Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: glueman
Date: 25 May 09 - 07:53 AM

Bucolic bollocks? The immanent numinous? Fancy dress? The buzz of the hive unconscious? All of the above. Shimrod I could do a close reading of endless folk songs that fit my bill but you'd come back with some criticism it was 'arty-farty' and for someone who believes 'science is the highest calling a man can aspire to' it might be.

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 25 May 09 - 07:59 AM

PS. Sedayne, I think that's the second time now that I've bitched at you for being a "Troll", when you've been Guesting under some festive ID!

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 25 May 09 - 08:00 AM

Didn't Irish Trad music suffer a similar stigma until public interest was revived?

I believe so but I'm not sure how you would apply that to the session scene in England and Wales. As far as I understand it, it grew from Irish communities in London, Manchester, etc.

Everything might be related in some way but there might also have been some "independence" to this one growing??? (I don't know).

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 25 May 09 - 08:04 AM

Joe Blow wouldn't know where his dick was unless he had it shown to him.

If played an English tune, Joe Blow would probably think it was Irish (as all diddle dee stuff is Irish isn't it? ;-) )

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 25 May 09 - 09:01 AM

Cynical I am, but IMO it's just a case of the right kind of marketing

Ah Crowsister, I've just thought of one aspect with the Irish tunes that I know did not only affect me in this forum that I don't think can be directly put down to "marketing".

Please don't get me wrong in this as I am neither putting any tune down or claiming any nations folk tunes are "superior". Nor am I'm claiming my own playing skills are any more than "get by" in events I go to or that there may not be plenty of English tunes I'd never get my fingers round.

I think what happened with some of us was along the lines of you had learned the Winster Gallop, Harvest Home, Jimmy Allen, etc. and perhaps wanted something to move on to as a player from there. Listening to the Irish music offered "challenges" that did not exist in the English tunes we knew so we wound up making musical decisions rather than decisions led by any "mainstream" lead.

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 25 May 09 - 10:02 AM

'Glueman', may I draw your attention back to the following question?

" ... how can 'The Outlandish Knight' (any version you like - but I suppose the version in the 'Penguin Book of English Folk Songs' is easily accessible) be described as, 'anti-establishment', 'utopian' or 'nationalistic'?"

I promise that, whatever answer you come up with, I won't label you as 'arty-farty' (perish the thought!).

I'm not holding my breath or bracing myself for more insulting labels ("water off a duck's back" - as my mother used to say).

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: glueman
Date: 25 May 09 - 10:27 AM

So you pick one song in isolation as representing an entire genre of music? Shall I put Child 200 to prove my point?
Not very scientific Shimrod, you'll be out of the pedant's guild with that kind of intellectual legerdemain.

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 25 May 09 - 11:20 AM

how can 'The Outlandish Knight' (any version you like - but I suppose the version in the 'Penguin Book of English Folk Songs' is easily accessible) be described as, 'anti-establishment', 'utopian' or 'nationalistic'?"

actually it's no more than one of the really great murder/revenge ballads

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 25 May 09 - 11:41 AM

'Glueman', in my post of at 7:13 AM I supplied you with a list of 10 songs to analyse for me. In your 'reply' at 7:53 AM you responded with a load of gibberish (luminous bollocks ... or something?). I simplified the question for you by picking one from the list (obviously a big mistake - mental note: don't supply 'glueman' with an inch as he takes the Mickey).

By the way I completely agree with 'Rifleman': The Outlandish Knight' is, "no more than one of the really great murder/revenge ballads".

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: glueman
Date: 25 May 09 - 11:45 AM

"I simplified the question for you"

This is neither the laboratory or the classroom. You don't make the rules. Marvellous, isn't it?

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 May 09 - 12:20 PM

My hypothesis would be that of all music festivals and events in the UK, if one corrected for the effect of age of attendees on the data, "folk" (in the non-1954 sense since there are no purely 1954 events) would contain the highest proportion of unwaged.

But it goes futher than that. A high proportion of 1954 folk songs and even non-1954 folk songs involve a re-telling from the perspective of those other than the elite. I do not see how that could be so if the participation in folk music were substantially to involve a parallel of Marie Antoinette's involvement in shepherding.

The elitist artforms like opera and ballet and even to some extent theatre in general do seem to involve a perception that the attendee is in some way "better" than the general run of mankind, and involve apeing the modes of the elite.

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 25 May 09 - 12:26 PM

"You don't make the rules."

But you obviously do, 'glueman' - you make them up as you go along!

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 25 May 09 - 12:27 PM

This is neither the laboratory or the classroom. You don't make the rules. Marvellous, isn't it?

Yep, it's a free country and a free Internet; you get to say whatever you like. You can make whatever sweeping statements you like, and when people ask you questions you can refuse to answer them. And people will think... whatever they usually think about people who make sweeping statements and then refuse to answer questions. Marvellous, isn't it?

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 25 May 09 - 12:31 PM

ook

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: glueman
Date: 25 May 09 - 12:36 PM

And Pip pops up, not on the taxpayer for once. Well done that man! Sorry I wasn't aware this was a group interrogation by the gang of 54. What was the question?

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 25 May 09 - 01:42 PM

Jon: "Listening to the Irish music offered "challenges" that did not exist in the English tunes we knew"

I've got no issue with anyone making an *informed choice for themselves.* So long as the info is readily available. It just seems to me, that the majority of English thitysumthing and fourtysumthings, simply don't even know that England has a history of traditional music and song.

"Folk" however, is a far more inclusive and generic term, which IMHO ironically obscures traditional English music and song (thus one of the reasons I'd prefer to see Trad Song out from underneath the oppressive weight of 'Folk'.) Plus I never actually liked 'folk' myself: until discovering trad song, 'folk' meant boring 60's hippy-chicks in floaty frocks to me. Everything my personality rails against!

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 25 May 09 - 02:18 PM

I must admit, Crow Sister, I'm not sure if I would have got into folk if all I had been aware of was the "Dylan/protest" type songs. My own liking for folk started with things like Singing Together at school, some songs at home, Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem on tv.

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 25 May 09 - 03:29 PM

Hilarious, glueman. You made a sweeping assertion. Shimrod asked you to clarify it and you dodged the question. Shimrod asked again and you dodged it again. And so on. All very entertaining, if your idea of entertainment is crashing other people's conversations and ranting incomprehensibly. But it's no skin off my nose - if you want to turn into Foul Ole Ron, that's fine by me.

Jon - Listening to the Irish music offered "challenges" that did not exist in the English tunes we knew so we wound up making musical decisions rather than decisions led by any "mainstream" lead.

I can imagine that. So far my perception is that the Irish tunes are just too damn hard - after I've been up and down the Blackthorn Stick a couple of times I'm ready for a gentle stroll in the Rose Tree or Blue-Eyed Stranger. But I'm hoping that will change with time.

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: glueman
Date: 25 May 09 - 03:36 PM

Just listening to the Ronettes Radish. I'm not crashing anything but your own ridiculous self-importance. Happy 1954. Shimrod is a scientist who's afraid of the future FFS, when he learns jack shit about art I'll answer his dumb question. He's a myna bird, a chorus monkey with a leather tankard.

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 25 May 09 - 03:49 PM

Actually I'm listening to Sandy Denny's Gold Dust - Live at the Royalty at the moment. There was nothing elitist about Sandy

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: GUEST
Date: 25 May 09 - 04:14 PM

Jon:
Listening to the Irish music offered "challenges" that did not exist in the English tunes we knew so we wound up making musical decisions rather than decisions led by any "mainstream" lead.

Pip Radish
I can imagine that. So far my perception is that the Irish tunes are just too damn hard

I think you're both talking nonsense. Irish tunes as a whole are no more easy or difficult than English tunes, or Scottish tunes for that matter. There are easy, moderate and difficult in the traditional tune repertoire of all three countries.

It also depends on the instrument you play. Some tunes that are easy on one instrument are tricky on another.

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: GUEST
Date: 25 May 09 - 04:19 PM

Guest, please read my whole post and this time take note of the facts I said:

"or that there may not be plenty of English tunes I'd never get my fingers round."

and in the piece you quoted I referred to the English tunes we knew.

Thanks.

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 25 May 09 - 04:36 PM

OT, but Pip, I know 2 tunes that go by the name of the blackthorn stick. I'd imagine you play the jig. The Dubliners call the second tune in this set the Blackthorn stick. This one is a reel.

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 25 May 09 - 05:23 PM

Irish tunes as a whole are no more easy or difficult than English tunes, or Scottish tunes for that matter.

Most Irish tunes I've attempted are harder - more variation, more going up one way and down another - than most English tunes I know - although I make an exception for Northumbrian tunes, which are often insane.

Of course, the instrument makes a difference. I play whistle & find the Irish Washerwoman ridiculously hard; friends who play stringed instruments say it's quite straightforward. But I think you can say that some tunes are inherently more demanding than others - I can't imagine anyone who was learning the tunes finding the Boys of Blue Hill easier than the Rose Tree.

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 25 May 09 - 06:38 PM

"I'm not crashing anything but your own ridiculous self-importance. Happy 1954. Shimrod is a scientist who's afraid of the future FFS, when he learns jack shit about art I'll answer his dumb question. He's a myna bird, a chorus monkey with a leather tankard." 'glueman'

What have you got against scientists, 'glueman'? How do you know how much I know about art? In my experience most artists know "jack shit" about science, but many scientists are remarkably well-informed about the arts.

And is my question "dumb", because you can't answer it, by any chance? At what point did your answering my question become conditional on my learning about art (I must have missed that)?

I've already admitted to being a myna bird (squawk!)- you must be awfully clever to see through my cunning disguise - but are you in the habit of arguing with birds? Could it be that the petulant tone of the post, quoted from above, is down to you coming off worse in a recent dispute with a sparrow or a rook?

And if I'm a mynah bird - how can I be a monkey at the same time?

So many questions - so few sensible answers!

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: Artful Codger
Date: 25 May 09 - 06:38 PM

First off, they'd have to determine which "folk" they were supposed to be supporting: real traditional music performed in traditional style, traditional music "revived" (forced into modern garb), or contemporary singer/songwriter stuff that pretends to be old or just doesn't fit other genres?

"Folk" as we know it has been largely divorced from its original context. It used to be contemporary music (however old its origins) that people just sang and played to enjoy themselves or to accompany their work. Public performance was on a very limited scale: front porches, parlors, dances, weddings, funerals, local celebrations. No special funding was required to perpetuate the music--it was self-perpetuating.

Even in modern times, no special funding is required to perpetuate the music--whoever wants to perform it will do so, for whomever will listen. If they want to make a career of it, that's another matter entirely--and completely at odds with what folk music really was. Whatever the public wants to hear and preserve, it will spend money on. Consider how many people are willing to shell out $50-100(US) to hear some flash-in-the-pan band perform in an arena!--the money is there if the demand is. So really, we're talking about whether the government should spend money to artificially subsidize and popularize art forms which the public has turned its collective back on.

And should this money be directed to professional performers who choose to perform in these genres or not. If so, I contend that the "folk" performers who perform in contemporary styles should be excluded from this funding--they should have to contend with market forces and public demand for their chosen form of music just as all other commercial performers must. Preserving our musical heritage in its historic form is more worthy of governmental spending, since commercial entities have little interest in doing so. Viewed from the "historic" argument, governmental spending for art museums, opera and classical music is also justified. A separate argument must be made for funding contemporary opera and orchestral music--or modern art.

As for the inequity--funding opera but not folk music--you can't ignore that folk music can be performed anywhere by anyone; it takes no formal organization, no significant cash outlay or even publicity. The same can hardly be said of opera. And even though opera is typically attended by the wealthier sort, without governmental funding it would become virtually impossible for any opera house to survive in modern times; opera would very quickly disappear. (Nor can we ignore that wealthy people have a lot of pull to ensure governmental funding continues--an unjust reality.) Folk music may remain neglected, but it is in no danger of dying out for lack of funding. We'll probably see a resurgence of interest in the next ten or twenty years, another revivalist movement, particularly as times get harder and people start to rebel against commercial domination.

I also believe that if the government funds artists, the works they create should become the property of the people, free of copyright restrictions. It's a basic "work for hire" situation. Anyway, copyright and "folk" are inconsistent notions, so choose your poison.

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: Artful Codger
Date: 25 May 09 - 06:46 PM

Oops, I fogot PUBS as a common folk venue. How on earth...?

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 25 May 09 - 07:03 PM

until discovering trad song, 'folk' meant boring 60's hippy-chicks in floaty frocks to me

That, or earnest singer-songwriters with a social conscience - that kind of thing has to be done very well if it's not going to leave me cold. (Although on reflection the kind of thing you're talking about tends to leave me even colder - the only thing worse than an earnest singer-songwriter with a social conscience is an earnest singer-songwriter without...) The stuff I grew up listening to always had a sense of mystery about it and a perverse, awkward individuality - both of which the well-meaning 'folkies' seemed to avoid, the better to get the message across. I've found traditional song much more rewarding.

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: GUEST,Sedayne (Astray in May)
Date: 26 May 09 - 04:29 AM

Sedayne, I think that's the second time now that I've bitched at you for being a "Troll", when you've been Guesting under some festive ID!

Bitching's cool with me; in fact, it's all cool with me. As for trolls, I've loved them ever since a family summer in Norway in 1969 (aged 7 / 8) which opened my eyes to the presence of these mischievous amoral elementals for whom no punishment is ever too severe. Check out Askeladden's eating contest with the troll for one of the grimmest - no pun intended, though the story was collected by Asbjørnsen and Moe, often referred to as the Norwegian Brothers Grimm...

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 26 May 09 - 05:11 AM

"So really, we're talking about whether the government should spend money to artificially subsidize and popularize art forms which the public has turned its collective back on."

Yeah, that's about right. Same as museums or libraries or any other socially funded stuff that the 'public' find boring and irrelevant! ;-)

But it's also only ONE small part of the picture. As Johnny Adams well points out on the Folk Activism thread, both what IS happening to promote public awareness of TradArts and what is NEEDED, is more ground floor folk enthusiasts pulling together, pooling their individual efforts and getting their shit together, to make it happen.

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 May 09 - 04:01 PM

Throughout the ages cultural activities of all sorts have been largely made possible by patrons of one sort or another - the church, the nobility, the wealthy, and more recently the local and national state.

It's an imperfect way, and it has shaped (and at times distorted) what has been produced and handed on to us - but without that patronage we'd wouldn't have all kinds of wonderful creations.

And that has been true of "folk arts" as well as "high arts".

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 May 09 - 05:14 PM

CS
"Yeah, that's about right. Same as museums or libraries or any other socially funded stuff that the 'public' find boring and irrelevant! ;-)"
You might add Theatre, Opera, Classical Music, Cinema.... and a whole host of minority cultural activities which make us human.
Amazing how minority interests suddenly become unsupportable when you are not of of the minority who happen to think them important.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: Ian Fyvie
Date: 26 May 09 - 09:13 PM

Folk arts have become elitist in the punters' minds because the people who tell the punters what to think, what is cool and WHAT TO BUY etc. generally reflect corporate US music culture and its clones outside the US.

Ian Fyvie

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 27 May 09 - 03:34 AM

I think it's a chicken and egg thing too. If people like myself (I consider myself pretty broad minded, and I've a fairly eclectic interest in music too) didn't realise England has a history of traditional song, then there's something wrong. Most of the members here belong to older generations (threads discussing where people hear trad song in the world and how they got introduced to trad song) indicate that the reason most of you are here, is because you were EXPOSED to traditional music and song in school, at home, and on TV. Or perhaps through the 60's revival.
Far fewer of us DISCOVERED it off our own backs with Zero prior exposure, and those who did so, stumbled on it by accident.
At least if there were some greater exposure and awareness of it's existance *in the world at large*, more people like me would have the opportunity to discover traditional song and music, and make up their own minds about it.

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: Peace
Date: 27 May 09 - 03:35 AM

Seek and ye shall find . . . .

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 27 May 09 - 03:42 AM

Seek what?
If you don't know that something's there, what are you looking for?
Would you 'seek' Opera, if you didn't know it existed and had experienced Zero exposure to it?

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: glueman
Date: 27 May 09 - 04:56 AM

"the reason most of you are here, is because you were EXPOSED to traditional music and song in school, at home, and on TV."

Good grief, if I believed the stuff I heard and danced at school was folk, I'd have given it a very wide berth for the rest of me days! An enthusiasm from some curriculum body for formation dancing and cut-glass enunciation. Dead as mutton that stuff as was the wooly jumpers and hogmanay nonsense on the telly. Mine was hearing a few things I liked and working my way back up the conduit to work out what it was.

If you want to turn people on to folk give it some sex! More people are listening to the tradition through Bellowhead, Rachel Unthank, Kate Rusby, Jim Causley (if he tickles your fancy) than any amount of earnest proposals for state enlightenment. Some will hang around to listen to earlier incarnations of the same material, many will return to whatever it was they liked before.
Sadly there's a strand of thinking among folkies that if it's attractively packaged it is by definition Not Folk, which sort of excludes anyone a big phworr or racy from taking part or the public from thinking it's anything to do with normal people and their desires.

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 27 May 09 - 05:08 AM

"Mine was hearing a few things I liked and working my way back up the conduit to work out what it was."

Not stuff from the Sixties revival - my impression was you are of that generation? Billy Bragg was about as much folk as I heard back in the early Nineties and it certainly didn't lead me to seek out Trad Song.

I agree that lot's of people are now picking up on the err current revival and a good thing too for sure. Though my feeling is that Traditional Song and Music shouldn't really be dependent on the variable fortunes of the contemporary folk scene or indeed how tasty the performers are (Jim Moray isn't my cuppa btw., though Benji Kirkpatrick's alright.) Any more than any err old art form aught - be it Drama, Poetry or Classical Music, or whatever.

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 27 May 09 - 05:30 AM

If you want to turn people on to folk give it some sex!

Depends on your own interpretation of (musical) sex I suppose. Personally, I find far more energy in say the Clancey stuff I heard as a kid than say KR songs I've heard.

and cut-glass enunciation.

I don't remember thinking about that as a kid. I just liked singing. Didn't care whether it was Welsh songs (I'm English but had my primary school years from 7 on in N Wales) or English ones.

I'd have thought there where some were Welsh first language, there would have been even more grounds for objection to cut glass English accents but I've no memory of any such thing.

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 27 May 09 - 05:34 AM

Oh, thinking of CS's comments about knowing things are there. One I was not aware of until I was in my 20s was of Welsh folk dance. Sure I knew of the choirs and of harps but I didn't know of that bit.

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 27 May 09 - 05:36 AM

Far fewer of us DISCOVERED it off our own backs with Zero prior exposure, and those who did so, stumbled on it by accident

Nail on head time, CS. That was certainly my experience. Early memories of folk involved dreadful novelty hits like "The Day Trip to Bangor", "Matchstick Men and Matchstick Cats and Dogs", "Wake Up England"... which made me want run for cover amongst the loudest electric guitars I could find. To me it seemed like to sort of music that could only be enjoyed by slightly hippyish Christians with pastel-hued, home-knitted cardigans - and they'd only listen to it under sufferance, because Jesus would punish them if they didn't. It was only through a series of lucky accidents, involving, amongst other things, the Wicker Man, British psychedelic pop of the late sixties and a minor obsession with alt-Americana (leading me right back to Roscoe & Dock & co) that I became the f#lk-lovin' loon with a EFDSS membership card I am today. My non-traditional route into the music probably also explains why I would rather stick pins in my eyes than call myself a folkie and why the glory that is the UK folk club scene kinda leaves me mystified. My grounding in non-folk musical forms also leaves me slightly immune to some of the self-imposed mores and customs some folkies have woven around their world. Fair play to them, though.

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: glueman
Date: 27 May 09 - 05:42 AM

CS I was at infant and junior school in the 60s and came of age as it were in the 70s. As I've mentioned before, my first folk exposure was Stripping the Willow to a strict tempo that would have had Victor Sylvester pleading for jazz, or listening to BBC schools radio songs of unimpeachable Queen's English.

It was folk I suppose, but with all the dirt and soil removed; folk as institutional behaviour and national sound and its spectre should be a warning to all who want to expose young minds to the stuff.

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 27 May 09 - 05:42 AM

Another I'd not been aware of, this time until I was about 27 was the existence of Irish sessions. I had been involved with the Llandudno Folk Club since I was about 21 and been to bits and pieces before but it took that long to discover there was such a thing only 20 odd miles down the road in Bangor.

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: glueman
Date: 27 May 09 - 05:48 AM

Spleen Cringe's experience and mine are very similar, though I thought some folkie chicks were hot while wanting to take them shopping for clothes and some hair product.

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: Will Fly
Date: 27 May 09 - 05:57 AM

Interesting that a discussion of "folk arts" immediately turns into a discussion of folk song. If we're really talking about arts in the plural, what else might fall into this possible elitist category of activity - weaving? Folk dancing? Macrame? Poetry? Poaching?

Just curious.

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 27 May 09 - 06:05 AM

Sorry Will! that's my fault probably. Traditional performing arts, I guess is what's properly meant - though unlike traditional song, even Morris get's seen *in the world*.

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 27 May 09 - 06:06 AM

I really think, glueman, that the moronic "Dahn Wiv SKOOL" sloganising has no place in a serious discussion.

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: glueman
Date: 27 May 09 - 06:14 AM

You could happily pull dahn the skool I attended, indeed it has been, and the nation's education in an anything including folk matters would be negatively affected not a jot.

At least we agree on the other's contribution being utterly moronic.

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 27 May 09 - 06:15 AM

Perhaps we ought to have a What are Folk Arts? thread to clarify the issue. If it is Arts of the Folk, then we might include Digital Photography, Computer Film-Making, YouTube, Home Pornography, DIY, Allotment Architecture, Garden Sheds, Pigeon Crees, Railway Modelling, Outsider Art, Cross-Stitch, Flower Arranging, Gardening, Baking, Roadside Shrine Making, Grave Decoration etc. etc. etc. Such things, of course, aren't elitist in the slightest, but then again are they truly Folk Arts? And what about Trad. Arts?

*

And what is it with new folkies that the miracle of personal epiphany isn't enough for them that they then have to go on some crusade to convert the world to their new found religion? I've seen this happen so many times it's untrue - the zeal of the newly converted! Energy best spent in perfecting one's craft I would have thought... ;-]

Subject: RE: Are 'Folk Arts' Elitist?
From: glueman
Date: 27 May 09 - 06:21 AM

Will Fly there's a very interesting discussion to be had about what real folk arts are beyond performance, and I don't mean the stuff you're likely to find at your local craft market. The way they are taught and funded deserves more serious engagement than this board tends to if the musical aspects are anything to go by.