Will trad music die when we do?

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Chontae Liatroma
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 01:14 PM

For Jim Carroll's information Carrick-on-Shannon is in County Leitrim, though its railway station is in County Roscommon!

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: michaelr
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 01:36 PM

"The surest way to kill off traditional music is to stick it in a museum."

And the surest way to make sure that it will die with us is not to preserve it and not to allow future generations to listen to Jeannie Robertson and Seamus Ennis and Joe Heaney and Sam Larner and Texas Gladden... an all those wonderful old singers and musicians who have contributed to our pleasure and knowledge.
Ireland's present success was established on the foundations of having two world-class 'museums' - the Irish Traditional Music Archive and that of the Folklore Society of Ireland at UCD - both still persuading Irish youth how enjoyable and how important Irish traditional music is (interesting to see how many fine young musicians have volunteered to help out at ITMA - in their holidays and full time. (Jim Carroll)

When I made the above statement I did not intend to disparage the worthy institutions such as ITMA that do such valuable work. My comment was directed not so much at physical museums as at attempts by the 1954 crowd and others to draw a line in the sand of time as to what music is worthy or not of being called traditional.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 01:40 PM

I think we're all on the same page about that, Michael. What's the scene like where you are?

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: maeve
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 01:59 PM

I'd have given a lot as a child and young adult to have had the support described by 999 regarding the mission of ADDA. I'm still looking for such meaningful support for musicians such as myself.

Guest, 999- In well over 30 years of teaching, public storytelling and singing, and work as a Children's Librarian I sang, played instruments, hired musicians, helped teach and sponsored contra dances, and enjoyed childrens' musical explorations. I never had a single child indicate anything less than enthusiasm for the traditional, international, and original music they encountered through those opportunities. Teens and pre-teens who learned traditional and folk songs when they were infants in my preschool storytimes still know the songs we sang together, and are singing them as family songs, according to their parents.

Be Ye of Good Cheer!
Maeve

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: michaelr
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 02:00 PM

I'm in Sonoma County, an hour north of San Francisco. Here we have had quite a little American folk revival over the past few years, with young bands like Old Jawbone and The Whiskey Thieves playing both trad and original music in styles ranging from straight bluegrass to goth and gospel Americana, with a strong blues influence as well. There's even a festival called Hootenanny, now in its third year.

There are also numerous other groups playing swing jazz, cowboy swing, bluegrass, klezmer and French music (both trad and bal musette) in this area.

My band just came back from playing the Sonora Celtic Faire, where there were ten bands covering the spectrum of "Celtic" (yes, I know) music, from trad Irish and Scottish to Australian didgeridoo-trance to metal/rock. Plenty of youngsters in the audience, as well.

So no worries, eh?

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 02:03 PM

You pose an interesting question Bruce. Any consensus on the thread seems to say to me that traditions live on but traditions change. If you were to ask for a definition of "traditional music" you could start a Mudcat argument lasting forever and some threads have already done that. I consider myself to be a traditional singer, at least at times, but most of my tradition is relatively recent stuff written during the past 100 years. When I was a young gaffer the pop charts were alive with Elvis and Brenda, both from traditional country roots, but musically much more modern. Compared to the pop charts of today they are considered "country" and their music was to me much more traditional than what is called country today. The more things change the more they stay the same.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 02:30 PM

Good thoughts Maeve, Sandy and Michael.

Michael, I hope to meet you in October or November. Have a good friend in Livermore and we passed thru Sonoma County on the way to the redwoods and the coast somewhat north of Point Arena Cove. Beautiful part of the world you're in.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: michaelr
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 02:35 PM

I'd love to meet you when you're in the area, Bruce. On an unrelated topic - the new Mudcat CD set - I've been wanting to PM you but it appears you're no longer a member. How can I contact you?

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Dan H
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 03:11 PM

As a 21 year old traditional musician, who regularily jams and performs with an ever-growing handful of twenty-something traditinal musicians I can pretty comfortably say that traditional folk music is not dying out. In fact I would say we're probably in the beginning of another folk-music rennaisence. I can remember a few years back being the only person my age into this sort of music and jamming pub sessions with irish and scottish ex-pats old enough to be my grandparents. It might be the university town I've moved to since, but now I'm starting to find it hard to find a banjo player whos over 30.

For most of the sit-down traditional concerts I play the audience is usually all twenty-somethings and my string-band regularily host university-aged dance parties that always see a good crowd come out. Also the comhaltas branch in town here has monthly set dances which are always well attended by young folk. So I don't think there is any lack of young folkies. They're just not coming out to the old-timer's jams or concerts, but thats another matter entirely.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 03:51 PM

I don't know... I mean Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds did the Murder Ballads as kind of a lark and yet some of the songs are absolutely wonderful and based on trad songs.

Bruce Springsteen produced an album of American folk not too long ago.    Johnny Depp and a load of Hollywood types released an good album of sea shanties.

I see generations in future happening onto these recordings and digging deeper for sources as they have been doing for yonks. Classical composers did it, Blues musicians did and still do it, Rock, Country, New Age, etc.

Someone will always go back to recordings of source singers. Some will render those songs just as they learned from the source recordings, some will modify them.

I have been looking at tune sessions on youtube and they are packed with young people. I look up blues guitar, mandolin, whistle and lap dulcimer tutorials some of which are taught by young musicians.

I think it's wonderful. I don't see the demise of trad music at all.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 04:47 PM

I mean Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds did the Murder Ballads as kind of a lark and yet some of the songs are absolutely wonderful and based on trad songs

I once did Stagger Lee off that record in a certain folk club and was asked to leave in no uncertain terms. Lovely record though, likewise the one they did after that with the McGarrigle's in the band though out copy has yet to surface after the move three years ago, likewise our Moondog CDs...

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 05:01 PM

Just read this thread and you could substitute 'will the baby boomer folk revival die when we do?' and be truer to the question. Trad music will never die because it's inscribed in too many different forms and media to be lost.

In all likelihood it will come into and go out of fashion. Repeatedly.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 05:26 PM

I haven't done this in awhile, but I think it needs ONE more attempt to clarify words.

"Traditional" used to mean specifically ...'that music handed down from the era(s) before recordings and commercial promotions, largely thru oral means, and which survived because people saved the good and allowed the bad to sink into relative obscurity'....or some such basic definition.
   Now, if one begins to use phrases like "Well, all music is traditional,..., the very word begins to lose clarity. It NEEDS to have a reasonably precise and useful referent. Using 'trad' as a sweeping definition for '..all the stuff that we remember and sing & play because we are not horses' just dilutes the meaning and makes it harder TO refer to the old, seminal roots OF what we do today.

It is not about good or bad... or about whether writing NEW songs is acceptable....of course writing new songs is good, important, valuable and often of a quality (like Utah Phillips or Eric Bogle...etc...) that it will BE part of 'trad' in a hundred years. IF a song is so well-liked that it is shared and incorporated until one has to look up in Google to even find the author or origin, then 'trad' has expanded...but beware of calling 20 year old stuff 'trad', **just** because it was part of your early memories....etc.

Ok... lecture over for a couple of years... carry on.

(Oh...and by the way... Elizabeth LaPrelle and her mother, Sandy, sing for fun many, many songs that are far from "...rock bottom traditional...", but they KNOW the difference and will tailor a performance suitably.)

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 06:41 PM

the very word begins to lose clarity. It NEEDS to have a reasonably precise and useful referent

Okay, but what are we left with? Especially when the ICTM states its aims and objectives as it does.

Thing is Folk Music comes into existence only if we're prepared to make the definition less precise - how else do we cover all the possible bases of vernacular / popular music as disparate as the vocal polyphony of Albania to the comedy stylings of Bernard Wrigley to Peter Bellamy's settings of the poems of Rudyard Kipling - all of which might be packaged as Folk? At the same time living musical traditions as diverse as Heavy Metal, Hip Hop, Drum & Bass, Classical, and (yes) Folk are operating with a vigour well within the remit of The 1954 Definition.

There are a myriad musics we can call Traditional, and even argue that the very term Traditional Music is an oxymoron simply because music is Traditional by its very nature. Popular / Folk musics are traditional in the same sense as any other music, the difference is simply one of style / genre on one hand, and academic assumption on the other, and then there's a huge matter of ideological faith which is very much a matter of individual belief.

Getting back to the point, I think if every Folkie on the planet was wiped out by some catacylsmic natural disaster then the future of the music might be a bit wobbly, but whilst at 49 I'm still amongst the youngest in the various Folk Clubs I attend, I also find myself amongst the oldest in other thriving folk projects & events I'm presently part of. It's taken a while but it's happening and it's broadening and it's producing great & diverse Folk Music which is all that really matters.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 07:39 PM

"Okay, but what are we left with? Especially when the ICTM states its aims and objectives as it does."

well, I barely know OF the ICTM... to me, THEY are not 'traditional'... ;>)

"...how else do we cover all the possible bases of vernacular / popular music ...?"

Well, our local folk DJ, Mary Cliff, refers to the music she plays as "Traditional music...and music 'in the traditions'"...to make clear that much is derivative.

and I just can't agree with "Folk Music comes into existence only if we're prepared to make the definition less precise.." Why? Because 'folk' was once 'almost' synonymous with 'trad' to refer to the older music being discovered and refreshed in the 50s-70s. The thing was, 'folk' was too handy a word, and when people like the Kingston Trio ..etc... started popularizing it and others began writing new songs with acoustic instruments and vaguely similar themes, they found it easier to call themselves 'folksingers' ..doing 'hootenannies' than to call themselves 'singer-songwriters with folk roots'...which doesn't fit on an album or poster very well. And record stores didn't want to create LOTS of extra bins to show all the new categories....so, the word(s) were diluted. Everyone thought they knew what they meant...but those...like poor old ME...who really enjoyed the 'older' stuff more.... got fooled by many concert & LP cover and bought into stuff that was only 20-40% what we wanted.
What to do? Nothing much... you can't legislate the words people use... I just had to look harder, read longer and ask more questions to avoid pop-'folkish' music that I didn't care for. Some of it was ok, but..... ummmm....

   Just because 87.943% of everyone uses the diluted words it doesn't change the fact that there ARE differences that often need to be clarified. Classical music has pretty clear labels for lots of categories...chamber music, baroque...etc... I am greedy.... I want something similar. I am not holding my breath....

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Big Mick
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 07:43 PM

To answer the initial question; no. Why? Because it is traditional. That means it has passed beyond pop culture. It has been catalogued, recorded, folk processed, and evolved. It will continue to spawn those that are interested in preserving it, and those that are inspired by it to write new stuff in the vein of the old. It's timeless lessons on life and living, how they are as relevant today as they were back when, will continue to inspire us to action and toward a more perfect understanding of the human condition. So it will not die for one very simple reason. It cannot as long as humans continue the quest. But if the reactors blow up, it may die, because so will we...... but I digress.

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Big Mick
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 07:45 PM

And Bill D, my beloved friend, go change your shorts. Those must have shrunk you old crank!!! sez Mick with tongue planted firmly in cheek, and ducking behind the closest piece of furniture to avoid being hit by a thrown piece of oak....

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 07:55 PM

I suspect that in the circle of life youngsters will at some point in the future rebel against the man, and the machine, and singing the old songs will become cool and radical again.

Dunno about beards though.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,18 year old traditional music enthusiast
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 08:00 PM

I'm 18 and in high school, and I am totally into the classical music of all cultures. I do listen to rock, hip hop, and everything else as well, but my favorite music is classical cultural music. In fact i found this site/forum/thread because i was searching for information on building an electronic bagpipe. I think that as long as people are learning to play instruments, there will be a love and a need to go to its roots!!!

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Big Mick
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 08:02 PM

.... from the mouth of the young comes the wisdom of the ages. Thanks for posting, young friend. And stick around. You never know when a very large old Irish singer might need the words to a hip hop song......

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 08:02 PM

I agree, but using terms like Traditional and Folk isn't going to help your cause. Sometimes it comes down to very specific definitions, like paticular songs and singers, regions, traditions, artists and albums, periods, all of which are mutable for sure. In this thing called Folk, that mutability is often resisted, even though the snap-shot we have of The Tradition at the overall point of its collection indicates a vast & mutable beast in which songs may assume innumerable variations even to the point of certain variants being the product of one particular performance. If, on the other hand, all it comes down to wanting things to stay the same then there's scope for that in the Revival too I reckon!

If someone asks me What is Folk? then I'll point them to the million categories of music covered by the term and let them figure it out for themselves. Likewise Rock, Pop, Jazz and Classical. But let's hope Traditional means something more than simply being Old Fashioned, eh? All music has Roots; wouldn't be music without them. It's a language, it's how it works.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 08:08 PM

Cross posted over a few there. Electonic bagpipes, eh? There was a chap in Edinburgh many years ago standing on Chambers Street at four Am one festival morning as we staggered in the direction of Morningside - he played me a pibroch on his electronic bagpipes on the steps of the museum and it was the most perfect music in the world... When was that? 1988? 1991?

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Big Mick
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 08:21 PM

There is now an midi Uilleann Pipe. It has an amazing sound, and you can get all the embellishments and incidentals on it. I love it and wish I could get my hands on one for performingjust because you would no longer have to worry about humidity, temp, reed affect,etc. But I still prefer strapping into a full trad set.

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 08:26 PM

Didn't know that elec bagpipes existed. Just googled them. Cool.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 10:38 PM

I asked Chongo about this. He said it's his understanding that everything will die when he does.

Chongo: "When I check out, it's all over, little buddy. Finito. Kaput. End of story. 'And that was all she wrote.' "

"There's a word for that sort of attitute," I said to him.

"Indispensible?" he replied...

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 04:49 AM

One night at The Beech Karina played a brilliant traditional tune on an App on here phone. The App turned the phone into Ocarina.

I am not sure that the "First Revival" was a reivival at all. Song collectors found mostly old people who lived mostly in the countryside and collected some, just some, of their songs. Some of these songs were published in hardback books and many more were put into private collections. Some recitals were given of songs in arrangements for piano and sung by people with trained voices.

The real revival started in the 1950s with MacColl, Seeger, Lomax, Seeger, Beehan, Fisher and hundreds of others. This led to the folk clubs, festivals, singers and folk groups and recordings of the 60s and 70s.

This was a genuine revival of old songs because thousands and thousands of people sang thousands and thousands of old songs. Singers of 'traditional' songs were discovered, recorded and enjoyed by new generations of us.

Just like the source singers at the turn of the century they sang anything they fancied - music hall songs, hymns, songs from the radio and songs that clearly went a long time back. And that's what has been going on since our revival started in the 1950s.

Almost none of us are part of rural communities with a deap tradition of singing old songs. But I am part of a virtual community that has been singing within a tradition that is around 60 years old and uses songs that are up to 300 (?) years old. It is a living tradition and songs are often passed on orally.

I am not sure how much this matters. But we do have access to a fantastic collection of songs and tunes that work well in small acoustic spaces and I think we will continue to sing the songs and play the tunes. Some people will write songs and some will be taken up and survive - the living tradition?

We have a number of 'folk' events in Chorlton. One is Chorlton Folk Club where you can hear 20 + singers every Thursday and many sing there own songs. Their is an Irish tunes Session in The Beech every Monday. We hold a Singaround of mostly but not exclusively traditional songs on 1st & 3rd Wednesdays and a mostly English Beginners Tunes session on 2nd & 4th Wednesdays.

Each of these events could be called a folk club, each is very well attended. I think people understand how they are different and they pick the ones they like.

I think singing old songs in small acoustic spaces will continue because it's a good experience just as social/country dancing is.

Cheers

L in C#

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 05:05 AM

That's sounds about right; we all exists inside of each others heads anyway and when one person dies then with them dies an entire universe & versions of ourselves and those around us we can barely comprehend. Subjectivity is all there is really, unity in diversity. But when I die then my version of things ends right there - all that's left is a loads of books, records and instruments that'll be of no further use to anyone. Fodder for the funeral pyre....

We each of us curate our own museum though; times I think all this decluttering is GOOD idea though - put your treasures in heaven, or in an ipod - and if I could get it down to ONE instrument and be fully portable despite my nomadic inclinations; and all these books, and all that vinyl...   Talk about Folklore; which always suffers because of the objective assumption, but Trad or Revival it invarioably comes down to the individuals who do it. Like that picture Jim showed me from when the Padstow May thing was just one man being looked at askance by the other villagers.

One person; that's all it takes...

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 05:40 AM

Cross-post there with Les, who is one person who has made so much happen that wouldn't have happened otherwise... human history was ever thus!

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 06:11 AM

You are very kind Sean but the sings and the tunes draw people together - I just spotted the Snug of The Beech and sent out invitations! heers

Cheers
L in C#

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 07:09 AM

Those opportunities need a catalyst though, and a benign sort of leadership to not only get it going, but focus the vision. I always carp on about my anarchist ideals, but good singarounds start with good leaders, of which Chorlton is a classic example. I can think of a few more (and will name Ian McCulloch of Durham and Ron Baxter of Fleetwood) but I'm now more of a sesh man really, either that or gigs and fields. Maybe this belongs in a different thread? Either way, we hope to get back to Chorlton one of these days...

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 09:05 AM

We await your, and Rachel's, return with anarchistic anticipation

L in C#

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 12:09 PM

When I am dead, think only this of me
Think of this and talk it over
There is still a corner of English pub
Where they all sing The Wild Rover

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 01:44 PM

It's been just over a century since people began learning songs from recordings, not only through "live" experiences of hearing music. We who are alive today have very little in common with earlier practitioners of "traditional" music, and everything in common with the players and listeners of the future.

No music will "die" that doesn't deserve to. Certainly, some individual songs that we know today will be forgotten, but not all of them. Also, in the future just as in the present, there will surely be "cult followings" of certain traditions and styles that may not be widely supported by the population at large but which are loved by a select few.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 02:27 PM

Well said Ms/Mr PoppaGator. You have said so much so well and in so few words!

L in C#
Just off to further a Cult -The Singaround at The Beech

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 08:54 PM

It was my hope that the music of Tiny Tim had died with him, but like a dreadful ghost from the past Tiptoe Through the Tulips comes back to haunt my memory. If that still survives surely anything better can live on as well! Achey Breaky Heart will probably not survive Cyrus though.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 04:04 AM

I bet someone will start a thread: Songs that should die asap.

I may regret writing that

L in C#

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: DrugCrazed
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 04:54 AM

Part of the reason I'm going to folk clubs is that I'm not sure that there are any others in our generation who are.

I'm aware this might be a falsehood.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: DrugCrazed
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 05:12 AM

It was my hope that the music of Tiny Tim had died with him, but like a dreadful ghost from the past Tiptoe Through the Tulips comes back to haunt my memory.

Amusingly, I'm playing Livin' In The Sunlight tonight at an open mic.

Back to the topic: If folk dies, then life will be terrible. I'm learning songs and learning the stories, which are more interesting that the songs sometimes.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 05:42 AM

We who are alive today have very little in common with earlier practitioners of "traditional" music, and everything in common with the players and listeners of the future.

I'm not sure if that's true, in fact I'm sure it isn't. The one thing we do have in common is being alive & being human - and all that entails. Maybe people of the past were less hung up on the past than we are - in the medieval period even depictions of Biblical scenes were done so in contemporary dress, so much so that our idea of Biblical Cotume is coloured by depictions in medieval art. If people did that today there'd be an outcry!

Who taught us to look back? Maybe it was the Victorians with their psuedo Gothic and Arts & Crafts, maybe it was earlier. Maybe we've always looked back - myths, dreamings, folk tales, song lines, and just our day to day memories of those we've lost. It's a human thing, just these days our historical methods are in line with available technology.

The 1954 Definition doesn't say anything about Style or Genre; maybe that was a given in the ranks of the old IFMC, who are now the ICTM whose remit on Traditional Music is very broad. The important thing here is that wherever there are human beings, there is music, and all music is traditional. So when we die (i.e humanity) there will be no more music...

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 06:08 AM

The first 'guests' I saw at a folk club were Hilary and I think Joan. The Jug of Punch, Princess Hotel, Ellesmere Port, 1964. I had seen loads of rock bands in Ellesmere Port Civic Hall, including the Beatles, October '62 and I had been to The Cavern loads of times. But the experience of sitting about two yards from two young women who simply opened their mouths and sang interesting songs with great tunes was literally life changing.

The experience of being in small rooms and listening to people sing with out amplification is very special and I think that links us all to the people who kept songs alive for hundreds of years in small rooms across mostly rural England.

We do it because it feels good, the songs and tunes work in this situation and I think it will survive.

L in C#
And I also like enjoy load bangy music but that is a bit different

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 06:34 AM

I had seen loads of rock bands in Ellesmere Port Civic Hall, including the Beatles, October '62

Your memory is playing tricks, Les. The only time that the Beatles played that venue was January 14th 1963.

I'll get my anorak.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 06:34 AM

Much the same for me really; I was escaping the effects of amplified music on my adolescent ear drums, and one day wandered into a local pub and sat and watched this elegant beautiful guest singing unaccompanied with an audience of about five or six. I even bought her record - Airs and Graces. Loved The Plains of Waterloo, hated The Band Played Waltzing Matilta; still do! Or was it that lovely couple from the Albion Country Band with the melodeon, concertina, oboe & hammer dulcimer who sang like angels from whom I bought the wonderful (and wonderfully titled) Among the Many Attractions at the Show will be a Really High Class Band? I love that album even now; the definitive Folk Album!

Thing is though, this sort of small intimate performance was hardly new to me; I used to go to poetry readings at Modern Tower in Newcastle in the days you could see Ivor Culter and Phyllis April King performing to an audience of fifteen. I used to go and see free improvisation too - people as amazing as Derek Bailey & Lol Coxhill all playing in tiny rooms to tiny audiences. Intimate as you could wish really.

In Folk Clubs the vibe was different though, an underlying righteous hostility that people still pick up on from time to time. I keep saying we need to drive a wedge between The Tradition of English Speaking Folk Song as an international treasure of the English Speaking World, and the Folk Revival, the surly attitudes of which very often just puts people off. Put me off a lot back then I must say, and I still encounter a lot of that today actually.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 06:35 AM

If you can keep your tradition
When all around are losing theirs
You can keep it in the freezer
It might go off, in Tupperware.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 06:47 AM

(Oops - pressed the wrong button there - so continuing from previous post...)

...and I still encounter a lot of that today actually. It's like the sexism of the church getting hung up on women priests - you get these self-styled Traddy Purists who really know SFA, and yet still carp on about The Tradition as if it was written in stone. Guardians? I think not somehow. The best of it was always just the music without the cause really, political or otherwise. Seeing Peter Bellamy was like being in the presence of an angel, but hearing my favourite ballad singer Ewan McColl singing his self-penned tripe about South Africa and the Miner's Strike was just depressing, all the more so for the intimacy really. Well, you couldn't very well walk out, could you?

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Jon Dudley
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 07:07 AM

Quote from Suibhne Astray - 'Like that picture Jim showed me from when the Padstow May thing was just one man being looked at askance by the other villagers.'

I agree with much of what you say but any pictures I've ever seen of the Mayday celebrations in Padstow, taken throughout the the last 80 years or so have never seemed to indicate any lack of enthusiasm or participation by the local inhabitants. Of course numbers have been swollen by hoards of spectators in recent years and it wasn't always that way. I'm just interested to know if there was a pivotal moment when the whole thing was in danger of vanishing as is maybe suggested by this photograph...or was it a 'freak' shot of a lone dancer taken away from the action? I suppose I should ask Doc Rowe, but maybe you know the answer.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 08:23 AM

According to Jim Caroll the Lone Reveller at Padstow picture represents its lowest ebb before its consequent revival. In any case the earliest reference we have for Padstow is 1803 - see Hutton, Stations of the Sun, pages 81-82, in which he tells of Folkloric Interferance and assumptions on the part of Paganised Folklorists under the thrall of The Golden Bough.

I would think all Folklore is Revived to a greater extent - at least post-Revival in terms of its definition and perception - the Bampton Morros traditionincluded. The revival is a reality, an itegral aspect of Folk Music and Folkloric usage - at least the sort of selective Folklore that is of interest to Folkies and modified accordingly. The Wicker Man is predicated on discredited Folk-Paganism, but it still endures as part of the overall aesthetic no matter how misguided that may be. Or is it natural to assume a man dressed as a stylised horse is doing something that simply has to be carrying on a Pre-Christian tradition however so innocently?

In any case, I can't find the picture (which was part of wider evidence for the Padstow Decline). Maybe Jim can supply another?

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 08:42 AM

I think it was Julian ............ from Colne Royal Morrismen that pointed out that collapse and revival were one of the most important features of Morris dancing.

I await with eager anticipation the next revival of the incomparable Gorton Morrismen:

Here

L in C

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,dunelmian1943 aka Ian McCulloch
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 10:33 AM

Gratified to read of the appreciation of my years of benign effort from Suibhne Astray (16th March).Durham City Folk Club has existed since 1969 and has survived many transformations. Seems to me that a folk club must be a democracy and be part of the pub in which it exists. Democracy should mean that even after those who "run" folk clubs hand over their leadership, there is a continuation otherwise I would be appalled. Being part of the pub means that strangers will pop in occasionally and friendliness is essential and singers should have a few songs which such people will recognise and, even feel(ocasionally) like offering a song which, even if it's only the first verse of the Wild Rover, should be appreciated otherwise there would be no chance of a return visit.As far as young people are concerned, they do exist and often appreciate a good song but they must be cherished like young plants. It is obvious isn't it but it doesn't always happen!

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 10:40 AM

Ian,

That is a remarkable statement. Beautiful.

Bruce

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 11:08 AM

My sincere thanks to all of you for your insights, observations prompted by years of experience. Also, please accept more thanks for keeping the thread on task.