Tunes for Folk Song Collections

[michael sam wild]

I've just been re-reading Roy Palmer's traditional song collections and wondered how, and where from, the tunes were chosen

 

Many were originally distributed on ballad sheets and tunes left to the singer .

 

Others passed down orally and some were recorded by field collectors and some put to the words by modern singers.

 

I'm sure a lot of the tunes we now accept were quite modern adjuncts and wonder how people feel when they hear new tunes to old favourites.

 

 

I remember Pete Coe singing Poverty Knock to a mournful, and to me more dramatic and appropriate , tune and being told 'You took all the fun out of that Pete!'

[JimLucas]

I'm sure a lot of the tunes we now accept were quite modern adjuncts and wonder how people feel when they hear new tunes to old favourites.

Doesn't it depend on whether or not there's a concertina involved?