A folk song a day keeps the doctor away?

Jon Boden, who was named as the BBC's folk singer of the year has committed to a new project in which he has undertaken the task of recording a new folk song every day over the next year.

The project began last month on June 24th when Jon decided to go down to his friend's house and record an unaccompanied rendition of the well known tune "The Larks They Sang Melodious." Referred to as the Folk Song a Day Concept the project is designed to promote the lost art of social or communal singing (nowadays confined to the church and football terrace) by using the internet as a means of reintroducing a tradition that once thrived in our public establishments and at social gatherings.

The idea has been accused by some, according to the guardian as just a tool for self publication or a mad capped idea that is of little merit, but in my opinion anything that encourages people to experience traditional folk songs in a new and original way can only be a good thing.

Jon intends to release the songs as twelve albums over the next year, recording a total of 365 songs. His blog provides information on each of the songs, a great way of understanding the context of the music as well as the ability to listen to them. Great stuff!

Jon is an established solo artist with two albums under his belt, has had two appearances on Jools Holland as well as being the front man for eleven piece folk band Bellowhead.

Visit the folk song a day blog

Official website for Jon Boden

Never Miss a Tune at a Session!

Ok, so you're sitting in the cobblestone on a Sunday afternoon as the endless stream of traditional musicians play away in the corner when suddenly you hear that tune! it's eh... what do you call it?

That's when tunepal comes in. A program that recognises over 13,000 different traditional tunes. All you have to do is let it listen to what's being played and it will tell you what it is. It works with multiple instruments, though the website states that it will work best with "instruments such as the tin-whistle, flute, concertina, accordian, pipes, fiddle."

The program is the brainchild of Dr. Bryan Duggan (Phd), who originally came up with the idea twenty years ago while scanning traditional music notes into a computer archive. Eventually the computer technology caught up and now tunepal is available on android and apple phones. Indeed according to the tunepal blog, it's in the top 25 highest grossing apps on iTunes.

Here's a more detailed article from the Irish Times.

You can buy a book about how Dr. Duggan managed to do it Here

.


Search Amazon.com for traditional irish music