The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter December 31, 2003
eBooks Readable By Both Humans and Computers For Since 1971
Part 1
In this week's Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter:
1) Editorial
2) News and Comment
3) Notes and Queries, Reviews and Features
4) Mailing list information
Editorial
Hello,
May I just take this small space to wish you a happy and peaceful
2004.
Happy reading,
Alice
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2) News and Comment
To tell the truth, we are a bit short on news this week. However, I
can report that Distributed Proofreaders has successfully negotiated
it's way through a server move and the disruption it was suffering
seems to have gone away. There are a couple of threads in the forums
for Proofers to record their memories of 2003 which has turned into DP's
most successful year to date, and to note predictions and hopes for
2004. All contributions are welcome, and I suspect there may be just a
small party happening out there tonight.
Alice
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3) Notes and Queries, Reviews and Features
Following last weeks article about Folkden recordings, Gali takes a
look at what else is out there for interested souls.
The embroidered in silk and beadings sarafan or old wool rug in
arabesques do not have a signature of a self-centered genius, however
their impersonal pattern still touches and warms our souls and homes,
being sometimes ridiculously misused, though. As the embellished
bridle is hanging on the wall, or the wedding-vessel holds the
pencils. And same for the old folk songs - even taken out of their
context, they still sound good to our modern ear. They never come from
the mind, so there is no complicated constructions or ambitious
attempts, they are more like an embodied emotion. That is, one single
emotion expressed on the proper occasion. And as to fully appreciate
Bedouin clothing you should ride a camel under cruel desert sun, to
understand the real value of the wild rider song, you should probably
get a horse and at least few kilometers of the free ride. But we are
listening to the passionate cante jondo without desire to love and
kill; in the middle of crowded town, Slavic songs bring us the feeling
of 'black' unbearable anguish in the waste space of earth with no soul
on it, or Celtic melodies evoke a sense of fight and hidden fire
under the cloudy northern skies, when we come back home from our very
prosaic job. We are consuming pure emotions embedded in the old chip
of simple melody and naïve words. In some sense it is an emotional
dope. May be this is why people can not actually listen to folk music
for long time in a row - it becomes an overdose.
All the above is implied 10 times stronger to the performers not
saying about composers. The professional passion or artificial irony
kills this fragile construction as careless touch destroys Buddhists'
sand pictures. Annoying and boring are the attempts of imitation and
very rarely the rearrangement is as good as original. And even when we
come to later urban folk music, the most successful examples are
created by anonymous, honestly drinking in the smelly pubs and
courting witty serving girls, and expressing in their verses not
personified feeling of a human being in certain situation. No
ego-reflections or back thoughts permitted in the real folk. The
successful stylizations such as Turlough O'Carolan, are good because
they little in common with the real folk music, filling its simple
form with the complicated content, as in the expensive restaurant it
is perversely delightful to have complex dish in the rough rural
plate. The folk song is very reach theme for a research and many smart
and talented written long interesting lines about it ? Frederico
Garcia Lorca, Jorge Borhes, K.Balmont and many others. But these notes
are serving only one simple purpose ? to evoke an interest to the
theme in you, dear reader, so you will find what folk music is for
yourself and highly probably that you will completely disagree with
all what is written above. Which will mean that my goal was achieved
and one more little piece of the great puzzle has come to its place in
your world.
Some useful links:
http://www.elyrics.net/songs/c/Celtic_Folk/ - mp3 downloads
http://www.contemplator.com/folk.html - plenty of texts and midi files
for England, Ireland, Scotland and America folk music
http://www.empireclubfoundation.com/details.asp?SpeechID=2470&FT=yes -
speech about Folk Songs in French Canada by Barbeau, Marius in 1929
with somewhat interesting examples in two languages.
Unfortunately I could not find any site for free downloading of
Spanish, Georgian or Bulgarian folk music - that I personally like
very much. Maybe some of you will have more success.
Gali Sirkis
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Credits
This weeks newsletter done by autopilot, so thanks to everyone for
their contributions.
pgweekly_2003_12_31_part_1.txt
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