Help: Oral Tradition

Subject: Oral Tradition
From: GUEST,Neil Comer
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 08:20 AM

I have a question. So much has been said about the importance of the oral tradition in folksong. How do people feel about taking songs from a written source only? I, personally, have no great difficulty with this, as I sometimes don't have a choice, but I remember a certain individual lambasting me for, 'learning from books' ( funny, I thought that's what most books were for) If Andy Irvine can do it, so can I. Any thoughts

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: Willie-O
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 08:31 AM

First, if we're to be honest, probably 90% of "oral" tradition learning is done from recordings these days. Anyone who thinks its only authentic if you learned it from an elderly rural resident on their front porch, is full of it. (Anyway, the "informant" probably learned the song from a record too.) Most of that work has been done, although its always nice to see more.

Since books are available, having been compiled by more-or-less collectors, it is no less than our duty to go through them and find the songs that are not currently in vogue, and try them on for size. Why waste great resources? Same goes for old (ie early folk revival period) records.

Anyway, any time I've gone to the trouble of learning what I thought was some great obscure number, somebody (usually Ian Robb) puts it on a recording within twelve months and in another twelve months I hear it all the time! (Case in point: "Paddy Murphy's Wake".)

Willie-O

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: Crowhugger
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 08:36 AM

Books: got 'em? Use 'em! Oral teachers: got 'em? Use 'em.

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: Áine
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 09:53 AM

Crowhugger, you took the words right outa my mouth! I would add an addendum, however. 'Know a song, teach it!'

-- Áine

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: Art Thieme
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 10:45 AM

I've always done songs I got from just about any source. BUT the truly exciting part of "the search" -- the part so much like a treasure hunt to a gambler -- has been finding songs from people I met in my travels--old cowboys (i.e. Del Bray - 1962 in Cheyenne, Wyoming--a truly grand Western version of "Barbara Allen" / i.e. Paul Durst - 1961 - a unique and old version of "Wabash Cannonball" that predated by 25 years the version by Roy Acuff who said he'd written it. / i.e. 2 verses of the Child collected ballad "Robin Hood's Death" (Child # 120) sung for me by Wes Asbury in Wisconsin---and many others.) These had gone through the folk metamorphosis sometimes called the transformative oral tradition or the folk process.

No, good people, THE FOLK PROCESS is not the way Odetta does her hair ! It's a way that a Mandonna song (God forbid) could become a folksong.

Art Thieme (who, as you may recall, has said this all before)

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: catspaw49
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 11:17 AM

You've said it before Art? You're kidding?!?!? Where?? When?? It certainly is a great thought and I don't recall ever hearing you put it forth before.....or anyone else for that matter? Does Frank or Sandy know any of this?

Spaw

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: Amos
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 12:09 PM

Oh 'Spaw, get DOWN! :>)

A

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: DebC
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 12:20 PM

What a nice topic to see on a rainy (at least here in New England)Sunday! Hooray for oral tradition.

I have to echo everything that everyone has said so far, but I would like to add something: Please credit sources whether they be famous Madonnas or Aunt Eunice from Chicago.

Cheers, Deb

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: catspaw49
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 12:30 PM

BTW, I sure as hell meant no insult to Art.....But I had just read another thread on the gawddam folk thing and I think we need a special screen to come up anytime someone gets ready to start another thread on this. It would force you to read the thousands of posts on the subject and then take a quiz. Then there would be a section relating to the, say 35 or 40, most common opinions and if the poster fits any of them, they cannot start a new thread, but must add to an existing one which relates most closely to their point of view. If I read that stupid ass "horses don't sing it" line again, I'm gonna hurl.......Especially when its expressed as an original thought, the FIRST time its been posted...........Fat Jesus Eatin' Jell-O........Does this ever end????

Poor Art keeps trying to make his point in new ways and nobody ever pays attention......Sorry Art, I sure wasn't after you on this.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: Willie-O
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 01:23 PM

Actually despite the unintended tone of my earlier pronouncement, I agree with Art. Rare songs or variants that you learn from a person who takes the trouble to make them available to you, are definitely a special part of anyone's repertoire.

No, Spaw, it NEVER ends.

Willie-O

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 01:32 PM

People have been learning songs from printed sources for as long as there have been printed sources to learn from. Broadsides were immensely popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, and were responsible for the influx of a lot of Irish melodies into the English tradition.  A surprisingly large part of the Shetland repertoire of fiddle tunes came from .78s brought back by sailors.  There are any number of other examples.  The main problem with that is that this can tend to standardise the repertoire; variant forms disappear.  This may be why people keep asking for "the chords" to this or that song, without specifying which version they mean; many of them are unaware that there are other versions, or more than one way of accompanying a song that was originally made without accompaniment.

I do take Spaw's point; somebody has already exhumed the horse on the other current thread...

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 01:35 PM

Willie O.: Very few of the folks from whom I have collected songs learned their songs from records. The tradition continues among people like William Harrison Burnett in the Ozarks, who could tell me about learning each song "from (so & so), a fellow from (such & such) County, when we were picking apples up in Washington State back in (such & such year)." Buna Hicks' daughter Rosa had learned songs from Carter Family recordings, yes, but her mother and her older sister sang songs and ballads from their regional oral tradition. The old woodsmen of New Brunswick were singing songs learned in the lumber camps, precious few of which, if any, had ever appeared on recordings. Grant Rogers learned songs from records, that's true, but he also learned from other Catskill Mountain tradition bearers. Sara Cleveland's huge repertoire came from her family in upstate New York, not from records.

The suggestion that all traditional singers learned their songs from recordings is clearly contradicted by the evidence. Ian Robb learned many songs from Edith Fowke's great informant O. J. Abbott (among others), and Abbott's repertoire was from oral tradition.

Sandy

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 01:51 PM

I reckon we don't have to worry too much about all the versions getting smoothed out - there's enough of us about who just can't help producing variants when we try to sing a tune we've heard from a record or somewhere. And screwing up the words as well.

The folk process is founded on fallible memories - that's why the best versions of songs get ciollected from old people. And long may it continue to be that way.

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 02:27 PM

...I have been railing about that singing horse for years, and next week or next month someone will post it again and thing they've said something...(Roy R. had Trigger stuffed...maybe there is some similar technique for metaphorical horses?)

Friends, the folk process is not only inevitable, it can be a good thing. Rita (Ferrara) found what seems to be the 'original' tune to "Faded Coat of Blue" the other day, and I sure do prefer the newer one!...I only object when the Folk Processor is set on 'puree'. Natural Change and "gratuitous meddling" just to set YOUR version apart are VERY different things

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 02:39 PM

Absolutely.  I came across the original version of "The Rose of Allandale" not long since, and the melody was really quite disappointing compared to the modified version used nowadays.

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 05:51 PM

Actually horses do sing. Maybe not to everyone's taste, but that applies to most of us. Mouth music rather than ordinary singing you might say but a horse in fine voice is very expressive.

I think they should be given more bookings at folk festivals. Cambridge Folk Festival, for example, would be much better if they replaced some of the top acts by horses.

And I think some Morris sides could consider replacing their hobby horses with real horses. There's a great sense of excitement when a horse starts dancing in the street.

And it's not just Morris. Think how much more enjoyable it would be to watch Michael Flatley in a line-up of horses and the occasional donkey or zebra.

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: sophocleese
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 10:48 PM

Quit horsing around, this is a serious thread!!

Most of my songs I learn from books because I don't hear that much on the radio I want to sing. I am trying to get my dad to write down some of the words to songs he used to sing when he was younger; topical parodies or commentary using hymn tunes.

This topic will come up over and over again just as Danny Boy will get sung over and over again this Friday because there are actually some people who want to discuss it and give their opinion. If anybody doesn't want to read these threads attempting to define folk they are welcome not to. Certainly people who have questions can go back and read all the other relevant threads but its not as nearly as much fun as actually discussing it yourself.

"Mommy? Where do babies come from?" "Oh Christ do I have to answer this question again? Here's a tape of me telling your older brother about it. Why don't you go away and listen to it somewhere else, Mommy's busy."

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Mar 00 - 02:04 PM

The "what is folk" discussion is a fundamental aspect of our tradition at the Mudcat. Just as a festival in England isn't complete unless there are some Morris Dancers doing their thing, a page of Mudcat threads without a thread about "what is folk" would be lacking something.

It's a ritual, and an enjoyable ritual, and some people get into it more seriously than others, and a lot of people pay it attention from time to time, or get marginally involved, to some extent or other. And the singing or non-singig horse is a hallowed part of it.

The aim isn't to come up with any final answer, it's a way for keeping a range of views in play, and ensuring that people who hold them are mutually aware of each other's existence.

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: Art Thieme
Date: 13 Mar 00 - 02:29 PM

Spaw,

didn't mean to discommode you. The topic of the thread is HELP--Oral Tardition ?

Once again, it was necessary to strive to inform someone of what this process is all about and why songs created today and/or tomorrow don't fit the terms we use for the crucible that ferments a song and turns it into the roots compost that nourishes my soul, my interest and my musicality. What you're saying, in effect, is "get the hell out of the 3rd grade or 4th grade classroom and quit repeating yourself just because we have a new bunch of students this year." Every generation has to learn it again. I'll not stop repeating myself---hopefully until I'm dead. It was my mission while I was on the road and able to play and sing ---and it will continue to be my cause. So expect me to be here at Mudcat touting that point of view. You need not read it if you'd rather not.

I always did, in my shows, use humor to get folks to the place where they would listen more seriously than otherwise to serious folksongs that told real-life tales about probably real people. With that fact in mind, please accept my ;-)

Love,

Art

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: Bert
Date: 13 Mar 00 - 03:13 PM

Hey 'cleese get your Dad a tape recorder and ask him to sing all those songs for ya. I did that with my Dad and got a real treasure. Now I've just got to make him sing some more.

Bert.

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: sophocleese
Date: 13 Mar 00 - 03:25 PM

Bert that might be easier, just pour a beer down his throat, sing a couple of things with him to get him eased up and let him rip. I don't know how much of what he sings will be permissible in mixed company though.

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: Chet W.
Date: 13 Mar 00 - 03:32 PM

Unfortunately the oral tradition is banned here in SC. To most of us what people do in private is their own business, and I have never heard of anyone being arrested, but it did happen in Georgia several years ago where they have similar laws, and an even worse flag problem. So if you come down here to visit, it's best to keep talk of oral tradition to yourself.

Chet

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: Bert
Date: 13 Mar 00 - 03:34 PM

Don't worry about that, DT has a fine collection of bawdy songs, a few more won't hurt.

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: catspaw49
Date: 13 Mar 00 - 06:03 PM

Hell Art, I understand and your points need to be made again again, your analogy is quite correct. That's not what bothers me though. I posted on the wrong thread in a way, although the other was similar and both got around to the same thing....define "folk."

Its not the subject that bothers me as much as a thing which happens here consistently. We're all in such a haste to post our OWN WONDERFUL OPINION, that NO ONE reads the other thread posts or previous threads. So what do they learn? Do they want to learn? There have been a lot of opinions expressed and certainly some agree and are variations of others. But there are a boatload of people who post on this topic and a lot of others without reading anything before......the stupid horse thing is but one example. Aw ta' hell with it.........I can't explain it, it just bothers me sometimes and I go off. A little background research would be nice. Some investigation into the differing, but well educated posts of yourself, Frank, Sandy, Bill, Rick, lamarca, Dan, Bruce, and others would at least add a little credence to some of the new postings. Christ I feel like Gargoyle of on one of his rants............

Sorry.....The only difference between me and Garg is that I readily admit that I'm an asshole and he doesn't.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Mar 00 - 06:40 PM

A few more differences than that, 'spaw. Everybody needs an arsehole - the trouble is when we get landed with one that insists on working backwards...

You're right, it's a pity that more people don't take the time to delve back into the Mudcat archives - not so mucy because that would mean the debate would move on to new insights which will resolve all the differences, but because there's a lot of good stuff in there, and it can help us raise our game.

As I've indicated, I think this kind of discussion is a game - but games are much more fun when the players and the spectators learn the rules and the plays.

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: catspaw49
Date: 13 Mar 00 - 06:49 PM

Thank you Kevin.....That is EXACTLY what I was trying to say!!

Spaw

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: Mooh
Date: 13 Mar 00 - 06:55 PM

Back to Neil Comer's original question...I agree, any source is legitimate, otherwise the internet would lose alot of its appeal.

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: Osmium
Date: 13 Mar 00 - 07:02 PM

So have the wise and wonderfull old timers of mudcat been in existence so long they are becoming tired of new opinion? Then this is the death knell of Mudcat. You would do better to point new souls to the old threads than to require all new mudcatters to read the reams of __ that you once wrote before. No insult intended, I read most of what is written with interest, but the flavour of the most recent comments is wrong. If you don't like the thread don't contribute - you have the right.

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Mar 00 - 07:17 PM

Doesn't take long to become an oldtimer round here - a couple more months, and you'll be one. (That's not patronising - what I mean is it seems to take about three or four months. Time passes swiftly in the Mudcat. Two or three years is Jurassic Park...)

As I see, the grumble isn't about people saying new things, but about them saying the same things that have been said time and time again, and assuming that they haven't been said before.

I'm actually all for people repeating old arguments time and time again, like I'm all for them singing old songs time and time again. But, as with songs, it's more fun when you know the tradition they come from, and a litle of the history.

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: Osmium
Date: 13 Mar 00 - 07:22 PM

Hi M of H
I won't be here for long its past my bedtime but I will email you when I've thought this one through. History was never my strong point, maybe thats what makes me such an angel! talk to you soon.

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: catspaw49
Date: 13 Mar 00 - 07:55 PM

Nope Os....not what I meant.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: Jeri
Date: 13 Mar 00 - 09:11 PM

I'm just sitting here scratching my head, trying to figure out exactly why, when and how this thread got turned into a "what is folk" thread instead of and "oral vs written/recorded" thread.

I say learn 'em any way you can, but realize that recorded/printed versions are only a snapshot of the song from a certain time and place.

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: Art Thieme
Date: 13 Mar 00 - 11:57 PM

Spaw,

No need to say you're sorry. I just misread this name o' this thread. I was defining folk music again. What the person wanted to know is why new songs aren't part of the oral trad. What I meant to say is that those newer songs have not gone through the mechanism---the line/river of time that we reach into like a bear pulling a fish out of a fast-flowing rapids every time we rescue a beautiful song artifact from the depths of oblivion. Sometimes they (the songs) emerge like a polished and rare stone. Hopefully, as singers, we can put 'em into a setting where the stone can shine on it's own without our selves/egos getting in the way of the beauty that's inherently there.

I really am sorry. I took no offense at all and didn't mean to sound like I did.

Art

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 14 Mar 00 - 12:28 AM

I hope my post earlier in this thread did not lead anyone to think I was denying the value of the printed or recorded collections of traditional songs and ballads. I use them all the time and have spent forty years building a library of both. As Jeri points out: learn good songs from whatever source presents them to you; the important thing is to do what you can to pass them on.

Sandy

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: Art Thieme
Date: 14 Mar 00 - 01:04 AM

I second that one for sure.

Art

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: rainbow
Date: 14 Mar 00 - 01:23 AM

art.... beautiful description/analogy of the polished stone... thanks...

... lorraine

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Mar 00 - 02:33 PM

"realize that recorded/printed versions are only a snapshot of the song from a certain time and place" - and so of course are versions sung live.

You learn them where you find them. Many of the old singers would make up songbooks, writing down the words of the songs they'd heard, and sticking in words from printed versions.

If you find a song in print that you've never heard anybody sing, and you want to sing it, the way you sing will be affected by the way you've heard other songs sung, and the tune you se will be adjusted a little bit to fit the words, and the words you use will be adjusted a little bit to fit the tune.

There's nothing magic about oral or written as such. What is magic is the way a song is part of a tradition, however it has been handed out and weathered in the process.

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: GUEST,Neil Comer
Date: 14 Mar 00 - 05:36 PM

I thought that I would leave this question for a few days to see how far it would go-tangents and all!! The reason for asking is simple. I have often wondered how certain singers get so much material that they claim they learned from the Oral Tradition. I'll not name names. Do these singers think that the song will be better, just because they learned from an aunt/uncle etc. There are some fine examples of singers taking songs from printed sources and putting their own tunes- I'm thinking of Pádraigín and the late Eithne Ní Ullacháin as examples, who both took lyrics from the book Dhá Chéad de Cheoltaibh Uladh and made excellent songs

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: Mooh
Date: 14 Mar 00 - 07:26 PM

Oral tradition has more vibe for me, but any way of passing the torch will work. A spin around after-hours goings-on at various festivals makes the oral tradition look alive and well. Keep the faith.

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: pastorpest
Date: 14 Mar 00 - 07:31 PM

I just acquired an eleven minute video made from old black and white film of Helen Creighton driving dirt back roads of Nova Scotia collecting songs from old people. I realize that I sing a version of All Round My Hat that are words from England, but a melody that Helen Creighton collected. I would not have that melody if she had not used new technology, a reel to reel tape recorder, in a creative new way. It is even possible that Farewell to Nova Scotia would have been lost without her work. From a CD of Newfoundland music I learned a version of Hank Williams', I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry, altered by the oral tradition. Now I sing some cross between the original and the Newfoundland version. The oral tradition goes on and it is good to use it; but most of the ways of documenting music, except for notation, are recent in human history. Now we are less apt to lose songs that were only recorded in someone's brain. I believe in using everything we can!

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: Charlie Baum
Date: 15 Mar 00 - 12:34 AM

We can learn songs from books and from recordings, and that's okay, because that's what's available to most of us. But we're usually hearing just ONE performance which was recorded, and even though we listen to the tape or CD a hundred times, we're still hearing that one performance repeated exactly. (Or reading a transcription from a book, which is usually a transcription of just one performance, though sometimes, if we're lucky, the diligent collector has heard it two or three times, and notated the variations between the performances.) (Or maybe, if we're lucky, Buna Hicks or Lena Bourne Fish gave slightly different versions to two collectors, or Dock Boggs recorded it two or three times in his life, sometimes decades apart.)

On the other hand, if we could have learned it in real life, live from our Grandma or Aunt Becky or roommate Zeke or whomever, we might have heard her or him sing it dozens or hundreds of times. We'd have a large number of performances to draw from, and we'd be copying not just a single instance, but an extrapolation based on a large number of hearings. We'd have learned about possible variations and styles and phrasings and breathings. As it is, we can perhaps guess about these ... and there many things in a song that go beyond words and tune ... but we're going to have to work hard to develop a broad enough knowledge-base of the tradition the song comes from in order to guess accurately at the permitted range of variations within the culture.

Now, for many of us, reproducing the song in the original regional style isn't what's important. That's okay. We take the words and tune and put it into our own style, and we're happy. At least we've preserved the words and the tune. We've transformed it into something personally useful and valuable to ourselves, and brought happiness to ourselves (and our listeners) with a song based in tradition. But we've also lost something of the original--the part beyond words and tune--the part that consists of style, and sometimes of attitudes and parts of culture that underlie the song and show up not in any individual song but in the entire corpus.

For example, there's an Appalachian attitude that values modesty. Listen to a lot of singers from the area and if you're astute, you'll begin to perceive it. It's a lot easier to observe if you go there and hear the music live. But once you're aware of it, you'll understand why "showing off" isn't something you usually do in Appalachian style. Now, it's perfectly fine if you want to perform an Appalachian song in a way that emphasizes your hot licks on your instrument. But someone from the mountains would play with hot licks and not draw attention to themselves, and have an "aw shucks" reaction if you pointed it out. That doesn't mean that they don't want to play with hot licks--they just don't want to be accused of immodesty as they show off. And they want you to compliment the licks themselves more than the performer. When you begin to understand the ambiguities and complexities in that reaction, you begin to understand an aspect of Appalachian culture you can learn through the music, but that transcribers don't generally notate and recording engineers don't reproduce on tape or CD.

All that said, get your hands on a good collection like the Warner collection--and read the material between the songs, and you'll learn not just the songs the Warner's collected, but something about the people and the cultures they collected from.

----------

Regarding the arguments of people who get tired hearing this topic over and over again. I like traditional arguments the way I like traditional music. I've heard the House Carpenter many times, and I know how the story comes out, but I still like to sing it and listen to it, even though we've rehashed it over and over. And sometimes when I do it, I notice something new I hadn't noticed before. The novelty comes in very small increments, but that's one of the joys of traditional songs--all of sudden you'll hear a new wonderful phrase to describe the thing you've heard a hundred times before.

----------

--Charlie Baum

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: hrodelbert
Date: 15 Mar 00 - 01:29 AM

I have a number of semi converted friends who consider that trad means "terrible riting and dogerel" and is designed for people who do not wish to append thier name to a song. On the otherhand there is "anon" which is a whole different argument.

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 15 Mar 00 - 11:21 AM

Your friends obviously need more education.  Good luck!

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: GUEST,Frank Hamilton
Date: 15 Mar 00 - 12:33 PM

I think that this is a fair question. Some scholars refer to the process as an aural rather than oral tradition. I like aural because it involves the process of listening. Oral has the opposite connation for me.

There are traditional folk singers and musicians who have learned songs from books. The issue is that they have an integrated idea of the style of music that they play. I think that this is the key to learning from a book. How well are you familiar with the style?

I believe the both hearing recordings and books are important agents to learn folk music but the best way is to be exposed to the human beings behind the music. Here, you begin to love folk music through the people that sing it traditionally. We have the opportunity to hear this with certain performers such as Jean Ritchie, Doc Watson, Hazel Dickens, Mike Seeger, or traditional blues singers extant. There are a lot of people who are singing and playing this music who are sensitive to it's stylistic nuances and history. These people are often not getting much press in some of the latest "folk mags" or seen at many "folk festivals" these days but they are still around and contribute to the beauty of the music.

There are interpreters such as David Holt, Sam Hinton, Taj Mahal, Sparky Rucker, Ry Cooder, the late Derroll Adams, Sandy, Art, and others who have studied (emphasis necessary) the traditional folk music of sub-cultures of our country and bring forth to it their love and expertise.

There are many who could use more exposure to honest traditional folk music and the cultures from whence the music emanates.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Mar 00 - 01:46 PM

"I like traditional arguments the way I like traditional music. I've heard the House Carpenter many times, and I know how the story comes out, but I still like to sing it and listen to it, even though we've rehashed it over and over. And sometimes when I do it, I notice something new I hadn't noticed before."

And in his post Charlie Baum has just shown an example of thagh happening. I'd never put my finger on it before, but he's dead right. Naturally.

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: Fortunato
Date: 15 Mar 00 - 02:18 PM

Yes to you all. I have had the opportunity to learn traditional music from my relatives in Appalachia. I have had the pleasure of hearing most of those Frank mentions as traditional musicians in recordings and/or live. And I have swapped songs with Mike Seeger and read his writings and liner notes. The same is true of the interpreters as he terms them. I have had help from Joe Hickerson when he was at the Library of Congress. And I have sung with, listened to and otherwise shared with hundreds of lesser known but nonetheless knowledgeable and influential (to me)traditional performers and interpreters or revivalists.

There is indee a powerful and unique quality to some traditonal performances of traditonal pieces by traditonal performers. When you have all three the fabric of the music is rich indeed. But play on, listen on, this quintessential traditionalism is only one of many superior musical circumstances, I believe. Fortunato

Subject: RE: Help: Oral Tradition
From: rainbow
Date: 16 Mar 00 - 10:31 AM

what would we have done without the olde harpers being documented by edward bunting in ireland... so much may have been lost. and what remains? though its documented and not just learned through an "aural" or "oral" tradition.... the history, society, religion, values, inspiration... in fact the entire culture is held in the music. this i believe. kind of like the metaphysical "thread"... the true history is brought to us through the songs.

so much we have lost about our celtic culture ... the olde songs are the only containers or vessels that some of us have. and some of those vessels were preserved better here, in parts of the u.s., some say, than they were preserved back where they were composed.

i love to find a song.... here someone sing it... find it in the child ballads with numerous versions... all being "right" -- finding it in other books... from other singers... and finding my own way through it so i can be a vehicle for it to come alive again and teach the same teachings it was designed for.

folk music is so timeless. that is one of the things i love about it!

... lorraine