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American Folk Songs
The term American folk music encompasses numerous music genres, variously known as ''traditional music'', ''traditional folk music'', ''contemporary folk music'', ''vernacular music,'' or ''roots music''. Many traditional songs have been sung within the same family or folk group for generations, and sometimes trace back to such origins as the British Isles, Mainland Europe, or Africa. Musician Mike Seeger once famously commented that the definition of American folk music is "...all the music that fits between the cracks." American folk music is a broad category of music including bluegrass, gospel, old time music, jug bands, Appalachian folk, blues, Cajun and Native American music. The music is considered American either because it is native to the United States or because it developed there, out of foreign origins, to such a degree that it struck musicologists as something distinctly new. It is considered "roots music" because it served as the basis of music later develope ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Folk Music
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted orally, music with unknown composers, music that is played on traditional instruments, music about cultural or national identity, music that changes between generations (folk process), music associated with a people's folklore, or music performed by custom over a long period of time. It has been contrasted with commercial and classical styles. The term originated in the 19th century, but folk music extends beyond that. Starting in the mid-20th century, a new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional folk music. This process and period is called the (second) folk revival and reached a zenith in the 1960s. This form of music is sometimes called contemporary folk music or folk rev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethnomusicologist
Ethnomusicology is the study of music from the cultural and social aspects of the people who make it. It encompasses distinct theoretical and methodical approaches that emphasize cultural, social, material, cognitive, biological, and other dimensions or contexts of musical behavior, in addition to the sound component. Within musical ethnography it is the first-hand personal study of musicking as known as the act of taking part in a musical performance. Folklore studies, Folklorists, who began preserving and studying folklore music in Europe and the US in the 19th century, are considered the precursors of the field prior to the World War II, Second World War. The term ''ethnomusicology'' is said to have been coined by Jaap Kunst from the Greek language, Greek words ἔθνος (''ethnos'', "nation") and μουσική (''mousike'', "music"), It is often defined as the anthropology or ethnography of music, or as musical anthropology.Seeger, Anthony. 1983. ''Why Suyá Sing''. Lon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Connecticut Colony
The ''Connecticut Colony'' or ''Colony of Connecticut'', originally known as the Connecticut River Colony or simply the River Colony, was an English colony in New England which later became Connecticut. It was organized on March 3, 1636 as a settlement for a Puritan congregation, and the English permanently gained control of the region in 1637 after struggles with the Dutch. The colony was later the scene of a bloody war between the colonists and Pequot Indians known as the Pequot War. Connecticut Colony played a significant role in the establishment of self-government in the New World with its refusal to surrender local authority to the Dominion of New England, an event known as the Charter Oak incident which occurred at Jeremy Adams' inn and tavern. Two other English settlements in the State of Connecticut were merged into the Colony of Connecticut: Saybrook Colony in 1644 and New Haven Colony in 1662. Leaders Thomas Hooker delivered a sermon to his congregation on May 31, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Springfield Mountain
"On Springfield Mountain" or "Springfield Mountain" (Laws G16) is an American ballad which recounts the tragic death of a young man who is bitten by a rattlesnake while mowing a field. Historically, the song refers to the death of Timothy Merrick, who was recorded to have died on August 7, 1761 in Wilbraham, Massachusetts by snakebite. It is commonly included in collections of American folksong, and is one of the earliest known American ballads. The ballad has been cited as representative of elegiac verse tradition which later gained status as folklore throughout the United States. Due to its popularity, there exist many variations of the ballad and its narrative. Although the song is now accompanied by its own distinct melody, early performances of the ballad were sung to other airs, including "Old Hundredth" and "Merrily Danced the Quaker's Wife". Historical basis Timothy Merrick was born on May 24, 1739 to Lieutenant Thomas Merrick and his wife, Mary. As the story goes, at the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anglo-American Music
Anglo-American music is derived from the English culture of the Thirteen Colonies of the United States and has been a founding influence for American folk and popular music. Overview Many American folk songs use the same music, but with new lyrics, often as parodies of the original material. Anglo-American songs can also be distinguished from British songs by having fewer pentatonic tunes, less prominent accompaniment (but with heavier use of drones) and more melodies in major. Anglo-American traditional music, dating back to colonial times, includes a variety of broadside ballads, humorous stories and tall tales, and disaster songs regarding mining, shipwrecks (especially in New England) and murder. Folk heroes like Joe Magarac, John Henry and Jesse James are also part of many songs. Folk dance of English origin include the square dance, descended from the European high society quadrille, combined with the American innovation of a '' caller'' instructing the dancers. Sea shan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Malcolm Laws
George Malcolm Laws (January 4, 1919 – August 1, 1994) was a scholar of traditional British and American folk song. He was best known for his collection of traditional ballads "American Balladry from British Broadsides", published in 1957 by the American Folklore Society. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, and joined the English Department Faculty there in 1942. He gives his name to a system of coding ballads; one letter of the alphabet, followed by 2 numbers. For example, "Laws A01" is "Brave Wolfe" also known as "Bold Wolfe" or "The Battle of Quebec". There is no immediately obvious logic, but a broad pattern appears: the letter A is for military songs, the letter D is for nautical songs, the letter F is for murder, and so on. The system is limited to 26 x 99 = 2576 distinct labels, and so tends to bring together similar songs. It is a useful adjunct to Child numbers. He includes many songs that Child excluded, and of course, new ones that were found after Child ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pretty Polly (ballad)
"Pretty Polly", "The Gosport Tragedy" or "The Cruel Ship's Carpenter" () is a traditional English-language folk song found in the British Isles, Canada, and the Appalachian region of North America, among other places. The song is a murder ballad, telling of a young woman lured into the forest where she is killed and buried in a shallow grave. Many variants of the story have the villain as a ship's carpenter who promises to marry Polly but murders her when she becomes pregnant. When he goes back to sea, either he is haunted by her ghost, confesses to the murder, goes mad and dies, or the ship will not sail. He denies the murder and is ripped to pieces by her ghost. "The Gosport Tragedy" evolved into "The Cruel Ship's Carpenter" and "Pretty Polly", losing many of the specifics of the original. "The Gosport Tragedy" There are a number of extant broadside copies of "The Gosport Tragedy", the earliest known version. It is a lengthy ballad composed of rhymed couplets, sixteen verses ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Murder Ballad
Murder ballads are a subgenre of the traditional ballad form dealing with a crime or a gruesome death. Their lyrics form a narrative describing the events of a murder, often including the lead-up and/or aftermath. The term refers to the content, and may be applied to traditional ballads, part of oral culture. Defining the subgenre The term ballad, applied to traditional or folk music, means a narrative song. Within ballads, the "event song" is dedicated to narrating a particular event, and the murder ballad is a type of event song in which the event is a murder. This definition can be applied also to songs composed self-consciously within, or with reference to, the traditional generic conventions. Atkinson, referring to traditional English ballads, comments that "there is no shortage of murders in the corpus of ballads ..and few of them are concealed with any success." Perspectives are numerous. Some murder ballads tell the story from the point of view of the murderer, or atte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barbara Allen (song)
"Barbara Allen" (Child 84, Roud 54) is a traditional folk song that is popular throughout the English-speaking world and beyond. It tells of how the eponymous character denies a dying man's love, then dies of grief soon after his untimely death. The song began as a ballad in the seventeenth century or earlier, before quickly spreading (both orally and in print) throughout Britain and Ireland and later North America. Ethnomusicologists Steve Roud and Julia Bishop described it as "far and away the most widely collected song in the English language—equally popular in England, Scotland and Ireland, and with hundreds of versions collected over the years in North America." As with most folk songs, "Barbara Allen" has been published and performed under many different titles, including "The Ballet of Barbara Allen", "Barbara Allen's Cruelty", "Barbarous Ellen", "Edelin", "Hard Hearted Barbary Ellen", "Sad Ballet Of Little Johnnie Green", "Sir John Graham", "Bonny Barbara Allan", "Bar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Child Ballads
The Child Ballads are 305 traditional ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, anthologized by Francis James Child during the second half of the 19th century. Their lyrics and Child's studies of them were published as ''The English and Scottish Popular Ballads''. The tunes of most of the ballads were collected and published by Bertrand Harris Bronson in and around the 1960s. History Age and source of the ballads The ballads vary in age; for instance, the manuscript of "Judas" dates to the thirteenth century and a version of " A Gest of Robyn Hode" was printed in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century. The majority of the ballads, however, date to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Although some are claimed to have very ancient influences, only a handful can be definitively traced to before 1600. Moreover, few of the tunes collected are as old as the words. Nevertheless, Child's collection was far more comprehensive than any previous coll ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ballads
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or ''ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of Britain and Ireland from the Late Middle Ages until the 19th century. They were widely used across Europe, and later in Australia, North Africa, North America and South America. Ballads are often 13 lines with an ABABBCBC form, consisting of couplets (two lines) of rhymed verse, each of 14 syllables. Another common form is ABAB or ABCB repeated, in alternating eight and six syllable lines. Many ballads were written and sold as single sheet broadsides. The form was often used by poets and composers from the 18th century onwards to produce lyrical ballads. In the later 19th century, the term took on the meaning of a slow form of popular love song and is often used for any love song, particularly the sentimental ballad of pop or roc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francis James Child
Francis James Child (February 1, 1825 – September 11, 1896) was an American scholar, educator, and folklorist, best known today for his collection of English and Scottish ballads now known as the Child Ballads. Child was Boylston professor of rhetoric and oratory at Harvard University, where he produced influential editions of English poetry. In 1876 he was named Harvard's first Professor of English, a position which allowed him to focus on academic research. It was during this time that he began work on the Child Ballads. The Child Ballads were published in five volumes between 1882 and 1898. While Child was primarily a literary scholar with little interest in the music of the ballads, his work became a major contribution to the study of English-language folk music. Biography Francis James Child was born in Boston, Massachusetts. His lifelong friend, scholar and social reformer Charles Eliot Norton, described Child's father, a sailmaker, as "one of that class of intelligent a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
