Canadian Journal for Traditional Music (1978)

Editorial Notes

Edith Fowke

This year we are glad to welcome Robert Bouthillier of the Centre d'Etudes de la Langue, les Arts, et les Traditions populaires, de I'Université Laval, as a contributor, and we hope that next year he and Neil Rosenberg of Memorial University of Newfoundland will become associate editors of this Journal. Their cooperation should make possible a better balance of French and English articles, and we hope it will also make it possible to get the Journal out in the summer instead of the end of the year.

The other two major articles are both from Alberta, an area that has been rather neglected in previous issues. Professor T. B. Rogers, who teaches in the Psychology Department of the University of Calgary, is treasurer and membership secretary of the CF MS and is also a performer active in folk music activities in Calgary. Professor Bohdan Medwidsky is in the Department of Slavic Languages at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. He presented a paper on the assassination ballad that is the subject of his article at the meeting of the Folklore Studies Association of Canada in London, Ontario, last June and kindly agreed to revise it for publication.

The last section of the magazine is devoted to a revised version of the "Reference List on Canadian Folk Music" which appeared in our first issue in 1973. It has been expanded from twelve to sixteen pages to make possible the addition of items that have appeared in the last five years without unduly cutting the earlier material. The list has also been published separately as a small pamphlet and copies are available from the treasurer, T. B. Rogers (see address on previous page) for $1.00 each. (Quantity discounts are available.)

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Last year's issue carried an article by Peter Narváez on "The Folk Parodist" to which I added a note that Professor Narváez felt was unjustified. It seems that I was interpreting parody in a different sense from his, and I regret the apparent criticism of an article which made an interesting contribution of folksong studies. Mr. Narváez has promised to expand his theories in a future issue.

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Karen Wilson, secretary of the Centre for Studies in Ethnomusicology at Columbia University, asks that we correct a statement in Jay Rahm's article on "Canadian Folk Music Holdings at Columbia University" in Volume 5.

In a footnote he said "To obtain copies from the Centre one should supply blank tape," implying that there was no restriction on copies. Ms. Wilson wants it made clear that "before requests for copies can be honored, the clearance of the depositor must be obtained by the person requesting the copies."

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Again we are grateful to the Ontario Arts Council: without their generous grant this magazine could not appear.