Plans for events in 2020 are coming along nicely. Our first meeting of the year will be held on 25 April 2020 in Swindon, on the doorstep of the Great Western Railway Works where Alfred Williams operated a steam hammer, and which was the centre for his forays around the Upper Thames Valley. Williams will, … Read more
This has been another good year for the Traditional Song Forum. We have weathered the storm of GDPR, and the loss of members that we had as a result has been more than made up by the number of new people who have signed up since. This has been helped by the decision to stop … Read more
There has been a very interesting discussion taking place on the ‘Tradsong’ group about Gapped Scales and modality in folk tunes. I thought that Members might like to have access to the conversation as an ‘omnibus’ document. You can download it here.
Long-time members of TSF will be accustomed to my frequent apologies that the notes of a meeting are late, followed by a ‘the dog ate my homework’ style of explanation. After the April meeting I surprised myself by writing up the meeting notes in only three weeks. I am embarrassed to realise that I then … Read more
We were saddened to hear that Paul Marsh had died. He was a very active supporter of traditional song and singings and I asked his friend, Steve Roud, to write a few words about him. PAUL MARSH: A PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONSteve Roud (24th April 2018)It was a complete shock to everyone in our field when Paul’s … Read more
On 22 February Lewis Jones put out a short message on Tradsong to say that the 1905 edition of Sabine Baring-Gould’s Songs of the West had been published on the Project Gutenberg website – http://www.gutenberg.org/files/56625/56625-h/56625-h.htm. I have also heard from Linda Cantoni who is a member of the project team who prepared the book for online publication. I … Read more
Traditional Song Forum members have been busy publishing new books, so here is a round-up. Faber has published Steve Roud’s mammoth (764 page) Folk Song in England – go to the Faber website for details. Best deal is at the Book Depository (an Amazon subsidiary) where you can get free postage to anywhere in the World. While the ink on that was … Read more
A wonderful website that has been put together by Peter Cooke. Whalsay is a small island, lying a few miles East of the Shetland mainland and has a distinct culture. There songs from a number of singers with both texts and recordings and photos and details of the singers. A very enjoyable site to browse … Read more
When I was traveling in Iceland in June (leading a party of Baring-Gould enthusiasts who wanted to follow the journey he made in 1862) we visited Siglufjordur, in the north of the country. Towards the end of our time in the town we discovered the Folk Music Centre – a permanent museum of Icelandic folk … Read more
Continuing in the Napoleonic vein, Ian Russell has sent a link to a page on the website of the National Library of Scotland, on which they have collected digital images of 78 chapbooks from their collection, which contain songs from the times. Go to http://tinyurl.com/NLS-chapbooks.