ALAN LOMAX -- PETER KENNEDY --- CECIL SHARP -- BERT LLOYD ----- WENT ABOUT IT THE
HOW TO CREATE A FOLK SONG
Another excellent contribution from Alex Mogieleff and Stephan Grossman's Woodshed Forum
It should NOT be:
You are not a bona fide folk singer if:
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These were posted on an Australian tourism website and the answers are the actual responses by the website officials, who obviously have a sense of humour.
Q: Does it ever get windy in
A: We import all plants fully grown and then just sit around watching them die.
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Q: Will I be able to see kangaroos in the street? (
A: Depends how much you've been drinking.
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Q : I want to walk from
A: Sure, it's only three thousand miles, take lots of water.
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Q: Are there any ATMs (cash machines) in
A: What did your last slave die of?
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Q: Can you give me some information about hippo racing in
(
A: A-fri-ca is the big triangle shaped continent south of
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Q: Which direction is North in
A: Face south and then turn 180 degrees. Contact us when you get here and we'll send the rest of the directions.
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Q: Can I bring cutlery into
A: Why? Just use your fingers like we do.
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Q: Can you send me the
A: Aus-tri-a is that quaint little country bordering Ger-man-y, which is ... oh forget it. Sure, the
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Q: Can I wear high heels in
A: You are a British politician, right?
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Q: Are there supermarkets in
A: No, we are a peaceful civilization of vegan hunter/gatherers. Milk is illegal.
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Q: Please send a list of all doctors in
A: Rattlesnakes live in A-meri-ca which is where YOU come from. All Australian snakes are perfectly harmless, can be safely handled and make good pets.
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Q: I have a question about a famous animal in
A: It's called a Drop Bear. They are so called because they drop out of Gum trees and eat the brains of anyone walking underneath them. You can scare them off by spraying yourself with human urine before you go out walking.
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Q: I have developed a new product that is the fountain of youth. Can you tell me where I can sell it in
A: Anywhere significant numbers of Americans gather.
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Q: Can you tell me the regions in
A: Yes, gay night clubs.
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Q: Do you celebrate Christmas in
A: Only at Christmas.
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Q: I was in
A: Yes, and you will still have to pay her by the hour.
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Q: Will I be able to speak English most places I go? (
A: Yes, but you'll have to learn it first
Keep smiling, keep singing,
If you had purchased $1,000.00 of Delta Airline stock one year ago you would have $49.00 left.
With Enron, you would have had $16.50 left of the original $1,000.00.
With WorldCom, you would have had less than $5.00 left.
But, if you had purchased $1,000.00 worth of beer one year ago, drank all of the beer, then turned in the cans for the aluminum recycling REFUND, you would have had $214.00.
Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle.
It's called the 401-Keg.
Each person, as a meditation on peace, sings their own note at their own rate guided by their breath. Within the group this builds an exquisitely beautiful, rising and falling, subtly changing, continuos chord. Many voices resonating together in one sound.
How to do this? Set a place to gather; yoga studio, mediation center, dance studio, theater, or living room. Spread the word and invite as many people as you can. Begin at 6:00 PM, Eastern Daylight Time, and sing OM as long as the sound wants to go on, hopefully for at least an hour. Even if you can't get together with other people sing on your own knowing that people in other places are singing with you.
People of all faiths and beliefs are welcome. No musical experience is necessary only the willingness to add your voice for peace to the sound of OM.
This is our sixth year. Last year I heard from people all over the country who had participated. Please forward this to anyone who might be interested or your mailing list. And PLEASE let us know how it goes.
Here in Woodstock we will be coming together at Mountain View Studio off of Rock City Road.
Wanted to let folks know that although Guinan's pub closed in January, that the Irish night tradition will now be hosted by a new venue. It will now be the first Wednesday after the full moon each month. It will start at 8:00pm and end at..well, who really knows.. It will be at The Depot restaurant in Cold Spring,NY. It's located on Main Street. Main street is a steep hill.. just follow Main Street to the bottom of the steep grade and The Depot is on the right.. next to the train tracks. It is easy to get there by Metro North. Just get off in Cold Spring and The Depot is visible right from the train.
Thanks for getting the word out..
Candace
Sayings of the Jewish Buddhists
If there is no self, whose arthritis is this?
Be here now. Be someplace else later. Is that so complicated?
Drink tea and nourish life. With the first sip, joy. With the second sip, satisfaction. With the third sip, peace. With the fourth, a Danish.
Wherever you go, there you are. Your luggage is another story.
Accept misfortune as a blessing. Do not wish for perfect health, or a life without problems. What would you talk about?
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single Oy.
There is no escaping karma. In a previous life, you never called, you never wrote, you never visited. And whose fault was that?
Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.
The Tao does not speak. The Tao does not blame. The Tao does not take sides. The Tao has no expectations. The Tao demands nothing of others. The Tao is not Jewish.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Forget this and attaining Enlightenment will be the least of your problems.
Let your mind be as a floating cloud. Let your stillness be as a woodedglen. And sit up straight. You'll never meet the Buddha with such rounded shoulders.
Deep inside you are ten thousand flowers. Each flower blossoms ten thousand times. Each blossom has ten thousand petals. You might want to see a specialist.
Be aware of your body. Be aware of your perceptions. Keep in mind that not every physical sensation is a symptom of a terminal illness.
The Torah says, Love your neighbor as yourself. The Buddha says maybe there is no self. So maybe we're off the hook.
Pandita Tripti Mukerjee, Hindustani classical vocalist and a Prime disciple of Sangeet Martand Pt. Jasraj. Triptiji is truly blessed with a divine voice. Her Pandita award came from University of Karnataka. Most recently, Triptiji was invited to perform at the 2007 Diwali Festival held at the White House. Triptiji is the first Indian musician ever to have performed at the White House, truly a great honor.
Date: Saturday April 5th, 2008 at 7PM
Venue: Hindu Samaj Temple Community Hall, 3 Brown Road, Wappingers Fall, NY 12590
Sponsorship:$150 (2 Free Tickets) & $75 Single (1 Free Ticket) plus a gift coupon.
Preferred Seating Tickets: $15 and $10 for Students with Valid ID
Children under18 free if accompanied by parents.
We all remember Pandit Jasraj's concert of 2006, what a memorable performance that was! We are fortunate to have his disciple Triptiji perform at our temple in a divine setting. Let this be a memorable concert as well.
Contact:
Indu Lal (845) 226-1892 Uma Satyendra (845) 297-8132
Padma Reichwald (845) 569-4911 Suresh Kadhakia (845) 471-7764
THEY meet on the first Monday of the month at the Universalist Unitarian Church here, not to worship but to sing. Just to sing. There are song leaders, some with a guitar or a banjo or an autoharp, but this isn't a class or a choir; the singers, not the leaders, choose the tunes. Most hold copies of a spiral-bound songbook of folk music called "Rise Up Singing." They perform songs like "Keep On the Sunny Side" and "This Land Is Your Land." No one minds a voice gone off-key.
From Hawaii to Santa Cruz to the Philadelphia suburbs, in living rooms, churches and festival tents, similar gatherings — called community sings, or singalongs — draw together the average-voiced and bring old songs into common memory.
If there is a natural opposite to gold-plated pop irony and faceless file sharing — music as the American majority knows it in 2008 — this is it. These meetings are earnest, participant directed and person to person: a slow-going, folkish appreciation of American vernacular culture.
Much of this impulse descends from Pete Seeger, who has championed the cause of group-singing for more than 60 years. "No one can prove a damn thing," Mr. Seeger said in a recent interview, "but I think that singing together gives people some kind of a holy feeling. And it can happen whether they're atheists, or whoever. You feel like, 'Gee, we're all together.' "
Amateur group-singing has been around forever, of course, at bars, churches, schools, camps and stadiums. Community sings like the one in East Lansing are pitched halfway between the ritual of the campfire singalong and the self-conscious American folk-music movement of the 20th century.
In 1945 Mr. Seeger founded the People's Song collective, which disseminated its own songbooks, thereby helping to popularize songs like "We Shall Overcome." The folk revival of the late 1950s and the subsequent rise of folk festivals, some of which included song-circles as special events, furthered the idea that singing together could reseed a homegrown culture and empower the ordinary citizen to change society.
In 1973 Peter Blood, a Quaker, political organizer, teacher and folk musician in Philadelphia, put together a homemade songbook called "Winds of the People," which quickly took off in the group-sing scene. "There was a demand for it in the circles we ran in, which were religious and summer-camp circles," said his wife, Annie Patterson. In time Movement for a New Society and other nonreligious activist organizations adopted it for singalong events.
A decade later Mr. Blood and Ms. Patterson were envisioning a more ambitious book. They compiled and cleared the rights to 1,200 songs for "Rise Up Singing," which was published in 1988. Mark Moss, editor of Sing Out! magazine, the pre-eminent journal of the folk movement, and also the publisher of the songbook, said it has sold about 800,000 copies, at $17.95 each.
It's hard to gauge the size of the community-sing movement because by its essentially casual nature it resists documenting. There is no central organization, no comprehensive Web site of regular events. Groups of the kind that use "Rise Up Singing" are not registered with the American Choral Directors Association and have no academic or institutional affiliation.
But Mr. Blood, who now lives in Amherst, Mass., said that by a conservative estimate at least 100 regular singalongs around the country use the book, in cities including Santa Cruz, Calif.; both Portlands; Rochester; Chicago; Milwaukee; and Atlanta. Some of these are easy to find in an online search; some are publicized through regional folk-music society newsletters, church bulletins or strictly by word of mouth.
In East Lansing, Sally Potter, 47, a frank, energetic presence, leads the monthly sing. In early December the event drew about 80 people. Everyone gathered in the rear of the chapel, where the ceiling is low, "so you can get the chills more easily," as Ms. Potter explained.
The chairs were arranged around an open square, the better to hear the blend of voices. The singers ranged from teenagers to the elderly; some had strong, penetrating voices, some murmured with wobbly pitch. They sang about 20 songs, including "Star of the County Down" (18th-century traditional Irish), "The M.T.A. Song" (a 1948 update of the early 20th-century American ballad "The Wreck of the Old 97") and "The Rose" (1979, soft-rock radio).
The force of their voices grew during 90 minutes, with harmony occurring in unexpected places. In between numbers Ms. Potter waited for people to raise hands and politely make suggestions.
"Page 117, 'Julian of Norwich'?" someone offered, referring to a selection from "Rise Up Singing."
"Great!" Ms. Potter responded quickly. "One of my favorite songs."
"Is it 'Nor-witch,' " another voice asked, "or 'Nor-rich'?"
"I don't know," Ms. Potter said, shrugging, though she did. "It's your song."
Some sang the word one way, some the other. But Ms. Potter does have a few guidelines, including this: If someone picks a song, and it takes more than 45 seconds for everyone to learn it, let it go. There were no nonstarters on this particular Monday. In general, Ms. Potter said, she believes that people should get to sing what they came to sing.
The combined area of Lansing and East Lansing, which has a population of about 165,000 and is home to Michigan State University, has a perfect sense of scale for community projects: it's not too small, not too big, and despite a perpetually slumped economy, it has a great deal of civic pride. It also has a famous guitar store, Elderly Instruments, a folk-music locus open since 1972; the Ten Pound Fiddle Coffeehouse, a folk-concert producer that has put on events for almost that long; and a popular local folk-music radio show on the NPR-affiliated WKAR.
Ms. Potter teaches high school history and economics in nearby Williamston. She has lived in Lansing for the last 23 years, during which time she has owned a restaurant, run the local farmers' market and a used-sporting-goods store, and toured the Midwest in a folk trio, Second Opinion. Her interest in community sings goes back to the Hudson River Clearwater Festival in 1994, where Toshi Seeger, Pete's wife, led a singalong group in a tent. Ms. Potter saw the same people returning day after day to sit cross-legged and sing, and she realized that participation was folk music's core pleasure.
In 2003 she helped found the annual Mid Winter Singing Festival, a two-day event featuring community sings that tend to draw 400 to 500 people each night. This year's festival, the sixth, was last weekend. There was a blizzard the first night, yet 340 people fought their way to the Hannah Community Center, a large building across the street from the Unitarian church.
In the evening events the singers sat in an auditorium and faced the stage, referring to set lists and lyric sheets. The song leaders were folk singers with longstanding local reputations: Claudia Schmidt, Joel Mabus and Frank Youngman.
"I've watched so many concerts, and I know what works," Ms. Potter said. "When people are singing, you're giving them the power, you're giving them the music."
Peter Blood agrees. "A lot of the experience of music in our culture is listening to someone else sing," he said. "What I find exciting about community sings is that people feel they own the music."
"Rise Up Singing" includes rudimentary chord notations but otherwise gives no indication how to sing a particular song; it is essentially used as a book of lyrics. It is not the only book used for participatory singalongs (shape-note singers tend toward "The Sacred Harp," originally published in 1844), and some singalong groups bring their own songs. But it is the breakaway hit of its kind in recent decades.
Dan Zanes, the singer and popular children's entertainer, used to sell "Rise Up Singing," which he called "the ultimate songbook," at his shows. "We don't have that many songs rattling around in our heads anymore," he said, "so we need a guide of sorts."
BookScan, which tracks sales back to 2000 through traditional bookstores, registers about 12,000 copies sold. But Mr. Moss said that most sales of the book have not come from bookstores. Song leaders order it by the boxful, directly from the publisher, or from the authors at quakersong.org.
Mr. Moss said that although Sing Out! magazine did not map or facilitate the movement, he believed that it is "much broader than 'Rise Up Singing.' "
"Often I hear from people that they hate the book for use in those settings because people keep their noses in it," he said.
Mr. Blood and Ms. Patterson organized the songs in it by theme, including "Ecology," "Sea," "Faith," "Hard Times & Blues," "Men" and "Women." (While the "Women" section is full of feminist vigor, the "Men" section is introspective, with songs like "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" and "Let the Woman in You Come Through.") The book includes traditional black American hymns; Cuban, Mexican, Irish and Hebrew songs; Stephen Foster; Jacques Brel; the Beatles; Phil Ochs; Bob Dylan; and Stevie Wonder. There are songs for specific holidays and songs from musicals.
With groovy spot-illustrations and hand-lettered calligraphy, "Rise Up Singing" has a 1970s liberal-progressive feel and an obvious bias toward group-singability, although Mr. Blood admitted that some of the songs were included more for lyrical content than for their significance or popularity. (The couple are at work on compiling a 1,200-song sequel that will include more selections from jazz, blues and rock.)
Perhaps the book's greatest strength is its tacit proposal that there are many, many songs Americans should know by heart. In 1943, when he was in the Army, Mr. Seeger conducted an experiment on his fellow soldiers, asking them to write down the names of the songs whose words and tunes they really knew. In his own memory file he counted about 300, but he was impressed by the competition.
"I was surprised how many the average person knew back then," he said. He supposed that the number of songs crossing lines of generation, class and sex would be much lower today, outside of "Over the Rainbow" and "Happy Birthday to You."
At 88 Mr. Seeger is still a song leader, helping to run a singalong at the monthly meeting of a volunteer environmental organization near his home in Beacon, N.Y. "I like the sound of average voices more than trained voices," he said. "Especially kids singing a little off pitch. They have a nice, rascally sound."
After "Edelweiss," and a beautiful run-through of "Song of Peace," adapted from Jean Sibelius's "Finlandia," the session at the Universalist Unitarian Church wrapped up. It was almost 9 p.m., but nobody seemed in a rush to get home. A scattering of regulars stayed, packing up the cider and cookies.
One of them was Marcus Cheatham, 51, who works in public health. Earlier in the evening he introduced one of his own songs, picking a mandolin to teach the melody. Mr. Cheatham started singing about six years ago, when he joined a church choir and later a "diversity choir" at work, performing on Martin Luther King's Birthday and other holidays. The next step, he reasoned, was attending a community sing.
Asked if his knowledge of songs had grown since then, he corrected the question. "My enjoyment of songs has grown," he said. "I'm not much of a musician at all. If you enjoy it, you can jump in and do it."
"In our little community," he added, "the economy is horrible, and people are scared and sad. But you go to something like this, and you think, 'Wow, our community is resilient.' "
Margaret Kingsbury, 67, a nurse who is involved with peace groups, sounded a similar note. "I honestly believe that this is one of the ways to create peace," she said. "You go away from here, and you're uplifted."
Ms. Potter isn't surprised by such reactions. "I think it's all a result of people needing to come together and find some power somewhere," she said. "It's a political need and a spiritual need. How many people left early tonight? It's a Monday night. They're tired. But people didn't leave. That's how you know."
Jay Wenk (right) presenting a certificate of appreciation to Bob Lusk for his work with the Kingston Mall counter-recruitment effort. Photos by Alison Koffler.
