young folk tradition undermining folk

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 12:41 PM

This whole conversation is a bit reminiscent of that scene in A Mighty Wind, you know the one at the end of the concert.

Strange how life imitates art......

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: stallion
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 12:41 PM

shit happens, I know it is really bad form to repeat a song but it does happen and I do get embarrassed for the parties involved, even to the point of not being able to applaud the "repeat" which is probably not good either, however, some may know I sing with two other blokes and last Friday one of em started to sing a song I had sung a 1/2 hour earlier! He got told! Goodness this is way of thread! He had even joined in the chorus and it hadn't registered!

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: GUEST,James H
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 12:46 PM

>> If you mean by that festivals are a source of extra money then I think you are wrong and I know a lot of artists and can think maybe of two who fit into that category.

If you mean to supplement their income as an artist they have to have other jobs - then sure, I can hardly think of any artists who do not fall into that category. <<

what I meant was I know plenty of people who have another means of making a perfectly good living and who are choosing to perform *as well*, because they want to, because they can, and because there is clearly a market for what they do.

Reason I mentioned it was because there seemed to be other posts implying that in order to perform professionally you couldn't possibly also have a career as something else (doctor, teacher, civil servant, computer programmer....) at the same time. Yes, one or other or both of those careers (musician and other) would have to be on a part time basis because there are only so many hours in the day.

You can look at it as doing other work to supplement their income as an artist. You can also look at it as busy people juggling two careers. Either is fine in my book.

What I don't think is fine is somebody demanding to be paid a comparable wage to... other people? ...the national average? (dunno where that £30k figure came from) or more to the point complaining that they're *not* being paid that wage, to do something if there is no market to support it. If I was an inventor I'd only expect to make money out of my invention at the point where lots of people suddenly decided they wanted it. Surely any kind of art is the same?

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 12:53 PM

James H is bent on telling us just how much of a child of Thatcher he is.
Those who know the price of everything and the value of nothing might concur with his wholly materialistic view.
But I'm appalled.

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: GUEST,James H
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 01:04 PM

Nooooooo!!!!!!!! I'm say exactly the opposite. I'm saying the people who want to charge £1,200 for a five piece nobody has heard of are the materialistic ones. I'm saying that performers mostly are performing because they love doing it and that's great, and if the most the market can bear is £400 for said gig not £1,200 then they're mostly prepared to do it, which is their choice. And if they're not prepared to do it for that then that's also their choice, but probably means not many will afford to book them.

And if that is the most the market can bear and said performer also has another career as well which allows them to have a mortgage and all those other things people like to have then what is wrong with that? Does that make that performer (or me for talking about it?) more materialistic for having more than one means of earning their living? Or for not necessarily treating music & performing as the thing they rely on to pay the bills?

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: GUEST,James H
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 01:06 PM

'I'm saying' not 'I'm say' would make more sense wouldn't it? oops.

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: McMullen
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 01:19 PM

Can I just say that I am MALE so sorry to the cool Scottish person who calls me a bonnie lass, I admit sometimes I am a drama queen and I do like to dress up as a lady, something I probably shouldnt confess, but I just want to say last time I checked, I had male reproductive organs.




Ok as for the post , I didn't expect to receive such hostile posts by some, and quite honestly many of the opposing arguments have widened my viewpoint so thanks. I have re read my post and I suppose it does have an air of snobbery, but believe you and me, from where im sitting in this house where the main meal is fish and fingers id like to resent that remark lololol (it's a joke b.t.w I am an arsey git sometimes)

let me just clarify that I said "some" of the people on the course neglect the decency and etiquette advocated by folk music. The majority are normal kids like me who piss their youth away with beer and fun, nothing wrong with that.(that isn't sarcastic, ill confess quite ignorantly and with a pretentious tone, that I am an incurable drunk)

I know people on the course, and they are brilliant and funny, and extremely `friendly. I certainly don't promote that the course should be abandoned. But my problem seems to focus around that its all exclusive to Newcastle and Glasgow (the latter being where I am hoping to study a humanities and social science degree)

I will admit that its out of jealously for my main repudiation, it's the ascendancy of some over others and the unfair representation and judgemental atmosphere the course creates. I'm currently studying history, economics and politics; I choose not to take the music course. Here is my confession; there is some strong hateful passion inside of me which fears being judged by a cruel and uncompromising world. The folk degree to me, someone who has never really engaged with other young folkies because there are none here (there all doing the degree lol) sees it as something only available to those who have connections. I probably have to much anger, probably responsive to exterior forces and being a hormonal young man., I have never had no one to direct me in my experience of the music world, my fathers Irish and that's the reason why I got into folk from listening to his Dubliners/ pogues records but other than that influence, I started going to clubs on my own when I was 15. The first encounter I had with another folkie was over the Internet, and he told me there were these alien things called "folk clubs". I was not raised with the tradition and thus I feel that's why I am more appreciative towards the underdog society and social benefits I find in folk music, not, the commercial bolox and fashion accessories music in general often portrays.

I have witnessed some people on the degree who have been booked to do gigs at clubs and out of sheer ignorance and egotism chose to drink their beers and smoke their cigarettes outside the venue (in the street) while the floor singers did their bit. 99% of the time i relish in listening to anyone of any ability because I like to look deeper than the sound and look at the entire presentation, what mental images ramify into the singers head and whether the songs of love they sing are reminiscent of some foreign girl on a summers day, or whether the song they sing is a dream they hold dear to their heart. The music expresses both elation and an intense pain which I feel some my own generation want to and seem ignorant off.


Ill admit I have a narrow view I only have a Selection of evidence and knowledge.

I am an egotistical narcissist like the rest of them and I to want to make it on the folk circuit, but there's something inside of me that cares little for joining the inner circle of musicians. I heard some new band advertise that they were doing a gig with "folk royalty" Eliza carthy, now the band (which shall be nameless) is an amazing band but to describe folk singers as "royalty" to me seems like a paradox of folk music. I am not criticising the carthy's but it's the idolatry that has creeped its way into folk music which I reject.

I will explicitly express my main disillusionment, it is the prospect of having to brown nose someone else to make it anywhere, I just have some innocent youthfulness that refuses to be a demagogue in music. I want to entertain, to love, to listen to everyday and feel a mutual catharsis that is experienced by all and not the select few.

These thoughts are typical of some youthful brat like me, I probably appear to be some ignorant communist with delusions of grandeur, I most probably am, but I posses an immense amount of fear and hatred of some aspects of society( we all do), my initial post undermined itself with its limited discussion and I am sorry to those who may have not got the jist of what I was trying to say.


Its all futile anyway, I am a naïve revolutionary who will never be content with the dictates of society, this is probably all to philosophical for some stupid discussion over the folk degree but its just one aspect of folk music which is, well I cant quite find the words, but is, for want for a better word, wrong.

I have no objection the study of music in general, but the two words "folk" "degree", they sound to me like the two words, "banjos" and "fun", lol sorry for the pun I am a banjo player myself.

Stacey McMullen

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 01:24 PM

Where has this 'mythical 5-piece that nobody's heard of' come from?
A band should be paid the rate for the job and £1,200 isn't a lot.
It's not about 'what the market can bear'. That's sheer materialism. Who decides what that is anyway?
Whether or not performing at gigs is their sole means of remuneration or not shouldn't come into it and it's highly intrusive to suggest that it does.

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 01:30 PM

The above was addressed to James H but McMullen intervened.

Stacey: I didn't say you were a snob but an inverted snob. Different. Very. And I knew you were a bloke.

And I can tell you without a trace of doubt that the Waterson:Carthy axis loath and despise the description of '1st Family Of . . .' or 'Royal Family Of . . . '

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: McMullen
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 01:33 PM

ok im stupid, i genuinely need to know what an inverted snob is? that isnt a rhetorical question, what is meant by an inverted snob?

like i said i wasnt critisisng the carthys, the mentality of others :)

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 01:41 PM

Very refreshing viewpoint, Stacey. Certainly for those amongst us who came into folk via a single route (mostly clubs or concerts), and tend therefore to see folk under that prism exclusively; which in turn often brings into discussion words like 'entertainment', 'market', and so on.

I understand now why 'folk' and 'degree' in combination grate for you, but as that is a personal thing rather than based on logic, you won't mind if I disagree, I hope. No issue. Some want to study it, some don't, some want to preserve it while others want to let it mutate, some feel that study of a subject kills the fun, hey, it takes all sorts, and all are welcome.

Thanks for the honesty of the post. This has been a most interesting thread - bar the discussion about money which distracts, detracts, and has already been dealt with in other threads.

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: Grab
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 01:45 PM

Captain Colin, you may be aware that as per the old joke, the way to get to Carnegie Hall is "Practise, man, practise". That's why 3 gigs a week average - the gigs have to cover the practise time required to support the performance, not to mention time spent writing new stuff. Same as pro footballers - they don't just turn up at the stadium on Saturday without having trained the previous week.

£30K was just a rough guess I came up with based on Diane's numbers. I don't know how other people's pay goes, but I can give mine as an example. As a software engineer, it took me 4 years to get a degree, and about 7 years after that before my salary hit £30K. FWIW, including uni I've now got 15 years in the software industry, and I'm now on about £50K as a contractor (after expenses and allowing for gaps in employment). So compare and contrast to someone in folk music - let's take Artisan for an example of a top-notch folk group. They went pro in 1989 and disbanded in 2005, by which time they were famous throughout the UK folk scene, and they gigged all over the place, sold loads of CDs, and also did solo work outside the band. Hands up who thinks they were making better than £50K each after expenses? I severely doubt it.

Yes, as an artist you're only worth what people are prepared to pay. And no-one's prepared to pay much to see me, which is why I'm still a software engineer by day. ;-) If you're only getting £400 to split between three of you for a gig, you can live with that for a while. But eventually you want a house, a family, all that stuff, and you can't do that on £400 gigs. So either you need more recognition so you can charge more and fill larger halls, or you need to cut your losses and get out.

One factor that may be missing from people's memory of the folk boom of the 60s is how old the performers were then. They could afford to risk it, and the ones who weren't risking it were the ones who'd already reached the "fill-a-five-hundred-seat-theatre" stage.

Graham.

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 01:46 PM

From Wikipedia:
"A snob, guilty of snobbery, is a person that adopts the world-view that other people are inherently inferior for any one of a variety of reasons including supposed intellect, wealth, education, ancestry, etc."

An inverted snob is therefore the opposite: One who adopts the world-view that other people are inherently superior etc etc.

I think Diane used the expression because you were self-effacing i your recent long post - no doubt she'll correct me if I am wrong.

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: McMullen
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 01:46 PM

Some want to study it, some don't, some want to preserve it while others want to let it mutate, some feel that study of a subject kills the fun, hey, it takes all sorts, and all are welcome.


i totally agree with you there, personal preference is fine, its just the way in which if you go with one path you have more chance of ending better off. I think it does kill the fun. But each to their own as long as it doesn't hinder the progress of those who choose not to go down that path. I'm not saying it necessarily does always hinder others, my idol is old luke kelly, he certainly never got a folk degree, but for me it feels like it does create an accendency, which is probally a natural progression anyway.

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: McMullen
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 01:48 PM

i fully understand it now, cheers, yeh i am an inverted snob i completely agree.

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 02:00 PM

Stacey,

I think that any ascendancy created by the folk degree can only be teporary, just like with any degree. It gives a useful leg-up for a few years (3? 4? 5? no more), but thereafter it is what you have done in that time that counts, not your degree any more.

OK, there are some prfessions where a degree will be a sine-qua-non, like medicine. But I have known people enter teaching and even the clergy in later life, based on their own conduct and experience alone. And in my job, I have always placed experience and practical knowledge above degrees when recruiting (I work in IT).

So, it's a leg-up. No more. It can be used well or wasted. It's like winning a talent show - a year on, people will only remember you if you have done something worthwhile since your win.

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 02:01 PM

Sorry - my keybrd stcks. To mny coffees splled, to mch tbacc in the cracks.

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 02:03 PM

OK, you're an inverted snob because you dismiss the motivation of those who are studying music academically because you say you can't see the point and you'll brave it out by asserting you're better off without it. In this respect you are being as narrow-minded as the 'good-enough-for-f*lk' brigade. Such an attitude doesn't actually bring you working-class cred (except possibly among Sun readers) and you recognise surely what little worth that is.

As for George's assertion that the discussion about money 'distracts and detracts', it doesn't. To counter it is to challenge the materialistic attitude of those who value art only for what it costs. Exponents of our traditional arts are precious beyond price and may well find some reward in what they do, especially (ha!) is their audiences value and appreciate what they do. But they also need paying. Starving in garrets isn't a premise of Brown's Britain. Is it?

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 02:10 PM

So, it's a leg-up. No more. It can be used well or wasted. It's like winning a talent show - a year on, people will only remember you if you have done something worthwhile since your win

George, are you talking about the YFA here?
That was, after all, the other strand of Stacey's initial post.

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: McMullen
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 02:26 PM

diane is there a reason your so hostile, for all your sophisticated vocab it is without hesitation that id like to say "chill out" yes thats hypocritical coming from someone who has just had the biggest rant on here,im not a working class prodigy , im going to uni and im from a fairly decent up bringing, not idealistc but none the less i was provided with everything i needed. i certainly didnt go down the pit everyday or some other w/c stereotype.


i am not making assumptions on your personal character so why do you feel the need to make assumptions on mine?, again that is hypocritical and i may be over reacting,

debate the question in hand, not my personality.I am certainly the inverted snob you so passionately describe and since u pass that judgement on me it is with little guilt that i call you the snob.

friendly discussion thats all i asked for. perhaps im all wrong about you but there is a tone of agression in your posts. perhaps its the invenitible incapicty of text on forums to express themselves coherenlty without being misunderstood. But i asked what an inversted snob is? not why am i an inverted snob, there is the difference, i certainly didnt want an attack.


*shakes hands in offer of a ceasfire* thats a little immature of me , but seriosuly i want to be friends.

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: Scoville
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 03:09 PM

I was avoiding this thread because these "future of folk" ones invariably turn into shouting matches, but, eh:

Who is missing the point, it isn't the study of Folklore that is being knocked it is the attitude that seems to be imbued in some graduates that they are the crème de la crème and they can piss in the faces of the paying public by deigning to turn up and produce mediocrity when they should be capable of more.

This is not a problem peculiar to folk music, though. It happens in all areas of study. My brother is in graduate school in conflict archaeology (he wants to study how war affects civilian populations) and he runs into this attitude all the time with anthropologists who are long on theory and short on shared experience with the people they studied.

Hell, I ran into the same thing in college when I took a Civil War & Reconstruction class (that's U.S. Civil War, 1861-1865) from a Yale/Princeton Yankee whose Ph.D. was on the colonial history of Georgia. However, the schmuck would never have deigned to actually live in the South, and consequently kept asking obnoxious questions of his handful of Southern students. Stuff he ought to have been explaining to us, had he ever been in a "cultural immersion" situation. Furthermore, he should have realized that the fact that we were even attending a very left-wing liberal arts college in the Midwest was an major indicator that we were not the best examples of Southern attitude toward the war. Duh.

I have not seen the curriculum (is there a website? Can somebody PM it to me?), but I don't see anything wrong with studying folk music any more than there's anything wrong with people studying other cultures, men doing Women's Studies, etc. I do think that there's only so much one can learn in the classroom before one has to jump in and live it, but any adequate, non ego-bloated professor should take that into account.

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 03:11 PM

[comes back in from Tesco very cross and hot]

Stacey, I'm not hostile to you, I don't know you (except that you by insinuation have slagged off some people who are my friends), but to a certain mindset of cultural iconoclasm that I find distasteful in everyone (and there are lots around here) who display it.

Nor did I assume you to be 'working class' but rather that you pretended to have a viewpoint which you thought presented you as such.

Not everyone on the Newcastle course is a pampered, middle-class wastrel you know. I know one graduate who did three jobs in addition to all the coursework.

(Actually I'm just waiting for someone to accuse you of choosing Glasgow in order to avoid having to pay fees, hehe).

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: Folkiedave
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 03:15 PM

Met plenty of the students off the course.

Not an ego or a bloated ego amongst them.

Not saying it doesn't exist - just that I have not met it - but I doubt there will be many bloated egos around.

I can think of one artist who persistently over runs. Hard to stop once he gets going. That's what I call bloated ego.

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: Marje
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 03:18 PM

It seems pretty pointless for people to keep on remarking that Luke Kelly, Eric Bogle et al managed very well without folk degrees. Of course they did, because they had no choice! Things are different now, and all sorts of formal and informal study courses are now there for the taking; think about the courses offered by Folkworks or the Wren Trust, etc. Ireland and Scotland have been offering formal courses in traditional music for quite a bit longer than England, and no one criticised that. I'm sure many of the older performers would have been delighted to take advantage of such opportunities had they been offered a few decades ago.

Many of the old established folk performers don't use computers, but that doesn't mean they're not a useful and worthwhile tool for research, information and discussion relating to folk music. The same applies to study courses and formal tuition.

Marje

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 04:07 PM

Brian Peters,I do practice several hours a day,managed three and a half hours today.Dick Miles

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 04:59 PM

MCMULLEN.Please ignore all that is written on this thread,go out and enjoy playing music, keep watching ,keep listening,use every oppurtunity to learn from others,including anything on the computer[particuarly old performers on you tube like PETE SEEGER]

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 05:09 PM

I agree. Study can only help things. I hate everything 'in the tradition'. Perhaps education would have cured this mental block.

I don't think so. But I can see that 'the tradition' is the view of te generality, and if the folk scene was a democracy, I would have lost my deposit.

You stick with it, kid. They have things to teach you - so does the world, but if things continue as they are - you can forget the world.

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: Mr Red
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 05:21 PM

oooooer......

McMullen - you are the backbone of the folk genre. However I have to be somewhat dismissive as an oldie - how else can the young tradition mould a niche for themselves unless we disapprove and thereby confirm their personal creative endeavours? As if we tried this in our day. Ha!

What most of us love about folk is the tolerance and breadth it affords. University degrees are just a wider flank. The holders are the tall poppies, but remember what happens to poppies - they can all to easily have a brief summer.

And there is one thing you have we envy - you make us look old when inside we .........

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 05:37 PM

we feel old, we are old, we look old.....

Diane's absolutely right.

between us, we screwed up the biggest spontaneous movement to rise from the people of our islands until it is a laughable minority woffling endlessly on about a tradition that none of us inherited, singing songs in a style that might have happened two hundred years ago(but we're not quite sure) - dancing to music that makes a gulf a mile wide between us and the rest of society.

And some of us are having the temerity to tell the young that its US who make the ground rules.

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 05:52 PM

Alternatively, WLD, some of us bothered to find out what we were actually doing while others went off on pop music.

I do however have a problem with the meretricious who assume that particular virtuosity (and in some cases gratuitous philological exhibitionism) supersedes meaning.

By all means innovate, and interpret afresh. But bear in mind that this should be an accretion to the tradition, not its supercession, otherwise there is no tradition and we all become rootless.

BTW Diane, how come I never come across those who come in from Tesco all hot, even if they are cross too?

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: McMullen
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 05:57 PM

im well happier now to see more light hearted posts, and it is by mere coincidence *shuffles eyes" that i am going to glasgow for cheaper fees mwhahahaha, no i love scotland. I am sorry if i offend those who have friends on the degree who are decent people and it is certainly not individuals i am attacking, im not attacking nething, i was a bit reckless in posting my initial post without more depth or explanation and i come across as a right self rightious prick,

i think what would change my mind is if i did meet people on the course who didnt come across as middle class know it alls, but thus far i havent talked to anyone who is on simialr veiwpoints in life to me. i think its fair to say my social being has determined my thought and its only natural for me to be a typical 18 year old who rejects those whose thoughts determine their social being.

it is the beaucracy of the degrees i dislike and the orginasation of them,(im not talking about the sylabus actaully the sylabus looks interesting) i dont dislike any of the people on the course, and although i wont say i love the people i know on the course they were generally decent people.


i think the conclusion for this post would be to say is the degrees are like marmite, you love it or hate it, but never the less they are not going away and will continue to provide for those who are supportive of it.

i will try to make my way on my own, but from now on because of the viewpoints in the post i will be content with those on the course instead of being obtuse in my attitude towards them.


is that a fair conclusion??


thanks all for your posts and i hope to meet you in the future, so you can all pay for my folk fees muwahahahahhaa

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: TheSnail
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 05:58 PM

gratuitous philological exhibitionism

Oooh! I love it when you talk dirty.

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: Folkiedave
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 06:49 PM

But bear in mind that this should be an accretion to the tradition, not its supercession

I love it when you talk dirty too Richard....

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 07:01 PM

Diane, I wasn't talking about the YFA - I had the X-factor in mind. Awards are a little different to "talent contests", as they often award years of past performance and graft, and that has a totally different value to winning some talent contest.

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: Tootler
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 07:20 PM

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: Tootler
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 07:21 PM

Oh dear! Hit the wrong button :-(

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 26 Jun 07 - 01:43 AM

The second "award" in my last post should have been "reward", of course...

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: GUEST,Young Buchan
Date: 26 Jun 07 - 02:11 AM

McMullen said: Many of these talented youngsters are nurtured almost from birth, sometimes by parents who are themselves professional folk artists. It does raise a nagging doubt in my mind - are these youngsters being fast-tracked into folk stardom?

It's a long step from Folk Singing, but I believe this to be historically accurate, rarely recognised, and dangerously relevant: In the early 1990s the Communist Party of Great Britain dissolved itself, having lost touch with anything resembling Marxism. A large section of the leadership responsible for this were the children of long-standing Party members. They were people who had they been born into any other family would never have touched the CPGB with a bargepole. but because their parents had them down for the YCL the day they were old enough to qualify, theyjoined. And because they had heard all the lingo from age two onwards, they sounded convincing and shot straight up the leadership board to the top.

I worry to what extent the same thing may become true in the case of those mentioned by McMullen.

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 26 Jun 07 - 03:05 AM

Nonsense.

How many of the Newcastle degree intake have professional folk musicians as parents?

How many young folk "stars" have professional folk musicians for parents?

Let's have a think: Benji Kirkpatrick. Eliza Carthy of course. Are we counting Kate Rusby because her dad was a sound engineer, or the Lakemans, whose parents played? Even if we are, it's a pretty small proportion of the young professional folk scene.

What does nurtured from birth mean, exactly? If you work in folk (or other live music), whether as atechie, organiser, promoter or musician, there are unsocial hours. You either drag your family along to gigs and festivals, or pay a fortune in childcare, or never see them. The first option is clearly the favourite. You also probably practice and play at home. So kids grow up around the music. Some will take to it themselves, some won't.

Should professional musicians actively discourage their kids from becoming musicians themselves? A daft idea, I think you'll agree.

Yes, you're lucky if your parents introduce you to good music early on. Them's the breaks. It's not a passport to a career, nor does it prevent people who weren't folk brats from accessing the music on their own.

Does having a famous surname open doors? Maybe, at the beginning. Just like the folk degree might be helpful in that respect. But no one is going to sustain a musical career based on a surname or a piece of paper. If you can't cut it, poeple will stop booking you and buying your records. End of.

McMullen, get the chip off your shoulder and just be the best musician you can be. If you're good enough, you'll get gigs.

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Jun 07 - 03:09 AM

Welcome back mudcat (thread creep) a good discusion as thingd used to be.I know lots of people who are on or have finished the folk degree and they are all people with all that brings. I believe the problem lies with fawning accolites i.e. a recent quote on mudcat by a contributor "and the folk degree supplied lots of talented young people" a piece of blurb seen on a flyer "direct from the degree course at newcastle" There are lots of young people out thee learning thier trade the traditional way and who knows may be in the long run better for it. The great worry for me about the degree course is all the people on graduation do not return home and input into their area where they got their love of music from in the first place.

---

Please note that anonymous posting is no longer allowed at Mudcat. Use a consistent name [in the 'from' box] when you post, or your messages risk being deleted.
Thanks.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: GUEST,Merry Bee
Date: 26 Jun 07 - 03:55 AM

who is Diane Easby and what does she do?
Merry

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 26 Jun 07 - 04:05 AM

I am not a young person studying (or undermining) music at Newcastle and am therefore off-topic.

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: treewind
Date: 26 Jun 07 - 04:31 AM

Seconded, everything Ruth Archer posted.
Every (would-be) performer in the folk world finds it hard to get gigs. Older ones say it's because they're too old, younger ones think they're fighting against entrenched attitudes of middle aged folkies, songwriters think they're ostracised by the traddies and vice versa. It's a broad church with many opposites and when it gets hard it's easy to blame everybody who doesn't do things that way you do or isn't the same age. The reality is it's hard work for nearly everyone. There's a few lucky ones who get a lot of publicity, but there's thousands who don't.

I keep remembering Jacey Bedford's advice: overnight success takes far longer than you expect.

(By the way, Diane Easby is 100 years old. It official, on her myspace profile, so it must be true. She hides it well)

Anahata

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: Folkiedave
Date: 26 Jun 07 - 05:05 AM

My kids have been brought up around folk music all their lives and a famous instrumentalist played over the eldest's bump a month before she was born. Their mother, talented lady that she is sang to them from a very early age. She has perfect pitch and sings with major choirs. Not a musical note in the eldest's body.

The youngest had exactly the same treatment musically. She doesn't play or sing either - though she might be a singer if she wanted to be.

Both were brought up going to festivals and surrounded by musicians all their lives to the age of sixteen. Both had the usual lessons, piano and flute. Neither have shown an interest in folk music - so any attempt to influence succeeded in putting them off.

So where did we go wrong?

In fairness the youngest is a professional organiser with an Arts and Ents degree - but she doesn't do much folk!!

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: The Sandman
Date: 26 Jun 07 - 06:11 AM

Dave,it is quite common for children to rebel against their parents,my father was heavily into jazz,I prefer to play /sing traditional music,.
my brother was into folk music his children play jazz,all you can hope is that your children will play music of one sort or another.
perhaps your children are not musical.

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: GUEST,James H
Date: 26 Jun 07 - 06:19 AM

I am interested to know where people such as Ruth Archer & Anahata think that promotional hype fits in to the model of sustained careers in folk. Other posters above have mentioned use of PR companies etc.

I agree that on the whole, while various factors such as a famous folky parent or piece of paper or whatever may help at the start they won't sustain a career for long if the performer can't please an audience.

But presumably there are lots of people out there who can and do please audiences but who don't have any such head start. If some of these employed a PR company to generate lots of media exposure for a season or two, would that or should that make any difference? Would it make it easier to get gigs and sell cds?

(imho, it would make a difference and I'm not sure that it should, but I'm interested to hear what others think)

I am aware that while plenty of real hardcore folk enthusiasts will actively seek out new acts (and that probably covers most mudcatters) but what about the radio 2 / Cambridge festival style audiences who will buy a Kate Rusby cd because they have heard of her but wouldn't go to see a name they hadn't come across even if performing live in a venue just down the road? Presumably to make an impact on that kind of audience, the media hype is a necesary evil?

I'm rambling...

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: Folkiedave
Date: 26 Jun 07 - 07:30 AM

......perhaps your children are not musical.

Well despite every attempt to "make" them so,in the most liberal freedom loving middle-class parent sort of way, they aren't. Hey-ho, they both seem happy so who cares.

PR.
One young man got a fantastic amount of publicity - a year or two ago and I wonder if all the hype was justified. Certainly looking at the bookings he has on his website not many bookers do think he sells tickets and most of his bookings seem to part of or along with his sister's band.

Of course good PR can help. But if you hire a PR person on a full-time basis then I would have thought you have to hand yourself over to them. No point in hiring a dog and barking yourself. And yet how many PR people really know about folk. I doubt many folk performers would go along that road.

I don't know whether Waterson:Carthy employ a full-time PR person which someone suggested recently, but I doubt it very much. If they do it isn't working. What is working is their talent.

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: treewind
Date: 26 Jun 07 - 08:19 AM

"I am interested to know where people such as Ruth Archer & Anahata think that promotional hype fits in to the model of sustained careers in folk."

"Sustained" is a very significant word there.
Undoubtedly spending that sort of money gets you some fame and recognition. It's likely to create controversy in the folk world too, in fact it has done when that approach was taken, and as Dave says, it doesn't ultimately last.

Unless you're very lucky, talented and organised business-wise, there's a good chance you can blow a load of money on promotion and not get back what you spent. Also you may be famous for five minutes, then somebody else will be the next Big Thing and you are nowhere, and worse still you are "so last year!".

You can get lucky. I was just reading the article about Chumbawumba in fRoots - on the strength of one song in the top 10, they toured the world and did lots of stuff they'd never be able to do otherwise. They also kept their heads on and knew it wasn't likely to happen again. Since then the money earned at that time has given them more freedom to do what they want musically. I'd love to do that - but we don't all get into the top ten!

"imho, [hiring a PR company] would make a difference and I'm not sure that it should"
It would make a difference, but it might not make enough difference to pay for the cost of doing it. In the folk world, for example read Jacey's Why you don't need an agent. And again the effect wouldn't last unless you had some real talent that people wanted to hear anyway.

One of the things that appeals to me about folk music is that there's something real and timeless about it. It's about playing the music I love, and hopefully infecting others with that enthusiasm, and introducing it (when I get the chance) to people who've never heard it before. Not about playing whatever will maximize profits - if I wanted to do that I'd play C&W in Norfolk pubs!

I'd much rather build a reputation slowly and feel I've earned it. It's more likely to stay that way.
But I can afford to: my life doesn't depend on it.

Anahata

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: The Sandman
Date: 26 Jun 07 - 08:28 AM

ANAHATA ,I agree.I did my first gig in 1976 and have been gigging ever since ,I have never been fashionable,but am still here 31 years later,gigging away,singin the music I like,if I had afiver for every time I have been told what a good voice I have,I would be laughing all way to the bank,.
But music has provided me with something that makes me feel rich in spirit,.
playing wallpaper music is soul destroying.

Subject: RE: young folk tradition undermining folk
From: shepherdlass
Date: 26 Jun 07 - 10:59 AM

McMullen said: Many of these talented youngsters are nurtured almost from birth, sometimes by parents who are themselves professional folk artists. It does raise a nagging doubt in my mind - are these youngsters being fast-tracked into folk stardom?

----------------
Here's a question - was Tom Clough, the Northumbrian piper 'fast-tracked' to being called the prince of pipers because he came from a piping family? What about griot families? I'd have thought young people learning from their parents the skills, the tunes - and, yes, where to get gigs - was actually quite traditional.

Sorry, I'm drifting back to a few posts previously but have only had a chance to catch up with the latest contributions.