INDEXING AND EDITING

Indexing, Editing and Transcribing

Dealing with the Recordings

Once recordings have been made it is vital to follow the following-up process of Indexing them as soon as possible, editing out the songs, stories and associated material. Files need to be as carefully and as thoroughly indexed as possible to make sure they are suitable for research for years to come by a range of people. These people may be; the families themselves and wider Gypsy Traveller communities; Artists (singers, musicians, storytellers, writers, poets etc); Academics (Anthropologists, Historians, Archivists, Folklorists, Medievalists, Herbalists, Magic Scholars, Agriculturalists, Geographers, Librarians, etc); The Humanities (Filmmakers, Radio Producers, Care workers, Educationalists etc) and everyone in between.

 

The Roles of Indexer, Editor and Transcriber

Indexing
Below is the layout of the fields within the index and how to index your tapes. These are the fields that need filling and we have a list of key words, metadata and subjects to be aware of. Scan these conversations for topics, subjects etc that will be of interest to all researchers in the future. Making it easy to spot odd topics is our mission as well as themes within the songs, the stories and the narrations.

Remember this is going to be of use to Singers, Storytellers, local Historians, members of the community, enthusiasts, Cultural Historians etc so keep the net of catchment wide and varied, better too much information than too little in terms of descriptive info. Choose key terms that sum up a broader picture of what is being discussed or situations occurring

i.e. ‘Oral Transmission’ ‘passing it on’ ‘correct singing’ ‘singers advice’ ‘old styles of singing’ ‘proper singing’

Every visit can be either one long recording or as is often the case lots of fragments of recordings. Every index page should be for a single visit and not sound file ie. not where the break in files occurs but on each day of work or session – which ever seems more obvious.

Indexing should ALWAYS be done first and as thoroughly as possible. A thorough time code made of every noted song start and ending and every detail worth mentioning, mentioned. This way once full indexing has been done the sound editing can be done swiftly using time codes for where to slice. Also add time codes for where song explanations start and end as these will be edited out too.

If song or story titles are unknown then the best thing to do is to write out as many of the first verse lyrics as can be made out and assumed titles or description of what’s it about. The SCC can help with unknown titles.

Create a system of making issue areas where visible (areas where the conversation is complicated) try making them bolded and red for instance so the SCC and others when checking files and indexes can see where they are and support the complicated moments.

Editing
Using the index created, cut up the recording into tracks.
Each track is given a file name and must be laid out like this:

CONTRIBUTOR’S NAME – DATE (yyyy.mm.dd) – TAPE/VISIT NUMBER  – TIME  THAT CLIP STARTS IN THE MAIN FILE (always adding the hour mark as hh.mm.ss) – SONG TITLE / UNKOWN (+ first line)/ SONG TITLE (EXPLANATION)/ DESCRIPTION OF CONVERSATION/ STORY.

Its all about absolute meticulous continuity so that filing systems keep everything in order!!! Using this uniform system means all SCC recordings conform to a similar set-up and searching for songs, singers, dates etc becomes much easier.

Examples will thus look like this:

A song track with a known title would look like this:

Freda Black 2012.10.16 Tape1 00.10.43 Barbara Allen

A song track with an unknown title would look like this with the first line in brackets:

Freda Black 2012.10.16 Tape1 00.10.43 Unknown Song (In Scarlet Town where I was born)

An explanation of a song would look like this:

Freda Black 2012.10.16 Tape1 00.10.43 Barbara Allen (explanation)

A story/conversation/poem would look like this:

Freda Black 2012.10.16 Tape1 00.10.43 Story about Cartwheel Snake

This way the songs will stack up chronologically as they were sung. Once you have edited out and created your playlist of songs in your iTunes or music folder these files can be uploaded straight into Soundcloud via the SCC page. Please speak to the SCC about contributing your recordings

 

 

 

Example of Transcription

The Lakes of Coolfin

It was early one morning Willy Leonard arose

And was straight to his comrades bedside, quickly he goes

Saying: It is a fine morning and a-bathing we’ll go

 

Now they left[1] and they talked til they came to a lane

and the first man that they met was a keeper of game

He advised them so severlent[2] to go back home again

For there’s deep and false waters in the lakes of Coolfin

 

Now young Willy stripped off and he swam the lake round

Til he came to a current and he find[3] there no ground

Loyal comrade, loyal comrade don’t you venture in

For there’s deep and false waters in the lakes of Coolfin

 

Now twas early same morning, Willy’s sister arose

And was straight to her mother’s bedside quickly she goes

Dear mother dear mother I had a sad dream

That young Willy was floating, in a watery stream

 

Now twas early same morning Willy’s mother came there

Gold rings on her fingers and she’s tearing her hair

Cruel murder cruel murder was there anyone by

For my venture their lives’ for my own darling bairn[4]

 

On the day of his funeral was a glorious sight

There was five and twenty comrades and they all dressed in white

Now the hearsemen[5] wore white banners as they laid him in the clay

Saying goodbye Willy Leonard and they all marched away

 

 

The Black Velvet Band

Oh one day as I went far a ramble

All alone by myself I did stray

I met with a gay young deceiver

By walking along the byway

 

Her eyes they shone like diamonds

And I thought she was queen of my land

Oh and her hair was hung[6] over her shoulders

And tied up with a black velvet band

 

Well next day I was hunted and captured

All alone in the dark I did stand

And I was charged with the robbing and stealing

While walking along the byway

 

Her eyes they shone like diamonds

And I thought she was queen of my land

Oh and her hair was hung over her shoulders

And tied up with a black velvet band

 

Now all you lads that are sober and single

Take fair warning from me if you can

Now and beware of the girl in those blue eyes

And her hair tied up in a black velvet band

 

Boolavogue

At Boolavogue as the sun was setting

The bright may meadow of Shelmalier

A rebel hand set the heather blazing

And brought the neighbours from far and near

 

And father Murphy from old Kilcormac

Spurred out the ranks with the warning cry:

‘Arm! Arm!’, he cried, for I’ve come to lead you

For Ireland’s freedom we’ll fight or die

 

He led us on against the coming soldiers

And the cowardly yeomen we’ll put to fight

It was at the Harrow the boys of Wexford

Showed Bookey’s regiment how men could fight