Culture doesn't include Trad Music

Subject: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 21 May 09 - 03:29 PM

Essex County has had funding from Central Govennment and guidance from Arts Council to put together an Arts and Culture marketing and promotion package to be adopted by all the smaller councils in Greater Essex (including the Thames Gateway).

The marketing campaign is called Explore Culture.

Today I an email which included list of cultural activities and experiences. Lists included singing as a general activity and opera and a number of international dances and salsa and ballroom as experiences.

No mention of traditional song and dance of Great Britain.

I was livid. I replied that I was "very disappointed that the lists made no mention of tradtional song and dance of Great Britain"

I get an email back that simply said "Morris dancing?"

As an American living in the UK, I find this complete lack of knowledge and/or care by leaders surpervising the provision of Heritage and Culture, shortsighted and shockingly sad.

Ballroom for fuck's sake!

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 21 May 09 - 03:47 PM

A history of this goes back to the Seventies at least - or so I've come to understand from this forum. It explains why I didn't know dick about English or British Trad. Arts and Culture til 'discovering' it late last year... And yet, it's overdue that time reparations to such collective ignorance were made. And specifically within those bodies who are in control over funding for community and national educational arts projects!

I Googled for "Folk Arts Museum" earlier, and filtered it to sites *exclusively from the U.K.*, this is what I got (read it and weep):

Googling within UK, for 'Folk Arts museum'

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: bubblyrat
Date: 21 May 09 - 03:49 PM

The Labour Party have been systematically destroying,dismantling and discouraging any kind of musical or artistic activity that might suggest an English cultural identity for years now,as their main interest in life is A) Scotland and B) Europe----surely you realise that by now ??

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 21 May 09 - 03:52 PM

On the other hand, CS, have a look at this ambitious project:

Museum of British Folklore


I agree that the position of indigenous folk arts is worrying; well done for raising it with the council, Tam.

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 21 May 09 - 03:52 PM

Scroll to bottom of second page of your filter and you get

this

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 21 May 09 - 04:03 PM

"Ballroom for fuck's sake!"

intolerance indeed, and yet you expect funding for your pet projects (traditional song and dance of Great Britain.) pah!!

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 21 May 09 - 04:06 PM

I don't and won't believe that the Labour party has been conscientiously dismantling British heritage. Perhaps neglecting it.

Thanks for the link Ruth. I wanna go to the grand opening.

I only had that email by accident, as I am PA to the Head of Heristage and Arts (among other duties). So I am copied in. I was probably out of place for replyuing to all in the distribution list, but I don't care.

Members, managers arts and hertiage for unitary authroites and borough and town councils, matters not. I am a tax payer and a customer of this Explore Culture campaign.

And another thing, I would bet that most of those in that email list are conservatives.

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 21 May 09 - 04:08 PM

Thanks for that link Ruth A, looks excellent.
And I don't wish to denigrate the work of those currently engaged in the task of re-establishing popular awareness of native cultural traditions, it's just that the legacy of political disregard, has had consequences that now make that task so much more difficult. And also left a gaping maw of dispossessed cultural discontent, for right-ring nationalists to fill with their bullshite blather... but the less said about that the better!

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 21 May 09 - 04:09 PM

Read the original post, please. Funding is not for the projects. It is for Marketing only. Explore Culture.

I was angry because they do not view UK Traditional Dance and music as cultural.

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 21 May 09 - 04:19 PM

Sorry Tam, I misunderstood. I don't understand the specifics that distinguish a "marketing and promotion package" (your quote) from a "project". I'm not savvy enough to know the exact diff. Not wishing to split hairs - but hopefully you could explain?

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 21 May 09 - 04:21 PM

Not you honey. The man with the unloaded gun.

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 21 May 09 - 04:23 PM

I read the post before commenting, my original post stands. I've spoken to people at large about this issue and a common (very common!) reply is:
" Why should my tax money go towards something I don't want?"

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 21 May 09 - 04:48 PM

Rifleman:" Why should my tax money go towards something I don't want?"

Mmm, well that's a classic Laisser Faire economic argument Rifleman.
I presume in positing this, that your exceedingly wealthy friends and family have never required anything from the NHS or other socially funded institution..?
Or indeed that you're cool about children starving on the streets and stuff?
Because as I'm sure you know, if we all adopted that 'Only What I Want' approach, that's where we'd be once again...
Thankfully some of us think it's not so good to be back there.

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 21 May 09 - 04:53 PM

Central Government "encourages" Local Authorities to make specific provisions outlined by the National Indicators. NI 11 is engagements with the arts. The central government gives the LA money in order to meet targets outlined in the NI11 provisions. This particular pot of money was designated to create a marketing plan that creates links between Essex LA and it's internal borough and town councils and the outlying Unitary Authorities (Thurrock and Southend).

It's main focus is to get people of Essex to understand what culture is in all its various forms as well as getting them to try new things. There will be pavement lines, bus liners, beer mats, tshirts key rings, a freaking blimp and a website, dedicated to this campaign.

I know there has been some dancing around the definition of arts and culture trying to make it more inclusive, including heritage as in visiting a historic attraction, or investigating your ancestors at a record office and arts as described above. Going to the library, cinema, concert, etc.

I just don't understand why they didn't make the link between Great Britain's tradtional folk arts and heritage? Also why are folk dance from China and Africa considered cultural if a morris dance is not?

It boggles.

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 21 May 09 - 04:57 PM

Is it time we started to pummle our MP's with this stuff?!!
I'm tempted...!

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 21 May 09 - 05:12 PM

Am I not right, Rifleman, that you are in the United States of America, and a citizen of that commonwealth?

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 21 May 09 - 05:14 PM

PS - of course folk music and dance is not part of Kultur with a Kapital K - that is the point. It is not the music of the top-down grandees.

It is time for Captain Swing.

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 21 May 09 - 05:14 PM

I would say that locally you can write to Cllr Lucas. He is the council member for heritage and arts and very keen and supportive of arts. (I have had experience of members who didn't give jackshit about their remit.) Lucas is not one. Really nice man.

Also to Lord reservoir (oops I mean Hanningfield).

But we are only two lone voices in the wilderness. Even at the Record Office where one would think there would be more favourable attitude at least from archivists. Not so. If I listen to CD (Ramskyte, Salt of the Earth or Silly Sisters) off the speakers, when an archivist comes in they make some comment like "sounds like they are in pain."

Very discouraging. To them it is more a museum piece and belongs behind glass.

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: semi-submersible
Date: 21 May 09 - 05:35 PM

Richard Bridge: Don't the grandees spell Cvltvre with a Roman "V"?

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 21 May 09 - 05:38 PM

Hmm... Then upstanding community organisations like the local possibly need to be got on board. They're all middle-class middle-aged Tory ladies round here, but I'm certain would have sympathies and be supportive if addressed in the right way. No idea, but doors might possibly be opened through avenues like that. I'd be up for a local campaign, though not sure I'd know quite how to tackle.

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 21 May 09 - 05:40 PM

How weird, I 'selectively' omitted the key term "W.I." there (Women's Institute.)

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: Paul Burke
Date: 21 May 09 - 07:01 PM

Oy! Women's Institute! Women younger than me posing nude for calendars!

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: sian, west wales
Date: 22 May 09 - 06:08 AM

I work for trac, the traditional music development agency for Wales, as some here may know. It isn't unusual for some people within the genre to sniff at the work we do with government and government agencies purely to keep traditional music "on the table". I have to sit through an awful lot of meetings with civil servants and local authority people; as often as not, I've had to pull in a few favours just to get invited to them!

Despite the critics of this element of our work, I honestly feel it pays off. But it also means marshalling the forces behind us. We started out with a conference of all the trad music associations plus folk activists in 2003 which produced The Gregynog Declaration. We all then used it as an Addendum to every application we made to any body. We also encouraged other social development enterprises to use it in _their_ applications. We already had 'friends' within the Arts Council for Wales (BTW - when you write "Arts Council" please say "of England"; we have no UK-wide council) who had helped us get some Revenue Funding. I guess we've done an OK job because, when ACW decided to write a new Music Policy they remembered to include Traditional Music as one of their Consulation Groups. The Proceeding of the meeting (same website as above, on 'News' page) then led to ACW specifically naming Traditional Music within the policy and priorities (not a HIGH priority, but it's in there!)

I should also mention that the meeting didn't 'just happen'. We held a preliminary meeting a month before hand of trad music activists and wrote our own paper describing our genre and sketching out some development needs. We also kindly offered to organize 'expert witnesses' for ACW and ensured they were 'our kind of people' but also with government gravitas. (David Francis from Scotland, Paul Flynn from Northern Ireland Arts Council)

One committee I've devoted a lot of time to over 10 (gasp!) years is the National Assembly's Cultural Tourism Partnership. We've finally come to a point where ACW wants to try out a Music and Cultural Tourism initiative, led by them, and starting off with Trad Music as it's focus. It, too, is primarily a Marketing strategy but will have to include some professional development for musicians. They're going for European "Atlantic Arc" funding and, of course, may not succeed. But we're in there because we've been playing the government game and the big agencies, like ACW and Visit Wales (formerly Wales Tourist Board) now have trad music actually named in their paperwork.

OK - I also expect that, being the wee fish in the big pond, we may also soon suffer from the credit crunch. High Art has a lot more friends at court that we do. Still, it's a game worth playing and it may be worth having a go yourselves ...

sian

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 22 May 09 - 06:40 AM

As I might have said elsewhere - you can walk a lot of miles in the real world before you meet another folkie - and even further before you meet another traddy. Come to think of it, I don't think I've never met either in the real world that I didn't already know from that other elsewhere. This is very much the cultural underground we're talking about here - a handful of named & known individuals diligently & passionately keeping it afloat with a tireless dedication & flawless integrity which is not only a complete anathema to corporate culture (of any stripe) but a large part of the appeal for recalcitrant feral reprobates like me. Once it gets too glossy I find I very quickly lose interest!

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 22 May 09 - 07:41 AM

That's a good declaration, Sian, but it will be hard to transmute to English needs without sounding a bit like the BNP.

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: sian, west wales
Date: 22 May 09 - 08:21 AM

Yeh. Bummer, that. Might depend on who has 'ownership' of it. (I told you've I've spent too much time on gov't committees!) In our case, it was the Societies some of which go back 100 years. Of course, where we have a number of societies, England has EFDSS; I wonder if they have a statement of entitlement, or ilk? Also, I think it was seen as a position statement in response to the globalization and commercialization of music. This, combined with the fact that Wales has a relatively small visible ethnic minority population might defuse some of the BNP worries.

sian

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: Gedi
Date: 22 May 09 - 08:43 AM

Crow Sister wrote :

"Is it time we started to pummel our MP's with this stuff?!!"

I totally agree (although you have to catch them at a time between filling in expenses forms!). I too don't want to sound like a BNP party member but I do think that a greater awareness of Trad English Folk would help a lot in these culturally aimless times.

I recently joined a Morris Side (Bollin Morris) as a musician and it occurs to me that in these excercise conscious days, Morris Dancing is a great way of working out. Perhaps that would be a way encouraging more people to join in.

Ged

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 22 May 09 - 11:25 AM

One of the things that is specifically disappointing about this oversight, is that Essex in particular could lean heavily on it's documented historical association to traditional song.

What about all that stuff about RVW and his early traditional song gatherings in the county (as described by Sue Cubbins in her That Precious Legacy) ??

Plus all the associated archived material stashed at Essex Records Office, that such a countywide marketing campaign could so readily and logically utilise...

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 22 May 09 - 11:40 AM

"Am I not right, Rifleman, that you are in the United States of America, and a citizen of that commonwealth?"

Yes....you're wrong *LOL* (typical answer though)

I should have known better than to have said anything all. What Id did say is THIS. I have SPOKEN to people who project this attitude, I DID NOT say that is was or is my attitude.

Get it right will you!!

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 22 May 09 - 11:47 AM

Sorry Rifleman, a hasty misreading on my part there.

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 22 May 09 - 11:57 AM

Mind you, there was a moment there that I wished I was in the USA so I could respond in the affirmative, just to listen to Richard Bridge piss and moan *LOL*

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 22 May 09 - 03:54 PM

Well, you could always go there, but it isn't necessary, I can stay grumpy with you here...

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 22 May 09 - 04:03 PM

"I can stay grumpy with you here..."

Ah, but you do 'grumpy' so nicely, Richard... ;)

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 22 May 09 - 05:35 PM

"you can walk a lot of miles in the real world before you meet another folkie - and even further before you meet another traddy. Come to think of it, I don't think I've never met either in the real world that I didn't already know from that other elsewhere. This is very much the cultural underground we're talking about here - a handful of named & known individuals diligently & passionately keeping it afloat with a tireless dedication & flawless integrity which is not only a complete anathema to corporate culture (of any stripe) but a large part of the appeal for recalcitrant feral reprobates like me. Once it gets too glossy I find I very quickly lose interest!"

While I empathise with this personal attachment to the marginal outsider identity of trad. folk song (in particular in this instance), I also feel it is a poor excuse for why there is not greater public and political awareness of, and appreciation of, it's historical presence and continued relevance as a resource to very ordinary people like me.

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 22 May 09 - 06:02 PM

You? Ordinary? Heaven forfend!

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: sapper82
Date: 23 May 09 - 03:40 AM

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: VirginiaTam - PM
Date: 21 May 09 - 04:06 PM

"I don't and won't believe that the Labour party has been conscientiously dismantling British heritage. Perhaps neglecting it."


I may be wrong, but I seem to recall the then Labour led Borough of Camden trying to have EFDSS stripped of it's Educational Charity Status because, by being the ENGLISH Folk dance and Song Society, it was being racist!

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 23 May 09 - 03:44 AM

I would be interested in that Sapper '82, if you could document it.

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 23 May 09 - 04:47 AM

I would also like to see documentation. A news artcile or better -minutes or press release from either EFDSS or Cabinet meeting or the Arts and Education service of Camden BC that indicates what and who and when?

Out of curiosity, I googled Borough of Camden and EFDSS and found this positive review on notfortourists.com:
Cecil Sharp House

Not For Tourists is a guide written for and by city dwellers about points of interest near where they live.

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 23 May 09 - 05:28 AM

While I empathise with this personal attachment to the marginal outsider identity of trad. folk song (in particular in this instance), I also feel it is a poor excuse for why there is not greater public and political awareness of, and appreciation of, it's historical presence and continued relevance as a resource to very ordinary people like me.

And whilst I might sympathise with this righteous indignation at a perceived cultural injustice, I also recognise it is just this sort of attitude that will ensure that trad. folk song remains the irrelevance that it most surely is, to the ordinary and the not so ordinary people alike - just as I recognise that it is precisely this sort of attitude that keeps trad. folk song alive at all. Individual & idiosyncratic passion - par for the traddy course & cause!

Subject: RE: Culture doesn't include Trad Music
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 23 May 09 - 07:39 AM

Can you justify that pair of assertions?