Who are folk?

Subject: Who are folk?
From: glueman
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 05:08 PM

...and do they have to be dead?

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 05:15 PM

Actually, this may be a relaevant question, if one thinks of a community. Is it the lumpen proletariat (wanna argue that corner, WLD?) or the peasantry, or merely the sort of people who given enough money would drive a Subaru Impreza turno and have a vindaloo and 6 pints of lager on a Saturday night (or chavs - Cheltenham definition or Romany one)?

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 05:16 PM

You called?

No, but they have to sing and play as part of their everyday lives, not as a specialised activity or hobby.

As you might have noticed me saying elsewhere...


If recording technology were somehow abolished next week, a 22nd-century collector might well pick up local variants of Blowin' in the Wind and Mr Tambourine Man. But we'll never know: Dylan isn't music of the people, Dylan's a recording artist. Traditional and folk-transmitted music survives here and there - football chants, playground rhymes, some hymns and carols - but there's really no music that's of the people in the sense of living and developing among ordinary people in the course of their lives. The ubiquity of broadcast and recorded music changed everything.

That's a real break in the history of music, and a very recent one. Traditional music - folk music, as far as I'm concerned - is all about reaching back before that break and finding out what people used to do for music, before they could all listen to the same thing at the flick of a switch.

***

"Streets of London", say, isn't a folk song and never will be. The problem is that there's a single, readily-available answer to the question: "what should that sound like?" We know the right melody, the right chords and the right words, and if we want to know how it all fits together we can listen to the writer singing it. That's a huge change from the conditions that existed as recently as a hundred years ago. Oral transmission, as a primary route for handing songs along, is essentially dead; the universal availability of recorded and broadcast music killed it. Oral transmission within the community of folkies goes on to a small extent, but that's not a community so much as an optional, part-time network that's selected itself around a specialist activity. It's a fantastic activity and an important network, but it's not a community

***

The uniformity imposed by mechanical reproduction has been eroding the diversity of the oral tradition for a long time, going back to pianolas and mass-produced parlour songbooks. Ironically, the oral tradition finally gave up the ghost (in this country at least) at around the same time the Revival was really getting going.


***

Do you sing while you work? Do your workmates? Do you sing at home to relax? When your friends or family want some music of an evening, do they suggest having a few songs?

The oral tradition - and the 1954 definition - is about communities and societies where people can, by and large, answer Yes to all four. Those conditions may still obtain in some parts of the world, but they certainly don't in Britain or the US. Folkies pass songs along, but that doesn't make us a community.

*** and finally... ***

Live music made by ordinary people without making a big deal of it - because it's what you do, because it passes the time, because everyone's got a song in them - has basically died out in this society. Live music made by enthusiastic amateurs (and a few enthusiastic professionals) is great - I'm well into it, without any loathing whatever - but we're not the folk, and any new music we make is never going to be folk music.

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: glueman
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 05:18 PM

It was only flippant in a Chestertonian sense RB. It's probably more relevant than what is folk, anyroadup.

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 05:18 PM

You really need to do more with your pensions....

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 05:23 PM

Might find it easier to answer 'Who are not folk?'

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: glueman
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 05:23 PM

'but we're not folk'

I am. On every level. White trash. No telly. Don't buy a paper. Gave up listening to the radio some time back. Play music for a small circle without payment. Repeat old lies. Wassa boy gotta do?

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 06:24 PM

OK, we're not folk but glueman is - he's a living and breathing carrier of the oral traditions of the common people all on his own, right here on that Internet. (Except when he's arguing that there's no such thing as the oral tradition or the common people. Consistency is bourgeois.)

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: Betsy
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 06:27 PM

Folking joking aren't you ?

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: Amos
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 06:39 PM

I'm a white boy, lost in the blues in Southern California. I write songs, and I also play songs that go back centuries, just for the pleasure of doing so, and I was raised in a family where singing on the spur of the moment in three-part harmony was kind of nach'l.

I am also a citizen of a rugged, confused country where technology runs rampant and MP3 players have swamped the nation, beebop and doowop were invented and jazz came of age, rock and roll was born and the blues spawned in rough country, and where it is just as "genuine" to sing "Trouble in Mind" as to sing "Diesel Smoke" or "Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys" whether it sounds like the record or is your own version.

At the same time I do engineering for a living and write white papers full of gobbledygook, own several computers and cell phones and network devices and talk about the impact of the internet on modern ways of knowing and relating. So I obviously am not a farmer even if it is not my first rodeo. But I have been a farm-boy, and I have hauled nets, and dug hard quartz rock out of the ground as well, and stood dawn watches out of sight of all land, too.

I drive a nice car (which recently replaced a rambling scabrous old one) and do text messaging and email fairly often.

I say I is folk too.


A

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 06:49 PM

'I say I is folk too.'

well you're not! You fall outside the 1654 definition.

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: TheSnail
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 08:28 PM

glueman

Wassa boy gotta do?

Get out more?

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 09:03 PM

Well I sure as HELL am NOT a Horse , so I think (Despite making that Nasty money stuff out of my music) that I AM Folk ! When I am NOT doing paid Gigs , I get out to Clubs and Sessions and Festivals and
sing and play fot FUN !

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: glueman
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 02:55 AM

The point is folk - by which I think of the middle class, informed, contemplative, argumentative people on here - don't believe community folk singing goes on anymore because those people may have been exposed to viruses like education, the movies, rock and roll and the TV news and so the noble savage has been infected by choice and cannot be folk. Well I know people, not a lot but a few who have nothing to do with the folk community, i.e. wearing pretend old clothes and drinking from leather tankards but qualify as folk by any other criterion.
I'm not folk but only miss out by a generation (there are over 90 years between my son and his grandfather) and there are people around who still qualify. It's presumptious to think that because a concensus has built up that folk have died away like the neanderthal, that they actually have. I do agree though that folk would be most unlikely to be found in folk clubs.

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 03:21 AM

middle class, informed, contemplative, argumentative people on here don't believe community folk singing goes on anymore because those people may have been exposed to viruses like education, the movies, rock and roll and the TV news and so the noble savage has been infected by choice and cannot be folk.

That's quite something, glueman - to wildly misrepresent an argument that was set out in great detail less than twelve hours (or comments) ago. But I guess it makes the argument easier for you to win - and that's the main thing, eh?

I'm not folk but only miss out by a generation (there are over 90 years between my son and his grandfather) and there are people around who still qualify.

Well, Jim Carroll thinks otherwise. Between a guy who dedicated large chunks of his life to looking for folksong in the wild and some guy who posts anonymously on the Internet - well, it's hard to know who to believe, isn't it? In any case, I don't think it's beyond the bounds of possibility that there are people around (in Britain) who still qualify - that's one more argument that I never actually made. But I think it's very, very unlikely.

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 03:38 AM

The point is that when you are going to obscure corners of the world to interview gypsies, fishermen, shepherds (never check out girls or people working in call centres, or blokes fitting double glazing) - you are ignoring the vast generality of humanity and the songs they sing and the stories they have to tell.

In short we're pissed off with being ignored and discounted by the middle classes who find us SO distasteful and our culture so insignificant.

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: glueman
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 03:45 AM

Bit snippy this morning Mr Radish? I'm suggesting that an agreement has been reached that folk is a certain thing - judging by the endless discussions on here - and in the OP I'm asking if 'it's' people instead.
Jim Carroll is a wise counsel on many topics but he seems to believe folk can be reclaimed as a word that means, well, we all know what he thinks it means, which qualifies him as a dreamer, splendid chap though he is in many ways.
Winning the argument is always fun but it depends who's doing the arguing and about what. I've always believed folk revival is built on heady mixture of Merrie Olde England (add country of choice) and self delusion but that much of the music is quite splendid. It just doesn't bear scrutiny as authentic in the linear way it claims. An example. Soldiers have been fighting wars overseas for centuries. Having heard the local tunes and picked up a smattering (or a proper dose) of the local culture they return home with a new instrument and a different set of songs which their friends and family pick up and before you know it East Sussex or the West Riding are performing French or Balkan traditional music.

If you buy into the viral theory of infection eliminating indigenous musical memes (to mix a metaphor), it didn't start with Elvis's pelvis or even peculiar musical hall acts but is in the DNA of the sound and if the sound then the folk. You're ahead of me when I suggest national boundaries are not the best hermetic barrier to verse or mode. So who are 'folk'?

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: glueman
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 03:59 AM

I don't agree with the 'drummer lightly or wish to set a precedent but he's bang on the money with that comment.

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 04:17 AM

> The point is that when you are going to obscure corners of the world to interview gypsies, fishermen, shepherds (never check out girls or people working in call centres, or blokes fitting double glazing) - you are ignoring the vast generality of humanity and the songs they sing and the stories they have to tell. <

The double glazing fitters and check-out girls probably do have their own workplace folklore, family stories and oral history, WLD, but do they (any more than accountants and IT specialists) have songs - meaning verses and choruses, that they can sing without a cue card? That's why Jim Carroll has spent so much time with the travellers - their communities carried on singing songs after many others had stopped.

For what it's worth, I thought Pip Radish's first post summed it up really well.

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 04:38 AM

My point is Brian that no one is looking to find out. When you DO gig working class pubs. You get a bit of a shock in that you will find yourself being asked for songs you never knew existed - stuff that you simply wouldn't encounter on radio, tv, or in folk clubs.

Country and western songs somehow get adopted and adapted by niche audiences. there is activity going on.

Its life Jim, or shall we say its folk - but not as we know it.

When No Fixed Abode recently said sheepishly they had been offered folk gigs in a chain of caravan parks - the reaction from mudcatters was SO predictable. 'Oh you're going to be playing Agadoo and the Birdie Song.......

I just think we should give an ear to and accord similar significance to the people who are right alongside us in our communities.

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 04:47 AM

OK, WLD, I do take your point: if we haven't bothered to enquire we shouldn't generalise. My experience of pub gigs is that the requests are for Irish standards or Elvis (which I've been known to play for them). I still think Pip has it broadly right, though.

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: mattkeen
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 04:53 AM

WLD

Spot on

Contempt for the working class culture now

Rose tinted twaddle for the working class of yester year

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 05:00 AM

I thought you'd be in America by now. bon Voyage!

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 05:05 AM

I've always believed folk revival is built on heady mixture of Merrie Olde England (add country of choice) and self delusion but that much of the music is quite splendid. It just doesn't bear scrutiny as authentic in the linear way it claims.
...
If you buy into the viral theory of infection eliminating indigenous musical memes (to mix a metaphor), it didn't start with Elvis's pelvis or even peculiar musical hall acts

You really are good at missing the point, glueman.

1) The self-deluding Merrie England side of the folk revival - people like this

or, God help us, this

irritates me hugely. So we've got no disagreement there.

2) Authenticity - I've actually written about how some folk songs come off old broadsides, some are 18th-century show tunes and some come out of the Victorian music hall. A huge range of material from a huge range of sources, with a massive amount of bashing-about and patching-together along the way. So again, you're arguing with somebody, but it's not me.

3) Indigenous musical memes - I like indigenous musical memes; I particularly like the way they travel all over the world, meet up with other indigenous musical memes and have lots of little memelets. Yet again, you're arguing with someone other than me (possibly WAV).

4) It didn't start with Elvis - no, the erosion of the living tradition by mass-produced music-to-listen-to had started long before that (I'd say it started with the pianola).

5) It didn't start with the music hall - as far as I'm concerned plenty of music hall songs entered the tradition, so clearly I don't think that was where the rot set in


My position's really very simple. If you'll forgive me a few more bullet-points:

- There's a difference between a society where more or less everyone makes music, and a society where more or less everyone listens to recorded music and hardly anyone makes it.

- Our ancestors, going back (say) 150 years, lived in society type 1 or something close to it. We live in society type 2 or something close to it.

- Folk music is a good name for the kind of music that gets made in society type 1.

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 05:18 AM

WLD: I just think we should give an ear to and accord similar significance to the people who are right alongside us in our communities.

OK, that's a good point. Part of the way I understand the oral tradition is that songs can enter it from any number of sources - and I'm sure there's people out there who learned "What do you want to make those eyes at me for?" the same way I learned "Fields of Athenry", from hearing it (repeatedly!) and singing along.

Also, here are those links I forgot to provide before. As I was saying,

The self-deluding Merrie England side of the folk revival - people like this or, God help us, this - irritates me hugely.

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 05:22 AM

(That's not a slag-off of Morris dancing, just the layers of sentimentality and medievalism and mysticism that tend to attach to it.)

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 05:26 AM

"- Folk music is a good name for the kind of music that gets made in society type 1. "

there are several good names for it.......They usually occur to me when some poor sod is struggling about like a cow in a bog trying to remember a traditional song. Traditional music is not easy music. To do an unaccompanied song well is probably the toughest call of all. I only wish people would realise this before trying it. Its not a soft option to learning three chords on a guitar.

I don't believe everyone made music in societies earlier than ours. I think the skilled performer was regarded as something rather special - a rare bird.

today's kids have more opportunity to play instruments than any previous generation. Never have musical instruments been so cheap. Lets hope they prove equal to the challenge.

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: glueman
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 05:34 AM

"I don't believe everyone made music in societies earlier than ours. I think the skilled performer was regarded as something rather special - a rare bird."

Good Lord WLD, twice in a day! Spot on Sir!

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: glueman
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 05:53 AM

"(That's not a slag-off of Morris dancing, just the layers of sentimentality and medievalism and mysticism that tend to attach to it.)"

Oh go on. Morris is a genuine and interesting cultural phenomenon. Blokes with beards getting pissed in public places rhythmically is not to be dismissed. Like WTDs watercooler myths and call centre singalongs people might hopefully see them for the culture they really are and stop putting the cart before the horse and sticking labels on. Those clips have nothing to do with raising the sun or fertilising the ground but everything to do with atomised culture and fascinating they are.

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 06:06 AM

Oh go on. Morris is a genuine and interesting cultural phenomenon.

Yes, I agree. (I think we agree on more than you realise.)

Traditional music is not easy music. To do an unaccompanied song well is probably the toughest call of all.

I'll take that as a compliment! But I don't agree that learning a couple of verses, and struggling through till you get to the chorus where everyone joins in, is harder than bashing out three chords. People who really can't sing are few and far between - and if everyone's expected to take a turn, over time everyone will get lots of practice.

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 06:08 AM

> I don't believe everyone made music in societies earlier than ours. I think the skilled performer was regarded as something rather special - a rare bird. <

A conscientious repertoire-builder like Harry Cox probably was. But lots of people sang casually, for fun. Even I can remember a bit of that.

> I thought you'd be in America by now. bon Voyage! <

Thanks. Two days to go - I really haven't time for this!

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 07:19 AM

Glueman"
"well, we all know what he thinks it means,"
Assume that we don't and enlighten us
Yours in anticipation
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: glueman
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 07:23 AM

All that old stuff? No? I only know you as a collector of traveller's tunes and what I read of your's on here.

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: glueman
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 07:28 AM

Sorry to be so short, my pasta was bubbling. Pip Radish was holding you up as the arbiter of what is and isn't folk. You're not, are you? I don't like to bring third parties into the discussion unasked or attribute them with things they might not believe.

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: Peace
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 07:35 AM

"the arbiter of what is and isn't"

We have a half dozen of those around here. Mostly British people . . . .

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: glueman
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 07:41 AM

For clarity, I'm happy to put together an argument for what is folk music but am on much shakier ground over what isn't and am not convinced by some of the arguments for exclusion, historically or philosophically.

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: Peace
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 07:42 AM

It's good someone is tending to that.

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: glueman
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 07:46 AM

One likes to be of service/ point out the obvious/ side with the iconoclast.

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: Peace
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 07:58 AM

Sometimes that's a wise thing to say, Glueman.

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: greg stephens
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 08:25 AM

There are actually plenty of examples of the "unbroken tradition" in the British Isles still chugging quietly along, unmolested by the folk revival. eg the singers associated with the Lake District hunting packs, numerous dance bands etc. There are doubtless plenty of other examples, these are what spring to my mind.

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: glueman
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 08:30 AM

You can add story telling, Greg. It was certainly big when I was a child with aspects changed, characters re-named to suit events but the same stuff my mother had been told by her's, etc. I'm sure we weren't exceptional.

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 08:57 AM

: I don't believe everyone made music in societies earlier than ours.

In the case of worksongs and lullabies they certainly did.

: I think the skilled performer was regarded as something rather
: special - a rare bird.

There are many cultures known to ethnomusicology where everybody sings and plays an instrument and the idea that it's a special skill is unknown, or can't even be expressed.

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: melodeonboy
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 09:07 AM

Yes; I seem to remember Andy Kershaw asking a lady from southern Africa (I can't remember which country) whether she could sing or not, and she didn't understand the question.

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: Peace
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 09:34 AM

Were they speaking the same language?

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 09:50 AM

Pip Radish was holding you up as the arbiter of what is and isn't folk.

No, I wasn't. I'm not even going to bother to repeat what I actually did say about Jim, as anyone who's interested can find it on this same page.

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: glueman
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 10:13 AM

"Well, Jim Carroll thinks otherwise. Between a guy who dedicated large chunks of his life to looking for folksong in the wild and some guy who posts anonymously on the Internet - well, it's hard to know who to believe, isn't it?"

The implication I took was that Jim had a direct line to what was and wasn't folk. I've re-read what you said a few times and am unable to establish a different inference. (Your opportunity to put another waspish response in here Pip) I didn't bring Jim into it and value field work very highly indeed. However if he holds 1954 higher than a general guide to thinking at the time I could argue with him about definitions. All this is getting away from the original question.

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 10:23 AM

'Otherwise' relates to whether or not the oral tradition is still alive in Britain - that's a sociological (ethnological?) question about how people are living their lives out there, and I defer to Jim as somebody who's done a lot of research on it.

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 11:42 AM

With due respect, it is clear that Glueman doesn't really know much of anything about ethnomusicology and folklore, which are the long established academic disciplines that he is questioning here.

The" 1954 definition", which has been tossed around here lately, was offered by these folks in 1954 to describe the parameters of their work. Today, they define their work in a somewhat different way--from here: Indiana University Ethnomusicology Institute

:Ethnomusicology is the study of music of all types and from all cultures. :Ethnomusicologists not only listen to the sounds of music within particular cultures and :events but also inquire into people's ideas and beliefs about music. They:

:Explore the role of music in human life
:Analyze relationships between music and culture
:Study music cross-culturally

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 12:10 PM

The great thing about singing worksongs on a chain gang and lullabies to - the baby and the guy with a whip won't hold it against you if you forget the words. Like I would.

Stuff like shanties - that's definitely a skill.

anyway it speaks for itself. Roy Harris used to do a decent gig unaccompanied. tommy dempsey also - although he could run out of steam. Its not everyone who can do it. I always felt that bob Davenport used to tense up - because he felt he was asking a lot of the audience.

I prefer accompanied songs. Its llike an aide de memoire - it reminds them what key they are in - even really good singers slip out of key without accompaniment.

the idea that there were these communities all singin like buggery - it a bit like the vision behind that ghastly welsh tv programme Land of Song in the 1950's. someone would have told them to shut up occasionally.

Subject: RE: Who are folk?
From: GUEST,In My Humble Opinion
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 12:17 PM

*"the arbiter(s) of what is and isn't"* And don't they just get right up your wick.....?