Best folk & traditional music books according to redditors

We found 49 Reddit comments discussing the best folk & traditional music books. We ranked the 37 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.

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Top Reddit comments about Folk & Traditional Music:

u/hajahe155 · 28 pointsr/bobdylan

Many of the Dylan bios delve into this period. None are definitive, and all have their fair share of faults; but if you're inclined, I'd say the best of the bunch are probably Howard Sounes' Down the Highway, Clinton Heylin's Behind the Shades, and Robert Shelton's No Direction Home. The Shelton book leans pretty heavy on the '60s, though; for later info, I'd stick with one of the other two.

If, however, you'd rather not go down that route, I will happily do what I can to summarize the relevant contents.

Here goes:

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The Dylans' marriage had been wobbly for a while, but it ran off the rails during the second leg of the RTR. Bob was having, as you might say, lots of strange affairs—one, for instance, with a woman he had invited into his entourage to teach him how to tightrope walk. This and God knows what else led to Bob & Sara having several public arguments during this time, which ultimately ended with her leaving the tour for good and him henceforth tearing into "Idiot Wind" like never before.

Back in California, the two had previously put plans in place to construct their fantasy home along the water, in Point Dume. They each spent a sizable chunk of '76 overseeing the construction of this mega-mansion, bickering about details and alterations along the way.

Sara later testified that the final straw in their relationship occurred in February '77, when she came down to breakfast one day to find Bob sitting at the table with their children, and a woman she'd never seen before named Malka. She claimed a dispute then ensued, in which Bob struck her in the face and told her to leave. (Bear in mind, the details of this have never been independently verified; this is just what Sara said at the time.) What we know for sure is that Sara moved out, hired the most famous divorce lawyer in the country—Marvin M. Mitchelson, the man who coined the term "palimony"—and filed for divorce at the beginning of March.

Upon receiving the news, Bob shacked up with Faridi McFree, who had been an "art therapist" and nanny of sorts for his kids. He and McFree subsequently sojourned for the summer to Dylan's farm in Minnesota, which is where he wrote most if not all of "Street-Legal." It was also here that Bob learned of the death of Elvis Presley, a development which affected him profoundly.

>McFree: "I was with him the night Presley died ... He really took it very bad. He didn't speak for a couple of days. He was really grieving."

>Dylan (to Robert Shelton): "I broke down [after Elvis died]. One of the very few times. I went over my whole life. I went over my whole childhood. I didn't talk to anyone for a week ... If it wasn't for Elvis and Hank Williams, I couldn't be doing what I do today."

The divorce proceedings got ugly and, by all accounts, super expensive—the settlement records are sealed, but Sara supposedly walked away with tens of millions (Sounes says $36 million), plus a share of royalties going forward. Bob got to keep the new house.

The custody fight got even uglier. Sara petitioned the court for permission to move with the children to Hawaii; Bob responded by asking to be granted sole custody. A protracted battle ensued, which Bob eventually lost. To ensure he ended up with at least partial custody (i.e., visitation rights), he dumped McFree, who by this time Sara actively despised and didn't want around the kids.

Throughout this period, Bob was working with Howard Alk assembling "Renaldo & Clara." Alk lived in a guesthouse on Dylan's estate; they worked during the days in an editing suite Bob had set up in his garage. You can imagine what this experience must have been like, considering how much of the footage they were combing through featured his now ex-wife.

Alk, it sadly must be said, was an incorrigible drug addict—he ended up committing suicide via heroin overdose in Dylan's Santa Monica studio in 1982—and it's been alleged that cocaine played a more than ample role throughout the editing process. The film, of course, both flopped and received scathing reviews, which one would imagine did wonders for neither Bob's psyche nor his pocketbook.

Which brings us to "World Tour '78," the impetus for which was purely economic. As Bob told the Los Angeles Times: "I had a couple of bad years. I put a lot of money into the movie, built a big house ... and it costs a lot to get divorced in California."

He signed with Jerry Weintraub, after going to see a Neil Diamond concert in Las Vegas and being impressed with the theatrics. Weintraub, who managed Diamond, is the person who put together Dylan's massive tour in '78, which ended up grossing over $20 million.

The tour began in Japan. There's a great story—it's in the Sounes book—that while he was in California preparing for rehearsals, Bob received a telegram from the Japanese promoters essentially stipulating which songs they expected him to perform. Since Bob wasn't then in a financial position to refuse such a request, he sent a guitar technician down to a bookstore to buy his first published collection of lyrics, "Writings and Drawings," so that he could reacquaint himself with his back catalogue.

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Anyway, that's most of it. Suffice it to say, I think losing your wife, your kids (at least in part), and a shitload of dough in short succession would probably stress just about anyone out. Plus, you know, the drugs and booze and all the other vices that a newly-single world-famous celebrity is wont to partake in....probably didn't do Dylan a lot of good in the long run. Although who am I to judge?

Hope that helps.

u/StuckInMudToo · 7 pointsr/indieheads

I'd suggest checking out the biography about him, was a truly tragic read but the story of his life is very interesting.

https://www.amazon.com/Jason-Molina-Riding-Erin-Osmon/dp/1442268670

u/mudo2000 · 5 pointsr/OldSchoolCool

She really loved him. Her book is really good even if you aren't a big Dylan fan.

u/thisisnotaworkacct · 5 pointsr/indieheads

I have. I also recommend the book that came out on him last year

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06WXX8997/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

u/strangerzero · 4 pointsr/bobdylan
u/verdegrrl · 3 pointsr/cars

Search the internet for 'x5 buyer's guide' to find results like these:

http://www.ebay.com/gds/BMW-X5-buyers-and-owners-guide-by-micrabits-/10000000010710610/g.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/2727671/Buyers-guide-BMW-X5-2000-2004.html

https://www.amazon.com/BMW-X5-Essential-Buyers-generation/dp/1845845331

There is also an xdrivers forum and other X5 forums where you can get more targeted advice from people who own them.

u/austinsill · 3 pointsr/boniver

Fun fact: Apparently it was after seeing them perform that Justin decided to give up music. This was abviously before BI was a thing, and I think it was shortly after he left Deyarmond. He was just so mindblown by how good they were, and he didn't think he could ever accomplish the same.

Source: The unnoficial biography... https://www.amazon.com/Bon-Iver-Mark-Beaumont/dp/1780387377

u/CruRamma · 3 pointsr/howardstern

Thank you for your kind words. He was able to finish a book he was working on before he passed. His colleagues at the University of Tennessee were kind enough to give all book proceeds to his wife and daughter. It’s a collection of interviews and info of a Knoxville legend, Cas Walker.

If you are looking for an interesting read check it out.

https://www.amazon.com/Cas-Walker-Stories-Life-Legend/dp/1621905357

u/bamboozlingvideos · 2 pointsr/Guitar

It looks like you need this book. You can probably get from the library too. You can probably get a lot of guitar tabs from the library (depending on where you live you might need to put it on hold.)

u/Aglovale · 2 pointsr/ethnomusicology

I would be cautious about classifying chanteys as music of the British Isles. Despite popular portrayal in various media and in the Anglo folk revival, most evidence points to Black American/Caribbean workers as their chief originators and practitioners. This recent book is essential reading on the topic.

u/mishtram · 2 pointsr/vinyl
u/PBJLNGSN · 2 pointsr/Random_Acts_Of_Amazon

I really want this... Because I'm OBSESSED

Bon Iver
http://amazon.ca/dp/1780387377

u/Martlydarn · 2 pointsr/piano

Reader's Digest Merry Christmas Songbook has a lot of songs, is spiralbound so it stays open, and I'm pretty sure it has all the lyrics. It also includes the history of some of the songs which I find interesting.

u/banquosghost · 2 pointsr/listentothis

My uncle wrote a biography of Townes Van Zandt. It's always weird to see/hear about him because I always think of my uncle, who plays guitar and banjo and just about every stringed instrument ever. He loves the guy and so he wrote a book about it, and I always thought that was pretty damn cool. Link to his book if anyone's curious.

u/Xenoceratops · 2 pointsr/musictheory

>So why don't classical musicians learn by transcription?

Assuming the premise. They do.

If you've ever taken an ear training class at a music school or conservatory, you no doubt would have had to do dictation and sight singing (responding to your "the vocalization of the music should be more important than the actual notation itself" comment, though I have to admit I'm a bit mystified by it). Of course, transcription from a recording is something you can only do with recorded music, but if we look at how things worked out historically, you'll see that there was still a lot of oral/aural pedagogy in European classical traditions before recording technology became available. Figured bass and partimento pedagogy was the primary way composers were trained in Europe through the eighteenth century; sources of partimento realizations are scarce, so it's assumed that notation was rarely involved and much of the pedagogy was oral.

But let's expand our discussion of oral/aural tradition out further. Music is more than pitches and rhythms, you know. Here are two excerpts from Anne McLucas' The Musical Ear explaining the role of oral transmission in the interpretation and nuanced shaping of classical music:

>Any teaching of classical music involves an enormous amount of aural learning; the teaching of the nuances of everything that needs to be added to the pitches and rhythms that are printed on the page is learned aurally from one's teacher or by mimicking other players or recordings. Since our notation is not capable of showing most of these nuances, it is often their execution that makes the difference between a well-trained musician and a poorly trained or even an untrained one. This kind of aural/oral transmission is probably no different in America than in other places where
Western music is taught.

>However, there are other kinds of oral transmissions at work as well, especially at the upper echelons of musical training, and they are especially strongly emphasized in American institutions, in part because of the necessity born of our history, that we have often felt that we must prove ourselves vis-à-vis European musicians. This, this oral transmission reflects the transmission of a method through a line of teachers, tracing back as far as one famous, preferably European, one. For example, Theodor Leschtizky, a pupil of Czerny, who himself had studied with Beethoven, started a line of teachers that passed on the Paderewski and Schnabel, and also to American students. Amy Fay wrote a memoir recounting her studies with Leschtizky's teacher, Ludwig Deppe, as well as wit Liszt and other famous pianists in the 1870s; and Ethel Newcomb recounted her studies with Leschetizky at the beginning of the twentieth century. (114)

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>The presence of a lineage can also have a direct bearing on how a particular piece of music is taught. For instance, in the published editions of Chopin, there are opposing philosophies on whether they should be created from manuscript and published sources or should include variants that came from the students of Chopin, whose corrections to his own published works, which often were riddled with errors, were passed down through the oral tradition of his students. For example, according to one source, there are at least fifteen variants for the Nocturne, Op. 9 No. 2, several of which are not even published, but have come down through the oral tradition of his various students, each of whom heard and notated slightly different things. In the even more amorphous tradition of how to play Chopin—the application of agogic accents, rubato, dynamics, pedaling, and tempo—the lineage directly from Chopin through his pupils is even more important. Already of Chopin, wrote: "Chopin's compositions … run the risk of being misunderstood if one has not known the master's way of playing, his intentions and his conception of the instrument—since their result on paper is quite different from that of the sound world in which they really live."

>Surprisingly, these differences of opinion show up even in performance practice of twentieth-century composers, whose own playing has been recorded. In her article on Debussy and his early interpreters, Cecila Dunoyer contrasts the descriptions of Debussy's playing of his own works—and his recordings—with that of several of his early interpreters, finding significant differences, even in the generation contemporary with the composer. (117)

u/Tawreh · 2 pointsr/pokemon

Okay! A keyboard.

I bought all five GBA games from a seller on eBay for £22. I figured, why the hell not, I've never played any of them and they sell for ~£15-£20 each on Amazon. Excellent value!

When they arrived they looked legit - but I've never owned a GBA or any of the games so I couldn't compare. I was partly tipped off when I started playing Ruby - the grass/trees change colour a little when you're running, becoming more vibrant. When I went to leave seller feedback, I happened to spot some feedback that said "Great value. Fakes, but very good fakes."

So I went looking and according to this link the games are indeed fake. The only thing the cartidges don't have is the stamped stickers on the holographic foil - everything else is there. So I know they're fake, at least.

But thanks for the warning! I knew that fake cartidges wouldn't necessarily let you transfer the Pokemon across, but I didn't realise that they would erase the game data. I had intended to try it, just to see if I could, but my DS games are all much further ahead than these new games, so maybe I'll just start playing 'em all and wait to buy the proper versions rather than investing too heavily in them now.

This was a lot of text to say something that doesn't necessarily mean a lot. D'oh.

u/double-happiness · 2 pointsr/UKPersonalFinance
u/wolfanotaku · 1 pointr/piano

Someone once recommnded this book to me and I highly recommend it to you: http://www.amazon.com/Readers-Digest-Merry-Christmas-Songbook/dp/0895771055/

It's beautiful and hardcover and spiral bound. Aside from that it's got a nice version of almost every Christmas song you could imagine.

u/yooperann · 1 pointr/AskReddit

I'd recommend finding some of the Old Town School of Folk Music resources. You can get books or downloads.

Editing to add the great resources from Sing Out magazine. "Rise Up Singing" songbook and teaching discs.

u/MisterStrings · 1 pointr/ukulele

I'm just playing through this book.

u/ferricyanide · 1 pointr/vinyl

You can purchase LP mailers at most local record stores and several online locations, such as Amazon.com. There's actually a perfect write-up for this by an eBay seller here.

If you still have questions, you can submit your question using the 'Submit a New Question' button on the side or within this thread. There are several users who frequent that thread in order to help users with questions. Good luck!

u/CowboyState · 1 pointr/folk

Oh yes. She has had a CRAZY life. I don't really have any specific stories because my dad said I had to read her book first before I asked her a million questions that would be explained there. I just bought it at the Woody Guthrie Music Festival, here's the amazon link if you're interested! It's a mix of her autobiography and her memories with Woody and what not. Super interesting!!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0184CBHHK/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1#navbar

u/hawkedriot · 1 pointr/Fibromyalgia

Another, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World by Elaine Scarry. He mentioned it in his recent chronic pain video and he usually has good suggestions.

I think he said it was about how pain almost ruins language in a way, like, no matter how you describe your pain, the other person will never truly understand your pain and so language fails you and since humans' main means of communication is through language we end up feeling even more isolated and misunderstood.

Bear in mind this is my foggy recollection but it sounded like it would be fascinating either way. I've this to read first Human Cargo: Stories and Songs of Emigration, Slavery and Transportation
(fun fact- if you paid to emigrate in ye old boat times, you were more likely to arrive dead than if you were transported as a slave. Those captains got paid on the amount of workers that arrived alive, as opposed to the other guys who got paid up front, and sometimes your accommodation could be a 5ft cube with roomies. Sorry, I heard an interview with the author on the radio on Sunday and it just sounded so interesting and how the shanties came about, it's been forever since I've been this excited to read a book.