English Broadside Ballad Archive

Subject: RE: English Broadside Ballad Archive
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 07 Oct 09 - 05:43 AM

Love it - the second prat indeed.

Subject: RE: English Broadside Ballad Archive
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 07 Oct 09 - 05:10 AM

Yeah the woodcuts are topper! And if you're a researcher the search function at Bodlian site is very thorough.

Otherwise, I just love this Mad-merry prankes of Robbin Good-fellow (facimile transcription) ..mainly for all the farting.

Subject: RE: English Broadside Ballad Archive
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 07 Oct 09 - 04:10 AM

Just figured how to do this through browsing the individual categories. That should keep me busy for the rest of the year & beyond...

Subject: RE: English Broadside Ballad Archive
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 07 Oct 09 - 04:03 AM

The Bod I think surely only has words

And the pics! I often find the graphics to be of greater interest than the ballads themselves - a treasured archive of the vernacular woodcut!

Thanks for this, CS. Couldn't find a general index though, which makes it odd for inveterate browsers such as myself.

Subject: RE: English Broadside Ballad Archive
From: Diva
Date: 06 Oct 09 - 06:16 PM

I was lucky enough to study Broadside Ballads while at Glasgow University and the Murray Collection was digitised.

Subject: RE: English Broadside Ballad Archive
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 06 Oct 09 - 05:19 PM

The Bod I think surely only has words

Subject: RE: English Broadside Ballad Archive
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 06 Oct 09 - 02:07 PM

They say they plan to have EVERY ballad with a known tune, recorded and archived on-line. About a thousand of them..

I found the site extremely user friendly, no probs with accessing anything so far.

Subject: RE: English Broadside Ballad Archive
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 Oct 09 - 01:39 PM

This archive is a work in progress, so far devoted to Pepys collection.
Like the NLS (National Library of Scotland) broadsides, it would serve no purpose as a duplication of the Bodleian Collection.

Subject: RE: English Broadside Ballad Archive
From: treewind
Date: 06 Oct 09 - 01:26 PM

"Why is there no English equivalent?"
There is, at the Oxford Bodleian Library web site.

Not only that, but the Bod. works, whereas we just tried four titles on the UCSB site and it couldn't find any of them

Anahata

Subject: RE: English Broadside Ballad Archive
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 06 Oct 09 - 01:20 PM

Thanks for the fascinating insides Gibb.

"To this end, classes on broadside ballads were taught, and the students in those were recruited to record. Other interested parties were recruited, too."

I'd absolutely *love* the opportunity to immerse myself in a practical learning experience like that!
And yes, I've heard people say that fitting the ballad to the tune can be quite a feat of vocal acrobatics! No 'folk process' to shave off those inconvenient extra syllables with printed ballads..

Subject: RE: English Broadside Ballad Archive
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 06 Oct 09 - 12:53 PM

Ross,

"Rev" Carr was one of the dedicated scholars, aforementioned, that was once in charge of arranging recordings of the Pepys ballads here.

Subject: RE: English Broadside Ballad Archive
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 06 Oct 09 - 12:49 PM

It makes me proud that's at my university. :)   The English department people mostly have put together the texts, while a few ethnomusicologist friends of mine have been in charge of getting recorded samples. It is such a huge undertaking, that they have gone about the very practical approach of having "regular people" just sing them. There is SO much material, I believe the goal is just to get some sort of recorded rendition in existence, so that ballad scholars might have tune matched with text. To this end, classes on broadside ballads were taught, and the students in those were recruited to record. Other interested parties were recruited, too. I recorded around 16 of them, maybe, though I must admit they were pretty poor -- the time issue, you see, and not being able to really study the material beforehand. Finally, the directors of that aspect of the project (whom I won't name here, but who will be credited on the site) generously gave their time to pound out better renditions of many many ballads.

To give an idea of the quick 'n' dirty process (in my case, at least), I was given a set of broadsides on all of which was indicated that they were sung to such 'n' such air. The melody of the air was given separately. It was challenging trying to match the verse to the melody; sometimes it didn't work very well. Pronunciation was a big issue, too, but one that we could not really spend time on.

Subject: RE: English Broadside Ballad Archive
From: Ross Campbell
Date: 06 Oct 09 - 12:39 PM

Mudcat thread Help: Melodies to Broadside Ballads has more (and more links at the top of the thread).

I found that thread via a series of apparently random, but obviously guided choices. The Shallow Brown thread currently in the forum has a contribution from "Rev". Co-incidentally, Revell Scott was the name of the singer on the first song I linked to above. Clicking on "Rev" produced archived contributions including the above Melodies to Broadside Ballads thread.

Are "Rev" and Revell Scott one and the same?

Ross

Subject: RE: English Broadside Ballad Archive
From: IanC
Date: 06 Oct 09 - 12:22 PM

Excellent.

This is obviously a collaboration because the originals of the Pepys collection are stored in Cambridge (UK). Presumably these people managed to get the funding and Cambridge has allowed them to do it.

On the internet it doesn't matter where they're stored. I know that Cambridge was having some trouble with doing what Oxford did with the Bodleian collection.

Here's the quote from the site:

"The EMC is proud to announce that it has won a 2nd National Endowment for the Humanities Grant of $350,000 for 2008-2010 to expand its online English Broadside Ballads Archive to include the Roxburghe Ballads held by the British Library. EBBA is currently nearing completion of its digitization of the Pepys Ballads held by Magdalene College, Cambridge, which was also funded by an NEH grant (for 2006-2008)."

:-)

Subject: RE: English Broadside Ballad Archive
From: theleveller
Date: 06 Oct 09 - 11:55 AM

"Why is there no English equivalent?"

The Bodleian Ballad archive is pretty interesting.

bodleian ballad archive

Subject: RE: English Broadside Ballad Archive
From: Art Thieme
Date: 06 Oct 09 - 11:50 AM

Yes, thank you from over here.

Art Thieme
Peru (Illinois)

Subject: RE: English Broadside Ballad Archive
From: Valmai Goodyear
Date: 06 Oct 09 - 08:40 AM

An excellent resource. Many thanks for airing it.

Valmai

Subject: RE: English Broadside Ballad Archive
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 06 Oct 09 - 08:30 AM

Wonderful. Why is there no English equivalent?

Subject: RE: English Broadside Ballad Archive
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 06 Oct 09 - 08:29 AM

I like the sung versions too. None of that 'early music voice' stuff going on. No idea if any of the other online ballad resources have sung recordings like this, but I haven't seen any.

After having scanned a few, I loved this - though think I'd have to drop a few verses to sing it myself: I Smell a Rat (fascimile transcription)

Subject: RE: English Broadside Ballad Archive
From: Ross Campbell
Date: 06 Oct 09 - 08:01 AM

Great find, CS. Sung versions I've tried sound good. The thoroughness of this project is staggering.
Ross

Subject: RE: English Broadside Ballad Archive
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 06 Oct 09 - 07:12 AM

Oops, linked to one of the pages in the site.
Homepage here: English Broadside Ballad Archive. HOMEPAGE

Subject: English Broadside Ballad Archive
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 06 Oct 09 - 07:08 AM

Looking for lyrics to 'The Lunatick Lover' I stumbled on this online archive. Utterly enticing facsimiles of the original broadsides, along with modern recordings of the songs.
I'm sure there's loads of stuff out there online like this, but thought it might be worth sharing.

English Broadside Ballad Archive