radio 4 how folk songs should be sung

Subject: RE: radio 4 how folk songs should be sung
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 26 Nov 14 - 06:37 AM

So let me understand this........singing in an assumed accent is 'wrong', but singing under an assumed name is 'OK'?

What's the difference? Both are a deceit, surely?

Subject: RE: radio 4 how folk songs should be sung
From: Brian Peters
Date: 26 Nov 14 - 06:23 AM

Here it is, Jim - and worth reading:
Peggy Seeger's letter

My guess is that a lot of the impetus for people like Harry Boardman to sing Lancashire songs, and others to take up their own local repertoire, came directly or indirectly from 'The Policy'.

Subject: RE: radio 4 how folk songs should be sung
From: Musket
Date: 26 Nov 14 - 06:21 AM

Huh, if you sing Ballad of Jamie Foyers in Derbyshire English, it doesn't bloody rhyme.

Rod Stewart would be living on the state pension if he hadn't gone transatlantic in the early '70s.

Err.. I repeat. MacColl used the word indigenous. (January 1985, the "snug" of The Lord Conyers pub in Kiveton prior to their concert at the folk club there, Musket interviewing him.)

Subject: RE: radio 4 how folk songs should be sung
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Nov 14 - 06:16 AM

"he said everybody should sing songs indigenous to them"'
He didn't - he said people should sing songs in their own accents, Lomax and Lloyd argued the same.
The reason was to persuade people to direct their attention to opening up their own local and national repertoires instead of sounding 'oirish' or mid-Atlantic - it worked.
The argument was first put forward by Lomax at a time when Lloyd and MacColl were doing both - they succumbed to his reasoning many people stopped sounding like "Walthamstow cowboys galloping across the plains of Essex" - to quote Peggy, though sadly, many others didn't.
Peggy's letter on the subject is still on the 'Living Tradition' archive, but I'm happy to dig it out if anybody doubts it.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: radio 4 how folk songs should be sung
From: GUEST,DTM
Date: 26 Nov 14 - 05:51 AM

"I sing them like Musket. I enjoy singing them like Musket.

If others enjoy it, brilliant. If they don't, you can't win 'em all."

100% agree. Songs are for singing, not analysing.

Subject: RE: radio 4 how folk songs should be sung
From: Musket
Date: 26 Nov 14 - 05:51 AM

Does that surprise you? I criticise his hypocrisy in some matters, but not others.

he said everybody should sing songs indigenous to them. (Except him, because he was a performer. Yeah, a contrary old bugger.)

Subject: RE: radio 4 how folk songs should be sung
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Nov 14 - 05:37 AM

"I sing them like Musket. I enjoy singing them like Musket. "
You take he words right out of MacColl's mouth - that was his argument
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: radio 4 how folk songs should be sung
From: Leadfingers
Date: 26 Nov 14 - 05:26 AM

If Cecil Sharpe collected over a hundred versions of only one song , which version is 'Right' ??

Subject: RE: radio 4 how folk songs should be sung
From: Musket
Date: 26 Nov 14 - 05:05 AM

I sing them like Musket. I enjoy singing them like Musket.

If others enjoy it, brilliant. If they don't, you can't win 'em all.

Tell you what though. You can only criticise a style on your own personal liking. There is no such thing as wrong.

John Eliot Gardener arranges and conducts baroque classical music as he feels audiences would have heard at the time of composing them. They tend to be slightly different to what we are used to, slightly up tempo for instance.

But.

He isn't doing it right. Others aren't doing it wrong. He isn't doing it wrong. Others aren't doing it right.

I have had people say they don't like how I have arranged songs and criticism is helpful. Only once has someone said to my face that I sang a traditional song "wrong." my reply means they no longer talk to me...

Subject: RE: radio 4 how folk songs should be sung
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Nov 14 - 04:47 AM

We are at present working on two - hour long radio programmes on Ewan which will be broadcast in January on Irish radio in time for the centenary of his birth; much of it will cover his work with the Critics Group
Hopefully, it will challenge some of the inaccuracies of this somewhat (well - inaccurate) and somewhat misleadingly named programme.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: radio 4 how folk songs should be sung
From: The Sandman
Date: 26 Nov 14 - 04:18 AM

I found my opinion of the programme changed on listening to it again. In retrospectI think the programme might have been more interesting and more helpful if we had heard more of Ewans ideas about performing and less about personality clashes.

Subject: RE: radio 4 how folk songs should be sung
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 Nov 14 - 04:32 PM

Reinhard, 3 years ago, is there any problem with bringing it to peoples attention again?
I have just listened to it again, and thought Ewan made some good points about performing.

Subject: RE: radio 4 how folk songs should be sung
From: Reinhard
Date: 25 Nov 14 - 04:14 PM

There was already a long discussion on this programme in 2011/12: M. Carthy on The Critics Group - Radio 4 where our poor soldier very pointedly had a lot to say.

Subject: RE: radio 4 how folk songs should be sung
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 Nov 14 - 04:13 PM

thanks bainbo, cross posted

Subject: RE: radio 4 how folk songs should be sung
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 Nov 14 - 04:12 PM

bbc radio 4 how folk songs should be sung, try googling.

Subject: RE: radio 4 how folk songs should be sung
From: Bainbo
Date: 25 Nov 14 - 04:06 PM

How Folk Songs Should Be Sung

Subject: RE: radio 4 how folk songs should be sung
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Nov 14 - 03:55 PM

And brilliantly, you neglect to provide any information concerning or even a title of the programme that you refer to.

A link? Nah, that's far too much to ask...

Subject: Radio 4 how folk songs should be sung
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 Nov 14 - 03:25 PM

I found this programme interesting, so thought I would draw peoples attention to this, if others were not aware of it.