Talk:Ballad/Archive 1

A ballad is a story of a song Um...these are songs composed for movies -- at least there first is. I'm pretty sure the second is, as well. They're probably copyrighted. They're also really not ballads by the definition given in the articla -- are they folk, passed on in an oral tradition? How about Henry Martin or Mary Hamilton or any real folk ballads? sheesh! and now I'll be humming the damned silver wings....all night. JHK

I didn't understand the line with "Ballades for solo piano of Chopin or Brahms." Does this mean that both Chopin and Brahms wrote pieces of music named Ballades? If so I would rewrite it as "Ballades for solo piano by Chopin or Brahms." Rmhermen 13:00, Oct 1, 2003 (UTC)

Ballads tell a story.

Longest Ballad
I think Akilattirattu Ammanai with more than 15000 lines is the longest ballad form of literary works in the world. Does any one have any objections? - Vaikunda Raja 00:57, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I have no reason to suspect it isn't true, but unless you can produce a citation, it would be inappropriate to add. See WP:CITE and WP:OR. Tuf-Kat 22:12, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Add Smithsonian link?
Hello! I am a writer for the Smithsonian's Center for Education, which publishes Smithsonian in Your Classroom, a magazine for teachers. Our most recent issue is titled "The Music in Poetry." The lesson plans introduce students to the rhythms of poetry--to the idea that poetry has a rhythm--by focusing on two poetic forms that originated as forms of song: the ballad stanza, found throughout British and American literature, and the blues stanzas of Langston Hughes. An online version of the issue is available for free download at this address:

http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/educators/resource_library/publications_siyc_spring2006.html

Accessible from this page is a free audio site that Smithsonian Folkway Recordings set up to accompany the issue. Students can listen to ballads from the Folkways catalog that range from the old English "Bailiff's Daughter of Islington" to Bob Dylan's "The Ballad of Donald White," one of his earliest recordings. There are also songs that, while perhaps not true ballads, have lyrics in the ballad structure (4, 3, 4, 3). These include "Amazing Grace" and the Carter Family's "Storms Are on the Ocean."

If you think that the Wikipedia audience would find this issue valuable, I wish to invite you to include a link to our site. We would be most grateful.

Thank you so much for your attention.

New Orleans
"The Battle of New Orleans"? Does this mean "The Hunters of Kentucky"? That's the ballad about the Battle of New Orleans I've heard of. Goldfritha 01:19, 7 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I think this is the pop hit that starts "In 1814 we took a little trip, along with Col. Jackosn down the might Mississipp' ..." = PKM 02:28, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Editing the opening
Ballads need not recount past events; some tell entirely fictious stories.

Ballads need not be third-person. The Famous Flower of Serving-Men is first-person.

A look through the synopses of the Child ballads will show that many of them are not tragic in end. "Almost inevitably" is not enough of a hedge on "catastrophic."

Finally "typical of totalitarian political systems" is non-neutral and noticably false; they are as typical of societies more noticeably suffering from anarchy. Goldfritha 23:23, 28 June 2006 (UTC)