592 research outputs found
David Atkinson, The english traditional ballad: theory, method, and practice, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2002
I have been waiting for this book for a long time. This is not to say that David has been behind-hand, but rather that it is a very useful combination of introduction and detailed examination of a great tradition. It is well
known that “traditional” singers rarely differentiate between ballads and the myriad other songs that pass for traditional
Tradition as communication
Tradition is communication, the passing on of (social) culture through shared practices and lore. It is an expression of an intense emotional bond between performer and source and, by extension, the cultural manifestations of that relationship at the intersections of memory, orality, and literacy.Not
The life and songs of Iain 'an sgiobair' MacNeacail and the role of a song-maker in a Hebridean community
Iain MacNeacail of the Isle of Skye has been making songs since 1917,
when he was fourteen years old; he still composes today. His style is that
of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century bàird bhaile
[township poets] who compose on a huge range of subjects. This
dissertation explores the world of a Gaelic song- maker, largely in his own
words through the use of tape recorded interviews and investigates his
thoughts on his motives and his methods of composition. These aspects
of song scholarship are under -researched in many cultures and though
there are extensive collections of Gaelic songs available which allow
study of the textual /musicological side, the maker's own perceptions of
his work and the community's perception of their bard have been
neglected. The picture that emerges is of a living village song -maker in
the context of a community rich in song and cultural life, where villagers
look to their local bards for articulation of their own feelings.Functional local song in its element operates on many levels.
Chapter one is the biography of Iain MacNeacail, largely in his own
words, which sets the scene and provides some historical background on
north Skye itself. Chapter two describes the community social life,
centering on the taigh céilidh [céilidh or visiting house] and other
pastimes during the long winter months. Chapter three consists of an
edition of MacNeacail song's, with notes and detailed transcriptions of
interviews relating to their background and genesis. Chapter four
elucidates the actual process of making a song: how they come to him,
his conscious technique and his unconscious skill. Chapter five discusses
the function of song in MacNeacail's Hebridean community. This ranges
from amusement to revenge and protest and looks particularly at song as
a form of response, whether to adversity, requests or questions. The
functional aspect of song has changed dramatically since World War II;
these changes and how MacNeacail has adapted to cope with them are
discussed in some detail. The final chapter examines the song- maker's
aesthetic: what poets he likes and why. MacNeacail views his world
through a song- maker's eyes and everything is therefore interpreted in
relation to and through the words of the great bards of the past that he
admires so much and quotes so often. It concludes by examining others'
and his own opinions of himself and his abilities.Iain MacNeacail's knowledge and experience provides a unique
opportunity to record one of the last Gaelic bards reflecting upon his life,
his art, and his role in tradition. These reflections, together with
information gathered in further fieldwork, present a portrait of a type of
village life once common in Gaelic society, but now rarely seen and even
less frequently preserved
The Flowering Thorn
The flowering thorn expresses the dual nature of the ballad: at once a distinctive expression of European tradition, but also somewhat tricky to approach from a scholarly perspective, requiring a range of disciplines to illuminate its rich composition. Most of this latter quality has to do with the very features that characterize ballads... or narrative songs. These include an appearance of fragmentation; a wide range of cultural and social referents; complex, evocative symbolic language; and variation. The notable multiformity of meaning, text and tune is mirrored in scholarship, too. The Flowering Thorn is therefore wide ranging, with articles written by world authorities from the fields of folklore, history, literature, and ethnology, employing a variety of methodologies—structuralism to functionalism, repertoire studies to geographical explorations of cultural movement and change. The twenty-five selected contributions represent the latest trends in ballad scholarship, embracing the multi-disciplinary nature of the field today. The essays have their origins in the 1999 International Ballad Conference of the Kommission fur Volksdichtung (KfV), which focused particularly on ballads and social context; performance and repertoire; genre, motif, and classification. The revised, tailored, and expanded essays are divided into five sections—the interpretation of narrative song; structure and motif; context, version, and transmission; regions, reprints, and repertoires; and the mediating collector\u27s offering a range of examples from fifteen different cultures, ten of them drawing on languages other than English, resulting in a series of personal journeys to the heart of one of Europe\u27s richest, most enduring cultural creations. —Thomas McKean, from the Introduction
CONTRIBUTORS: Mary Anne Alburger, David Atkinson, Julia C. Bishop, Valentina Bold, Katherine Campbell, Nicolae Constantinescu, Luisa Del Giudice, Sheila Douglas, David G. Engle, Frances J. Fischer, Simon Furey, Vic Gammon, Marjetka Golez-Kaucic, Pauline Greenhill, Cozette Griffin-Kremer, J. J. Dias Marques, William Bernard McCarthy, Isabelle Peere, Gerald Porter, James Porter, Roger de V. Renwick, Sigrid Rieuwerts, Michèle Simonsen, Larry Syndergaard, Stefaan Top, Larysa Vakhnina, Lynn Wollstadthttps://digitalcommons.usu.edu/usupress_pubs/1062/thumbnail.jp
MULTI-LAYERED COMMUNICATION AND FUNCTION IN SCOTTISH TRAVELLER CANT
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSI am grateful to Jess Smith, Eilidh Whiteford, and John D. Niles for their many helpful suggestions as I worked on this paper. Thanks, too, to Linda Williamson for her perspica-cious and prompt replies to my queries. Most of all, thank you to all my Traveller friends who have shared so openly of their lives and experience. You are Scotland’s royalty.Peer reviewedPublisher PD
Equating traditional singers’ terms with melodic adaptation
This paper addresses the difficult question of musical aesthetics, analysing how singers describe melodic qualities in a textually conservative ballad tradition. Drawing on fieldwork in the North East of Scotland, it begins to compile a basic vocabulary for melodic description from within the tradition
Economic role of water in Colorado: an input-output analysis, The
September 1988.Bibliography: pages 79-82.Grant no. 14-08-0001-1411-03, Project no. G1411-03; financed in part by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Geological Survey
Lactobacillus casei Abundance Is Associated with Profound Shifts in the Infant Gut Microbiome
Colonization of the infant gut by microorganisms over the first year of life is crucial for development of a balanced immune response. Early alterations in the gastrointestinal microbiota of neonates has been linked with subsequent development of asthma and atopy in older children. Here we describe high-resolution culture-independent analysis of stool samples from 6-month old infants fed daily supplements of Lactobacillus casei subsp. Rhamnosus (LGG) or placebo in a double-blind, randomized Trial of Infant Probiotic Supplementation (TIPS). Bacterial community composition was examined using a high-density microarray, the 16S rRNA PhyloChip, and the microbial assemblages of infants with either high or low LGG abundance were compared. Communities with high abundance of LGG exhibited promotion of phylogenetically clustered taxa including a number of other known probiotic species, and were significantly more even in their distribution of community members. Ecologically, these aspects are characteristic of communities that are more resistant to perturbation and outgrowth of pathogens. PhyloChip analysis also permitted identification of taxa negatively correlated with LGG abundance that have previously been associated with atopy, as well as those positively correlated that may prove useful alternative targets for investigation as alternative probiotic species. From these findings we hypothesize that a key mechanism for the protective effect of LGG supplementation on subsequent development of allergic disease is through promotion of a stable, even, and functionally redundant infant gastrointestinal community
Genotype-by-Environment Interactions and Adaptation to Local Temperature Affect Immunity and Fecundity in Drosophila melanogaster
Natural populations of most organisms harbor substantial genetic variation for resistance to infection. The continued existence of such variation is unexpected under simple evolutionary models that either posit direct and continuous natural selection on the immune system or an evolved life history “balance” between immunity and other fitness traits in a constant environment. However, both local adaptation to heterogeneous environments and genotype-by-environment interactions can maintain genetic variation in a species. In this study, we test Drosophila melanogaster genotypes sampled from tropical Africa, temperate northeastern North America, and semi-tropical southeastern North America for resistance to bacterial infection and fecundity at three different environmental temperatures. Environmental temperature had absolute effects on all traits, but there were also marked genotype-by-environment interactions that may limit the global efficiency of natural selection on both traits. African flies performed more poorly than North American flies in both immunity and fecundity at the lowest temperature, but not at the higher temperatures, suggesting that the African population is maladapted to low temperature. In contrast, there was no evidence for clinal variation driven by thermal adaptation within North America for either trait. Resistance to infection and reproductive success were generally uncorrelated across genotypes, so this study finds no evidence for a fitness tradeoff between immunity and fecundity under the conditions tested. Both local adaptation to geographically heterogeneous environments and genotype-by-environment interactions may explain the persistence of genetic variation for resistance to infection in natural populations
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