Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Oct 13 - 06:13 AM

He doesn't hate folksong Richard - just the people who try to make sense of it, especially those who try to ascribe it to ordinary people rather than the invention of Victorian gentlemen
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 11 Oct 13 - 03:39 PM

If you hate folk music so much, why don't you just fuck off?

It's an ever-so-slightly slightly altered passage from Ivine Welsh's novel Trainspotting actually, Richard - albeit C&P'd from the internet so I can't vouch for its accuracy since my daughter nabbed my copy of the book 15 years ago & hasn't as yet returned it. If read rightly, is an affirmation of the very things about folk that I actually find very positive. Go read it again.

And if I hated folk, I would hardly bother, now - would I? As it is I've been folkin' since I was 11 in 1972 (or 73) and see no reason to stop now. So please be civil, eh?

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 Oct 13 - 02:56 PM

Interesting lump in italics Blandiver. Have you noticed it contradicts the pretentious bollocks you constantly spout. If you hate folk music so much, why don't you just fuck off?

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 11 Oct 13 - 08:10 AM

This video fragment, which has been taken from Sé Mo Laoch - Eoiní agus Danny Mhaidhcí Ó Súilleabháin, , probably illustrates the point that Nell is an intergral part of the Baile Mhuirne singing tradition. And probably shows, in the context of this thread, how singing and music in Ireland keeps going.

Ofcourse Nell sang in folkclubs. She also sang at Electric Picnic and who knows where else. Neither was however instrumental in forming her as a singer, which was my point earlier.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 11 Oct 13 - 07:16 AM

I meant ofcourse she developed as a singer without the influence of folkclubs.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Vic Smith
Date: 11 Oct 13 - 06:49 AM

....Nell ní Chróinín. If the country can throw up lovely captivating young singers like her, most likely without her ever seeing the inside of a folkclub

Nell has sung in folk clubs and at Sidmouth Festival - a really great singer. I believe that she is related to Elizabeth 'Beth' Cronin, one of the iconic figures of traditional Irish song.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Lighter
Date: 10 Oct 13 - 09:25 AM

> for anyone with an open ear to hear.

The key to much of the discussion.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 10 Oct 13 - 08:34 AM

Thanks Jim.

You know earlier during the course of this thread I got a distinct impression some people were reaction from a position of not actually knowing much about Irish music but carrying a few misconceptions about this country   around with them.

While I was considering if it was worth responding to that line of thought I stumbled into a batch of recordings of Nell ní Chróinín. If the country can throw up lovely captivating young singers like her, most likely without her ever seeing the inside of a folkclub, why would I bother arguing the case here. The music and the singers are out there, for anyone with an open ear to hear.

This morning, lovely and bright, I stumbled into the Kilrush horsefair. Beats being on the interwebs.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Oct 13 - 05:52 AM

Interesting to watch the (non) development of this discussion.
Ireland has achieved the success it has not by trying to please all of the people all of the time, but by focusing on what it believed to be its traditional music and building on that.
The Willie Clancy Summer School was possibly the first big break, running a week of classes, lectures, recitals and concerts with a week of sessions - just enjoyed its 40th year.
Shortly after its establishment the Irish Traditional Music Archive was set up - now making its holdings freely available.
Traditional music has the full and unconditional support of the Irish Arts Establishment and is respected as an important aspect of Irish culture - the ITMA was opened by President of Ireland Mary Robinson, and the move to new premises introduced by the Irish Arts Minister.
As Peter Laban and others pointed out, the thousands of youngsters now playing Irish music to a superb standard do not feel restricted in any way from playing and enjoying other music, just treating Irish traditional music for what it is, Irish traditional music as distinct from.... whatever (not a claim anywhere that hip-hop must be "traditional" because the tunes have been played twice in different versions).
Doesn't mean the music won't change - it will die if it doesn't, but it will be around for at least another couple of generations.
A far cry from a folk music revival which appears to be unable to find it's folk arse with both hands!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Eldergirl
Date: 09 Oct 13 - 09:35 PM

Aye,'appen.
Nobody said it would be all honey and jam.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 09 Oct 13 - 06:03 AM

That will blow the lid off our seemingly quaint and harmless activities.

All it takes is to change a couple of words & it says it all!

Society invents a spurious convoluted logic tae absorb and change people whae's behaviour is outside its mainstream. Suppose that ah ken aw the pros and cons, know that ah'm gaunnae huv a short life, am ah sound mind, ectetera, ectetera, but still want tae play Folk? They won't let ye dae it. They won't let ye dae it, because it's seen as a sign ay thir ain failure. The fact that ye jist simply choose tae reject whut they huv tae offer. Choose us. Choose life. Choose mortgage payments; choose washing machines; choose cars; choose sitting oan a couch watching mind-numbing and spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fuckin junk food intae yir mooth. Choose rotting away, pishing and shiteing yersel in a home, a total fuckin embarrassment tae the selfish, fucked-up brats ye've produced. Choose life. Well, ah choose no tae choose life. If the cunts cannae handle that, it's thair fuckin problem. As Harry Lauder sais, ah jist intend tae keep right on to the end of the road...

Damn right!

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,eldergirl on another computer
Date: 09 Oct 13 - 05:52 AM

oh ye gods, and put even more people off!! hahahaha!

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 09 Oct 13 - 05:25 AM

"floorspotting.. An upcoming novel from Irvine Welsh??"

Hope so. That will blow the lid off our seemingly quaint and harmless activities.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Will Fly
Date: 09 Oct 13 - 05:19 AM

Thanks for the Carmichael link!

Going back before people like Carmichael, we're in the realms of revue and music-hall - stuff which is now well over 100 years old. Wonderful melodies, some of them, which have lasted well and retained all their power and expression - a bit like some traditional tunes.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 09 Oct 13 - 05:06 AM

From the Indiana University Archive of Traditional Music:

Hoagy Carmichael Collections

The Hoagy Carmichael Collection at the Archives of Traditional Music represents the largest holding of materials pertaining to Hoagy Carmichael available anywhere in the world.

Enjoy!

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Will Fly
Date: 09 Oct 13 - 04:27 AM

something by Hoagy Carmichael

Ah - now you're talking!

When I started playing Carmichael's tunes in jazz bands and as solo guitar pieces - back in the late '60s - they were 40 years old or less. I play them still, but now they're getting on (some of them) for 90 years old. Getting more traditional by the day... :-)

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,eldergirl on another computer
Date: 08 Oct 13 - 08:48 PM

I am definitely Far Away; maybe eve Far Out, maan; and could never be described as Small. Neither am I hankering after the Good Old Days of Yore, etc, most of which were a long way off Good. OTOH I will happily sing an old song or 2 that tells it like it was, to remind us that we are comparatively well off these days(mostly) OR a new song or 2 that might point out room for improvement. or I might just sing a 60's pop song, or something by Hoagy Carmichael. is that traditional enough?
floor spotting: ooooo, look!!

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 08 Oct 13 - 04:51 PM

floorspotting

An upcoming novel from Irvine Welsh??

Model Railway enthusiasts are people too, regardless of any implied cranky eccentric idiosyncrasies which are all grist to the mill.   I see the same qualities in Folk Enthusiasts - and the same relationship between real trains and model ones, which can get pretty weird : around Xmas time I might buy a copy of The Railway Modeller by way of Traditional Seasonal Observance and find myself looking at a picture of a layout unsure as to whether I'm looking at a model or the 'real' thing.

Model Railway Enthusiasm is born of the same Hauntological impulses that underlie Folk. I'd say that was a good thing - but it still pays to be aware of the differences between SMALL and FAR AWAY.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 08 Oct 13 - 12:17 PM

"The possibility smacks of a weird sort of cultural engineering where the heritage industry (of which the EFDSS and so on are arguably already part of anyway) sell something on our behalf that we're supposed to think is ours anyway but that most of us don't actually want."

Ugh, every time I think of "English Heritage" I'm reminded of the Battle of the Beanfield and the way they worked with Thatcher's little army to destroy a genuine folk usage of, well, a piece of our supposedly "shared" English heritage. No fan of the industry, and especially it's obsequious preoccupation with toff's mouldy old piles.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 08 Oct 13 - 12:07 PM

Sorry Brian I wasn't suggesting that all clubs are like model railways at all!
Just the idea - that is occasionally expressed on threads on this site - that the club format should be sustained or preserved - not merely for it's own merit, but specifically as some kind of continuation of "The Tradition" - is fallacious. That's the only concession I would grant Blandiver re: his MRE analogy, which in fact I don't buy.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 08 Oct 13 - 11:03 AM

I've actually realised why this thread has slightly irritated me and why I probably shouldn't be contributing to it. I haven't actually heard an album of traditional folk music that has blown me away since the Hladowski/Joynes album last year. On top of that, I don't really dig much singersongwriter folk or mumfolk and we all know the psych folk stuff I like isn't proper folk music anyway! I'm actually starting to understand why family and friends beg me to take it off nearly every time I put a trad folk album on. I suspect the next step is to pare the collection down to a few essentials - Shirley Collins, Nic Jones, Ray Fisher, Martin Carthy, Peter Bellamy and not that much more...

Meanwhile I don't think tourist-friendly state sponsored folk music as a symbol of 'who we are' will win many friends. I doubt it would make for very interesting folk music either, for that matter. The possibility smacks of a weird sort of cultural engineering where the heritage industry (of which the EFDSS and so on are arguably already part of anyway) sell something on our behalf that we're supposed to think is ours anyway but that most of us don't actually want. There again, I imagine few of us eat clotted cream teas all that often or play cricket on the vilage green, so maybe it doesn't matter, and maybe Ray Davies was right.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 08 Oct 13 - 10:58 AM

CS, those of us who grew up playing our music in folk clubs make no apology for our attachment to the format. They may be a generational phenomenon, and the succeeding generations may well have different ideas, but at their best they offer an appropriately intimate environment in which to experience music that often works best on a small scale. All that fevered shushing of popular exaggeration reflects an environment in which the music actually gets listened to (and how my mates in pub bands envied me that!). They encourage participation, both in chorus singing and floorspotting (a contentious one, that, obviously). And, they are a relatively egalitarian way of experiencing a performance by a leading light of the genre, without the high stage and the green room creating a barrier between them and you.

Those might seem to you outdated notions, but personally I don't see a lot wrong with them, and nor do I accept they imply MRE values. I'm sure Vic Smith (whose festival I've managed quite accidentally to advertise), and several others who post here and are involved in successful folk clubs, would take issue with the idea that the format is dead.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 08 Oct 13 - 10:57 AM

I think you'll find that incorrect. The early years of the state, with their introduction of the Dance Halls Act etc, are mostly regarded as creating an atmosphere suppressing to the traditional culture.

In Ireland, by the way, there's generally a distinction between what is called 'traditional music' and what is 'folk'. A Seán Nós singer won't be called a 'folk' singer just as, say, The Dubliners are not regarded as 'traditional' singers. I think that's a helpful distinction.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,chris
Date: 08 Oct 13 - 10:36 AM

I vaguely recall a TV program that seemed to be suggesting that De Valera pushed hard to get Irish folk accepted- perhaps someone can confirm or Reject this
Chris

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 08 Oct 13 - 09:54 AM

Even were it accurate at one time, I suspect that Blandiver's MRE (model railway enthusiast) analogy is already outdated. There are a few who you may on occasion hear on the Mudcat bemoaning the fate of *clubs* as some-kind of embodiment of the 'The Tradition' and presumably the only way they can imagine folk music functioning, when in fact music festivals of all kinds - including folk - are thriving and pull in huge volumes of youth! The club model of folk where people participating together in singing and playing (occasionally even traditional songs and tunes) in a pub or function room is I think likely to die out with those who established them. And it's possibly there if anywhere that you might find the MRE worrying about passing along the baton. But I don't see anything pertaining to model railways in music festivals of whatever genre.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Lighter
Date: 08 Oct 13 - 09:49 AM

> "If the masses don't like it, it must be rubbish"

Others say, "If the masses *do* like it, it must be rubbish."

Most of us here, I think, do not fall into either camp.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Vic Smith
Date: 08 Oct 13 - 09:24 AM

Find lots of vitality in and enthusiasm for folk music at LEWES FOLK FESTIVAL which starts today (8th) and runs until Sunday (13th)

In the previous post Brian Peters (He'll be there) cites Janet Russell and Lucy Ward (They will both be there) as "talented people who find old melodies and the tales attached to them gripping and relevant." Agreed, That is all that is needed. We aim to make our town buzz with the very best that we can offer.

I'm just a septagarian old codger who has been around this music for 50-odd years but I am still trying to work my socks off to give it my best shot. I wish others would try to do the same rather than moaning about it on this forum.

http://www.lewesfolkfest.org/

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 08 Oct 13 - 09:05 AM

Going back to the original question for a moment (and forgive me if someone's said this already - it's a long thread), the point is that, despite all the efforts of Cecil Sharp, English folk song has never become a vehicle for nationalistic sentiment. The folk musics of Ireland, Scotland, Brittany, the Cajuns, the Basques, the Quebecois, etc., have been fiercely preserved by those communities as representations of their own culture, in the teeth of the hegemony of the more powerful nations of which they form a - sometimes unwilling -component.

The other problem for English folk song is that some of its enthusiasts can't get their heads around the notion that what was once the only show in town as far as home-grown music was concerned, is now one minority music amongst many. Though possibly no more of a minority than jazz, classical, death metal, emo, etc., which don't seem to go in for the kind of soul-searching that certain elements of the folk scene seem compelled to do. "If the masses don't like it, it must be rubbish" seems to be the attitude in some quarters.

Then we get the stereotypes of trainspotters and model railway builders (both categories which, fairly or not, conjure up an image of socially-maladjusted, obsessive, middle-aged males) which bear no relation at all to the folk scene that I know, excepting a small number of cases. To pick a few names at random, are Ray Fisher, Nic Jones, The Wilson Family, Janet Russell, Lucy Ward, etc. etc. the embodiment of some railway-modelling type of re-enactment? No, just talented people who find old melodies and the tales attached to them gripping and relevant. I'm with CS here: although there is most definitely a rich hinterland of history and context behind the old songs, the reason they appeal to (some) people to this day are great tunes and great words.

It's also wise to remember that, although for a couple of centuries the old songs were largely the preserve of the rural working class, they were performed in other contexts too, not least on the 18th century stage. And Professor Child's favourite ballad source was the daughter of a professor.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 08 Oct 13 - 06:32 AM

I'm not trashing it, CS - no more than I'd trash model railways - I just think it's important to be aware of that & keep it in perspective by way of honouring the absolute supremacy of the source. I sing Trad. Folk Songs by way of Holy Communion, Ritual & Seance with that source - I imagine old guys in the attic running their perfectly scratch built 00 replicas of the long vanished branch-line stations of yore are doing that as well.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 08 Oct 13 - 06:02 AM

That said, it's all good! People need the escapism both LotR, LARP and 'Folk Music' provides for their health and sanity; rustic bucolic fantasies get trashed altogether too much!

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 08 Oct 13 - 05:57 AM

Btw Blandiver offering provocative insights here as usual. I'm fairly sold on the paternalistic condescension theme where of the origins of the academic concept of 'folk' is concerned. Less so on the model railway analogy which I see existing more where a specific belief in the "continuance of a tradition" also exists, rather than simply in contemporary people singing old songs. If I participate in an am dram production of The Merry Wives of Windsor, it's not under the illusion that I'm maintaining some archaic dramatic 'tradition' I do it for the sake of doing it and nothing else. LIkewise singing, of anything at all; be it Handel, Little Dragon or those funny old traditional songs. It's the context of a 'folk scene' which believes itself to be preserving and continuing some ye old tradition. that turns the songs into LARP.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 08 Oct 13 - 05:45 AM

Haha! Fair young folkies and Lush cosmetics! What a perfect marketing marriage! Now all we need is for Laura Ashley to "re-brand" itself.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 08 Oct 13 - 05:32 AM

Touché!

And rather wonderful too...

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Oct 13 - 04:49 AM

"From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 07 Oct 13 - 08:17 AM
Oh yeah? Name me one Folk Artist with their own range of perfume on prominent display in Boots the Chemist.."
.
In the interest of accuracy and fairness, it's not in Boots but - Jackie Oates cosmetic at Lush

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Eldergirl
Date: 07 Oct 13 - 09:21 PM

It's very likely that most tourists arriving at Heathrow or wherever , if greeted by a cheery morris tune played by persons in green hats, would think it was Irish anyway.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 Oct 13 - 01:10 PM

Ah - OK. I may disagree but as I said before I have had enough of discussing what the term folk music means. Thanks for the clarification, Blandiver. Perhaps one thought that may be appropriate to the original question. I have already said that it could well be the categorisation that puts people off. Maybe if those of us who know that the music is not dry and academic stop proliferating the view that it is, it could help :-)

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Lighter
Date: 07 Oct 13 - 12:57 PM

> I would have thought that difference is something any revival singer is all too aware of in their heartfelt yearning for beauteous potency of Traditional Song & the long vanished ecology thereof?

You mean that's what June yearns for? News to me. And what if she does?

More likely, she yearns to make music she likes, that people will listen to, and that she can earn some money for making.

But even if revival singers really do think dopey thoughts to themselves, why should anyone care? If, say, visions of the Lucky Charms leprechaun always dance in the heads of Irish folkies, what we get is still the music to take or leave alone.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 07 Oct 13 - 12:31 PM

So, are you saying that the term 'folk music' is inherently academic

Yes.

Or are you saying that the songs that many of us class as folk music are inherently academic?

No.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,geoff woolfe
Date: 07 Oct 13 - 12:28 PM

Friday 4th Oct 2013   I'm in London for the EFDSS Folk Song Conference   ( why weren't you there? - yes I know Brian P was....)

Outside Finchley Road station - a busker on whistle playing Boys of Blue Hill ... something must be going right..
OK he could have played a less well known tune......

It's about what we do in the community - not about national identity or 'tourism'..

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 07 Oct 13 - 12:25 PM

So are we to accept that the songs aren't real either?

They were real enough in their natural habitat anyway, once they're removed from that habitat they become something very different - once they're subjected to the old academic T+T (taxidermy / taxonomy) and 'revived' by the professional folk artiste. It begins with Sharp's postprandial parlour arrangement of The Seeds of Love and that disparity endures to this day. Contrast & compare Bob Roberts' Gamekeepers with June Tabor's. One is real, the other is a postprandial macramé beat fantasy - howe'er so masterfully realised. I would have thought that difference is something any revival singer is all too aware of in their heartfelt yearning for beauteous potency of Traditional Song & the long vanished ecology thereof?

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: johncharles
Date: 07 Oct 13 - 12:19 PM

"Back in London - traditional music is largely ignored, and if a visitor wants to hear traditional music in London he/she has to go to great lengths to find it."
try google -
http://www.folklondon.co.uk/venues.html
plus many more.
irish tourism is a self fulfilling prophecy. What are people expecting; golf, fishing, pubs, guiness and diddly music. That is what they get.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 Oct 13 - 12:02 PM

Still don't understand, Blandiver. Must be having a particularly bad day.

What I'm talking about is its inherently academic / theoretical nature on account of its somewhat peculiar origins etc.

So, are you saying that the term 'folk music' is inherently academic, which I would agree with although I have no issues with academic definitions. Or are you saying that the songs that many of us class as folk music are inherently academic? Words of one syllable would probably be best for me at the mo.

As to the 'persistence of paternalistic notions'. Well, if people persist in applying paternalistic notions to folk music then those notions will continue. As I said before, we have moved on since C#'s time. I think that those notions only exist where they are allowed to.

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 07 Oct 13 - 11:48 AM

"the model railway enthusiasts at least know their toy trains aren't real."

So are we to accept that the songs aren't real either? I've never bought all the surrounding paraphenalia myself, but the the songs themselves are undoubtedly real, and remain relevant so long as anyone wants to listen to them.

"apologies for lack of cheer outside the North Euston;"

Yeah, I thought you weren't your usual irrepressible self. Hope you're over it now.

Re 'tradition', I think I'll stick with the usual definition, rather than a made-up one about 'purity'.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 07 Oct 13 - 11:44 AM

PS:

What we seem to be discussing, yet again, is the definition of folk

No we're not - I'm not anyway. I think it's very clear what Folk means in this (or any other) context. What I'm talking about is its inherently academic / theoretical nature on account of its somewhat peculiar origins and the persistence of those paternalistic notions today.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Lighter
Date: 07 Oct 13 - 11:41 AM

The only thing we could do "wrong" would be to abandon playing and taking an interest in the music because it's (allegedly) too racist, nationalist, sexist, bourgeois, old, simple-minded, misleading, boring, whatever.

As very few people who've had much exposure to it believe.

But let's say, just for discussion, that Harker is right: the collectors were ambitious, condescending fakers determined to invent a merrie English and Scottish and Irish and Welsh past that never existed, just to line their own pockets and promote their own smug, pathetic fantasies about the past and nationalist supremacy in the future.

So, as I'm often compelled to ask, what?

What's that got to do with the experience of hearing traditional songs themselves, particularly those hundreds that have been recorded by modern collectors without any "bourgeois" alteration at all?

Traditional tunes, at least, which seem to be beyond political criticism.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 07 Oct 13 - 11:33 AM

Funny, I've never heard of these from any folkie or read about them on any LP jacket. Quite the contrary in fact.

It's there in the implication of a 'traditional singer' who is 'part of a tradition'. The very notion of a 'tradition' in this sense implies a sense of purity - something that goes back to Sharp who dismissed certain NW Morris Traditions as being impure, much as Fluffy Morris (the only truly Traditional Morris?) is disparaged by the Black-face-'n'-Feathers-We're-Not-Racist-Honest Morris crowd today.

Wasn't it written in 1960 by Ewan MacColl?

It carries a Roud number because it was collected within such a pure-blood tradition as mentioned above. One has to be BORN a Traditional Singer, and even then you stop being 'A Real Traditional Singer' once you've had an education - as Jean Ritchie reminded us on this forum of a comment made about her by Maud Karpeles.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 07 Oct 13 - 11:16 AM

Hi, SPB Co-operator. I want to get back to your original question. You wrote, "if a visitor wants to hear traditional music in London he/she has to go to great lengths to find it."

In my experience, it's not just London. I won't belabor that point.

Thoughts on that:

The young are brainwashed to believe that trad isn't cool. To keep their 'street cred,' they must sneer at it. But give them some good trad, and they will probably like it. You've seen that yourself.

Related to all that - it's hard to get newspapers, etc to list our events because they are not 'cool.' Our city paper blandly proclaims that it can't list trad in the Event Calendar because 'the computer doesn't have a heading for that.' Yeah, right!

We need new ways to get the word out.

In broadcasting and recording, profits flow through copyrights, ASCAP and BMI. If a song is public domain, what's the point?
=========
I've been on the Mudcat several years now. What do I see?

Snobbery. The instruments of the working class (banjo, accordion) are sneered at constantly. More so for the inexpensive instruments (percussion, harmonica) that a beginner might timidly acquire and bring to a session. Prestige instruments - violin, harp, flute - just can't go wrong.

A person who has lyrics on paper is despised. I just talked to a teacher who told me that today's kids strongly resist memorizing anything. Concepts and theory are fine, but memorizing is old-fashioned and insulting. We're gonna have to get over our horror of paper. (How long has this been going on? Do today's 40-year-olds refuse to memorize? Could be.)

In dance music, the guitar, a beautiful instrument, is relegated to going blangety-blangety blang ALL THE TIME. (Why? because every piece has to be played fast.) This gets tiresome after 30 years.

Some people don't seem to realize that the era of woman-hating and the era of ethic hatred is over. i.e., "Take your tiresome old music-hall songs about paddies and prostitutes and put em where the sun don't shine."

Too many 'folk' songs are depressing. Between war, drugs, murders, child abuse and economic hardship, people are depressed enough already.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 Oct 13 - 11:08 AM

because 'Shoals of Herring' had been 'collected' from a bona-fide traditional singer

Wasn't it written in 1960 by Ewan MacColl?

the fact that Folk is a middle-class academic fantasy of working class culture

Not a fact at all, as discussed earlier. An opinion. Even if I were to agree with the opinion that the collectors had made it so, the songs themselves predate the collectors. What were the songs called before they were collected? Subsequently collecting in this way has been rendered obsolete so the situation no longer exists. The 'folk' definition still exists and, as far as I am concerned, it is a good a one as any :-)

What we seem to be discussing, yet again, is the definition of folk which has been, to be honest, done to death and holds no further interest for me and a lot of others. What exactly is it you are saying, Blandiver? That the definition is a concept brought about by that middle-class bourgeoisie you refer to or the music itself was invented by them?

And I still don't know what you took exception to earlier :-)

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Lighter
Date: 07 Oct 13 - 11:01 AM

> terrifying implications of pure bloodlines that are very much with us today

Funny, I've never heard of these from any folkie or read about them on any LP jacket. Quite the contrary in fact.

Yet, because I know the world of tenure-track academia, I understand these presumed "terrifying implications" are quite "unconscious" and therefore don't require any objective evidence of their existence.

But what about Nazis?

The Nazi use of genuine folksongs as sound-track says nothing about the songs. Lots about the craftiness of Nazis, though.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 07 Oct 13 - 10:05 AM

Harker?? ROFL!

I must admit when I finally tracked down Fakesong I was expecting something a good deal more - er - radical than it actually is; in fact, it's rather quite mild & considerate given its reputation. Stats? WTF??? None of which gets away from the fact that Folk is a middle-class academic fantasy of working class culture born of an bourgeois class condescension replete with quite terrifying implications of pure bloodlines that are very much with us today. Steve Roud was on here a few weeks back saying that because 'Shoals of Herring' had been 'collected' from a bona-fide traditional singer it was now a traditional song.

I quote : It's not the origin of a song which makes it 'folk' or 'traditional' but what happens to it if it is picked up and sung/passed on within a tradition.

ROFL? I tell you, the more I read of the orthodox folk law the more it depresses the hell out of me, but that's nowt new.

(Still miffed that I couldn't get a seat at the your New Penguin Fylde show though, Brian - apologies for lack of cheer outside the North Euston; I was so ill that weekend I was very nearly hospitalised on the Monday...)