These days social singing is somewhat confined to football terraces, gatherings of the worship kind or the end of term school coach trip. But once upon a time if people fancied a singing together, they headed off to the local pub, to raise the roof or just to recount a story or two. Ever fancied knowing more about traditional British folk songs or joining in a singing session but weren't too sure about the words or the tunes? Ever wondered where those tunes and words came from? Help is at hand in the form of a new resource, Jon Boden's "A Folk Song a Day" Blog.
Built using Word Press the blog makes great use of new media. Each day Jon posts a new song which can be streamed from the blog or downloaded via i-tunes. Creating an impressive collection of 12 digital albums, one for each month.
Launched on midsummer's day Jon writes about the blog saying that he hopes, "afolksongaday.com will be a useful resource for anyone interested in getting in to social singing. As I have learnt these songs because they are fun to sing in the pub, not because I think they will work on a big stage or on CD – the site will hopefully be rich pickings for singers just looking for a few songs to have to hand, for that point in an evening when conversation has run its course and singing is the best and most natural way for the night to progress".
The neat thing about the blog, as with all new media, is the use of embedded links to take the curious and inquisitive off to wiki links, lyric and historial sources as well as relevant discussions on the Mudcat forum. Its not just a listening experience.
Most of the songs on the website will be unaccompanied songs as Jon continues to say in his introduction, "The best social singing is, in my experience, unaccompanied". Since becoming a parent Jon hasn't been able to get to as many pub-sings as he would perhaps like and so for him this project is a way to expand and share his repertoire.
Its a fascinating project of scholarly detail that must surely be an inspiration for many a singer, musician and social historian too. Maybe Jon will get an honourary PhD for his endeavours.
Equally fascinating are the threads on the Mudcat forum that the blog has spawned. I have been taken down various paths but perhaps the most absorbing thread began with Cornish Lizzie's suggestion that Jon plugs in and goes electric, which rather more interestingly led me to the fRoots forum and a technical discussion with Jon, Jim Moray, Matt Milton and Ian Anderson on the use of digital or analogue mixing desks for folk music. After pondering whether musicians ought to bring their own sound engineer, desks and effects racks I was eventually led to the "Stuckist Manifesto". With my head spinning from information overload it was a relief to click back on my browser and reconnect with the unaccompanied songs and their easy to understand simplicity.
You can follow my trail below.
Jon Boden's "A Folk Song A Day" blog.
The Mudcat Forum threads.
The thread on the fRoots forum.
