Help: Ballad or Song? / Freestate Adjudicator

Subject: Ballad or Song?
From: GUEST,Yum Yum
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 07:06 PM

What is the difference? I remember singing a traditional ballad at the All Ireland Fleadh and was told by the adjudicator that it wasn't a ballad but a song. The ballad/song was 'The Plains of Waterloo'. Mind you some adjudicators at Fleadhs seemed only to like to hear themselves speak. Their remarks on singers and songs did nothing to encourage or promote traditional singing. Anyone out there in Mudcat world any suggestions...Yum YUM.

Subject: RE: Help: Ballad or Song?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 07:26 PM

When you get down to it, a ballad is a song that tells a story. Period.

Malcolm Laws thought it was a ballad, and he probably had more academic clout than the unnamed adjudicator.

Subject: RE: Help: Ballad or Song?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Sep 00 - 07:51 PM

I remember at a Fleadh Ceoil song contest a few years ago (and I wasn't a competitor) there was this loud and large adjudicator with a lot of loud and large opinions about things like that as he sprawled there in his chair with his legs akimbo.

But what he hadn't noticed, which took the edge off his opinions, was that he'd left his flies undone and gaping wide open.

Noone told him. Well, they may have afterwards I suppose...

There's some justice in this world.

Subject: RE: Help: Ballad or Song?
From: GUEST,YUm
Date: 16 Sep 00 - 10:19 AM

Subject: RE: Help: Ballad or Song?
From: GUEST,Yum Yum
Date: 16 Sep 00 - 06:43 PM

Sorry about the above, my one fingered typing seems to be slipping up. Re: adjudicators, In 1980, in Buncrana, I was the first competitor to mount the stage(all Ireland Fleadh) I gave my choice of ballads, waited for the adjudicator to select his, clambered onto the stage, took a deep breath. ... The adjudicator jumped up, hands in the air and shouted! this competitor is represting Ulster, why, I do not know, as Ulster does not have a style of singing. All Ulster singers should be confined to the back room of bars and private houses, as far as I am concerned, all ulster singing should be eradicated!!!!.... The adjudicator...Sea--s Duf-y (to show respect to the ass hole) gave first place to his nephew, (who could not sing a note) by the why, his Uncle was the County adjudicator as well. Kevin Mitchell was competing in the same competition, he was recalled twice, to make an exibition of him, and we all know how good Kevin is!! To cut a LONG story short, Joe Mulhern from 'Derry composed a song/BALLAD about the incident, called 'The Free-State Adjudicator', ...... How did I veer off on this trend? anyway.. adjudicators.. who needs them? Has anyone else had any similar experiences? Yum Yum. PS. Seamus Duffy (oops) was banned for a few years (now reinstated) but I must add, he was attacked that day by a number of noted people. say no more !

Subject: RE: Help: Ballad or Song?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 16 Sep 00 - 09:06 PM

Ulster has as many styles of singing as does any other part of Ireland.  I do take the point about adjudicators, though; to my mind, all competitions do is impose a completely arbitrary norm which is inevitably destructive.  The Mods in Scotland, for example, have a great deal to answer for, and I've met some very poor singers who won competitions in the north-east of England for reasons which remain a mystery to everybody but the judges...  Competition, in the end, is ok in a small sense -just for practice- but a disaster when people start to believe that "winning" is important.

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Help: Ballad or Song?
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Jul 10 - 12:22 PM

Anybody have the lyrics for the Freestate Adjudicator?

Subject: RE: Help: Ballad or Song?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 22 Jul 10 - 01:32 PM

Don't know about the competition set-ups, but to mis-quote Virginia Wolfe, a song is a song is a song. Quality of presentation should be the major criterion, not some arbitrary classification.

Subject: RE: Help: Ballad or Song? / Freestate Adjudicator
From: GUEST,Paul Slade
Date: 23 Jul 10 - 09:01 AM

"In technical prosodic parlance we could say that most ballads present in quatrains of alternate cross-rhymed iambic tetrameter and trimeter. However, since the ballad is a swinging, popular form derived from song and folk traditions, it is much better described as a form that comes in four-line verses, usually alternating between four and three beats to a line. The word comes from ballare, the Italian for 'to dance' (same root as ballet, ballerina and ball)." - Stephen Fry, The Ode Less Travelled.

Fry's example is:

"There's nothing like a ballad song,
For lightening the load,
I'll chant the buggers all day long,
Until my tits explode."

Subject: RE: Help: Ballad or Song? / Freestate Adjudicator
From: Young Buchan
Date: 23 Jul 10 - 12:22 PM

"but to mis-quote Virginia Wolfe, a song is a song is a song"

You're misquoting a very long way, given that the original is actually by Gertrude Stein.