The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #161498 Message #3839029
Posted By: The Sandman
15-Feb-17 - 04:06 AM
Thread Name: Radio 2 Folk Awards 2017 - Nominations
Subject: RE: Radio 2 Folk Awards 2017 - Nominations
IMO,
Performance Encouragement for anyone of any age is best done through tuition and workshops.
how do awards encourage people and encourage higher standards for those who want to play music as an amateur? how do awards encourage people who do it either for a living or on a semi pro basis?,most pros and particularly semi pros carry on getting gigs regardless, these awards are not relevant for the majority of semi pro or pro performers.it is possible they may impress some people who are not performers.
how useful is that? will it help raise the overall standard of performance in this genre? what is the purpose of these awards?. do they provide income for the organisers?
What are the reasons for these awards?
do these awards encourage MANY PERFORMERS?
or do they just encourage those that win the awards[ who are of course a tiny proportion of the overall performers working on the uk folk scene].
I think more amateur performers and semi pros and even pros are encouraged in their playing by videos on you tube .
WILL FLY, channel is a good example, of how to raise competence levels.
I have found other videos and particularly PETE SEEGERS rainbow quest ILLUMINATING INTERESTING AND HELPFUL.
One of the more useful things imo "as regards raising competence levels" the BBC ever did for folk music was Hold Down A Chord.
now of course the BBC are less concerned about musical education but more about viewing numbers, none of which imo has anything to do with maintaining musical standards in the folk genre.
It uses the idea of a star system, which in my opinion is unhealthy, and belongs in the pop music world.
So the organisers of The BBC Folk Awards wish to make money, promote themselves and promote a few performers, BBC wish to increase their viewing audience, that is what these awards are about, Commercialising Folk Music and making money.
it is necessary IMO be Honest about this.
These awards will promote avery snall proportion of artists, they will help BBC viewing, and provide money for the promoters, on the plus side they might introduce a few new people to the GENRE., but at the same time how many of those new people will become performers?
more likely IMO they WILL think that this music is NOT about home grown music, but about Folk Stars., about promotion and many of the things we see in the Pop Music Industry
However it is my honest opinion that this is not the best approach to introducing new people to the genre, in my opinion it is more important to help EVERYONE to keep the music to high standards in the other ways I suggested earlier.