Is traditional song finished?

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 08:39 AM

CS
Tradition isn't the making of songs and then their re-emergence a century or so later - I don't think it works like that.
The tradition, for me, is not simply repetition, but implies a continuum; constant transmission and adaptation so that the songs continue to exist in mulitiple forms (version). This, for all sorts of reasons, no longer appears to happen. Four hundred something years ago Henry VIII was said to have composed songs; 'Greensleeves', 'The Hunt Is Up'.....
While they were certainly performed down the ages; as far as we know, they have remained as written and dis not undergo the traditional process.
If today's (or yesterday's, or the day's before) pop songs were going to become 'traditional', surely there would be some signs of the process taking place.
Sure; pop songs are parodied by children or for political or sporting purposes.... etc, but I think that's something else.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 09:03 AM

"The tradition, for me, is not simply repetition, but implies a continuum; constant transmission and adaptation"

Some of this semantic stuff gets rather confusing for me!

I think it hinges on the distinction between what may be considered to constitute 'traditional', V's what the characteristics of 'the tradition' are supposed to be.

Christmas for example, is a tradition. It is traditional to observe Christmas. It happens every year at the exact same time. Adaptation (while it happens) is not key to it being 'traditional. Rather it's the predictable repetative nature of it's annual observance by lots of people, that makes it 'traditional'.

Adaptation was a key characteristic of the old oral song tradition, but whether or not that particular characteristic must necessarily be the defining feature of what may come to constitute 'traditional songs' in the future... I don't know. Does any future 'tradition' of songs, necessarily have to fully echo all the characteristics of the old oral tradition, in order to eventually come to be considered 'traditional'?

Whatever the key characteristis of the old oral tradition were, all that matters to me is that the songs that were gathered from the old oral tradition, can be identified as a distinct body of material that was circulated among the working people and were extremely popular once upon a time long ago. Now they represent a part of our common cultural heritage, and a niche interest for some of us interested in refering back to them for our own enjoyment.

Anyway, I don't think I'm properly mentally equipped to be able to grapple with all these abstracts right now!

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: GUEST,Batsman of the Kalahari
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 11:57 AM

Jim Carroll confuses prats with Pratts - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khqxEFH90IU.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 12:07 PM

Thank you Batsman - regards to Robin
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 12:07 PM

Jim:   I suspect that the attrubutn of these songs to HVIII probably what Peter Opie used to call a bit of 'folklore about folklore'. & lack of variation not entirely true re Greensleeves: whatever might have happened to words, the tune has gone all sorts of ways, like O Shepherd Will You Come Home?, the bacca-pipes jig variant, and the one sung as Since Laws Were Made by Macheath in condemned cell in The Beggar's Opera & noted as 'Greensleeves' in the text, but which has quite a few differences from the well-known Alas My Love air which you adduce.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 12:20 PM

I agree with your first point Mike, and bow to your superior knowlege on the second - bad choice of example, but I believe my general point was correct.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 12:37 PM

If today's (or yesterday's, or the day's before) pop songs were going to become 'traditional', surely there would be some signs of the process taking place.
Sure; pop songs are parodied by children or for political or sporting purposes.... etc, but I think that's something else.
Jim Carroll

Jim,
Have you not come across 'My Brudda Sylvest', or the many Harry Clifton songs of the 1860s found in folk-song collections, or John Howson's 'Songs Sung in Suffolk'? And why, for God's sake, are parodies not folk/traditional song?

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Bert
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 12:54 PM

GUEST,Angus & Julia, I think that one can also argue that technology has just sped up the process.

And, you might want to take a look at what technology did to American Square Dancing.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 01:04 PM

Hi Steve,
Have come across Sylvest - and am happy to accept it - though not as part of a general tendency. It was, I believe, one of the songs extremely popular among soldiers.
Parodies - it wasn't my intention to claim that they're were not traditional - of course they are.
Jim, Carroll

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 01:21 PM

The shit idea that what they gave us is no different to T Rex, or Daniel O'Donnell, or Robbie Williams, or Frank Sinatra or Luciano Pavarotti....

Any music made with love, passion, commitment, joy etc has an intrinsic value, whether it is an elderly country man singing songs handed down to him; an Italian opera singer belting out the classics; a teenage girl in her bedroom with a guitar putting the finishing touches on the first original song she has written; a bunch of middle aged men belting their favourite songs from their younger days in the back room of a pub; a group of free jazz musicians experimenting with the outer limits of post-post-bop… To try and impose some sort of artificial hierarchy based on spurious and subjective notions of purity or authenticity does no-one any favours, least of all those who love traditional song. I totally accept that there is a difference between the sort of tin pan alley manufactured pop that is produced assembly-line style to shift units and sell newspaper column inches, but now more than ever that is a small minority of the totality of music being created. Traditional folk is different to manufactured pop product – but then again so is most music.

The music you appear to prefer was made, packaged and sold to us. We had no part in its making; it is a commodity, and not too long in the future it will be scrapped and we will be given something else to listen to; and so ad infinitum. WE HAD NO PART IN ITS MAKING. IT WILL NEVER BE OURS, THE ONLY CLAIM WE HAVE ON IT IS THE ONE WE PURCHASED, THE RIGHT TO LISTEN TO IT.

I had no part in making any, be it traditional folk, manufactured pop or the vast majority of music which is neither one nor the other of those two examples. I would go as far as to say that your position as expressed above is grossly insulting to those people who enjoy playing and listening to music of all sorts – and do so for no reason other than it brings them immense pleasure. I would also add that traditional folk is a type of music that I can only purchase. I do not live in a community that has a living folk tradition. Most of the traditional singers who were recorded are dead or inactive and their music is only available to me in terms of "purchasing the right to listen to it". Yes, I can sing a traditional song in a pub and listen to other hobbyists do the same – but that is true of all types of music as thousands up and down the country who regularly bring themselves and others pleasure at folk clubs, open mics, acoustic nights and so on will readily attest.

Folk music is ours, it is 'The Music of The People'; made by them/us to express our/their lives and experiences, then passed on to others who re-made it so it became theirs. It is our culture, our history, our experiences, our emotions..... made by working people: mill workers, miners, seamen, farm workers..... 'ordinary people' if there is such a thing.

Was, maybe, in some communities. Nowadays, the "music of the people" is the music that people enjoy listening to on their iPods and at concerts, playing at pubs and clubs and each others homes, creating in their home studios, sharing excitedly with their friends when they hear something that moves them. Yes, yes, yes, changes in technology has meant that people are more likely to pop a CD on than sing to themselves as they cook their tea or go about their job, but that's the world we live in. We may have been born into a world where, in many ways, many of us are "passive consumers" not active creators (or conduits or whatever) of music, but what right does that give you to sneer and look down your nose and attempt to undermine and invalidate the pleasure we do get from the music around us? The process is essentially the same. Some sing and play: others get pleasure from their singing and playing. That's how its been as long as I've been listening to music. Is there any thing intrinsically wrong with this? Is Jethro listening to Albert singing "Seeds of Love" in a 19th century field (or Peter listening to Martin attempting to reconstruct this in a present day folk club) intrinsically better than Emily listening to the Arctic Monkeys at the Manchester Academy or Chloe listening to Hannah strumming her songs of bedsit romance in the upstairs room of a café bar? Sure, Emily has to pay for her ticket, and so possibly does Chloe, but both are a willing participant in that transaction and both are presumably experiencing the same emotional responses to music as did Jethro.

Please try to understand that a passion for traditional song – especially when expressed in this sort of language - can sometimes spill over into a snide contempt for all the other music that people enjoy, and possibly enjoy for the same reasons that first drew you to folksong. Just because you can point to "the folk process" as a mechanism that made the transmission of traditional music different - in the pretechnological era - to modern music, doesn't give you the right to trash other stuff. As a child of the post-rock and roll era, I am more than comfortable with the concept of music as a smorgasbord, with tradtional folk as one of the many dishes available. A particularly tasty dish, true, but not the only one that can nourish and satisfy.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: MikeL2
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 01:22 PM

Hi crow sister

I am confused too.

To pick one of Jim's examples.

Sinatra released My Way and it has been recorded by dozens of other artists from Pavarotti to Presley and from Humperdink to Williams.

Although I don't go to any Karaoke's only when pressed I know from my sons and grandchildren that My Way is sung and parodied in almost every one. This has being going on for many years.

Is this not the "process"??

cheers

MikeL2

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: GUEST,Tom Bliss
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 01:37 PM

I don't know why I'm doing this really, but maybe it's a reaction to the rugby football.

There are unfortunately two largely similar but also crucially different forces at work here, and, again unfortunately, they go by the same term - one that ends in 'aditional.'

One of them describes a process set out, famously, in 1954 (only, of course, in 1954 they used another word which now also has two conflicting definitions). Jim has been fighting this corner very well in this thread.

The other describes a more modern version of that process, and quite a few other people have been championing this here.

We see this debate a lot.

In my view we all need to recognise BOTH the similarities AND the differences between these two processes.

Jim is right to remind us that the advent of audio recording, radio and other technologies changed the old process for ever. And we do need a word to describe songs and tunes that were formed and changed in the pre-technology era.

But the others are also right to claim that there is a modern equivalent - and that neither the existence of versions of audio recordings of songs (old or new), nor any copyright legislation, can entirely ossify a song. It can and usually will still be taken up into communal ownership to some extent, and then varied.

It's just that this second process, while similar to the first, is crucially different, because of the massive influence of the recorded versions, as broadcast by numerous media, on that process.

Why do we need to recognise this difference? For the same reason that we need to recognise the difference between an antique and a reproduction (not a perfect metaphor but the closest I can find). Yes, the reproduction may in time become as valued (or even more valued) as the antique, but it can never become the same thing.

So really we need two words, one for each process.

Having struggled with this for years I opted for a simple solution which I would again commend to this house.

Songs in the first category are often said to be in The Tradition. Note the capitals.

So, for me, old songs that fit the 54 definition are: "Traditional." (note the upper case)

Newer songs which are now being associated with some traditional activity, and/or which sound like Traditional songs, or which seem to be entering some modern equivalent of The Tradition may, repeat may, sometimes, with care, repeat with care, be associated with the "traditional" - but NEVER defined as such. (note the lower case).

Why? Because the word Traditional also has a quasi-legal meaning, vis; 'in the public domain' and it would be caddish, even potentially criminal, to apply that word to songs which are still in copyright.

All 'Traditional' songs are public domain - whether the writer is known or not, and regardless of the number of variants.

Some 'becoming traditional' songs are now in the public domain, but not many.

In time, as the lapse of time between the invention of the radio and record player and the break point on copyright lengthens, we may need to find another word for the in-betweens. Songs made in the mass media era may by then have have become traditional, but they can't ever become Traditional because the stable door was bolted before they were written.

So, for now; 'caveat emptor'

Tom

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: glueman
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 01:49 PM

If folk music had continued uninterrupted as a widespread and popular form, the conservative view of it may hold water. The fact is it didn't, it became exotic and rare. This exoticism was further rarified through collection, or more properly collectors.

There is no continuity, there is revival. A singer knocking out a Lord Randall in The Crooked Goose is not adding his notch to the long line, he is adding to a short row of revival singers and we applaud him for it. Most serious people accept that and once accepted recognise there is no tradition only traditions. If a few won't see self-evident truths that's their own business.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 03:39 PM

CS said "I still find it innapropriate to conflate the body of material archived from the old oral tradition, with modern songs of the revival which have been inspired by them."

Of course there's a difference, but I don't think it's any greater than the differences within the old oral tradition. (And by the way that tradition hasn't been purely oral for several centuries. It was mediated by the broadside presses. It was even mediated by the earliest collectors: versions have been collected that seem to derive from versions published by Sir Walter Scott, which were to some degree of his making, not as in circulation before he got at them. But that's a digression.)

CS: "Any amount of types of modern songs could pass into what might come to constitute 'traditional songs' in the future, not merely modern revival songs that have been intentionally composed in the 'folk idiom'. As I said elsewhere, my money would be on popular material by bands like The Beatles or Abba."

Quite plausible. Future generations, like past and present generations, will choose what they feel inclined to sing, whether or not it fits particular categories that anyone else recognises.

CS: "Though I think that revival songs will end up being recognised as a body of material in their own right, whether such songs eventually become considered to be 'traditional' in the same sense as songs from the old oral tradition are."

They might be assigned to their own category, but the dividing lines will be very hard to draw. Writers like Cyril Tawney on this side of the Pond and Utah Phillips on the other side wrote new songs of kinds that already existed: and that is itself one facet of the tradition. Which category would (for example) Tommy Armstrong's songs fall into? Or Banjo Patterson's (where they had tunes at the time, or even where they have been given tunes since his time)?

All of that said, my own tastes are close to what I gather CS's to be from her postings. By and large I prefer the songs that have passed the test of time, but I do also like some of the newer ones.

Just to stir the pot a bit more: recognising that much of the "traditional" repertoire consists of songs that were originally created as new songs some time in the last few centuries, I have some sympathy for James Reeves's phrase "the dross of centuries". Perhaps "dross" is too critical, but certainly "the folk" preserved some and abandoned others according to their whims at the time.

Richard

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 03:52 PM

I partly agree with Tom Bliss's 27 Feb 10 - 01:37 PM posting, but (as in my previous posting) I don't think the dividing line is at all as sharp as he suggests. Yes, sound recordings stabilise words and tunes, but that doesn't eliminate all changes, and some singers deliberately make major changes to traditional songs. We can approve or disapprove of such changes according to our personal tastes, but we shouldn't pretend they don't happen.

And, long before sound recording started, at least the words of many songs, though generally not the tunes, were stabilised by the broadsides.

Richard

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 03:52 PM

SC
You are inferring a great deal into what I wrote.
I in no way attempted to impose a heirarchy on anything, nor have I ever implied that my preferences are any better than anybody elses - that's down to personal taste, nothing else. What is under discussion is definition, not taste.
"I had no part in making any, be it traditional folk,....."
Neither did I personally; but it was quite possible that members of my family did in the past, and if they didn't, the songs that came to be referred to as 'folk' represented and reflected their lives and experiences - as emigrants fleeing the Irish famine in the eighteen forties; as merchant seamen sailing out of Liverpool under sail; as trades unionists in Stoke-on-Trent campaigning for a decent wage.
My father returned from war-torn Spain with half a dozen folk songs which had been made to record the experiences of people like him - that is the 'we' I am referring to.
I would suggest that what you describe does none of these things - not better or worse, just different. I certainly am not sneering at any other type of music, nor the pleasure it brings - my own personal tastes are far to catholic for me to do that - jazz, classics, blues, opera, swing, 30s popular....... and more.
Tom:
We've been here before - I apologise in advance if I go over old ground.
"....now also has two conflicting definitions"
This is, to my mind, the crux of our problem; there are not have two conflicting definitions - traditional is the process a song undergoes to achieve that status and folk refers to the communities that the songs served. These communities were and continue to be described in numerous works; George Lawrence Gomme in his 'Village Community', Aarensberg and Kimball - Family and Community in Ireland, David Buchan - The Ballad and The Folk and virtually anything by George Ewart Evans or C Estyn Evans (and many, many more). These communities produced an identifiable body of songs, stories, music, lore, customs and traditions which were referred to as 'folk' and that's the door I and everyboy else who shared my interests walked through in the late fifties, early sixties. Things didn't really change very much right up to the mid-eighties when more and more, other types of music began to be performed at 'folk' clubs until it all but swamped the old stuff away and many of us upped and went.
The problem would not have been half so acute if the old stuff had been replaced by an identifiable alternative - it wasn't. The clubs became used as a dumping ground for anything people wanted to perform - I know I harp on it - but read SO'P's list; it's a fair assortment of what now passes for 'folk' at (I think many) clubs (though Bryan Creer would have it otherwise). It certainly didn't help me in selecting what I wish to listen to - and I can't see how it can possibly be any benefit to you (Tom) as a perforformer - surely it leaves you with no identity.
I have a further problem.
I am involved in research; in documenting, indexing and describing a large body of material we have recorded over the last thirty odd years. I describe what we did as 'folk song collecting'. For cross-referencing our collection I would use works like 'The Roud Folk Song Index', draw comparisons from such works as the 'Greig Duncan Folk Song Collection'. Eventually part of our our collection will end up with the English Folk Dance And Song Society' whose journal is The Folk Music Journal.
Last year I bought an extremely useful book on Scots Chapbooks called 'Folk in Print' and was given for my birthday 'Folk Music in Europe'.
I am looking forward to being given access to the Carpenter Collection, which is probably the largest body of songs and ballads ever collected by one individual. An introduction to his work in Scotland begins "Some years after James Madison Carpenter had returned.... after extensive folksong and folklore collecting..." (Folk Music Journal 1998).
If somebody asked me for advice on where to look for the music I have always called folk I would point them to 'The Penguin Book of English Folk Song' or the Topic series 'Folksongs of Britain', or Lloyd's 'Folk Song in England'. If they asked me where tthey could stll hear it live, what should I say; "Don't go to a folk club; they don't do folk any more"?
You said once that 'folk' is now understood by many millions to be something entitely different - it isn't; by and large it has escaped the attention of the world at large. If you asked the average persons-in-the street what they understood as folk they would be far more likely to point you to The Dubliners or The Spinners or The Clancys... et al, than at what passes for folk in clubs today. The term has been hi-jacked by people who, if you ask them, will wave their arms and tell you they are unable to define their music - isn't that as much a problem for you as it is for me?
Sorry to have taken so long.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 07:20 PM

Good stuff, I have found much that I can agree with/ identify with in the last 7 posts. It seems to me that a lot of the disagreement can be traced back to disagreement over definitions. The sort of definitions you are looking for would take more than a lifetime to formulate. As with other genres of music we need to bite the bullet and accept that almost all genres of music overlap in several ways.
Each genre is made up of a large number of characteristics and some of those characteristics are shared with other genres.

As an indexer of folk song/traditional song of some 40 years I have had to draw up my own dividing lines basically so that I can establish a workable body of material. I realise that to a great extent these boundaries are artificial and simply utilitarian. My indexes are similar to the Roud Indexes in size and content and working with Steve I know that we don't always define things in the same way or draw up the same boundaries. That doesn't stop us co-operating in the common cause. Steve's main song index is pretty much all-encompassing and inclusive, as was Child's ballad canon to an extent. I find it easier to work with more strictly defined smaller indexes, English traditional song/ballad (simply put..those songs collected in England from oral tradition); shanties; carols; bawdry; forces songs; children's; European ballads; terrace chants. All of the rest including any oral songs from the rest of the English-speaking world go into one big index. Of course there is a small amount of overlap and these go into more than one index where appropriate.

This is a great thread. Please let's take out the personal point scoring! It doesn't get us anywhere.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 07:37 PM

I mentioned the use of YouTube and social network sites to support the music (and related activities) of dispersed ethnic minorities. Steve mentioned terrace chants - I would guess that football supporters use these media in the same way? Have many new terrace chants been spread by YouTube or Facebook filling the role of the broadside vendor?

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Soldier boy
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 09:13 PM

What a load of hot air!

So much 'intellectual' debate and all in vain.

It all carries no more meaning or purpose than 'The Hitch-hiker's Guide to The Galaxy' declaring that the answer to everything is 42!

How can anyone draw a line in history and say(for example) that anything pre-1954 etc is traditional and anything after that isn't or that the 'author' has to be dead to be included in that category or that if an author is 'known' it doesn't count?

It's like declaring a time-line between BC and AD or that any object on the planet after a certain date can no longer be called 'antique'.
That we are frozen in time and that nothing you do or create now counts one jot unless it originated from our father's father's generation and that our generation and our children's children's generation means nothing because they are too 'new'.

The passage of time will always create it's own heroes in folklore.

Categories/definitions/divisions/differences/variations/characteristics/justifications/pidgeon holes?

What a load of piffle!!!!!

'Is traditional song finished?'

Of course not;... it's..... still....... BEGINNING!

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 12:32 AM

SOLDIER BOY ~~ I see your point but you are overstating. All attempts at taxonomy come up against the same inbuilt exceptions and other disadvantages. The 'hot air' accusation can never be far away. But the attempts must still be made, despite the impossibility of ever attaining perfection, in any field.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 03:57 AM

"So much 'intellectual' debate and all in vain."

In vain for you.
I find it helpful to *try* to gain a reasonably clear perspective on this stuff.

You'll be saying next what a waste of time indeces for libraries are, after all they're all just "books". I like a bit of ancient Greek drama now and then. It's labelled 'ancient' because it was popular during a particular period in history - and that label makes it easier to find a copy of what might interest me (now and then), over say, something written last week.

So no, definitions are not in vain, they are pragmatic and useful ways of organising vast swathes of stuff, for those of us that are interested.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 04:08 AM

You went on to say (and I reproduce again directly from your posting) "and if there was, they certainly didn't make these songs, much less sing the bloody things"

Meaning of course that ordinary people don't make extraordinary songs. As I say - as a working-class person I don't believe the working-class to be in any way ordinary.

You now compound this by claiming that "much has been put into the mouths of the miners by the agenda-obsessed fakelorists of The Revival", also directly reproduced from your posting
PROVE IT.

I was thinking of specifically The Blackleg Miner which has been discussed HERE as being a Bert Song based on an American prototype. In the Farne Archive it sources the song to a man in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, in 1949 which is, as has been shown, a palpable fallacy. How many others there are I shudder to think. Having grown up in that region (Seghill / Delaval) I can honestly say the only people singing these songs in the 60s and 70s were the middle-class folkies, and this despite the ongoing pride, musicality & militancy of the culture and its language, dialect and traditions. In the 80s /90s I lived in many ex & soon-to-be ex mining communities in County Durham and have spoken with many proud & elderly miners and naturally I have asked them about Folk Songs only to be met with blank looks. One I spoke to, aged 90 around 1992, openly shared his songs with me & talked of the traditions of his youth including the making of one-string fiddles which they played in three-part harmony to play carols at Christmas. A respected singer throughout the South Durham villages, he couldn't tell me anything about so-called Folk Songs - and he wasn't alone in that. I'm not offering this as proof as such, just an indication that your vision of a hearty folk-song singing proletariat might just be a complete fantasy propagated somewhat ingenuously at the expense of the true culture of the working-class.

You are a pratt - and a supercilious one

Pitiful, old man - absolutely pitiful.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: GUEST,Tom Bliss
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 04:43 AM

Richard Mellish:

I wasn't saying there was a 'Sharp' dividing line, far from it. I was saying that there are two processes which share many characteristics, but which need to be seen as different.

And yes, there is a big grey area in the middle, which also sneaks and leaks out in curly wisps along both axes.

I see a lot of entrenched views in these discussions, yet always hope each side will recognise the weaknesses in their own arguments and the validity of those opposite - because there is right on both sides.

There is no sharp line.

(Please note my 'T's and 't's forthwith)

Some 'island' communities, or those which maintain a really strong community with a continuing aural tradition (I prefer that to oral, because it's the listening which is key) have gone on making new Traditional songs to this day. Plus, as we've said, there are still various traditional and evolutionary influences at work. But neither of these factors are influential enough to generate the localisation, the occupationalisation, the regionalisation and the vast numbers of variants, that we find among the main body of Traditional material. Therefore we can interpolate far less historical, sociological and musicalogical information from them, and we can only know this if we know which type of material we are dealing with. Hence why Traditional material needs to be labelled correctly.

Contrariwise, collectors since the dawn of time, 'folk song Shakespeares', broadside printers, court musicians and others have had more influence, I believe, on Traditional music than is frequently suggested. But by the same token, these influences worked within and alongside the aural Tradition, giving us the archive we see today. It is equally wrong to suggest that these influences are akin to those of today's mass media. Yes, the two groups have some similarities, but they are so different in scale as to be incomparable.

So yes there is overlap, but glueman has it (Jim said something similar). In the latter case we are dealing with a revival, after the original process had effectively stopped. So there IS a line, a thick, grey, smudgy line, but it spans the two World Wars, and largely anything from before that can potentially be Traditional, anything from after it can't.

Then add in the rules of law and common decency around copyright and attribution and you wind up with the position I have taken above.

Tom

Jim, I've said this before: working professionals have to work with the market as they find it. They have to research the terminology and expectations of the people they hope will buy their product, and then express their sales pitch in that 'universal' language rather than the rarified language of academia. My problems were never about using the words 'Folk,' 'Traditional' and 'Songwriter' within the movement - it was around using them outside the movement.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 05:18 AM

I was thinking of specifically The Blackleg Miner which has been discussed HERE as being a Bert Song based on an American prototype.

Do you have a problem with British singers adopting songs from America? It was possibly inspired in part by "Which Side Are You On?". The origins of that one are not in any doubt and owe nothing to the revival.

A local one is the Midlothian Miners Song, which dates from the 1970s. Its author was a miner from Gorebridge or Arniston - he doesn't seem very keen on being traced and has never shown up in local folk and trad venues. He adapted a song from the coalfields of north-east England, which is in one of Roy Palmer's collections, but whether he got it from Palmer or some independent route from the original broadside I don't know. (It was published in Billy Kay's "Odyssey" collection - Kay didn't know where it came from either).

Mining communities have a lot of skilled musicians (hence the success of colliery bands and, in Scotland, the number of miner-fiddlers there have been). They'd get bored doing nothing but agitational songs, but there's no doubt they can turn their hands to them when they want. The Newtongrange Folk Club was run by ex-miners and people from minng families since it started. They may not be as revolutionary as Lloyd would have liked but they have musical skills he would have respected.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 05:21 AM

The matter for me is a simple one.
As a researcher trying to make the work we have done accessible, I am bound to work within the existing definititions. If those definitions are altered by common agreement, then I'll work within the new ones. I'm happy to take part in the fine tuning of the defintions based on our field work; I've always said it needs to be done, but until that happens, the present ones are perfectly adequate to work with.
As far as my being part of an audience and a sometime singer.
I want the right to choose what I listen to. If I go to a folk club it has to correspond with what I know folk song sounds like. I have no objection to songs that are written in folk song styles - these are an essential part of how I see the folk revival - I've sung them myself and have always admired song makers who write them: MacColl, Seeger, McGinn, Tawney, Rossleson, Pickford, O'Driscoll, McNaughton, Pete Smith...... and the many hundreds of others who have given me pleasure at one time or the other.
If I want to listen to Madonna, Amy Winehouse, Lady Gaga, Paul McCartney, The Stones.... I'll seek out the real thing elsewhere or a competent effort; I'm not prepared to settle for fifteenth-rate wannabes, and I certainly don't want to hear it at a folk club. Passing these off as 'folk' robs me of my right to choose the music I want to listen to, just as if I had turned up for a night of opera to find Kevin Mitchell (one of my favourite singers) topping the bill.
SO'P Lloyd may or may not have written Blackleg Miner - but to claim that this proves collectors or researchers to be 'agenda-obsessed fakelorists' is pretty agenda-driven and 'pathetic' in itself. You may not have found folk songs among the workers you talked to - we found plenty (or did we make it all up) and so did hundreds of other collectors; thumb your way through the BBC project index, or Mike Yates' collectiojn, or Tom Munnelly's or Hugh Shields' or Peter Hall's or Hamish Henderson's......................................... and see what you come up with.
As I said - prove it, and it may help your case if you dropped your supercilious attitude - old man.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 05:50 AM

Do you have a problem with British singers adopting songs from America?

Not at all, but adopting the songs is one thing, passing them off as Traditional to a particular community is quite another. If a Northumberland Miner had adopted the song there would be no case, but that Bert Lloyd did it is an indication of a tendency to plant and falsify evidence which compromises the entire cause.

No one is questioning the musicality of the culture, just the extent to which Folk Song permeated that culture as a whole. Obviously it did to some extent - the songs of Tommy Armstrong show a keen awareness of the nature of traditional song structure & melody, but in Tommy Armstrong do we have a traditional or idiosyncratic talent? And is there a difference between the two? Whatever the case, his songs resonate from well within the culture and the tradition as clear examples of the canny working-class genius I've been arguing for all along. They are sung on Tyneside as Folk Songs - very much of the people - a uniquely authentic window into the times, and as militant as they come.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 07:58 AM

If I go to a folk club it has to correspond with what I know folk song sounds like. I have no objection to songs that are written in folk song styles - these are an essential part of how I see the folk revival - I've sung them myself and have always admired song makers who write them: MacColl, Seeger, McGinn, Tawney, Rossleson, Pickford, O'Driscoll, McNaughton, Pete Smith...... and the many hundreds of others who have given me pleasure at one time or the other.

That's a pretty grim confession, old man, but one that accounts for much of that which we've e'er tussled over these past months. Not only do I disregard much Neo-Trad Revival Singers, but the work of Neo-Trad Bogus Folk Song Writers I've regarded with cringing disdain since first exposed to it. There are exceptions, as there must be to any rule - Ron Baxter, Peter Bellamy, Rudyard Kipling, Bob Pegg to name but four - but songs that are written in folk song styles - these are an essential part of how I see the folk revival too, but that ain't a good thing. On the contrary, it obfuscates the glory of The Tradition and pushes it back into an even greater obscurity than it might have enjoyed otherwise.

Is that a supercilious thing to say? Maybe it is, but what else do you expect from a Square Peg?

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: TheSnail
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 08:25 AM

Jim Carroll

read SO'P's list; it's a fair assortment of what now passes for 'folk' at (I think many) clubs (though Bryan Creer would have it otherwise).

Not stalking me again are you Jim?

Earlier you said -
I don't believe the clubs are in terminal decline, otherwise I wouldn't waste time discussing them

But now you are saying -
If they asked me where tthey could stll hear it live, what should I say; "Don't go to a folk club; they don't do folk any more"?

You have said of S O'P -
"What utter crap; you really do go from idiocy to idiocy SO'P."
"so far you have given nothing but bullshit and doublespeak verbiage"
"All you've shown over and over again is your ignorance and indifference."
"You are a pratt - and a supercilious one - old man."

and yet you use his version of what goes on at Fleetwood Folk Club as the key piece of evidence for your repeated attacks on UK folk clubs. You completely ignore Sailor Ron's response. Despite conceding that the Lewes Saturday Folk Club might have its merits, you brush aside anything I have to say as worthless.
A couple of days ago, Brian Peters said -
I see a lot of folk venues - clubs, festivals etc. - on my travels, and, although I can remember some gruesome examples of that stereotype, it's not very common. I gravitated towards the folk scene because (at its best) it was the opposite of MOR.

I think Brian knows a great deal more about what is going on in UK folk clubs than you, me or S O'P but it doesn't fit your ideas so you ignore him.

There are a lot of us working hard to try and promote precisely the sort of music you want. How about giving us some support?

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 08:42 AM

Tom:
"....have to work with the market as they find it"
Personally I'm not happy with market driven folk - the attention usually shifts from making music to making a living, and that, for me, can't be a good thing.
Those of us who have been around long enough to remember the folk boom know the hoops performers had to jump through to stay in the game.
Around ten years ago one of Ireland's finest fiddle players appeared on a television programme entitled "Has Our Music Been Sold Out?", a revolutionary enough title that, I'm sure, would never be asked on the British media.
He pointed out that it was virtually impossible for a solo artist playing traditional music to make a living without being part of a group.
In the intervening period things have changed radically; the music has reached a degree of acceptance with the establishment, we have wall-to-wall media presence, both in performance and academic presentation, and youngsters ar flocking to it in droves to the extent of guaranteeing that it will survive as a performed art for at least another couple of generations. All done by focus and dedication.
"Neo-Trad Bogus Folk Song Writers...."
Not supecilious, just the old usual dismissive snide.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 11:09 AM

Bryan,
You have my complete support absolutely, but this doesn't include ignoring pleas for poor or no standards, complaints that ballads are too long, that evenings of 'just folksongs' are boring... and all the other suggestions that, for me, lead to bad clubs. If SO'P was the only one peddling such ideas his billious snide might be treated with the contempt it deserves, but he isn't.
I am happy to trawl through this forum and ressurect all the old arguments, but I am sure you are more than capable of doing so yourself should you wish to.
I do not say the Lewes Clubs (plural) might have their merits, I accept, from you and others, that they are good clubs and believe that if others emulated them there would be less cause for concern.
Quoting you is not stalking you - yours and SO'Ps opinions represent two sides to the argument and I thought it worth presenting yours - sorry if I offended.
My 'Don't go to a folk club' was addressed to the fact that many clubs no longer present folk songs - what else is there to say?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 12:07 PM

You have said of S O'P -
"What utter crap; you really do go from idiocy to idiocy SO'P."
"so far you have given nothing but bullshit and doublespeak verbiage"
"All you've shown over and over again is your ignorance and indifference."
"You are a pratt - and a supercilious one - old man."


You seem to feel this sort of personal abuse is in some way justified, TheSnail - why is that I wonder?

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 12:48 PM

SO'P
You never miss an opportunity to attach researchers you don't agree with in the most abusively insulting terms - you can hardly complain when others emulate your approach and respond in kind.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: TheSnail
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 02:06 PM

I'll deal with the simple one first.

Suibhne O'Piobaireachd

You seem to feel this sort of personal abuse is in some way justified, TheSnail - why is that I wonder?

I most certainly do not. There are times when you make some very valid points , clearly and logically presented. There are others when, as others have pointed out, you appear to speak incoherent gibberish. That is neither here nor there. I was merely pointing out to Jim that, while he seems to have nothing but contempt for everything you say, he uses that one post of yours as his primary (if not only) evidence for the current state of UK folk clubs.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 02:16 PM

In a word No.......but that is probably due to the company I keeep

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 02:17 PM

Whoops.... that wis me......Diva

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 03:12 PM

ours and SO'Ps opinions represent two sides to the argument

All I want from a folk club is a singaround of traditional songs sang with passion, courage & conviction. I used to get this in the North East; in the North West such an event is like hen's teeth. As I say, I have tried and failed to appreciate this state of affairs. I don't want residents, resident bands, two-song floor spots, MCs, PAs and introductions. I just want a filthy back room, a half decent pint and a bunch of people who love the Old Traditional Songs as much & more than I do.

That's my argument.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: The Sandman
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 03:34 PM

to the OP,not as far as I am concerned.
I shall continue to sing traditional songs as long as I am able,because I like them.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Goose Gander
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 03:40 PM

"All I want from a folk club is a singaround of traditional songs sang with passion, courage & conviction. I used to get this in the North East; in the North West such an event is like hen's teeth. As I say, I have tried and failed to appreciate this state of affairs. I don't want residents, resident bands, two-song floor spots, MCs, PAs and introductions. I just want a filthy back room, a half decent pint and a bunch of people who love the Old Traditional Songs as much & more than I do.

That's my argument."

Seriously? Because that is emphatically NOT the impression I've gotten from reading . . . oh, hundred of your posts. What happened to 'all music is traditional, folk is a context, all is one, let's get real gone for a change, etc. (I paraphrase, but I don't think I'm representing your musical gnosticism/panthiesm). If that's your argument, then I have no argument with you. But little or nothing I've read of your posts prepares me to believe that is really your argument.

Unless I am hopelessly befuddled. Again.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 04:10 PM

"Seriously? Because that is emphatically NOT the impression I've gotten from reading . . . oh, hundred of your posts."

Irrespective of SO'P's tendency to think outside of the box - a trait which may wrongfoot some - I've always thought him to be one of the most decidedly passionate proponents of traditional song on this forum.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: glueman
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 05:31 PM

Me too CS. But then I learnt very early on Mudcat that posts which I felt conciliatory to the point of sycophancy would make a few people - fortunately the same few people - incandescent with rage. SO'P sums up folk, the mixture of history, context, practice and harsh reality to a tee.

I see none of the barbarians at the gate or black helicopters they tell us will bring folk to its knees.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Goose Gander
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 06:28 PM

"I've always thought him to be one of the most decidedly passionate proponents of traditional song on this forum."

But if all music is traditional, what exactly is traditional song? SO'P repeatedly has argued for open-ended definitions of folk and traditional, then he comes back and apparently wants these words to mean something very specific. I don't think I'm being unfair.

"I see none of the barbarians at the gate or black helicopters they tell us will bring folk to its knees."

Neither do I, but then again I have no idea what you're talking about.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 06:37 PM

Foithermore...

I don't want guests either, or groups, rather I want individuals in free-floating anarcho-folk syndicalism who are too pissed and stoned to think straight. In this state let us become mediums for the spectral wonderment of Traditional Folk Song. Leave your names, faces & egos at the door; wear masks of woven corn and antler-bone to enforce anonymity & let deference be the benchmark of our dedication to our craft. Black candles, firelight, cigarettes, frankincense, myrrh & near fatal doses of hallucinogenic fungi to bring us into to closer communion with the unsayable essence of the thing.

Now that's what I call Folk...

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Goose Gander
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 06:46 PM

Will the Brethren of the Free Spirit be invited? How about the Ranters? Flagellents, both German and Italian? Or is this just a UK sit-down?

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 06:52 PM

SO'P - you've just summed it up perfectly in two short and beautiful posts. Next time I see you - hopefully at a musical seance with lashings of spectral leakage - I'll stand you that half decent pint. I guess after all the talking and philosophising about what we get* sometimes a simple statement of what we want cuts right through the fug wonderfully.

*Especially in a designated folk context (to nick your phrase) like this, where description, commentary, opinion and analysis gets repeatedly and wilfully mislabelled as advocacy of what is being described (c/f observational rap narratives about fear and loathing in the American inner-city getting routinely confused with self-disclosure)

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 06:56 PM

GG: "The Brethren of the Free Spirit"

Tangentially, this reminds me. There's a wonderful album by guitarist James Blackshaw and lutenist Josef Van Wizzem who play as a duo under this name. Their album, "the wolf also shall dwell with the lamb" is as wonderful listen. Myspace link above.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 06:58 PM

Apologise for poorly edited post with inexcusable repetition.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 07:59 PM

"
All I want from a folk club is a singaround of traditional songs sang with passion...."
Perhaps if you'd said this more often we wouldn't be at each others throats as often as we are.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Suffet
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 11:05 PM

There is plenty of traditional song alive, well, and flourishing on the island of Puerto Rico and in Puerto Rican communities in the USA. That song is called plena, and it chronicles events of the day, both major and minor. Some plena makes fun of political or business leaders, some tells stories of disasters such as hurricanes or fires, some makes social commentary, and some just tells of pretty women, ruthless criminals, mean bosses, and bad luck. In other words, it's the kind of folk music we would all love and enjoy.

Closely related to plena is bomba. In addition to all of the above, bomba is used to accompany dancers who act out the lyrics in their dance in a way that the bomba becomes a conversation between the singer and the dancer.

The two forms of traditional song are so closely related that they are often thought of as a single genre called bomba y plena, much like people speak of country and western music.

There has been some scholarly study of bomba y plena, but not nealy enough as it deserves.

--- Steve

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Bert
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 11:43 PM

...Some plena makes fun of political or business leaders, some tells stories of disasters such as hurricanes or fires, some makes social commentary, and some just tells of pretty women, ruthless criminals, mean bosses, and bad luck...

That is exactly what us singer/songwriters are doing. But of course we are not Puerto Rican so I guess that doesn't count.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 04:59 AM

Shit - is that March already? How the time flies in the grim grip of Winter, though by now I dare say we're all warming to the thoughts of spring... Lots of lambs & snowdrops abounding but I'll hang on until the equinox before allowing my spirits to rise too high.

Yeah, Traditional Song, which is at the core of my folk faith as I don't believe I've ever made too much a secret about. Nor yet have I argued that all is one, though what I have suggested is that folk these days would appear to be defined more by context than it is by content. This is more of anthropological observation than it is a hard and fast definition - that it appears that all music can be folk if played in designated folk context (refer you to the owld rag bag for a summary of genres I've experienced). I must admit I'm torn here between my sunny objective open-mindedness (where I'm quite happy for people to do anything they wish to do) and my shadowy subjective narrow-mindedness (where I'm only truly happy when traditional songs are being sung generally without accompaniment). This is my Jekyll & Hyde Folk Duality; I try to be a better person, I really do, arguing for accommodation and inclusivity, but deep down I'm a divisive little shit who would like to see the folk clubs cleansed & segregated & rated accordingly.

Time was, I could find enough Traditional Singarounds in Filthy Back Rooms of Unreconstructed Public Houses to slip therein unnoticed with my pipe & bowl and just listen. If anyone asked if I sang, I'd shake my head because truth to tell I'd rather listen than sing - especially if the singers are better than I am & have done their work. Time was this was invariably the case. I do not see myself as a Folk Singer per se, rather a Philosophical Experimental Musician & Storyteller who has been seduced into singing the Old English-Speaking Popular Songs & Ballads out of a feeling that if I don't sing them, who the hell else is going to? Few of my generation (born 1961) that's for sure.

I have been singing these songs for 34 years or so now, but I'd still rather listen than sing, much less have to perform the bloody things by way of a floor spot. I am a performer; I get paid good money to perform and my performances include many Old English-Speaking Popular Songs & Ballads alongside Folk Tales from the Indo-European Tradition. However I don't perform in singarounds & on singers nights; and I don't expect to hear performances either; what I expect to hear are Traditional Folk Songs sung with honesty and humility - songs sung well & with due deference to (and familiarity with) the source. Leave the egos at the door, my primary interest is in the song, not the singer, who is merely a medium for something of far greater interest to me than they'll ever be. There are exceptions to this, such as my wife, whom I met in a folk club and who has become so much more interesting to me than the songs I first heard her singing 17 years ago.

*

The other issue here is definition. I am not just a Folky / Traddy; I am a lover of music, pretty much all music (if you want the specifics go to my Myspace Page and look at the Influences & Inspirations bit) but above all I love the human context of music and the history & diversity thereof. I don't know of any music that can't be accounted for as being a traditional music, or yet a folk music according to the 1954 Definition. I point to the objectives of the International Council for Traditional Music in support of this, and also point out that the 1954 Definitive speaks not of genre but of derivation. This does not mean that all is one however, other than in the ironic sense that is The Horse Definition. In this sense I see The Folk Myth / Faith as a SECONDARY & ENTIRELY EXTRANEOUS & ERRONEOUS interpretation of the phenomena of the Old English-Speaking Popular Songs & Ballads by people who were not the working-class singers and makers of such material, but the bourgeois collectors of it. They are the academic taxonomists & the taxidermists to whom we owe a lot, but we don't we them everything. Traditional English-Speaking Folk Songs are not different according to their derivation - they are different because all Genres of Human Music are different. This is the nature of music. The problem being that whilst other musics are living genres defined by those within them; Folk Song (as in the Old English-Speaking Popular Songs & Ballads) is a dead genre that has been defined by those who collected it.

*

Please note, this is just my opinion - it is not an attack. Mudcat is a discussion forum after all. Discussion is good, insults somewhat less so, but understandable when passions run high, as they are wont to round here - but it could be a lot worse. I'd rather be slated for perceived idiocy & gobbledygook-ness that be the recipient of virtual ((((((hugs))))) to which my response would have to be a virtual !!!!!kick up the arse!!!!! whatever the circumstances.

Respect in the Excellence we Share in Simply Being Alive.

S O'P