# Hidden Carols: A Christmas Singing Tradition in the English Pennines

For well over two and a half centuries, the performance of distinctive carols has been a feature of the seasonal holiday of Christmas in villages in many parts of England, especially in the West Country and in the region of South Yorkshire and Derbyshire around Sheffield, on the eastern edge of the Pennine hills. In this talk Ian Russell explores the development of this tradition in terms of musicality, group structure, style, and repertoire with recorded examples. He also discusses the overall sound ideal created by such carolling and the dynamic soundscape that identifies this form of cultural expression, drawing on the ethnographic fieldwork he has undertaken during the past forty years.

- Kind: Talk
- Year: 2014
- By: American Folklife Center
- Genres: Education
- Archive: [Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/item/2021689292/)
- Licence or status: Rights statement at the Library of Congress (as the archive states it)
- Credit: Library of Congress
- Who can watch: Tweens profiles and older (the archive gives no rating; placed by Invisible Network from its collection and subjects)

[Watch now](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/watch/archive/loc/2021689292?play=1)