Canadian Journal for Traditional Music (1989)

An Introduction to English-Language Folksong Style::
Metre, Phrasing, Rythym, and Form in LaRena Clark's Traditional Songs

Jay Rahn

Among many excellent Canadian traditional singers, LaRena Clark stands out as one of the most important. ' Her repertoire consists of more than five hundred songs of which about two hundred have been recorded, both for Edith Fowke's extensive field collection, which spans three decades, and for commercial issues. Her repertoire comprises virtually every literary genre of traditional song from Child ballads and children's songs through broadsides, native American, ballads, and lumbering, local and sentimental songs, to minstrel show. music hall, early Tin Pan Alley, and country and western pieces.3

The songs LaRena has recorded have remarkably complete texts and many of these have been found among no other singers. Her tunes seldom seem fragmentary, distorted, or deteriorated, are uniformly delivered with confidence and clarity, and almost never vary substantially from the first stanza to the last. In her public appearances (e.g.. in folk festivals), LaRena has been a tireless advocate of traditional songs. Approximately 130 such songs, from old ballads to lumbering songs, fall within the mainstream of folklorists interests. Further, a number of' songs she has composed herself are cast within the stylistic norms of pre-twentieth-century tradition, although several deal with places and people of LaRena's own acquaintance. In short, among recent leading singers of English—language traditional songs. LaRena Clark can be ranked in the forefront, along with such long—acknowledged masters as Jean Ritchie of the U.S.A. and Britain's Jeannie Robertson. 4

Because of both the context in which LaRena learned her songs and the breadth of her repertoire. an examination of her melodies provides one with an overview and a cross—section of traditional style in the 1 920s and 1 930s. During this period, which comprises her childhood and adolescence in Ontario, LaRena learned most of her pieces from older relatives, some of whom had English, Irish, Scottish, French, American, or Maritime roots. In what follows, I bring to bear, on LaRena's repertoire, frameworks and findings of previous studies of English—language traditional song in order to establish LaRena's place in the tradition as a whole. In the course of this survey, which is based on 11 transcriptions of' LaRena's traditional songs, I introduce both some re-formulations of, and some modifications and additions to, previous accounts.

Since I consider LaRena's songs little masterpieces of traditional art. I also try, in the course of this survey, to follow the lead of Roger I). Abrahams and George Foss, who have written, I believe, the most comprehensive and insightful introduction to Anglo-American Folksong Style.5 Like Ahrahams and Foss. I interpret aspects of traditional song aesthetically and thus try to provide a basis for what one might call "folksong appreciation,'' that is, a sort of ''poetics of traditional song.

Had I chosen another singer (for example. O.J. Abbott. Tom Brandon, of Emerson Woodcock, other important tradition—hearers from ( Ontario ) -the picture of traditional song that would have emerged might have been different - Nevertheless, I feel that the stylistic variables which I treat here are sufficiently salient that one might take the present study as a point of departure for assessments of other songs and singers.

The studs' that follows focuses on musical aspects of English-language song and is, hence. necessarily couched in technical terms. Nevertheless, I attempt to define less common words and phrases as they arise. As Well, I try to set English-language folksong style in a broader context.

Accordingly, I make brief comparisons, for example, with styles of' popular. commercial music that emerged in English-speaking countries around the turn of the century, the period when LaRena and her older relatives learned sonic of' the songs she sings. However, it should he emphasized that, in doing so, I am not trying to posit firm historical or cultural connections among the various kinds of' music to which I refer (although I feel that some such connections could he established), but rather to set in relief certain broad similarities and differences in order to clarify particular aspects of LaRena's traditional songs and to account for the diversity of' the types of songs in her repertoire.

Metre

English—language traditional song is marked by a clear coordination of musical accentuation and stress (or intonation) patterns in the texts. From a prosodic point of view, scholars have noted the great frequency of' iambic, trochaic. dactylic, and anapaestic feet in English—language folksong. By and large, in LaRena's traditional songs. iambs predominate. followed by trochees, dactyls, and anapaests, in that order (see, however, below).6

From both a textual and a musical point of view, one finds that L aRena's s songs, like those of other traditional singers, tend to be "isochronous'': that is the accented syllables of' successive feet generally coincide with evenly spaced musical accents. Further, these accents tend overwhelmingly to be grouped in pairs, or ''dipods,'' where the first is more accented than the second. As Abrahams and Foss have shown, one can generally annotate these dipods by means of single measures of 2 4. 6/8, 3/4 or 9/8 (see Exx. I to 4. respectively). In the first two cases. successive textual accents tend to he evenly spaced. separated as they it re by a quarter-note and a dotted— quarter, respectively. In 3/4— and 9/8— tunes. I would argue, the accentuation tends to proceed in short—long pairs with the following rhythms between successive accents: quarter, half. quarter, hall'. and so forth in 3/4: and dotted—quarter, dotted—half', dotted—quarter, dotted—half. and so forth in 9/8.7

By and large, in LaRena's songs, as elsewhere in the tradition, entire melodies tend to be cast in one of these four metres. In instances where there is a deviation from one of these patterns. the relation is generally one between a simpler scheme, which is nevertheless clearly discernible. arid a more complex form. Of the four metres, the simpler, namely, 2/4 and 6/8, are most frequent in LaRena' s repertoire and seem to predominate in the tradition as a whole. Also. 2/4 and 6/8 seem largely inter-changeable, as do 3/4 and 9/8. I noted, in some instances where LaRena uses much the same tune for different texts, she sings some songs in 2/4 and others in 68 (see Ex. 5). As well, LaRena sometimes mixes 2/4 and 6/8 within a single tune. In some cases, these metres are combined within a single phrase, and in others they are used in different halves of the melody (see Ex. 6. m. 14. and Ex. 7. All of' these aspects of metre are fully traditional .8

Although various piosodic feet might be mixed in a song, the tendency is for one sort of foot to pi-edominate, and of the various possibilities, iambs and trochees are the most common — especially lambs. Iambs and trochees involve a single syllable between each pair of accents, and hence a simpler pattern with regard to number of syllables per accent than dactyls and anapaests. where two syllables appear between successive accents. Nevertheless, one also finds pail-s of accents without any intelvening syllable or with as many as three syllables between them (see Ex. 1. m. 14 and Ex. 4. mm. 3 and 5).9

Throughout LaRena's repertoire. and, it seems to me, within the tradition as a whole. where there is a variety of practices in the style, a medial value and/or a simpler value is found more frequently than a more complex or more extreme value. Nevertheless, as I show below, complications may arise. However, rather than dismissing these as exceptions. I try to indicate how they can be regarded as exceptions which "prove the rule," by virtue of being the simplest sorts of exceptions, and I attempt to demonstrate how the tradition can be understood as a style that has had a spectrum of possibilities, from the simple to the complex, which apart from large-scale historical shifts, might be exploited expressively at any given time. 10

Returning to matters of metre, one can note that individual measures tend to be grouped two or four at a time to form phrases of melody which correspond to lines of text. However, at the level of the phrase and line, the otherwise relentless, basically binary framework is frequently interrupted. Often a line of text consists of three textual accents rather than four (as in "ballad" or "common metre," which is marked by groups of 4 + 3 accents — see below). However, the "missing" foot (e.g., in the 3-segment of a 4 + 3 pattern) is compensated for musically by means of a pause in the form of a long-held final note and/or a rest or silence. In this way. the overall organization in pairs, or pairs of pairs, of musical measures tends to proceed without a break throughout a song. Finally, lines and phrases tend to be grouped by means of rhyme into pairs, pairs of pairs, and even pairs of pairs of pairs, yielding a thoroughly binary. "four-square" hierarchy. Indeed, the bulk of LaRena's traditional songs can be reasonably classified into those having "short" tunes (consisting of 8 measures) and "long" tunes (consisting of sixteen bars).11

Eight-measure tunes are strongly associated in LaRena's repertoire, as elsewhere, with the texts of Child ballads and children's songs, and sixteen-measure melodies with broadsides, native American ballads, and both lumbering and local songs. Within traditional song at the turn of the century, two large categories of complexity seem to have been available. These can be represented by simpler. eight-measure songs and more complex, sixteen-measure pieces. In this regard, the development of standard, thirty-two-measure forms around this time, largely in commercial music, would appear to have opened up yet another expressive possibility for certain English-language singers, and the historical continuity of the overall binary frameworks from "folk" to "popular" forms could account, in part, for the fact that traditional singers like LaRena have what might otherwise seem to be quite variegated repertoires from the ''purist's" point of view.12

It seems to me that, for a fulsome understanding of English-language song at the turn of the century, comparisons between traditional and commercial repertoires are in order. Apart from the large-scale shift from eight- and sixteen-measure formats to the thirty-two-measure scheme, there seems to have been, within English-language tradition as a whole, a large-scale incursion of what might be called "heterochronous" metre sometime during the last century. This development might well have been rather complex. For example, one of the "heterochronous" songs in LaRena's repertoire, "Go and Bring Me Back the Boy I Love" (Ex. 6), has its groups of five (i.e., not the more normal four or three) melotextual accents consistently spaced as follows: dotted-quarter, dotted-half, dotted-quarter, dotted-quarter, double-half-plus-dotted-quarter (the seemingly aberrant time-intervals between accents are underlined). However, its sixteen-measure format is thoroughly traditional, as is its harmonic scheme, and textually, it is closely related to traditional songs collected in the United States and Britain, though none of these, or any other traditional song of which I am aware, has precisely the same musical or lyric content as LaRena's version.13

With regard to the distinction between isochrony and heterochrony, it also seems to me that many of the rhythmically repetitive accompaniments which one finds in music of the folksong revival and in the country-and-western idiom (e.g. strumming and picking patterns on rhythm guitar, and bass and drum patterns in a rhythm section) can be understood as ways of filling in "isochronously" the relatively long feet (e.g., the dotted-half and dotted-half-plus-dotted-quarter values above) that often occur in the heterochronous vocal parts of these relatively modern genres. In all such cases, the effect produced is one of relentless flow within each phrase and line, but whereas this effect is often achieved fully only in the accompaniments of more recent styles, in pretwentieth-century traditional songs, which, in LaRena's branch of the tradition, have always been performed unaccompanied, the relentless flow is usually accomplished by the singer's voice alone.

Phrasing

The ongoing, often seemingly relentless, isochronous, binary patterns just discussed are quite frequently interrupted in LaRena's singing by details of her rhythmic delivery. Although such aspects of English-language singing style seem fully traditional, they have never been adequately codified, probably because to capture them requires very "close" musical analysis and transcription, which depends, in turn, on great patience in the process of writing down the melodies. Indeed, I would not guarantee that, in the transcriptions on which the present study is based, I have caught every instance of the sorts of features which I discuss presently. Nevertheless, the patterns I have found appear to be so uniform that one can attempt at least a rough typology of LaRena's ways of rhythmically "putting across" a song. 14

Quite often, in her singing, LaRena adds or subtracts beats, or parts of beats, relative to the overall metre of a song. It might seem presumptuous to insist that a given deviation from the predominant metre is either an addition or subtraction on LaRena's part, for she has never employed musical notation, and, indeed, does not read music. In general, however, one can clearly determine whether a given departure from the overall metrical structure of a song is an addition or subtraction and how many time-units are involved, because the standard of reference represents a simpler structure that is clearly projected in the melody. In other words, temporal additions and subtractions consistently constitute complications relative to a close variant, which, conversely, would have given rise to a simpler organization. In this way, a seemingly subjective assessment, which might otherwise be arbitrary or capricious, can be rendered rather "objective."5

In LaRena's performances of traditional songs, she frequently adds or subtracts a metrical unit at the end of a stanza or section. For example, at the end of "Come Tiddly Wink Some Day" (Ex. 10), LaRena adds precisely an eighth note before beginning the second verse, and thereby transforms the final measure into 7/8. At the ends of both the main sections (chorus and verse) for "Rattle on the Stovepipe" (Ex. 7), she relents for exactly one beat, and turns the 6/8 and 2/4 measures into 9/8 and 3/4 at these points.

Within the main body of a stanza, LaRena often creates a pattern of metrical deviations. For instance, she pauses at the end of the first half of each of the four phrases in "Come Tiddly Wink Some Day" for a complete dotted-quarter beat so that, in a detailed transcription, the time signature is changed from 6/8 to 9/8 for a single measure in every instance. In hei' singing of "The Mantle So Green" (Ex. 8), LaRena consistently adds a full eighth note at the words "whistel," "fair maid," and "robes and' which appear at the end of the first half of the second, third and fourth phrases of the four-phrase structure. As well, the pause in the fourth phrase serves to telegraph the title. As a whole, the last line reads as follows: "In her costly fine robes and [pause] her 'MANTLE SO GREEN'."

Such deviations can be regarded as "colours" of what might be called "folksong rhetoric," and seem important to an understanding of the tradition as a "sung tradition." Frequently ignored in the simplified transcriptions which have so often served to document English-language folksong, these rhetorical flourishes would appear to be important foi an understanding of how the songs have been "put across" to an audience. or even to the singer him/herself, and I conclude this portion of my account with a reference to a sort of procedure that seems most likely not to have been documented in published transcriptions, because generally only the first stanza of a melody has been written down. 16

Whereas LaRena sometimes finishes the last stanza of a song with an unmeasured ritardando, in some instances, her deceleration at the close of an entire performance is precisely metred. For example, she brings her version of "Rattle on the Stovepipe" (Ex. 7) to a conclusion by turning the dotted-quarter notes of the refrain's second last measure of' 6/8 into dotted halves thereby ensuring the effect of what would be known in popular- or commercial-music circles as a "big finish." In Irish tradition. one finds the final words of last stanzas often spoken rather than sung. and LaRena's "measured-ritardando" endings would seem to he an alternative means of achieving much the same traditional end. Also, one can note, in LaRena's measured and unmeasured ritardandos. a traditional means of delaying the tonal stability generally associated with the conclusion of a tune and simultaneously complicating the melody just before the end, albeit in the simplest way.17

Within individual stanzas of LaRena's songs, as other commentators have pointed out for other singers, alterations of metre generally do not interrupt the flow of the melody. In part, I would attribute the smooth-ness of these little internal disruptions to the general absence of strong. dynamic (i.e.. loudness) accents in her singing and the fact that the tiny deviations tend overwhelmingly to appear at the ends of binary units: that is an expansion or contraction is "hidden," as it were, between the last syllable of one unit and the first of the next, rather than disrupting the flow' within a unit (e.g. . in the middle of the first or second half-phrase of a pair). Additionally, although the precise proportions between the time-intervals between successive accents are upset by such additions and subtractions, LaRena's modifications preserve, between a given level of the metrical hierarchy and the next, higher level (e.g.. between a subdivision and its respective beat, or between a heat and its measure), the relation between an approximate-halt and its respective whole. Further, it seems that LaRena more frequently adds beats or parts of heats rather than subtracting them. In other words, the simpler exception, which involves fewer syllables per unit of (clock-)time, predominates over the more complex. 18

Syncopation

By and large. symcopation of any kind is rare in English—language traditions derived from Britain (as distinguished from, for example. Afro-American styles). This tendency in the tradition as whole and in LaRena's rendering of that tradition lends to the overall musical style of Anglo—American folksong a cast that could he characterized as relatively "stolid" or "square.'' Nevertheless, one finds in LaRena's repertoire instances where notes that begin on relatively weak parts of a measure are not followed by notes commencing on the immediately following. relatively stronger part of a measure. 19

The kind of syncopation that is by far the most frequent in LaRena's repertoire is t typical of English-language song of all kinds since at least as early as the seventeenth century. In this sort of syncopation, accented— unaccented syllable-pairs are rendered in a short—long, so—called 'Scotch snap figure beginning on a relatively strong part of the measure and ending on a weaker part. In LaRena's version of the verse—section of Barbara Allen'' ( Example 3), such short—long accented—unaccented figures appear on the words "city," "dwelling." and Allen.' '()

Much less frequent is a kind of syncopation where a syllable that is, according to the normal accentuation (or intonation) patterns of English, relatively accented enters "'early.'' i.e.' in a relatively unaccented part of a musical measure, instead of on the following, more strongly accented beat. This sort of "anticipatory syncopation'' has become extremely common in Afro—American influenced styles of twentieth—century popular music, but is extremely infrequent in LaRena s songs. One of the very few examples occurs in her rendering of "The Faggot Cutter'' ( Ex. 12, m. 6. and cf. in. 10).

The final kind of' syncopation in LaRena's songs involves an underlying triplet figure. which uniformly consists of three eighth notes in the transcript ions, and of which the middle portion is doubled in length, yielding an eighth-quarter-eighth rhythm. In this sort of' syncopation. the first note of the three-note figure is more accented, both textually and musically than the following two notes, and thus, this sort of syncopation is similar to what one finds in the Scotch—snap figure. However, this figure does not constitutive merely a temporary elaboration of an ongoing unsyncopated (or "commetric") rhythm, but rather is employed in such a way that it disrupts an underlying or surrounding compound metre (e.g., 6-8). Indeed, in LaRena's performance of "The Lass of Glenshee" (Ex. 9), the short-long-short figure not only dominates but is also varied by means of added values (in the second half of every measure except the third), and there is, in fact, not a single measure cast in the "underlying" metre of 6-8.21

In all instances of syncopation, the stolid, square tendency of the style as a whole is interrupted. In the case of the Scotch-snap figure, a relatively long durational value is associated with a note or syllable that is relatively unaccented. In the rare examples of what might be termed "anticipatory syncopation," the melody can be considered to "swing," i.e., along the lines of Afro-American styles — at least temporarily. And in the short-long-short pattern, a relatively long duration is associated with a relatively unaccented part of the measure, producing a kind of "pensive dwelling" on the middle syllable of the three.

Form

In LaRena's repertoire, as in English-language traditional song as a whole, eight- and sixteen-measure stanzas dominate overwhelmingly. Among LaRena's eight- and sixteen-measure songs, one finds a number of stereotyped forms. Of these, the so-called "come-all-ye" form, which is strongly associated with broadside ballads and' both lumbering and local songs having sixteen-measure melodies, but which is also found in an eight-measure form, is by far the most frequently encountered (see, for instance, Exx. 5 and 8, respectively).22

The basic shape of melodic repetitions in the come-all-ye form can be represented by the formula ABBA, where the first and last phrases (A) are similar to each other and contrast with the middle phrases (B), which, in turn, resemble each other. Although there might be slight deviations from this basic scheme (e.g., the first and last phrases might differ in either their first or second half, yielding ABBA'), it is generally not at all difficult to recognize this pattern when it arises. Additionally, one finds that the first and last (A) phrases in the traditional come-all-ye form tend to end on the same pitch, and the middle (B) phrases end on one or two contrasting degrees (most frequently, it would seem, a fifth above the final pitch of the melody, that is, degree 5). The hallmark of the come-all-ye form would appear to be the conclusion on the finalis of the mode (or the tonic of the key) at the end of the first and last phrases. By finishing on such an important note at the end of the first phrase, the tune establishes its tonality or modality very clearly at the outset, thereby lending solidity to the overall structure.23

Other frequent patterns in LaRena's repertoire are ABAB' and AABA. Songs having an overall ABAB' form generally conclude their first three phrases, and especially the second, on degrees other than 1; that is, they have initial phrase-finals which are open and inconclusive. In this way, the song is held in tonal suspense in the middle, and more particularly, at the mid-point, of the stanza (see Exx. 2 and 1 for eight and sixteen-measure examples, respectively).

The AABA tunes generally have a non-final ending on the third phrase (B), whereas the first two phrases might conclude on any degree(s), especially degree 1. This overall pattern, where the B-phrase (or "bridge") constitutes the principal passage of tonal instability in the tune, is often found, in a sixteen-measure form among Stephen Foster songs, and in an expanded, thirty-two-measure form, in turn-of-the-century popular song (i.e., of the early Tin Pan Alley variety). Indeed, in the traditional portion of LaRena's repertoire, one finds a number of sixteen-measure examples (e.g., Ex. 10), and a single thirty-two-measure melody that seems to have derived from a popular song.24

Common to all three types of form is relative tonal instability in the middle of the tune. In the come-all-ye type, this instability is located particularly in the second and third phrases; in the ABAB' type, especially at the mid-point, i.e., the end of the second phrase, and in the AABA type, pre-eminently in third, "bridging" phrase. As with the ABBA, come-all-ye form, there might be slight divergences from the basic ABAB' and AABA patterns (e.g., taking the forms ABAC or AA'BA, respectively). Nevertheless, the three schemes are, in general, quite clearly recognizable as such and distinguishable from each other.

Other recurrent patterns (e.g., AAAB) are considerably less frequent in LaRena's repertoire and seem also to be rather rare in English-language traditional song as a whole. In two of LaRena's songs, one finds an AAAB form. In one instance, the comic song "Devilish Mary," the overall form is somewhat exceptional in other respects. In the other case, LaRena's children's song "King Henry Has Set Me Free," the AAAB form is really more typical of the children's repertoire than the adults'.25

Other four-phrase forms among LaRena's songs do not seem to represent particular tune-types (although they might be members of particular "tune families"). For example, traditionally, the so-called Child ballads have been cast in a great variety of shapes, and although one can discern fairly frequently the progressive form, ABCD, among these structures (cf.. for example, LaRena's version of "Barbara Allen," Ex. 3), this rather common scheme does not seem to represent, or to have coalesced into, a "type," involving, for instance, particular patterns of phrase finals, as do the ABBA, ABAB' and AABA forms described above. Nevertheless, it would seem that eight-measure Child ballads with an ABCD form, sixteen-measure broadsides with an ABBA form, and thirty-two-measure Tin Pan Alley songs with an AABA form represent three clear patterns, or, more strongly stated, three distinct stages, in the development of English-language song.26

As one proceeds from one type to another in this progression, the overall lengths of the stanzas increase but the amount of repetition decreases. In a sense, it would seem that an increase in one dimension of complexity has been compensated by a decrease in another. The Child ballads strike one as relatively densely packed or concentrated statements, whereas early Tin Pan Alley tunes of the thirty-two measure sort seem somewhat more diffuse. Also, one can recognize intermediate or mixed types (e.g., ABBA, come-all-ye tunes of eight measures, and AABA melodies of sixteen). And whatever might be the status of the historical progression just suggested, the various types have clearly coexisted within the repertoires of individual singers like LaRena. Moreover, a spectrum that comprises at least three broad configurations of complexity can be rather unambiguously defined, and in LaRena's traditional repertoire, it would seem that the centre of gravity consists of sixteenmeasure broadsides and lumbering and local songs in the ABBA, come-all-ye form with four-measure phrases rhyming aabb.

Additionally, although the Child ballads are almost without exception isochronous, early Tin Pan Alley songs represent the opposite. heterochronous extreme, and songs which appear to have been composed in the last half of the nineteenth century seem to constitute a middleground. In this way, as well, the progression, or at least the categorization, just outlined can be considered to entail a contrast between relatively concentrated forms (as represented by the Child ballads with their densely packed, pulsating accents) and relatively diffuse forms (as represented by early Tin Pan Alley songs with their continually interrupted streams of accents and their relative tendency to proceed in fits and starts).

Elaborations on the Four-Phrase Format

There are three main ways in which the predominant, four-phrase formats have been elaborated in English-language tradition. First, it happens from time to time that the last line of a four-line stanza's text is immediately repeated so that a five-line (and hence. five-phrase) stanza results. Generally, the music for the fifth phrase differs, at least a little. from that for the fourth phrase, though the words are either precisely the same or much the same. Further, the second last phrase tends to he musically more "open," that is, less conclusive, than the last. This sort of pattern, which is fairly common in English-language traditional song. is found, for example, in LaRena's rendering of' one of the standard melodies for "The Golden Vanity" (Ex. 11), In such five-phrase stanzas, the arrival, in the most accented position within the metrical framework, of the most conclusive phrase-final of the song, namely, the last, is delayed for a phrase, thus heightening the "drive" to the final cadence. Nevertheless, the addition of a single repetitive line constitutes the simplest sort of exception to the fourfold rule.27

A second standard way in which the basic four-and eight-phrase structures have been elaborated in tradition involves using the same, least much the same, four-phrase melody for the verses as for the refrain (or chorus), thus producing an eight-phrase, "double" stanza. Not only does LaRena use such double-stanzas, she also employs triple-stanzas, where two successive verses are joined to a refrain, and in one instance. LaRena even utilizes a quintuple-stanza form. However, consistent with the tendency for simpler phenomena to predominate, the simpler, double-stanza formats are more frequent than the more elaborate schemes.28

The third way in which the dominant four-phrase patterns are elaborated also involves refrains. However, in this instance, the refrains consist of, two or three, rather than four phrases (see for instance. ''The Faggot Cutter,'' Ex. 12). In this manner. the overall organization in powers of two (which could be termed "binary exponential") is broken temporarily. However, on closer inspection, one finds that the two-phrase additions really constitute an extension of the four-phrase melody, of which they balance the second halt', and the three-phrase additions are similar, except that the third added phrase balances the second added phrase. In sum, though tour-phrase structures constitute the largest group of songs, both in the tradition as a whole, and in LaRena's repertoire, there are fully traditional ways of elaborating on these schemes and these traditional procedures are found from time to time among LaRena's pieces.29

North York, Ontario
York University

Notes

1 . Edith Fowke. TraJitional Singers and Songs from Ontario ( Hatboro, Pa: Folklore Associates, 1965 ) provides hrief biographies and lists of pieces for tcn important singers. including LaRena, Fowke's Lumbering Songs from the Northern Woods ( Austin: L nk of Texas Press, . j 970) documents thirteen significant singers, including. again. LaRena. Other CLnadian collections feature prominent performers. .F or example, Helen Creighton at t he outset, p. 1. . of Folksongs from Southern New Brunswick ( Ottawa: National NI useums of Canada. I 97 I that "this volume might have been cal led The Dornan Rook of Songs . ' referring to Angelo Dornan who is discussed both thereupon . pp. 1 -3 . and in Creighton's Maritime Folk(Toronto: Ryerson 1 962). p. 47.

2 . A large portion of Fowke's collection of LaRena's songs is housed in the Listening Room of Scott Library, 'York ti University on tapes FO 25—33 . originally recorded 1 9f I -70. In additiOfl to . Canadian Garland: Folksongs from the Province of Ontario Topic 1 2T 1 40 her singing has been commercially available on a series of seIf-pubIished discs. now. unfortunately (nit of print. The list of her songs in Fowke. Traditional Songs, pp. lOt)— 1 . can now he substantially augmented because of further recordings she has made and further pieces she has recal ted in the meantime.

3. Songs of LaRena have been published in Fowke's Traditional Singers and Lumbering Songs and in her More Folk Son gs of Canada (Waterloo. Ont : Waterloo Music. 1967) and The Penguin Book of Candian Folk Songs (Markham. Ont : Penguin. 1986). The preliminary listing in Fowke. Traditional Songs provides a good indication of the breadth of LaRenas repertoire.

4. In 1987. LaRena was awarded the Marius Barheau medal by the Folklore Studies Association of Canada (Cf. the announcement and biography in Canadian Folk Music Journal 15(1987): 54-55.

5. Englewood Cliffs. N.J.. Prentice-Hall. (c) 1965.

6. Cf, Bertrand H. Bronson . Ballad," The Neit Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London: Macmillan, 1980). 2. p. 72. and Bruno Netti . An Introduction to folk Music in the United States (Detroit. Wayne State Univ. Press. 1962). p. 40.

7. Cf. Abrahamsand Foss. p. 135.

8. Cf. Cecil .1. Sharp. English Folk Song: Some Conclus ions (London: Methuen. 3rd ed. 1954). p. 81. Note that Richard Johnston notates the opening rhythm of "Rattle on the Stovepipe" as pairs of dotted eighths and sixteenths whereas I hear the quarter-eighth rhythm of Ex. 7.

9. In this way. one might resolve the difference of opinion between Bronson. p. 72. and Abrahams and Foss. p. 133.

1O. Cf. Jay Rahn. . Theory All Music (Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press. 1983). p. 1 85. on exceptions that prove the rule in stylistic analysis.

11. Cf. Bronson. p. 72. on common metre. The terms "common" metre. with the following stress accents: 4 + 3. "long'' metre: 4 + 4. and "short" metre: 3 ± 3 are borrowed from Protestant hymnology where they connote iambic schemes having 8 ± 6. 8 ± 8 and 6 + 6 syllables, respectively.

12. On the 32-measure form in Tin Pan Alley songs, see Charles I-Iamm. Yesterdays: Popular Song in America (New York: Norton, 1979). for example, p. 309. where the 64 measures of3/4 could well be notated as 32 dipodic. e.g., 6/4 or 6/8. measures.

13. Related texts appear in Sam Henry, "Songs of the People." Northern Constitution(Coleraine, Northern Ireland, 1924-38), no. 692, William A. Owens. Texas Folk Songs (Dallas: Texas Folklore Society. 1950). p. 151. Vance Randolph. Ozark Folksongs(Columbia: State Historical Society of Missouri. 1946-50). vol. 4. p. 260. and Henry M. Belden and Arthur P. Hudson. The Frank C. Bron'n Collection of North Carolina Folklore(Durham: Duke Univ. Press. 1952) vol. 3. no. 257. 1 am grateful to Edith Fowke for these references.

14. Previous discussions include Sharp. p. 79: Bruno Nettl, Folk and Traditional Music oft/ic Western Continents (Englewood Cliffs. N.J.: Prentice-HaIl, 1965). p. 61: and George W. Boswell . "Metrical Alteration in Folksinging, ' ' Journal of American Folklore, 85 (1977):

248-59.

15. By contrast, determining whether metrical units have been added or subtracted in French traditional song is much more perilous because of the great frequency of heterometre in the style (concerning which, see Jay Rahn. "Text Underlay in Gagnon's Collection of French—Canadian Songs,'' Canadian 1—olk Music Journal, 4 (1976): 3—14.

16. On the importance of viewing traditional song as a sung tradition, see Bertrand H. Broiison. The Singing Tradition of Child s Popular Ballads (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press. 1976). pp. xxvii-xlvi.

17. Cf. Hamm's account of 189's Tin Pan Alley style in Yesterdays, pp. 284-325. where several sorts of "big finish." each of which involves a complication of some kind. are illustrated.

18. Cf. Maud Karpeles' comment in An Introduction to English Folk Song (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1973). p. 26 that such metrical complexities are "more apparent to the eye than to the ear.''

19. See Rahn. . Theory. pp. 131-38 for a definition of syncopation.

20. On the early history of the Scotch snap, see David Johnson. "Scotch Snap," The New Grove, vol. 17, pp. 67-68.

21. The eighth-quarter-eighth figure can be considered more complex than the eighth-eighth-eighth figure insofar as the relations of approximate-halves to the whole (cf. Jay Rahn. Evaluating Metrical Interpretations,'' Perspectives of New Music, 16.2 (1978): 35—49 and between time-intervals of equal size are foregone in the former.

22, Cf. Karpeles. p. 25.

23. Cf. Maude Karpeles. ed., Cecil Sharp's Collection qf Folk Songs (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1974).

24. On the frequency of ABBA. ABAB' (or ABAC), and AABA forms in tradition, see Karpeles. p. 24. and Sharp. pp. 73-75, and note 26, below. The only 32-measure AABA song in the traditional portion of LaRena's repertoire that I know is "The Ploughhoy," which, like "Come Tiddly Wink Some Day," seems to have been a popular song that went "into tradition" and was altered in the process.

25. For LaRena's version of the rare children's song "King Henry Has Set Me Free," see Edith Fowke, Ring Around the Moon (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart. 1977). p. 31, and for a discussion of the form in which it is cast, see Jay Rahn, "Stereotyped Forms in English-Canadian Children's Songs: Historical and Pedagogical Aspects." Canadian Folk Music Journal, 9 (1981): 43—53.

26. The characterization of ABCD as the most frequent form in English-language folksong by Karpeles. An Introduction, p. 24, and Bronson, "Ballad," p. 73, would seem to refer to Child ballads rather than the repertoire as a whole.

27. Cf. Abrahams and Foss, p. 63.

28. Cf. Abrahams and Foss, p. 67. LaRena employs the quintuple-stanza form in "The Raftsmen's Song," for which see Fowke, Lumbering Songs, no. 64, p. 212.

29. Forother instances of such "controlled extension," see Rahn, A Theory, pp. 101, 110 and 146-47. Note, as well, that the patterns of syllable-rhythms outlined, for example, in Nettl, Folk and Traditional Music, pp. 60—61 , and in Sharp, English Folk Song, p. 87, are frequent in LaRena's repertoire and can be viewed as a direct product of the principles developed above.

Resumé: Jay Rahn analyse le style traditionnel des folkloriques dans le repertoire de La Rena Clark, une chanteuse populaire ontarienne. Il démonire que l'exainen des mélodies de celle-ci reflete le style traditionne des années vingt et trente, quand LaRena a appris ses chanson. A l'aide d'exemples, il discute les traitsrythme, forme et métrique qui