Farnsworth & Sharp

Subject: Farnsworth & Sharp
From: MMario
Date: 12 Oct 00 - 10:44 AM

I picked up an old songbook while on vacation last week:

"Folk-songs, Chanteys and Singing Games" edited by Charles H. Farnsworth and Cecil J. Sharp - appears to be copywrite 1909 by Novello and Company,LTD; London. published in New York by The H. W. Gray Company.

Anyone seen this, have any opinions, etc?

something I didn't notice before I purchased. it is inscribed to "mario" on the frontispiece! (!!)

Subject: RE: Farnsworth & Sharp
From: Anglo
Date: 12 Oct 00 - 10:59 AM

This was part of Cecil Sharp's ongoing campaign to make people more aware of the English folk song heritage, especially by making books available which teachers could use in schools. The book had two editions, one just words, and one with music and simple piano arrangements. Latterly, educators such as Roy Palmer have continued that approach.

As I recall from my own schooldays, (when of course every teacher could play a piano, and we had to walk to school, not bus, three miles uphill in each direction), the songs we learned did stick. Not that we liked them much at the time - we didn't quite realize how much heritage we were preserving.

Michael Cooney has remarked (on his American education) that only much later did one realize that it wasn't the songs that were bad, just the schools and the teachers.