HBS Citation Sytle Guide. Great Big Sea - When I'm Up (Video) Traditional Newfoundland Music. Traditional Instrumental Music In recognition of the province's rich folk music heritage, the School of Music and Department of Folklore at Memorial University of Newfoundland are planning (2001) to offer courses in fiddle and accordion playing. The fiddle has been one of the most popular musical instruments in Newfoundland and Labrador. Accordingly, fiddle music has received attention from the recording industry and folk music researchers, who have showcased such talented players as Rufus Guinchard (1899-1990) and Émile Benoit (1913-1992). Rufus Guinchard was born in Daniel's Harbour on Newfoundland's Northern Peninsula, where he taught himself to play the tunes of older community fiddlers on his father's fiddle. As a youth he began to play at kitchen dances, providing jigs and reels or step-tunes and doubles.
As the popularity of kitchen dances declined, Guinchard played for occasional dances held in schools or community halls and in local clubs. . © 2001, Lara Maynard. Traditional Music: Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage. Traditional Music As a cultural touchstone, both a shared experience and national badge of honour in Newfoundland and Labrador, only the codfish can rival traditional music. With its narrative power, distinctive sound and strong links to Western Europe, traditional music represents the province's history and culture, and forms a vital link between the past and present.
For many it is also a proud and powerful manifestation of the “unique Newfoundland and Labrador character.” No less important is the fact that the music continues to evolve and flourish as popular entertainment. Although it has been conveniently cleaned up, packaged and promoted for tourism purposes, the music itself has refused to devolve into cliché or artefact. In nightclubs, recording studios and living rooms it remains a potent and deeply felt sound. It is often called “Celtic music,” and its connection with music made by the Celtic peoples of Brittany, Ireland, Scotland and Wales is obvious.
. © 2001, Jamie Fitzpatrick. Rockin’ the Rock: The Newfoundland Folk/Pop "Revolution" | Chafe | Newfoundland and Labrador Studies. 1 OUTSIDE MY OFFICE there is a poster advertising "A fundraiser for Culture & Tradition. "2 Emblazoned with a border of Celtic design, and adorned with the names of the various protectors/performers of Newfoundland identity, the poster also sports the clever name of this benefit concert for heritage: For Folk’s Sake. An obvious play on a well-known expletive, the title reflects the duelling notions of duty and despair that so often form an aura around such moments of protecting and preserving a disappearing culture.
In these moments, performers can become what sociologist James Overton classifies as "folk-singing patriots" engaged in a battle of "cultural survival" (6). Sometimes these moments call for more than the playful allusion to gruff language, as Overton notes in "A Newfoundland Culture? " (citing Peter Narváez): "Audiences are told by performers to shut up and be quiet because ‘we’re preserving your fucking culture’" (15). Figure 1. Display large image of Figure 1.
Fandom as Magical Practice: Great Big Sea, Stockwell Day, and Spoiled Identity | Narváez | Newfoundland and Labrador Studies. Fandom as Magical Practice:Great Big Sea, Stockwell Day, and Spoiled Identity Peter NarváezMemorial University 1 BEGINNING IN 1977, AND continuing for over two decades, I taught undergraduate and graduate courses in folklore and popular culture that explored small group expressive uses of mass-mediated materials. Of the many paper topics fitting this theme, ethnographies of fandom predominated. Thus I discovered through my students’ work that several basements in St. John’s housed Star Trek main bridges be-decked with life-size cutouts of Captain Picard and Data, major Star Trek characters; that home shrines and displays lovingly devoted to Elvis were commonplace; and that carloads of young Newfoundland women made pilgrimages to the United States to see the Indigo Girls perform live. 2 Since then, fandom studies have burgeoned. 4 Fans act like practitioners of magic. 6 The second major strategy involves the spatial perspective of contagious magic, which I will refer to here as linkage.
Music of Newfoundland and Labrador. Newfoundland and Labrador is an Atlantic Canadian province with a folk musical heritage based on the Irish, English and Cornish traditions that were brought to its shores centuries ago. Though similar in its Celtic influence to neighbouring Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador is more Irish than Scottish, and has more elements imported from English and Cornish music than those provinces. Newfoundland music, while quite obviously Celtic and seafaring in its orientation, is in some cases is quite easily identifiable as being specific to Newfoundland. Much of the region's music focuses on the strong seafaring tradition in the area, and includes sea shanties and other sailing songs. Some modern traditional musicians include Great Big Sea, The Ennis Sisters, Shanneyganock and Ron Hynes. History[edit] A bone flute found at L'Anse Amour in Labrador is the first evidence of the presence of music in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Outside Influences[edit] Modern era[edit] Great Big Sea. Great Big Sea is a Canadian folk-rock band from Newfoundland and Labrador, best known for performing energetic rock interpretations of traditional Newfoundland folk songs including sea shanties, which draw from the island's 500-year-old Irish, Scottish, and Cornish heritage. History[edit] Beginnings[edit] Power, McCann and Hallett had already been playing together in another band. In the winter of 1989, the band, a six piece with guitar, bass, fiddle, accordion and mandolin played its first ever gig, two songs, at the Memorial University's winter carnival talent show under the name "Newfoundland Republican Army" or NRA, and won first prize. The band's only other appearance as NRA was later that winter at the university "Grad House". The band then dropped the fiddler, accordion player and the name. The band found its new name as original bassist Jeff Scott rented an apartment on Rankin Street, St.
The 2000s[edit] Recent career[edit] Séan McCann's Departure[edit] Ships and Dip[edit] 1990s[edit] Fiddling with Technology: The Effect of Media on Newfoundland Traditional Musicians | Osborne | Newfoundland and Labrador Studies. Fiddling with Technology:The Effect of Media on Newfoundland Traditional Musicians1 Evelyn OsborneMemorial Universityevelyn_osborne@yahoo.com 1 THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOUND technologies since the late nineteenth century has been as revolutionary for musicians as the printing press was for verbal communication in the fifteenth century.
By the late twentieth century, the remotest of villages had access to new sounds and information from across the globe. Not unexpectedly, these processes have had a major impact on folk music traditions around the world, including those in Newfoundland and Labrador. This article will examine how media sources, such as radio, recordings, television, and printed music have transmitted new styles of music to the island and how these, in turn, have influenced the repertoire and styles of traditional fiddle players. 6 The instrumental dance music tradition in Newfoundland was primarily a solo tradition thought to consist mainly of tunes that originated in Ireland.