Talk:Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight

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[edit] This article as an exemplar of "what good looks like"

TimNelson proposed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Roots music that we use this article as a model of "what good looks like", to be applied to other folk song articles. It looks like a good starting point but I suggest there are some improvements needed to raise it to the standard of an exemplar. I was going to have a go at adding what I can myself but also thought it worth noting the rationale here - others might disagree about what an excellent article would include! Some proposals:

  • We should check that all the main variant names redirect to this page and include a mention of the main ones (eg Outlandish Knight) early on in the article, so that someone arriving here by redirection quickly understands why.
  • Opening section should include the main points of notability (which I think are that it is very widespread, many variants, extremely old, appears in many collections and publications).
  • Some of the prose is very terse and could be expanded.
  • The scholarship relies heavily on Child. Need to compare with some of the twentieth century works. For example, Bert Lloyd claims 250 German versions, versus Child's 26. Not sure if Lloyd is just being less exacting about what constitutes a separate variant, or whether many more variants have been found in the 20th century.
  • Should make some reference to the parrot that is a mysterious feature of some variants.
  • We need to add a section about the music.
  • One of the main notability tests that we are relying on for folk music is the fact that a song appears in multiple published works. Perhaps should include a bit about the extent to which this song has been published.
  • There must be a lot more recordings than those stated. Not sure whether we try to list them all or how we select the most representative ones.

I'll try and make a start. Bluewave 08:20, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm fairly keen to keep the opening paragraph short, so I've tried to address the variant names by referring to them collectively. I agree there's a lot of room for expansion. As for widely published, well, widely recorded works just as well. As to finding more recordings, I'm sure they exist. My original plan was to let people who knew about them post them here, but if we're making this article good, then we might have to do a little looking around.
-- TimNelson 10:51, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Adaptions

User:Goldenrowley changed the title of the "Music" section to "Adaptions", and then changed "Recordings" to "Musical Recordings". I'm keen to retain the major title "music", so that, while most of the article (to that point) has been about the words, the subsections of "Music" are all about the music.

Goldenrowley commented in his edit "adapatations" of music ->original ballad is the real music. This reflects a commendable concern that a distinction be made between the "original" music and adaptions of it. However, this is a Child Ballad, so, unless there are earlier sources, there is no original tune. I thus think that, where possible, the tune used in a recording should be noted. I guess what I'd like to see is a general policy formulated about how we speak of the interaction between music and words, what the definition of "song" is (words, music, or both -- I think for the purposes of folk songs on Wikipedia, it should be mainly the words), how the "folk process" fits into all this, and that sort of thing. I'm not after an extensive writeup or anything here, just something that we can note on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Roots music guidelines section (or in Template:Traditional Song boilerplate) about how we interact with all this. I'm open to ideas from anyone here.

-- TimNelson 11:46, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I stuck in the first version of the tune that came to hand (noted down by RVW in 1908) into the article. Then I decided to have a look for other variations of the tune in books and the internet and, not only are some of them completely unlike one another, but also I think the total is over 100. So I guess we will be hard-pressed to find the "original tune"! Even a discussion about the tune is going to be quite difficult without straying into OR. However, I definitely feel that an article about a folk song is incomplete without discussing the music. By the way, the "over 100", above, is entirely versions from oral tradition, not folk-rock adaptations. On that point, I don't know whether it is legitimate to distinguish between variations which arise through the "folk process" and those that are deliberate adaptations by (for example) Steeleye Span. In other words, can we really say that if an illiterate Norfolk peasant decides to change the tune, that is part of the "folk tradition", but if Maddy prior does the same thing, it is an artful adaptation?
To give my views on your specific points...
  • I agree that for a folk song based in oral tradition (like this one) there is no such thing as the original tune.
  • I think a song is defined by both the words and the music. In other parts of Wikipedia it may be difficult to quote the music because of copyright: we should have a much easier time here, where most of the material is in the public domain (so we've got no excuse!)
  • Songs are usually indexed by the words, not the tunes, so the article should relate to the words but also include discussion of the tune.
  • I think we should make an effort to notate the main tunes that are used. This may be difficult with the present example because there are so many variants. I guess we need to find a reference that has done the hard work for us and has grouped the tune variants together in some way.
  • I'm not sure I agree that we should try to use the tune used in a recording. I see the point that this may be the most familiar, but it may be a variant that is only used by one band and they may have tried to copyright it. Dunno about this.
  • The standard way to describe a melody in a scholarly work is to use use musical notation. I suggest this could be supplemented (but not replaced) by a midi or ogg file.
So I think my suggestion for a guideline would be: "The article should include a section on the melody of the song. Copyright permitting, the section should include an image of the melody in standard music notation. Audio files in midi or ogg format could also help. Where the same song is often sung to multiple tunes, this should be explained. In this case, a balance will need to be found in giving an authoritative discussion about the melodies without overloading the article with music examples. Some folk songs regularly use tunes borrowed from other songs: in this case, make a reference to the other song's article. The section on recordings should make reference to the version of the tune that features in particular recordings." Bluewave 13:42, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Thank you Tim for inviting me to comment. In the edit you mention ("adaptations") I based it on discussions of literature an, intended merely to identify and separate the original (pre-modern) melody and song from what seem to me moderm instrumental and thematic adaptations, such as modern musicians who use instruments that did not exist in the Middle Ages (like electric guitars and synthezers). I am not very musically educated, but note the table has some publication dates that help date the Child Ballads back several centuries or Late Middle Ages. I'd consider the Child list the "originals" and anything else later that changes it an "adaptation." Goldenrowley 04:54, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
I still think we need to separate out the "adaptations" from the "prime material" with headings, for example tv shows and comedy parrot go to adaptations. I think Tim meant to provide a music section and I misunderstood it to be the "adapation" section. Let's do both. Goldenrowley 05:26, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
I take your point that a "modern" version (eg guitars, synthesisers, drums) does seem to be pretty clearly an adaptation. Perhaps there is an even more clear-cut point that any arrangement for multiple instruments and harmonisation is an adaptation, in that all the "folk" versions are for a single, unaccompanied voice. Any harmonisation presumably calls on some application of musical theory and is therefore outside the "folk process". However, I don't agree that the Child list can be regarded as the "originals". For a start, Child includes at least 7 versions of this ballad (which one is the original?); secondly, he compiled his list from other secondary sources (Buchan, Motherwell, etc (don't they have a better claim to be original?); finally, with several hundred variants (in Britain alone) of this song having been noted down from oral tradition, I would challenge the whole idea of an "original". Bluewave 08:45, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
I am glad to be speaking to some knowledgeable people. Could we set up a section for adaptations, and put them at the end they're more of the children andnot the folk song. We could allow the hsitory and analysis section to debate/converse on possible originals. I'd just like to move clearly adapted versions, although need help to identify them musically -- see Bluebeard for a suggested clean format. Goldenrowley 18:54, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Lets have a look at adaptions. Your cited example was Bluebeard. I'm interested in looking at the differences between Bluebeard and what we see on this page:
  • Bluebeard has a single original source, and adaptions. These are adaptions of the words. Any "versions" of Bluebeard are either:
    • A reprint of the original
    • A retelling of the original in other words
    • A transmediation of Bluebeard from print into another medium (movies, play, whatever)
OTOH, with the song referred to, 1) There are 8 "Original" version of the words, 2) we have no information on the "original" tunes. I suggest that we consider this page to represent (as it says in the heading) a "class of songs", rather than a parent with descendants. The way I see it, it's like arguing whether the Welsh are descended from the Scots or the other way round -- we know there's some relation if you go back far enough, but the common parent is unrecorded -- thus the Welsh and the Scots are both "adaptions" of an original Celtic nation, but it's pointless to list them both under adaptions, as *everything* (ie. both the Scots and the Welsh) is an adaption, there are no non-adapted versions.
My point is, something like From a Distance is an article about a song. This article is about a group of songs.
I guess what all this shows is that we need an article on the Folk process.
-- TimNelson 10:40, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
Ok good presentation. Yes I can agree with you now. Goldenrowley 15:18, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
Two points: 1. Most ballads and folksongs come in many versions, and were sung to different tunes; having a sample of music is completely useless unless you specify which version of the lyrics the music corresponds to. Also, considering the number of versions that many folksongs have, and the variety of tunes that correspond, a music sample is most valuable for, firstly, the relatively small number of cases where matching words and music are known from before 1650 (or whatever cutoff seems reasonable), because of their rarity, and secondly, songs that served as tunes for a large number of different lyrics (such as "Lay the Bent to the Bonnie Broom"), because of their utility.
2. A version can be modern without involving synthesizers. Most ballad tunes in readily accessible popular sources (and the vast majority in recordings) have been modified to bring them into line with modern ideas of tonality and melody. If the goal in providing a music sample is to allow the reader to recognize (and perhaps sing) modern performances of the song, then a modernized score is ideal. If, on the other hand, the goal is to give an example of how a "period" performance would have sounded, a modern score is useless. In either case, the source of the music selection should be described sufficiently to allow the reader to judge its appropriateness for their own purposes. -- JRBrown (talk) 00:11, 12 January 2008 (UTC)