Misplaced Pages

#889110

29-525: The primary function of the Roud Folk Song Index is as a research aid correlating versions of traditional English-language folk song lyrics independently documented over past centuries by many different collectors across (especially) the UK and North America. It is possible by searching the database—for example by title, first line(s), or subject matter (or a combination of any of a dozen fields)—to locate many of

58-504: A folksong collection made by Helmut Schaffrath and now incorporating Classical themes, themes from a number of Baroque composers, and Renaissance themes. It is proposed to include Indigenous American songs, as transcribed around the years 1900 to 1920 by Natalie Curtis . The Folk Song Index is a collaborative project between the Oberlin College Library and the folk music journal Sing Out! . It indexes traditional folk songs of

87-422: A form of street literature , were ephemera , i.e., temporary documents created for a specific purpose and intended to be thrown away. They were one of the most common forms of printed material between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. They were often advertisements , but could also be used for news information or proclamations . Broadsides were a very popular medium for printing topical ballads starting in

116-499: A helpful tool when it came to preserving Native American cultures. At one point, Curtis even entered Roosevelt's house to ask for tribal land rights with Mojave-Apache chief. Roosevelt addressed Curtis as one "who has done so very much to give Indian culture its proper position". He also contributed a brief foreword to her collection of Native American music and folklore The Indians' Book , in which he remarked on "the depth and dignity of Indian thought". Starting in 1903 she worked from

145-510: A number to each song, including all variants (now known as the "Roud number") to overcome the problem of songs in which even the titles were not consistent across versions. The system initially used 3x5-inch filing cards in shoeboxes. In 1993, Roud implemented his record system on a computer database , which he continues to expand and maintain and which is now hosted on the website of the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library . In

174-408: A written account of the crime and of the trial and often the criminal's confession of guilt. A doggerel verse warning against following the criminal's example, to avoid his fate, was another common feature. By the mid-19th century, the advent of newspapers and inexpensive novels resulted in the demise of the street literature broadside. One classic example of a broadside used for proclamations

203-417: Is a similar index of almost 218,000 Latvian folksong texts, created by Latvian scholar Krišjānis Barons at the end 19th century and beginning of the 20th century. The Essen folk song database is another collection that includes songs from non-English-speaking countries, particularly Germany and China. It is a collaboration between groups at Stanford University and Ohio State University , stemming from

232-681: Is known as the standard pattern in ethnomusicology, and triple-pulse son clave in Afro-Latin music (1920: 98). The book features musical contributions from C. Kamba Simango , a speaker of the Ndau language , and Madikane Čele, a speaker of the Zulu language . She died in a traffic accident in Paris , France on 23 October 1921. Her published work rarely appeared in scholarly journals of anthropology or folklore. Instead, she published in more popular periodicals such as

261-594: Is the Dunlap broadside , which was the first publication of the United States Declaration of Independence , printed on the night of July 4, 1776 by John Dunlap of Philadelphia in an estimated 200 copies. Another was the first published account of George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River , printed on December 30, 1776, by an unknown printer. In nineteenth-century Pennsylvania, broadsides were used by

290-901: The Hampton Institute in Hampton , Virginia , a college established in 1868 to educate former slaves. The work was funded by philanthropist George Foster Peabody . In 1911, she and David Mannes founded the Music School Settlement for Colored People in New York, and in 1912 she helped sponsor the first concert featuring black musicians at Carnegie Hall, a concert that featured the Clef Club orchestra, directed by James Reese Europe . In 1917 she married artist Paul Burlin ; at some point they moved to France. In 1918 and 1919 Curtis (now Curtis Burlin) published four volumes entitled Negro Folk-Songs ;

319-636: The Hopi reservation in Arizona and produced transcriptions using both an Edison cylinder recorder and pencil and paper. At the time, such work with native music and language was in conflict with the policies of the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs , which discouraged natives on reservations from speaking their language, singing their music, dressing in native garb, etc. It was only after the personal intervention of her friend (now President) Theodore Roosevelt that she could continue her work unhindered. Roosevelt himself visited

SECTION 10

#1732887358890

348-625: The National Conservatory of Music of America in New York City. She also studied in France and Germany, studying with prominent musicians, like Ferruccio Busoni . She came to be fascinated by Native American music, and began to devote herself to its study, which she furthered during a trip to Arizona with her older brother George. Theodore Roosevelt was a family friend of Curtis, and one of her biggest influences. Curtis used Roosevelt as

377-700: The 16th century. Broadside ballads were usually printed on the cheapest type of paper available. Initially, this was cloth paper, but later it became common to use sheets of thinner, cheaper paper (pulp). In Victorian era London they were sold for a penny or half-penny. The sheets on which broadsides were printed could also be folded, twice or more, to make small pamphlets or chapbooks . Collections of songs in chapbooks were known as garlands. Broadside ballads lasted longer in Ireland, and although never produced in such huge numbers in North America, they were significant in

406-600: The 1950s. The index was compiled and is maintained by Steve Roud , formerly the Local Studies Librarian in the London Borough of Croydon . He was also Honorary Librarian of the Folklore Society . He began it in around 1970 as a personal project, listing the source singer (if known), their locality, the date of noting the song, the publisher (book or recorded source), plus other fields, and crucially assigning

435-473: The 200 songs are presented only in manuscript notation with no piano accompaniment at all. The book served as source for her former teacher Busoni's Indian Fantasy , a work for piano and orchestra, first performed in 1915 by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski . Around 1910, Curtis broadened her research to include transcription and collection of African American music, working at

464-505: The Hopi reservation in 1913 for the Hopi flute and snake ceremonies, which visit was detailed by Curtis in "Theodore Roosevelt in Hopi Land", an article she wrote for The Outlook magazine in 1919. In 1905, Curtis published The Songs of Ancient America , three Pueblo corn-grinding songs with piano accompaniment. Characterizing her own task as a transcriber, she wrote, "I have in nowise changed

493-585: The Pennsylvania Dutch to advertise the "vendu", or county sale, for religious instruction, and to publish Trauerlieder or "sorrow songs" for sale. Today, broadside printing is done by many smaller printers and publishers as a fine art variant, with poems often being available as broadsides, intended to be framed and hung on the wall. Broadsides pasted on walls are still used as a form of mass communication in Haredi Jewish communities, where they are known by

522-604: The Traditional Ballad Index list only one source.) Broadside (printing) A broadside is a large sheet of paper printed on one side only. Historically in Europe, broadsides were used as posters, announcing events or proclamations, giving political views, commentary in the form of ballads , or simply advertisements. In Japan, chromoxylographic broadsheets featuring artistic prints were common. The historical type of broadsides, designed to be plastered onto walls as

551-460: The Yiddish term " pashkevil " ( pasquil ). Originally, they were used to ridicule public authority figures, to publicly criticize the powerful, and to publish concealed information. Natalie Curtis Natalie Curtis , later Natalie Curtis Burlin (26 April 1875 – 23 October 1921) was an American ethnomusicologist . Curtis, along with Alice Cunningham Fletcher and Frances Densmore ,

580-524: The eighteenth century and provided an important medium of propaganda, on both sides, in the American War of Independence . Broadsides were commonly sold at public executions in the United Kingdom in the 18th and 19th centuries, often produced by specialised printers. They could be illustrated by a crude picture of the crime, a portrait of the criminal, or a generic woodcut of a hanging. There would be

609-507: The melodies, nor have I sought to harmonize them in the usual sense, nor to make of them musical compositions…My one desire has been to let the Indian songs be heard as the Indians themselves sing them..." In 1907 Curtis published The Indians' Book , a collection of songs and stories from 18 tribes, illustrated with handwritten transcriptions of songs as well as with artwork and photography. Most of

SECTION 20

#1732887358890

638-553: The online version of the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library in 2006. The purpose of the index is to give each song a unique identifier . The numbers were assigned on a more or less arbitrary basis, and are not intended to carry any significance in themselves. However, because of the practicalities of compiling the index (building on previously published sources) it is true as a general rule that older and better-known songs tend to occupy low numbers, while songs which are obscure have higher numbers. Closely related songs are grouped under

667-503: The past few years, the numbers have been widely accepted in academic circles. James Madison Carpenter 's collection has 6,200 transcriptions and 1,000 recorded cylinders made between 1927 and 1955. The index gives the title, first line and the name of the source singer. When appropriate, the Child number is given. It is still a largely unexploited resource, with none of the recordings easily available. The Cabinet of Folksongs ( Dainu skapis )

696-446: The result includes details of the original imprint and where a copy may be located. The Roud number – "Roud num" – field may be used as a cross-reference to the Roud Folk Song Index itself in order to establish the traditional origin of the work. The database is recognised as a "significant index" by the EFDSS and was one of the first items to be published on its web site after the launch of

725-552: The same Roud number. If a trusted authority gives the name of a song but not the words, it is assigned Roud number 000. The Index cross-references to the Child Ballad number, if one is available for the particular song in question. It also includes, where appropriate, the Laws number , a reference to a system of classification of folk songs, using one letter of the alphabet and up to two numeric digits, developed by George Malcolm Laws in

754-720: The variants of a particular song. Comprehensive details of those songs are then available, including details of the original collected source, and a reference to where to find the text (and possibly music) of the song within a published volume in the EFDSS archive. A related index, the Roud Broadside Index, includes references to songs which appeared on broadsides and other cheap print publications, up to about 1920. In addition, there are many entries for music hall songs, pre- World War II radio performers' song folios, sheet music, etc. The index may be searched by title, first line etc. and

783-516: The volumes included spirituals, and “work-and play-songs." She published the songs in four-part harmony, a task that brought praise from composer Percy Grainger in 1918. Proceeds from the volumes went to the Hampton Institute. Curtis also began to study the music of African tribes and in 1920 published Songs and Tales from the Dark Continent , in which she notated the written example of what

812-555: The world, with an emphasis on English-language songs, and contains over 62,000 entries and over 2,400 anthologies. Max Hunter's collection lists 1,600 songs, but each minor variant is given a distinct number. The Traditional Ballad Index at the California State University at Fresno includes Roud numbers up to number 5,000 with comments on the songs, but draws on fewer sources. (For example, the Roud Folk Song Index shows 22 sources for " Hind Etin " (Roud 33, Child 41), while

841-515: Was one of a small group of women doing important ethnological studies in North America at the beginning of the 20th century. She is remembered for her transcriptions and publication of traditional music of Native American tribes as well as for having published a four-volume collection of African-American music. Her career was cut short by her accidental death in 1921. Natalie Curtis was born on 26 April 1875 in New York City . She studied music at

#889110