Music thoughts
Jun. 29th, 2010 04:40 pmI like folk music -- traditional, in the stle of, bush music -- because more often than not it comes with a story behind it. Sometimes that story is obvious. Sometimes you need to know something about the background to get it. Sometimes the real story has probably been lost. Like any form of folklore. (mp3 player gives me "Springhill Mining Disaster")
Oh, not the common stuff either. Those songs that "everyone knows", they're tired and they might have had depth to them once but it's worn away. (Skye Boat Song, appropriate) Of course that's all mainstream records want to offer, which brings up my problem of how do I find what I want? And if I do find something that looks suitable, is it actually any good? (The Banks of the Condamine) With the magic of the Internet and computer software, anyone can present themselves as a musician and sell their music. I particularly wanted some Australian material.
I gave it a try the other day and traced path through some local folk societies. As a general rule, I avoided anyone who presented themselves as a songwriter and looked for songs gathered from elsewhere. (I know there's good stuff being written now, but I'll stick to singers I know I like for that, thanks.) (Rambling Rover) So I ended up here (The Orange and the Green, OK some of the common stuff I like, if for different reasons.) They have a "try before you buy" option for some tracks but Opera kept choking on it, so I had to buy blind (deaf?)
This is actually the album I went with, self-titled album from a "six-piece Australian corrugated iron folk" Collector. (Like Limerick) A fairly random pick--all 74 Mb zip file of it (on dial-up, but I left it overnight and had it next morning, nice start!) The earlier link has track details, liner notes etc. but I want to pull out the lists of titles.
1. The Banks of the Condamine
2. Like Limerick
3. The Maryborough Miner
4. Norman Brown
5. My Name is Ben Hall
6. The Kyle Schottische Set
7. A Man Was Killed in the Mine Today
8. The Ballad of 1891
9. A Mazurka Set
10. Four Little Johnny Cakes
11. The Female Rambling Sailor
12. Those Bold Bushrangers
13. Sally’s Reels
14. Farewell to Greta
(Four Little Johnny Cakes) So we have mining (x3) & shearing (x2) & union/labour protests (x2, unless I've forgotten ones) & bushrangers (x3), light-hearted, serious, instrumental (x3, bah). It's a decent mixture, and you know, the more I listen to it the more I like it (John O'Dreams) although you might have noticed that I listen to it mixed in the rest of my (sparse) folk music collection. It blends in particularly well with the Irish music. Not surprising, there's a overlap between Irish and Australian traditional music. Songs that might be considered to be part of one appear on albums of the other. There's also an Irish/US and otherBritish/Australian overlap (Female Rambling Sailor - which I think is an English song) and other combinations of course. You can no more pin some songs down to one particular place than you can the people who wrote and sang them. People move about and take their ideas with them. That is one of the appeals of folk music. It's not A music style from A place and A time, it's broad and deep and encompasses so much.
However, now I have another problem. I want MORE. I want some of the other albums on that page (that one and that one, and oh that one too) but most of their music is gathered from their local area--Central West NSW--and I want some from other regions as well. (Men of Worth) Back to the search :)
Oh, not the common stuff either. Those songs that "everyone knows", they're tired and they might have had depth to them once but it's worn away. (Skye Boat Song, appropriate) Of course that's all mainstream records want to offer, which brings up my problem of how do I find what I want? And if I do find something that looks suitable, is it actually any good? (The Banks of the Condamine) With the magic of the Internet and computer software, anyone can present themselves as a musician and sell their music. I particularly wanted some Australian material.
I gave it a try the other day and traced path through some local folk societies. As a general rule, I avoided anyone who presented themselves as a songwriter and looked for songs gathered from elsewhere. (I know there's good stuff being written now, but I'll stick to singers I know I like for that, thanks.) (Rambling Rover) So I ended up here (The Orange and the Green, OK some of the common stuff I like, if for different reasons.) They have a "try before you buy" option for some tracks but Opera kept choking on it, so I had to buy blind (deaf?)
This is actually the album I went with, self-titled album from a "six-piece Australian corrugated iron folk" Collector. (Like Limerick) A fairly random pick--all 74 Mb zip file of it (on dial-up, but I left it overnight and had it next morning, nice start!) The earlier link has track details, liner notes etc. but I want to pull out the lists of titles.
1. The Banks of the Condamine
2. Like Limerick
3. The Maryborough Miner
4. Norman Brown
5. My Name is Ben Hall
6. The Kyle Schottische Set
7. A Man Was Killed in the Mine Today
8. The Ballad of 1891
9. A Mazurka Set
10. Four Little Johnny Cakes
11. The Female Rambling Sailor
12. Those Bold Bushrangers
13. Sally’s Reels
14. Farewell to Greta
(Four Little Johnny Cakes) So we have mining (x3) & shearing (x2) & union/labour protests (x2, unless I've forgotten ones) & bushrangers (x3), light-hearted, serious, instrumental (x3, bah). It's a decent mixture, and you know, the more I listen to it the more I like it (John O'Dreams) although you might have noticed that I listen to it mixed in the rest of my (sparse) folk music collection. It blends in particularly well with the Irish music. Not surprising, there's a overlap between Irish and Australian traditional music. Songs that might be considered to be part of one appear on albums of the other. There's also an Irish/US and otherBritish/Australian overlap (Female Rambling Sailor - which I think is an English song) and other combinations of course. You can no more pin some songs down to one particular place than you can the people who wrote and sang them. People move about and take their ideas with them. That is one of the appeals of folk music. It's not A music style from A place and A time, it's broad and deep and encompasses so much.
However, now I have another problem. I want MORE. I want some of the other albums on that page (that one and that one, and oh that one too) but most of their music is gathered from their local area--Central West NSW--and I want some from other regions as well. (Men of Worth) Back to the search :)
