Canadian Journal for Traditional Music (1988)

Editorial Notes

Edith Fowke

This year as usual we have a good variety of articles covering literary and ethnomusicological studies that involve analysis of both texts and tunes.

Diane Tye introduces a new method of studying a traditional singer, Ben Henneberry of Devil's Island, Nova Scotia, many of whose songs appear in the books of Dr. Helen Creighton. She analyzes his repertoire to see what it reveals about his opinions and personality, and how it reflects the character of the community in which he lives.

Although there are no articles written in French this time, Jay Rahn presents a detailed study of a well-known French-Canadian song, "M'en revenant de lajoli' Rochelle," which dates back at least to the early sixteenth century. He cites examples through the centuries from both France and Canada, and shows how the folk-song characteristics survive the passage of time. We also have Gordon Smith reviewing an important French-Canadian book, the last one by Marius Barbeau to be published.

An unusual feature is the symposium entitled "What Is Folk Music?" in which four directors of the Folk Music Society discuss this much-debated subject with the aim of determining the direction in which the Society ought to move.

Ann Osborn-Seyffert describes an extensive project in which she is classifying and analyzing Canadian children's singing games according to the method developed by Kodaly in Hungary. She has brought together many of the games sung by Canadian children and has developed a computerized system of classifying them by their common characteristics.

Larry Reynolds presents some information about a lumbering song well known in northern Ontario that describes the death of "Young Conway" in Renfrew. He was able to obtain a Renfrew text that clarifies some of the inaccuracies in texts reported earlier.

To round off the issue, Jay Rahn gives a brief account of the recent conference on Ethnomusicology in Canada, and a list of the papers on Canadian subjects that were presented there.

We are very grateful to the Ontario Arts Council which gives us the grant that makes it possible to publish this journal.