Resources

These resources are produced by the East Anglian Traditional Music Trust and are available to buy, along with many other recordings, from our online shop.

Before the Night Was Out ...

'If I heard a good tune, I'd have it before the night was out!'

Through the twentieth century, music has been recorded from traditional musicians in Suffolk and Norfolk, and now many of the most important and unusual of these lively dance tunes are available in a printed collection.

Tune books from various regions in England have been published in recent years. To present something from East Anglia, a region renowned for its traditional music throughout the twentieth century, has proved something of a conundrum: how to portray in written form what is essentially an oral tradition? Before the Night Was Out aims to shed light on the way in which traditional music in Suffolk and Norfolk has thrived and mutated during the twentieth century, as well as providing a resource for practising musicians.

It is therefore a rather different kind of tune book…

• Polkas, hornpipes, jigs, schottisches and waltzes, including comparative versions, transcribed from recordings of more than twenty different melodeon players, fiddlers and dulcimer players

• 
  Biographies, photographs and contextual information about the East Anglian musical tradition, plus a comprehensive discography

• 
  Fascinating details about the musical, social and geographical journeys these tunes have made through time

• 
  Guidance on how to interpret and play this music

A sample of the contents is available here. You can now order it from our online shop.

An article by Mike Yates about the provenance of the tune Oh, Joe, the Boat is Going Over, is also now housed on our website - click here.

There will be a launch event on Sunday 6th January 2008 at the Riverside Centre, Stratford St Andrew, near Saxmundham. Email us for further details of the event.

Blyth Voices

A 48-page A5 book containing 15 songs collected by the composer and folk-song collector Ralph Vaughan Williams in the Southwold area of Suffolk in 1910. (Out-of-print as of November 2007, but plans to reprint in 2008.)

Photograph courtesy of the English Folk Dance and Song Society

The book also includes original research, archive photographs and biographies of the singers William Hurr, Robert Hurr, Ben Hurr, Martha Cable and Charles Newby who sang to Vaughan Williams. As well as the fifteen songs listed below, one instrumental item is included, a Hornpipe played on the concertina by Robert Hurr.

Fishing boats on Southwold beach, Robert Hurr on the extreme right. Photograph by Frederick Jenkins.

Song Index

Bold Princess Royal (Robert Hurr)

Cobbler, The (Ben Hurr)

Forty Miles (Charles Newby)

Georgey (Charles Newby)

In London Town I Was Bred and Born (Robert Hurr)

Isle of France, The (Ben Hurr)

Jones’s Ale (Ben Hurr)

Loss of the London, The (William Hurr)

Lovely Joan (William Hurr)

Maria Marten (Martha Cable)

On Monday Morning I Married a Wife (Robert Hurr)

Rich Old Farmer, The (Ben Hurr)

The Royal George (Robert Hurr)

Three Jolly Butchers (William Hurr)

When I Was Bound Apprentice (William Hurr)

The book is now available by mail order from our online shop. CURRENTLY OUT OF STOCK.

A book about Vaughan Williams' folk-song collecting in Essex, including the lyrics and music for 30 songs, has recently been published by the Essex Record Office. It is entitled 'That Precious Legacy' and is written by Sue Cubbin, the sound archivist at ERO. It is available by sending a cheque for £5.99 made out to Essex County Council to Sue Cubbin, Essex Record Office, Wharf Road, Chelmsford, CM2 6YT. You can also ring the Record Office on 01245 244640 and order by credit card. For any further information contact sue.cubbin@essexcc.gov.uk

North End Voices

As part of the North End Voices project in King's Lynn in 2007, we put together an exhibition of photographs and information, including some original research into the singers, carried out specifically for the project. We have put this together in a spiral-bound booklet called North End Voices. The booklet covers composer Ralph Vaughan Williams' visit to King's Lynn in 1905, the singers he collected from, and the singing tradition amongst the fishing community in the town through to the 1950s and 60s. It does not include song texts or scores, although it does contain a full list of songs collected by Vaughan Williams and where they are published.

Please note this item is not available through our online shop, but must be purchased by post at the moment. It costs £4.00 including P&P: please send to EATMT, The Old Stables, Museum of East Anglian Life, Stowmarket, Suffolk IP14 1DL.

Dulcimer resources

We are now able to offer traditional cane beaters for sale at £10 per pair (plus £1 p&p). We also plan to extend the range of accessories available to dulcimer players to includes strings, tuning keys etc. For the time being, please email us at info@eatmt.fsnet.co.uk or ring 01449 771090 for further details. Long-term plans include an East Anglian dulcimer webpage showing details of some of these wonderful instruments. During 2007, we ran  some demonstration events on restoring old dulcimers and making cane beaters.  For further details of such events, please email us at info@eatmt.fsnet.co.uk

Stepdance resources

We have been working with Barry Callaghan from Garland Films on a long-term project to film the regional stepdancing tradition and eventually publish a video/DVD showcasing local performers and styles. Tragically, Barry died in early 2007, and the project has been 'resting'. However, we have now found someone else interested in taking on the projkect with us, and we hope to move it on in 2008.

In 2006, the East Anglian Traditional Music Trust contributed towards an educational dance project run by DanceEast, which resulted in a resource pack for teachers of KS2. The project includes film and information about stepdancing, and is available from DanceEast. It costs £35, but includes guidance notes for a year's dance work, a DVD and a CD.

Other Sources

For recordings of traditional singers and musicians from all over the UK and Ireland, see the Veteran Mail Order website.

For song books including further songs collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams, see the English Folk Dance and Song Society. 'That Precious Legacy' - about Vaughan Williams' folk-song collecting in Essex is available from the Essex Record Office - see above.

Also look at the Musical Traditions website which has an entire book, 'Sing, Say or Pay' about traditional music in East Suffolk, as well as other articles.