Peter and Mary Alice offer more than 30 (and adding more all the time) free downloads of sheet music of accessible choral arrangements, mostly a cappella SATB, that are steeped in traditional music. Most are Amidon arrangements; there are a few by other old and new composers and arrangers, including a selection of classic American shape note songs.
From Peter and Mary Alice Amidon
The Music Box is an extensive searchable online database of more than 2500 songs that includes information on the song (where it can be found in songbooks, composers, song genre, culture) as well as a way to listen to recordings of the song by various artists.
From Rise Up and Sing
Broadside Ballads Online presents a digital collection of English printed ballad sheets from between the 16th and 20th centuries, linked to other resources for the study of the English ballad tradition. The collection includes many primitive woodcut illustrations, and words, but rarely musical notation.
From the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford
Jon Boden’s project to record a folk song a day yielded a total of 365 folk songs with introductions and notes. This is a searchable database, or you can scroll through an alphabetical list of the songs.
From Jon Boden
The Full English Project is the world’s biggest free digital archive of traditional folk music and dance tunes, and songs.
From EFDSS
The Mudcat Café is an online discussion group and song and tune database, which also includes many other features relating to folk music.
The Folk Scholarship Roots and Geopolitical Boundaries of Sacred Harp’s Global Twenty-first Century
This article by Jesse P. Karlsberg describes the history of Sacred Harp from its infancy until today.
From CD+S Online
This blog post looks at what is a comfortable vocal range for singers – helpful to know when leading songs.
From Jeff Kaufman
In this blog post, Amanda writes about how to use a memory prompt as a support when leading a song.
From Amanda Witman
Breaking Down the Legacy of Race in Traditional Music in America
This NPR radio piece and the associated article explore the intersection between racism and traditional music & song. Both Jake Blount and the Youth Traditional Song Weekend are featured.
From National Public Radio
Thanks to the Massachusetts Cultural Council for their generous support.