'Learned from the singing of...' ?

Subject: RE: 'Learned from the singing of...' ?
From: Ferrara
Date: 08 Mar 05 - 11:19 AM

Breton Cap, that sounds perfect to me. You supplied information about the origins of the song in a perfectly straightforward way.

There are three reasons this comes up. Sometimes, as you just did, people want to be sure they credit another performer or songwriter. Sometimes , especially with a version of a trad song, the audience is interested in its history & origins. That's one place where I think it can be appropriate to say "I learned this from the singing of ...." but also to give the area where the song came from if possible. And the third situation is where people want to find someplace they can go to learn the song. Something like, "Bob Roberts sang this, it's in the Voices of the People collection." Or "Ian and Sylvia sang this, it's on their ... album."

Subject: RE: 'Learned from the singing of...' ?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 08 Mar 05 - 11:40 AM

Someone brilliant once defined a folksinger as one who would spend five minutes introducing a song, and two and a half minutes singing it.

Well, under some circumstances that's okay, I guess. A singer who's a good storyteller can be every bit as entertaining with his introduction as with the song. And it gives a change of pace, and pads out the set so that the singer doesn't have to be singing every moment.

(Have patience, I'll get to the point of the thread eventually.)

I seldom if ever just jump into a song, especially with a general, non-folky audience. The songs I sing are usually story songs, and I want the full attention of the audience to the words. I find that an appropriate introduction gets them thinking in the right direction for the story, and I can (subtly or explicitly) define what might be a strange word or custom referred to in the song, without which the story would lose force or credibility.

I can, and sometimes find it appropriate, to work into that introduction where I learned the song, or who wrote it, but I cannot imagine the introduction (at least to a general audience) being nothing much more than, "Here's a song by Utah Phillips." I hear other singers doing that sort of thing, but it seems not much if any better than no introduction at all.

Dave Oesterreich