The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #119547   Message #2599072
Posted By: Jack Blandiver
28-Mar-09 - 04:53 AM
Thread Name: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
Sorry, but there is no 'folk process' - analogous or otherwise - involved in running random sounds through a computer program. Interesting, even mesmerizing, but not folk.

In selecting a sound by editing & sampling (so hardly random) and treating this via Ableton Live (not so much a computer programme as a way of life with a tradition & community all of its own) I am, in terms of the 1954 Definition, evolving a music from rudimentary beginnings and re-fashioning and re-creating that music (with respect of the community) to give it its folk character. Otherwise, see my response to Don's New Age comment.

Also, could you explain why it is so important to you that it should be described as "folk"?

I am a Trad / Folk Artist - a storyteller in essence - working with both primal & contemporary technology and all points in between. What interests me is the availability of that technology and how that might be considered with respect of Trad. or Folk Arts. Can photography ever be a Folk Art? What about film making? Or sound? Certainly there emerges a Folk Character with respect of the sorts of things people can do with these available technologies, and, much as we might accept (say) quilting, knitting, sour-dough modelling and macramé as being Folk Arts - crafts if you like - I feel computers enable another level of creativity which remains very much Folk in terms of its humanity, creativity, collectivity, and availability. It also allows for a very essential idiosyncrasy which, I feel, is Folk by default - the realm of the outsider in terms of any given establishment. I don't see myself quite as an outsider - I get paid very handsomely & pride myself on providing a reliable & professional service - but to lose sight of the actual nature of any given Folk Art with respect the human creative genius (that idiosyncratic spark which is common to all!) is to miss the point rather.