British folk music and the folk tradition have been a huge influence in my life from a very young age. Born into a family of folk enthusiasts, I was exposed to the rich history and culture of British folk music long before I turned to classical specialism. Being brought up around these traditional musicians in both a social and musical environment, these folk stories, songs, traditions and communities shaped my childhood. When I reached the age of seven I began my classical training, but could never go for an extended period of time without listening to, singing along to or visiting folk musicians. The familiar stories, comforting, ever timeless songs and lilting melodies have always been and will always be a source of musical comfort, inspiration and joy to me.
I began to take classical lessons, still predominantely singing adaptations of folk songs until I was accepted into the Lincoln Cathedral Choir. Here my rigorous classical training began. Long gone were the folk songs I had always been taught to sing, and my repertoire became that of the great English choral composers. William Byrd, William Walton, Hubert Parry to name a few, and of course Benjamin Britten. Works such as his Te Deum and Jubilate became bi-monthly occurances and it was not until I reached my teenage years that I was confronted with the combination of the great Britten and my childhood songs.
As in many countries and traditions, while in the past, folk music has been a commonplace pastime for the masses, as technology developed and mass culture became more attainable, folk music quickly diminished in popularity. An art form which has previously been used as a form of communication, spreading of news, personal identification within social situations and a strong part of many communities became redundant.
As this was primarily a time before recording equipment, and music was aurally transmitted, many traditional songs were lost before they were recorded either on an audio device, or in written notation.
In a similar fashion to any countries folk music, variations of the same songs could be found throughout the country or region with small differences in each town or county. This is a question that shall be explored later.
The term ‘folk song’ is thought to have ‘been coined in the mid 19th Century’Groom, Nick. The Seasons: a Celebration of the English Year. Place of publication not identified: Atlantic Books, 2013., however this statement cannot be fully attributed to any individual. The term ‘folk’ music describes the music of the people, music which did not need any professional training in order to be performed. It gave groups identities, and was a bonding experience for communities and a means of connection between individuals. Although many folk songs would have originally been written down in some form or other, the primary method of sharing songs was through the aural tradition, passing songs from singer to singer through listening and repetition.
It was around this time that the concept of collecting folk songs began to gain popularity.
‘On Boxing Day 1899, Sharp was staying with his mother-in-law in Oxford and happened to see the Headington Quarry Morris Men performing a set of five dances. He was fascinated and called back their musician, William Kimber, to notate the tunes and later arrange them, although at this point with seemingly little idea of what to do with them. However, by 1901 he had joined the Folk-Song Society (formed in 1898) and a year later had published A Book of British Song, which included many traditional songs and demonstrated his growing interest in folk music and the uses to which it could be put.’“Cecil James Sharp Collection (at Clare College, Cambridge) Cecil Sharp Manuscript Collection (at Clare College, Cambridge) (CJS2).” Cecil James Sharp Collection (at Clare College, Cambridge). Accessed October 10, 2019. https://www.vwml.org/archives-catalogue/CJS2#.
Little was it known that this event would spark an entire revival of the British folk song.
From those beginning forays into research to current day work, fieldwork is one of the most important devices used to track and understand this ‘music of the people’. To be able to talk to the writers and performers of these songs and understand the background from which they came. Recording and notation of these songs is also vital as it physically preserves music and songs which may have otherwise been lost or altered through aural tradition to the point that they are unrecognisable. Methods of collection have changed very little from those early days of fieldwork in folk music in 1898, other than the complexity of the technology used to record, however the methods of fieldwork and the questions being asked have changed dramatically.
The concept of being a collector of folk music was a new concept at the beginning of the 19th century. As explored by Michael Broken in ‘The British Folk Revival’, there was a huge amount of interest being generated in the social hierarchy of the country. The sense of ‘social hierarchy, parochialism and conformity’. However, alongside this strict, conformist society, there was a social self consciousness germinating, especially within the arts. There was a movement in the upper classes to become more liberal and ‘this presence was concomitant with the maturation and intellectualisation of the Labour movement’.Brocken, Michael. “The British Folk Revival,” 2017. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315240947.
This social development led to a significant quantity of research and exploration of the relationships between the social classes. There was a debate on ‘appearance and disappearance. This was the concept of a musical monument which was ‘erected upon which a shadow of a real and untainted symbolic phantom was projected’ This gave way to the thought of a ‘kind of political emancipation’ being sought. The concept of the ‘invocation of a presence of the real through its constantly threatened absence’. At such a time, when folk music was in such decline, such an argument held great weight. Brocken argues that ‘from this historical subsoil of folk music revivalism that so much twentieth century music thought grew’.Ibid In conjunction with the collectors of folk music this argument is most valid. Examples of folk collecting composers such as Vaughan Williams and Percy Grainger make excellent examples. Vaughan Williams being an especially prominent 20th century composer and folk song collector, the influence of music in this original revival on his and his contemporaries compositions is remarkably similar to the influence of the 1980s revival on contemporary folk musicians.
The collectors of the 18th and 19th and the revival was ‘a decidedly middle-class phenomenon, whose largest constituency included young, urban adults many with some degree of musical literacy’ibid.An example of this being Mrs Kate Lee, she was a ‘early musically literate pioneer of folk music collecting in England’. Lee in fact produced a pamphlet in 1898 entitles ‘Hints to the Collectors of Folk Music’.
It was at this stage that an interesting issue arises within the revival and collectors. The collectors themselves, Sharp, Vaughan Williams, Lee, Grainger etc were all from social backgrounds which has no previous connection with the very music they were collecting. Lee’s advice in her pamphlet is an excellent example of this. ‘Although folk music may be preserved in different strata of society, the classes from which the most interesting specimens are most readily to be obtained are gardeners, artizans, gamekeepers, shepherds, rustic labourers, gipsies, sailors, fishermen, workers at old fashioned trades, such as weaving, lace making, and the like, as well as domestic servants of the old school, especially nurses.’
One of, if not the most famous collectors or folk music was Cecil Sharp. After returning from Australia in 1892 and being unable to make a living as a composer, Sharp dedicated his life to collecting English folk dance and song, although he spent a significant quantity of time in the United States, in the Southern Appilachians. Sharp collected 1500 folk songs in Somerset alone between the years of 1903 and 1907. He collected another 1600 songs in America claiming that many were ‘to be of pure English origin’ This of course is a naive and sweeping statement. Many other non English influences had long dissolved any sense of ‘pure English origin’ from the songs that Sharp collected.
It is worth noting that during Sharp’s time in Appalachia that 13% of the population was black, Sharp knowingly ignored them. This is a point picked up on by Caroline Herring, who was a member of the Cecil Sharp Song Project, a new revivalist work to be explored later. Out of the 1600 songs that Sharp collected in the Appalachians, only two of those songs were collected from a black singer. It leads to the question of how much music was wilfully missed by Sharp and potentially other collectors, and how their actions led to the contents of the songs found in the 1980s revival and consequently the current revival. The role of collectors is a vital aspect of any revival.
It is suggested by Gammon that many of the versions of folk songs that we hear today thanks to Sharp could well be ‘milk and water’ versions of songs. The Edwardians who thought they were being liberal and modern by collecting these folk songs, also felt that the ‘rural English’ were too uninhibited in their sexual attitudes. Therefore while simultaneously recording the ‘music of the people’. They were also editing it. ‘The physical and social environment in which a text is received can modify the meaning that is produces…between individuals of the same social and cultural background the communication of identical or similar meaning may be difficult. Between individuals of different social and cultural backgrounds the communication of identical meanings is totally impossible…People in England in the two and a half centuries before 1850 certainly made love, sometimes illicitly, but surely it is naive to view the songs of encounter as a celebration of an everyday sort of occurrence'Gammon, VIc. “ Still Growing English Traditional Songs and Singersfrom the Cecil Sharp Collection.” English Folk Dance and Song Society, May 3, 2003.
It should be considered in what modern equivalent are songs being developed and manipulated, this shall later be discussed through the interviews of folk musicians writing, collecting and touring during the current revival.
It is also worth noting the standard types of folk songs outlined the English Folk Dance and Song Society. While the guide laid out by them is a self proclaimed rough guide and by no means the definitive, it clearly and concisely covers the standard topics and formats included in British folk song.
These are a type of narrative folk song, they recount stories and events in four line stanzas, there is a strong Scandinavian and Germanic link here, as they were also a very popular style of folk song there during their folk revivals.
Ballads can be further categorised through their topic and through use. Border Ballads could be found being sung in the Lowlands of Scotland and Northumberland, these ballads had a very localised dialect and the contents of the songs are also very localised.
The third form in which a ballad might be found is the Broadside Ballad. These ballads are the forerunners of newspapers, they were printed on cheap sheets of paper in bold black ink and they recounted important events and facts that were occurring at the time of publication. They reached peak popularity during the 17th and 18th centuries, many of the prints have been lost and the majority of the broadside ballads we have retained today were learned through the oral culture.
Lyric Songs cover a wide variety of songs. These are the songs written about human emotion, there is no sustained critical narrative to any of these songs, just an overriding theme of emotion. There might be an event or general theme described, but there is no story to the song. An example of this would be ‘The Beggar’ collected and arranged by Sharp. Although Sharp struggled to decipher the origin of this song, finding fragments of it scattered through the country. Two full verses were sung to him ‘the singer gave me two verses only, the second and third in the text’.
“Cecil James Sharp Collection (at Clare College, Cambridge) Cecil Sharp Manuscript Collection (at Clare College, Cambridge) (CJS2).” Cecil James Sharp Collection (at Clare College, Cambridge). Accessed October 10, 2019. https://www.vwml.org/archives-catalogue/CJS2#.
Chorus songs are a form of community song, to be sung in places of gatherings or in the home. These songs bring a sense of community and can be on a variety of topics. Primarily there will be a soloist who sings the verses and the group joins for the chorus. Often the choruses are made up of non-sense, but others have a coherent phrase that serves as a chorus, this phrase will be a simple, catchy melody that audience members will be able to quickly establish and repeat.
It was often the choruses of these songs that gained them popularity. Little attention was often paid to the verses themselves, it was the opportunity to join the singers, and the social aspect of the performance that kept these songs in circulation.
Very similar to chorus songs are cumulative songs, very often they are used for comedy effect, or on occasion to teach a religious lesson. The famous christmas carol, The Twelve Days of Christmas was collected by Sharp and in his musings on cumulative songs said ‘country singers are very fond of accumulative songs of this type, regarding them as tests of endurance and memory, and sometimes of sobriety!’
The Twelve Days of Christmas is also an excellent example of a Custom Song. These songs are season or month specific and very often revolve around religious festivals or agricultural events. It is interesting to note, as argued by Nick Groom in ‘The Seasons, A Celebration of the English Year’, that as is very popular with Sharp and his contemporaries, that around Christmas especially, there are very few songs related to relationships, and human contact, as it was widely ‘chaste celebration’.Groom, Nick. The Seasons: a Celebration of the English Year. Place of publication not identified: Atlantic Books, 2013.
Lullabies were used to sooth and entertain children and often include a light and lilting melody and rhythm, and work songs were used to coordinate work forces. There would be a strong driving rhythm and would often also incorporate elements of chorus songs. Sea shanties also follow this pattern. Street cried are also akin to work songs and sea shanties, they could be heart from vendors, peddling their wares .
It is interesting to note that the majority of folk songs to this day follow these patterns, there is a much higher quantity of lyric songs now, although ballads are also still immensely popular.
Having this rough guideline for the structure and compartmentalisation of songs, it is interesting to consider traditions outside of England, traditions that have strong influences. There are a number of parallels that can be drawn between the English tradition and the German and Scandinavian traditions. As discussed in DuBois ‘Lyric, Meaning and Audience in the Oral tradition of Northern Europe’. Very similar traditions are found in most northern European countries. Using song as a method of communication. Seasonal and agricultural parallels are very prominent, as is the element of communal singing. There are many examples of non sensical choruses and repeated phrases. The book also broaches the content of the songs, as in English song the primary themes are love and human relationships, death, significant events such as battles and war, agriculture and nature. However, whereas in English song, the agricultural songs are frequently from the point of view of an onlooker whereas in the Sami tradition especially, the songs have a much more functional purpose, they are used to communicate with the livestock and nature and to communicate with fellow farmers across wide spaces. However, all of these songs have the link that they are the music of the people, and these cultures are undergoing similar revivals.
At the age of 14 I was asked to become a part of a travelling 'Folk Opera'. The Paupers Path to Hope, written by Mick Ryan and Paul Downes. The story follows a group of paupers in a Workhouse in the town a number of my family members lived in, in the final days of the legality of Workhouses. It was a bringing together of my two greatest loves. Opera and Folk music.
Over the next two years I began a musical journey that has influenced me hugely. It began to bring to the forefront of my mind the question of the intricacies in the relationships between these two traditions.
Some of the classical music I loved was influenced by folk music or even as the Britten is, arrangements of folk music. Yet it never quite had the same feel, and vice versa. I was able to perform and storytell in my folk singing in a way that I had never been able to with quite the same level of believability yet had less strict vocal technique and when singing with a solid classical technique I lost some of the easiness of the storytelling I had within my folk singing.
I also became interested in the textual edits within the Britten Folk Song Arrangemets especially, which I will dedicate a seperate chapter to in this research.
The two years I spent touring with the folk opera were exceptionally valuable to me as a performer but also as an individual who is dedicated to the study of this tradition and it's resurgances and it's development, and also it's similarities and differences to the development in classical music. Within these two years I learned to balance two fundamentally different styles of performance and musical culture while maintaining a balance and relationship between these two disciplines, perhaps even using elements of each other to improve in both styles.