Neddy's Palaver

He touched my arm and motioned for me to stop singing. “You said ’staff.’ It’s not staff. T’is stave.” “It’s the same thing, isn’t it? A long stick?” “It doesn’t matter. Stave is what was sung to you, and stave you must say.”

“When you are given a song that has been handed along from singer to singer over the years, you are entrusted with it, for it is he work of folk who are gone now. Their song. Not yours. It is not your place to change it. You must pass it along to others, and keep it as good as you found it. Sing it as you got it or not at all. Go again.”

“The Songcatcher,” Sharyn McCrumb, pages 48, 49.

The Twelve Days of Christmas

The twelve days of Christmas are the twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany (January 6th), which is when the three wise men supposedly arrived on the scene. It is NOT the twelve days before Christmas as many erroneously believe. The lovely story following is now considered by the erudite amongst us as an Internet Urban Legend with no basis in fact. However, the “Twelve Days of Christmas” was first found in print in 1790, and was already traditional. Its origin seems to have been French as was the word “carol.” Christmas Caroling was derived from the French word “caroller,” which means dancing around in a circle. Joyous revelers at Christmastime danced in a circle around the creche, joyously singing Christmas carols. Such Christmas celebrating was banned in England during the Protestant Cromwell reign and many of the oldest Christmas songs and their history were lost forever.

An Underground Catechism from “Drennon’s Twelve Days of Christmas”

Most folks, I believe, are familiar with the Christmas song, “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” If you listen to the words carefully, it seems like nonsence set to rhyme and music. However, it was written with a serious purpose.

It is more than just a list of twelve silly gifts. Catholics in England during the period 1558 to 1829 were prohibited by law to practice their faith either in public or private. It was illegal to be Catholic. [Note: Parliament finally emancipated Catholics in England in 1829.]

“The Twelve Days of Christmas” was written in England as one of the “catechism songs” to help young Catholics learn the basics of their faith. In short, it was a memory aid. Since the song sounded like rhyming nonsense, young catholics could sing the song without fear of imprisonment. The authorities would not know that it was a religious song. Actually, the catecism to which it referred was rather ecumenical so could probably be claimed to be protestant if cornered.

The song’s gifts had hidden meanings to the teachings of the Catholic faith. The “true love” mentioned in the song doesn’t refer to an earthly suitor, but it refers to God Himself. The “me” who receives the presents refers to every baptized person. i.e. the church. The partridge in a pear tree is Christ Jesus, the Son of God. In the song, Christ is symbolically presented as a mother partridge in memory of the expression of Christ’s sadness over the fate of Jerusalem: “Jerusalem! Jerusalem! How often would I have sheltered thee under my wings, as a hen does her chicks, but thou wouldst not have it so…”

Here is a complete list of the 12 symbols with their meanings*

* 1 Partridge in a pear tree = The One true God revealed in the person of Jesus Christ
* 2 Turtle Doves = The Old and New Testaments
* 3 French Hens = Faith, Hope and Charity
* 4 Calling Birds = the Four Gospels and/or the Four Evangelists
* 5 Golden Rings = The first Five Books of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch which contain the law condemning us of our sins.
* 6 Geese A-laying = the six days of creation
* 7 Swans A-swimming = the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, the seven sacraments of the Catholic faith
* 8 Maids A-milking = the eight beatitudes
* 9 Ladies Dancing = the nine Fruits of the Spirit
* 10 Lords A-leaping = the ten commandments
* 11 Pipers Piping = the eleven faithful apostles
* 12 Drummers Drumming = the twelve points of doctrine in the Apostle’s Creed

The Twelve Days of Christmas by Dennis Bratcher

OVER 10,000 Apple Apps and Counting!
Did you know, that in the first 142 days since Apple first started accepting new iPhone/iPod Touch Apps, there have been over 10,000 Apps added to the iTunes App Store?

My grandson told me that he has downloaded five pages of Apps onto his new iPod Touch. My Touch holds twice as much as his and I have only five Apps in toto: Facebook, Crazy Candle (came in handy for a candle-less birthday), Stanza (love it for reading ebooks), Twitterific and DataCase. Actually I have only four, as DataCase, the most expensive of all of them, didn’t work, so I deleted it.

So, thanks to Grandson’s enthusiasm, I went to the Apple Apps Store and downloaded many of the recommended ones at this link: “Top 15 iPhone Apps of 2008,” except for the games, plus a few others I found. Games bore me. I only downloaded the “FREE” Apps, as I know from experience that the Apps that charge oftentimes do not work, and there is little if any chance of getting a refund. Then I went to bed and before falling off to sleep I tried figuring out what I had done. Imagine this - I now have 160,000 recipes on my iPod, the complete works of Shakespeare plus some that scholars are not sure he wrote, Pandora radio, Urbanspoons restaurants, and two more lights, in case I need to see where I’m going at night. Now I need to find time to sync these to my new iPhone.

I am here to report that the favorite of all that I downloaded has got to be Pandora. It works perfectly. I now have my own custom made radio on this little device. It is like the old “Bluegrass Country” at WAMU has come back to life. WAMU kicked “Bluegrass Country” over to HD radio and the Internet, so they could have more “BORING, BORING” talk on WAMU. I’ve not listened to them since. Who needs them anyway? I’ve got an iPod Touch with all my favorite music on it. But I do miss Ray Davis.

The Shakespeare App is incredible, except it is not easy to read. I am used to reading books on my iPod Touch with STANZA, and I feel certain that I can download Shakespeare’s plays from STANZA for reading. But this Shakespeare App is nice for impressing my friends with my “new found” erudition. See, I carry ALL of the Bard’s works in my purse. If there are any quotations that they cannot remember, I can find them all right here on my iPod.

One of the lights was really not worth the price - FREE. I am going to delete that as I cannot figure what it is suppose to do, except click off and on. I like the Flashlight, as it could come in handy at the theater or when trying to find something at the bottom of my black bag (my purse). I’ve not tried the WordPress App yet.

Most of these Apps need WiFI to work, which in the past would have been a problem for me, as the iPod Touch is not always connected. That is probably why I had not downloaded so many Apps to it. Like the Google Maps are great, but I don’t usually need them at home where I have computers and Internet. I need them when I’m away from home - like on the streets of DC where they don’t work on the iPod Touch. Now my iPod Touch stays home and I go abroad with my new iPhone, where I will always be 100% connected to the real world - the Internet.

Celtic-Appalachian Folk Music

The DVD works! I have been wanting this set of DVDs, but it is from Scotland, and there did not seem to be any guarantee that it would work in an American DVD player. Well, it was a Christmas present for me, and it works. It works in my DVD player even though the DVD itself has “PAL” scribed upon it. When I ordered it at Amazon, it was listed as for NTSC. GADS, it is so difficult to figure out all the ins and outs of technology. I wrote about it here when I first ordered it: “Transatlantic Sessions 3.” This set of DVDs is a lovely musical creation - took a lot of musical and video-graphic talent to plan and create it. Of course, only those who love old time acoustic music will appreciate it.

This is a link to YouTube of a very great piece on the second DVD by Tim O’Brien - real old timey Bluegrass music: Tim O’Brien. Here is a link that has more video of some of the pieces on the two DVDs: http://www.squidoo.com/transatlanticsessionsvideoshowcase.

The Choral Group from Carl Sandburg Middle School, directed by Jeanne Crowley, concluded their presentation for Nelly Custis DAR chapter with "We Wish You A Merry Christmas," performed on the main staircase of the Woodlawn Mansion, Woodlawn, Virginia. Regent Pamela wanted her chapter to experience a brief moment from a long ago Virginia holiday. It was as though we had been transported back to those early American days of Nelly Custis Lewis and her family when they celebrated Christmas at Woodlawn Plantation, with no radios, televisions, cds and computers.

The talented young women sang a musical round also that I have not the title. The video is posted here: My Flickr Album.

I am thinking about the DVD I ordered myself the other day and wondering if I am going to get what I expect. I have no idea if I got my order right. I have been wanting the “Transatlantic Sessions 3″ folk music recording from Scotland, but it has been so difficult to figure it out. Is it a CD, a DVD, and which volume do I want? The Album Covers all look the same. I think I want Volume 2, but what I ordered has only one DVD. I ordered it at Amazon and it lists nothing about the tracks that are on it.

I have had so much difficulty, as I could not find a DVD recording that would play on American DVD players. Finally this week, I found one labeled “NTSC.” However, it is also labeled Video-DVD. If “Video-DVD” means that new-fangled DVD that has video on one side and CD on the other, that will be a problem for my Bose Theater system, as it does not recognize those, and goes bezerk. I guess I will play it on my laptop first to see what it is exactly.

Would not most music afficianadoes say that “Transatlantic Sessions 3,” “Transatlantic Sessions 3, Volume 1″ and “Transatlantic Sessions 3, Volume 2″ are really weird names for folk music albums? Who would have thunk that’s what they are? Maybe they aren’t after all, and I am about to find that out. I will really be disappointed. Then I will have to download RealPlayer onto my computer so I can listen to the album on the Internet here: RTÉ Television.

You can see a wonderful performance here in this video of “Saint Anne’s Reel,” at the bottom of the page, and know why I am wanting this album: Aly Bain and Jerry Douglas.

This will be my Christmas present from Captain Cliff even though he does not know it. Last year he gave me a DVD of Pavarotti singing at the Cathedral in Montreal. It was a very difficult album of music to find it, so I had to do it myself, as Captain Cliff would not have had the patience.

I already ordered the wrong CD of Irish music this week. I wanted the album with “Grace” on it, and the search engine took me to “Amazing Grace,” and I got confused. There were no audio clips, so how could I be sure? Perhaps I will like the wrong album that I ordered. Anyway, I found that the Irish Tenor album I want is out of production and has to be purchased “used,” and for triple bucks.

Here is my collection of YouTube Videos of: Transatlantic Sessions 3. See … you could spend the rest of your life right here at this post listening to my music, if you were crazy too.

How To Post Music at Facebook

I have been tinkering with posting music at Facebook. The following scheme seems to work nicely for MP3 files.

To get an MP3 file of your own music you must first upload it to your own FTP space. If you do not know how to do that, you can find an MP3 file already uploaded somewhere on the Internet with its own URL. To post a song, you must have an URL of the song. Here is a legal one to use from librivox.org of the Christian hymn “Nearer My God To Thee”. (Right-click on this link and choose “Copy Shortcut” and go to your Facebook account).

The next step is to paste the song’s MP3 URL, that you got when you clicked “Copy Shortcut,” under “Share Link” and then click “preview” on the Facebook screen, or “enter” on your keyboard. Next write something in the blank box, if you want, such as “Nearer My God To Thee.” Then click “Post.” VOILA! Automatically, you should see your song posted as an actual music box, with a music note graphic and play button. COOL, eh? This is a screenshot of my Facebook page where I posted “I Heard the Bells” from Jon Sayles website of free guitar music:

Your goal then is to try and find another MP3 URL of music that you really like. Here is an entire collection of free MP3s from The Owen Family. You may find more legal Christmas MP3 files at librivox.org: http://librivox.org/christmas-carol-collection-2006/. Again, remember to right-click on the MP3 link and choose “copy shortcut.”

The easiest way I have found to post music at Facebook is to use my Twitter account and my Seeqpod account. I post the Seeqpod URL of a song to Twitter. I have Twitter set to automatically post to Facebook, so my song comes through as a link, which when clicked takes one to Seeqpod where the song plays.

You can also go to Seeqpod and get one of their links, under “embed.” These files at Seeqpod are not MP3 URLs. Here is one I already found for Yankee Doodle Dandy: http://www.seeqpod.com/search/?plid=7ba92255c5 . Copy and paste this link just as instructed above. Because it is not an MP3 URL, it will not make a music box, but be an ordinary link. You can add in the comments: “Click link for Yankee Doodle Dandy.”

I found this musical creation so beautiful that I had to learn more about it and its meaning. I found it on an album at Amazon, which I just ordered: The Irish Tenors / McNamara, McDermott, Kearns, Tynan.

This is what I discovered about the song entitled “Grace.” Give a listen. (The Video)

“As we gather in the chapel here in old Kilmainham jail,
I think about these past few weeks; Oh, will they say we failed?
From our school days they have told us we must yearn for liberty,
Yet all I want in this dark place is to have you here with me.

[Chorus]
Oh Grace just hold me in your arms, and let this moment linger,
They’ll take me out at dawn and I will die.
With all my love I’ll place this wedding ring upon your finger,
There won’t be time to share our love for we must say goodbye.

Now I know it’s hard for you my love to ever understand,
The love I bear for these brave men, my love for this dear land,
But when Padraic called me to his side down in the G.P.O.
I had to leave my own sick bed, to him I had to go.
[Chorus]

Now as the dawn is breaking, my heart is breaking too,
On this May morn, as I walk out, my thoughts will be of you.
And I’ll write some words upon the wall, so everyone will know,
I loved so much that I could see His blood upon the rose.”

Joseph Mary Plunkett was an Irish nationalist, poet and leader and planner of the 1916 Easter rising. It was largely his plan that was followed in 1916, which ended in a military disaster. Plunkett was held in Kilmainham Jail and faced court martial. Hours before his excecution by firing squad, at age 28, he was married in the prison chapel on 4 May 1916, to his sweetheart Grace Gifford, a Protestant convert to Catholicism.

Grace remained loyal to the republican movement while earning a living as a commerical artist.She voted against the treaty which divided Ireland and during the civil war she was imprisoned in Kilmainham jail for three months. She died in 1955.

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, Row on Row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Colonel John McCrae, a Canadian physician, also died in France, the same year as my great aunt’s husband, Frank Heming, a casualty of World War I. In 1916 McCrae was Chief of Medical Services at a Canadian Hospital in France, where wounded soldiers from Arras were received. His poem remains one of the most memorable war poems. It is a lasting legacy of the terrible battle in the Ypres Salient in the spring of 1915. Poppies sprout best in newly cultivated soil and, when this was written, the entire Western Front was covered with poppies blooming as never before seen on the freshly dug graves.