© FAM The Sociolinguistics of Folk Song Performance ‘Voices’ in the Folk Song Language in Performance

To recapitulate a few concepts Performances take place in a container Performances express or address social drama Performances require a performance mode Performance have ritualistic character Song performances bond communities Performances represent social and linguistic practices  communities of practice  discourse communities distinctions between performance types relational performances representational performances © FAM

Importance of ‘Voice’ a) ‘Voice’ predates ‘language’ phylogenetically ontogenetically own voice vs voice of Other IDS Voice as metaphor ‘not having a voice’ vs. ‘making your voice heard’ © FAM Advanced HMMMMM simple HMMMM

Importance of ‘Voice’ a) Conventional view: strategically adopted way of sounding speaker adopts/modifies meet a given task Johnstone’s view not ‘adaptive’ strategy but what ‘connects particular individual human beings with particular utterances and ways of speaking and thinking’ (2000: 407) © FAM

Frith’s (1996) concept of ‘voices’ Songs are ‘narratives’ or ‘implied narratives’ Singer is the central character in the song voice as a means of projecting identity/identities Five levels (1) the singer/narrator (2) the character (3) a ‘quoted’ character (4) the singer as a ‘star’ (5) the singer outside the performance © FAM

Performance Voices Performance Mode implies 1.Fictionality 2.Representation 3.Ritualisation 4.Uni-directionality © FAM KIPKOP song 1 song 3 song 2 song … song n KIS Duration of Performance Performance Frame Container …

Voices in Performance ‘Taking the Shilling’ (November 2014) Audience: British Embassy contacts Billed as: talk and performance personal agenda: recalling the inhumanity of WW1 © FAM

Multilayering of voices in ‘COL’ © FAM singer and musician ‘speaker’ (character/s) ‘headliner’ academic lecturer entertainer me activist

Singer, speaker and character(s) a) The Unfortunate Tailor Oh list, oh list to me sorrowful lay, And attention give to me song, I pray, When you've heard it all you'll say That I'm an unfortunate tailor. © FAM ‘tailor’speaker/narrator 1 st person Sarahcharacter 1 3 rd person (mute) whaling captaincharacter 2 3 rd person (speaks)

Singer, speaker and character(s) a) The Tailor’s Breeches It's of a brisk young tailor, a story I'll relate. He lived at an inn called the "Ram and the Gate", The "Ram and the Gate" was the place where he did dwell And it's wine and women's company he loved exceeding well. Oh! well, Oh! well. Oh! well, my boys, Oh! well. It's wine and women's company he loved exceeding well. © FAM I (external)speaker/narrator 1 st person tailorcharacter 1 3 rd person (speaks) womancharacter 2 3 rd person (acts)

Voices in the Ballad a) Brown Adam Oh who would wish for the wind to blow Or the green leaves fall therewith, And who would wish for a finer love Than Brown Adam the smith. Oh his hammer is of a beaten gold And his anvil's all of steel. Oh his fingers white they are my delight And he blows his bellows well. © FAM

Voices in the Ballad b) And they have banished him, young Brown Adam, From the flower of all his kin. And he's built him a bower in the gay greenwood All between his lady and him Brown Adam, he come to his own bower door And he stood there a little way away. And it was there that he spied a full false knight Come a-tempting his lady gay. © FAM

Voices in the Ballad c) Oh the knight drew out a gay gold ring That had cost him many's the pound. “Oh grant me love, oh love, lady, And this shall all be thine.” “Oh I love Brown Adam well,” she says, “And I know that he loves me. And I would not give Brown Adam's love For any false knight that I see.” © FAM

Projecting an ‘I’: I Just Can’t Wait a) I took this job when I left school and I thought it might be fun. I signed the papers binding me till I was 21. I just can’t wait to collect my cards, I just can’t wait to go, For I can’t get along with the people here And my work it bores me so. Now I think I’ll wait till the wedding’s over before I can break the tie, For the girlfriend tells me we must save if a house we hope to buy. © FAM Who is ‘I’? When is the ‘I’ saying these things? Tenses? Who is(are) the addressee(s)?

Projecting an ‘I’: I Just Can’t Wait b) Thank you for the gold watch, sir, the silver collection too, But are you sure I have to go for I won’t know what to do I just can’t bear to collect my cards, I just can’t bear to go... For I’m sure I’ll miss the people here And my life it bores me so. © FAM Places and addressee(s)? When is ‘I’ saying these things? What about changes in verb inflection?

Creating a ‘You’: No Man’s Land a) Well, how do you do, Private William McBride, Do you mind if I sit down here by your graveside? And rest for a while in the warm summer sun, I've been walking all day, and I'm nearly done. And I see by your gravestone you were only 19 When you joined the glorious fallen in 1916, Well, I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean Or, Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene? © FAM Who might the ‘I’ be? Who is(are) the addressee(s)?

Creating a ‘You’: No Man’s Land b) Did they beat the drum slowly, did the play the pipes lowly? Did the rifles fire o'er you as they lowered you down? Did the bugles sound The Last Post in chorus? Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest? © FAM references for the audience? indexical elements?

Creating a ‘You’: No Man’s Land c) And I can't help but wonder, now, Willie McBride, Do all those who lie here know why they died? Did you really believe them when they told you "The Cause?" Did you really believe that this war would end wars? Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain, For Willie McBride, it all happened again, And again, and again, and again, and again. © FAM Role of the audience? Who is addressed?

Voice, in conclusion: © FAM speaker / characterWho is speaking characterto whom in whose guise with which intention speaker / character singer / entertainer to what ‘greater’ purpose‘activist’ ‘me’ performer as ‘ventriloquiser’ audience

Text and Entextualisation in Performance