h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Now that Covid-19 is in the rear-view mirror, I hope we will see more carolers. Sure, there were carolers even during the pandemic, but it was a strain to sing through masks.

Since Covid-19 has never really gone away, I am glad I can take advantage of my age to stay away from mass events involving singing.

We've been attending school concerts virtually - the acoustics are better for me, anyway, and I don't have to deal with the school's seating, which is the opposite of ergonomic.

My choir will be having a Christmas brunch concert together with the local orchestra this Sunday.

The idea was to have a 'Silent night' at the end but then ran into the issue that there are four versions of the lyrics in Dutch (Protestant, Catholic, Flemish, Catholic/Flemish mash-up), so now we have opted for the humming variant, leaving the audience to sing along in whichever version they like best. Historically the Protestant version is most common nationwide (Protestants sing their own songs 'en masse' while Catholics (used to) have a choir for that kind of stuff). But I live in the Catholic majority South of the country.

It has been an interesting time for the choir anyway, because we still have an interim conductor (conductrix?) who has very different views on how to perform certain songs and had to improvise anyway, because our previous conductor left us without the music to go with our songs as he played / improvised them from his head / on the spot. We have found out the hard way that a recorded track is very inflexible compared to an accomplished live pianoplayer, with regard to tempo.

Oh, and a nice summary of the history of Carol singing you wrote there.

I enjoyed a good Christmas carol concert last week by the Mediæval Bæbes, who used traditional instruments such as pipes, recorders from the microscopic to massive and a hurdy-gurdy. If you like Folk* carols I also recommend Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band.

<BB<

(* UK Folk rather than US Folk, which is a different genre. I enjoy US Folk too - but Woody Guthrie's '1913 Massacre' just isn't very Christmassy. Nor is Bob Dylan's 'Christmas in the Heart')

Glad you liked the article, Caiman. I'll pass that on to Frank Landon Humphreys if I see him.

Duelling Silent Nights? Wow. And in Dutch. The cacophony sounds delightful! All those 'gh's' in different places...growing up, we used to sing it in German when carolling - especially the time we invited the German Club to a carolling party. In western Pennsylvania, you could always count on some of the older folk to know it and sing along.

BB: Me, I love a good hurdy-gurdy! Also crummhorn. I'm guessing those were mediaeval baebes?

US folk singing is not fairly represented by either Mr Dylan - who's been a pop singer for 50 years, as far as folkies are concerned - or Mr Guthrie, revered as he is for his heroic activism. Comparing those singers to Maddy Prior - in a pejorative way, of course - is talking apples and oranges. Besides, we've got more folk music than 'Which Side Are You On?', as useful as that is on a picket line.

If you want to talk about US folk music in the same breath as Maddy Prior, I'd suggest you find some Jean Ritchie albums. She was the reason everybody and their kid brother got a lap dulcimer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TdQ_k7fJCI

Always good to have recommendations - the same few 70s and 80s Christmas songs get a bit repetitive by the second week of Christmas (though at least they're not all about Sausage Rolls).

Still think songs work best in the right settings, though sometimes songs work in settings that surprise you.

<BB<

This conversation inspired me to make the following video, which will appear in the Christmas issue of the Post.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpJwFUXaGYo