I've been trying to focus on this issue and having difficulty, as I suspect many other people have as well, which is why my Incoming Messages file is not exactly brimming with posts on the subject. I don't seem to be able to get to the nub of the whole thing - if anyone can enlighten me please do so! We seem to be saying that, for the majority of those involved in the revival of storytelling, the link between our storytelling and the storytelling of our forebears is not the same as the link between our forebears and their forebears and that this somehow compromises what we do.
Well I don't believe that anyone is pretending to be a dyed in the wool tradition bearer. Many of us, I'm sure, got turned on to oral storytelling as adults (I did anyway) which may have turned us back to key childhood experiences of storytelling but also entailed a lot of research, reading, training, and practise which is neither what one associates with either tellers of the hearthside tradition or the apprenticeship of traditional (oops - that word) professional tellers.
I wonder if we are talking in too general a way at the beginning of this discussion. I, for one, am fascinated by the specific practices and beliefs of storytellers, both tradition-bearers and those who are involved in the revival and, Mike, I'd really like to know what was the substance of your conversation with your colleague from Cameroon.
I offer the following thoughts from Tomas O Canainn's Folk Songs: Stray Thoughts on Themes... a contribution to a volume called Llangollen Lectures published as part of a Comparative Folklore course run by the European Centre for Folk Studies. Although he concentrates on the "sean-nos" or "old style" singing, I believe the comments may be appropriate to our discussion.
Change and Tradition
Constant singing changes a song, as the ever moving sea changes and smooths a rough stone. It does wonderful things to newly learned verses which are being moulded anew at each singing. Every performance is like an experiment in which things happen, both good and bad: they are unconsciously remembered and have their effect on subsequent performances. Perhaps it is only a shift back or forwards of a syllable to sit more happily on a certain musical note; sometimes it is a decision about holding on to the line for a longer time and letting it out in a new way until it finds an unaccustomed stopping place... Those who feel that songs remain unchanged in successive performances are looking for miracles!
Perceptions of Tradition by its Members
Martin Freeman (who collected in the Cork area about 80 years ago) points out that the folk-singer is often impressed by lines which he does not understand: he does not trouble to enquire into their meaning but sees it as a duty to remember them and sing them again. Martin Freeman says "Any passage which is unintelligible or nonsensical is generally accounted for by one of two expressions: "Old Irish" or "Poetry". In extreme cases both these may be called in..." "The worse the corruption, the greater is the singer's veneration for his text, since his inability to understand it is a proof of its high antiquity".
Qualities Shared By Singers
I find these comments interesting and I hope they provoke something, however I still don't feel much closer to the nub myself. Would it help for people to mail in their own artistic statements to find out where we're actually coming from?
posted 27/7/98