----- Original Message -----
From: "J L Speranza"

> S Furey writes
>
>    I could not disagree more with [JLS's] opinion, particularly as
>    ballads are indeed used to accompany dances and are sung with
>    accompaniment and used as work songs, especially in Spain!
>
> What do you mean "especially in Spain!". You're not under the impression
> that Buenos Aires, Argentina, is in Spain, no?

Claro que un porteño no puede ser español  - but I will revert to English
since most correspondents here are English-speaking - and you are right, I
was assuming that you would be familiar with the continuation of the
Hispanic ballad tradition in Argentina, carried across by migrants from
Spain.

> And where are you from, if I
> may ask? I like to know, if I may, where people I am having disagreement
> with come from.

I'm English, of Irish extraction some way back and am researching the folk
song (including ballads!) of Catalonia in eastern Spain/south western
France.

>As a matter of fact, my extraction is Italian, but
> know even less about Italian balladry

You're missing some really good stuff there! Try  the recordings of La Ciapa
Rusa.

> My specialty (grand word that for the
> little I know) is ENGLAND's balladry, and Child was a Scot, no? (j/k)

I'll leave you to follow the useful link that Kristine Batey put on the list
to set you right on those matters

>
>  But wasn't the
> prototypical ballad, in England, sung unaccompanied by a solo singer, who
> improvised a bit as he or she went along?
>

Depends what you mean by "prototypical." If you mean that a ballad in its
early life would be sung in this way during composition, that's quite
possible, but we don't know. The nearest clue is possibly in Albert Lord's
"The Singer of Tales." If you mean that a ballad when sung in its more
typical milieu before the days of the mass media, then it isn't true. See
Bob Copper's "A Song for Every Season" about group singing in Sussex on the
south coast of England. Songs would be sung individually or in groups.

> What role did the COMMUNITY have in the process?
>
> I know there is a theory of the COMMUNAL origin of balladry (proposed by
> some pre-Nazi German authors in the XIXth c), but being myself an avowed
> liberal, I don't believe in such abstract notions as The community, or the
> Spirit or Soul of a Nation, etc. and would rather think that one
INDIVIDUAL
> was involved, even if that individual's name never got registered - hey,
one
> point emphasised by Cecil Sharpe was that names of the individuals who
sang
> ballads and folksongs to him were properly registered as the authorised
> sources as it were. Thus we know that it was a Mr. Taylor who first sang
to
> him "The Seeds of Love" in Somerset, etc.

Be careful not to confuse song sources with song composers. That said, I
don't think many today would argue with your hypothesis that each song had
an individual original composer. The role of the community is to act as a
filter and shaper of the song. If a song isn't liked, then it will get
forgotten. If most of it is liked, but some bits are not, or if some bits
are a bit hard to remember,  then consciously or unconsciously singers will
make changes. If you doubt this, then go back to a song you learnt off a
record (go on, admit you did!) many years ago and see how differently you
sing it now - even though you think you haven't changed it at all. After a
song has been passed orally through a few generations it is likely to have
changed quite a lot from the original. The interesting question then is how
does it gain stability of form? The answer is that it doesn't necessarily,
as the work of the Spanish song collectors like Diego Catalán showed, with
the hundreds of different versions of "Gerineldo" they collected. If you are
studying Child´s collection then you should also be studying Bronson´s
"Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads", because that is full of useful
examples and insights into how the ballads vary.

>
> A COMMUNITY can hardly create a single line of poetry, can it, unless we
> think of something a la an assembly where it is democratically decided
what
> words to fit in a line, one by one, till the assembly gets to the finished
> product, the "ballad".

Quite right - it doesn't work. Horrible concept!! See Gerould, "The Ballad
of Tradition"
>
> I'm not so much interested in ballads in general but, here, in the
> definition of the ENGLISH ballad - or better, England's balladry. Were
> English ballads ever danced to, or sung in chorus by a community (a la a
> singalong?). Scotland's balladry may be different because the Celtic are a
> more dancing people, no?
>

Er..........no. That is to take nothing away from the Celtic peoples'
dancing traditions, but as  English Morris and country dancer on-and-off for
over thirty years I think I can say that the English have just as big a
repertoire (arguably bigger, but I'm not pushing it) of both social and
ritual dances as any in these islands. And that is to say nothing of
Playford's dances.

That said, I don't think that there is or was a great tradition of sung
accompaniment to dances in England, as there is in other European countries.
Somebody may correct me in this. But certainly ballads were sung communally
as well as individually. That's one of the reasons for refrains and may also
be a factor in the development of harmony singing.

One final point: separating the English-language balladry of England from
that of Wales, Scotland and Ireland is almost impossible. While some songs
are clearly from one country or another (you have to remember that a huge
number of the Child ballads are Scottish), others have become common to
all - "Barbara Allen" is probably the best known example.  And once you
admit English-language balladry instead of balladry of England, you open up
all of the spread of the songs from the British Isles not only to the USA
but to all parts of the old British Empire. And that's a seriously big area
to study...

I hope this helps, and good luck with your exploration.

Cheers

Simon Furey



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