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we recorded him, sang us a song he learned from a 90-year-old woman when he was 20. That means that she might well have learned that song in the 1860s. It’s a song I’d never heard before, called Persian Willy, about a murder at sea, and it only took two people to carry that song through the oral tradition for so long. For me, that brings a magic to that song.” A lively sense of the personalities and backgrounds of the tradi- tion bearers is conveyed through the Collec- tive’s website, with the help of videos, pho- tographs and biographies.
This respect and appreciation under- pins all the Collective’s activities. James is abundantly clear on their ethical stance on issues like copyright and remuneration (“the only currency we work in is a currency of songs”), explaining that money only enters into the equation to pay travel for field trips and to fund events. Although he jokes that “we don’t let money get too close to the songs for fear it might infect them!” there is a serious point here. “We are guided by a philosophy of sharing. That’s not a legal standpoint as such, but it’s a clear way of describing what we offer, and indeed all we can offer: to share. The people we meet are typically old, marginalised or for other reasons do not have a platform to share their repertoire with the wider world. What we offer, through our considered intervention with recording and publishing capability, is a way for them to share those songs with cur- rent and future generations.”
This can be a tricky area to navigate, so the Collective are convening a legal and ethical board to guide the process of allowing singers the copyright over their performance without complicating the transfer of recordings to archival institu- tions. Tradition bearers are given their own CDs, and all recordings are uploaded onto SoundCloud and shared via social media. The emphasis is on anyone being able to download, copy, share and ulti- mately learn the material.
What could be called this ‘digital oral culture’ proves the growing importance of technology and social media in the dissemi-
Song Catchers at SOAS
Alan Lomax out there collecting the mummers.
nation of traditional material. The Collec- tive’s online archive takes its place alongside megaliths like the Alan Lomax Archive and The Full English and Tobar an Dualchais – Kist o Riches resources. These sites provide public access to vast amounts of historically collected traditional material on a scale pre- viously unthinkable, harbouring potential for distribution and revival within commu- nities and schools.
“Technological developments get the blame for the destruction of many facets of culture, and in particular traditional cul- ture,” says James. “However, from a differ- ent angle you could just observe that tech- nology exacerbates change and therefore can give opportunity for positive change – even a reversal of other changes! I am hope- ful that the beginning of a resurgence of engaging with and learning old, obscure songs will be with the development of new platforms such as SoundCloud and Facebook and whatever might come next in that line.”
his said, James adds that “the bigger issue is creating contexts for people to share those songs live. I don’t know what that will be. Perhaps it will be the living rooms of old singers, if we see continued decline in folk clubs and singarounds and the rise of song collecting!”
T
Although the Collective are mainly cen- tred in London, where James and Sam both live, online communication and regular gatherings keep everyone in touch. The recording is just the beginning; a small army of volunteers works to get the material online, building up their skills and experi- ence as they do so.
“We are refining a system whereby we process recordings through a kind of virtual production line: field recordings are logged and then edited and published. Once pub- lished they are transcribed. New and inex- perienced volunteers start at the end of the
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