Source singers - definitions

Subject: Source singers - definitions
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 11:25 AM

An intersting sub-branch of the 'colapse of folk clubs' thread has led me to start this.

On the one hand we have people saying that ALL live work is worth collecting - No matter what or how bad. On the other there are those, like me, who feel that there is some stuff just not worth recording.

The days of the Copper family have of course long gone but occasionaly we do get a performer or writer (A local chap called Tom Sydall, rest his soul, springs to mind) who it would be a crime to leave unrecorded. There are the grey areas - Rugby songs, football chants, kids playground rhymes and the such that I also think should go on record. But what about the pub singer? What about the floor singer?

Is it realy necessary to have every version of 'My Way' accompanied by the pub Yamaha on record? Do we realy want to preserve Owd Bert's rendition of "Seven Drunken Nights" with three missing verses and in four different keys? Will young Waynes broken heart accompanied by two cords on an out of tune Woolworths guitar get better if a man with a minidisk captures it? I think not myself but I am willing to be convinced otherwise.

Let the discourse begin...

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: The Sandman
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 11:55 AM

The colLector has to make a decision,He has to decide what he thinks he should be collecting.CecilSharp did this.
many collectors today, collect only from source singers who have learned their material by ear, from their family,and from those who have not been involved in the folk revival,sadly in my opinion,some of these singers are not of the stature of Phil Tanner,Harry Cox,or Sam Larner, Walter Pardon,but they are still collected regardless of musical merit.
one or two of these collectors,then hold the folk revival,at arms length,and treat revivalist singers as if they were lepers.,
but collectors wont record the likes of Tom Sydall,because he is writing his own material,they appear to have an attitude that it must wait 200 years[till the writer has been forgotten].,
perhaps the song has to be changed by the people[regardless of whether its changed for the better]for them to deem it worth collecting.
ofcourse there will be no new traditional songs eventually only composed songs wriiten in traditional style,collectors of traditional material will become extinct.

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: r.padgett
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 11:59 AM

gonna run for ever this one!

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: GUEST,Young Buchan
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 12:01 PM

Anyone can be a 'good singer' and so worth recording as a singer per performance. But to be worth recording as a Source Singer should be a function of their proximity to the oral tradition. Did they learn a song from a parent/grandparent who is directly linked to that tradition? If so, the version of the song is worth recording. If in addition they were likely to have been, when they heard it, mature enough to have been able to assume anything of that singer's style they may also be worth recording as a Source Singer in performance.
Many may say that this criterion is too narrow. I make no apologies. We are the generation under whom the continuity of the oral tradition died. Our first - I think our only - responsibility to coming generations is to save every last piece of evidence of what that living tradition was like.

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 12:18 PM

This may seem like a dumb question, but could someone also define "collector"?   

Perhaps it is a cultural difference, but I am wondering who the contemporary collectors are and why do they collect? What is the intention?   Is it different in the UK?

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: Grimmy
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 12:27 PM

GUEST,Young Buchan,

First responsibility - maybe. Only responsibility - absolutely not. We also have a duty to pass on what came after the oral tradition because that too is part of our musical heritage. The last thing we must do is to repeat the mistakes of the past.

I make no apology for re-quoting Roy Palmer:

"What one generation spurns, another seeks out and lovingly preserves"

I often hear the word 'dross' banded about these pages as though it were strictly a modern phenomenon....

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

collector ,would normally refer to the likes of Jim Carroll,or Peter Kennedy,people who found source singers,and recorded them.
in another context, it could mean someone like celtic music who buys a collection,and keeps it in a dark abyss.Ithink Dave meant the likes of Cecil Sharp etc.

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 01:10 PM

To those of us in the U.S. who may not know Jim Carroll or Peter Kennedy, could you explain what they did and how they used what they collected?

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 01:16 PM

Will young Waynes broken heart accompanied by two cords on an out of tune Woolworths guitar get better if a man with a minidisk captures it?
I doubt it will get better, (even if he takes the tablets) but ir will probably still end up on You Tube....
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 01:50 PM

Peter Kennedy died almost a exactly a year ago. There is another obituary on line. He was a controversial figure but I do not know a lot about him other than this.

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/news/obituary/0,,1800799,00.html

Jim Carroll and Pat Mackenzie are both very much alive and live in Ireland.

http://www.folkmusic.net/htmfiles/inart558.htm

If anyone wants to know why you shouldn't make decisions about what to collect from singers but take everything here is a true story.

A collector was recording from a singer who kept on wanting to sing "Granny's Armchair". The collector turned it down week after week and recorded some terrific songs from him.

Eventually the singer was "allowed" to sing "Granny's Armchair". Of course it turned out not to be the music hall song "Granny's only left to me the old armchair...." as the collector had thought - but a particular Child Ballad and it was the only time that ballad had been recorded from the oral tradition!!

So record everything. You never know what gems will appear.

---

Please remember to use a consistent name when you post. Messages with the "from" space blank, risk being deleted.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 01:51 PM

Jim Carroll. Oi, that's yet another cheque you need to put in the post, mate, and
Peter Kennedy, who won't be sending one.

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 01:56 PM

Thanks guest. The "Granny's Armchair" story is very interesting. I'd like to throw out another question - what determines "oral tradition"?   I know the textbook definition, but could that source singer have learned the music hall song in the oral tradition, and is it possible that they could have learned the Child Ballad from a published source?    What is the difference?

Please understand, I am not trying to be argumentative here - I am seriously trying to understand the differences for myself, and I am sure that there are others here in the U.S. that might have the same questions.

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: TheSnail
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 02:13 PM

Dave Polshaw
The days of the Copper family have of course long gone

I really don't want to get drawn into thread one but the news about the Copper family is a bit of a blow since The Royal Oak, Lewes has got them booked on July 5th and we've got them sometime next year.

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 02:18 PM

I often hear the word 'dross' banded about these pages as though it were strictly a modern phenomenon

I call a lot of stuff, ancient and modern, 'dross' when it is. I don't 'bandy' the word about.

Entirely unrelated, I'd like to hear kytrad's assessment of John Jacob Niles as a 'collector'.

Also quite unconnnected, Kenny Goldstein had me looking after his correspondence in the weeks before his arrival in the UK in about 1968. He gave me a large bottle of bath oil as recompense. I think that must have been in one of my particularly scruffy hippy phases.

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: Rasener
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 02:51 PM

We have a person in Lincolnshire called Brian Dawson and he is a collector of handed down songs of Lincolnshire, and many a person has rung Brian (mainly women :-), to inform him of a song they have that has been handed down over the generations. Brian visits them and gets all the information, and when he is on stage, he is just amazing what songs he comes out with and who gave him them.
The problem is that Brian has everything in his head and hasn;t recorded anything. All of us in Lincolnshire are very concerned about that, becuase we would like to get theses songs etc on record.

Tom Lane who does the Radio Lincolnshire folk program has managed to get 2 songs recorded which have been done especially for the charity CD's Yellowbellies 1 & 2.

Its really sad to think that all his knowledge may well be lost forever one day.
He is much loved up here in Lincolnshire and especially the WI.
He is a very good performer of traditional songs.

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: GUEST,Guest - Dave Eyre (cookieless)
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 02:54 PM

I agree wholeheartedly - and I also think whilst he does have a few years by the looks of him when I last saw him, you never know.

Dave

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: GUEST,Mr Gubbins (no not that one!!!)
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 02:58 PM

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: GUEST,Mr Gubbins (no not that one!!!)
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 03:04 PM

ooops..computer malfuction...anyway...
"The days of the Copper family have of course long gone"

Hmmmm I wonder if Mr Polshaw is aware of The Young Coppers' page on Myspace.com? 'Nuff said

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: Dave Earl
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 03:08 PM

"I wonder if Mr Polshaw is aware of The Young Coppers' page on Myspace.com?"

Dunno about Dave P but I do. They is MySpace pals of mine!!

Dave

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 03:09 PM

I'm sure Mr. Polshaw can speak for himself, but I think he meant that the days of oral tradition that was exemplified by the Copper Family collection has long gone.   

I believe that modern times have changed the way the oral tradition had worked, and while it runs counter to the definition, the "new" oral tradition relies on recording devices.

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: r.padgett
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 03:17 PM

There are source singers still coming to the surface

The wonderful John Greaves from North Yorkshire who has been about for years and until recently had not been recorded

I can now say that Steve Gradham has recorded him for our Yorkshire Garland Web site project

I was also very fortunate to record a lady in Huddersfield very recently ~ who has never been in a folk club!

It is amazing what is still out there and Brian Dawson in the wilds of Lincolnshire simply goes out singing and playing his accordion and taking local songs back to the community and hence people continue to give him songs/leads etc

Ray

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 11:32 PM

Do please give us the details of that 'true story'. Who was the singer? Who was the collector? What was the Child ballad that had never been found in oral tradition? When did this happen? Where?

If it's true, then this is important stuff that we need to know about.

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 02:52 AM

Diane,
'Jim Carroll. Oi, that's yet another cheque you need to put in the post, mate'
Would you settle for a pint of Guinness? Will be in Friel's in Miltown over the weekend.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 02:56 AM

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?


DC

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 03:31 AM

Brian Dawson is wonderful, and a lovely and modest man. In fact, it may be his modesty that's the problem: one of my friends, who has known him for many years, was having a conversation with him at Haxey. Brian was talking about someone whose material ought to be recorded and archived before it was lost, and my friend said, "But Brian, the same is true of you!" His response was that his knowledge and experieces (all held in his head, as Villan has said) don't hold the same sort of value. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 04:08 AM

but the news about the Copper family is a bit of a blow

Sorry, Bryan, I should have realised that not everyone would have understood that I actualy meant that the the days of collecting lots of songs from people like the Copper family are long gone. I take it you did not understand the meaning rather than purposely misinterpreting my comment purely to discredit the thread? Surely no-one would do that would they? ;-)

Thanks, Ron. I think that this is the first time I have had my English explained by an American who has had more of an undertnding of it that my fellow Englishmen. Maybe we are becoming more transatlantic? Anyhow, I raise my hat to you :-)

Cheers

Dave.

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 05:51 AM

the collecting of football chants.
here is the problem, is the material interesting enough,does anyone want to listen to it,to warrant its collection anyway,should it be collected,just because its happening,[is anyone else interested apart from those people, that do it on a saturday afternoon ]and yet it is true folk song.
the people that make up new football chants are source singers.
however the ugly head of commerce appears,would it be commercially viable to print a book of football Chants.Personally Iwould rather buy Bob Coppers songbook.,or abook of child ballads

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: Marje
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 06:25 AM

Like may of the contributors above, I'm a bit dubious about what constitues "oral tradition" and where you can draw a line between older and more modern methods of passing on songs. I'm not spoiling for an argument here, I'm genuinely puzzled byt the categories used.

The Copper family songs, for instance, include Victorian parlour ballads, songs with known composers, and broadside ballads that would at some point in the past have been available in a published form. It's quite possible that the older generations who passed on these songs had acquired some of them from printed sources (which I think is perfectly normal and natural for people who are literate). Other "source" singers, too, sing songs which have in the past been published in books or broadsheets, so there isn't necessarily a continous line of oral transmission.

Some of the Copper songs, certainly, were sung in a working environment, but many were sung in the local pub or at parties and private homes. We still use our songs in very similar ways today, with the exception of work songs, and we often learn them from each other in these informal settings.

What I don't really understand is why some people regard songs that were collected by, say, the mid-twentieth century as original "sources" and their singers as "source" singers, and put them in a separate category from modern singers.

Many, many people sing songs that they've never seen written down, or certainly never seen the notation for - in fact, many modern singers can't read staff notation. If you had to decide where you'd learned The Wild Rover, for instance, wouldn't most people just say they'd learned it from repeated hearing in pubs, parties etc? Few would point to a particular textbook or recorded version. I can't see how that can not be regarded as oral tradition.

The big difference today, of course, is that we all have access to recorded music and the internet, as well as a big selection of concerts, festivals etc where we can hear songs (old and new) performed. This accessibility is something to value and celebrate, so let's not regard it as necessariy inferior to the older methods of transmission, which are also still very much in use today.

I'd like to see less of a distinction made between "source" singers" and those who carry on the tradition now, including both the "revival" singers and the younger singers who continue, using any or all the methods at their disposal, to cherish and pass on our musical heritage .

Marje

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 06:38 AM

Marge, that's why it seems so much more accurate to refer to them as 'song carriers'.
So you learn a song off somebody's CD. That's still 'oral tradition'.
The only reason why a much earlier 'source singer' didn't was that they didn't have electricity. Or CDs.
'Drawing a line' is by definition arbitrary.
You might as well say (and there are those who do) that those who don't sing a ballad exactly as the first person to write it down (and many a time that version has been disproved from a later-identified printed source which pre-dates the 'collection'), are not getting it right.
In fact, once the performance of ballads loses sight of its purpose which is, first and foremost, to tell a story and in doing so to continue and add to a cultural heritage, the plot is lost.

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 06:49 AM

Didn't Colin Irwin do a book of football chants?

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: TheSnail
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 06:49 AM

Ron Olesko

I'm sure Mr. Polshaw can speak for himself, but I think he meant that the days of oral tradition that was exemplified by the Copper Family collection has long gone.

Dave Polshaw

Sorry, Bryan, I should have realised that not everyone would have understood that I actualy meant that the the days of collecting lots of songs from people like the Copper family are long gone. I take it you did not understand the meaning rather than purposely misinterpreting my comment purely to discredit the thread? Surely no-one would do that would they? ;-)

There seems to be a considerable difference between what you said and what you meant even if Ron did understand it. Bear in mind that there is something approaching religious reverence for the Copper family in this neck of the woods. They are far from long gone. Bob's children and grandchildren represent a living tradition. Most of the people round here who sing their songs learnt them directly, not from books or recordings.
I really don't want to get involved with this thread let alone disrupt it although I will follow it with interest. I hope you don't think I was being disruptive on the Collapse of the Folk Clubs thread. I was genuinely trying to put over a case I believe in.

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: Crane Driver
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 07:03 AM

Once you get out of the academic ivory tower, it all turns out to be quite messy. Many of the revered 'source singers' including Phil Tanner, Harry Cox, Sam Larner and the Coppers are now believed to have acquired some of their songs from printed sources, and had they had access to CDs, they would probably have learnt songs from them too. I've seen articles on collecting songs where it has been stated that part of a singer's repertoire has been rejected by the collector as being learnt 'from the radio', but there seems to be no proof that the version of 'I did it my way' wasn't learnt from a singer in the pub, or 'Lord Bateman' from a Steeleye Span recording on the radio.

In Bob Copper's first book, he recounts how his Uncle Tommy would pick up songs from visitors to his pub - perhaps a drover passing through, there for the one night only. If Tommy couldn't remember all of the song next morning, he couldn't ask the man to fill in the gaps, so he made something up to fit. This aspect of the Coppers' musical tradition seems to have been abandoned. New material has to be brought in to the tradition to keep it healthy - otherwise it's like trying to keep using a river after blocking all the wellsprings.

If the material brought in now is acceptable to those carrying the tradition now, it will flow on - if not, then not. That's the way it has always worked.

Another question - is Eliza Carthy, for example, a source singer because she learnt songs (and singing styles) from her parents? If not, how many generations will it take? Would the answer be different if we were discussing an amateur singer who learnt her repertoire from her parents who were amateur revivalists in the '60s? Real life doesn't fit into neat categories, does it?

Andrew

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 07:43 AM

No, Bryan, of course I didn't think you were being disruptive. I though the points you were disputing on that thread had little to do with the collapse of folk clubs which is why I took them out here.

There is indeed a considerable difference between what I said and what I meant. Just as there is a considerable difference between someone suggesting folk clubs have collapsed and a building falling on someones head. I was sort of hoping that everyone would see that 'the days of the Copper family have long since gone' was not to be taken literally but I should have known better.

I thank you for pointing out the error of my ways. Never again will I use such a figurative phrase and I apologise profusely for mentioning this sainted family in such a cavalier manner:-)

I am sorry that you do not wish to get involved in this thread as this very point did seem to be the only sticking point we had. I am almost convinced it is worth recording anything because otherwise we may miss some gems. That however is a different to it being worth keeping everything on record. Any comments?

Cheers

Dave.

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: TheSnail
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 08:29 AM

Oh dear, I really didn't want to get drawn into this.

My introduction of the subject of collection and source singers into the CotFCs was just to pose the questions "Why do you apply different standards to the floor singers than you would to source singers? Are you saying we have to be better than the source singers?" If a slightly less than average singer turns up at the LAFC singing traditional ballads, how am I to know if he's just found a book in a junk shop or is Henry Burstow's great-grandson? Should my reaction to him be different depending? There are members of Scan Tester's family playing in Sussex these days. Shall we just say, some are better than others. Are they source- or floor-?

I found Jim Carroll's response to my rhetorical question genuinely shocking but it turns out that's not what he really meant either. I could have done without the following ping-pong rally.

On the internet, nobody can hear the tone in your voice.

Some random thoughts on collecting - What are you collecting? The song? The performance? Ths singer? The social history? Who are you collecting for? Yourself, so you can earn cash or kudos by doing it better than the source singer? Other singers, so thay can hear the real thing? The general public, to educate them about their own culture? Posterity, so that ethnomusicologists in the 24C can get some insight into the 21C? Wouldn't you love to know what the drunks in the taverns were singing 200 years ago or the passengers on the outside of stagecoaches to keep themselves warm?

I won't attempt to answer any of those questions.

As for murdering "My Way", it should have been strangled at birth. I can't see that surviving the folk process but maybe it's the Wild Rover of the future.

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 09:04 AM

Thanks again, Bryan. Much appreciated.

There should be no difference to the treatment of ANY floor singers on a singers night. I wholly agree. Well, maybe if we start to run out of time for a second 'round' one or two that sang first time round may be dropped at my discresion but I am, after all, der management:-)

Once they have sung and, with their permission of course, been recorded, should we then keep everything on record? If you could indeed go back 200 years and record a tavern jam session and join in a few choruses of 'the wheels on the coach go round and round' do you then keep everything? Or do you then start to edit your minidisk? Why keep a poor version of 'Adieu sweet lovely Nancy' that has already been recorded by much better singers?

An academic excercise maybe? That is the only reason I can think of. It is interesting to study the differences. Unfortunately when these excercises become exclusively academic I loose the point. I am sure there is one and it is my poor little brain that can't cope but, I ask once again, why keep on record an inferior versions of the same song?

Oh - and sorry - I am not talking personal taste here. I am sure that are musicaly excelent operatic and jazz versions of "Wild Rover" that DO need recording, even though I am sure I would not be overly enamoured. I am talking of versions that have no musical merit at all, of which I have heard many, unfortunately:-(

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 09:31 AM

"Most of the people round here who sing their songs learnt them directly, not from books or recordings."

Perhaps the reason for that is a matter of access. When Cecil Sharp and other collectors were doing their work at the turn of the 20th century (and even later), they were working in rural areas of this country in many cases. The public library system that we currently enjoy was not in place in many areas. Access to books was limited. Printed sheet music was slowly coming into vogue, and recordings were very rare. My mother grew up in Pennsylvania, and she remembers being one of the first families to own a radio and how the neighbors would gather to listen - and she lived about an hours drive from Pittsburgh.

Is it fair to NOT consider modern technology? IF the phonograph was invented 50 years earlier, perhaps collectors would have been "tainted"?

My mother used to sing alot when I was a kid. I learned the song "Mairsey Doats" from her, not realizing until my adult years that this was a song she learned from the Big Band era.    If I sang that song to a collector, would I not have learned it from the "oral tradition" - flavored by whatever changes were made?

I mention this because no one responded to an earlier question that I posed - why would it be so important to hear a recording of a Child Ballad that has already been published and not a Music Hall song that may have gone through processing to evolve into a unique song?

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: TheSnail
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 09:31 AM

I really, really, really don't want to get drawn into this but you keep making points that I need to answer.

Why keep a poor version of 'Adieu sweet lovely Nancy' that has already been recorded by much better singers?

I once heard a tale of one of the Kennedy's giving an illustrated talk at Cecil Sharp House. He allowed one of the "exhibits" to sing one verse of a song then pushed him aside with the words "and now for a much superior version" before dragging on the next "exhibit". Would you have binned Pop Maynards's version as inferior?

I'm surprised this thread has got so far without a mention of Doc Rowe.

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 09:36 AM

"What should be recorded" depends primarily, if not only, on who is doing the recording, and why. With the advance of recording technology, especially miniaturization, there is a wealth of recording (especially surrepititious 'live' recordings) done by private individuals simply for their own book of memories. Who's to say whether that category of recording might or might not be considered valuable by someone in the future. I have heard a goodly bit of "professional" recordings for which I wouldn't give a nickle for a truckload. But that's my nickle, my taste, and my choice. Somebody around the corner might think it's the best ever. And, just to stir the pot a bit, I think the notion of "source singers" a load of crap to begin with. In a word, it is no more than a different kind of racism.

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: TheSnail
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 09:41 AM

WFDU - Ron Olesko

"Most of the people round here who sing their songs learnt them directly, not from books or recordings."

Perhaps the reason for that is a matter of access.

Not sure what your point is, Ron. I was just pointing out that, far from being "long gone", the Copper family are still part of thriving living tradition and not lost in a past only accessible through recordings.

They seemed to me to be an odd choice for Dave to illustrate his point.

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 09:46 AM

Snail - the point is that folk music should be a living tradition. If the Copper Family were collecting today, wouldn't they be using modern technology for their sources?

You are looking at the Copper Family from a perspective set in time. The family collected songs for centuries, according to the stories I heard Bob Copper tell.    The point of this discussion was defining source singers.   Are we locked in time were we only consider the music of a distant past?   When the collectors of the early 20th century gathered their songs, weren't the songs part of a living tradition of their source singers?    They were not considered museum pieces at the time of their collection.

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 09:54 AM

I think we may be at cross purposes, Bryan. No, I wouldn't have binned Pop Maynards version as inferior. I would keep any versions of the same song that ARE different and ARE musicaly passable. I would NOT keep a 'version' of a song where it is obvious that it is the same version sung off-key and with forgotten words.

I think maybe you are lucky enough to see the 'music' in even poor performances. I can't. Or maybe I have decided after years of putting up with second best, that I no longer want to listen to it. I have no objection to anyone singing or playing badly. As long as they don't object to me standing at the bar when they do.

Cheers

Dave.

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: TheSnail
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 10:24 AM

WFDU - Ron Olesko

I'm sorry Ron but you really have lost me. You seem to be contradicting the opposite of what I have said.

Snail - the point is that folk music should be a living tradition.

Yes. Didn't I just say that the Coppers and the people that have learnt their songs from them are a living trdition?

If the Copper Family were collecting today, wouldn't they be using modern technology for their sources?

Yes, of course they would. Bob used a tape recorder in the fifties. Have I said otherwise?

You are looking at the Copper Family from a perspective set in time.

A time stretching from Brasser's book through the Central Club in the seventies to Bob's grandchildren at the Royal Oak next month to an as yet unspecified selection of the family at the Lewes Arms in October. Set in time?

The family collected songs for centuries, according to the stories I heard Bob Copper tell.    The point of this discussion was defining source singers.   Are we locked in time were we only consider the music of a distant past?   When the collectors of the early 20th century gathered their songs, weren't the songs part of a living tradition of their source singers?    They were not considered museum pieces at the time of their collection.

Apart from whether it is possible to define source singers, I don't understand why you think I disagree with any of that.

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: TheSnail
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 10:34 AM

Dave Polshaw

I would NOT keep a 'version' of a song where it is obvious that it is the same version sung off-key and with forgotten words.

It's still information about the distribution and evolution (or not) of that song, but if it's a matter of storage space....

I see the love for the music even in poor performances. If that is missing as well then I might take a different view. In my experience, there is very little second best; you might need to be quick at the bar. With encouragement, second best quickly gets better.

Please let's not turn this into a point scoring match; I've got things to do.

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 10:41 AM

"A time stretching from Brasser's book through the Central Club in the seventies to Bob's grandchildren at the Royal Oak next month to an as yet unspecified selection of the family at the Lewes Arms in October. Set in time?"

Are the grandchildren still adding songs to the book?   

My understanding is that the collecting actually started in generations previous to Brassers book.

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 10:49 AM

"I'm sorry Ron but you really have lost me. You seem to be contradicting the opposite of what I have said."

You said:

"Most of the people round here who sing their songs learnt them directly, not from books or recordings."

The point I was trying to make is that in this day and age, why not learn from books or recordings?   IF recordings were available, and if access to larger libraries were available, wouldn't that change the "oral" process?   Are we basing our collecting on what was done 100 years ago instead of considering that modern advances have changed the process, but that the process still exists because of these advances?   

I was throwing this out to the group - going back to someone elses example of an "unrecorded" Child ballad, why is that more valuable than a Music Hall song?

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: Diva
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 11:01 AM

Because its older? Because it lasted in the oral tradition, unwritten and not fixed. Very interesting thread. I have learnt my songs in many ways, at the begining snippets from my granny then off LPs and cassettes, remember them? Then i discovered Kilmarnock folk club. We are lucky that we have so many recourses available to us, although I would dispute the idea of something learnt from a book being oral tradition but then I'm a pedant!!!! Songs learned directly from another singer, face to face are far more personal than those learned from either books or music media and certainly attribute to what Stanley Robertson refers to singing with 'a tribe at your back' and I consider myself extremely privilleged to have learned some of my repetoire from some fine source singers and i always acknowledge then when i sing the songs i learned from them.

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: TheSnail
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 11:04 AM

WFDU - Ron Olesko

Are the grandchildren still adding songs to the book?

I've no idea, but they are still singing the songs that have been handed down to them.

My understanding is that the collecting actually started in generations previous to Brassers book.

I'm sure they were singing and adding to their repertoire for generations. I'm not sure if that counts as collecting. As far as I know, Brasser was the first to write them down. Because I said my perspective of the Copper family only runs from Brasser into the foreseeable future am I "set in time"?

The point I was trying to make is that in this day and age, why not learn from books or recordings?

No reason at all, but if you've got the real thing on the front doorstep, isn't it better to learn it that way?

I seem to be under attack but I really don't know what for.

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 11:08 AM

Snail, you are not under attack. When a discussion occurs, people like to ask questions. Nothing personal. Also, our responses are not directed specifically at you, but merely trying to stimulate discussion among everyone who reads this thread. Please do not take any offense, I would hope that you would enjoy the "conversation".

You said - "but if you've got the real thing on the front doorstep, isn't it better to learn it that way?"
Do you know for sure how that "real thing" learned the song?

As to "collections", I would think that the fact that the Copper Family was adding to its repertoire for generations before Brasser started writing them down counts for a collection. Isn't that the point of most collections? If the grandchildren are now learning songs that Brasser wrote down, is that any different from them going to a library and finding a song from another collection?

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: TheSnail
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 11:23 AM

WFDU - Ron Olesko

Just 'cos I'm paranoid doen't mean....

Do you know for sure how that "real thing" learned the song?

As far as I know, they learnt them from their parents and grandparents and uncles and aunts and friends and neighbours. It's called "The Oral Tradition".

If the grandchildren are now learning songs that Brasser wrote down, is that any different from them going to a library and finding a song from another collection?

Yes, because they grew up hearing their parents and grandfather singing them. It's called "The Oral Tradition".

Subject: RE: Source singers - definitions
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 11:28 AM

That is the problem with "the oral tradition". How can you certify the source? In the past, before music became a specatator sport, sharing music by learning it "orally" was the way music was shared.   Does that mean that because of recording devices, folk music has died? If you recorded Brasser Copper singing a song, gave me that tape, and I learned the song from Brasser's recording - would I still be part of the "oral tradition"? If Brasser heard Bing Crosby sing the song (far-fetched example perhaps) and it colored his version of it, would the song still be learned in the "oral tradition"?

Granted, some of the better collectors were able to trace and sort out all of these issues.   The point I have been trying to make is that the definition for "oral tradition" might need to change with the times, otherwise we can no longer trust ANY source singer born in the last 100 years.

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?