The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #141147 Message #3252818
Posted By: John P
08-Nov-11 - 10:18 AM
Thread Name: 'Occupy English Folk Music!'
Subject: RE: 'Occupy English Folk Music!'
Glueman, you're repeating yourself and not paying attention to what's already been said on this thread.
You asked. I answered. Here's the answer again:
If you want a song of yours to be accepted by the traditional folk music community, here's how:
1. Play nothing but traditional folk music, with other players of traditional folk music, daily, for 15 years.
2. Write a song or a tune.
3. Play it for your traditional folk music friends.
4. See whether or not they like it and start to play it.
If you want specific examples, I have written at least three tunes that have been played and recorded by other musicians. All of them were changed slightly in the process. Here are a few other examples off the top of my head:
Josefins Dopvals
She Moved Through the Fair
Summertime
Boys of Bedlam
and almost any blues song
I'm sure a quick look through my CD collection would turn up several more.
As for your worries about the 1954 definition, you may want to consider letting it go. I don't know anyone who plays traditional music who pays the slightest attention to it. Most have never heard of it. I was 25 years into a deep focus on traditional music before I ever heard of it. It's academia. Which, to me, makes it almost the opposite of traditional music making. You may find that everything makes more sense if you think about these things less and play traditional music more.