So my Pirate Tattoo thread was popular last week, so tonight, how about we deal with "Shanties?" GET READY FOR SOME MUSIC TO LISTEN TO ON THE BREAK.

A Thread, that I will build slowly as I watch tonight's #CriticalRole. https://twitter.com/NomeDaBarbarian/status/1060740025183174656

2) A brief note - "Shanties" or "Sea Shanties" isn't just a catch-all term for songs sung by sailors. Like everything else on a boat, the music always served a purpose.

The style of song depended on what the purpose was.

3) Shanties are a form of Work Song - they coordinate effort on a ship, and keep people to a rhythm, while keeping them engaged during truly boring work.

If a song is sung JUST for entertainment it's called a Forecastle/Fo'c'sle/Forebiter Song.

4) Shanties were often call and response, and were divided into the different jobs.

There were Halyard/Long Drag shanties. Halyards are lines (ropes) used to hoist ladders, sails, etc. It's heavy, long work, and you'd coordinate two pulls per chorus.

5) There was regularly short, quick pull work required - changing tack (direction), for instance. For that you'd have a Short Drag/Fore Sheet/or Main Sheet Shanty. One pull per chorus.

(Sheet: a line (rope) used to control the moveable corners of a sail).

6) Then there's "PULL AS HARD AS YOU CAN AS FAST AS YOU CAN." Very brief hauling tasks, like making a halyard as taut as possible. "Sweating-Up" Chants.

7) My personal favorites are "Capstan Chants." A capstan is a big winch used to put manpower to raising an anchor chain, where everyone walks in a circle around it pushing their own pole.

They'd be long, with call and response & a "Grand Chorus."

8) Eventually, the capstan evolved into a windlass - an up-and-down see-saw tool that ratchets the anchor line up. Similarly, Capstan Songs evolved into Windlass chanties. They were binary (up/down) in the same way that halyard shanties were (pull/hold), but they were long work..

9) ... in the same way that capstan songs were, so there's a lot of overlap between them.

10) Similar motions were required to work pumps (keeping the water out was a big deal, ya'know), and voila! Pump songs.

One of my favorites, which was traditionally sung after the ship is in port, and you're pumping her dry before going ashore:

11) The constant need for entertainment during monotonous work, and the need to synchronize workers across a deck, meant that songs were an important part of sailing culture. A sailor who knew many songs (or who could improvise easily) was invaluable.

12) That means that, when off-watch, sailors would sing for leisure. There's so much material culture here - the age of sail overlapped with the age of recording. We actually have recordings of wooden navy songs. https://www.loc.gov/folklife/Gordon/sound/Haulthewoodpile.mp3

13) And popular songs of the day would be sung for leisure.

Which sets up a chance for me to end on a dick joke.

Cheers, all. I'll see you next week with some weird obscure history. #CriticalRole

PS1) Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention - Shanties, while having their roots in old maritime songs, are an American invention. They arose as a genre in the 1800s, when larger ships with smaller crews required distinct work.

PS2) Importantly... they were also heavily inspired by American Field, Lumber, and Porter work songs - which were Black songs. We know, from descriptions of the time, that white workers were amazed at/unfamiliar with the concept of singing while working.