A few years ago my friend Richard and I collaborated on a project to create an freely available collection of English, Scottish and Irish folk songs written in three-part harmony. Close harmony singing in folk music can be daunting to approach if you are not already proficient at arranging and writing the harmonies in your own songs and so this was intended to be a resource to help groups of any kind get started for people to sing. We managed to make good on our promise of it being free, but less so on the availability front, as distribution consisted of a Google Drive folder to which I would add people. It is proving to be a surprisingly popular resource, and so it is time that it was given a more permanent home here on my website.
Here is an FAQ about the project, followed by the current collection of songs at the bottom of the page.
What is it?
It’s a resource for people, groups or choirs who like folk music and close harmony singing and would like to try something slightly more structured or complex than free improvised harmony, which is lovely but does have certain limitations due to its spontaneous nature. Hopefully, this’ll inspire people to a do a bit more group singing. It’s not meant to be prescriptive in anyway – taking these arrangements and tweaking them and changing them from verse to verse is absolutely encouraged, they’re supposed to be a basis and a starting point for people who for whatever reason don’t have their own. They’re designed so as to be flexible with regards to number of parts and people’s’ voices.
Who sings what part?
Although the arrangements are designed with ATB (alto/tenor/bass) in mind, any combination of 3-6 voices with most voice distributions should work. Broadly speaking, parts 1 and 3 are both suitable for both alto and bass, and part 2 is suitable for both soprano and tenor. A brave soprano can also probably manage part 3 read up the octave. Each one comes with the ranges printed at the start, so just pick whatever you like the look of.
Can I share it with other people?
Yes, yes yes. Feel free to print the PDFs out, share them around, change them, whatever. Want to use different lyrics? Go for it. Feel free to perform or record them (bear in mind that not all of them are traditional and some of them have lyrics that are still in copyright – if it is, this is clearly marked) – credit for the arrangement would be nice if possible. Just don’t sell or publish them as I will hunt you down and you will be sorry.
Can I request/suggest songs?
Please do. We have a few guiding ideas for the ones that we tend to pick – we’re aiming for traditional songs, or ones that have reached traditional status. English is a bonus but not essential, we have a good number of Irish and some Scottish. Songs that we don’t think are suitable for this project though are ones that are very unmetered and/or free, as many of these would just not survive being pinned to the page or put through the close harmony process. This includes groups of fairly unmetered songs that are usually led by one person, as we are restricting ourselves to arranging the songs such that everyone is singing basically all of the time. It’s not to say that these songs are not suitable for singing in harmony, they’re just beyond the scope of the project. Songs that we’ve specifically rejected for these reasons include Lowlands and She Moved Through The Fair, (because they are as) lovely as they are.
(I also personally draw my moral line at songs which treat the women in them as objects or property. I’d hold the men to the same standard, if I ever met such an example.)
Can I hear what they sound like?
MIDI recordings on request.
Who’s to blame?
This was Richard’s idea, blame him. I’m just the harmony monkey.
Adieu Sweet Lovely Nancy
Bay of Biscay, The
Bonny at Morn
Cold Haily Windy Night
Fare Thee Well
Gloomy Winter’s Noo Awa
Green Bushes
Grey Funnel Line, The
Little Yellow Roses
Mingulay Boat Song
Parting Glass, The
Pretty Saro
Scarborough Fair
Siuil A Run
South Australia
Spanish Ladies
Thousands or More
Three Ravens, The
Unquiet Grave, The
Mae McAllister 