Sharp and Wales

Subject: Sharp and Wales
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 Dec 20 - 07:08 AM

Did Cecil collect any of many songs in Wales

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 04 Dec 20 - 09:47 AM

Easy to check, Dick, just go to the VWML site and put 'Wales' in the 'place' search box. I'm not aware that he did but that doesn't mean that he didn't.

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 Dec 20 - 10:12 AM

It appears he did not, what was he doing?why not?what was his agenda

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 Dec 20 - 10:22 AM

he was a contemporary of the singer Phil Tanner, yet never collected any of his songs?

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: GUEST,Peter
Date: 04 Dec 20 - 10:43 AM

Of course if he had collected from Phil Tanner you would just abuse him for concentrating on anglophone singers.

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: Reinhard
Date: 04 Dec 20 - 11:26 AM

According to the Gower Garland biography of Phil Tanner, "His singing came to the notice of people outside Gower in 1932", long after Sharp's death.

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: Long Firm Freddie
Date: 04 Dec 20 - 11:26 AM

Interesting article about the Welsh Folk Song Society here.

That society did its own collecting in Wales and the article suggests that they didn't think too much of Mr Sharp!

A brief extract:

"There was a paternalistic slant to the English vision, according to which, folk song was a product of ‘unsophisticated humanity’ with the power to remedy ‘the sordid vulgarity of our great city-populations’ as Parry put it or, in Sharp’s terms, while it might be appreciated by ‘cultivated people’, it also had the merit of appealing to and educating ‘the uncritical’, and ‘will do incalculable good in civilizing the masses’. Sharp also saw folk song as a means of ‘stimulating the feeling of patriotism’, and by this he meant very specifically English patriotism. English education was, he said, ‘too cosmopolitan’ and bred ‘citizens of the world rather than Englishmen. And it is Englishmen, English citizens, that we want’.

Seen in this light, it is perhaps not surprising that the Welsh had certain reservations about Cecil Sharp. The working relationships of the folk song collectors of the four British nations were generally close and collaborative, as the mutual contributions to their various journals reveal, but Lloyd Williams thought Sharp proprietorial and domineering in his attitude to the study of folk song, and noted in his journal for 24 October 1909:

Mrs D [Mary Davies, then secretary of the Welsh Folk-Song Society and a noted singer] interviewed C. Sharp. (No one likes him – he is dictatorial and headlong.) Dictated to her – told her that if she wanted to know about Welsh ballads to go to Wynne Jones Carnarvon [!] His astonishment when Mrs D had gone to discover she was ‘the singer’. "

LFF

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 Dec 20 - 12:47 PM

Guest Peter, you are jumping to conclusions ,why would i abuse him , i happen to think Sharp did a phenomenal amount of collecting.
you are a silly billy, jumping to conclusions.
Sharp had certain attitudes, that could be criticised, no one is perfect, but he still collected and saved a lot of songs, and bowdlerised them although he kept the original manuscripts. i believe. Did i read somewhere that the BBC recorded Tanner?.
Sharp heard the lectures of William Morris and became a Fabian Socialist and lifelong vegetarian. He was cautious in his public statements, however, feeling that he had much to lose, since, unlike Morris, he was not independently wealthy but dependent on outside funding for his researches. Respectability was important to him, increasingly so as he got older. however the quantity of his collection spoke volumes about his motivation and the epic scale of his achievement.

Sharp was against the women's suffrage movement.
His attitudes seem full of contradictions, including his decision to not to bother to collect in Wales

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: GUEST,RA
Date: 04 Dec 20 - 01:47 PM

Well, he didn't collect in Scotland either. Perhaps he knew that it'd be better left to people with a better understanding of the culture of Wales and Scotland to do that work? Or maybe he was just an English nationalist. That would explain why he attempted to present the song culture of (white) Appalachia as essentially English in origin, overlooking considerable Scottish and Ulster Scots influence. That would explain why the excellent ENGLISH Folk Dance and Song Society is housed at the great Cecil Sharp House!

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: GUEST,Georgina Boyes
Date: 04 Dec 20 - 02:13 PM

Maud Karpeles collected song from Phil Tanner. She thought him one of the finest singers she'd ever heard.

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 04 Dec 20 - 02:20 PM

I'll bet my cidered up ancestors in rural Scrumpyshire
took the piss out of bookish Cecil...

He'd have probably been too scared of my wife's Welsh hillside and valleys ancestors...???

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 04 Dec 20 - 04:43 PM

First of all Sharp collected songs in very few parts of the UK. He concentrated on one area, Somerset. He did a little collecting in other parts but his efforts in most other counties concerned dance, and why should he do anything that he didn't want to? Nobody was financing him or telling him what to do. Like all of the others he was an amateur, self-motivated, self-financed and had no remit to go anywhere else. This could be lamented, but I'm happy that he concentrated on one small area, as if he had tried to do a Broadwood he would have spread himself thin. Apart from that they were all pioneers and learning as they went along. He also did marvellous work in America and I'm sure none of us would begrudge that.

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 04 Dec 20 - 04:46 PM

I think it's really sad that Sharp didn't go to Mexico to collect Corridas.

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: The Sandman
Date: 05 Dec 20 - 02:08 AM

Sharp relied upon making money from his collections and arranging them for piano to be played in schools ,hardly an amateur.he was not an amateur, which was one reason he concentrated on areas close tio him , because the less distance he had to travel the less financial expense and more carrots and potatoes for his sunday dinner.
Cecil was vegetarian, he was hardly likely to go to collect bullfighting.
So Karpeles collected songs from phil tanner, A tad irrelevant, presumably Sharp did not go to Wales partly because it cost him too much, since he had to finance the trips himself

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: The Sandman
Date: 05 Dec 20 - 02:30 AM

the Amateur collector was Baring Gould, who inherited a 3000acre farm, and who collaborated with.Sharp,on folksongs for schools useful for Sharp as Sharp was not financially independent,Baring Gould altered manuscripts but kept the originals

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 05 Dec 20 - 11:10 AM

Dick, as far as folk song collecting goes they were all amateurs with no training, self supporting, regardless of what money they might have made from it once the collecting was done. Sharp may well be described as a musician, editor, or anything else, but as collector undoubtedly an amateur.

Oh, and Corridas are ballads not salads!

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: The Sandman
Date: 05 Dec 20 - 11:37 AM

Sharp collected and arranged folk songs for piano and sold what he collected that means he did not have independent means like BaringGould
he relied upon sales of his books to finance his collecting that means he was a professional collector
defintion of amateur engaging or engaged in without payment; non-professional.
the whole point is that Sharp, not having independent means. was restricted financially as to where he could travel, because he had to live on the sales of his books, therfore being professional restricted his ability financially to travel too far afield
this was how he financed his travel to appalachia..... a philanthropist helped [ In the final weeks of 1915 Mrs Storrow wrote to Sharp offering him the sum of $1000 to use as he saw fit in the mountains. Sharp accepted at once and began preparation for his first collecting trip into the Appalachian Mountains.]
the above was a quote from an article by Mike YATES in musical traditions

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: The Sandman
Date: 05 Dec 20 - 11:49 AM

My stepfather met Sharp on several occasions, he visited his family because they were piano makers in Stroud, Sharp was at that time involved in the promotion of piano accompaniments for folk songs, Sharp was a regular visitor at the home of the Grovers who made pianos under the name of Bentley... Sharp enjoyed many a free meal

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 05 Dec 20 - 11:52 AM

I've never seen an episode of Sharpe with any whales in. I think there may be some in Hornblower.

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 05 Dec 20 - 12:28 PM

Sharp's amateurish expeditions to darkest brutish Somerset
to bring back novelty native musical treasures
for the amusement of the gentile British upper class elite,
would surely form the basis for a pretty good Ealing style satirical comedy movie..


If something like it has not already been produced way back in time...???

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: GUEST,RA
Date: 05 Dec 20 - 12:29 PM

Sad ballads, not bad salads.

True, Sharp did a lot of good work in Appalachia, but for me it's tarnished a bit by his belief that lowland Scotland and England essentially share the same song/music culture. There's undeniably a bit of overlap, but I think it's a mistaken belief.

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: The Sandman
Date: 05 Dec 20 - 03:17 PM

no. Sharp collected his songs to be sung in schools he finced that through books of piano arrangements. we sang some of his songs in school i went to a council school , there were no upper class cildren there , middle class lower middl;e and working class

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 05 Dec 20 - 03:36 PM

Dick - whose imaginary fictionalised based very loosely on a true life story movie is it..

Mine or yours...???

At least I've not cast yank actors struggling to put on wonky Brit accents...

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: The Sandman
Date: 05 Dec 20 - 04:16 PM

To Quote Cecil Sharp
Not only would the musical taste of the nation be materially raised, but a beneficent and enduring effect would be produced upon the national character. For, good music purifies, just as bad music vulgarizes; indeed, the effect of music upon the minds of children is so subtle and so far-reaching that it is impossible to exaggerate the harmful influence upon character which the singing of coarse and vulgar tunes may have. Up till now, the street song has had an open field; the music taught in the schools has been hopelessly beaten in the fight for supremacy. But the mind that has been fed upon the pure melody of the folk will instinctively detect the poverty-stricken tunes of the music-hall, and refuse to be captivated and deluded by their superficial attractiveness …

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 05 Dec 20 - 04:29 PM

He sounded a right snob...

I hope my wurzel ancestors really took the piss out of him...

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: The Sandman
Date: 05 Dec 20 - 04:43 PM

There's nice description of his approach given by his biographer, A H Fox Strangways:

    Sharp has often said that the peasant mind is as good as anyone else's, but it moves more slowly, and he knew well how to adapt his pace to theirs. Though naturally of quick action and of conversational disposition, he would be content to sit in silence for long stretches of time puffing at his pipe and waiting for the clearing of the throat which indicates that the song is about to begin. [15. Fox Strangways, Cecil Sharp, p.40.] 15

This image of a patient, considerate man is something new, suggesting that song-collecting brought out a different aspect of Sharp's personality. There is a clear contrast between Sharp's frequent arguments with his superiors and colleagues, and the delicacy and tact he used when talking to rural singers/

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: The Sandman
Date: 05 Dec 20 - 05:05 PM

i have quoted from
The Oak and the Acorn
Music and Political Values in the Work of Cecil Sharp

by Sharif Gemie

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: The Sandman
Date: 05 Dec 20 - 05:34 PM

a quote from the same source
Then there's the question of theft. Defenders of Sharp grow furious when they hear such terms. [119. I'm thinking in particular of C J Bearman. See his 'Cecil Sharp's Somerset Folk Singers' and 'Cecil Sharp in Somerset'.] 119 Sharp can be presented in almost Biblical terms as a suffering, ageing man, working almost alone, dedicating himself with a selfless, single-minded intensity to the preservation of a folk heritage. How could anyone call this secular saint a thief? It must be remembered that for much of his life folk song wasn't simply a passion for Sharp, it was also a career. He earnt his bread and butter by talking about and teaching folk song. Inevitably, he had to present himself as an authority on the topic, and this led him to downplay or deny the influence of other collectors.

But more seriously than this, Sharp actually copyrighted much of the material he collected: if not the original tune or dance, then his arrangement of the tune or dance.
Legal experts Richard Jones and Euan Cameron note: 'The "folk" were seen to have passed on the folk song, but had no conception of this process and, in consequence, made no creative contribution to the song.' [120. On the question of copyright, see: Richard Jones and Euan Cameron, 'Full Fat, Semi-Skinned or No Milk Today - Creative Commons Licences and English Folk Music,' International Review of Law, Computers and Technology 19:3 (2005), pp.259 - 75 (p. 263).] 120 On at least one occasion, a dance troupe realized the implications of his actions, and denied Sharp permission to use their material. [121. Theresa Buckland, '] 121 Sharp's collecting was not a two-way street: he gave nothing back to the people from whom he took material.
   Another argument [above] against Steve Gardhams description of an Amateur.
The Amateuer Baring Gould
apparantly did give his singers money or and show interest in them as people

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 05 Dec 20 - 05:48 PM

He definitely seems to have set the foundations
for all the insufferable middle-class folkie snobs of our modern era...

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: Joe Offer
Date: 05 Dec 20 - 06:41 PM

I don't study songs in Irish or Welsh or Slavic or Asian languages because I don't understand those languages and thus don't feel competent to study them. I concentrate on Germanic and Romance languages, because I feel at home there. It's not a matter of discrimination. I just don't know the languages.
By the way, Mexican corridos can be very interesting.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: The Sandman
Date: 06 Dec 20 - 04:42 AM

Steve Gardham CORRIDAS are bull fights corridos are something else
Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: Steve Gardham - PM
Date: 04 Dec 20 - 04:46 PM

I think it's really sad that Sharp didn't go to Mexico to collect Corridas.

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Dec 20 - 05:19 AM

RA equates Cecil Sharp with the ENGLISH folk Dance & Song Society (RA's emphasis on the first word). In Sharp's days there were two Societies - The Folk Song Society and the English Folk Dance Society. It was never the English Folk Song Society. Many members of the Folk Song Society were interested in other song traditions - not just in English song traditions, and over the yeas their Folk Song Journal published songs from Ireland and Scotland, as well as from England. The two Societies merged to form the English Folk Dance and Song Society in the early 1930's, several years after Cecil Sharps' death.

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 06 Dec 20 - 09:32 AM

The irony is lost!

But onywoy FWIW opalagies far getting ane letter wrang!

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: The Sandman
Date: 06 Dec 20 - 10:25 AM

i did not realise it was a typo, . i just wondered what the hell you were on about, anyway your intended comment was vacuous.
Sharp was restricted financially and had a certain narrowness of intellect, a kind of tunnel vision about folk song collection being of english roots , funny really considering the roots of morris dancing are arguably moorish ..quote
Morris dancing is a form of English folk dance usually accompanied by music. It is based on ... "a Moor" and "the Morris dance, as it were the Moorish dance", while John Bullokar defined it in 1695 as "a certain dance used among the Moors

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: GUEST,RA
Date: 06 Dec 20 - 10:32 AM

GUEST at 05:19 AM, thank you for the clarification about the history of the EFDSS and Sharp's involvement.

However, it doesn't change the fact that I think Sharp was wrong to ascribe the origins of (white) Appalachian song solely to English sources, and moreover to argue (as he does in the introduction to 'English Folk Songs of the Southern Appalachians') that lowland Scots and English musical culture are basically indistinguishable.

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: The Sandman
Date: 06 Dec 20 - 10:42 AM

there some similarities between border songs and tunes[ close to the border look at the northumbrian tradtion, indistinguishable is an exaggeration. northumberland is part of england.
but northumbrian tunes are closer stylistically to lowland scots music than to southern english music, songs like the battle of otterbourne and chevy chase quote
The ballads tell the story of a large hunting party upon a parcel of hunting land (or chase) in the Cheviot Hills (a range of rolling hills straddling the Anglo-Scottish border between Northumberland and the Scottish Borders), hence the term, Chevy Chase. The hunt is led by Percy, the English Earl of Northumberland. The Scottish Earl Douglas had forbidden this hunt and interpreted it as an invasion of Scotland. In response he attacked, causing a bloody battle after which only 110 people survived. Both ballads were collected in Thomas Percy's Reliques and the first of the ballads in Francis James Child's Child Ballads. Different versions were collected in England, Scotland, and the US

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: The Sandman
Date: 06 Dec 20 - 11:01 AM

ok i will be more specific, northumberland music is closer to border scots music[ rather than lowland scots music] thansouthern english music . let us take the tune the wild hills of wannie, it is closer to scots piping tunes than southern english tunes like the jenny lind polka, and actually is similiar to an irish jig called "the jolly corkonian"

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: The Sandman
Date: 06 Dec 20 - 12:24 PM

thewild hills of wannie is the same tune as hills of glenorchy in scotland

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 06 Dec 20 - 12:45 PM

Whilst it is surely thread drift, Dick has hit upon a very interesting subject here when discussing Sharp's collecting in Appalachia, and it is one I would like to see Brian's take on, and others from the States. However, it needs its own thread rather than tagging onto this one.

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: The Sandman
Date: 06 Dec 20 - 01:10 PM

steve please start a thread on it

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: Brian Peters
Date: 08 Dec 20 - 08:26 AM

One thing Cecil Sharp was not, was a snob. He not only collected songs from, but clearly respected and in some cases made close friendships with ordinary people included working class unmarried mothers, agricultural labourers, gypsies, and subsistence farmers living in primitive log cabins in the Appalachians (which I address on the other thread).

As far as collecting in Wales goes, Steve's comment about corridas is priceless. At least some Northerners can console themselves that he collected one song each (presumably for the sake of balance) from Lancashire and Yorkshire!

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 08 Dec 20 - 02:09 PM

.. chill and chuckle.. it does us all a power of good...

Subject: RE: Sharp and Wales
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 08 Dec 20 - 04:49 PM

Amen to that! These threads are obviously being closely monitored, quite rightly, so let's try to keep things impersonal, light-hearted and respectful. I know that's difficult with so many different viewpoints and intellects but let's at least try. Sharing knowledge should be the main thrust.