Sheet Music & Publishing/Origins Stuff

Subject: Sheet Music & Publishing/Origins Stuff
From: wysiwyg
Date: 21 Feb 07 - 02:34 PM

I hope this will come out right and not step on any toes--

Is it just me, or does anyone else see the irony that these days, folks so often try to address FOLK music "origins" questions by looking for publication "proofs"??? And that it seems normal to ask for sheet music to stuff that came from, moved through, and largely stayed in an ORAL mode of transmission?

IMO, all a publication date tells us is that a song probably had existed, in oral form, before that date. At most (in much of the music I deal with) the earliest published version we can find represents the last tower built on old runins, sticking up out of the sand that's blown over the ruins that were already hidden under successive layers of buildings. That tower, visible though it may be, is not the whole story or even the most relevant story!

I have no quarrel with sheet music, or people wanting to use it, or having as much of it as possible to supplement what I hear. But when people ask for "the" sheet music to a song, I always wonder-- do they think some folkie in the distant past made a killing off of a publishing deal, for each and every song anyone might ask for? "The" as though there is a defninitive version?

"Composed by" citations evoke my reaction: "Liar, liar, pants on fire." (The one who claimed composer rights.) Do folks really think attributions worldwide are any more accurate that our own ongoing DT efforts to attribute? It's messy!

Just wondering,

~Susan

Subject: RE: Sheet Music & Publishing/Origins Stuff
From: Jack Campin
Date: 21 Feb 07 - 07:49 PM

Quite a lot of commonly-sung songs *did* start out on paper. You probably know Johnny Cope, Erin go Bragh, Loch Lomond, Ye Banks and Braes, Gloomy Winter or The Wild Rover?

Look at enough broadsides and it's pretty clear which were newly composed.

Or, a point that came up in the thread about "Blowin' In The Wind": how many people want to hear folk-processed versions of Bob Dylan songs? They're a lot more fixed than anything by Mozart. "The" sheet music for them is completely unproblematic, the definitive versions are Dylan's (there may be more than one but not a great range of them, and you aren't going to find one in a different mode or time signature).

Subject: RE: Sheet Music & Publishing/Origins Stuff
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 21 Feb 07 - 07:54 PM

All songs nowadays considered "folk songs" were written by somebody, and usually much more recently than the romantics suppose. Many can be traced to their original writers.

The first appearance in print of a song noted from oral tradition only tells us that it wasn't made after that date. The first appearance of a broadside text, however, can be one of two things: the first surviving example (whether re-written or copied from an earlier print form or -again, rather less often than people used to think- adapted from oral sources); or the original.

Sometimes, broadsides derive from earlier, oral forms; but that isn't something that anyone should take for granted. Frequently they don't.

Note that I'm talking of texts here. Tunes are more complicated on the whole. Sometimes, though, these too can be traced to an identifiable composer.

Really, the only problem is that many people come to the subject having only heard one example of a song; typically a recorded arrangement made by their favourite professional performer. As a result, they are likely to assume that there is only one form of it, and that there must, de facto, be "sheet music" or "chords" to be got; and that it is entirely unnecessary for them to tell us anything at all about the song they want information on. Presumably, from their point of view, we must already know all that. After all, they do.

Modern songs are another matter entirely, of course.

Subject: RE: Sheet Music & Publishing/Origins Stuff
From: wysiwyg
Date: 21 Feb 07 - 08:23 PM

Really, the only problem is that many people come to the subject having only heard one example of a song; typically a recorded arrangement made by their favourite professional performer. As a result, they are likely to assume that there is only one form of it, and that there must, de facto, be "sheet music" or "chords" to be got; and that it is entirely unnecessary for them to tell us anything at all about the song they want information on. Presumably, from their point of view, we must already know all that. After all, they do.

Yes, I think a lot of it is like that. I just think it's especially odd as an expectation at a forum where oral transmission is so much the thing.

The rest, I guess, can't be discussed intelligently much farther without getting into the whole "what is folk" thing. Uh-oh-- now I've said it--- here we go, again. Sorry!

~Susan

Subject: RE: Sheet Music & Publishing/Origins Stuff
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 21 Feb 07 - 09:01 PM

"having only heard one example of a song; typically a recorded arrangement made by their favourite professional performer. As a result, they are likely to assume that there is only one form of it, "

A funny story from my SCA days:

'they' had learnt to dance 'the bear dance' to a recording pirated to Aust from the US on a cassette tape of a particular recorded version of a tune called 'the bear dance' - it even allegedly had (ancient!) words that were sung while dancing.

Now my limited research (pre-internet) had shown that this was a fairly ubiquitous tune in many variants and cultures across large parts of Europe - I even accidentally found a tune on a 'classical' CD which was of 'folk tunes' - but the tune was clearly a close variant!

Now there was a local 'folk music group' who did a lot of 'old, trad' tunes, and they knew several versions, and were present at a public event - they were asked 'did they know "the bear dance tune" so we can dance to it - we know it well!' - so they played the variant they normally played, only to be soundly abused 'that they were playing it wrong!'

I was present, and also later heard the story from the band's point...

:-)

I'm not making this up, you know!

Subject: RE: Sheet Music & Publishing/Origins Stuff
From: Alec
Date: 22 Feb 07 - 01:43 AM

I have noticed that those who subscribe to the myth of one True way of doing a song invariably think that the one True way is their own preferred way.
Their own preferred way is usually the first version they ever heard.
Re Jack's point about Dylan,I was reading an interview the other day with a Guitarist who,as a consequence of misreading the sheet music,had started off playing "Love Minus Zero" in 3/4 time,decided he preferred it that way & chose to always do it that way.
If anybody ever objected to that he didn't say.
Another trend related to publication "proofs" I have noticed recently is a tendency on the 'Net,including 'round these parts on occasion,to implicitly attribute infallibility to Wikipedia.
It ain't necessarily so.