TSF News

There were a number of points related to TSF policy that were discussed at the December meeting.

Firstly, we have recognised that we attract the best attendance for meetings in the North and, to a lesser extent, the Capital. We are also most successful in November and March. People seem to be very busy in July and we believe that meetings which have strong local support work best at this time. We have agreed therefore, that for July meetings we will offer support (and the TSF ‘brand’) to local organisers who wish to put on an event that fits with TSF’s aims - that event might not follow the usual pattern of our meetings. An example, apart from its timing, is the Collectors Forum that Steve Roud has organised. We would be very pleased to hear from members who have ideas for the sort of event that might fit this framework

Secondly, we have reviewed the production of paper-based communications to you. When TSF was set up less than half of the members had internet access. There are now only a handful of paid-up members who do not have such access. We do not wish to disadvantage anyone or to discourage anyone from taking part in TSF activities but it would be simpler for members to have one form of communication and secretarially, there are great advantages to going all-electronic. Unless we hear howls of protest from paid-up members (with whom we have communicated by post) we propose to move, from now onwards, to e-mail communication with members and key documents will be sent as 'Word' attachments to the e-mail. Most of those documents will also be available on www.tradsong.com, apart from the members list which would expose you to the risk of even more ‘spam’ than you already get.

Part of the subscription will also enable us to implement another decision taken at the meeting, which was to establish a ‘properly’ hosted web-site rather than the present arrangement which relies on a ‘free’ site and a separate URL registration that points to it. This will ensure continuity and an opportunity to improve the quality and content. This change will be made before we need to renew our current arrangement in the summer.

The Madden Collection

John Moulden has told us about a very useful site giving a listing of the Madden Collection of Broadside Ballads which is on the Thomson-Gale site listing their microform publications:

http://microformguides.gale.com/BrowseBySubject.shtml

Scroll down to History, Eighteenth Century Britain and Europe and you will find it in a short list.   As well as two forms of listing the contents the site gives what John Describes as 'a very useful guide to the collection, "Collection Information", by Robert Thomson though he is mistaken on at least one count. While Madden vol 24 and 25 are Irish with a few Scottish prints at the end of vol. 25 they were not all collected by Thomas Crofton Croker; only the Cork printed ones that comprise most of Vol 24.'  
(1st Oct 05)

And a warning take by me!

Once again Heather Wood has spotted a site that gives some useful advice to those intending to sing traditional songs: (28th Sept)

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/006448.html#006448

Interesting Web-sites

Heather Wood has circulated details of two sites in the USA which may be of interest to members.

The first is from the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress and is a list of collections in the Library  -  not complete (yet) but useful.  It can be found at http://www.loc.gov/folklife/guides/listofcollections.html

The second site is the Wisconsin Folksong Collection 1937 - 46 (http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/WiscFolkSong) .  This is a searchable database of songs which contains a number of recordings of songs that reflect the great diversity of song to be found in the state.  I was very impressed by this collection and plan to spend a lot of time here in the coming weeks.  This will be a five star site when I update the links!

'Child' re-issue

Loomis House Press have announced the publication of the third volume of their excellent re-working of Francis Child's 'The English and Scottish Popular Ballads'.  Details can be found on their website www.loomishouse.com   (8th June 05)

Life and Times

The notes of the special meeting held at Cecil Sharp House in association with EFDSS are now available.  I was delighted to be given permission by Mike Sutton of the University of Northumbria to publish his notes on the day which you can find here.  I have also prepared an album of a few photographs taken on the day which you can see here.

Bringing in the May

Not strictly song, but a very good use of material from the Carpenter collection by a webcast called 'Bringing in  the May' presented by Jennifer Cutting of the American Folk Life Center at the Library of Congress.  The fifteen minute programme looks at the history of may customs (particularly the maypole and morris dancing) through material from England gathered by James Carpenter and its re-assimilation into the USA as documented by Tony Barrand.  As Jennifer says in her covering e-mail 'It's low budget, but sincere'.  This is not, of course, cinema quality but I think that it is a pointer to a future in which video will be an important part of a website like this  -  or like ours.  Go here to see the programme.