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MUSIC PREFACE |
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With the exception of thirteen songs:,* the tunes included in this volume were transcribed by the Music Editor direct from duplicate discs of phonograph recordings made by John A. and Alan Lomax with portable electrical sound-recording apparatus. Copies of these, as of many other recordings in the Archive of American Folk Song, in the Division of Music of the Library of Congressy are now available to the public.
I
Up in the Archive of American Folk Song, in one of the attics of the Library of Congress, John Lomax and Alan and Bess Brown and I, with Elizabeth and "Deanie" often sitting along the sidelines, gathered around the phonograph about three years ago. The occasion for these conclaves was the selection of songs to be included in this volume. We played spirituals ad lib., work songs, hollers, white ballads, Negro game songs, Cajun tunes, breakdowns, fiddle tunes, come-all-ye?s, and so on.
On each song I was asked to cast my vote. And I found myself very often hesitant to give it. What standards had I—a mere composer—for judgment? My basis for evaluation was that of written rather than unwritten music—of fine art, not folk art. As a professional musician, my inclination was to ask: How "different" is this song? Is it quaint, archaic? Does it contain irregularities of meter, rhythm, counterpoint, harmony, intonation, scale, mode, which set it apart as something unusual, unique?
These questions I could answer without difficulty. But to one who had ytt to learn the idioms, their opposites were not so easy: How typical is this song? To what extent does it conform} How "nice and common" (in one singer's words) is it? Of that sort of commonness which keeps a thing alive and growing? And where lies the dividing line between the common and
* Included from other publications: "The Romish Lady," "Over Jordan," "The High Barbaree," "Down, Down, Down." Dictated to the Music Editor by the singer: "Cotton Eye Joe," "Old Bangham," "Old King Cole," "Po> Farmer," "Bugger Burns," "I Got to Roll," "Godamighty Drag." Transcribed from commercial recordings: "The Sporting Cowboy," "Hard Times in the Country."
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