Is folk music folk music?

Subject: Is folk music folk music?
From: Folknacious
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 05:38 PM

Surely the ultimate Mudcat question? (And no, the answer isn't "42".)

Well, is it?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Tangledwood
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 05:45 PM

No, they're totally different. Folk music is music for folk, whereas folk music is music by folk.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: olddude
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 05:47 PM

It is any music the major record companies don't want
and the only music worth listening to IMO yup

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Peace
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 05:55 PM

At times it is and at times it isn't. On occasion the reverse is true.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 06:09 PM

Don't you know there's no such thing as folk music?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 06:11 PM

Folk music is any music made by ordinary folk, even if it's not folk music - whereas folk music is all the music that was made by ordinary folk, even if it's not folk music now.

Folk music, on the other hand, means anything that sounds a bit like James Taylor, June Tabor or Pentangle - whereas folk music means anything that sounds a bit like artists who sound a bit like James Taylor, June Tabor or Pentangle only different.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Zen
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 06:13 PM

According to the 1594 definition it may or may not be. Is that the question?

Zen

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 06:16 PM

So, we've had the music of the people, by the people, for the people.

For those who remember ablatives, what about "with or from"?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Folknacious
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 06:25 PM

The Ablatives? Weren't they a foalk group? They always sounded a little hoarse.

** wasn't everybody definitely dead by 1594?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 06:27 PM

Only by the 57th verse, after faire Eleanour and the brown girl...

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Folknacious
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 06:50 PM

57th? Do you mean exactly 57? We could argue about this.

Surely if folk music is folk music, then Karl Marx was wrong when he said "why a duck?" At least, I think it was Karl.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Peace
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 06:52 PM

Groucho. But as with many songs that may or may not be folk, tradition has perhaps changed the original somewhat.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Peace
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 06:57 PM

Musta been Karl.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 06:59 PM

It's music that can please some of the people, some of the time, if sung in the right accent..but never can it please all of the people all of the time, unless of course it's....

Angie Palmer

..who was probably born in 1954, as were possibly the entire Oysterband, along with They Who Must Not Be Mentioned...

Sometimes you can please all of the people some of the time, as with Seth Lakeman, or some of the people all of the time, as with...er...Seth Lakeman.

But you can't please The Borchester Echo's music reporter any of the time, unless it's the third Wednesday of the 7th month of 1954, in which case, you could be pretty damn near to Paradise!

However, it's only TRUE folk music if sung by Cecil Sharp with his electric guitar, which brings me back to Angie Palmer and her rendition of one of Cecil's best known Collectables....All Along The Ploughman's Watchtower

And THAT is folk music!

But hell if I can remember what the question was!

;0)

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 07:03 PM

Groucho.

It was Chico actually.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 08:05 PM

So, is this a BS thread?

Yeah, it's music - but isn't it BS, too?

America wants to know.
The UK doesn't care...
Oz and Ireland and the rest of the world, seem to be a distinct minority here.

And maybe, just maybe, it doesn't matter anyhow.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: GUEST,Dave MacKenzie
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 08:12 PM

If you're getting paid for it it isn't folk music.

If you're not getting paid, and you aren't a horse then who knows.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 09:20 PM

Joe, wasn't that Buddy HOlly?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 09:37 PM

Joe-

Move it down to BS.

The topic is too heavy to float naturally to the top.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Ernest
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 01:39 AM

You can`t answer that question what "folk music" is before you haven`t defined what "folk" is first.

So you have to define which parts of the population are folk.

And beware: you will be called "racist" if you exclude indigenous people, foreigners, certain professions or horses....

;0)
Ernest

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 01:55 AM

We should create a centre for folk music, where only folk music is allowed. We could call it Folk Hall. Any band that plays there can truly say thet they've done Folk Hall.

On the other hand, those who prefer folk music can adapt the works of a modern German composer and folk Orff.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 01:59 AM

Crikey chaps is there nothing on the telly there either?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 02:28 AM

Is this the right room for an arguement ?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 02:48 AM

Is this the right room for an arguement ?

I've told you once ....

I suspect that this one will be the full half-hour though: I presume the related 'celtic rock' one has already descended into anarchy, questions of parentage, and Mud[cat]-slinging, I've not even bothered looking :)

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Acorn4
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 03:30 AM

I can see this thread ending in tears!

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Darowyn
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 03:45 AM

Well I think that everyone who disagrees with me deserves every sort of foul calumny!
And I know that many of the Mudcatters of old England could say exactly the same thing.
Cheers
Dave

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 03:55 AM

The folk revival, that manifestation of 50s and 60s popular culture is alive and reasonably well. Once the baby boomers die out it might go the way of The Twist or it may evolve it's hard to say. It'll need new takes on the tradition if it's going to move beyond Grumpy music and speak up for itself.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 04:16 AM

"Grumpy music"

I've searched my extensive racks of folk and traditional music recordings looking for this sub-genre and still not found it. Examples, please...

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 04:34 AM

As ever on Mudcat one gets a thrilling sense of deja vu. Back in the spring of last year when The Observer was haunting the forum I assumed his mantle and started the Folk vs Folk thread, my opening post for which read:

To what extent, if any, is Folk Music the music of an actual Folk other than folkie Folk, whose actuality is compromised by their adoption of objectivist methodology entirely at odds with the subjectivist criteria of actual Folk, thusly perceived?

Folk music is like sex - which is to say a mostly participatory act that I might even occasionally watch, and apt to keep me awake in the dead of night trying to get my rational mind around its darker persuasions...

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 05:16 AM

"It'll need new takes on the tradition if it's going to move beyond Grumpy music and speak up for itself."

I suppose by that, 'glueman' you mean that it'll need to more closely resemble the types of recent popular music that you like? Punk, perhaps? I seem to recall that you're of the 'punk generation'? Remember, though, that punk is already over 30 years 'out-of-date'!

If that's not what you mean, what would a 'new take on the tradition' be like? What form would this 'new take' take, so to speak?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Mark Powell
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 05:29 AM

"Folk music is like sex..."

Do you mean that when it´s good it´s great, and when it´s not good it is still all right?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Hamish
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 06:18 AM

Ah, but if only sex were like folk music. Seems to go on for ever.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: theleveller
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 07:09 AM

If folk music was like sex, we'd have stopped reproducing around 1856.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Mooh
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 07:09 AM

By the folk, of the folk, for the folk.

Or something like that.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 07:31 AM

.............& noone? no one has defined how traditional the 'folk tradition' is!





J'obtiendrai mon manteau!

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: The Sandman
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 07:49 AM

this is folk music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0zAr1t6nTE&feature=channel_page

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 08:00 AM

Folk music is folk music if you're one of the folks. If you're not one of the folks it's something else.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 08:07 AM

Ah but !! do you have to be made of grass to like bluegrass music ?
and do you have to be a c**t to like country and western ?

Dave H

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 08:09 AM

Doesn't it depend on what "is" means?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 08:16 AM

this is folk music

No it isn't - it's some old folkie singing a ballad to the wrong tune.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Doktor Doktor
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 08:21 AM

Just had a message of complaint from Foul Calumny, who's rather peeved. Almost dropped his whistle.

As Mr Barker has observed, isn't it odd how you never seem to get deja-vue for the first time?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 08:22 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4XT-l-_3y0

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: theleveller
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 08:25 AM

THIS is folk music

Ramblin Sid

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 08:34 AM

Folk Revival is nine parts clobber and attitude with a side order of old songs. At least that's how the flower's bloomed in the UK these last 50 years. I last bought a punk record about 1977 and those only ever get an airing when young people visit and insist.

The stuff that gets heard most in Glue Towers is probably experimental modern classical, closely followed by The Tradition - or Grumpy Music after its adherents - obscure soul records, brass bands and English Light Music (very big on Eric Coates).

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 08:38 AM

"What form would this 'new take' take, so to speak?"

It'll have to stop pretending to be sung by pressed naval ratings and plough hands by way of Ewan McColl for starters. That'll never do. And those clothes, no, they won't do either. Absolutely not.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Folknacious
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 08:44 AM

So, is this a BS thread?

America wants to know.

-Joe Offer-


Methinks that over there in the former colonies you may once again be missing what Mr Donegan once sang:

Any old irony, any old irony, any any any old irony . . .


But you see, it's not any easy one to answer is it?

Things like "was folk music folk music?" or "will folk music be folk music?" were much easier, and have already been thoroughly exercised by Mudcat's great team of existential philosophers in many previous threads.

But this is the big one. Thiiiiiis big.






Then again I might have been testing my powers as a folk troll.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: TheSnail
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 09:00 AM

glueman

Folk Revival is nine parts clobber

Nobody's mentioned panchromatic trousers for ages.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Folknacious
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 09:16 AM

Nobody's mentioned panchromatic trousers for ages.

Ah. Trousers. Now we're getting somewhere. Punks were defined by their haircuts. World music fans by their world music hats. Jazzers by their facial hair.

Subsidiary question: Are folk trousers folk trousers?

(Note to US readers. Do not substitute the word "pants". That means something else entirely in English.)

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 09:25 AM

Don't get me started on folk trousers. Or those pointy felt hats. They make me reach for my diabolo.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 09:28 AM

"World music fans by their world music hats."

I know not of these. Is it like Verity Sharp in a titfer?