Do you share ?

Subject: Do you share ?
From: Deckman
Date: 21 Mar 12 - 07:49 PM

I spent several hours this morning with some music friends. They'd asked me to keep them in mind for new material that they can add to their repetoire. I spent most of yesterday burning about 25 CD's for them to take home. We also went over another 100 songs from my archives.

I was 13 years old when Bill Higley took me under his wing and started teaching me his songs, as well as coaching me in performing skills. He gave me to undertand then, that in receiving this help, I was assuming a lifelong obligation to do the same to others ... to pass this music along.

Do you do the same? bob(deckman)nelson

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 21 Mar 12 - 08:10 PM

Of Course !!

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: Bill D
Date: 21 Mar 12 - 08:51 PM

I am better at moving music than making it.. *grin*. I make tapes..CDs..(just finished one for a friend of a LONG out of print LP.)

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 21 Mar 12 - 09:11 PM

Yes.

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: Crowhugger
Date: 21 Mar 12 - 09:49 PM

Definitely yes.

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: Celtaddict
Date: 21 Mar 12 - 09:54 PM

I pass songs on all the time. Years ago a friend explained our role in the folk music process. We don't create, we don't collect (though we accumulate), we don't perform (mercifully), we are carriers.
But I know too many performers to make wholesale copies of CDs from independent labels if they are in print. If I want someone to have a song, I send the song. If I think they should have the whole CD, I buy them one or send them a link to order. If the CD is out of print or generally unavailable (such as ones I pick up from buskers in other countries, with no contact information and no Web presence), then I do copy.

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: John P
Date: 21 Mar 12 - 10:01 PM

It's one of the great pleasures of my life. It sometimes makes me feel like a village elder.

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: Deckman
Date: 21 Mar 12 - 10:08 PM

I'm archiving over 700 recordings ... mostly private recordings of hoots, concerts, practice sessions, jams, etc. This material is precious and I make a point of passing it on to my friends ... it's my "payback" for years of receiving music from others. bob(deckman)nelson

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: Celtaddict
Date: 21 Mar 12 - 10:17 PM

I do have lots of private recordings too; what fun they are! I do ask the folks in them before passing them along, too.
Payback is such fun!

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 21 Mar 12 - 10:37 PM

I share early and traditjional music every month when friends come over to play.

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: doc.tom
Date: 22 Mar 12 - 05:23 AM

Of course.

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 22 Mar 12 - 05:25 AM

Since the UK has no general private copying right (although one is being considered) "sharing" is usually (technically) actionable copyright infringement here.

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: Deckman
Date: 22 Mar 12 - 12:52 PM

I'm talking about "traditional folk music", stuff that is in the "public domain." bob

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 22 Mar 12 - 04:39 PM

Obviously one of the best places to share is online. There are many regional and national websites now that include traditional music recordings. The National Sound Archive has many large collections freely available all with actual recordings. The EFDSS Take 6 site has manuscript collections online of most of the major English collections and volunteers are working on midi versions of the scores. There are regional sites like our Yorkshire Garland that has actual recordings, some of source singers, some of our own singers, FARNE site for Northumbria, and there are major Scottish and Irish sites. All of the traditional material is free to use and all the sites ask is due acknowledgement of source,i.e., the original singer and the site itself, and where possible the recorder.

Where we have recordings of songs still in copyright we ask that you obtain permission of the writer or their estate.

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 22 Mar 12 - 04:50 PM

Sharing in-print CDs is a great way of ensuring that there won't be as many new ones forthcoming.

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 22 Mar 12 - 07:47 PM

Bob, the recordings are likely to be in copyright in the UK unless the reocordings are over 50 years old.

There are special provisions in the CDPA1988 about recognised archives - but they fail properly to recognise the difference between folk tunes and folk song.

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: Deckman
Date: 22 Mar 12 - 08:16 PM

I would like to get away from the copyright issues. I want to address a much more basic question: do you willingly SHARE your music with others?

I mention this because many years ago, I knew a singer who was completly stingy with his songs. He wouldn't share a song, a verse, or even a chord if he could avoid it.

Once, at a hoot, I hid a tape recorder under the skirt of a daveno and recorded him singing a song he had refused to teach me. I then sang it back to him a few weeks later. He was downright irritated!

Years later, he became VERY eager to share his material and teach beginners to the folk music field.

Any thoughts? bob

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: kendall
Date: 22 Mar 12 - 08:21 PM

I'll share my own recordings but I can't bring myself to copy someone Else's stuff.

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 22 Mar 12 - 08:42 PM

I think in some cases it's OK to copy someone's stuff if you, say, know them and can reimburse them/make it right with them.

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Mar 12 - 08:45 PM

The highest compliment any fellow musician can pay you is to ask for some of your material... Even better if you wrote it...

B~

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: Deckman
Date: 22 Mar 12 - 11:36 PM

PLEASE stop getting hung up on singer/songwriter stuff. I'm NOT talking about making bootleg CD's of the newest material from your favorite song writer. I'm talking about sharing TRADITIONAL folk materials, as published by Frances James Childs, Burl Ives, Lomax, Sandburg, etc.

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: PHJim
Date: 22 Mar 12 - 11:59 PM

I will teach a song to someone or sing/play it into their recording device whether I wrote it or not.

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: mg
Date: 23 Mar 12 - 01:44 AM

I do when asked of course...but with cheap little recorders ...I have a little Sony that gets very good quality sound direct in MP3..and the internet..we should all be more vigorous and less modest and get stuff up and out there...it will be discovered again...Irish Rovers just got 5 million hits on Drunken Sailer I think...think if you could go to a place and have 40 versions of the Butcher Boy, including the gorgeous one from Russia...obscure songs from Africa..like the formerly lost boys of Sudan wrote for their cows...all the stuff that goes on in Fisher Poets and Cowboy poets ..and what your granny still remembers...mg

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: Deckman
Date: 23 Mar 12 - 01:48 AM

PHJim ... This is the kind of teaching I'm talking about. So many people, hundreds over the years, have shared their music with me. They've taken their time, were patient with me, etc. I've always felt it is my obligation to return the favor ... to do so in kind. bob

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: Louie Roy
Date: 23 Mar 12 - 11:14 AM

I share CDS MP3S Tapes and any recording that I have and enjoy doing it. I'm a very poor typist but if someone requests the lyrics to a song I'll type them out and mail with no charge

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 23 Mar 12 - 03:40 PM

ALL of the old people I recorded in the 60s gave their songs freely and were glad that the songs were being passed on. If I did not maintain that spirit I would be letting them down.

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: Celtaddict
Date: 23 Mar 12 - 03:41 PM

Traditional, public domain songs? Of course! Every chance I get! Not that I am much of a singer, but passing them along to better singers is my biggest joy!

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: mg
Date: 23 Mar 12 - 05:18 PM

One thing I love to do is save songs from obscurity...like go into the deepest reaches of my brain..admittedly not all that deep..and see what I can pull out and see if anyone else knows it too and we can sort of reconstruct it. Unfortunately, it drives some people crazy..poor David at Rainycamp....but if you only share the whole entire song perfectly and scrap the rest, a lot will be lost and has been...it is like finding a fragment of a teacup and saying no good...have to have the whole thing...mg

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: Deckman
Date: 23 Mar 12 - 06:11 PM

Well said Mary ... I know exactly what you mean. That's one of my reasons for spending the years of work on my archives. I do know that, down the road, I will have saved, preserved, some material that would have been lost. My biggest fear has been an image of my children delivering boxes of tape recordings to the garbage dump. bob

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: mg
Date: 24 Mar 12 - 09:55 AM

One thing that would help spread and save songs is to have the presumption at events that it is OK to record..perhaps not events where you had to pay money to attend..but song circles, camps etc. Start with that presumption, let everyone know, and tell them if they do not want their own stuff recorded, to ask people not to, but it will be presumed to be OK. If they don[t even want to be recorded as part of a group, I guess it is their decision to sing or not...or only sing when they or others have said to turn recorders off. mg

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: Deckman
Date: 24 Mar 12 - 11:51 AM

Mary ... over the last few years I have been running into singers who come to our hoots but who do NOT want to be recorded. And in this day and age of instant video cameras, it an even greater problem. I've had a couple of people, several times over several events, get REALLY UPSET with me, and demand that I stop it! I've taken to telling them ... "tell them yourself." bob

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: Bettynh
Date: 24 Mar 12 - 01:16 PM

I share kidsongs and stories. My boys are 30 now and haven't had children, but some of their friends have. I took a look at the local B&N and Amazon's online kids recording bin and was pretty horrified (we are NOT fans of Disney). So I developed a couple CDs of mp3s of the music and stories my kids grew up with and loved. They've been pretty well received. I felt a bit guilty about copying songs, but lots of this music we first heard on a folk radio show that I taped when the kids were young. I know that I searched out many of the cuts on that show to hear more from the artists featured. Thanks to the internet, most are still available if you look.

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: olddude
Date: 24 Mar 12 - 01:24 PM

heck yah, never consider saying no .. not that anyone wants them however :-)

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: The Sandman
Date: 24 Mar 12 - 01:45 PM

yes

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: KHNic
Date: 24 Mar 12 - 01:47 PM

I have a songbook of over 700 songs, all of which I have *performed* at some stage in the last 30 years. All attributed where relevant. Have always shared anything I've had - after all, that was how I got them in the first place. Even picked up a song on Wednesday night that was only written the week before, where the artist concerned was only too glad to give me her email address so I could get it right.
Sharing songs is why I sing.

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: mg
Date: 24 Mar 12 - 01:56 PM

I can understand video taping..perhaps other people have bad hair days etc..but the voices alone, if they were identified only with permission...you have to be a lawyer these days to do anything...I can see youtube fears..but if you had your own party and said I am going to put just the audio up on youtube and I will use your name if you want or anonymous if you want but it is going up there or at least it will be recorded...

I was just at an amazing event down here and a local historian said he wished he had recorded the musicians..I said why don't you ask them..and he is also a city manager or something and was worried about all sorts of things...it was too good not to record, with their permission...

I have some stuff I got without permission, and I won't post it anywhere but I might be known to share it because it was at public events or camps...one is possibly the last time I will hear one of my favorite people play..

It is OK if someone says no to songs they are leading but if they are part of a chorus I say their option is to sing or not sing but not to kill the possibility of recording. And I do think sometimes people are a bit too precious about the whole thing. Anyone has my permission to record me anytime but I hate being googled so put a fake name or something on it. mg

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: PHJim
Date: 24 Mar 12 - 04:35 PM

I have never counted the number of songs in my memory, but 700 is very impressive. Can you still perform these, or are some of them songs that you learned for one performance and then filed?
Some people have wonderful memories. One of my earliest guitar heroes, Jackie Washington, had a huge collection of songs in his memory. I drove him from Port Hope to Hamilton once and a year later my brother met him at a party and he remembered the date of my birthday.

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: KHNic
Date: 24 Mar 12 - 05:01 PM

Jim,
700 is and was very impressive. I still have them all archived, but my breakdown left me with significant memory loss, so I've steadily built it back up again to about 200. The rest I WILL learn again and, if spared, put them onto the net as an archive, not of anything memorable, but just as an example of what an old git used to sing when he still had his marbles.

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: Bert
Date: 24 Mar 12 - 05:11 PM

I would willingly share, but no one asks me. Perhaps I sing a load of old crap.

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: Deckman
Date: 24 Mar 12 - 08:26 PM

In my neck of the woods, the Seattle area, I'm known for my large repertoire. More than that, I'm also known as a person who will always share the music. I do performance coaching, and have started a few kids on the right path.

Being 174 now, I view it as my obligation to go out of my way to teach, encourage, spread the music, give supportive coaching. This is nothing more than a "payback" for all the many musicians along the way who went out of their way to help me.

Having said that ... I'm still occasionally surprsied (disappointed ?) when I run into a "stiny" singer who won't freely share his material.

I learned quite a lesson from the late David Spence, in Los Gatos, California. in 1965. We were sharing songs once, and he told me, and I quote: "Bob ... I want YOU to learn this song. I can't do it well but I can hear you singing it." How was THAT for a compliment.

I've NEVER forgotten that. And yes, that song is still in my repertoire. bob

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: mg
Date: 24 Mar 12 - 08:59 PM

I am a great believer in that..that is also why I have no hesitation to sing a partial song that pops into my head..I do apologize for those it drives crazy...mg

Subject: RE: Do you share ?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 Mar 12 - 01:06 AM

weird stuff - so many legends of songs being stolen - house of the rising sun, freight train, etc,

yet most of us can't give the stuff away!I really don't know what the answers are.

In terms of probability - I'd say -chuck the stuff away.