School:What did you learn about Folk?

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: SylviaN
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 07:25 PM

I remember singing Banks of the Sweet Primroses in the choir and there must have been others. I was very lucky in that one of the teachers at secondary school started a folk club, and that lead from one thing to another.

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: Joe Nicholson
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 11:13 AM

In primary school in the 30s I remember me and my best pal sitting at the back of the class falling about laughing as we listend to and watched a lady teacher with a very posh vioce singing 'Dashing away with a smoothing iron' and doing the actions. We did not know the Headmaster was behind us till he banged both our heads togather. (you could do things like that to children then) This convinced me that I did not like folk music.It took me thirty years to come round to that which has since become a great part of my life. But I think that at that time folk was compulsory in English schools probably taught by people who knew little about it and didn't really want to teach it
and is one of the reasons why a whole generation will have nothing to do with it.

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 11:07 AM

I learned from a choral instructor that folk songs were inferior. Some contained swear words which were objectionable in a high school setting. In short, I learned how prejudiced the
educational system is and this motivated me to want to study more about folk music.

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: Rumncoke
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 11:06 AM

I went to school in Barnsley, Yorkshire - now South Yorkshire, and although we learned a few folk and folk type songs, did English county dancing and Scottish reels and - briefly - long morris - it was not presented to us as 'Heritage', it was simply something the authorities had decided we should do.

Don't knock Bessemer converters though - Sheffield's steel industry was a powerful force in the economy - Sammy Fox's steel works where my dad was employed made the molybdenum steel for the Americans - it was needed in the space rockets. It was very expensive.

When I left school I began to learn that the songs my family sang were something I should have paid attention to and not lost most of, that the few lines of silly dialogue my father's father quoted were from a play - in comes I little devil doubt, no matter how you try you cannot cast me out - in my hand a frying pan, on my head a rusty pail -

All too late.

Anne Croucher

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 11:05 AM

We did quite a bit of folk in our music lessons, both at primary and secondary schools. And classical. And even occasionally rock...I recall our teacher being a bit bemused by the ending to Cream's "Badge" in one of our "bring your own records in" lessons.

Maybe I went to unusually enlightened schools, but I never felt I was being told that classical stuff was something that only "our betters" could understand. Or that "working class culture" was under-valued. My mother (who left school at 14 to become a mill girl) and my father (who didn't go to school after 11 , and became a window cleaner, miner and leatherworker in turn) were both members of the local Amateur Operatic Society, and my father often got lead roles based purely on his voice, rather than his social standing.

And if learning about Bessemer Converters, South American Pampas and Cornish tin mining had no immediate application to our lives, you could probably say the same for our music lessons. Not crucial to development of a vocation or profession! I for one am glad I learned to much about so many diverse topics at school, whether it was "useful" in later life or not.

And who knows what's going to turn out "useful"? I thought tensor calculus, fourier analysis and vector algebra were pretty abstract things when I learned them in maths, but I've spent a good portion of the last 35 years actually using them in productive work!!!

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 10:56 AM

"At Aldenham, later, a "folk group" did come and do a concert for the music club - I remember a couple of Simon and Garfunkel songs and the Paul Simon verions of "Anji".

You could have slipped out of school and visited Borehamwood Folk Club, and I believe there was a folk club for a while at the pub next to Elstree traffic lights!!

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: MikeL2
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 10:56 AM

hi

I went to a Roman Catholic primary school until I was 11. Then a boys ( only) grammar school until I was 17.

We were taught to sing nursery rhymes ( do they qualify as folk ??) in the primary school but nothing that resembled folk song or music in the Grammar school.

At the grammar school we did listen some classical stuff - New World Symphony - Fingal's caves etc - but like Fred's experience we were not expected to understand it because it was thought to be beyond us.

Also the school had an operatic society that produced a Gilbert & Sullivan opera each year. Although I failed auditions I have to say that the standard was excellent.

Because in my first year I was good at Latin I was pointed ( no choice here !!) down the classics route for the rest of my years.

Although we had music lessons regularly - eg one hour per week - we never were taught to play an instrument.
The brother and sister of one of our teachers were professional music teachers and pupils who wished to, could enrol at a discounted fee. They only taught classical music and the fees were beyond most "ordinary" students.

Although by 13 I was learning to play the guitar I could not qualify for this tuition because they didn't teach guitar and we couldn't afford the fees anyway.

Outside of music, being in the classics stream we did not get woodwork/metalwork etc. or anything that was of any practical use.

We did have teacher who was a fine cricketer and who encouraged and helped me to become a reasonably competent player of a game I love and played until my August years.

Cheers

MikeL2

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: Bettynh
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 10:49 AM

Elementary school in a Boston suburb in the 50s: jump rope and ball-against-the-wall chants in the schoolyard and square dancing once in awhile for indoor recess (when the weather was bad. We had to push the desks out of the way and dance in the classroom, since this was a 6-grades/6-room school.) I know we sang once in awhile in class, but can't remember any songs at all from school. They all came from church or Girl Scouts.

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: Cats
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 10:39 AM

Tin mining in Cornwall has been really important to me and if I had learned about it in school I would have had a head start, but in Lingfield, Surrey, we had Singing Together, May pole Dancing, country Dancing and, becuase it had it's own tradition of Bonfires and Bonfire Societies like Lewes, Lots about that. Out of School though, I lived 4 houses away from Ken Stubbs the eminent Folk Song Collector and was forever round his house as his daughter and I were good friends and about the same age, so heard many of the people who he collected from when they came to his house to sing for him. Then I went to Oxted Grammar School where I was told by my music teacher, Mr Oram, that folk songs were not proper songs and had no value and that the instruments I played were folk instruments and not proper ones.

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: Crowhugger
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 10:38 AM

Oh yes, I learned Drunken Sailor in school too, grade 5 or 6 I would say. But I'm sure I'd heard it before then around a campfire or coffee table. I have to wonder, would the thought police allow such a song to be systematically taught to young ears nowadays?

Which reminds me of another public school offering: Jack Was Ev'ry Inch a Sailor.

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: GUEST,LDT
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 10:32 AM

erm.....nothing. Unless you count learning 'what shall we do with the drunken sailor' on the recorder in infants school.

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: Crowhugger
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 10:29 AM

I remember in public school under the Ottawa Board of Education, in grades 4-6 we learned A Capital Ship & Barbara Allen, Acres of Clams, Streets of Laredo, The Keeper (which I already knew from home) and many more songs the names of which escape me just now. These were all in a school music text book.

But I was already singing folk music at home with my mother (songs like Cindy, Gently Johnny My Jingalo, The Frozen Logger, J'entends le moulin, Vive la canadienne, Who's Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Foot, Hey-up! Judy Drownded, Bimini, The Ballad of Jesus Christ, Log Roller's Waltz, Uncle Reuben, Squid-Jiggin' Ground and many, MANY more). Mom played guitar and banjo to accompany folk songs from here (Canada) as well as USA, British Isles and the Caribbean. My father taught me ukelele when I was much too small to manage a guitar fretboard. My maternal grandmother is the one I heard singing the "popular folk" of her day--Cockles & Mussels, Loch Lomond, Skye Boat Song to name 3--accompanying herself on piano.

Folk music was always just there, a given in my childhood, so I understood what was being taught by the time it came up at school although only minimal historical context was given there. At home the Fireside Book of Folk Songs was always on or beside the piano, which is where all music books were kept, including mom's Pete Seeger teach-yourself guitar and 5-string banjo books. Oh and a Burl Ives songbook, and Songs for Canadian Boys, which, mom assured me, were quite suitable for me to sing as well, and a Gordon Lightfoot songbook.

In grades 7 & 8 under the Carleton Board (southern 'burbs of Ottawa) as part of phys. ed. the girls got a couple of 2-week units in folk dancing (boys did not). One unit was North American dances--line, round and square. And only the dances of the invaders, no dances of the conquered peoples were included. The other unit was called "international" and included the Hora, something German and several others I don't recall but again it was a mix. Always the music was recorded. I would have LOVED to dance the whole year in place of floor hockey, track and field, etc.

I would say that those Ottawa-area educators got something partly right in the 1960s, but they thoroughly missed the notion of Canadian music, which I gained entirely at home.

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 10:25 AM

I can safely say that I learned absolutely nothing about folk song at school.

In the choir at prep school we were taught some songs that I later learned were folk songs, let's see, one about Bonnie Prince Charlie, one about high roads, low roads, and Scotland, a part song "Full Fathom five my Father lies", oh, and Cottonfields.

At Aldenham, later, a "folk group" did come and do a concert for the music club - I remember a couple of Simon and Garfunkel songs and the Paul Simon verions of "Anji". Three boys the year above me formed a folk group and did some songs for the parents in the intermission of a school play - and a bit of a rumpus resulted in that they did amongst their songs "The Foggy Foggy Dew" which was thought - er - unsuitable - by the powers that were. Oh, and a Canadian boy in the school for a while while I think his father was stationed at the Canadian scandalised the music master by entering the school music composition saying he was a folk singer and performing the Peter and Gordon version of "World without Love". The competition was supposed to be about classical music, see.

I regret however the designations above of some things as irrelevant. What I learned in physics has been part of my life ever since (including, in fixing a bedside lamp, today, although I am not clear how useful the Frasch process is today) and surely the social history relevant to the repeal of the corn laws is of greater current importance than "the expansion of Europe, 1485 to 1625" that I studied for O level, and indeed the internal history of England in the same period that managed to omit the occupation of Ireland and to stop just short of the constitutional changes of the Commonwealth period that are still of relevance to constitutional law today.

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: bubblyrat
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 10:04 AM

Wink Martindale ,wasn't it ?? ("Deck Of Cards" ,I mean).I think,sadly,that Max Bygraves did a crap version over here,but we needn't dwell on that, or anything else by Max Bygraves,to be honest.
    I remember learning " Marie's Wedding" and "Westering Home" at school, and it WAS educational,because my curiosity was aroused as to what Scotland and Scottish Islands ,and the people who lived there,were like. I mean, I think music can have that effect on someone ; it always has had on me ! Another song we learned was "Hearts Of Oak" ; I wouldn't say that it was definitely instrumental (no pun intended) in my decision or desire to join the Royal Navy, but as a naval musician I certainly played the tune enough times over a period of 11 years !

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 09:50 AM

Bonzo ~ Colindale 1950s eh?. I was at Hendon County 1943-50.

Quite a lot of folk in music lessons: Sweet Nightingale &c.

At Northampton Town & County [there during WWii 1941-43] particularly remember my form, 1-Lower {8-9 year-old}, always most enthusiastic about Ho-Ro My Nutbrown Maiden which we all loved singing.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 09:33 AM

We did learn some songs of the North East eg "Ca Hawkie", "Buy Brooms Bezzoms" and "Adam Buckham - O" (precious few of the lads sang the proper chorus to that one!) and where they were written in dialect we were expected to follow as such. Woe betide however if he were heard using "Geordie slang" outside of music lessons.

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: Old Vermin
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 09:32 AM

Middlesex - as we thought of it - with a London postal address.

Country Dancing. My diary, aged 11, says I enjoyed it except for the waiting around.

Singing

Daily assembly - religious service with hymns sung.

In lessons

- Sally Brown with the m-word.
- Bobby Shafto.
- Dashing away with a smoothing iron.
- On yonder hill there stands a creature
- Nuts in May
- Mulberry bush

& Co.

Radio programme to accompany?

Grammar Schools - London & Surrey.

Daily assembly - religious service with hymns sung.

- The English Hymnal, I think. R Vaughan Williams.
- School song more-or-less to the tune of The Blacksmith. Monks Gate.
'He who would valiant be'

And the comic moment when the new German assistant snapped to attention for the opening bars of 'WGlorious things of thee are spoken, Zion city of our Lord'....

Formal music lessons were pretty dire, in an all-male school where the majority view was that serious classical musical achievement was odd or effeminate. Of course, most of us went through puberty and had voices utterly out of control at crucial times.

And unofficially the Rambling Sid Rumpo school of parody, and Rare Bog a Rattling Bog learned orally. Assorted smutty soldiers' songs via the CCF. 'Three-score and ten' being done in school concert. Started going to Folk Clubs in my last year or two at school. Even went with a parties of schoolboys to hear Carthy & Swarbrick in London which was a revelation - venue had wood panelling - and The Yetties unbelievably loud in a tin hut by North Camp railway station.

There was also Americana/country about - Johnny Cash, Jim Reeves, etc. Who did 'Deck of Cards'? Hillbilly stuff - Flatt & Scruggs? - was generally derogated. While a sub-set were buying R & B on Pye records. Chuck Berry, Roy Orbison, Spencer Davies/Stevie Winwood were what everyone bought. Was very probably still at school when I acquired LPs by the likes of Big Bill Broonzy, Muddy Waters, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, etc. Ceiliidhs in the dance sense existed and took far too much brain-power for me.

So the early formal environment was mostly favourable, as was the informal scene as I grew up. Just took best part of forty years to get to actually doing stuff.

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 09:22 AM

Country dancing at Colindale School in north London 1951-55.

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: greg stephens
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 09:16 AM

Ditto to Fred: absolutely nothing. Consequently, I started a school folk club, in 59 I think.

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: RTim
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 09:10 AM

I don't remember very much about learning folk song at either primary or secondary school in South Hampshire as a child. I did always sing in the school choirs, but it was never folk music.
I did learn to Morris and Country dance when 9 years old til 11 years old (1956 to 58). We performed at music festivals, the one I remember most was at Portsmouth, and I still have a photo of me with my group. As a member of the Dance club we also became members of the EFDSS, so I guess my later involvement in Morris dance came from those roots.

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 09:03 AM

Absolutely nothing. The songs were presented as sets of words and tunes with no history and absolutely no social consequence. Indeed, the few worthwhile folksongs we did learn, I was all but put off for life. At any rate I was involved in folk music proper for years before I could accept Barbara Allen as a very fine ballad, not the stupid little ditty we'd learned at school.

The extraordinary thing is that once I came to understand the folk tradition, I also realised what an incredible vista of lower class history and culture it represents. But my primary/secondary education was formed at a time when the working classes were still held to have no creative ability or existence of their own. Even the classical music we were played was presented as though it was a wonder beyond our comprehension; something which only our "betters" could truly understand, and of course that was one of the things which it was claimed, made them fit to lead.

I sincerely hope that things have improved since those awful days.

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: theleveller
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 09:03 AM

Weel, ah leerned that theer's nowt sa queer as fowk.

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 08:41 AM

Also, the revelation that the Corn Laws had been repealed!

Would my destiny have been different, had I not learned this??

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: Vin2
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 08:39 AM

P.S forgot about the hymms - catholic school like yours sinsull.

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: Vin2
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 08:37 AM

My recollection of secondary school (Bishop Marshall, Langley, Middleton '62 - '67 - now pulled down) is a similar one Mr Happy.

Yeah Bessemer Converter, i remember doin that in metalwork which i hated (loved woodwork tho) and then there was learning about the pampas regions of South America in history, making rafia baskets in craft lesson ? As for music, we did have classes which mostly involved singing from books e.g Dirty Old Town, The Campbells are Coming (ho ho, ho ho,) mostly out of tune.

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: SINSULL
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 08:36 AM

Minimal folk music. A Catholic School in the 50s taught hymns and lots of them. The Irish nuns in high school celebrated St. Patrick's Day with some Irish folk music and stories. But I learned Barbara Allen from Burl Ives on TV and never heard it sung anywhere else until college in the 60s.

Subject: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 08:23 AM

While musing in the garden, I pondered how relevant was the stuff I was taught in school to my 60 years on this mortal coil?

Only in primary school was there any folk heritage introduced in the forms of country dancing & the BBC series of Singing Together.

Both of these have had relevance in my life, as opposed to much of the other stuff.

Apart from being given instruction in the 3Rs plus a smattering of geog/hist, I'm wondering why the educational authorities placed so much importance on children learning about the intricacies of the Bessemer Converter, tin mining in Cornwall & constructing a model of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre from a cardboard box from the co-op?

Not one of these examples has had any useful impact on my life.

Anyone similar experiences of being forced to learn such tosh?