Music Maker On The Net

The University of Newcastle upon Tyne now offers an undergraduate degree course in Folk and Traditional Music. The Vaughan Williams Memorial Library has started publishing its series of study guides and annotated bibliographies on the EFDSS website.
A specifically English site is Rufus Sargent's Selected English Folk Singers which contains information and discographies for a number of revival performers. The Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads site contains indexes to, and facsimiles of, over 30,000 broadside ballads. A new Internet radio statio is RadioBritfolk promoted by Back up to contents list for this page Discographies, bibliographies and indexes Rod Stradling is compiling a Discography of Recorded Traditional Music on the Musical Traditions site. Folk Music Journalgeneral information and the contents Folkloresubscription information and Music Makerinformation about the magazine, festival list, directory Musical Traditionsan online magazine, containing articles, reviews, and shorter items such as news. Those available so far are: English Folk Song by David Atkinson (PDF file) An Introductory Bibliography on Clog and Step Dance by Chris Metherell An Introductory Bibliography on Morris Dancing by Mike Heaney Sword Dancing in Britain by Stephen D Corrsin Although their focus is on American and Scottish folk music, the listings at contain much material of interest. Keller's The Dancing Master, 1651-1728: An Illustrated Compendium contains a database of all the dances from all the editions of John Playford's Dancing Master. Libraries, archives and museums Discographies, bibliographies and indexes Song, tune and dance collections A good starting point, with many links to English as well as world music, is Folk Roots magazine's site.
Some traditional customs such as Bampton Traditional Morris Men and Abingdon Traditional Morris cabin construction plan pontoon Dancers, and revived customs such as Hastings Traditional Jack in the Green and Whittlesea Straw Bear have their own Websites. Coverage is largely American, but British and Irish records are included; it is indexed by title and performer. Engle of California State University, Fresno have compiled The Traditional Ballad wedding location dallas texas Index: An Annotated Bibliography of the Folk Songs of the English-Speaking World.
We have no organisation equivalent to the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in the USA, or even the School of Scottish Studies at the Perhaps the major university department in this field in England is the National Centre for English Cultural Tradition at the University of Sheffield. The Folk Directory is a "user-maintained directory to folk and acoustic sessions, clubs and festivals in the UK". Martin Kiff's Webfeet pages contain lists of English Ceilidh and English Folk Dance series and dance clubs. English folk and traditional music on the Internet English folk and traditional music on the Internet This is a guide to Internet resources relating to English folk music. The TuneIndex Introduction foot gay his in put has a good discussion of tune types. They can however be useful for some sorts of specific queries, such as bands with distinctive names.
Martin Graebe has as a site devoted to Sabine Baring-Gould. Back up to contents list for this page Jim Hancock's Guestlist site gives contact details (agents etc) for many currently active performers. An increasing number of English folk music performers have Web pages, created by themselves, their agents and record companies or by fans. . Searching is possible using words from titles or texts, assigned keywords, and various other ways including Child and Laws numbers.
Although not exclusively English in scope, the following resources certainly include English folk music and contain links to further resources. Forthcoming artists' tours can also be found on many of the artists' pages mentioned below.

Sites for local folk magazines often contain information about local performers. The main Internet newsgroup is uk.
The project is new and there is not a lot of content at present but it is growing. There is a Frequently Asked Questions In another area of this site, I have a listing of Music subject search tools: a guide to link lists, search engines, and subject gateways, concentrating on those covering folk music and ethnomusicology. Cecilia is an on-line guide to music collections in archives, libraries and museums in the UK and Ireland. Back up to contents list for this page Libraries, archives and museums The major specialist collection of printed material and sound recordings is the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library of the English Folk Dance and Song Society.
My Folk music businesses page has listings of websites for: Artists' agents, promoters, etc Back up to contents list for this page Another page of this site lists Web resources for Folk and traditional music in specific areas of England. The BBC Radio 2 Folk and Acoustic site contains information about the folk scene in the biggest cock in ass UK: news, reviews, tours, artists, folk clubs, etc, and of course good news bad news a site for the Mike Harding There are a number of discussion fora which cover the English folk scene, including the The Mudcat Café (which though American has many English contributors and has may threads of purely English interest such as discussion about English licencing law). Calendar customs and other traditional events There doesn't seem to be a list of these on the Web. My Folk and traditional music in specific areas of England page on this site lists folk song clubs and other local organisations with Web pages.
Although there are dozens of fiddle and guitar sites, I have only found a couple which are particularly relevant to players of English music. A comparable site based in Germany is FolkWorld. Back up to contents list for this page Jim Hancock's Guestlist site lists a number of agents and promoters. Back up to contents list for this page Folk musicand folklore generallybarely exists as a academic study in England.
There is a list of sessions in England and further afield on the Musical Traditions site, and a Sessions index for the UK and Ireland on the Living Tradition site.

English ceilidh bands and English folk dance bands are listed in Martin Kiff's Webfeet pages.

Bruce Olson's Roots of Folk: Old English, Scots, and Irish Songs and Tunes has links to collections of tunes and of texts of broadside ballads. Sarah Crofts' Step Dance: Southern English styles Sue Glover's Gallery Music: English church and chapel music of the 1700s and early 1800s West Gallery Music Association Back up to contents list for this page For comprehensive information on dance events see Martin Kiff's excellent Webfeet pages. Another index to abc collections (and some in other formats) is JC's Richard Robinson collection has a list of links to a number of other tune collections. sqeezebox Julia Say's Northumbrian small pipes encyclopaediaperhaps the only instrument used solely for playing English music. My Folk and traditional music in specific areas of England page includes links to Web resources for folk song and music events and/or venues in England including both regional/county/local listings and individual folk clubs. David Atkinson's English Folk Song, an introductory bibliography: Discography is part of the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library series of study guides and annotated bibliographies. Otherwise, one the best listings is the Folk Music Home Page: although American it covers British artists as well. The Open University's Musics and Cultures Research Group is no more, but its web page has details of past activities.

FolkWorld's Folk & roots online guide is a listing of of Internet folk music resources. Forthcoming performances of folk plays are listed in Forthcoming Folk Play Performances. There is a listing of Lists of Artist Home Pages in Doug I have put together a short list of English solo singers and instrumentalists with Websites. Martin Kiff has a list of these on his English Folk dance index page. The Village Music Project has a list of publications of English country dance tunes. The Doc Rowe Archive and Collection is a major contemprary collection of material relating to traditional seasonal customs.