Verandah Music
An Australian tradition ...
Wednesday, March 13, 2024
VERANDAH DANCES WITH THE BRUTONS
Tuesday, March 12, 2024
OUR TENTH BIRTHDAY!
Friday, February 2, 2024
CONCERTINAS AND CIGGIES IN THE TRENCHES OF WORLD WAR ONE
Cigarette cards were used by manufacturers to promote their products. They were attractive mini-art works that came with a pack of 'ciggies' or 'fags' and could be kept, left lying around or collected by adults and kids. This one is from Wills's cigarette company and shows an Australian soldier - later known colloquially as a 'digger', playing and singing the sentimental favourite, 'Home, Sweet Home'.
Light, easy to pack and usually cheap, concertinas were ideal for soldiers on active duty and are mentioned often in World War 1 sources, along with the even cheaper and more portable mouth organ. This card is part of a much larger set produced by the cigarette company to commemorate the heroics of the Anzacs at Gallipoli.
Soldiers, of course, were major targets for cigarette company advertising.
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Monday, January 29, 2024
TIN CAN BANJO
Further to our last post on the 'tingaling', etc., here's an item from National Folk of 1967. The late folklorist and everything else, Ron Edwards, ran this magazine and related publications for many years. They contain a wealth of information about folksong, lore, legend and anything else Ron thought worth including, which was quite a lot!
In this article, a reader describes how he/she built a tin can banjo, based on one Ron had collected.
For more on Ron Edwards, see Keith McKenry's Ron Edwards and the Fight for Australian Tradition.
Or paste this into your browser if the link above doesn't work: https://scholarly.info/book/ron-edwards-and-the-fight-for-australian-tradition/
Also, Rob Willis has uploaded a video on the cardboard fiddle to the VM Youtube channel, here :
And he has another video of his interview with Fred Chapman and his amazing kerosene tin 'banjo' at:
Thursday, January 11, 2024
THE TINGALING AND COMMUNITY MUSIC IN SUBIACO BEFORE AND AFTER WORLD WAR TWO
We had some people going to our church called Foot. Mr Foot was a shopwalker in Bon Marche, which was burnt down later, that was a terrific evening, you could see the fire, even from here. Anyway, his wife was very musical, and she had a band. For a long time, the eldest daughter Esme was our church organist, and she also played the violin. Mr Foot played the violin. Arthur played the violin. Maud didn't play anything; I suppose she got the supper or something. And Norman was the one, he was my age group. He played cello. But he also played a violin, and he also made up a few instruments. One he made, played, was a single [string?] violin on a cigar box. It made quite a different tone from a violin, and he also made one using a kerosene tin for the sound box. He called that his ‘kerosene tingaling’, and he also sang and you know, they were a very great asset to a party, or to a church ...(indistinct – possibly ‘party’ or similar function)
1985.1241 MUSICAL INSTRUMENT: 'THE AUSTRAL ACADEMY OF MUSIC' MANDOLIN-GUITAR
Wooden Zither painted black. Strings fixed to flat horizontal base. One side straight, other side curved, curves back to narrower top along the edge of which project at right angles sixty-two square-faced string adjustment keys. Strings are a mixture of narrow gauge wire and spring type. They are strung parallel to each other across the front surface of the zither over a circular hole cut into this surface. The zither is decorated with multi-coloured floral design transfers around the front surface border, around the circular hole and bordering the note scale director which runs across the zither at right angles to the zither strings.
Inside the zither and visible through the hole is the manufacturer's label. ' The Austral Academy/ MANDOLIN GUITAR/of/Music'.Label on reverse: 'Made in Germany'. Also known as a Zither and Autoharp
Transcript and photographs courtesy Kylie Seal-Pollard (she/her) | Museum Officer
Monday, November 20, 2023
HOW TO SING LIKE A SHEARER
‘there was sure to be a goodly sprinkling of singers or alleged singers. There were singers of "comic" songs, singers of songs relating doughty deeds performed by an intrepid party known to all and sundry as " the wild colonial boy," singers of songs composed in the days of the convict system by men who suffered under it, singers of the pleasures of a sailors life, singers of songs that touched upon cattle-hunting and shearing, singers of songs about Ireland's wrongs, and singers of pathetic ballads, such as the "Sailor's Grave" or "The Anchor's Weighed." Hard as the comic song is to bear, it is joy itself when compared with "The Sailor's Grave," sung by a strong, rough-throated person, who first looks at the roof and then shuts his eyes, places his light hand on his stomach, his left thumb in his left pocket, and sings, finishing every line with an unctuous sort of grunt, which is considered the best form in every shearing shed from Wentworth to Welltown.
Milroy also noted that ‘The late Ned Kelly is regarded as a great hero by eight-tenths of shearers, and anybody that knew that mailed marauder could always command the respect of the greater majority in any shed’.
The full article is here https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/163688205/16785244#
RW and GS
Friday, May 12, 2023
TEX MORTON BIOGRAPHY
Tex c 1940 Photo by photographer Lyle Fowler (1891-1969) Sourced via Wikipedia from State Library Victoria (CC)
Andrew K Smith has just published the first full-length biography of Tex Morton (University of Tennessee Press), Tex Morton: From Australian Yodeler to International Showman by Andrew K Smith.
An important contribution to music history scholarship, this volume not only establishes Morton’s significance in the history of Australian country music, but it also draws deep connections between Morton’s Australasian influence and country music in the United States, exploring Morton’s legacy in the wider context of the genre worldwide. Complete with a comprehensive discography of Tex Morton’s works, Smith’s in-depth biography claims for Morton his rightful place as a major founding figure in the history of Australian country music.
https://utpress.org/title/tex-morton/ Also available on Amazon.
Friday, May 5, 2023
VERANDAH MUSIC – NORTH AMERICAN STYLE
Monumental set of field recordings released by The Field Recorders’ Collective – A Survey of Traditional Music from the North American Traditions Collection. Complete with track lisitngs, full notes – and more:
Over a span of nearly four decades, a small group of friends, the North American Traditions Group, traveled over large swaths of the Appalachians, the Canadian Maritimes, the Ozarks, and the American West, recording many hundreds of hours of traditional music. Styles heard in the NAT collection range from unaccompanied ballads to vocal quartets; virtuoso fiddle solos to string bands; blues to gospel to topical songs. This is the first box set of three and includes the first five CDs of this monumental collection: From British Tradition, A Musical Melting Pot, Songs of Melancholy and Sorrow, The Anglo-African Exchange, and Grown on American Soil.
Friday, April 28, 2023
ACCORDION PICNIC, 1887
What fun they must have had to the tune of that accordion! This is one of the oldest photos in the Box Hill Historical Society collection, depicting an Easter picnic at Sandringham in 1887.
Sunday, April 16, 2023
REMEMBERING BOB BOLTON
Bob Bolton |
Sadly, Bob Bolton died recently. He was best known for his extensive photographic work at folk festivals, concerts and anywhere else folksong, music and dance were performed. He was the receiver of a National Folk Festival Lifetime Achiever Award and had a strong interest in all aspects of the bush and its people., lifestyle and history.
Obituaries will no doubt be appearing soon, but in the meantime here is the citation from his NFF award, courtesy of Sandra Nixon. You can also access some of Bob’s work on the Sydney Bush Music Club site and on Facebook through Graham McDonald’s digitisation of some of Bob’s very large archive of photographs.