Good Man Myers - Single
One of my stories is a Sci-fi Horror Western show, complete with a turf war between a maniacal oligarch and an American Tribe. Because of the time period, and for a university project, I wanted to write a traditional Folk song about this story.
Being somewhat unfamiliar with the genre, I performed extensive research, trying to find the main musical characteristics. The primary categories I identified were instrumentation, lyricism and compositional content.
As seen in Folk Music: The Basics by Ronald Cohen, the most common instruments used in American Folk were primarily guitar and banjo accompanied by ‘the accordion, dulcimer, fiddle, harmonica, mandolin, mouth bow, washboard, tin whistle, concertina, drums, flute, harp, uilleann pipes, and others’. (Cohen 2006) The banjo and drums were brought to America by transplanted African peoples which were then incorporated into the European musical sensibilities. (Lornell 2012, p6+8)
One such European tradition, and certainly one of the most popular, was the ballad form (Nettl, Myers, 1976, p64). As musicologists Nettl and Myers state, ‘by definition, a ballad is a narrative song’ (Nettl, Myers, 1976, p65). This narrative often begins ‘at the moment when the narrative has turned decisively toward its catastrophe or resolution’ (Friedman 1998) Despite this, the lyrics also have a strophic nature, consistent metre and a consistent rhyme scheme (Friedman 1998). One popular rhyme scheme was the ABCB quatrain (MasterClass 2021).
With this in mind, I wrote the lyrics based on my story, fitting it into those lyrical characteristics. I also used refrains (Nettl, Myers, 1976) and incremental repetition (Friedman 1998) which were similarly common techniques. The religious imagery I incorporated is also inspired by the ubiquitous christian beliefs of the time (Corrigan, J, Hudson, W 2018, Preface xi) which was often integrated into the music (Brothers Four 1977). I finally included call and response lines, often associated with African-American slave songs (Lornell 2012, p6) and Sea Shanties (Risko 2015, p13).
The musical theory behind these ballads tended to be purposely simplistic, often written to be performed by non-professionals (Cohen 2006). They were based on the modes, most commonly Ionian, Dorian and Mixolydian (Friedman 1998) with simple harmonic content (Nettl, Myers, 1976, p71).
With my research complete, I composed a melody which fit my lyrics, harmonised it with basic chord progressions and arranged it for folk instruments. I then took to the studio, recording my Jaw Harp, shakers, stomps and claps and, having asked my friend for help, I recorded banjo. Because this piece was meant to be both score and diegetic, I played the melody line on an acoustic guitar VST, trying to maintain authenticity within my instrumentation.
You can read the score and lyrics here:
References (In order of appearance):
Cohen, R (2006) Folk Music: The Basics. Routledge, New York. Available at: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9780203353400/folk-music-basics-ronald-cohen (Accessed 22 Nov 2024)
Nettl, B, Myers, H (1976) Folk Music in the United States: An Introduction, 3rd Wayne State University Press, Detroit, Michigan. (Accessed 22 Nov 2024)
Friedman, A (1998) Ballad. Britannica.com, Available at: https://www.britannica.com/art/ballad. (Accessed 22 Nov 2024)
MasterClass (2021) Music 101: What Is a Ballad? Learn to Write a Ballad With Examples. masterclass.com Available at: https://www.masterclass.com/articles/music-101-what-is-a-ballad-learn-to-write-a-ballad-with-examples#2dalGlG441HKPea8ehf1t1. (Accessed 22 Nov 2024)
Corrigan, J, Hudson, W (2018) Religion in America, 9th Routledge, New York. (Accessed 22 Nov 2024)
Brothers Four (1977) Michael Row The Boat Ashore Youtube.com Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bv5jlHFgeio (Accessed 22 Nov 2024)
Risko, S. M. (2015). 19th Century Sea Shanties: From the Capstan to the Classroom Cleveland State University (Accessed 22 Nov 2024)