|
Posted
May 1st 2010
FOCS
Folk Song Recorder Report
As
we move into Summer with the Obby Oss celebrations at
Padstow and the Flora at Helston I thought you may like to
hear some more Furry dance tunes and below is a musical
score and by clicking on it you can hear the tunes. It may
take a couple of minutes to down load it the first time but
after that it should be fine. George has also put this music
on the Home page of the main Federation web site.
Although
the most celebrated Furry Dance is that performed at Helston
on 8th May other furry dances are recorded throughout
Cornwall. For example Cecil Sharp collected
information about the Grampound Furry during his visit to
Cornwall in May 1913. His
informants were a Mr Phillip Luke (82) his son, and a lady
called Mary Goodman (86). They described the dance
much as it was done in Helston except that couples held
hands across when they danced forward. They also explained
that the procession would stop every so often and the
dancers would reform in a ring , going first clockwise then
anticlockwise around the circle. Furry Dances were and are
popular at feast days in the Clay
Country and a new dance was composed as recently as the
1980s by Oscar Yelland to celebrate St Austell's
White Gold Festival.
The
term "Flora" or "Floral" is sometimes
used for the dance and dates from nineteenth
century antiquarians attempts to explain the origins of the
custom in terms of the Roman Floralia whereas the
term "Furry" can be simply explained as deriving
from the Cornish word for
Fair "Fer". The popularisation of the term
"Flora" "or "Floral" by the
singer Katie Moss in 1911 made it inevitable that this term
would be incorporated into the tradition but Helston
has developed a compromise by calling the day "Flora Day"
but retaining "Furry" as the name for the dance
and this seems a good precedent to follow.
Furry
dance moves and steps are quite basic and lend themselves
well to dance composition
and the schools taking part in the Rescorla Festival have
been encouraged to write a dance representing their
own area. The dance given below is the traditional furry
dance from North Cornwall and provides quite a good starting
point for improvisation.
North
Cornwall Furry: Dance Instructions
Processional
dance for two couples in a line and as many sets as will.
The step is a one ,two, three, hop.
Bars
1-8
Couples take eight steps forward all moving in same
direction.
9-12
All right hand star
13
16
All left hand star
Repeat
as often as wished
You
can find more musical scores and information on Cornish
music in Alison, Jowdy and my book "Scoot Dances, Troyls,
Furrys and Tea Treats", which is on sale in the
Federation book shop.
 
Posted
6th March 2010
FOCS
Folk Song Recorder Report
Donations
to the Archive
Text and Music from Hawkers “Modrep
Maria”
arranged by MJ Richardson sent by Audrey Aylmer of Bude
and Stratton OCS .( see
local recorders report)
Trelawney: Celtic Cornwall in Song. 16
Cornish songs collected and arranged by Ylyades, Esme
Francis. Published
by Cape Books. Donated by Author
The Trelawney Singers of St Ives have sent
the words and music to “Granny’s Tea Treat”.
Contact
with the Societies
Padstow OCS have provided a photo including
Banjo Player and Broom dancer following a talk we gave in
December 2009
Bodmin OCS member Mrs Iris Podmore sent me
two children’s song / games she remembered from the
1930s following our talk in February 2010.
St Columb OCS, Phil Ellery emailed some
photos of Tea Treats and musicians at Talskiddy from 1908
to the 1950s …………….
And we are not due to talk to them until November! ( see
local recorders report)
Carpenter
Project
I
have been in touch with the Library Of Congress in America
who hold the archive of James Madison Carpenter, a
Folklorist from Harvard University who collected folk
songs and plays in Britain and Ireland between 1929 and
1934. It
seems that four wax cylinders survive of recordings he
made in Cornwall, about 15 minutes each, an hour
altogether. These contain recordings of recitations and
songs by four founder members of the Old Cornwall Society,
and regular contributors to “Old Cornwall”: W D
Watson, Jim Thomas, Tom Miners and Bessie Wallace. Included
with these are Watson’s St Day Carol in Cornish and the
earliest known recording of the Cadgewith Anthem.
The
Library of Congress are currently digitalising all their
wax cylinder recordings and will see if they can make a CD
copy of the four cylinders from Cornwall available to us.
In exchange they would like more information about
these four contributors and ideally photographs.
With the help of Vanessa Beaman, ex Grand Bard, I
now have some information and photographs of Watson and am
currrently pursuing Jim Thomas, Tom Miners and Bessie
Wallace. Like
everyone else I am pressed for time and cannot devote as
much time as I would like on this project but the
federation is a very good place to
network……………If anyone
has any information on these people perhaps they could
contact me.
Phil
Ellery of St Columb sent the following link which enables
you to read more about Carpenter and the project . Click
here
Merv
Davey
Telynor
and Weryn
FOCS
Folk Song Recorder
Email
merv@an-daras.com
Tel
01208 831 642
Meneghyjy,
Withiel, Bodmin, Cornwall PL30 5NN
Web
Site http://www.an-daras.com/
Click
to leave Feed Back
-0-
Posted
23rd February 2010
There
are Cornish dialect songs on my web site at: http://www.an-daras.com/music/m_dialect.htm
We
are still searching for more and if you know of any then
please contact me.
Merv
Click
to leave Feed Back
Posted
31st January 2010
The
guise dancing was a big success as can be seen on this video
.
Posted
7th December 2009
I am
building up a database of songs collected from oral
tradition and two
Cornish folk song collectors I am very Interested in are Tom
Miners and James Thomas. Their names appear against articles
in the early OCS magazines they came from the Camborne
and Redruth areas, I think that Tom Miners died in
about 1924 but James Thomas was one of Ralph Dunstans
sources in 1929 and 1932s. As well as providing material to
Dunstan, they contributed to the collections of Cecil Sharp
in 1905, and also several articles in the Folk
Song Journal. I attach an article on Carols published 1929
to which they had contributed some items from Cornwall.
Miners
Cornish Carols
Does
anyone have any suggestions where I might find out more
about Tom Miners and James Thomas? I
met with some of St Ives OCS a couple of weeks ago -
they are very supportive of Dee Brothertons efforts to
revive the Guize dancing at Christmas which is starting up
again this year - I am off to join them on 18th December so
why not come and join me. Merv.
Click
to leave Feed Back
-0-
A
summery of Merv's report to the AGM October 2009
Merv
has been going through the Federation folk song archives
held at the Courtney Library which forms a valuable
collection. As well as a large number of traditional and
contemporary folk songs there are some fascinating snippets
of information - for example Brenda Wooton’s childhood
memories of Tom Bawcock’s Eve and notes on the custom of
Allen Apples. There are also some cassette tapes of live
recordings which need to be checked and copied in a format
for posterity, i.e. digital or CD. It would be an
interesting project to see if this kind of material could be
made available to a wider audience using the web site.
There are some recordings of Old Cornwall Society
members made in 1931 by the American Folklorist James
Madison Carpenter which are held by the Library of
Congress. These include a recording of W D Watson singing
the St Day Carol in Cornish. The recordings were originally
made on wax cylinders but are currently being
transferred to a digital format. It would be
interesting to see if copies of these could be obtained and
made available in Cornwall. -0- Having
just been appointed [11th July 2009] to the position of Folk
Song and Music Recorder by the Federation's Executive
Committee I look forward to working with local Society
recorders and members in gathering together even more of the
fragments of Cornwall's cultural history to pass on to
future generations.
I
have spent many years collecting items relating to
Cornwall's distinctive Culture I decided to record it on a
website at http://www.an-daras.com/
. Please visit the site and I hope you enjoy its contents. It
will take some time to settle into the position and to learn
exactly what it entails. In the meantime I can be contacted
on e-mail: merv@an-dras.com
Looking
forward to meeting many of you at the Winter Festival at
Wadebridge on Saturday the 14th of November 2.00pm.
Merv
Davey ( Telynor An Weryn Folk Harper)
"Cuntelleugh an brewyon us gesys na vo kellys travyth"
(Gather up the
fragments that are left that nothing be lost.)
Registered Charity No. 247283
|
