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Disappearing Carols
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Disappearing Carols |
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Subject: RE: Disappearing Carols From: DMcG Date: 13 Dec 15 - 05:36 PM Yes, TradSinger, it is really the community carols I meant. While not exactly a definition, I mean the sort of carol that a leader could reasonably expect a good proportion of the non-folkie population to remember well enough to sing along to. I would guess at the moment in the UK that is less than 50, and heading towards twenty or so. Or if you want to put it the other way round, when a leader is trying to pick songs he anticipates people will join in with, how large is the choice? In the folk world (even outside the wonderful Sheffield and Derbyshire traditions) and in specialised settings like West Gallery, it is of course very different and if anyone is prepared to look as far as even the Oxford book of Carols, there are a goodly number. They just seem to be sung less and less often. The one exception I'd make is 'Infant lowly', which seems to be sung a lot more often than when I was younger. |
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Subject: RE: Disappearing Carols From: Noreen Date: 13 Dec 15 - 04:22 PM Thanks very much, cnd and FreddyHeadey- fascinating recordings! No information that I can see about the performers, though. |
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Subject: RE: Disappearing Carols From: Tradsinger Date: 13 Dec 15 - 02:32 PM I guess that DMcG must be referring to what I would call conventional or community carols, such as would be sung in carol services (or played as supermarket musak), and I would not like to make any judgement on what is trending there. But othere contexts are available: there is of course the Sheffield pub carolling tradition which is very strong and here in Gloucestershire there is a group near Stroud that sings Sheffield carols every year. There is also a strong movement in the folk world to seek out and perform folk carols. Where I live, in the north of Gloucestershire, we have a folk choir "Shepherds Crook" which specialises in locally-collected carols and thus we sing "The Cherry Tree Carol", "Hark, hark what news", "All Hail and Praise", a local version of "While Shepherds" and a wassail collected from the Brazil family. (We also throw in Good King Wenceslas and Ding Dong Merrily on High for good measure.) May I add that Mrs Tradsinger and I give lots of talks/presentations every Christmas talking about local carols and wassails. So we are doing our best to keep these carols in circulation. There are a large number of Christmas songs collected in Gloucestershire and there is a website to prove it. Have a look at http://www.gloschristmas.com/ Tradsinger |
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Subject: RE: Disappearing Carols From: cnd Date: 13 Dec 15 - 01:59 PM When someone posted that link to the wax cylinder archive from California(?), I collected a list of carols I'd never heard of from there. Here's what I had http://www.library.ucsb.edu/OBJID/Cylinder7609 - Once in David's Royal City http://www.library.ucsb.edu/OBJID/Cylinder0408 - Hail Hail Day of Days http://www.library.ucsb.edu/OBJID/Cylinder8348 - Hail Smiling Morn http://www.library.ucsb.edu/OBJID/Cylinder5371 - Ring Out Wild Bells http://www.library.ucsb.edu/OBJID/Cylinder5651 - Victory http://www.library.ucsb.edu/OBJID/Cylinder1752 - Angels from the Realms of Glory http://www.library.ucsb.edu/OBJID/Cylinder7250 - Bells of Christmas http://www.library.ucsb.edu/OBJID/Cylinder0231 - The Birthday of a King http://www.library.ucsb.edu/OBJID/Cylinder3463 - Christ is Come http://www.library.ucsb.edu/OBJID/Cylinder0311 - A Christmas Basket and Howdy Honey Howdy http://www.library.ucsb.edu/OBJID/Cylinder6583 - Christmas Christmas Blessed Blesed Day http://www.library.ucsb.edu/OBJID/Cylinder3729 - Christmas time Seems Years and Years Away http://www.library.ucsb.edu/OBJID/Cylinder6169 - The Mistletoe Bough http://www.library.ucsb.edu/OBJID/Cylinder2796 - Old Jim's Christmas Hymn http://www.library.ucsb.edu/OBJID/Cylinder0421 - Ring the Bells for Christmas http://www.library.ucsb.edu/OBJID/Cylinder5371 - Ring Out Wild Bells http://www.library.ucsb.edu/OBJID/Cylinder5808 - Song of Ages https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkBfdSbjXdY - While Shepherds Watch'd https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQjnEfIuzXk - You Must Think I'm Santa Clause |
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Subject: RE: Disappearing Carols From: GUEST,# Date: 13 Dec 15 - 09:57 AM Thank you, DMcG. The area I live in has two choirs, one amateur and the other mostly professional. I expect our songs/hymns would differ, but I will get the 'set' list fron the coming Christmas eve church service in which some carols will undoubtedly be included and post it to this thread. Interesting question. Once again, thanks. |
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Subject: RE: Disappearing Carols From: DMcG Date: 13 Dec 15 - 09:33 AM Yes, I am in the uk. We have few door to door carollers where I live now but a few years ago I used to go around with various groups. But I am thinking more of civil and church concerts and the like, and to me they seem to be drawing on a diminishing set of standards |
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Subject: RE: Disappearing Carols From: GUEST,Miie Yates Date: 13 Dec 15 - 09:13 AM Some carols have been on the edge of extinction for a long time already. Peter Kennedy recorded a version of the carol "Down in Yon Forest" from a singer in Derbyshire in the early 1950's. Is this still being sung traditionally in Derbyshire today? And what of "On Christmas Day" and "The Leaves of Life", both collected from the Shropshire gypsy May Bradley in the 1960's? Do any other traditional singers still know them? |
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Subject: RE: Disappearing Carols From: GUEST, topsie Date: 13 Dec 15 - 08:55 AM The only carol singers that come to my door are occasional pairs of teenagers who only seem able to come up with a short burst of "We wish you a merry Christmas", and people shaking collecting buckets accompanied by a mechanised sleigh, with painfully loud, distorted recorded 'music' and 'Ho ho ho's. |
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Subject: RE: Disappearing Carols From: GUEST,# Date: 13 Dec 15 - 08:18 AM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TjM-Ih5LP4 It is indeed a beautiful piece of music. Caroling itself--going from house to house--has largely disappeared in my part of Canada. I'm guessing you're in the UK. Do you think it could be that certain carols are disappearing and being replaced by others or that caroling itself is less common? |
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Subject: Disappearing Carols From: DMcG Date: 13 Dec 15 - 04:08 AM I've just raised another thread about a carol, and that has spurred me into another moan about carols getting lost. Yes, a huge number we lost in the years after the publication of 'Hymns Ancient and Modern', but it is not those I am thinking of. There are carols that were quite common in my childhood and even only a decade or so ago, that I rarely hear now. For example, "See amid the Winter's snow" seems to have largely faded from the national repertoire in the UK: I can't think of a carol concert in the last ten years I've been to (apart from special folkie ones) where it has been sung. What carols from your lifetime seem to be disappearing? |
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