'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 13 May 09 - 11:17 AM

There is a similarity here in this discussion about what constitutes a tradition of music with that of the study of anthropology. There are those academics who claim that a culture to be studied should not be tampered with. Any outside influence creates a less-than-pure approach to the study of a specific culture. There are other anthropologists who think that
it's OK to become involved in that culture while studying it and become a part of it.

Herskovitz and Sol Tax are at opposite ends of the spectrum.

My view is that if folk music is alive, then people must become a part of it in whatever
way they can and traditional performers are part of the process and should not be placed on some sort of regal folk pedestal. Instead, they should interact with those who are interested in folk music.

Otherwise if it comes down to isolating individual performances based on scholastic
studies which attempt to define and narrow the field, then folk music becomes moribund.

The xenophobic aspects of a folk culture are there but do more damage than good.

Frank

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 13 May 09 - 10:57 AM

"I don't think she got the job"
Why?
Because she was truthful
Because she didn't feel the need to lie in order to fit into the world of forelock tuggery that we have allowed the middle classes to make for us since they came into being.
In our world the king goes around naked till the end of the story,because as our kids learn to see we strike out their eyes.If the truth bubbles on their lips we banish them to school to make sure they never utter it out loud.
They learn the art of deafness so they never hear the world around cry out in anguish.
LOl
Nah! only joking.
There aint no wld any more

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 13 May 09 - 10:40 AM

Hmmm try www.cloudstreet.com
Seems we are validated after all.

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 13 May 09 - 07:11 AM

I had a chat with a very wise young lady yesterday, all of 18 years and a folkie, very good musician and singer who just happened to remark that we are always learning

On the other hand, this does remind me of a shopkeeper I overheard once telling someone about a girl who'd applied for a job in the shop -

Well, you haven't got much relevant experience, I said, how long do you think it'd take you to pick up the business? Not long, she said, about six weeks. Six weeks! So I said to her, what would you say if I told you I've been in this business twenty years and I'm still learning? She said, I'd say you must be a very slow learner.

I don't think she got the job.

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: Diva
Date: 13 May 09 - 06:05 AM

Don't fret Tim about education or lack of it; it has nothing to do with it. What really matters is the continuation of the tradition either by singing and playing and the enjoyment that comes from that. Also from the people like the academics and enthusiasts who realised that the songs tunes and stories needed to be preserved. Sides of the same coin really.

I had a chat with a very wise young lady yesterday, all of 18 years and a folkie, very good musician and singer who just happened to remark that we are always learning....regardless of setting.....she'll go far that lassie

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 13 May 09 - 05:37 AM

Weeelllllll.
Sorry but it does seem to me, as very nonacademic and ill educated individual,that although we need someone who is able and willing to record the old songs,there seems to be little reference in some of the threads,to the enjoyment the performance of the materiel brings to performer and audience alike.
There does to my outsiders eyes seem to be a slight tendency to value the old reclaimed/rediscovered, and music in general, by the amount of research done.
At times it seems that we should not really enjoy this "music of ours",until it has been validated, by what to me, would probably appear a dull and turgid paper or thesis as to its merits.
I am probably wrong but do find some of the points of view expressed sometimes a little elitist and exclusive.
Maybe this is all because of my IQ only being normal and education negligible,but I do notice this tendency in general life and in the workplace.
Having said all that I really enjoy music when |I get chance to hear it,so mustn't grumble eh?

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: Smedley
Date: 13 May 09 - 05:19 AM

Theses are written on almost *anything*. I can think of less interesting topics than the palaver in here. Years ago, when I typed up other peoples' essays to supplement my student grant, I recall wading though 10,000 words on mule-breeding in Zambia.

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 13 May 09 - 02:39 AM

EEK!

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 13 May 09 - 12:28 AM

"Are you offering Tim?"

No is one of those things you say or type and hope you are joking.
But you never know.............

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 12 May 09 - 05:35 PM

VT, I think you have expressed some of my difficulties, ie You know the ways you learned something. Another way may feel right, eg. I liked the Pogues or wrong, eg. rap and I don't get on.

You need not want or belive you should stand in the way of approaches, after all, it came to us for free and with no terms, but but you seem to connect better with the way you learned and want others to share that enjoyment?

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 12 May 09 - 05:15 PM

Sorry Richard,

Trying to understand and showing respect for another's interpretation does not make me one of the converted.

After hard learned lessons re indoctrination into devisive belief systems (recovering baptist here) I decline to take a side.

I am still digesting that definition and I am trying to come to grips with why it is so contentious.

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: Frozen Gin (inactive)
Date: 12 May 09 - 04:51 PM

"Is anyone writing a paper,or producing a thesis on Mudcat threads?"

Don't encourage those who may want to take part in such an activity, mind you having read various postings around here, I thought several people had already written said theses...never mind.

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 12 May 09 - 04:50 PM

Which insult would that be?

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 12 May 09 - 04:34 PM

"Our" doesn't mean possession, let alone ownership, although those concepts may give rise to "our". And there's no exclusivity necessarily implied.

Our, at its simplest, means "association"--"our house" (when it's Dad that really owns it); "our crowd" (when it's a growing and shrinking group of human beings, freely mixing, with no formal entry or exit requirements); "our fair city" (when all we do is rent a room there, having moved in last week); "our race", "our generation"--etc., etc., ad nauseam

So it's "our music" because we have some association with it--maybe studying it, maybe singing it in the shower, maybe just preferring to listen to it when we can.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 12 May 09 - 04:28 PM

Your problem with my cited text is??

No problem at all, Richard - like I say, I love it, personal insults & all.

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 12 May 09 - 04:22 PM

Lefthanded Jockstrap suited you much better. Your problem with my cited text is??

Careful, VT, you were one in whom I thought I detected incipient understanding.

I agree with you PR about the effect of the 1954 definition - and am confident that there will continue to be accretions to folk music. Certainly I know that my daughter's first electric band (Torniquet - for sample of their rock music seek YoungTorniquet in Myspace) wrote a number of electric songs that translated perfectly well into an acoustic gig in a folk club, because I've seen them do it.

If I ever get good enough on guitar (fat chance) I'm going to start folking one of her acoustic songs, "Five Leaf Clover". It's good enough to pass the old grey whistle test.

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 12 May 09 - 04:10 PM

Are you offering, Tim?

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 12 May 09 - 03:48 PM

Is anyone writing a paper,or producing a thesis on Mudcat threads?
Sorry.

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 12 May 09 - 10:38 AM

That's okay S., we're getting used to it - must have been about a dozen over the last 12 months...one thing we can rely on.

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 12 May 09 - 10:30 AM

Please note Sinister Supporter is now Suibhne O'Piobaireachd. Sorry for the confusion - and the name change.

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 12 May 09 - 09:44 AM

Example- popular songs from the mid 20th century are being revived, reshaped by a current community. What is written today (crappy as we may think some of it is) and is popular today will be adapted and reshaped by future community.

There's certainly nothing in the 1954 definition to exclude that happening, but I'm not sure that is - and I'm very dubious that it will happen in future. I blame the pianola. (And the gramophone, and the radio, and the TV and the iPod, but I like* to think of them all as different forms of pianola.)

*Not really.

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 12 May 09 - 09:31 AM

unwholesome and dangerous

That sums this thread up quite tidily, as the old shibboleths are shouted out yet again in the hope of converting the infidels to their shabby, yet somehow universal, truths.

I just love it when Richard (& Jim) come out with stuff like this though:

If you (others) only care what music sounds like, please feel free to use any label for your preference - apart from the one that distinguishes folk music in nature from other types, and aligns the terms "folk music" and "folk song" with "folk dance", "folk lore" "folk arts" "folk tales" etc.

Keep it coming lads!

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 12 May 09 - 08:58 AM

Good thing you aren't a praying man, Richard. I see this is becoming a religion splintered by different interpretations of the Holy definition 1954.

That means unwholesome and dangerous to me.

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 12 May 09 - 08:40 AM

I don't think that continuity implies stasis.

Apart from that, if I were a praying man, I think I'd cry "Hallelujah", because I think I detect some people seeing the light.

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: Marje
Date: 12 May 09 - 08:36 AM

Virginia, I think you've put your finger on something qutie important - the fact that in the list of defining characteristics given, the first one (continuity) is often at odds with the 2nd and 3rd ones.

So at one end of the spectrum we get people who value continuity above all, and want the music to be as faithful to its roots as possible, but who thus risk slowly killing it by freezing it as it was at one moment in time; at the other end we get someone who knows little or nothing about the tradtion, but says, "Here's a folk song I've just written," - which can't be true at this stage but just might be one day (although probably not).

Most of us are somewhere in between these extremes, valuing the tradition but wanting to see it continue to evolve or even have a hand in that process ourselves. The extent to which we look backwards or forwards tends to be what underlies many of the arguments we have about what is or isn't a valid form of folk or traditional expression.

All of this makes me aware that the 1954 definition is the best one that anyone's come up with yet. Any song or tune that doesn't comply at all (i.e. has no link with the past, is never varied but always done exactly the same way, and/or is not taken up and shared by the community) simply isn't folk or traditional, however good or enjoyable it may be.

Oh, and to swerve back on to the topic: the 3 points in that definition all contribute to folk being "our" (i.e. everyone's) music.

Marje

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 12 May 09 - 07:58 AM

Thank you Jim... good to be friends again. And thanks for your take on style changing the song from folk to something else. I appreciate your opinion.

I am still not sure I can agree, because as Richard reinforced above The term does not cover composed popular music that has been taken over ready—made by a community and remains unchanged, for it is the refashioning and recreation of the music by the community that gives its folk character. It is that refashioning and recreation of the original article that makes me believe it is still folk. Just because a different rhythm or melody or changed/added lyrics have been hung onto it, the kernel is still folk and so makes the entire thing folk.

By the same token, if the following points hold true....

The factors that shape the tradition are:
(i)         Continuity which links the present with the past:
(ii)       Variation which springs from the creative impulse of the individual or group:
(iii)       Selection by the community, which determines the form or forms in which the music survives.

then folk is still being created, even as we discuss this. Example- popular songs from the mid 20th century are being revived, reshaped by a current community. What is written today (crappy as we may think some of it is) and is popular today will be adapted and reshaped by future community. There will be something in songs written today that apply specifically to this time and yet that future community will make a parallel... and so it goes. I am not thrilled that some day a rap song with lyrics I can barely understand may someday be folk. But the fact remains, if that song has something pertinient to a future community and is remade and carried forward, then it will have undergone the folk process described above. So not folk yet, but by the definition someday will be.

Am I making any sense? I don't express my ideasvery well, I am afraid. Too wordy. Anyway...

When Andie was apprenticing to a bard in the Meidival SCA, she/they made a distinction between what they called period (actual medieval) music and Perioid music
(which included filk and folk which was not necessarily medeival).

Would that there were a definition that would make this kind of distinction between folk and not folk.

I love music. Many different kinds. Part of me wants the tradtional music pure and unmuddied (I doubt very much that I have heard what would be considered by some the genuine article because each singer/performer changes the thing ever so slightly), and the other part of me understands that if the music was not taken by others and changed it might become altogether lost.

It is a damn difficult puzzle.

Blessings and peace too all.

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 12 May 09 - 07:40 AM

Did somebody just fart?

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 12 May 09 - 07:02 AM

As I've detailed here, if we like our world being multicultural, then we like such attitudes; if we like globalisation, then we don't like the use of "'Our' music," (Lizzie) and suchlike.

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: GUEST,Smedley
Date: 12 May 09 - 06:48 AM

I don't want to wade into the "is it folk?" quicksand, but I suspect that not many other genres/styles/traditions of music prompt such regular & heated debates about what 'qualifies' for the label & what does not.

This could be because (a) the borders are so porous and easily 'breached', or (b) because it's a musical arena that excites passionate defenders, or...both of those reasons & a whole lot more besides.

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 12 May 09 - 04:48 AM

I think that is a fallacy. "Classical" (as far as I know) and certainly "pop" and the various sub-genres of rock are defined (so far as they are) by style. This was a major problem in drafting "anti-rave" legislation - at one stage "music characterised by repetitive bass rhythms" was cosidered as a definition until it was pointed out that that could catch Ravel's Bolero as well. "Style" is, at the margins, undefinable.

"Folk" is defined by its derivation, and that (if discoverable) is definable. Therefore Newley's "Strawberry Fair" is still a folk song whatever one thinks of the performance.

Accordingly some of, say, Show of Hands' output and some of Seth Lakeman's output is folk and some is not. The latter's "The Setting of the Sun" is marginal in my view as although some of the words resemble the traditional words (if I have them correctly) some do not, there is, I think, at least a whole verse that I had not heard before, and the entire melody, not just the rhythm, is, to my ears, not recognisable as bearing any resemblance to the tune I know.

The reason it is "ours", whatever it is, is that the music of which the speaker was speaking was the music that we do, and appreciate, whatever it is.

If I were a goth, I could validly spak of doom metal as "our music". That would exclude say chavs, emo, and screamo, and many other genres.

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 May 09 - 04:27 AM

Virginia (deal - thanks)
"Is it still folk or has it become something else?"
This is MacColl's argument on the subject from the Song Carriers (1965) - it follows Anthony Newley's rocked up version of Strawberry Fair'.
Still makes sense to me

"Is it animal, mineral or vegetable? There are those who consider it to be folk music. It certainly began life as a folk song. Both the words and the tune were conceived in the folk idiom and it has been sung by generations of folk singers. And yet, there are many people who would deny that it is still a folk song when performed in that particular manner. What then, has happened to it? Its utterance has been translated, its idiom changed to that of pop-music It is as if we were to take over a pop song and recast it in a classical mould, and then have it performed by a string orchestra whose natural metier was, say, the Beethoven quartets. Do you think it would still be pop music? Conversely, if we took one of those same quartets and performed it on three electric guitars and bongo drums, would it still be Beethoven? It would not. The imposition of styles and idioms foreign to a particular form results in that form being transformed. It becomes something different. Not necessarily something worse or better, just different.
And yet, many of the young singers of the folk revival have based their singing style on what is called "the pop sound". They would probably argue: "Ah yes I But if only we had traditional singers as expert as those of Azerbaijan, or Spain or Syria'... " Well, it's true that most of our traditional singers are old and well past their prime. It is also true that our traditional singing style is somewhat run down. How could it be otherwise! The dislocation of our traditional way of life by the Industrial Revolution didn't merely result in fewer people singing fewer of the old songs; it also reduced the community status of those singers who did survive the changes in society and, ultimately, it resulted in a decay of style. Nevertheless, the few traditional singers who are still with us can, between them, furnish us with a fairly complete model of English, Irish or Scots traditional singing style. They are certainly much closer to the three singers we have just heard than are the most gifted pop group."

Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 12 May 09 - 04:22 AM

From Richard:

"NB I nowadays disagree with Sharp's conclusion that a folk snog MUST be anonymous."


Whoa!!! That Ol' Cecil! I bet he was having looooads of anonymous folk snogs with Maudie!

Richard, I think that should win a prize for being the best spelling 15th person singularly plurally upside down Freudian whatsit EVER! :0) xx

Folk Snogs.....Mmmmmm....

...and suddenly, this thread took a gigantic leap into a whole newwww direction! :0) :0)


OK, Folk Snogs......

I bags The Gorgeous Oysterband!

Line up, Lads, I's a-comin'...but...I just need to put my teeth in first, I won't be a minute...

LOL :0)

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: treewind
Date: 12 May 09 - 04:04 AM

"basses on the box player's instrument"
...were probably Helikon basses, popular with Bavarian/Austrian squeezers. Huge reeds with a resonant chamber so they sound like a tuba. I'm SO tempted...

Anahata

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 May 09 - 06:59 PM

That you see is "their" music. The Gemans had the best oompahs in ze vor until ze Ruschians ifented the T34 oompah...

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: Tootler
Date: 11 May 09 - 06:38 PM

"That big sound with a brass instrument in the bass and squeezeboxes on top is absolutely distinctive and could only be English."

.. or German !!!??

What German group sounds like the Old Swan Band?

Maybe Austrian then. I bought a couple of CD's while on Holiday in Austria recently. The description at the top pretty much sums up the sound. The difference with the Old Swan Band is in the nature of the tunes and songs.

The hotel we stayed at put on a Tyrolean evening and the basses on the box player's instrument were pretty much pitched to sound a bit like the oompah sound of a brass bass. All very interesting.

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 May 09 - 06:35 PM

That's only for the ones that start "One, two, three for"?

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 May 09 - 06:23 PM

Maybe it might make for an interesting variant on this theme if the question were changed from "What is Folk Music?" to "What is Folk Music For?"

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 11 May 09 - 04:31 PM

Music belongs to EVERYONE, doesn't it?

No. Much is copyrighted.

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 11 May 09 - 04:22 PM

"That big sound with a brass instrument in the bass and squeezeboxes on top is absolutely distinctive and could only be English."

.. or German !!!??

What German group sounds like the Old Swan Band? Got a YouTube or Spotify link?

German folk groups doing German music are few and far between, and the ones I know of all have a sound based on strings, bagpipes and hurdy-gurdies.

Ina Mather (who still hasn't named anything specific that he likes):
Good grief, that somebody should dictate to a willing buddy musician what they can or cannot do.

Add "if they expect to sell any CDs or get an audience", everybody who consumes music dictates to musicians like that all the time. People who run venues just do it by proxy. Are you suggesting that somebody who runs a drum 'n bass night has an obligation to book any sitar player, pipe band or free-jazz group that wants a gig?

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 11 May 09 - 03:31 PM

Hey Jim

I'll accept yours if you accept mine. Deal?

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 11 May 09 - 03:29 PM

B*gg*r my grammar skills - my last synapse misfired.

The music produced later which borrows from "folk music" as described in the difinition. Is it still folk or has it become something else?

For example we hear motets and phrases in a number of "classical" compostions that are defined as being borrowed from folk music. So does that make the classical piece folk. Because the folk song has been reshaped and added onto.

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: Frozen Gin (inactive)
Date: 11 May 09 - 03:26 PM

Having wended my way through more than a few threads, of a similar nature, forgive me if I feel that this particular thread is simply a variation on the What Is Folk Music idea. It appears to me that all the other threads, of a similar nature, have collapsed into name calling and sticking ones tongue out ala playground antics. This one is on its way down the same path.

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 May 09 - 03:21 PM

"What more do you want?"
Sorry - I seem to have over-reacted again.
I honestly don't remember your apologising and I wouldn't have expected you to do so.
I confess I get more than a little tired of the barrage of name calling that goes along with these threads and I just wish we didn't have to go though it very time and could just discuss things in a freindly, rational manner without the acrimony.
Nowadays my reaction tends to be just that - a reaction, often without thinking, as appears to be the case here.
This morning I found myself having to apologise to Richard Bridge for a similar misunderstanding.
Hope you are able to find yourself more forgiving than I have been.
Sorry, sorry, sorry.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 11 May 09 - 03:18 PM

Thank you Richard. I have found some other bits of info in my googling.

for it is the refashioning and recreation of the music by the community that gives its folk character

So along the way, Rennaiasance and Romantic and popular music composers have been taking bits of "folk" melodies and lyrics and the rehashing the folk stories born of historical lifestyles and events, and refashioning them.

Does that not mean they are still folk?

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 11 May 09 - 03:04 PM

You know what... I apologised to you specifically for those flippant comments even though they were not directed specifiically at you.

They were general (what I wrongly thought clever and humorous) comments about applying limits which could potentially kill the very thing we all feel so passionate about.

What more do you want?

I am going to stand by my belief that this devisiveness will frighten people away. It is frighteing to me.

By the way. My name is Tam and I would like to go on record that I have supported you in other threads and been slammed by you for doing so,

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 May 09 - 02:54 PM

Definition and related discussions follow. NB I nowadays disagree with Sharp's conclusion that a folk snog MUST be anonymous. Rather I think that the adoption and modification by transmission is the key.

It also seems to me that the 1954 (or "Karpeles") definition is really obviusly corect if you think about the relation of the expression "folk song" to the other "folk arts" as I listed in more detail above.

"Folk Song in England

In 1954 the International Folk Music Council adopted this definition:—

"Folk music is the product of a musical tradition that has been evolved through the process of oral transmission.

The factors that shape the tradition are:
(i)         Continuity which links the present with the past:
(ii)        Variation which springs from the creative impulse of the individual or group:
(iii)        Selection by the community, which determines the form or forms in which the music survives.

The term can be applied to music that has been evolved from the rudimentary beginnings by a community uninfluenced by popular music and art music, and it can likewise be applied to the music which has originated with an individual composer and has subsequently been absorbed into the unwritten living tradition of a community.

The term does not cover composed popular music that has been taken over ready—made by a community and remains unchanged, for it is the refashioning and recreation of the music by the community that gives its folk character.



'Conclusions', by Cecil Sharp~

A folk song is always anonymous.
Modal melodies, set to secular words, are nearly always of folk origin.
Song tunes in the minor mode are either composed tunes, or folk airs that have suffered corruption.
Folk tunes do not modulate.
Folk melodies are non—harmonic: that is to say, they have been fashioned by those in whom the harmonic sense is undeveloped. This is shown:—

a.        in the use of non—harmonic passing notes.
b.        in a certain vagueness of tonality, especially in the opening phrases of modal tunes.
c.        in the use of flattened seventh, after the manner of a leading note, in the final cadence of modal airs.
d.        in the difficulty of harmonizing a folk tune.
e.        Folk melodies often contain bars of irregular length.
f.        Prevalence of five and seven time-measures in folk airs.

In giving evidence in 1835, Francis Place reported that ballads sung about the streets during his youth could not be adequately described in present company. 'I have given you in writing words of some common ballads which you would not think fit to have uttered here. At that time the songs were of the most indecent kind: they were publicly sung and sold in the streets and markets: no one would mention them in any society now!



Another consideration.

"The mind of the folk singer is occupied exclusively with the words, with the clearness of which he will allow nothing to interfere. Consequently, he but rarely sings more than one note to a syllable and will often. interpolate a syllable of his own rather than break this rule.

"O abroad as I was wordelkin'
I was walking all alone
When I heard a couple tordelkin'
As they walked all along"



The Greek/Mediaeval/Folk Song Modes ~

The scales on which many English folk tunes are based are not the same as those with which we arc familiar through classical music.
The Greeks were the earliest musical grammarians in Europe and laid the foundation of the scientific system which was to be, in a modified form, our inheritance for plainsong and folk song.

        There were seven Greek Modes        (The white notes on a piano).
Dorian (Plato considered this the strongest)        D to D
Phrygian.        E to E
Lydian        F to F
Mixolydian        G to G
Aeolian        A to A
Locrian        B to B
lonian (our major modeNodus lascivus)        C to C

"Sumer is a--cumen in", our oldest Mss is in the Ionian Mode.

English folk tunes are most frequently found cast in the Dorian, Phrygian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, and Ionian modes. Occasionally in the minor: Cecil Sharp wrote: "The majority of our English -folk times, say two~thirds, are in the major mode. The remaining third is fairly evenly divided between the Mixolydian, Dorian and Aeolian modes, with, perhaps, a preponderance in favour of the Mixolydian,

The pitch of the mode may of course be varied, the relationship of the notes being constant.



The Pentatonic_Scale

The pentatonic scale (five notes to the octave) is widely distributed in folk music and is found in the traditional music of many oriental countries. We also know that it was practiced in ancient times in China and Greece. It is common in Scotland and Ireland.

In its most common form it possesses no semitones, the intervals between the notes consisting of whole tones and one—and—a—half tones. It can be played on the black notes of a piano, or on the white notes, omitting B and B.

According to the relative position of the tonic, there are five pentatonic modes, though some scholars prefer to regard them as segments of the same scale.

English songs also show a number of Hexatonic (six—notes) tunes, usually with the sixth missing.

Sharp held the theory that the present seven—note diatonic scale is a development from the pentatonic scale,




Ballads

"'Therefore,' while each ballad will he idiosyncratic, it will not be an expression of the personality of individuals, but of a collective sympathy: and the fundamental characteristic of popular ballads is therefore the absence of subjectivity and self—consciousness. Though they do not ~"write themselves" as Grimm has said - though a man and not a people has composed them, still the author counts for nothing, and it is not by mere accident, but with the best reason, that they have come down to us anonymously." Child.

Romantic Ballads        Child Waters, The Gypsy Laddie, The Maid Freed from the Gallows.

Tragic Ballads        The Two sisters, Lord Randal, Barbara Allan.

Historical Ballads        Sir Patric Spens, Mary Hamilton, Queen Jane, The Hunting of the Cheviot.

The Outlaw Ballads        Robin and the Three Squires, Johnnie Cock.

Supernatural Ballads        Lady Isobel and the Elf—Knight, The Unquiet Grave, The Demon Lover, The Wife of Usher's Well.

Humorous Ballads        Our Goodman, The Farmer's Curst Wife,





Conventional Elements

Conventional_diction        cerbain archaisms not found in common parlance — a song about lords and ladies will use "steed", "morrow," etc.

.Conventional Epithet        "milk—white steed," "Lily—white hand," "Fair Margaret."

Conventional Phrase        Tears "blind the eye," blood 'trickling down the knee."

Commonplace        e.g., the rose—briar stanza.

They buried her in the old churchyard (epithet)
They buried him in the choir
Out of her grave grew a red, red rose (epithet)
And out of his a green briar. -

Opening/Ending Formula         "As I walked out one Nay morning,"
        'It fell upon a..        
        "Come all you young fellows and listen to me.





"Voice and ear are left at a loss what to do with the ballad until supplied with the tune it was written to go with…. Unsung, it stays half—lacking.'

Robert Frost (the bloke from whose lecture I nicked this)."

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 May 09 - 02:34 PM

"because your tone to me is nothing like friendly or helpful."
Sorry Virginia - it was not my intention to be either unfriendly or unhelpful to you - any more than I am sure it was not yours to me when you called me a 'woolly jumper' and told me not to express my reservations as they were 'devisive' (pretty sure it was you, but if I am wrong about that - apologies in anticipation and I take it all back).
These arguments inevitably become fraught and passionate, which I always take to be an indication of the importance in which they are held by those participating.
Can I second Emma B's admiration of Jayto's excellent posting.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 11 May 09 - 02:28 PM

Always love reading your posts Jayto: Composed from the heart and fired straight from the hip.
That's what makes them folk then.... *smile*

And,

Ditto Virginia Tam's very sensible question regards legitimate provinance and demonstration of 1954 definition as above. Is there any chance of a Dawin/Freud theory masquerading as Scientific Gospel being purveyed here?

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 11 May 09 - 02:14 PM

RB - Pardon me for getting the date wrong. Sorry about that I am very definitly numerically challenged as you have been witness to more than once.

Mr. Carroll - in spite of your invitation (in another thread) to call you Jim I will continue to addrss you formally because your tone to me is nothing like friendly or helpful. The "live iwth it" comment was unkind.

I was not attempting to be snide or sarcastic. There is so much in these threads that I cannot follow the arguments. Especially when I get into them late and my brain cannot engage at night after work. Maybe it is age, maybe grief, maybe hangover from chemo. I never was clever. All my understanding has been hard won.

And I want to understand exactly what the contention is about. And I want clear definition from a legitimate authority. I am not especially bright. I do need the facts and history spoon fed to me, without having to wade through the bullshit most which appears to divide people with a common interest into camps. I get tired and give up trying to pull meaning from the threads.

I would have preferred a link to the actual definition and historical reference to the principal contributors to that definition. No snide remarks or patronising, pleaxe. Then upon reading and interpretting for myself I will come to my own conclusions. So I will google the apporpriate date (thank you RB) and see what I can find out and decide for myself.

I don't want to cause friction. That is the last thing on what little mind I have left.

Subject: RE: 'Our' Music - How Did That Happen?
From: Emma B
Date: 11 May 09 - 02:10 PM

'In the meantime, we are told to live with 1959 definitions,
be careful what we sing, try and put a song in some compartment or other and wear gloves when handling it..'

Really?

Did I miss those last instructions?