Something else just occurred to me on the subject of dropoffs/downward glides.
I don’t know how familiar some of you are with piobaireachd, the ancient “classical” music of the Highland pipes.
It’s seemingly always been the tradition for the teacher to sing the tunes to the student, either in strict canntaireachd (a old sol-fa system) or in canntaireachd-like nonsense syllables.
What’s strange is the dual tradition, the maintaining over (as far as we know) many generations of teachers of a way of singing the tunes which is at variance with how they’re actually played on the pipes.
The most striking variances are the expressive devices present in the singing which is not present in the playing. I’ve got a number of recordings of the same master player singing and playing the same tune, and in the singing of the tune is used vibrato and downward glides. Traditional piobaireachd playing on the Highland pipes uses no vibrato or glides whatsoever, the emphasis being on absolutely plain clear notes.
Anyhow it’s interesting that that downward gliding effect which strikes me as evidence of outside jazz/pop influence when done on Irish instruments is in fact an old, traditional style done in the singing of piobaireachd.
It’s certainly also done in traditional English ballad singing, chantey singing, and I believe in sean nos, to cite a few. So it’s not really fair to condemn it as a reverb-induced affectation.
Is it? I used to be heavily involved in the English ballad world. My best mate was Peter Kennedy (lord rest him). But I haven’t come across it … from memory … ever. “Chantey” singing? Is this shanty singing? Or is it some different thinig that happens in the States? I’m half Cornish, and learnt shanties on my mother’s knee (mainly forgotten) and she wouldn’t have sung like that. And all the Sean Nos singers I’ve come across hold the ends of notes with the same intensity of tone and with pitch rigid throughout the note (or at least, after some initial ‘negotiation’ at the start of most of the notes )
But, even if it was trad to be all droopy and sentimental - and I just can’t see it, having grown up in and been part of the trad scene of ‘these islands’ all my life - I’d still hate it. Talk to trad musicians who do it (I can think of a specific example, but I’d rather not quote him, 'cos he might not like it) and the ones who do it - the ones I like, at any rate - will say they do it 'cos it’s expected. I’ve never asked who might expect it, but have drawn my own conclusions … admittedly perhaps wrongly. Who knows?
I’m on less solid ground with sean nos. But remembering the Sean Nos Festival in Clifden a few years ago, it seems to me there was some variety of styles represented.
I’ll stand by the point that it may be an affectation, but not necessarily a reverb-inspired affectation …
The OED is a descriptive dictionary. They have little or nothing to say about what is ‘most common’, and in any case, that’s something that can vary widely both geographically and over time.
I don’t accept either of those accusations. The normal spelling in common useage in the places shanties come from is shanty/-ies. I hadn’t previously come across the other before and, when I Googled “chantey” before that post, the only entries that came up were from the States, mostly from San Francisco. I have looked up the other spellings now and Chambers gives “shanty” as the primary spelling. The Oxford English Dictionary doesn’t have entries for either “chanty” or “chantey”, although it does give these as alternative (ie not the usual) spellings of “shanty”, but only under the entry sor “shanty”.
“Uninformed”? I suppose that could be true, in that I was going by direct experience of people who sing these things in the UK and by the normal word as it is used in the English language. Apologies for that ignorance. “Bitchy”? Absolutely not - not by intent, at any rate. It was a question. It would probably be better not to make those sort of assumptions about perfectly reasonable posts.
I had SO check. Not in mine. Could be different editions. Mine is the full, 13 volume edition, published in 1979. So I suppose it could be out of date. Like me.
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Current most common usage. The OED folks will catch up eventually.