes a difference now ,whether I learn a song from manuscript or a recording,in fact if anything I would like to learn it from manuscript,so that I can put my own style to it.
What I do not want to do is sound like a carbon copy, of the last person I heard sing it on a recording.
so I might listen to a source singers version of a song.or learn from manuscript,but because I have listened to source singers and traditional material for so long,I still sound like a traditional singer.DickMiles

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 01:31 PM

I was having this conversation with my boyfriend recently. He prefers to write the words of a song down and learn them that way; I prefer to listen to a recording till I have the song. He reckons his way means you're not picking up someone else's "version" and copying their traits and mannerisms and any little vagaries they might bring to it. That's true enough, but my argument is that when people learned songs from each other they did it by listening enough times to "get" the song, and then, by singing it themselves over time, would put their own stamp on it. They were equally prey to picking up mannerisms and idiosyncracies from other singers - did that make them wrong?

I dont see how it's so very different if I learn a song from someone else's recorded version, so long as I'm not slavishly copying their style. I learn stuff from people like Harry Cox and Sam Larner, and equally from Peter Bellamy or Eliza Carthy or Spiers and Boden. If it's a good song, I want to sing it. And while I like knowing the "source" versions of songs, they are, after all, just a snapshot: one moment in that song's life and evolution, one person's interpretation.

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 04:18 PM

To go back a bit to what Ruth said - I agree that Brian Dawson is a national treasure, and I very much hope that someone will record him! Some of the songs and fragments he's collected on the WI circuit...

Kitty

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 09:56 PM

Doug Chadwick asked a question earlier that needs answering:

'In the oral tradition, a song can change slowly and subtly as it passes down the line. As recording a song freezes that version in time, is there a danger that the very act of recording might remove a song from the oral tradition that the collector wants to preserve?'

To which I would reply: No more -in principle- than taking a photograph of a horse jumping over a hedge prevents that horse, or future horses, from doing the same thing in a slightly different way; neither, for that matter, does it prevent the hedge from continuing to grow. It helps us to understand the way horses do it, though (it was photography that made possible the analysis of how horses moved) and exactly the same is true of recording folk song from tradition; though there, I hope, the horse analogy will be allowed to end.

The commercial issuing of recordings does have a tendency to standardize, but that is another matter. In the case of song nowadays, it is usually arrangements made by revival performers that become the 'norm' among later revival performers. That is not to say that there isn't a tradition involved; just that it is a new tradition, and it doesn't work in quite the same way. It is important to make that distinction, not because one is less 'valid' than the other, but because they operate in different contexts, and it is only by understanding the context that we can appreciate what is happening and what has happened; and, in separating the two, draw (perhaps) useful conclusions.

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 10:04 PM

YES ! They are real, but to a greater or a lesser extent. When I hear 'em, I know it.

Art

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Jun 07 - 06:45 AM

Source singers from all traditions are of interest[notjust the english tradition].I recommend REELS TO RAGAS , r t e lyric radio,thursday 7 pm.
what I am not particuarly impressed with, are not very well sung versions of songs[from source singers] like the man who played the trombone ,or my carolina moon,in those cases I would rather listen to a good rendition by a revival singer of Tam Linn ,or the Famous Flower of Serving men ,but then according to Jim Carroll, im a philistine.Dick Miles.

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: johnadams
Date: 09 Jun 07 - 07:53 AM

Interesting comments from Doug and Malcolm.

Percy Grainger recorded on cylinder and transcribed for the early journals - particularly 1908. He was roundly criticised for using the instrument over manual transcription because of its limitations of quality (particularly dynamic range) and the fact that using it might need/cause the performance to vary in order to effect the recording at all. Anne Gilchrist wrote to Lucy Broadwood: "From a consideration of the present limitations of the phonograph, it seems to me wisest to regard it meanwhile as the best substitute (available) - where a substitute has to be found - for the trained ear of the musician - or as its corroborator - but not as its supplanter. Its limitations are somewhat like those of photography - cinematographic if you like. (See: Percy Grainger and the Impact of the Phonograph by Mike Yates FMJ V4 No.3 1982)

A few weeks ago, Chis Coe ran a singing workshop in the SW of England using some of Grainger's Joseph Taylor recordings as a basis for study. I'm sure that what resulted was not a room full of Joseph Taylor clones, but a set of people with some new ideas, tools and approaches to making their singing distinctive in their own way.

I'm not entirely sure what my point is but it's a long standing issue.

J

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: Howard Jones
Date: 10 Jun 07 - 07:53 AM

I think the term "source singer" makes a useful distinction, but when you look at it too closely it starts to break down.

For me, an important part of the distinction is not just whether the singer learned their songs orally, but the context they learned them in. A source singer should be part of a continuous community (although this may now be moribund) . They should probably not be too self-conscious about their songs - they may distinguish between folk songs and other songs but they will all just be part of their repertoire. A revival singer, on the other hand, will probably have made a conscious decision to create a repertoire based on folk songs.

I've learned most of my material by ear, from both "revival" and "source" musicians and directly as well as from recordings. But I would never consider myself anything other than a "revival" singer/musician, because I did not learn these within such a community. I came across folk music by chance, decided I liked it, and chose to pursue it.

But within the revival we may by now have created such a community. We used to affectionately refer to source singers as "old boys", but soem of them were not much older than I am now. If a collector were to walk by chance into my local pub on Friday night he would find a community of musicians of all ages and backgrounds playing and singing. This has been going on for at least 30 years and probably longer. Are we an exciting new undiscovered source, or just a bunch of folkies at a session?