Thanks Ed - you beat me to the punch. Yes, Bronson is an excellent
reference. A good example (IMHO) is Child no. 39, "Tam Lin".
Bronson refers to the air as "the ancient tune". Indeed, the story
line
of the ballad has its origins in ancient Greece. The collected ballad,
"Thomas the Rhymer", Child 37, is based on a real person who lived
at the time of William Wallace. Thomas was a well-known "seer" who
foretold the future in terms of the weather. He accurately forecast
the
death of Alexander III, which led directly to the wars of Scottish
Independence.
(1286 - 1305). The song tells of how he received his powers by
spending
7 years with the Queen of Faerie.
It strikes me that we may well be debating two different things here:
1) Is there "true" folk music that was incorporated into lute settings
and preserved
via written tablature and mensural notation?
2) Is there "true" folk music which still exists in some form today?
I'm talking about option 2. And, yes, the version a rural singer
sang in 1887
is undoubtedly going to be different than what a singer sang in 1632.
That's a given. It's referred to as "the folk process". It's a
living, breathing
tradition where songs and stories ARE changed by the same mechanism
as the school game of "gossip" or "telephone". And, yes, Woody
Guthrie's
"This Land Is Your Land" has entered the realm of traditional folk
song. How
many people realize that it was written by a known real person?
When oral tradition songs are written down and somebody says, "You have
to
sing it exactly this way", the song becomes static, dead ...
People who devote intense study to the body of folk ballads that we
know
analyze things like iambs and other rhyme schemes to see if they were
from
the troubadour tradition or not. Other clues to antiquity come from
lyrics such as:
:"Le fils du roy s'en va chassant (en roulant ma boule) avec son grand
fusil d'argent."
"The prince went hunting with his big silver matchlock."
Matchlocks predate flintlocks. We're looking at 16th or 15th century.
Barbeau published a small treatise exclusively on this song:
Trois Beaux Canards (92 versions Canadiennes)
Laval, Canada: Editions Fides, Extrait des Archives de Folklore,
Publications de l'Universite Laval, Vol. 2, 1947
Note 92 versions from Canada alone. The older the song, the more
likely one is
to find many variants. These are just a few of the tools folklorists
use to date a song.
So, No. I don't expect to find too many true folk tunes written down
for lute from the
time period. I would expect some few composed tunes to to have found
their way
into the popular culture - more in the music hall era than the
Renaissance. But
let's remember that it works both ways: many a "composer" has used a
common
folk tune without overtly crediting it.
I think that between "folk" musicology and "Renaissance" musicology,
there may
be much valuable information to be gleaned from each other on both
sides.
Thanks,
Tom
> Dear list:
>
> True, it's difficult to date folk music. But one would be wise to
> consult Bertrand Bronson's monumental collection in 4 vols.,
> Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads (Princeton UP, 1959-72).
> Bronson is aware of such things as ground bass patterns that underlie
> such tunes as Greensleeves, and is especially good on identifying
tune
> families.
>
> Ed Doughtie
>
>
>
> To get on or off this list see list information at
> http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Tom Draughon
Heartistry Music
http://www.heartistrymusic.com/artists/tom.html
714 9th Avenue West
Ashland, WI 54806
715-682-9362
--
