A collection of 10 folk songs arranged for voice and piano in a simple style appropriate for beginning soloists, unison classroom singing, and elementary choral groups. Included are reproducible melody-line song sheets for each song. Easy piano accompaniments strongly support the melody, and vocal tessituras are moderate; most have an octave range. Titles: * Li'l Liza Jane * Siyahamba * Scarborough Fair * De Colores * and Many More!

Harp

Folding a River, a collection of elegies, shows a pleasing range of free-verse forms that develop themes sustained throughout: loss, exile, myth, landscape. Kawita Kandpal’s poems are explorations of East–West cultures, taking her into an emo-mythic place not to be found on any map. Kandpal’s mood in Folding a River is melancholy, articulated with intelligence and grace, and her phrasing can rise to the level of proverb: “This time next year you will have evolved into an idea.” In its personal evocations of geographical and linguistic exile from the subcontinent, centered on a lost father, her work recalls that of Li-Young Lee, yet with a feminine perspective often haunting in its own right: “tenderly / taking back the mistakes of men.”

This outstanding collection of 12 singable folk songs from eight countries features easily learned texts in six different languages including English. Pronunciation guides and optional English lyrics are included where needed. Songs from Italy, Germany, Venezuela, Spain, France, South Africa, Canada, and USA. 64 pages. Titles: A la Nanita Nana * All My Trials * Auprès de Ma Blonde * Cara Mamma * Chevaliers de la Table Ronde * Guter Mond * The Jones Boys * The Last Rose of Summer * Santa Lucia * Schlaf in Guter Ruh * Siyahamba * Valencianita.

This is the first publication of an annotated monograph by the noted composer and folksong scholar Ruth Crawford Seeger. Originally written as a foreword for the 1940 book Our Singing Country, it was considered too long and was replaced by a much shorter version. According to her stepson, Pete Seeger, when the original was not included "Ruth suffered one of the biggest disappointments of the last ten years of her life. It just killed her . . . She was trying to analyze the whole style and problem of performing this music." Along with her children Mike and Peggy Seeger, he has long desired to see this work in print as it was meant to be read. The manuscript has been edited from several varying sources by Larry Polansky, with the assistance of Seeger's biographer Judith Tick. It is divided into two sections: I. "A Note on Transcription" and II. "Notes on the Songs and on Manners of Singing." Seeger examines all aspects of the relationship between singer, song, notation, the eventual performer, and the transcriber. In Section I, Seeger develops a complex and well-organized system of notation for these songs which is meant to be both descritive (transcription as cultural preservation) and prescriptive (she intended that others would be able to perform these songs). In Section II, she provides an interpretive theory for performance of this music, and suggests how performers might make the songs "their own" through a deep knowledge of the original styles. Ruth Crawford Seeger considered this work to be both a major accomplishment and a central statement of her own ideas on the topic. Larry Polansky is Associate Professor of Music at Dartmouth College, and a well-known composer and theorist on American music. Judith Tick is Professor of Music at Northeastern University and author of the first major biography of Ruth Crawford Seeger.

Performing Folk Songs is the first full-length volume to explore English folk singing from the perspective of performance studies. Using archival sources, family repertoire and recorded performances of interviewees, this book argues that archives and repertoires are produced in sensory environments and through embodied encounters. Autoethnography, sensory ethnography, life-writing and landscape writing are used to explore the affective and emotional aspects of learning songs 'by heart'. Drawing on her experience as a folk singer, Bennett contributes to discourse on English folk traditions in the 21st century and brings performance scholarship to the contemporary folk song resurgence. In analyzing the performance of English folk songs in the affective context of the archive and the landscape, the book engages with and contributes original insights to scholarship on folk music, performance studies, affect theory, cultural geography and intangible cultural heritage studies.

"Russian folk songs are a living history of the Russian people, rich, vivid and truthful, revealing their entire life," wrote the great Russian writer Nikolai Gogol. Russian folk songs have always played an essential part in Russian life, culture, and music. They have played an important part in the work of many great Russian composers including Glinka, Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin, Tchaikovsky, Prokoviev, and Stravinsky. In this new study, Vadim Prokhorov provides a historical survey and a description of the musical and poetic characteristics of Russian folk song. The songs themselves are classified into several categories: calendar songs, lyric songs, work songs, epic songs, historical songs, and the urban songs that emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries. Prokhorov provides a basis for understanding the ethnomusicological principles of Russian folk song. In addition to his discussion of the various categories, he includes a generous selection of songs arranged for voice and piano, together with texts and translations of the song texts. Anyone interested in this rich repertory of folk song, whether as teacher, singer, or music lover, will find this a rewarding collection.

Performing Folk Songs is the first full-length volume to explore English folk singing from the perspective of performance studies. Using archival sources, family repertoire and recorded performances of interviewees, this book argues that archives and repertoires are produced in sensory environments and through embodied encounters. Autoethnography, sensory ethnography, life-writing and landscape writing are used to explore the affective and emotional aspects of learning songs 'by heart'. Drawing on her experience as a folk singer, Bennett contributes to discourse on English folk traditions in the 21st century and brings performance scholarship to the contemporary folk song resurgence. In analyzing the performance of English folk songs in the affective context of the archive and the landscape, the book engages with and contributes original insights to scholarship on folk music, performance studies, affect theory, cultural geography and intangible cultural heritage studies.

In Victorian times, England was famously dubbed the land without music - but one of the great musical discoveries of the early twentieth century was that England had a vital heritage of folk song and music which was easily good enough to stand comparison with those of other parts of Britain and overseas. Cecil Sharp, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Percy Grainger, and a number of other enthusiasts gathered a huge harvest of songs and tunes which we can study and enjoy at our leisure. But after over a century of collection and discussion, publication and performance, there are still many things we don't know about traditional song - Where did the songs come from? Who sang them, where, when and why? What part did singing play in the lives of the communities in which the songs thrived? More importantly, have the pioneer collectors' restricted definitions and narrow focus hindered or helped our understanding? This is the first book for many years to investigate the wider social history of traditional song in England, and draws on a wide range of sources to answer these questions and many more.