Geeking on Ballad Singing
Jul. 24th, 2006 02:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kniteracyWarning: there is a poll in this entry. It's a short poll, and it's not for everybody. I only want people who sing ballads to answer it. Now, that doesn't mean that only people who perform ballads can answer the poll: I want everyone who's ever learned and sung a ballad, even just for themselves, to answer this question. I'll put most of the discussion behind a cut-tag, and then I'll put the poll down at the bottom. Please tell me more of your feelings about ballads in comments, too.
Ballad Singing -- Just My Approach
Jean Ritchie says everybody in her family would find their own way to sing a song, even when many elements remained the same. When I first read that, it made me think about a class I had in Edinburgh years ago, a class that centred around storytelling with the harp.
Now, every storyteller will tell you that the key to telling a good story is not to memorise it exactly, not to tell it the same way exactly. Because if you try to memorise it, it will come out as if by rote, and your story won't be as interesting as it could be. I read somewhere once that harper William Jackson says his way of mastering a tune arrangement is not to have an arrangement. Total immersion in the subject, the song, the story, the tune, knowing it in your bones, that's the way I tell stories, it's the way I play the harp-- and it's the way I sing.
Sure, songs, rhyming songs, short songs, they're made to be remembered exactly. But what about big, long ballads? Like a story, every ballad has important elements that need to appear in each iteration of the ballad. Just like the line in Goldilocks and the Three Bears where Papa Bear's porridge is too hot, Mama Bear's porridge is too cold, and Baby Bear's porridge is just right, there are lines in ballads as in stories that listeners are waiting for. Sometimes these show up as repeated lines that they can sing along with you ("Oh, the wind and the rain," for example, or perhaps "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme," for another), and sometimes they show up as plot elements, like the fact that the elf queen's horse's mane must have a number of silver bells hanging from it, or the idea that in their journey to Fair Elfland, True Thomas and the elfin lady have to go over a river of tears and a river of blood, and they have to pass through an orchard of cursed apples and come to an intersection with four roads: the one they came from, the road to righteousness (heaven), the road to folly (hell), and the road to Elfinland. These are all story elements, and it might be easier to remember them in a particular order, but is it important that it all be the same, all the time, every time?
When I sing Barbara Allen, for example, there are some plot points that I always keep in, some plot points that I never put in, and some that come and go. I always sing about the bells tolling, but I don't always put in the part about Barbara Allen's mother dying. I don't ever sing the bit where she asks to look at his dead body, however: I just don't like that part.
I really treat singing ballads the same way I treat telling stories. I repeat some of the same phrases, but not all of them, every time. I like ballads with repeating lines: they're good mnemonics, and if you're lucky you can get people to sing along with them. But I don't sing them the same way, and I don't set out to sing them the same way. I don't learn ballads by rote. I learn them the way I learn stories, by motif and plotline, and then I just kind of let them take care of themselves.
What's your approach? If you're a ballad singer, answer my poll, and leave your thoughts in comments!
[Poll #776874]
Ballad Singing -- Just My Approach
Jean Ritchie says everybody in her family would find their own way to sing a song, even when many elements remained the same. When I first read that, it made me think about a class I had in Edinburgh years ago, a class that centred around storytelling with the harp.
Now, every storyteller will tell you that the key to telling a good story is not to memorise it exactly, not to tell it the same way exactly. Because if you try to memorise it, it will come out as if by rote, and your story won't be as interesting as it could be. I read somewhere once that harper William Jackson says his way of mastering a tune arrangement is not to have an arrangement. Total immersion in the subject, the song, the story, the tune, knowing it in your bones, that's the way I tell stories, it's the way I play the harp-- and it's the way I sing.
Sure, songs, rhyming songs, short songs, they're made to be remembered exactly. But what about big, long ballads? Like a story, every ballad has important elements that need to appear in each iteration of the ballad. Just like the line in Goldilocks and the Three Bears where Papa Bear's porridge is too hot, Mama Bear's porridge is too cold, and Baby Bear's porridge is just right, there are lines in ballads as in stories that listeners are waiting for. Sometimes these show up as repeated lines that they can sing along with you ("Oh, the wind and the rain," for example, or perhaps "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme," for another), and sometimes they show up as plot elements, like the fact that the elf queen's horse's mane must have a number of silver bells hanging from it, or the idea that in their journey to Fair Elfland, True Thomas and the elfin lady have to go over a river of tears and a river of blood, and they have to pass through an orchard of cursed apples and come to an intersection with four roads: the one they came from, the road to righteousness (heaven), the road to folly (hell), and the road to Elfinland. These are all story elements, and it might be easier to remember them in a particular order, but is it important that it all be the same, all the time, every time?
When I sing Barbara Allen, for example, there are some plot points that I always keep in, some plot points that I never put in, and some that come and go. I always sing about the bells tolling, but I don't always put in the part about Barbara Allen's mother dying. I don't ever sing the bit where she asks to look at his dead body, however: I just don't like that part.
I really treat singing ballads the same way I treat telling stories. I repeat some of the same phrases, but not all of them, every time. I like ballads with repeating lines: they're good mnemonics, and if you're lucky you can get people to sing along with them. But I don't sing them the same way, and I don't set out to sing them the same way. I don't learn ballads by rote. I learn them the way I learn stories, by motif and plotline, and then I just kind of let them take care of themselves.
What's your approach? If you're a ballad singer, answer my poll, and leave your thoughts in comments!
[Poll #776874]
