Subject: RE: The Folk Process
From: Stringsinger - PM
Date: 10 Sep 09 - 06:16 PM

I don't know if I mentioned this before but the biggest detractor of the "folk process"
is the modern copyright law. Performance rights societies try to avoid a public domain
designation for a song because no one can make a buck off of it. A song no longer
becomes part of the possession of the "commons" but becomes an individual's intellectual
"property". This is antithetical to the "folk process".

I have no problem with a song being composed or authored and the creators making money from it but it categorically and specifically not a folk song.

Anonymous and PD are often the determinants of a folk song.

Frank Hamilton
and
Any one of the songs being written today is potential for being part of the "process".

But newly minted, they are not.

Frank Hamilton
so does that mean composers of new songs have to do a BERT,AND PRETEND THEY ARE TRADITIONAL?
Next,any newly minted song does not have that potential,if it is not written in a certain style,that is why some[not all] of Paul Macartneys songs will never be Folk songs because even if they are processed,they will be what they are processed cheese,folksongs have a certain style,and why other newly minted songs willbe folk songs,it is to do with how they are written,and their melodies and uses of certain modes,they have an indelible stamp ,in the same way Jazz ,cannot be jazz without improvisation.
the folk process is only part of the equation.