Most Recorded NZ folk songs

Now Is The Hour    millions of disks Blue Smoke        many overseas artists Farewell to the Gold    on 25+ albums Bright Fine Gold 13 abums Gin & Raspberry 9 albums Davy Lowston 8+ The Old McKenzie Trail 8 Talking Dog 7+ Old Billy Kirk 7 She'll Be Right 7 Tauramunui 6 Down the Hall on a Saturday Night 6 Pania of the Reef 6

In real life, (unlike folk-music collections), a song does not exist on its own, with a wee note telling you where other versions can be found. Rather, it exists in performance, like a currant in a cake, sung in response to other songs, stories and banter. Seàn Corcoran

A Study of Our Culture

This collection of NZ folk songs was started in 1998 to assist in two projects:

-First, a ballad-writing instruction course.

-Second, the continuation of a study to see how our Pakeha (white NZ) culture is reflected in the way we write, select and modify the songs we sing.

The words of the songs in the initail NZF database were collected from the singing of those in my community when I was young (1943-1958) and later from singing I've heard at folk clubs and festivals (1979-1995).

The songs chosen here were those which;

-have been requested, sung, and/or recorded by many people,

-generally reflect New Zealand events, customs and attitudes,

-and could be sung by an amateur with minimal accompaniment.

( A large number of the Pakeha songs appeared to be about lonely, socially inept males. Does this reflect the spirit of the songwriters, the singers, or both?)

In 2000, in response to many requests, mostly from Kiwis living overseas, I started adding more old Maori songs, and the odd new one. These have proved to be very popular, and so this website has changed its focus in recent years.

Copyright

You may use these songs for study purposes but you should obtain the permission of the songwriters or their publishers before making commercial use of the songs.

These files will assist any person in the world to do that. Anyone anywhere singing or recording these songs for commercial purposes can now, via internet search engine, find these songs' true owners, who may then be correctly acknowledged.

Then, hopefully, Bob Dylan's version of 'Farewell to the Gold' by Paul Metzers will not be called Australian Mining Song by Nic Jones.

 

ABC Notation

This is a way of writing music, using only ASCII text symbols. It was invented by Chris Walshaw as an easy way of transcribing folk music, and (in 1998) is still being developed.
abc freeware can be downloaded from the abc home page.

abc is a computer-readable musical language that can be easily read by humans.
With a little practice, it is possible to play a tune directly from the abc notation.

Notes are shown thus... F, G, A, B, C D E F G A B c d e f g a b c' d' e'.....

Rest            z

c sharp      ^c
c natural    =c
c flat          _c
 
Piano chord [Acea]

Guitar chord "Am"

Half note        c/2
Lengthened    c3/2
Double note   c2

etc

It does a lot more and is great for reproducing the subtlies of whistle/fiddle tunes.

 

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