Ill in I S University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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H ILL IN I S UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN PRODUCTION NOTE University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library Large-scale Digitization Project, 2007. lumber 29 m" " March 20, 1967 'or the past year a nasty rumor has been circulating among Campus Folksong Club aembers that Autoharp is dead. But usually reliable sources have relayed to me the facts surrounding Autoharp's mysterious disappearance. Autoharp is not alive and living in Argentina. Autoharp has not dropped out. Autoharp was on sabbatical, and here it is, turned in and truned on. We are back with Club iews and news on the folk scene at large. It is our purpose to present CFC members with every facet of folk music--old- timey to psychedelic. You may agree or disagree with the opinions of contributors; 3o do we. But Autoharp is traditionally an open forum for fact and opinion on folk music. The editor will exercise no censorship of ideas. And if you do not like something, yell ! After all, what is a demonstration without hecklers, or a nagazine without reader participation? Between now and June there are a number of duties and activities in store for the membership. Although still in the works, the Club is busy with a new LP, CFC 401. The fourth in the series of highly successful Club albums will recreate the old-timey string Dand sound of the 1920's and 1930's from selected Paramount recordings of the era. The first membership concert of the spring semester is tentatively set for May 1. Jimmy Tarlton, who is perhaps the finest traditional (and not so traditional) steel guitar player around will give the Club a generous taste of his music. Mr. Tarlton's virtuosity and musical humor are featured on his LP Steel Guitar Rag, a live recording of his successful run at the Ash Grove in Los Angeles. -erecord is available in limited supply. Interested persons should contact record chairman Dave Samuelson for copies. aood things often come in small packages, and there are many more small pleasures awaiting Club members in the form of the bi-monthly sings. Page Stephens says that one of these may be an International Sing in conjunction with the sundry foreign students organizations at the University of Illinois. Page promises at least one sitar. Seminar chairman Lee Kaufman has at least two more events up his sleeve. Watch future Autoharps for announcements. l* * * * *a We are back, and we hope to see you around. -- Mimi Rodin, Editor JUmmElU 7DAM LTFW@ -n-fl oI~J GD THIS RECORD IS ISSUED IN CONJUNCTION WITH JItvT~~1IE'S 1ST _________ COLLEGE CONCERT IN MAY1 IT WILL BE AVAILABLE IN MID-APRIL THRU THE CAMPUS FOLKSONG CLUB1 I URBANA, ILLINOIS 61801, AT THE PREPUBLICATION . PRICE OF $3.50 7ý_meow ,^ a-.aaS AUTOHARP BACK ISSUES AVAILABLE As a service to interested collectors and librarians, back issues of this newsletter will be available until the supply is exhausted. Since Autoharp is not a subscription publication but, rather, a service to members of the Campus Folksong Club, we only ask those who take advantage of this offer to secure a membership ($2.00 in the fall, $1.00 second semester). In addition to the back issues which cost 25 cents apiece, you will continue to receive the current issues of Autoharp. In the past many members have contributed their personal back issues to the Club files. As far as we know, only two full sets exist, so to facilitate the filling in of incomplete collections with scarce issues, we are interested in securing more. Thanks to all those who help us in doing so. Below is a full listing of all issues of Autoharp which have been pub- lished to date followed by available back issues and a short synopsis of important features in each: Volume 1, Number 1 April 7, 1961 Number 2 April 21, 1961 Number 3 May 5, 1961 Number 4 May 19, 1961 Volume 2, Number 1 October 6, 1961 Number 2 November 3, 1961 Number 3 December 1, 1961 Number 4 February 16, 1962 Number 5 April 5, 1962 Number 6 May 4, 1962 Volume 3, Number 1 October 15, 1962 Number 2 November 30, 1962 Number 3 February 8, 1963 Number 4 March 22, 1963 Number 5 May 24, 1963 Volume 4, Number 1 October 7, 1963 Number 2 November 18, 1963 Number 3 February 3, 1964 Number 4 March 16, 1964 Number 5 April 30, 1964 (After Volume 4 the volume number was dropped and substituted by a whole issue number in sequence with the previous twenty issues.) Whole Issue October 7, 1964 November 21, 1964 February 5, 1965 March 20, 1965 May 1, 1965 October 26, 1965 December 18, 1965 March 4, 1966 (present) * -** * * c 4 x*i * * ll* N Available back issues: Volume 4, Number 3: American Folklore Society Conventipn; Los Angeles scene; Glenn Ohrlin letters; Hedy West; blues reviews. Number 21: Field collecting; Seamus Ennis and Blue Sky Boys posters; hillbilly and blues reviews. Number 22: Blue Sky Boys; Seamus Ennis; Dorsey Dixon; blues reviews; Mike Seeger/Dock Boggs poster. Number 23: Dock Boggs; hillbilly reviews; Robert Pete Williams poster. Number 24: Robert Pete Williams; British folk scene, part I; Bray Brothers poster; blues reviews. Number 25: Bagpipes; British folk scene, part II; Japanese bluegrass reviews; Clayton McMichen poster. Number 26: Ragtime; bluegrass reviews; bagpipe controversy. Number 27: Working the Hillbilly Ranch (Mike Melford); Irish reviews; Illinois folk performers. -- Bob Sayers 352-9365 332-0178 332 0167 332-4331 333-6429 352-1668 352-1668 352-0173 367-7301 332-4271 332-4007 332-0617 332-3802 344-5000 332-4352 he committee Thanks '. A SHORT HISTORY OF SHAPE-NOTES The United States of America has a peculiar culture, one which is the product of those of England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Africa, Asia, and almost any other country or continent you could name. In the post-Revolutionary War years there was a tremendous influx of immigrants from these lands, and the commingling of their cultures, and particularly their musical heritage, often resulted in more cacophony than harmony, if I may be permitted such a pun. Yet it is obvious to the most casual observer of American folksongs that in this International musical conflict the music of the British Isles finally became dominant. Even so there was created a musical vacuum; thousands of second and third generation Americans, who found themselves isolated from urban areas, were starved for music. This was coupled with a decline in the quality of sacred music. "Part singing sank to one part, the droned melody which church folk could sing, to their own satisfaction at least, without any musical instruction at all."l1 Into this atmosphere was introduced the typically creative Yankee idea of singing schools, presided over by a head master. The singing master would arrive in a rural town and make his presence known by posters and by stirring up local gossip. He would initiate the singing school by taking up a popular subscription and renting the cheapest possible hall in which to hold meetings. The singing students were required to provide their own candles and benches, which they would usually arrange in a semi-circle two or three rows deep. The master began with the fundamentals of music theory and proceeded to teach a melody which all were required to learn thoroughly before they were ever allowed to sing the words. The singing school term rarely exceeded two dozen afternoons and evenings, and it culminated in a public exhibition. After the singing master left to enlighten other isolated folk, the graduates usually swelled the ranks of the local church choir.2 The very idea of teaching singing in such a way amuses most modern urban people. But one must realize that the inhabitants of a small village, isolated in the Appalachian Mountains, never had the opportunity to see an opera or a concert. Also, since the inventions of mass media such as radio and television lay far in the future, the rural citizen had only two possible sources of music. The first was the relatively small body of folksongs, many of which were variations of the ballads collected in England and Scotland by Francis J. Child. The official clerical view was that these wer all sinful songs, since they often dealt with murder, physical love, or the temptations of the ubiquitous Devil. The second source of music was the then much larger body of sacred songs, the tunes of which were very frequently the same as those of the so-called "Devil's ditties." 3 1. George P. Jackson, White Spirituals in the Southern Uplands, 2nd ed. (New York, 1965), p. 6. 2. Nathaniel D. Gould, History of Sacred Music in America (Boston, 1853), p. 76. 3. Yankee Life by Those Who Lived It, ed. June B. Mussey (New York: A. Knopf,-19h7). Anti-British sentiments in the post-Revolutionary War years led to the swift abandoning of traditional British sacred music and the rapid proliferation of the domestic article. The number of tune books increased almost geometrically, and soon New England and the more accessible areas of the South were flooded with such works as, The Western Harmony, or The Learner's Task Made Easy: containing A Plain and Easy Introduction to the Grounds of Music and a Choice Collection of Tunes for Church Service. Of course, each publisher wanted his book to be the most popular, and therefore every author strove to make his teaching method and his material easier. The most difficult part of singing (no pun intended) in parts was getting acquainted with the notation.