Folklore: Are 'What is Folk?' Threads Finished?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Are 'What is Folk?' Threads Finished?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 03:16 PM

"There are those who believe the tradition is dead but re-enacted, those who believe there was a break and rediscovery and the ones who think they are continuing the seamless and unceasing tradition of our forebears."

The oral tradition was fascinating, but it's dead. Now we have songs that remain from that tradition. And I'm so glad I dscovered them! But I would never have disovered them without the modern Internet!

Can I have mine without boiled eggs?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Are 'What is Folk?' Threads Finished?
From: glueman
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 04:43 PM

"The oral tradition was fascinating, but it's dead. Now we have songs that remain from that tradition"

So does that mean the tradition continues? I've always viewed the folk revival as part of the romantic movement, if it is we can sincerely view the revival as a tradition of its own with its own functioning control systems, of which arguing about romantic purity is a key theme. Which is one of the reasons why 'what is folk' type threads are both necessary and painful for participants - to maintain the theme of romantic austerity and absolute provenance in a world that doesn't value romance.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Are 'What is Folk?' Threads Finished?
From: Bert
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 04:58 PM

...The oral tradition was fascinating, but it's dead...

Nope I still sing songs that my Dad learned from his Grandmother.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Are 'What is Folk?' Threads Finished?
From: Uke
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 08:23 PM

"...to maintain the theme of romantic austerity and absolute provenance in a world that doesn't value romance."

Yes, now we're getting somewhere.


What about "folk" as encapsulating the spirit of the homemade in a world of commodities? Of course, because there are inevitably lots of professional folksingers and commercial folk LPs in a world of commodities, this sets up a contradiction. Hence: discussion/argument.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Are 'What is Folk?' Threads Finished?
From: glueman
Date: 05 Mar 10 - 03:49 AM

What's interesting is the difference between attitudes in the US and UK to traditional music. America has no less an authentic english speaking folk tradition but it has to take its place alongside Yiddish music, slave songs, european and asian trad, etc. Puritanical approaches to 'the' tradition are a luxury if not completely inappropriate in that context, which leads to much bemusement at British provenance debates.

Much of the English contemporary revival was informed by folk music from the the US, particularly blues and old time country, and the E. Trad scene was seen through that eclectic prism. This set up a conflict between those who harked back to the seeming purity of Collector's Music and the comparatively laissez faire singer-songwriting new trad.

Looking through folklorist eyes both traditions are new and equally fascinating phenomena.'What is Folk' threads still have plenty of mileage because the revival means so many different things, emotionally as well as intellectually.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Are 'What is Folk?' Threads Finished?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 05 Mar 10 - 04:25 AM

"the revival means so many different things, emotionally as well as intellectually."

Yes, some of the people posting here have invested a life-time into the revival in various ways. So I appreciate the emotional energy that comes with the territory for them, eeven if I can't empathise. For me the revival means pretty much nada. I tend not to think of myself as a 'folkie' as I've never been into folk music, I'm just someone who discovered a batch of faded manuscripts on the internet and began to learn to sing old songs as a hobby. Me singing these old songs doesn't define me any more than me singing Purcell, Dowland or Jazz Standards or indeed Karaoke does - all of which I've done a bit of in the past. The major difference is there is a raggle-taggle community of similar hobbyists where I can just show up and sing, and listen to others do same. I don't have to dress up smartly, or belong to some specialist society, or have a pianist attached to me. I can also swear and drink and get muddy, all of which come naturally.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Are 'What is Folk?' Threads Finished?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 05 Mar 10 - 04:38 AM

"The oral tradition was fascinating, but it's dead."

I guess that's the sort of statement people make until they meet some source singers. Ask Jim Carroll or John Howson if the oral tradition is dead.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Are 'What is Folk?' Threads Finished?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 05 Mar 10 - 04:43 AM

"I guess that's the sort of statement people make until they meet some source singers"

Fair enough, but most people will never inherit these songs orally.
I had to rely on the internet not my Granny. There are no traditional singers in my village or indeed any of the surrounding towns and villages that I know of, unless they're very well hidden indeed.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Are 'What is Folk?' Threads Finished?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 05 Mar 10 - 05:16 AM

Jim - is the oral tradition dead?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Are 'What is Folk?' Threads Finished?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 05 Mar 10 - 05:25 AM

There are individuals that still learn off traditional singers (with the assistance of technology), Sam Lee & Stanley Robertson has been mentioned here.

For the rest of us it's records, books and the internet. I wonder do many people who rely on such sources, nevertheless think of themselves as maintaining 'the tradition'?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Are 'What is Folk?' Threads Finished?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 05 Mar 10 - 05:26 AM

Or is the Oral Tradition just some other crock of Folk-Orthodox purist horseshit that never existed in the first place? The medium is the message & if human culture is about anything then it's about COMMUNICATION, which is what we've dealing with at it's most fundamental level for 50,000 years. Ballads were printed, sung, sampled, reinvented, remade and this process continues - be it by word of mouth or world of letter or word of YouTube or whatever.

I first heard The Drunken Sailor sung by old sailors in my family as a child; it's a song everyone in the word knows. I've just started singing it again because it's one the finest songs ever and a joy to sing alone or in company - any company. I reckon I might sing it in a shopping mall and everyone would join in and the experience would be transcendent. Oral tradition? Dead or alive? Or is it just Folkie Purists preserving their prissy little corner as usual? We see a lot of that around here - too much to be entirely healthy.

Culture occurs at the interfaces of SUBJECTVE individuality and OBJECTIVE communality; the one thing shapes the other & so on we go, merrily forward. Keep moving there, Ladies & Gentlemen - 'tis a wonderful word to be sure!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Are 'What is Folk?' Threads Finished?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 05 Mar 10 - 05:28 AM

Word / World - no matter.

I learned a song of Stanley Robertson one night we were watching the stars outside the Cumberland Arms in Byker. He promised me that I'd hear it once and never forget it - and I never have, and I'm singing it still...

Does that make me a tradition bearer?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Are 'What is Folk?' Threads Finished?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 05 Mar 10 - 05:41 AM

"Does that make me a tradition bearer?"

I find the YouTube phenomenon rather interesting as a contemporary 'oral tradition'. Certainly moreso than some kind of rare holy folk initiation type thing.. ;-) People in the past communicated in the ways they had at their disposal then. We do things differently now - quite simply because we CAN. Once upon a time horse and cart was the way to get from place to place, but for my daily shopping I'd rather go by car.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Are 'What is Folk?' Threads Finished?
From: glueman
Date: 05 Mar 10 - 06:59 AM

"Or is the Oral Tradition just some other crock of Folk-Orthodox purist horseshit that never existed in the first place?"

Does it matter? Like peep toe sandals or rubber duck bondage suits it's a fetish that makes perfect sense to those who get it and is an absudity to thse who don't. I'm happy to play along with the revival game or poke fun at the inconsistencies as the mood takes me. The honest response to the revival is to consume it as a dish on the popular music menu and snigger at the people who live their lives by its artificial shibboleths.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Are 'What is Folk?' Threads Finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 Mar 10 - 07:28 AM

"Does that make me a tradition bearer?"
Yes it does, as long a you maintain the function of the song - was Vaughan Williams a 'tradition bearer' when he converted 'The Cruel Ship's Captain' into Norfolk Rhapsody No 4 or just a 'tradition user'?
This doesn't make you a traditional singer IMO. MacColl used the term 'Song Carrier' which does for me.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folklore: Are 'What is Folk?' Threads Finished?
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 05 Mar 10 - 07:57 AM

"MacColl used the term 'Song Carrier' which does for me."
Jim, I don't know whether you have read Pete Wood's "The Elliotts of Birtley" yet but there is a particular passage which deals with Pete Elliott's reaction to MacColl referring to his father (Jack Elliott of Birtley)as a "song carrier".
Not that I personally disapprove of the term as I would say it was a perfect title for someone like Paddy Tunney.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Are 'What is Folk?' Threads Finished?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 05 Mar 10 - 10:49 AM

So is it to be officially declared that this is the FIRST THREAD on the new subject of The Folk History of Debates about "What Is Folk?"?"

Or do we need to start a new thread?

In either case, of course, someone must summarize, list, index, and analyze all the previous debates and let us know when they intend to publish the book. That book will certainly be "primary source material," and after sufficient analysis and debate will enable us to move on to the History of Attempts to Record the Debates about the History of Analyses of the History of Determinations of the Definitions, Meanings, and Methods for Determining the Identifications of Folk.

And I can hardly wait for the sequal to that one.

John

Subject: RE: Folklore: Are 'What is Folk?' Threads Finished?
From: Goose Gander
Date: 05 Mar 10 - 12:05 PM

Glueman makes some valid points regarding heterodox traditions in the US and the difficulty (impossibility?) of speaking of Tradition with a capital 'T' (if I read him correctly). Even within the English-speaking ballad tradition over here there's a lot going on (I just listened to an African-American version of House Carpenter, accompanied with banjo). Looking for an 'ideal form' of an 'anglo-american' ballad would be like looking for an ideal, platonic cow out there in the ether somewhere. Not that 'pure forms' really exist anywhere, it's just much more difficult to pretend in America. I would expand on his argument and note that while the varied forms of American popular music evolved from vernacular forms, English popular music is based (ironically) upon American vernacular music as well. So maybe that's where this 'identity crisis' comes from; maybe 'What is Folk?' is another way of asking 'Who Are We?' for some people.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Are 'What is Folk?' Threads Finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 Mar 10 - 12:23 PM

Dave;
I am aware of Pete Elliot's response to Ewan's term - I find no offense in it and can't think of a better one.
I'm not even sure MacColl intended it to be taken in the way that it later became to be used, or if he intended it to be applied to singers like Jack Elliot - look at all the other singers he used on The Song Carriers; JoeHeaney, the MacDonagh family, Elizabeth Cronin, The Stewarts......
I was a catch-all phrase to cover them all.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folklore: Are 'What is Folk?' Threads Finished?
From: glueman
Date: 05 Mar 10 - 02:13 PM

"'What is Folk?' is another way of asking 'Who Are We?' for some people."

Absolutely right and IMO, most unfortunate. It's only one step from the provenance of a song to the lineage of an individual or society. Nothing else can explain the dogged pursuit of the 'authentic', as though it will deliver the musical mother lode of 'the people'.
The truth is we're abstracted from those songs in so many ways that any attempt to live them out is doomed to failure. We can interpret them as best we can but projecting anything else onto the music is comic at best and dangerously misplaced at worst.

If 'the' tradition was seen as 'a' tradition without the accompanying verisimilitude hokum and guru racket accompaniment, we'd have a far more vibrant and inclusive folk 'scene'.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Are 'What is Folk?' Threads Finished?
From: John P
Date: 05 Mar 10 - 06:10 PM

I guess I'm with Crow Sister -- I just like the songs and tunes. I've never seen myself as being part of any revival, and don't really care about "traditions", except as an occasionally interested intellectual pastime. It's fun to learn about the history of the songs, and I'm fascinated by finding and learning various versions of songs from different places and times. But none of this has any bearing on whether or not and why I like or dislike specific songs.

As for whether or not the oral tradition is dead, I think it seems clear that the society that had to rely on oral traditions in order to pass on information is, for the most part, a thing of the past. Does the fact that we now have different ways to share music mean anything important? Maybe to a historian or folklorist it does, but not to me. I will continue to learn music from whatever source is handy, and if it's an old traditional song, I'll continue to call it traditional music.

I spent most of last evening learning Swedish dance tunes from a band mate. He was teaching them to me without reference to written music or recordings, and most of them he learned from other people who taught them to him the same way. Maybe this is just how musicians often learn music, and maybe it's always been that way, whether or not the musicians could read, had a stereo, had a parent who played, or are part of a "traditional" community. Isn't this the oral tradition persisting in the face of modern society? I don't know what else to call it.

I have processed many traditional songs. Some I changed on purpose, some I heard the source version years later and realized how far I strayed, and some I simply misremembered what I was taught. I have written tunes that have been adopted by other folkies, and they have come back to me in quite different form. Isn't this just the folk process in action? How is it really any different than what the folk process has ever been?

I really don't see much difference between an illiterate person learning a tune from the fiddler in an isolated village sometime in the past, and some modern musician learning a tune from the internet. We learn tunes, we do with them what we want, we teach them to others. It's what musicians do, and have always done.

John

Subject: RE: Folklore: Are 'What is Folk?' Threads Finished?
From: John P
Date: 05 Mar 10 - 06:15 PM

Glueman: We can interpret them as best we can but projecting anything else onto the music is comic at best and dangerously misplaced at worst.

If 'the' tradition was seen as 'a' tradition without the accompanying verisimilitude hokum and guru racket accompaniment, we'd have a far more vibrant and inclusive folk 'scene'.

Glueman, can you elucidate? I've been playing traditional music for more than 30 years, and I've played extensively in at least seven different traditions with hundreds of musicians. I've never actually met anyone who has any such attitude toward traditional music. Are you speaking from actual experience, or from the mists of your imagination?

John

Subject: RE: Folklore: Are 'What is Folk?' Threads Finished?
From: MikeL2
Date: 06 Mar 10 - 05:34 AM

Subject: RE: Folklore: Are 'What is Folk?' Threads Finished?
From: John P - PM
Date: 05 Mar 10 - 06:10 PM

What he said !!

Thanks

MikeL2

Subject: RE: Folklore: Are 'What is Folk?' Threads Finished?
From: glueman
Date: 06 Mar 10 - 05:59 AM

Simples John P. There are lots of traditions, not one. The quest for authenticity assumes there is an importance about Collector Music that doesn't exist in other forms. It's just personal enthusiasm, there is no national core, no key sentiment that will reveal itself that tells us who we are anymore than the quickstep or Elizabethan court madrigals.

The post was a response agreeing with Goose Gander's statement "'What is Folk?' is another way of asking 'Who Are We?' for some people." I'm saying 'who we are' won't be found in Collector Music any more than another form C21st exposes us to. It's important, as are all musics, but not in the way people sometimes suggest.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Are 'What is Folk?' Threads Finished?
From: John P
Date: 06 Mar 10 - 02:08 PM

Glueman,
You are assuming a quest for authenticity and definition of traditional folk music as Collector Music that I don't see much of in the real world. A quest for authenticity is more about musicology than it is about music making. Being an adherent of a Collector Genre is more about librarianship or something. For the rest of us musicians, it's about the songs and tunes.

Sure, there are lots of people who are trying to reproduce as exactly as possible a type of sound from some other time or place. They are a distinct minority in the traditional music crowd. Although I can do it myself with some types of music, it's not really my thing, or that of the vast majority of people I play with. And even the most duplicative of the local musicians are willing to have a living room jam where anything goes, and where you find out all the other musical interests they have. The most important point is this: it is the music they are called to play, and the way in which they are called to play it. By what right do you mock them for their choice? Especially when the perjoratives you are using to refer to them are those of exclusion. In case you're not following me, mocking someone for their choices is a nasty sort of exclusivity.

Perhaps you are talking about the folk police, the authenticity nerds who confuse the words 'historical' and 'traditional'? And who want to tell you all about it? Is this the group on which you are basing you snide remarks about traditional musicians? I've only ever had three encounters with this type, and I can assure you that anyone who knows the 'authentic' way could tell you all about how my music diverges from that. 99.999% of them, however, are smart enough and well-rounded enough to know that I'm not trying to reproduce a specific traditional sound, and they just go ahead and enjoy the music anyway.

My request: Please stop making negative statements that are broad enough to include all the people who enjoy playing a type of music. They feel impelled to defend themselves against your comments, and pretty soon we have a fight about a subject that never existed in the first place.

John

Subject: RE: Folklore: Are 'What is Folk?' Threads Finished?
From: Gurney
Date: 07 Mar 10 - 12:03 AM

May I solicit a response on this thread from all members? Plus multiple posts from the more puckish among us? That should keep us going until 2012.




Deep down, you all KNOW it isn't folk unless 'I' sing it, don't you!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Are 'What is Folk?' Threads Finished?
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 07 Mar 10 - 03:32 AM

I was chatting with one of my son's friend's dads yesterday. Turned out his mum and step-dad are keen, long-term folk enthusiasts. I asked him if he shared their tastes. He replied, "I don't mind some of it, but on the whole the whiff of authenticity puts me off. Especially as there's bugger all authentic about most of it."

Proves nothing about anything, but nonetheless another perspective.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Are 'What is Folk?' Threads Finished?
From: glueman
Date: 07 Mar 10 - 04:52 AM

John P, your broadside sounds like 'please refrain from attacking my freedom to attack you'. Everyone round here is the personification of traditional music. Nobody knows anyone 'like that' in the real world yet they're common on these pages and act as though an archly conservative approach to folk music is a given.

I've been listening to and buying traditional music since the 70s and attending folk festivals for much of that time. To me traditional music is another soundscape. I read the sleevenotes but they're a distraction that tells me 'how' I should listen to the music. The context and the interminable introductions all want to harness the way I encounter the song and as I get older I become more convinced folks librarianship tendency is completely misplaced.

I repeat, my previous answer was affirming Goose Gander's opinion. If you don't like it perhaps you might take it up with him?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Are 'What is Folk?' Threads Finished?
From: evansakes
Date: 07 Mar 10 - 05:57 AM

"The so-called "Baked beans" feel discriminated against by the "mushy peas", so I'm going to remove those oppresive divisive labels right now"

I suspect you'll mind better examples of sauce singing in the baked beans camp....