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Folk terminology
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Doug Chadwick Date: 08 Mar 08 - 05:57 AM Picture here of a young Cliff Richard with what looks suspiciously like a hand cupped behind his ear! (aka finger in ear) I don't think that Cliff was trying to improve his vocal performance. It's just one of the dance moves that he thought would make him look mean, moody and magnificent. As Cliff dances like a Thunderbird, my first impression was that one of his strings had broken. DC |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Don(Wyziwyg)T Date: 07 Mar 08 - 07:25 PM "I once sat through a performance of Matty Groves of spectacular melodic inaccuracy and lack of committment, only for the singer to finish a couple of verses prematurely with the words: "I can't remember the rest - anyway they all end up dead." It would have been preferable (although still incorrect) if he'd said that after verse 1." I agree Brian, and it might have been even better had he not said it, but DONE it instead. I also agree with your last sentence in the above post |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Brian Peters Date: 07 Mar 08 - 07:02 AM >> Good God many of us would kill to liberate "folk" music from the hand of the professionals and let the1954 defintion run free! << One of the regulars at my local folk club in Glossop many years ago was dead against the policy of booking even occasional guest artists and would never attend those evenings, muttering noisily about how folk music was the music of the people and we shouldn't be expected to pay to hear others perform it. His own repertoire, however, consisted entirely of songs obviously drawn from the repertoires of well-known professional performers of the 1970s. Maybe if people like me all packed up and got proper jobs, there would be a sudden spontaneous flowering of traditional singing in communities across the land, but somehow I'm not convinced. |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Tootler Date: 06 Mar 08 - 05:55 PM Picture here of a young Cliff Richard with what looks suspiciously like a hand cupped behind his ear! (aka finger in ear) |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Rowan Date: 06 Mar 08 - 05:54 PM I'm with you, Richard, although I do enjoy music from various cultures. But it occurred to me that the comment implying Mudcat was full of professionals indicated that the writer confused being 'well informed' with being 'professional'; there's a lot of such confusion about. Cheers, Rowan |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Richard Bridge Date: 06 Mar 08 - 05:21 PM I personally couldn't give a stuff about world music. But the Mudcat full of professionals? Good God many of us would kill to liberate "folk" music from the hand of the professionals and let the1954 defintion run free! Slight snork, gets coat.... |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: GUEST,fRooty Date: 06 Mar 08 - 12:13 PM Now that is what I call an endorsement and a half! "Most of them are kept off the fRoots board now and largely inhabit a noxious forum called Mudcat (DON'T go there)"... Recommendation |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Jim Carroll Date: 06 Mar 08 - 02:58 AM 'Attention span' is given as a reason regularly for not singing long songs - I have to say I don't understand the argument. Given that I can watch a film or a play of, say 2/3 hours duration, or can read a book for hours on end (given the chance!), why should I not be able to listen to a song of ten minutes (max) without losing concentration. Providing the film, play, book, song, have been made and executed sufficiently well, and given that they fall within my interest and understanding, why should I need to set a time limit on them? Veering slightly off-subject, during the making of the Radio Ballad 'Song of a Road', producer Charles Parker played sections of actuality which had been recorded for the programme, to pupils in schools in Birmingham and measured the length they continued to listen to the various speakers. He found that the duration varied between, say a 'well-spoken' highly educated (planner - architect - manager - whatever) and a bulldozer driver, navvy, manual labourer, in the ratio of around four to one, in favour of the manual workers, even when the regional accent was unfamiliar. This was just an observation on Charles' part; he never went into details, so I don't know how valid his findings were. Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Rowan Date: 05 Mar 08 - 11:19 PM More on the effects of literacy on attention spans Many years ago I was lectured (in oral history) by Nigel Oram, who'd done a fair amount of research in PNG, concentrating on the Motu. The most recent people in PNG to make the transition between "Prehistoric" (ie there was no writing and thus no written record within their culture) and "Historic" (where their cultural history started to be written, releasing them from having to memorise aurally and transmit their memories orally) was in the 1930s but the Motu had started the transfer about a generation earlier. Genealogies were extremely important, as their "understanding" of timing in history was tied to the association of particular events to particular forbears. Their accuracy was verified by testing the accuracy of recollection (within a particular genealogy) of a volcanic eruption in their territory; analysis of their genealogy put the eruption at about 1200bp. An archaeological excavation within their territory had revealed a stratum containing volcanic ash which logic determined had to be from the same eruption mentioned in the genealogy. Radio-isotope dating of this ash gave its age, within quite close error-bars, as 1200bp. Currently, their descendents have telly the way we do and suffer the same exposures to commercial programming, where programs are cut for ad breaks, themselves designed for attention spans of no more than 30 seconds and they are spaced through the programs every 10 minutes. This means that a dominating part of their culture diminishes the requirement of attention spans of greater than 10 minutes. And we've been exposed to the same demeaning process for much longer, with measurable effects on students' (and teachers') classroom performance. Where we feel 'some obligation' to pay attention, so it's no wonder that the longer ballads are, these days, somewhat handicapped. Cheers, Rowan |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Jim Carroll Date: 05 Mar 08 - 02:55 PM Bert, The BBC 3 minutes was stated as being that they considered that was the limit a listening audience could take - according to employee Charles Parker. MacColl's reason for splitting Gil Morris was similar (40 odd years ago). No name calling intended. If you don't qualify your '3 minutes' I can only guess you reason. Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: curmudgeon Date: 05 Mar 08 - 10:52 AM I've been using the cuppedhand/ear technique for longer than I can remember. It helps to stay on key, but perhaps more important, it helps me to utilise the best vocal tone for the song. This is especially true at the aforementioned Press Room, which in addition to occasional forays of loud patrons, this club has the most bizarre, or possibly the worst accoustics in the known universe. If you can sing and project at the Press Room, you can sing anywhere. I'll pst some more thoughts later, as BG needs to use the computer. Thanks to Jim carroll for staring this fine thread, and to Don Firth for hs insightful commentary -- Tom Hall |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Folkiedave Date: 05 Mar 08 - 10:46 AM A breakthrough came with Marty Robbins' recording of "El Paso," which ran for about 7 minutes, and since it gave disc jockeys time to go to the bathroom, they played it. A few years later, actor Richard Harris had a hit song with "MacArthur Park," which went on for bloody ever! Gave the DJ time to go out for a beer. I confess to playing Chris Woods "England in Ribbons" (13 minutes) and nipping to the coffee bar next to the radio station for a coffee. AS fas as altering and changing songs are concerned of course we do it. That is the folk process. It might be just the mis-hearing of songs, Billy Mills (singing about Father Christmas) used to sing "Over the reefs and drifts of snow" instead of - "Over the roofs and the drifts of snow" - which is more normal. But it doesn't matter really - does it? |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Bert Date: 05 Mar 08 - 09:28 AM Jim says... Bert; I assume this is the limit of your attention span. ...AND in the same post says... Personally, I thought I'd left juvenile name-calling back in the playfround of Birchfield Road Junior School all those years ago... Yeah Right! Jim, you asked a valid question and a I gave you a perfectly reasonable answer. If you don't agree with it, that is fine by me, lots of people think it's OK. to sing longer songs. Just stick to what you say and leave off 'juvenile name-calling'. |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Snuffy Date: 05 Mar 08 - 09:18 AM Probably the first time I saw the hand cupped behind the ear was the radio announcer (Gary Owens?) on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: GUEST,Shimrod Date: 05 Mar 08 - 08:50 AM Wow! This has turned into a fascinating thread. The contributions by Don Firth, Rowan and Nerd are much appreciated - more! Has anyone read Julia C. Bishop's paper, 'Bell Duncan: The greatest ballad singer of all time?' in 'Folk Song: Tradition, Revival and re-Creation' ed. Ian Russell and David Atkinson (Elphinstone Institute, 2004)? Bishop considers James Carpenter's informant, Bell Duncan who gave him "sixty-five Child ballads with tunes, never a single reference to manuscript." After examining Duncan's repertoire in detail Bishop goes on to suggest that this last assertion of Carpenter's may not be true and that, "Bell Duncan, or someone in the train of transmission to Bell Duncan, must have learned the ballads from print rather than from oral transmission ..." In fact it seems to me that the relationship between printed material and oral transmission, for the past couple of centuries - or even longer, has been much more complex (not to say enigmatic) than we tend to give it credit for. The other example which I think is intriguing is 'Tam Lin'. I have often heard it asserted that this is probably a 'literary' ballad, but if so how did fragments of it, with tunes, get into the repertoires of the Scots Traveller singers, Betsy Johnston and Willie Whyte ( see 'The Muckle Sangs: Classic Scots Ballads', Greentrax Records, 1992)? Oh yes, on the 'finger-in-the-ear' question, I serendipitously came across another paper in the book cited above, called 'The ballad singer and seller in the works of William Hogarth' by Andrew C. Rouse. One of the illustrations in this paper is called, 'The Idle'Prentice Executed at Tyburn'. Depicted in the forefront of the crowd at the "'Prentice's" execution is a woman holding a ballad sheet in her right hand and a baby in the crook of her right arm. Her mouth is open as if in song (or possibly bawling her wares) and her left hand is cupped behind her left ear. I would guess that this illustration dates from around the 1730s. |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Nerd Date: 04 Mar 08 - 10:54 PM Don, I admire your former professor very much; Fowler's book on ballads should be standard reading! It's true that some of the incidents from the Geste were possibly in other, previous ballads--especially the death part. But there is no evidence that the big story--what would be called the A-plot in screenplay writing--was ever a sung ballad. So we have a situation where maybe 20 of the 456 verses were in oral tradition. Fowler actually doesn't even think the death was the subject of a ballad until after the Geste. He believes that the Geste is a literary poem, possibly intended for reading aloud or recitation, which drew on previous outlaw tales, but not on ballads: "it is not really possible to speak of sources for the [Geste of Robin Hood] in ballad form.... The separate Robin Hood ballads often supposed to be the sources of the poem did not come into being until well after 1400, which is the date usually assigned to 'A Geste of Robin Hood.'" (Fowler 1970: 79-80) Your points about the Iliad are well taken. But what I said still stands: many scholars believe Parry and Lord's claims go too far, and that Oral-Formulaic theory does not and never did show that the Iliad was itself orally composed or performed. They believe all the theory shows us is that certain cultures' poetics are informed by the existence of oral composition, and that in those cultures even poems that are not orally composed will contain features of oral delivery simply by convention. A good example is the English alliterative revival; while some argue Beowulf was orally composed, few argue that "Piers Plowman" was; yet "Piers Plowman" retains poetic features from the tradition that gave us Beowulf. The Iliad could well be one of these--a literary poem informed by a previous tradition of oral composition. Only Jethro knows for sure! |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Rowan Date: 04 Mar 08 - 08:07 PM 97 verse ballads. In my experience a ballad performed at a folk club can have anything from 2 to around 20 verses on average. Though there are ballads and songs in print that exceed this number, I have never heard them performed Before I read Don's posts, I was reminded of Ian Maxwell, whom I first met in the early 60s. At that time he lectured in English at Melbourne Uni and his lectures on poetry to first year students (about 350 all told) were given in the "Public Lecture Theatre" with a seating capacity of 850. Routinely there was standing room only, with students (and staff) from other years, other units, other courses and other faculties crowding to hear him and routinely they'd have tears running down their cheeks at the power of the poetry and his presentation. Honours students in English were, at that time, required to do a separate set of studies after first year and these studies, many convened by Ian Maxwell, included Old Norse and Old Icelandic; I still remember him referring to Pharoese as "Old Norse with a North Fitzroy accent" (North Fitzroy was at that time a very working class suburb in Melbourne. I also recall him describing some of the Old Icelandic ballads as requiring not only singing, but dancing as well, and that some of them would go on for three days and nights. In our enthusiasm for writing, and reading written records, most of us have lost (or never even learned) the techniques of memorising lengthy passages. The last autodidact I knew was the blacksmith who worked (in retirement from doing it for all of his working life) at Sovereign Hill, a museum of mining operations set in a reconstruction of Ballarat (Victoria) set in the 19th century. Like many autodidacts, he could recite the whole of Paradise Lost and many of Shakespeare's plays. Puts "97 verse ballads" a bit in the shade. And says a lot about attention span, too. Don's points are, to me, well made; the only recommendation I'd add would be to check out Robert Fagles' translations of the Iliad and Odyssey; not only do they engage poetically (rather than just as literature translated prosaically) but the introductions deal extensively with the timing of the works as oral tradition recorded and collated at the onset of writing. When GUEST,bill S from Perth wrote One of Australia's leading trad Australian bush singers admitted that he knew most of the Robin Hood ballads but couldn't sing them because it was not what was expected of him he could also be describing, with some accuracy, Hugh McEwan. When he first arrived in Melbourne Huge (as he became affectionately known) was routinely asked to sing his collection of Robin Hood ballads; one needed a Scots dictionary but they were all the better received for that. More than 20 lines; I hope the attention span isn't too strained. Cheers, Rowan |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: meself Date: 04 Mar 08 - 07:53 PM I never realized that finger or hand to ear was associated with folk singing till I started following this forum. I first became aware of the technique seeing rock singers use it in - the late '70s? early '80s? Always wondered why exactly they were doing it. I have a mental image of Mick Jagger putting hand to ear, but I'm not sure if that is memory or imagination ... |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Don Firth Date: 04 Mar 08 - 05:43 PM ". . . a third possibility," then. Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Richard Bridge Date: 04 Mar 08 - 05:23 PM There can never (despite the opinions of some grammarians who should know better) be three alternatives. It is impossible if there are three choices for any one of them to be the alternate to another. |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Don Firth Date: 04 Mar 08 - 05:04 PM "So, often the attention span, even of a group of teen-aged boys sitting quietly and listening to an old man talk, depends largely on the material presented." And, of course, on the way in which the material is presented. Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: dick greenhaus Date: 04 Mar 08 - 04:59 PM "...There are ninety-four verses I'll stop to explain And I learned them this morning with infinite pain. I'll just mumble the ones I've forgotten again, And I'd like you to join in the chorus." Folksinger's Lament (David Diamond) |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Don Firth Date: 04 Mar 08 - 04:53 PM Miscellaneous ramblings: True, Nerd, that "A Geste of Robin Hood" runs considerably less than 800 verses, but as I said, that's what I had been told, and I hadn't actually counted them. There are a number of ballads found in the Child collection—and elsewhere, but still meeting Child's definition—that were assumed to be only literary in character and not actually sung. However, a fair number of them were later discovered to have been of folk origin (or at least, run through the folk process) before being "tidied up" and written down by some poet. One of my English professors at the University of Washington, the late David C. Fowler (Piers Plowman : In Search of an Author, 1961; and A Literary History of the Popular Ballad, 1970), used an interesting expression, "essence of ink-pot," to refer to a number of ballads in the Child collection. He used this in reference to ballads that he suspected of being either originally authored by or, more frequently, "tampered with" by poets and writers such as Sir Walter Scott, Robert Burns, and others. Sometimes this raised questions as to a ballad's actual origin. Or the actual authorship of poems attributed to some known writer. Cases in point: "MacPherson's Farewell." Some say it was written by Jamie MacPherson on the night before he was hanged. I find that a very "romantic" sort of concept that tends to stretch the willing suspension of disbelief quite a bit. But should one assert this as fact, one will get loud arguments from avid Robert Burns fans, many of whom insist that it was written by Burns. I tend to think there is a third alternative. Or "Lochinvar," which I first encountered in school as a poem by Sir Walter Scott. I have since heard a song called "Lochnagar," sung by Cynthia Gooding on the "Young Man and a Maid" album with Theodore Bikel. The words are a little different, but it tells exactly the same story. I don't have the record, so I can't check the liner notes for info (assuming there is any). Where did she get the song? Is it "folk processed" Scott? Or is it a prior version—that Scott got it from? Now, as to whether "A Geste of Robin Hood" was a literary ballad ("a product of the printing press") and not sung early on, you may be right. But not necessarily. There is considerable evidence that could very well be a compilation of several Robin Hood ballads, which were recited or sung. And as to the Iliad, you are also right about the duration of time it covers. It deals with the final year of the ten year siege of Troy. I'm afraid I was thinking of the whole story, which is encompassed in what is known as the "Epic Cycle," a fragmentary collection of poems that includes such things as Paris's abduction of Helen, which precipitated the Trojan War. The Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition of Homer's Iliad runs some 704 pages. Granted, some of those pages are given over to scholarly commentary, nevertheless, the epic poem itself contains 24 "books" (more like chapters : The Iliad on line), it and runs a total of some 15,693 lines. Just picking a novel at random off my bookshelves, I count 42 lines per page. Using all my fingers and toes, I calculate that if the 15,693 lines of the Iliad were printed out the way most poetry books are printed these days, it would run to 374 pages. Sounds like "novel length" to me. . . . Repetition of lines, or sometimes several lines (not unlike a chorus or refrain), is one of the reasons some scholars feel that epic poetry such as the Iliad was often chanted, with listeners possibly joining in on the repeated lines. It is established that this practice was not at all uncommon in those times. Meter, rhyme, and melody, many scholars agree, were initially used as aids to memorization in pre-literate societies (and still are, even in literate societies). The precursor of the bard or minstrel who recited or chanted stories to a group of listeners, was an honored position, especially in pre-literate times. As to how widespread literacy itself was, it is known that, due to the excellent educational system in Athens a few hundred years after Homer's time, the rate of literacy among Athenian citizens was quite high. But the state of widespread literacy in Homer's time is not all that well known. I would not suggest that the entire work would be recited or chanted in a single evening's entertainment, but the ancient Greeks were fairly avid theater-goers, and I've heard tell that some Greek plays would run for a number of evenings in a row (think "mini-series"), so such performances, even on a smaller scale, were not unknown. I recommend reading the following: The Iliad as Oral Tradition. I recall an evening when I was sixteen years old, at Camp Parsons, a Boy Scout summer camp on Washington State's Hood Canal, when the director of the camp, an older man with a real flare for storytelling, held several hundred energetic and antsy Boy Scouts totally enthralled, silent and goggle-eyed, for nearly an hour at the evening campfire gathering. He told the story as if it were a personal experience, but I later learned that he had "personalized" and expanded a story by O. Henry. So, often the attention span, even of a group of teen-aged boys sitting quietly and listening to an old man talk, depends largely on the material presented. Nor, I might mention, am I (or even, can I?) confining my comments to "folk songs." There was an immense amount of cross-fertilization between folk material and literary material, each borrowing from the other. Scott was an avid collector of Scottish border ballads, and many themes and stories popular in such ballads found their way into his writings. The Bride of Lammermoor has a plot that's almost a dead-ringer for several ballads I can think of. For example "Anachie Gordon." Gaetano Donizetti based the libretto for his opera Lucia di Lammermoor on Scott's novel. Interesting (slightly bizarre) to see people wandering around on stage in kilts—and singing in Italian! Regarding Helen of Troy, here is an interesting tidbit: inspired by the line, "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?" from Marlowe's play The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, Isaac Asimov coined the unit "millihelen" to refer to the amount of beauty that it would require to launch one ship. Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Dave Sutherland Date: 04 Mar 08 - 04:12 PM There is a lovley, boastful Newcastle song called "Billy Oliver's Ramble" where one of the stanzas goes:- "And when aave hed a pint or two aall sing yes aall a sang, I knaa some vary canny ones the're fowerty verses lang" I always introduce it as it being his only redeeming feature. |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Ernest Date: 04 Mar 08 - 02:02 PM Maggie Thatcher wrote the Iliad? I think you are tongue-in-cheek here, not finger-in-ear, Jim. Best Ernest (who thinks this is still better than finger-in-throat) |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Jim Carroll Date: 04 Mar 08 - 01:23 PM "Nerd: Homer did not write the Iliad. Jethro did." Nope - it was Maggie Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: GUEST,Chicken Charlie Date: 04 Mar 08 - 10:50 AM Don Firth: And the congregation shall say, "Amen." I keep trying to explain to my dear wife that the days before you had your choice of AM, FM, satellite, cable and movie complexes with 17 screens, you were in no hurry to get through the song so you could get back to the entertainment. The song WAS the entertainment, and when it was over, you blew out the candle (if you could afford one) and went to bed. Play it again, Sam. (My wife brings me lunch too, though, so I have to present this diplomatically, and I am not allowed to use charts and a pointer.) The open mic I currently frequent has a five minute rule. And they only have one gathering a month. I'm suddenly and perversely tempted to do something in parts, like an old Buck Rogers movie serial. My version of Staggerlee runs for 17 minutes, so I could trim some and still get three months of program out of that. Yes, the limited playing time on 45 rpms, 78 rpms and Edison cylinders meant verses had to be omitted. (Remember the 45 with "Topsy, Part I" on one side and "Topsy, Part II" on the flip?) I learned "Old 97" off a 78 and fifteen years later met a real "good old boy" from the Alabama hills who taught me the verses that they had to omit to get it all on the record. Lazarus, come forth. The point was made that a paying audience deserves a certain level of quality, with which I agree, but I'll go beyond that. An audience of 40 performers hoping for one of 24 slots for the evening, many of the said performers actually being quite accomplished musicians, should not have to make room for those who not only have not mastered the basics, but do not know what they are. Unless of course, there is mass appeal for someone who plays any song, be it a waltz, a samba or the blues, with exactly the same rhythm, cause why change a good thing, yunno? I'm all for letting beginners begin, but if they don't progress at other than a glacial rate, excuse me for being frustrated. Nerd: Homer did not write the Iliad. Jethro did. Chicken Charlie |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: The Borchester Echo Date: 04 Mar 08 - 03:38 AM Gil Morice (Child #83) in two parts, like a Christmas transmission of a soap? The football match just before the beheading might be a good place to cut. Though what thoughts on Martin Carthy rewriting it down to Bill Norrie and Spiers&Boden to Child Morris (setting it to The Duchess Dressed in Blue)? I was watching Eastenders last night which I am convinced is turning into Fair Annie. True, Creepy Max went after his daughter-in-law, not his wife Tanya's sister. But her horrifically evil revenge plot to get his money (and probably burn him like hookey green to boot) is going to "entertain" some people for weeks. |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Jim Carroll Date: 04 Mar 08 - 03:17 AM Nice one Don. Nerd Yup - straight out of the swinging sixties - couldn't believe it. 97 verse ballads: MacColl told us that in the early days of 'The Ballads and Blues' club, he used to split the long ballads in half; part in the first half of the evening, the rest in the second (he mentioned Gil Morris as an example). It was only after a number of complaints by audience members that he eventually sang them right through. Finger-in-ear: One of the Irish Traveller singers we recorded, Mikeen McCarthy, from Cahersiveen in Kerry, was a ballad seller in his youth, hawking song sheets around the fairs and markets of Kerry in the 1940s. He used the technique when he sold on the street, but he said he had first been taught it by his father, who would sing "in the bar with one hand over his ear - just like Ewan MacColl". Interestingly (to me anyway), Mikeen made clear distinctions between 'street singing', 'pub singing' and more intimate 'fireside singing' styles. One day there'll be a book on Mikeen.... if we live long enough. Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Nerd Date: 03 Mar 08 - 11:23 PM While we're on the subject of hyperbole, the longest of the Robin Hood Ballads, A Geste of Robin Hood, has "only" 456 verses, not "well over 800." Similarly, The Iliad does not in fact recount the whole Trojan War and what led up to it. It recounts only a short slice--about 50 days of a war that lasted over ten years. The poem runs from Achilles' anger at Agamemnon over Brieseis to the death and burial of Hector, "breaker of horses." No seduction of Helen, no Trojan Horse...none of the incidents most people remember about the story of Troy. More importantly, none of these is, or ever was, a "folk song." The Geste is a popular romance, made by retelling various incidents in Robin's life, some of which may have belonged to folk songs, but most of which did not--the tale is, in Child's own words, "eminently original" to the poet who wrote it. There is no evidence of it ever having been sung (until modern times), or even recited; it is a product of the printing press, not the retentive memories of the singers of yore. Whether the Iliad or Beowulf ever were sung is a matter of scholarly conjecture. Essentially, the argument has been made that they were sung because they resemble to some extent the South Slavic epics that were sung to Albert Lord and Milman Parry from the 1930s through the 1960s. However, it is equally true that many literary works, that were not sung, resemble these epics in the same way. In other words, textual features that seem to be the result of oral delivery in one place became mere literary conventions in others. The result is, it's very possible no one ever sang The Iliad or Beowulf either. Even if someone did, they weren't "folk songs" but orally-composed epics, a distinct but interesting genre in its own right. The only reason it's important to remember this stuff is that there's a tendency to romanticize the good old days, when everyone had the attention span for a 97 verse ballad. In fact, in most cultures, at most times, most people did not seem to engage in such long stories... but, happily, there were always a few who who did. Rather like today! Jim, did the guy really say "my chick split?" Are you sure it wasn't Neil from the Young Ones? |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Art Thieme Date: 03 Mar 08 - 07:19 PM Don Firth, Right on! Art |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Richard Bridge Date: 03 Mar 08 - 07:03 PM That reads like parody words to the Nutting Girl |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: GUEST Date: 03 Mar 08 - 04:53 PM I always thought it was forty verses, as in the Calabar: Come all ye dry-land sailors and listen to my song, It has only forty verses, so I won't detain you long. It's all about the history of this here British tar Who sailed as a man before the mast on board of the Calabar. Wasn't there a Hamish Imlach song that started something like that as well? John |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Don Firth Date: 03 Mar 08 - 04:24 PM Since this is a more or less slow day at the Skunk Works, I thought I might take a swing at some of this. As to the word "folk:" As far as anyone knows, the first person to use the term "folk song" was Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744-1803), a German philosopher and collector of volkslieder (folk songs). He was referring to songs of the rural peasant class. Despite gross economic disparities, we like to think that this modern, urbanized, enlightened world is "classless," so the word "folk" has morphed into "just plain folks." The term "folk" has been so watered down from its original meaning (when the term "folk song" was coined) that a folk activity is now defined as just about anything that "folks" do. One wonders if the word has meaning anymore. Except, of course, to those singer-songwriters who are urban born, have no connection whatsoever with the rural peasant class, and who do not sing traditional songs at all, singing only songs they have written themselves—and who insist that others regard the songs they write to be "folk songs." Now, I'm all for singer-songwriters. Some of them have cranked out some pretty good stuff. And songs do have to come from somewhere. But why must they be called "folk songs?" Is it supposed to be some stamp of approval? And if so, it's not really appropriate for an artist or craftsperson to put a "stamp of approval" on his or her own work. That's for others to do. 1. Finger-in-ear. The first time I observed this phenomenon was at the 1960 Berkeley Folk Festival where Ewan MacColl was one of the featured performers. He walked on stage carrying a straight-backed chair, set it down with its back facing the audience, then sat straddling the chair (facing the audience, of course). He sang unaccompanied, and most of the time he sang with his elbow propped on the back of the chair with his left hand cupped behind his ear. Not with his finger in his ear. It was obvious to me why he did it. It allowed him to hear the sound of his voice more clearly as it echoed back. This is the same reason that a singer in a recording studio wears earphones. I usually hear the term "finger-in-ear" used in reference to people who sing traditional songs, often unaccompanied. And it seems to be used mostly as a term of contempt. For what? Traditional songs? It might be revealing to examine those who use the term and see if one can determine the reason for their contempt. 97 verse ballads. Since the advent of the modern phonograph record and radio broadcasting, the de rigueur maximum acceptable duration of songs has been approximately three minutes (about all one could pack onto a 12" 78 rpm record). Radio stations found this highly acceptable because they could jam a couple of commercials between each record. As people's attention spans dwindled, they would tend to wander about aimlessly and bump into things if a song went on much longer than that. A breakthrough came with Marty Robbins' recording of "El Paso," which ran for about 7 minutes, and since it gave disc jockeys time to go to the bathroom, they played it. A few years later, actor Richard Harris had a hit song with "MacArthur Park," which went on for bloody ever! Gave the DJ time to go out for a beer. Before the days of canned or piped in entertainment, people (the "folk?") depended upon themselves and each other for such diversions, and time was not necessarily that big a problem. One could drag out a good story, and people enjoyed it. It is said that Homer's Iliad (a work of considerable duration, covering the whole Trojan War and what led up to it—and spawning at least two sequels) was often chanted to non-literate audiences to the accompaniment of a lyre or harp. Same with Beowulf. One Child ballad, "The Geste of Robin Hood" runs well over 800 verses (I haven't actually counted them). The longest song that I know myself is "Little Mattie Groves" which runs for 27 verses. I don't sing it very often. And I find that with the limited attention spans of some modern audiences, I do have to do some judicious editing of some of the longer songs. 3. and 4. Folk police and folk fascist. Basically the same, I think, varying only in degree of dedication or fanaticism. Folk police, the way I have encountered it, usually refers to those hard-nosed, tight-assed, highly compulsive people who tend to think that words (such as—dare I say it? "Folk") have some meaning, and one should, at least, acknowledge the fact. In this regard, I'm sure that there are people who regard me as part of the folk police force. On the other hand, I have been set upon by self-appointed guardians of what is "folk" and what is not for such heinous crimes and transgressions as thinking that if one aspires to a career of singing before paying audiences, one owes it to them to know something about music, know something about the material, know what you're going to do, and be well prepared to do it. I could ramble on a bit more, but my wife just got home from her writers' group and she brought lunch. I'll probably be back later. Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Tootler Date: 03 Mar 08 - 03:16 PM Finger in ear I agree that Brian Peters had it right when he said; A term employed by lazy journalists (usually in conjunction with the phrase 'woolly sweaters') to describe any activity within the folk scene over the last fifty years. Also used by a few folk club organisers who don't enjoy traditional songs to rebuff performers who sing them (as in: "We don't go for that finger-in-the-ear stuff at our club")... 97 verse ballads Similar to "finger in ear" - a shorthand used by those who sneer at folk music. Folk Police The first time I came across this term it was used by a well-known Irish musician to describe those who say things like "you can't do it like that, it's not traditional" - in general of people who seem unable to accept that traditions do change over time. I have understood the term "folk police" to mean something like this ever since. Folk Fascist See folk police - only a more extreme form of the same outlook. |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: BB Date: 03 Mar 08 - 02:36 PM Jim C. said: "I was a little surprised at the response to the 'hand over ear' technique. There are illustrations of it being used in England as early as Tudor times; Tuer's 'Street Cries of Old London' has a half a dozen examples in woodcut form. It was used by many singers in the early revival, Ewan and Bert being the best remembered. I have always assumed it was introduced by Lloyd though his work in Eastern Europe, where it was a common technique." I have a memory of seeing Paul Jones of Manfred Mann put his hand over his ear in order to better hear what he was singing, and I remember cheering at the time, so the moaning and derision about it must have been going on even way back then. Barbara |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Gene Burton Date: 03 Mar 08 - 12:29 PM Agree with the two posts above. Phrasing and diction are crucial IMO to a good performance of any song, trad or otherwise, and it's an element of my own performance I've put a lot of work into over the last few years. Intelligent phrasing can go a long way even when you don't necessarily have perfect pitch; and we folkies can learn much from performers of other vocal styles (eg. jazz, classical etc.) in this regard. |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Snuffy Date: 03 Mar 08 - 12:22 PM I thought William Hague's quote was acknowledging his folk roots by paraphrasing I CAN HEW - "I'll drink fourteen pints and I'll not feel queer". Obviously inflation in recent years has increased the 14 by two or three. |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: GUEST,Chicken Charlie Date: 03 Mar 08 - 11:16 AM Dear Suffolk Miracle: I was about to simply shout, "Brother!" when I realized (just in time to save myself from the Gender Police) that Suffolk Miracle is gender-independent. I will therefore try to type "Sibling!" with as much emotion as possible. I think the world has a name for people like you and me, and it's probably "neurotic," but I can relate to endless reiterations and lots of micro-tweaking on words, phrasing and all of it. Examples will only produce "but I do it THIS way" thread creep, so I'll abstain, but I hear you. I don't know how these over-eager types (mainly young but not always--many should know better) expect to move an audience with anything performed so haltingly, but I guess they do. (In case anyone thinks I'm claiming perfection, here's the ironic bad news: by the time you reach the age where you have gotten things down and explored the nuances and all that as SM said, you have also reached the age where brain farts start occurring and you begin to have trouble remembering your dearly-bought improvements. O, tempore, o mores, whatever the Hell that means--I used to know.) Chicken Charlie |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: GUEST,Suffolk Miracle Date: 03 Mar 08 - 09:04 AM "Don't get up there and tell me you haven't had time to rehearse--go home and get the damn thing down and then come back and do it right" Thank God someone has said it out loud at last! I feel purged. How many more times do I have to listen to someone say 'I may not get this quite right because I only learnt it this morning'? Of course theyl not get it right. Even in the unlikely eveent that they manage to remember both the words and the tune they will still not get it RIGHT because they will have no familiarity with the song. They will never have investigated the nuances of the song and made the decisions about what works and what doesn't which makes the song their own and makes the song an interpretation for their audience. If they are not going to do that, their is no point in being a performer. They may as well hand out photocopies of the words to all those present and let them read it for themselves! OK I know I am a bit sad - I am the man who once spent an entire day singing Robin a Thrush over and over again some 50 times to decide whether I preferred Hippety Hoppety or Jiggedy Jaggedy as the best s line. But that's what learning a song is about. (The answer by the way is Jiggedy Jaggedy!) |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: GUEST,Shimrod Date: 03 Mar 08 - 08:28 AM "One of Australia's leading trad Australian bush singers admitted that he knew most of the Robin Hood ballads but couldn't sing them because it was not what was expected of him." Wow! Has he been recorded? |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Brian Peters Date: 03 Mar 08 - 07:05 AM >> 17 pints of lager and a vindaloo is commonly used to describe a certain sort of person. << OK, granted. I was thinking about William Hague (though to be strictly accurate, Ol' Shining Pate's boast was of having drunk a mere sixteen). The rest of your description actually fits my son pretty well (although he can't as yet afford the Impreza). |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: GUEST,bill S from Perth Date: 03 Mar 08 - 07:01 AM Finger in the ear I was too lazy to learn an instrument so I sing without, very occasionally I find my finger in the ear to adjust the pitch. In my local folk club the floor spots are mainly unaccompanied, we've had guests who were unfamiliar with this and amazed that people could sing without hiding behind a guitar. No fingers in ears though. I must admit to grasping a tankard now and again especially when it suits the theme of the song and I have walked through Sidmouth with one on my belt many years ago. We don't wear sweaters in Perth or anoraks. Favourite intro in Cairns "well there's this bloke and he doesn't play guitar and he doesn't use mikes and he's called Bill" 97 verse ballads The longest song I remember following was in Gorton and was sung by a West Indian band, we asked how long it was and were told 123 verses, where are they now, we asked, he listened and said 61, so we asked if we had time for a pint, were told yes and went to the pub. One of Australia's leading trad Australian bush singers admitted that he knew most of the Robin Hood ballads but couldn't sing them because it was not what was expected of him. Back in Uni days we had a resident regularly singing Queen Eleanors Confession slightly flat and that was our sign for a beer break, it was years before I realised what a good song it was. Sorry I couldn't reach 20 lines |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Richard Bridge Date: 03 Mar 08 - 06:50 AM Oh no, 17 pints of lager and a vindaloo is commonly used to describe a certain sort of person. They probably drive a modified Subaru Impreza with an exhaust the size of the Blackwall tunnel and have two mobile phones both with cameras which play some fusion-pop-mobo song that you have never heard of and it tuneless anyway as a ringtone. |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Waddon Pete Date: 03 Mar 08 - 06:43 AM ".....he's doing a 97-verse ballad" I must say I've never heard the phrase used in this way...mayhap I've been lucky! It is used differently in our neck of the woods, (see my posting near the top of the thread). Some songs are long while others just seem that way! Best wishes, Peter |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Brian Peters Date: 03 Mar 08 - 05:32 AM >> I think "97 verse ballad" is a perfectly acceptable bit of humorous hyperbole. Much like "17 pints of lager". The terms just mean "a very long song" and " a lot of beer" and that is fine by me. << Yes, Greg, but the former is invariably used in the third person ("Oh Christ, he's doing a 97-verse ballad") and the latter in the first ("What a great night, I must have drunk 17 pints of lager"), which suggests a subtle difference of intent. While it's best not to take this kind of thing too much to heart, it does sadden me - as one who thinks that the ballads are the cream of the traditional song repertoire - to hear them either dismissed out of hand as of necessity long and boring, or performed so indifferently that they *become* long and boring. I once sat through a performance of Matty Groves of spectacular melodic inaccuracy and lack of committment, only for the singer to finish a couple of verses prematurely with the words: "I can't remember the rest - anyway they all end up dead." It would have been preferable (although still incorrect) if he'd said that after verse 1. |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 03 Mar 08 - 05:22 AM Songs about lovers parting are hardly a new phenomenon. It's even been known to happen in real life. The relevant thing is whether a particular song about such matters is a good song or not. |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: GUEST,doc.tom Date: 03 Mar 08 - 03:54 AM Hello Jim Well this turned into a more sensibly argued thread than I would have expected! even though it's drifted a bit lately. If it's four week out of date, perhaps it's becoming traditional. 'no possible relevence to modern life'? - if that's true then either we've all stopped being human beings or I've just given up on modern life. Tom Brown |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Jim Carroll Date: 03 Mar 08 - 03:30 AM PS Nerd wrote: "Jim, do you really think singer-songwriters sing three-verse songs about their "chick" who "split?" I think you're engaging in the same type of silly stereotyping you're decrying..." My point exactly - stereotyping is wrong, wherever it comes from. ".....and 40 years out of date, at that.": I don't go to many clubs nowadays, but I heard this one at a singing session recently - which makes it around four weeks out of date I'm afraid. Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: Folk terminology From: Jim Carroll Date: 03 Mar 08 - 03:23 AM "The optimum length of a song is three minutes." Bert; I assume this is the limit of your attention span. Coincidentally, the BBC adopted the 'three minute' rule back in the sixties, on the basis that this was the maximum length of time an audience could be expected to listen to a song. There was a heated debate about it at the time. To me, is smacks of patronising arrogance. If my postings at too long for you - please feel free not to read them. I was a little surprised at the response to the 'hand over ear' technique. There are illustrations of it being used in England as early as Tudor times; Tuer's 'Street Cries of Old London' has a half a dozen examples in woodcut form. It was used by many singers in the early revival, Ewan and Bert being the best remembered. I have always assumed it was introduced by Lloyd though his work in Eastern Europe, where it was a common technique. Folk Police. Not a term I use or like, and certainly not confined to lazy journalists. I have always considered it a phrase used for scoring points and diverting attention from an argument by people running out of ideas. To me, it is the myth of being 'instructed' how to sing and what to think, rather that the reality of vociferous argument. The nearest I ever got to 'folk policing' was to be told on this forum (a couple of weeks ago) that what I (and many others) have been listening to, singing and studying over the last four decades 'can have no possible relevence to modern life' - now there's a descision made on my behalf! If some people find Fascist (and even Nazi) acceptable terms to be used when discussing music, well..... it takes all sorts I suppose. Personally, I thought I'd left juvenile name-calling back in the playfround of Birchfield Road Junior School all those years ago. Jim Carroll |
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