The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #119547 Message #2595306
Posted By: Phil Edwards
23-Mar-09 - 10:23 AM
Thread Name: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
Cecil Sharp took a snapshot of a community and their traditions at a certain point in time. Whatever rudimentary methods were used for transmission of the song was reflected in the source. During the last 100 years, our sense of "community" has changed. You can sit and cry in your beer about the loss of tradition, or you can realize that tradition evolves with these changes.
Ron, your points would be a lot more persuasive without the sneering at people who disagree with you. We're not idle, maudlin, self-pitying drunks on this side of the argument - just rational adults who hold different views from you.
Apart from that, I'm slightly stunned by the second sentence I quote here - the "rudimentary methods used for transmission of the song" are precisely what makes traditional music different from composed music (which hasn't entered a tradition). The replacement of those methods by broadcast and recorded music stopped the folk process happening - those traditions aren't evolving, because there's nowhere for them to do so.
The singer-songwriters are creating songs for a specific community.
We could argue about the meaning of 'community', but I'm more interested in the bit about creating songs. Do you believe that a song that's just been written can be a folk song?