Music for a play - need advice

Subject: RE: Music for a play - need advice
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 23 May 12 - 09:25 AM

Wait a minute, Bea. I've been assuming you are looking for written music so that fellow students can perform. Are you in fact looking for recorded music (at least in part) for the play?

Subject: RE: Music for a play - need advice
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 22 May 12 - 04:05 PM

Aha! And here I thought you were a neighbor of Joe Offer.

Did you understand the directions I posted on May 19th for downloading Morris tunes? (Are you still interested in Morris tunes?) Because if you can follow the directions, you will get melodies for your scene changes, etc.

If not, I can explain further.

Do you play an instrument yourself or read music?

Subject: RE: Music for a play - need advice
From: GUEST,BEA c
Date: 22 May 12 - 06:14 AM

East 15 is a drama school in loughton, Essex. I am on the 1 year foundation course and this is for my final show at the end of june

Subject: RE: Music for a play - need advice
From: Bert
Date: 22 May 12 - 04:35 AM

Thanks Leenia, yes I wrote those two. I do quote the origins when I know them in the Author column.

I do try to keep my bawdy songs within reasonable bounds. That was my biggest problem with Size Doesn't Matter. It wanted to get out of hand several times and I had to keep dragging it back. It is difficult to balance a song between cheeky and crude.

Subject: RE: Music for a play - need advice
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 21 May 12 - 09:21 AM

Thanks for the link, Bert. They're both clever. Did you write them?

Subject: RE: Music for a play - need advice
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 20 May 12 - 09:46 AM

The kids from "Fame", "Glee", and "High School Musical"
do "Wicker Man" themed special event episode with full on Morris inspired spectacular finale !!!!???

Now that would be tantalisingly bizarre TV entertainment....

Subject: RE: Music for a play - need advice
From: Banjo-Flower
Date: 20 May 12 - 09:27 AM

" musical interludes between scene changes"

I suggest you look at recordings by The Mellstock band who seem to specialise in the music and instruments of this era

Gerry

Subject: RE: Music for a play - need advice
From: Bert
Date: 20 May 12 - 08:17 AM

There's a couple here Leenia, Silicone Cindy and Size Doesn't Matter.

Subject: RE: Music for a play - need advice
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 20 May 12 - 08:10 AM

Jeri: I asked Joe about "east 15" because I wanted a local person's view. Google is not local.

Bert, if you've got a collection of bawdy songs which laugh instead of sneer, I congratulate you.

Subject: RE: Music for a play - need advice
From: Bert
Date: 20 May 12 - 07:31 AM

A bawdy song is only a risk to the morals of those who think that love and sex are two different things.

It is also known that laughter is one of the most common precursors to "making love" as we used to call it. So sing away lustily and enjoy a good belly laugh.

'Laughter o love and a welcoming there' as the song goes.

Subject: RE: Music for a play - need advice
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 19 May 12 - 08:02 PM

There are plenty of bawdy west country songs that are sung by schoolchildren quite unaware of the symbolism or with bowdlerised lyrics - blow away the morning dew, The nightingale, a roving.

No risk to morals involved at all.

Subject: RE: Music for a play - need advice
From: Jeri
Date: 19 May 12 - 12:37 PM

For the Google impaired: East 15.

The way I found that was by typing "east 15" into the Google search box. I further clicked on the first link that came up.

I think the easiest thing to do is get some Morris-y people involved. There has to be some lone accordion player wandering around untended.

Subject: RE: Music for a play - need advice
From: Bert
Date: 19 May 12 - 12:12 PM

Leenia, I guess I haven't read that BBC book. In my list above the only song where the 'hero' gets VD is Liverpool Judies.

Subject: RE: Music for a play - need advice
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 19 May 12 - 11:38 AM

Set in Dorset - look no further than the greatest folk band in the world - The Yetties! They are from Yetminster though they live in Sherborne now. They KNOW everything about folk music and they met as kids (they are pushing seventy now) doing morris dancing together at the boy scouts.

They are quite wonderful. Bonnie the lead singer - his family contributed to the hammond brothers collection of folksongs - round about the first world war - Bonnie is folksong aristocracy - and he knows all about the folksongs of Dorset and its history - and he's wonderfully approachable. You will love him.

The Yetties have a website:-

http://www.theyetties.co.uk/

YOur problems are over.

Subject: RE: Music for a play - need advice
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 19 May 12 - 11:22 AM

Joe, what does "I am studying at east 15" mean?

Bea, the Morris tunes for scenes changes, etc, are easy. Here's a site with 'abc' files of Morris tunes:

http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/morris/music/abclib.html

If you want to convert the abc file to sheet music (what we call sticks and dots), then copy the abc file, then find the Tune-o-tron at Concertina.net. (google it) Paste the abc file into the Tune-o-tron, click 'Submit,' and lo, the sticks and dots for the tune appears.

The bawdy songs are more of a problem. I'm going to assume that as a student you don't have much spare time. In my experience, the word "bawdy" covers a lot of ground. Most so-called bawdy songs turn out to be rather nasty, and you wish you'd never heard them. Usually the song starts out as a tale about light-hearted sex, but by the end, the woman is the jerk. She's a whore, she's a gold-digger, or she gives him a venereal disease. I think this is especially true in the 'music hall' tradition.

(I once brought home from the library a BBC book about English folk music. In the section called 'Songs of Love', the hero emerged with VD in every song but one. Whether this tells us something about English folk music or something about the lives of BBC personnel is subject for debate.)

I think you could liven up the play with a lot less research by featuring hit songs from whatever decade the play is set in. Forget the 'bawdy' angle, because usable songs are few and far between.

Subject: RE: Music for a play - need advice
From: doc.tom
Date: 19 May 12 - 05:52 AM

Ah! It's set longer ago than I thought. But 'the original 1973 film 'the wicker man' as a reference' - Oh Dear!

Subject: RE: Music for a play - need advice
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 19 May 12 - 02:38 AM

Sorry..I misread that 15 thing. mg

Subject: RE: Music for a play - need advice
From: Bert
Date: 18 May 12 - 09:52 PM

...I think a 15 year old should not be singing bawdy songs... I think that is when I learned most of mine.

Subject: RE: Music for a play - need advice
From: Jeri
Date: 18 May 12 - 09:14 PM

The Nutting Girl. There are links on that page to a few Morris sides dancing "The Nutting Girl Jig", so it sounds like a good candidate. I haven't looked for the other appropriate (IMO) bawdy songs.

Subject: RE: Music for a play - need advice
From: Jeri
Date: 18 May 12 - 07:50 PM

No one said they were 15 years old.

Subject: RE: Music for a play - need advice
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 18 May 12 - 07:38 PM

I think a 15 year old should not be singing bawdy songs..perhaps mildly risque might be OK but you want to be careful at your age...mg

Subject: RE: Music for a play - need advice
From: Bert
Date: 18 May 12 - 03:02 PM

Some Marie Lloyd stuff may work as well.

Subject: RE: Music for a play - need advice
From: Bert
Date: 18 May 12 - 02:48 PM

I just read a short blurb about the play. It is set in Victorian times so maybe Music hall songs might be more appropriate than folk.

Try British Workman's Grave,
Come Inside,
Dahn the Plug'Ole,
Don't tear it
My God How the Money Rolls In
Seven Dear Old Ladies

Or for a not bawdy song look at
While London Sleeps

Subject: RE: Music for a play - need advice
From: GUEST,BEA Cranke
Date: 18 May 12 - 02:35 PM

Thanks for all the help. Entertaining strangers is set in Dorset in the 1800's. My director is using the original 1973 film 'the wicker man' as a reference, I dont know if any of you has seen it but has some wired and fairly rude folk songs in it.
We also want to begin the performance by singing and dancing among the audience in the foyer, so we need something upbeat and catchy that will get the audience excited!

Subject: RE: Music for a play - need advice
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 May 12 - 02:33 PM

I found a synopsis of the play that describe it this way: Victorian , freethinking tradeswoman encounters hard-line religious fundamentalist.

There's more of a description in this NY Times Review (click).

Subject: RE: Music for a play - need advice
From: doc.tom
Date: 18 May 12 - 01:49 PM

If my memory serves, the ghostly morris men in Entertaining Strangers relates to WW1 and should be Cotswold morris. Father's Friend should be able to help! The songs should be rural of the same period, so from the list offered above:- Blow the Candle Out, Cuckoo's Nest, Nutting Girl and Old She-Crab would be the most appropriate.

Subject: RE: Music for a play - need advice
From: Bert
Date: 18 May 12 - 01:21 PM

What age group are we dealing with here?

Here is an alphabetical list of saucy and bawdy songs that I sing.
If you let me know more about the show I can tell you which ones may or may not be appropriate.

Ancient and Old Irish Condom
Blimey Mrs Murphy
Blow the Candle Out
British Workman's Grave
Cathewsalem
Chandler's Wife - The
Come Inside
Country Vicar
Cuckoo's Nest
Dahn the Plug'Ole
Dinah, Dinah, show us your leg
Don't tear it
A Father's song
Follow the Band
Four Old Whores
Horrible Song
If I was the marrying kind
In Mobile
Liverpool Judies
MacDonald's Deformed Farm
Maggie May
Manurah Manyah
Mayor of Bayswater's Daughter
Mid Life Crisis
My God How the Money Rolls In
My Sweetheart's The Mule in the Mines
Nobby Hall
Nutting Girl
Oh Sir Jasper
Old King Cole
Old Reilly's Daughter
Old She-Crab
Old Sow Song
On a Monday Morning Oh
Phallic Fencepost
Roll Your Leg Over
Seven Dear Old Ladies
Sexual Desires of a Camel
Silicone Cindy
Size Doesn't Matter
Thrashing Machine
Three Minute man
When your Pickle Glows at night

Subject: RE: Music for a play - need advice
From: Jack Campin
Date: 18 May 12 - 01:09 PM

What period are you talking about?

Subject: Music for a play - need advice
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 May 12 - 12:59 PM

I got this by e-mail and thought I'd post it for general discussion. Can you help?

Hi, I am currently studying at east 15 and we are rehearsing for the play 'entertaining strangers' by David Edgar. We wish to incorporate some bawdy folk music to sing and dance to. We will need some music for Morris dancing, may pole dancing and musical interludes between scene changes. I have been speaking to one of my fathers Friends who plays for a Morris side and he referee me to this website to find music. However not knowing much about folk music myself I have no idea what to look for! I was wondering if you could possibly point me in the right direction of some appropriate music and lyrics if you have the time.
Thank you, Bea