This blog is where I share the spoils from each Imaginary Song Hunt. Feel free to use the ‘comments’ box to share feedback or fun facts! If you enjoyed the session, please drop some pennies into the tip jar…
4th September 2024:
A beer-themed session to celebrate the autumn harvest, taking a brief foray into Sumerian and medieval drinking and harvest songs, before deep diving into the much-love traditional song, John Barleycorn. What’s with the human sacrifice? When did we start personifying booze? Where and when did the character of John Barleycorn come from? Lots of juicy questions – very few reliable answers! 😂 (As usual!)
This blog is where I share the spoils from each Imaginary Song Hunt. Feel free to use the ‘comments’ box to share feedback or fun facts! If you enjoyed the session, please drop some pennies into the tip jar…
17th July 2024:
In the second of my July ‘new album specials’, we hunted down the song known as Maid Freed from the Gallows, or The Prickly Bush, which tells the story of a young woman abandoned to the gallows by her family, and ultimately saved by her lover. We looked at some old transcriptions, from England and the Appalachians, as well as mid-20th-century American source recordings, and delved into the weird cante-fable (part-sung story) ‘The Golden Ball’, which seems to be an origin of the song, complete with bogles under the bed, giants being chopped in half, and an impatient Yorkshire hangman!
This blog is where I share resources from each Imaginary Song Hunt session, along with a Zoom video for anyone who wants to catch up. Feel free to use the ‘comments’ box below to share feedback, fun facts, or just to say hello! If you enjoyed the session and these resources, please: drop some pennies into the tip jar
19th June 2024:
The Silver Dagger
In the first of my July ‘new album specials’, I took at look at some of the historical sources for a favourite folksong of mine, The Silver Dagger, thinking about how historical research broaden the scope of our ways of interpreting and reimagining traditional songs today. We looked at some First-World-War-era Appalachian transcriptions of this song, and traced its variants back to 19th Broadside Ballads. We sang a version transcribed by Cecil Sharp in 1907, in Somerset.
This blog is where I share resources from each Imaginary Song Hunt session, along with a Zoom video for anyone who wants to catch up. Feel free to use the ‘comments’ box below to share feedback, fun facts, or just to say hello! If you enjoyed the session and these resources, feel free to: drop some pennies into the tip jar
19th June 2024:
A Song for Saint Æthelthryth
A special session for anyone planning a pilgrimage to Ely, to venerate our local saint, Æthelthryth (c.636 CE – 679 CE), on her feast day (23rd June). The crowds queuing up to sing this song for Æthelthryth will probably give the ones at the Euros a run for their money! 😂 In this Song Hunt, we took a look at the hymn to Saint Æthelthryth composed by the Venerable Bede (in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People), explored the process of finding suitable medieval melodies for songs for which no words survived, and experimented with some medieval-style harmony.
Slides from the session
Video
If you’d like a copy of this song, drop me a line! The score’s not very tidy just now, but I’d happily polish it up for an outing. Why not sing it to celebrate Æthelthryth’s feast in 2025? 😁
This blog is where I share resources for each Imaginary Song Hunt session, along with a catch-up Zoom video. Feel free to use the ‘comments’ box below to share feedback, fun facts, or just say hello!
In this session we tackled Sainte marie, the last in my series of sessions on the three (or arguable FOUR) songs by Saint Godric of Finchale. The notation for this song (or two) survives in three manuscripts, but is complete in only one of them, and the substantial stylistic differences between the two sections begs the question: is it one song? And, if so, is it all created by the same person?!
This blog is where I share resources from each Imaginary Song Hunt session, along with a Zoom video for anyone who wants to catch up. Use the ‘comments’ box below to share feedback, fun facts, or just say hello!
In this session we tackled the Old English ritual known as Æcerbot (‘Field Remedy’), which was supposed to heal fields that were barren, perhaps as a result of witchcraft! We looked at one of the Old English metrical charms contained in the ritual, and experimented with different ways of whispering, reciting, and chanting it. The session includes an interview with Debby Banham on this fabulous text.
Translations, commentaries, and manuscript facsimiles: Old English Poetry in Facsimile Editions (look for ‘Charms’ in the dropdown menu on the left). The British Library Manuscripts page has been down for some time because of a cyber attack, so for now this is the only place to view the manuscript online.
Fun blog, with an incredible amount of historical detail, on putting this ritual into practice, by Karen Louise Jolly.
On patterns of recitation in Anglo-Saxon music, you can find more info in Sam Barrett’s Restoring Lost Songs project (especially his book, The Melodic Tradition of Boethius “De consolatione philosophiae” in the Middle Ages, Monumenta Monodica Subsidia Series VII, 2 vols., Bärenreiter, Kassel, 2013). See also: Hanna Marti’s video introduction to Orpheus: the Ovid Project. In a similar vein, Sequentia’s Monks Singing Pagans programme focused on classical texts in medieval song, and you can watch a video about the project (which sadly doesn’t exist as an album).
Teresa made a link between the recitation of incantations and the amazing Sami ‘yoik’/’joik’ singing tradition, sharing this album: Folk Voices – Finnish Folk Song Through the Ages (Ondine, 1999). On the content, she notes:
at 2:15 (track 1) call & response chant
3:40 (track 2) I think this is a yoik about stalking elk
11:32 (track 5) herding calls for cows
14:08 (track 6) Tulen synty -loitsu (a spell for starting/birthing a fire) parts are sotto voce, and others could probably be heard across the whole landscape!
This blog is where I share resources from each Imaginary Song Hunt session, along with a Zoom video for anyone who wants to catch up. Feel free to use the ‘comments’ box below to share feedback, fun facts, or just to say hello!
This session explored the Irish folksong ‘In the Month of January’ (also known as ‘The Fatal Snowstorm’ and ‘The Cruel Father’), which tells the story of a young woman who is seduced and made pregnant, then abandoned by (presumably much wealthier) young man, and is tragically cast out by her family as a result – not an uncommon theme in traditional song!
Slides from the session
I’ll embed the slideshow from every Hunt here, with some extra clickable links.
Video
Full session, for anyone who’d like to catch up:
New performance video (currently unlisted; to be released online 24 Jan):
Scores
You’re welcome to use this score for your own performances, but please just credit me if you do so (and let me know, in case I can come and listen 🙂). I am always grateful for feedback on my scores!
You might remember Stella Richardson giving some nice listening suggestions at the end of the session. She pointed out some parallels with the song ‘Henry the Poacher’, which she and Tony had heard sung by The Young Tradition. There are some melodic similarities, as well as a few lyrical formulas that pop up in both songs, but this one is a tragedy from the perspective of a young man, transported for poaching. It’s a subject close to my heart, since my mum’s amazing family tree research revealed that this was the fate of lots of my ancestors! We haven’t found that particular recording online, but here’s another nice one (sourced by Tony):
And by another ‘source’ singer, Harry Cox, whose singing has been a big influence on me (I’ve made arrangements of his songs for my choir).
Any other folky parallels spring to mind? Floating verses? Similar stories? Please do share in the comments if so…
This blog is where I share resources from each Imaginary Song Hunt session, along with an edited Zoom video for anyone who wants to catch up. Feel free to use the ‘comments’ box below to share feedback, fun facts, or just to say hello!
In this special preview event, we dipped into a few pieces of music from different periods, to get a flavour of the kinds of things the song hunt will explore when it starts in the New Year. We looked at the earliest known Christian song, the Oxyrhynchus Hymn, skimmed over medieval chant for Saint Nicholas, and learned St Godric of Finchale’s song for Saint Nicholas, one of the three oldest songs in English for which notation has survived. We also looked at medieval techniques for making two-part harmonies.
Slides from the session
I’ll embed the slideshow from every Hunt here, with some extra clickable links. For image information, click any of the pictures to visit the online source.
Video
Full session, for anyone who’d like to catch up:
New performance video (due to go online in a couple of weeks):
Scores
You’re welcome to use this score for your own performances, but please just credit me if you do so (and let me know, in case I can come and listen 🙂).
The Saint Nicholas Centre has a comprehensive discography and resource list for medieval music devoted to Saint Nicholas, so rather than try to make my own, I’ll simply direct you to this link: medieval music and plays for Saint Nicholas.
But here’s a particularly fabulous recording of Godric’s songs, by Sequentia, using the kinds of organum techniques we discussed in the session:
From the Song Hunters…
Mille gratias to Helen Wellen for the dorkiest meme in the whole history of the internet:
