Traditional song

I hope to add more information here as time permits, and as I come upon more interesting material. Suggestions welcome.

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Available topics:

Technology and folksong

Has the advance of modern technology had a damaging effect on folksong? Not according to the renowned scholar Kenneth Goldstein of the University of Pennsylvania. He took a more optimistic view.

Traditional song origins

The beginning of a collection of stories about the origins of some traditional songs.

16th century ballads

This site giving information on 16th century ballads (mostly English ones) seems to be operated by someone from the Society for Creative Anachronism. Lots of links to similar sites.

Traditional Gaelic singing

An introductory article by Craig Cockburn. He says it's moved it but I couldn't find it at his new URL. There's lots of other good stuff there, though.

West gallery music

A great topic of debate in the field of English folk song has been the famous Copper family of Rottingdean, Sussex. Most of the experts say that English folk music is never harmonized, yet not only do the Copper family sing in harmony, but they have kept meticulous records which show that the family has been singing this way for at least 200 years. It occurred to me that the source of their style may be in the "west gallery" music that was sung in English churches in the approximate period 1650-1750. This style of music, which seems somewhat related to shape note singing in the U.S., was mostly replaced by barrel organs, as described in Thomas Hardy's Under the Greenwood Tree. A very interesting page describes the revival of west gallery music in England.

Danny Boy

Is Danny Boy really an Irish song? And, if not, where did it come from, and why do we think it is Irish? Maybe you saw that show that was on my local PBS station lately, Danny Boy: In Sunshine or in Shadow, that featured such exciting clips as Eric Clapton discussing De Dannan's version of the song. (Now I'm waiting to hear Martin Hayes giving his opinions about B. B. King and Son House!) Unfortunately, the format and marketing requirements of television required the omission of most of the interesting stuff (as usual). Here you can get the real story, an amazing 100 year long detective mystery!

Just after St. Patrick's Day, 1999, I received a message from Julian Lloyd, the producer of In Sunshine or in Shadow. My favourite version of the song was done by pianist Bill Evans (not in the least Irish, though), and I was pleased to find out that he agreed with my opinion.

Your Danny Boy info is really great and I was thrilled to find it. I have long had a fascination for this air and song, although admittedly less scholarly than your own. I have over 100 different recordings. You may have seen a TV documentary - 'In Sunshine or in Shadow' - on the song which I wrote and put together about three years ago. It was shown on ITV here and also on PBS in The States. Sadly, owing to the cost of licensing footage, the US version could not contain a really epic version by Jackie Wilson. Have you ever been in touch with Brian Audley, a musicologist from the North of Ireland, who has done a lot of research into the history of the air?

I once had an interesting correspondent from Dublin who had served as a UN soldier in Korea. "One freezing night in January we were about 20 yards from the enemy trenches when I heard the tune drifting over, played on pipes. We took their position in the morning and though I searched for the piper or the pipes, I found nothing. I asked a fellow soldier if he had heard anything and he confirmed my experience." I have heard it said that the tune has much in common with Eastern music and it is certainly still one of the favourite mainstays of Japanese Karaoke juke boxes.

Waltzing Matilda

Allen Abel of the National Post wrote a very nice introductory article about Australia's most famous song.

Auld Lang Syne

As you may know, the tune to which Auld Lang Syne is now sung is not the original tune used by Robert Burns. And according to Tony Doyle, the modern tune was composed by an Englishman! Check out his William Shield page for more on this controversial topic.

Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall

Also known as Ten Green Bottles, a new discovery suggests that this song may have annoyed parents taking their children on pilgrimage to Canterbury during Chaucer's time (between cries of "Beest wee there yette?").

Related links:

• Bruce Olson's Roots of Folk is a very comprehensive collection of old English, Scots, and Irish songs and tunes. Highly recommended for the serious researcher.
• 17th century ballads and re-enactment information.
• Amhrán Gaelach, the first ever collection of Irish Language song texts on the Internet. Amhrán Gaelach (originally called the Gaelic Song Archive) first went up in early 1995. "The archive originally contained Scots Gaelic and Manx Gaelic songs as well, but I decided fairly early on to concentrate on Irish, and the Scots Gaelic and Manx songs were removed in 1996." In addition to texts, many of the songs also have their basic tune notated in ABC format.
• Traditional Italian ballads were sung in harmony!
• A collection of ballad links.
• An article on ballads.
• Sea Shanties, a site containing a number of sea shanties and other maritime songs.
• The on-line version of The Oxford Book of English Verse has lots of ballads.
• The Digital Tradition folksong database. On-line search for the words of thousands of folk-songs.

Related topics:

• Vibrato in classical singing
• More on classical vocal technique

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