page_title: English folk music
section_title: Sea shanties
hierarchical_section_title: English folk music / Forms of folk music / Sea shanties
caption_attribution_description: English: An orignal print of seamen working at a capstan Nederlands: Prent van zeelui duwend aan de spaken van een kaapstander waarop een fluitspeler een deuntje speelt.
context_page_description: The folk music of England is a tradition-based music, which has existed since the later medieval period. It is often contrasted with courtly, classical and later commercial music. Folk music has been preserved and transmitted orally, through print and later through recordings. The term is used to refer to English traditional music and music composed, or delivered, in a traditional style. English folk music has produced or contributed to several important musical genres, including sea shanties, jigs, hornpipes and dance music, such as that used for Morris dancing. It can be seen as having distinct regional and local variations in content and style, particularly in areas more removed from the cultural and political centres of the English state, as in Northumbria, or the West Country. Cultural interchange and processes of migration mean that English folk music, although in many ways distinctive, has particularly interacted with the music of Scotland. It has also interacted with other musical traditions, particularly classical and rock music, influencing musical styles and producing musical fusions, such as British folk rock, folk punk and folk metal.
context_section_description: Sea shanties are a type of work song traditionally sung by sailors. Derived from the French word 'chanter', meaning 'to sing', they may date from as early as the 15th century, but most recorded examples derive from the 19th century. Shanties were usually slow rhythmic songs designed to help with collective tasks on labour-intensive sailing and later steam ships. Many were call and response songs, with one voice (the shantyman) singing a lead line and the rest of the sailors giving a response together. They were derived from varied sources, including dances, folk songs, polkas, waltzes and even West African work-songs. Since different songs were useful for different tasks they are traditionally divided into three main categories, short haul shanties, for tasks requiring quick pulls over a relatively short time; halyard shanties, for heavier work requiring more set-up time between pulls; and Capstan shanties, for long, repetitive tasks requiring a sustained rhythm, but not involving working the lines. Famous shanties include, the 'Drunken Sailor' and 'Blow the Man Down'. There was some interest in sea shanties in the first revival from figures like Percy Grainger. In the second revival A. L. Lloyd attempted to popularise them, recording several albums of sea songs from 1965.
caption: Sailors working at a capstan with musical accompaniment
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