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The Yorkshire Garland Group hopes to preserve traditional tunes and chart their evolution.

The project grew out of work carried out in taping performances in the 1960s and 1970s. These recordings are held in library and university collections across the country.

By putting the material online the group hope to make it more accessible to the public.

Many of the songs have been passed down orally from generation to generation. This process has led to many interpretations of the same song.Μύ Group member Steve Gardham recalls a recording trip to the coastal village of Aldbrough in East Yorkshire turned up a number of versions of a song called The Herring’s Head.

β€œThere were people, old people in their seventies and eighties, who were living round the corner from each other who sang the same song but totally different verses, totally different tune, totally different chorus. We found three different versions from people living within 20-yards of each other.”

The website carries recordings of the songs, a history of the tune and a transcription of the music. Despite the lyrics and music being written down, project member Bill Sowerby says that the songs are still evolving. β€œAs soon as the singer gets hold of it they mould it into their own way of doing it.”

The group aims to keep the songs alive by performing at concerts and in sessions in local schools.

Despite many of the industries that spawned the songs dying out the form has evolved and new folk artists, such as Kate Rusby, are writing new songs; something which Steve Gardham applauds β€œThe music has got to move forward. It is not a case of these are dead songs and you can’t sing anything modern in folk music because it’s not folk. It’s a continuous process.”