minstrel: Child ballads and other harangues

[Monica Cellio]

> "...you will find that most Child ballads are out of period..."
> 
> 	If I had a dime for every time I heard "Child ballads are out of period" 
> or "Well, some Child ballads are period, but broadside ballads are out of 
> period", 

Note that the original statement said neither of these.  Most of the
ballads specifically collected by Child, which are a subset of the
ballads out there from that approximate time period, cannot be traced
before 1600.  That doesn't mean there are no period ballads or no period
Child ballads.

> Many 
> of Child's ballads exist in manuscript form in England, Scotland, and 
> Scandinavia dated prior to 1600, 

Could you list, say, a dozen of these?  I'd be very interested in finding
sources to support this, or to support the pre-1600 nature of more than
a few of the Child ballads.  The more of these we can document, the easier
it is for us to help new performers who want to do period stuff but don't
want to do a lot of work to find it.  (Gregory Blount's ballad research
is good work in this direction; if you can help authenticate more ballads,
please do so!)

This is not meant to be confrontational.  I encourage anyone who can
provide real documentation for works currently thought to be out of period
to do so.

> Kenneth (my husband) was once actually told not to bother to enter a 
> competition because they were judging the "communicative arts" as a block, 
> and there was no way his original composition could compete with the 
> documentation standards of (that fine medieval art form [editor's note]) 
> the research papers.

That's a pity.  I've won A&S contests with no subcategories -- i.e. my
music competition was judged against garb and scrolls.  It *is* possible.
(I was astounded; I wasn't sure the judges would be able to read music
well enough to understand what I had done, though I also provided 
recordings.  This was polyphonic instrumental stuff, even, not songs.)

Ellisif Flakkari



-------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from this list, send email to majordomo at pbm.com containing
the words "unsubscribe minstrel". If you are subscribed to the digest version,
say "unsubscribe minstrel-digest". To contact a human about problems, send
mail to owner-minstrel at pbm.com