Traditional Song Forum

www.tradsong.org

The aims of the Forum are:

• To encourage research into, and dissemination of, traditional song and traditional singing in all its forms.
• To provide channels of communication and mutual support between those interested in the field
• To support and encourage those public repositories and private individuals who hold material relevant to the Forum's interests.
• To improve access to, and dissemination of, that material
• To raise the profile of traditional song and traditional singing

The Forum recognises the inherent kinship of the song traditions of all the constituent countries and regions of Britain and Ireland and is therefore concerned with all of them, and also with those countries whose traditions have strong cultural links with them.  The traditions of particular areas may need different or special treatment, and individual Forum members will have particular interests and focuses, but the overall Forum interest is geographically inclusive.

Similarly, the Forum's main focus of interest is in traditional song and traditional singing, but it recognises that this particular form of expression cannot be divorced from many others.  We are thus also interested in related song fields such as broadsides, music hall and other popular vernacular song; allied categories such as storytelling, children's games and rhymes, customs, belief, music and dance; and other related areas such as cultural studies, folk life, folklore, ethnomusicology, oral history and social history.

The Forum's common interest is in research and dissemination, which includes the gathering of primary material, its organisation and preservation, and the sharing of this information with other interested parties, by any appropriate means.  As a group we make no restriction on the level or type of interest or purpose the end-user may have in the material, providing they undertake to adhere to at least basic scholarly standards of accuracy and fidelity to their 'source' and to respect the rights and wishes of those who have supplied the material, either as 'informants' or as collectors/researchers. This does not restrict the right of individual collectors/researchers to refuse access to, or use of, any of their material, to any person or group should they so wish

May 2005