How did Folk Song start?

Subject: RE: How did Folk Song start?
From: Smedley
Date: 18 Feb 10 - 09:48 AM

Aren't most types of song rooted in rituals (religious or otherwise communal) ?

Subject: RE: How did Folk Song start?
From: RTim
Date: 18 Feb 10 - 09:48 AM

The oldest symbol of a Pub was either a Bush or Tree hung up outside the establishment.

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: How did Folk Song start?
From: Paul Reade
Date: 18 Feb 10 - 09:45 AM

The point I was making referred to social gatherings in general - the pub was merely an example.

Anyway, I understand that the origin of pub signs dates back to the Romans - and if they had signs they must have had pubs!

Subject: RE: How did Folk Song start?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 18 Feb 10 - 09:45 AM

Most Morris tunes start with the major chord hit twice in a sort of Dah-Dah! way , followed by the A music played once. Gives time for anyone in the vicinity to run away.

Is that not what you meant?

Oh , OK...

:D

Subject: RE: How did Folk Song start?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 18 Feb 10 - 09:37 AM

A large proportion of the traditional repertoire predates the invention of the pub, and a lot of it was created fairly recently in places where ther has never been one (like the more remote Scottish islands). So we can discount the pub singalong as a significant factor.

Subject: RE: How did Folk Song start?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 18 Feb 10 - 09:18 AM

Some songs probably started one way, some the other. "Will no one tell me what she sings?", Wordsworth wondered of the Gaelic air he heard "yon solitary Highland lass" who was "single in the field" singing at her work. No, sorry, William. Can't say. ~ But I could have told him what she wasn't singing: "The Barley Mow" ~ tho her father might well have been in the village pub the night before. Surely both strands would have coexisted right from the first, with different songs for different purposes and different occasions.

Subject: How did Folk Song start?
From: Paul Reade
Date: 18 Feb 10 - 09:08 AM

There are opinions that folk song originated as a fairly solitary art form – the lonely ploughman or shepherd singing to pass away the long hours etc. But we humans are a social species – we are rooks rather than ravens, and music and song have always been much more social activities.

In "The town inn and the country inn", the Saddleworth poet and writer Ammon Wrigley wrote "… just now there is a lad I know singing 'The Barley Mow' to a room full of dalesmen in an old inn on the hills … then one would stand on the hearthstone and start a night of song with 'Come out 'tis now September' or 'Westlin winds and slaughterin' guns'".

Sounds like a great evening – and not that different to a singaround or session on the folk scene today.

Any thoughts?