 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(December 2011) |
A cumulative song is a song with a simple verse structure modified by progressive addition so that each verse is longer than the verse before. Cumulative songs are popular for group singing, in part because they require relatively little memorization of lyrics, and because remembering the previous verse to concatenate it to form the current verse can become a kind of game.
Typically, the lyrics take the form of a stanza of at least two lines. In each verse, the text of the first line introduces a new item, and the other line uses the words to begin a list which includes items from all the preceding verses. The item is typically a new phrase (simultaneously a group of words and a musical phrase) to a line in a previous stanza.
The two lines are often separated by refrains. Many cumulative songs also have a chorus.
One of the most well-known examples of a cumulative song is the Christmas song "The Twelve Days of Christmas", which uses a two-line stanza, where the second line is cumulative, as follows:
On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent (or "gave") to me
A partridge in a pear tree.
On the second day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree.
On the third day of Christmas, my true love sent to me
Three french hens, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree.
and so on until
On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me
Twelve drummers drumming, eleven pipers piping, ten lords a-leaping, nine ladies dancing, eight maids a-milking, seven swans a-swimming, six geese a-laying, five gold(en) rings, four calling birds, three french hens, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree.
The first gift (the partridge) is always sung to a "coda melody" phrase. For the first four verses, the additional gifts are all sung to a repeated standard melodic phrase. In the fifth verse, a different melody, with a change of tempo, is introduced for the five gold(en) rings; and from this point on the first five gifts are always sung to a set of varied melodic phrases (with the partridge retaining its original coda phrase). Thence forward, the wording of each new gift is sung to the original standard melodic phrase before returning to the five gold(en) rings.
In many songs, an item is introduced in the first line of each stanza and extends the list in another line. An example is The Barley Mow (Roud 944):
Here's good luck to the pint pot,
Good luck to the barley mow
Jolly good luck to the pint pot,
Good luck to the barley mow
Oh the pint pot, half a pint, gill pot, half a gill, quarter gill, nipperkin, and a round bowl
Here's good luck, good luck, good luck to the barley mow
The second verse substitutes a larger drink measure in the first line. In the second line the new measure heads the list and is sung to the same musical phrase as pint pot.
Here's good luck to the quart pot,
Good luck to the barley mow
Jolly good luck to the quart pot,
Good luck to the barley mow
Oh the quart pot, pint pot, half a pint, gill pot, half a gill, quarter gill, nipperkin, and a round bowl
Here's good luck, good luck, good luck to the barley mow
One version of the final line and refrain is:
Oh the company, the brewer, the drayer, the slavey, the daughter, the landlady, the landlord, the barrel, the half-barrel, the gallon, the half-gallon, the quart pot, pint pot, half a pint, gill pot, half a gill, quarter gill, nipperkin, and a round bowl
Here's good luck, good luck, good luck to the barley mow
Alan Lomax recorded Jack French singing The Barley Mow at the Blaxhall Ship, a famous singing pub in Suffolk, in 1953. This recording is available online at the Cultural Equity website. [1]
A chorus (often with its own refrain) may be added to the stanzas as in "The Rattlin' Bog" (Roud 129):
Hi ho, the rattlin' bog,
The bog down in the valley-o,
Hi ho, the rattlin' bog,
The bog down in the valley-o.
1. Now in the bog there was a tree,
A rare tree, a rattlin' tree,
The tree in the bog,
And the bog down in the valley-o.
(CHORUS)
2. And on that tree there was a branch,
A rare branch, a rattlin' branch,
The branch on the tree, and the tree in the bog,
And the bog down in the valley-o.
(CHORUS)
One version of the final line+refrain is:
The feather on the wing, and the wing on the bird, and the bird on the nest, and the nest on the twig, and the twig on the branch, and the branch on the tree, and the tree in the bog,
And the bog down in the valley-o.
Each phrase is sung to the same two-note melody.
Hamish Henderson recorded William Sinclair Mitchell, Agnes Mitchell and Agnes Mitchell singing The Rattling Bog in 1979. The recording is available on line on the Tobar an Dualchais – Kist o Riches website. [2]
Jim Carroll and Pat McKenzie recorded Pat McNamara singing The Bog Down in the Valley in Kilshanny, in 1975. The recording is available online on the Clare County Library website. [3]
Yiddish folk music contains many prominent examples of cumulative songs, including "?װאָס װעט זײַן אַז משיח װעט קומען" and "מה אספּרה," or "What Will Happen When the Messiah Comes?" and "Who Can Recall" (a Yiddish version of the Passover song "Echad Mi Yodea"). [4] [5]
The Passover seder contains two Hebrew cumulative songs: "Echad Mi Yodea" and "Chad Gadya".
A Christmas carol is a carol (a song or hymn) on the theme of Christmas, traditionally sung at Christmas itself or during the surrounding Christmas and holiday season. The term noel has sometimes been used, especially for carols of French origin. Christmas carols may be regarded as a subset of the broader category of Christmas music.
"Jack and Jill" is a traditional English nursery rhyme. The Roud Folk Song Index classifies the commonest tune and its variations as number 10266, although it has been set to several others. The original rhyme dates back to the 18th century and different numbers of verses were later added, each with variations in the wording. Throughout the 19th century new versions of the story were written featuring different incidents. A number of theories continue to be advanced to explain the rhyme's historical origin.
Green Grow the Rushes, O, is an English folk song. It is sometimes sung as a Christmas carol. It often takes the form of antiphon, where one voice calls and is answered by a chorus.
Wassail is a beverage made from hot mulled cider, ale, or wine and spices, drunk traditionally as an integral part of wassailing, an ancient English Yuletide drinking ritual and salutation either involved in door-to-door charity-giving or used to ensure a good harvest the following year.
"Away in a Manger" is a Christmas carol first published in the late nineteenth century and used widely throughout the English-speaking world. In Britain, it is one of the most popular carols; a 1996 Gallup Poll ranked it joint second. Although it was long claimed to be the work of German religious reformer Martin Luther, the carol is now thought to be wholly American in origin. The two most common musical settings are by William J. Kirkpatrick (1895) and James Ramsey Murray (1887).
"O Tannenbaum", known in English as "O Christmas Tree", is a German Christmas song. Based on a traditional folk song that was unrelated to the holiday, it became associated with the traditional Christmas tree.
The Barley Mow is a cumulative song celebrated in the traditions of folk music of England, Ireland, and Scotland. William Chappell transcribed the lyrics in his two-volume work The Ballad Literature and Popular Music of the Olden Time (1855).
The gill or teacup is a unit of measurement for volume equal to a quarter of a pint. It is no longer in common use, except in regard to the volume of alcoholic spirits measures.
"There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" is a cumulative children's nursery rhyme or nonsensical song. Other titles for the rhyme include "There Was an Old Lady", "I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly", "There Was an Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly" and "I Know an Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly". An early documentation of the story appears in English author Dorothy B. King's 1946 book Happy Recollections.
The Gower Wassail is a wassail song from Gower in Wales. Wassailing is a midwinter tradition wherein either orchards or households are blessed by guisers, which came to Wales through exposure to English custom. The song is printed in A.L. Lloyd's book Folk Song in England (1967), having been heard from Phil Tanner. Structurally, the song is in 6
8 time with bacchius trisyllables, a Balliol rhyme scheme, and the "ffal de radl" musical syllables characteristic of much of Welsh folk songs. Some of the lyrics closely resemble other popular wassailing songs, such as the 'Gloucestershire Wassail'.
"O come, O come, Emmanuel" is a Christian hymn for Advent, which is also often published in books of Christmas carols. The text was originally written in Latin. It is a metrical paraphrase of the O Antiphons, a series of plainchant antiphons attached to the Magnificat at Vespers over the final days before Christmas. The hymn has its origins over 1,200 years ago in monastic life in the 8th or 9th century. Seven days before Christmas Eve monasteries would sing the “O antiphons” in anticipation of Christmas Eve when the eighth antiphon, “O Virgo virginum” would be sung before and after Mary's canticle, the Magnificat. The Latin metrical form of the hymn was composed as early as the 12th century.
Passover songs are songs from the seder, the festive meal associated with the Jewish festival of Passover.
Chad GadyaorHad Gadya is a playful cumulative song in Aramaic and Hebrew. It is sung at the end of the Passover Seder, the Jewish ritual feast that marks the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover. The melody may have its roots in Medieval German folk music. It first appeared in a Haggadah printed in Prague in 1590, which makes it the most recent inclusion in the traditional Passover seder liturgy.
"The Twelve Days of Christmas" is an English Christmas carol. A classic example of a cumulative song, the lyrics detail a series of increasingly numerous gifts given to the speaker by their "true love" on each of the twelve days of Christmas. The carol, whose words were first published in England in the late eighteenth century, has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 68. A large number of different melodies have been associated with the song, of which the best known is derived from a 1909 arrangement of a traditional folk melody by English composer Frederic Austin.
"Echad Mi Yodea" is a traditional cumulative song sung on Passover and found in the haggadah. It enumerates common Jewish motifs and teachings. It is meant to be fun and humorous, while still imparting important lessons to the children present.
"Fathom the Bowl" is an English drinking song dating from the nineteenth century.
In a cumulative tale, sometimes also called a chain tale, action or dialogue repeats and builds up in some way as the tale progresses. With only the sparest of plots, these tales often depend upon repetition and rhythm for their effect, and can require a skilled storyteller to negotiate their tongue-twisting repetitions in performance. The climax is sometimes abrupt and sobering as in "The Gingerbread Man." The device often takes the form of a cumulative song or nursery rhyme. Many cumulative tales feature a series of animals or forces of nature each more powerful than the last.
The ataaba is a traditional Arabic musical form sung at weddings, festivals, and other occasions. Popular in the Middle East, it was originally a Bedouin genre, improvised by a solo poet-singer accompanying themselves on the rababa. As part of Arab tradition, ataabas are generally performed by a vocal soloist, without instrumental accompaniment, who improvises the melody using folk poetry for the verse.
"The Rattlin' Bog" is an Irish folk song. It is a version of an internationally distributed folk song type. In the Roud Folk Song Index it has the number 129, and carries such titles as "The Everlasting Circle", "The Tree on the Hill", "The Green Grass Grew All Around", and "Down in the Lowlands", as well as "The Rattlin' Bog", The adjective rattlin' means "splendid" in the context of this song. It is a cumulative song, similar to "The Twelve Days of Christmas", as it has a list at the end of each verse which grows throughout the piece. The Roud index lists 180 versions collected from oral tradition in English, and the song has analogues in French, Italian and German as well. Since it is a folk song, it has been transmitted over generations orally and aurally so many versions coexist and it may be impossible and even nonsensical to seek a single authoritative version of the song's lyrics. The earliest version appears to be "March to the Battlefield" in "Riley's Flute Melodies" published by Edward Riley. In 1877, water-colour painter and folk-song collector Miss Marianne Harriet Mason published a version called "Green Grass Grows all Around" in "Nursery Rhymes and Country Songs".
Repetitive songs contain a large proportion of repeated words or phrases. Simple repetitive songs are common in many cultures as widely spread as the Caribbean, Southern India and Finland. The best-known examples are probably children's songs. Other repetitive songs are found, for instance, in African-American culture from the days of slavery.
A catchy, cumulative song featuring a different food for each day of the week.