Browse: Keyword: Balladry

Abstract:: This course examines the production, transmission, preservation and qualities of folk music in the British Isles and North America from the 18th century to the folk revival of the 1960s and the present. There is a special emphasis on balladry, fiddle styles, and African-American influences. The class sings ballads and folk songs from the Child and Lomax collections as well as other sources as we examine them from literary, historical, and musical points of view. Readings supply critical and background materials from a number of sources. Visitors and films bring additional perspectives.

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Abstract:: This subject will introduce students to scholarship about folk music of the British Isles and North America. We will define the qualities of "folk music" and "folk poetry," including the narrative qualities of ballads, and we will try to recreate the historical context in which such music was an essential part of everyday life. We will survey the history of collecting, beginning with Pepys' collection of broadsides, Percy's Reliques and the Gow collections of fiddle tunes. The urge to collect folk music will be placed in its larger historical, social and political contexts. We will trace the migrations of fiddle styles and of sung ballads to look at the broad outlines of the story of collecting folk music in the USA, especially in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

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