Fwd: Re: Music to the Child Ballads

[Brett Williams]

This is currently under discussion on the Rialto and I thought those on 
the list might find this interesting.

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In <21525.1452.uupcb at lunatic.com> beth.appleton at lunatic.com (Beth
Appleton)  writes: 
>
>-> From: ldygamer at aol.com (LdyGamer)
>-> A further admonition.... keep digging until you get back to some
>-> solid source music.  This is an interesting area of research which
>-> too often gets sidetracked in the work done by the ardent
>-> listmakes and collectors of the past century.  Do read the 
>-> footnotes carefully and you will be able
>
>How would you rate Bronson, then?
>
>Gwenllian Cwmystwyth
>

Though you asked Duchess Natalya rather than I, I'll offer my opinion.
Your mileage may vary. :)

I have this semi-long theory/diatribe on the concept of grey-area
artifacts (for lack of a better noun) in use in the Society. I myself
am guilty of several deliberate usages of grey-area artifacts within
the Society's context: in particular, I play (mostly) period music
using a grey-area instrument (a fretted dulcimer), and sing grey-area
songs (old ballad texts with tunes of questionable date). Am I entirely
comfortable doing this? No-- but that's perhaps an argument best left
for a different thread.

I define grey-area in this sense as 'possibly within the Society's
period, but conclusively unprovable either way".  For example, the song
"Matty Groves" was mentioned in the context of a play "Knight of the
Burning Pestle" as a reference-- and the entire audience was expected
to know what the song meant. Neither a song text or a tune was quoted,
but by inference one can (fairly) safely assume that the play's
audience knew the song in question.  So, how long prior to 1604 (or
thereabouts) was "Matty Groves" in popular circulation as a ballad?
Unprovable. Tune? Who knows.

Now, as to performing "Matty Groves" myself-- I've heard two separate 
tunes, one of which I really like, another of which I think is boring
in comparison. I don't think either of them are particlarly old (I
personally suspect no more than four generations or so)-- but then, the
age of the tunes in question in this instance are unprovable since they
have come from oral tradition. I prefer, personally, to use tunes I've
learned from other people in preference to hitting the pages of
Bronson.* The tune I enjoy using for "Matty Groves" is a particularly
vile musical pun-- it's a version of a dance tune called "Shady
Groves".

Bronson is a wonderful source of both Child texts and tunes. Professor
Bronson used (uses) Child as a springboard to base his own research;
where Child will give, say, five examples of text for one ballad,
Bronson will correspondingly give all of the tunes he's located from as
many sources he himself can lay hands to. It remains a fact, though,
that since the subject matter of Child and Bronson are, for the
Society's purposes, grey-area, then either one will be able to use both
resources without one's conscience niggling at the back of the mind--
or not.

ciorstan

*On the other hand, checking Bronson for a tune one's heard sung by a
living singer can also be very interesting:  the tune June Tabor uses
for "Geordie" on 'Silly Sisters' comes from "The Scots Musical Museum",
published in several volumes around the turn of the century of 1800.
Apparently "Geordie" has two separate tune 'paths' in popular memory:
an Ionian modal tune circulating in the British Isles; and an Aeolian
modal tune circulating in the United States. If anyone ever heard
Mistress Eowyn Nightsong of Tharsis of many years ago sing "My
Geordie's to be hung...", that's the American tune path in action.




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