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New MP3 sound clip set-up in MT

Back in June 2011, I alerted you to the fact that I was intending to make all new Sound Clips in the magazine MP3 files, and that I was using the Google Inline Player for this purpose.  That was all fine, and I had no messages from readers who couldn't make the system work.  There was a problem that I needed to put any new pages online before I could check that the sounds were actually working - but I felt I could live with that.  However, a new problem has now arisen at this end.

Having recently published the annual CD-ROM version of the magazine, I have realised that these new sound clips will not play in that medium, since the Google Player needs to be called online in order to function - and a CD-ROM is, obviously, not online!  This realisation came during the preparation of the new House Dance / Anglo concertina CD-ROM, and a solution needed to be found for that.

In the end, a ludicrously simple answer occurred to me - use links!  HTML allows a word in the text to induce a 'jump' to somewhere else, usually to another piece of text, but it can also jump to a sound file - which is then played by your currently installed Media Player.  The beauty of this method means that the name of the tune in the text of the article (or whatever you're reading at the time) can be shown in a certain way - I've chosen bold italic red underscored - and you just click it to play the sound clip.  There's no need for an icon at the side, or a big Google Player graphic in the text.  Here's an example: of Dooley Chapman playing an Untitled Polka, accompanied by his daughter on piano, from the new House Dance CD-ROM.  A problem with this is that your currently installed Media Player may obscure much of the page you were reading at the time!

If you use the Windows Media Player, you can set it to run in 'Skin Mode' (View menu, select Skin Mode) - or 'Compact Mode', either of which overcome this problem.  In 'Skin Mode', drag the bottom margin up until the Video pane almost disappears.  I think this is the better of the two methods.  But to use 'Compact Mode' temporarily, click the button in the bottom/right corner of the Player (the text 'Switch to compact mode' will pop-up).  To do it a little more permanently, click on the Windows Media Player's 'Tools' menu and select 'Options'.  In the 'Player settings' section, select the 'Start the mini Player for file names that contain this text' option, and type .mp3 in the box below it, and click OK.  If you use a different Media Player, you may be able to set it to run in a similar compact mode.

If, as I have suggested, you use the 'Real Alternative' Classic Media Player for the older RealAudio sound clips in the magazine, you can also set it to play the MP3 files - and it can run in a compact mode.  Here's how:

Start the Player, click the View menu and select Options from the drop-down.  Look in Formats and put a tick against MP3 Format Sound, click Apply and OK.  Again in the View menu, go down to Presets and select Normal 3.  Also, make sure that "Full Screen" is not selected.  When it's running, drag the bottom margin up until the video pane disappears.  If you wish, you can also set it to be 'Always on top', 'On top when playing' or 'Never on top'.

Please check this out and see if it works for you.  I'm intending to use it in a big new Article, to be online shortly, and I will replace the Google Player implementations elsewhere in MT if there are no objections.  Please let me know.

Rod Stradling - 26.1.12

Glasgow Ballad Workshop

As part of the Ballad Workshop up here, we have to contend with the philistines of Celtic Connections every year.  During the Celtic Connections period, the Ballad Workshop will still be active, with a formidable programme: It is necessary to book for these events.  To make a booking, please e-mail Anne Neilson: neilson.anne@btinternet.com   or call her on 01355-239592.

All events begin at 1pm, in Laurie's Acoustic Music Bar, 34 King Street, Glasgow, G1 5QT

www.lauriesacousticmusicbar.co.uk/ballad_workshop.htm

5.1.12

Cellar Upstairs Club dates

Exmouth Arms, Starcross Street, London NW1 2HR (on the corner of Cobourg Street, near Euston and Euston Square stations; parking is easy), on Saturdays at 8.15pm
Resident Performers: Jim Younger, Gail Williams, Peta Webb, Ken Hall, Bob Wakeling, Frankie Cleeve Information: 020 7281 7700; www.cellarupstairs.org.uk (Pub: 020 7387 5440)

23.12.11

ITMA on YouTube

In a new departure for the Irish Traditional Music Archive, their digitised materials now include video and they have launched a YouTube channel (ITMAVideos).  The initial video content is taken from their first foray into studio recording back in 1993.  There are some 27 video clips currently online.

1.12.11

Royal Oak Club dates:

Royal Oak, Station Street, Lewes, East Sussex - Thursdays. Further info at: http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~tinvic and www.myspace.com/royaloakfolklewes

4.11.11

The Mary Sands Project

Back in 2002 I wrote an article for Musical Traditions about the Appalachian singer Mary Sands, who was from North Carolina and who gave some twenty songs to Cecil Sharp in 1916.  I was helped at the time by one of Mary's grandsons, Kriss Sands.  One person who read the article was the Appalachian singer and story-teller Joe Penland, who is also from North Carolina, and Joe is now working on The Mary Sands Project.  Part 1 of the Project involves Joe recording a dozen of Mary's songs on CD.  Joe is somebody who has really thrown himself into the preservation of Appalachian folk song and lore, and is a very good singer.  If you would like to support him, or learn more about the Mary Sands Project then please have a look at the web-site: www.indiegogo.com/The-Mary-Sands-Project

Many thanks

Mike Yates - 3.11.11

ITMA's Recent Publications and Acquisitions

Here is the latest listing from the Irish Traditional Music Archive of Recent Publications and Acquisitions

The listing contains recently published sound recordings, books, theses and articles, serials, and DVDs.  All of the items listed are immediately available for reference, free of charge, to users of the Archive in its premises at 73 Merrion Square, Dublin 2.

In addition, notice is given of other acquisitions that have been added to the Archive’s collections and will be available when processed.

1.11.11

Wiltshire Field Recordings

In 1978 I spent some time travelling around Berkshire and Wiltshire in the company of fellow folklorist Roly Brown.  We were looking for folksingers and, in the village of Urchfont in Wiltshire, we came across William Harding.  William gave us a local version of the carol While Shepherd's Watched, the tune to a much rarer carol, Come Christians Now Behold the Lamb, a humorous dialect poem and a reminiscence of a village band.

I am happy to say that these recordings can now be heard on-line on the Wiltshire Pop Up Museum web-site, (http://wiltshirepopup.blogspot.com).  The recordings, in four parts, are in the Blog Archive for October, 2011.

Mike Yates - 25.10.11

Musical Traditions Club dates:

King & Queen, Foley Street, London W1 - Junction of Foley Street/Cleveland Street.  Nearest tube Goodge Street.  Monthly, Fridays, 8:00 p.m.

Membership £1 annually, payable on the door.  Admission for members £6, concessions £3.50, non-members £7, concessions £4.

For further information or to leave name & address for membership, ring 0208 340 0530 or contact petawebken@aol.com

25.10.11

British Library's Historic Ethnographic Recordings receives UNESCO accolade

UNESCO has officially recognised The British Library's Historic Ethnographic Recordings as a collection of global significance and outstanding universal value.  UNESCO's International Advisory Committee has agreed to include The Historic Ethnographic Recordings in their Memory of the World International Register - akin to the list of World Heritage Sites for documents and archives.

The Historic Ethnographic Recordings collection contains many rare field recordings of orally transmitted cultures made throughout the world by linguists and musicologists.  Some of these recordings represent the earliest extant sources for research into those cultures and have been captured in the most vivid format available at the time, the linguistic and cultural diversity of today's 'global village'.  Dr Janet Topp Fargion, Lead Curator World & Traditional Music at the British Library said: "Not only were these recordings among the first of such to be made, but also some may be the last, as many of the languages and musical practices that feature in the collection are now endangered or no longer exist."

Amongst Dr Topp Fargion's personal favourites from the Historic Ethnographic Recordings are:

15.10.11

VWML achieves MLA Designated status

The Vaughan Williams Memorial Library (VWML), England's folk music and dance archive, has been awarded Designated status by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA).

The MLA Designation Scheme identifies the pre-eminent collections of national and international importance held in England's non-national museums, libraries and archives, based on their quality and significance.  These inspiring collections represent a vital part of our national cultural heritage.

Designated status for the VWML brings it into an elite group which includes the Fitzwilliam Museum collections at the University of Cambridge, Special Collections at the Bodleian Library (Oxford), Courtauld Institute Gallery, Museum of Science and Industry (Manchester) and the Wordsworth Trust.

5.8.11

Ioan Jenkins and FolkTrax 406

I have a question about Ioan Jenkins, one-time leader of the Moonrakers Band in Wiltshire.  I play the fiddle that he played, and am trying to get some of his playing, to listen to, and learn from.  I understand that he, or at least the band, is on FolkTrax FTX406 The Vly be on the Turmut.  I know that FolkTrax no longer really exists and it would seem impossible to get a new copy of that CD or cassette.  Might you or anyone you know have a copy that I could buy second hand, or would make me a copy of Ioan's tracks?

John Dipper - 23.7.11
johndipper@mac.com

Frank Harte Festival 2011

The Teachers Club, 36 Parnell Square, Dublin

Contacts:

Fergus Russell: +353 876724714
Máire Ní Chroinín: +353 862940652
Jerry O'Reilly: +353 868161557

21.7.11

Stolen Melodeon

Stolen in Keighley, Yorkshire, from my parked camper van June 28th.  In battered black rucksack:

George Speller: george.speller@tiscali.co.uk - 16.7.11

The Full English

The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has given the green light to support the EFDSS' The Full English project.  Development funding of £30,000 has been awarded by HLF to help progress their plans, which will see EFDSS work with five other nationally important English folk music and dance archive collections to tell the story of traditional, rural and working class culture in 20th-century England.  This means that the project can now progress to the second stage of the HLF application process, with up to two years to submit more detailed plans and apply for the full grant of just over £615,400.

The project will carry out essential conservation work, digitise the collections and join them through a single web portal, allowing online public access to the collections for the first time.  An educational programme, which draws upon and is inspired by the collections, will be run in 21 different locations in England.

The Full English project will join up a complete set of the most important folk music collections in England - those of Harry Albino, Lucy Broadwood, Clive Carey, Percy Grainger, Maud Karpeles, Frank Kidson, Thomas Fairman Ordish, Cecil Sharp, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Alfred Williams - through a single web portal, allowing public access to 39,179 items via 70,862 individually digitised pages.  This will involve partnership between six archives at English Folk Dance and Song Society; The British Library; Clare College, Cambridge; The Folklore Society at University College London; the Mitchell Library, Glasgow; and the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre.

The collections will form the foundation for learning and participation programmes to be run across nine regions of England which it is estimated will involve over 20,000 people of all ages.  The project will comprise projects with children and young people, work with teachers and other arts educationalists; partnering with local arts organisations to deliver community projects comprising participatory events and concerts; archive and history projects and training of volunteers in archive and conservation work.

15.4.11

ITMA Website redesign

A major revision and redesign of our website has been carried out over the last few months by ITMA staff working in conjunction with the Dublin web-design company Birdie.

The new site has greatly enhanced access and search capabilities, and will be an important platform for an expansion of ITMA’s services in the coming years.  The site has now gone live and is available here.

11.4.11


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