Folk music lacking?

Subject: RE: Folk music lacking?
From: Peace
Date: 27 Feb 07 - 12:24 AM

Greensleeves is actually in the dorian mode, not a minor key. (No offense.)

Subject: RE: Folk music lacking?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 27 Feb 07 - 03:18 AM

Thanks for all that knowledge and scholarship everyone, and the examples given in support.
I will pass all this on.
Again, thanks.
keith.

Subject: RE: Folk music lacking?
From: Alec
Date: 27 Feb 07 - 03:33 AM

You might also like to show him the thread "Modes For Mudcatters".
I say this because,in my experience, "Modal" is a word that tends to get used in a very imprecise way by some Jazz fans & there is a lot there which is relevant to your point.
In addition to which "Modes For Mudcatters" links directly to several other related threads of some interest.

Subject: RE: Folk music lacking?
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Feb 07 - 03:50 AM

There has always been a snobbishness towards 'simple' or 'peasants' traditional song and music, despite the fact that Yehudi Menuin, when playing with a couple of Irish fiddlers for a television programme, laid his 'violin' down and said he coudn't manage it. He was one of the great advocates of traditional music from outside the scene.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folk music lacking?
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Feb 07 - 09:22 PM

"Greensleeves is actually in the dorian mode, not a minor key. (No offense.)"

Well, it depends on which version. I've seen it written as strictly Dorian mode, and I've also seen it written as melodic minor. And I've seen mixed versions that start out Dorian and then go into melodic minor (most people tend to sing it that way). So which is the "authoritative" version? I prefer the Dorian, myself, but had I said "Dorian," I'm sure someone would have said, "No, it's in melodic minor."

Ya can't win.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Folk music lacking?
From: Grab
Date: 28 Feb 07 - 11:16 AM

My wife said the other day that she wasn't so keen on folk because the music wasn't inherently complex. That is, the dots written on the page are almost always a pretty simplistic tune, repeated ad infinitum. Which can't really be denied, because they are.

The difference is though that folk isn't a case of playing the dots. Folk is an improvisational form, so the dots are a starting point for someone good to put their own interpretation around, varying from simple phrasing and accidentals to harmonies or occasional complete deviation from the tune. And a good player is unlikely to do the repeat the next time in the same way as they did the first time - in fact if they're good then they won't.

Which I think is why sessions are almost always boring for non-players. The players are having fun playing, but often they're not good enough to be putting interesting variation in there. And hearing the same thing repeated over and over is generally not appealing for "outsiders".

Graham.

Subject: RE: Folk music lacking?
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 Feb 07 - 03:39 PM

Of course one thing that seems to be forgotten when discussing the tunes of folk songs and ballads is that the tune acts as a vehicle for the telling of a story.

Some scholars have theorized that early literary works (like, for example, the Iliad) were spoken rather than read, and having them in meter and rhyme acted as a mnemonic device—easier to remember a piece if it was in some sort of pattern. The next step was to sort of chant them to fairly repetitive pattern of pitches—another kind of pattern to aid the memory. Bingo! Melody is born. Or so goes the theory.

But still, almost all folk songs either tell a story (ballad) or imply a story, so one could argue that the words are more important than the tune.

That. of course, is something one can argue about until Sunday breakfast. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Folk music lacking?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Feb 07 - 03:55 PM

But folk songs are only a part of folk music. And sung ballads are only a part of storytelling in folk traditions.

Subject: RE: Folk music lacking?
From: The Sandman
Date: 28 Feb 07 - 04:10 PM

ive just listened to radio two, what a heap of crap,listening to that, ill tell you what folk music is lacking, passion,singers unable to interpret their material and over arrangement,and as for north cregg somebody shoot their guitarist please,this is supposed to be dance music,christ almighty.

Subject: RE: Folk music lacking?
From: Scoville
Date: 28 Feb 07 - 04:49 PM

Grab--your wife isn't listening to enough Missouri fiddle music. Constant improvisation and almost impossible to notate beyond the barest bones of the melody. The more you listen to it, the more you hear.

Subject: RE: Folk music lacking?
From: GUEST,Frank Hamilton
Date: 28 Feb 07 - 05:40 PM

yes and no. Jazz is usually based on sophisticated harmonies. Most folk has basic harmonies but subtle. The folk so-called modes opened the door for modal harmony which prior to the folk revival was not much found in jazz. Folk can be re-harmonized (much to the chagrin of those who consider themselves purists) and has been in many cases as it has changed to fit popular tastes. The melodies, however, can be quite unique and beautiful and in and of themselves be rather sophisticated at times. Greensleeves is an example (if you want to call it folk). It was originally constructed as an Aolian mode but the Dorian came from Ralph Vaughan Williams adaptation using the natural sixth rather than the flatted sixth of the Aolian scale. The Water Is Wide is another case where the melody is quite flowing and there have been re-harmonizations of the tune, notably the arrangement from the Twenties for the baritone, John Charles Thomas. This is the arrangement that Pete Seeger has used. John Jacob Niles has written songs that are beautifully constructed melodically which you might call "folk-styled" songs.

Usually, the melody is a vehicle for the story but there are examples where the melodies can stand on their own aside from the lyric.

Today's jazz tends toward a minimalist harmonic approach influenced by the playing and writing of Miles Davis. This may be closer to what we think of as modal folk. The difference is that in jazz the chord constructions are extended to include alterations that may be dissonant to some untrained ears.

I think that if you are really into chord sophistication and chord changes with improvisation built on them, folk music does not have the harmonic range unless it has been souped up by arrangers or composers.

I think, however, it would be foolish to assume that folk melodies are uninteresting and devoid of a certain kind of musical sophistication that stems from the way they are ornamented and changed from verse to verse by traditional exponents in folk-style singing and playing. The music can be fascinating and appealing in a different way with subtle complexities that appear to be disarmingly simple.

I am finding as the definition of folk music changes and broadens that jazz influences the improvisation and interpretation in this idiom.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Folk music lacking?
From: Grab
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 06:27 AM

Scoville: Since we're in England, that's quite likely! :-)

But that's my point. What gets written down is the bare bones of the melody, and that's necessarily simple. But in a session where people have learnt from the dots and haven't moved on to improvising on that basis, that's what gets played.

Graham.

Subject: RE: Folk music lacking?
From: Scoville
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 10:00 AM

Nature of the beast, Grab. I mean, I have books where people have attempted to notate variants and improvisations of a tune but it will never convey the individuality of playing. It's just not effective. (This is why folkies get so frustrated with dot-dependent musicians.) The fiddlers I know also swap recordings compulsively because you learn something new from every musician's individual rendition of a given tune, and it can make a big difference in the way you play a tune.

We learn by ear, so we transmit from musician to musician by ear, so they learn by ear, and on it goes. Funny, though--I always assumed the same was true of jazz, for the same reason.