A New Free Online Course in Song Collecting
Registration for our 2019 course will open shortly
In 2017, the Song Collectors Collective launched a new 6-week online course, Pathway, empowering a new generation of song collectors in the UK, Ireland and beyond. We are planning to run the Pathway again in January 2019.
On the Pathway participants will discover the rich world of song collecting, learning in weekly lectures and from each other. The 6 week course appeals to lovers of song and folklore who wish to pursue their own research, fieldwork and archiving, and is free to all.
Oral traditions, from bothy ballads to football chants, surround us at home and abroad. Yet such practices are often most overlooked and undervalued in the digital age. The project will help bolster the song collecting movement by training participants in tasks including: researching, recording, indexing, editing, archiving and publishing.
Via weekly online lectures, Pathway introduces the last 150 years of song collecting, folklore and ethnomusicology, before preparing participants with all the necessary moral codes and ethical considerations. The course then splits into four streams covering the major aspects of song collecting, quickly engaging the group in activities and allowing participants to learn from lectures and from each other.
Pathway is supported by An Chomhairle Ealaion and Arts Council England.
The SCC is a broad association of individuals brought together by their common desire to celebrate, document and support singing and other oral traditions. Consisting of an online archive of recordings, a support network for song collectors and a number of annual events, the collective is at the forefront of efforts to document singing practices in contemporary UK and Ireland.
