How much Folk Music is there?

Subject: How much Folk Music is there?
From: autolycus
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 02:50 PM

This thread is not designed to give anybody a headache, heart attack or spend years with a computer !!

I have some idea how much art music there is from music reference books, ditto with jazz.

But not much idea of the quantity of folk there is, the v.v.v.approx. proportion of it that has been published, ditto that has been recorded.

i'm thinking of anon. folk, as composed will be at least copyrighted, if not published. Presumably.

Is there still being stuff freshly collected?



    Ivor

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 02:55 PM

This would be kind of like trying to determine how many hairs there are on a particular cat, wouldn't it?

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 03:15 PM

there's not much......in fact send me a tenner - supplies are limited; and its on a first come, first served basis; and I didn't put your name on the list; though that can be remedied if you rush your tenner to me........

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 03:15 PM

If it's really, really, really folk, how could you do a survey?

There's not much really 'undiscovered' folk anymore, as the temptation to be at least partly commercial is too obvious.

But...there's enough to keep you busy.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: nutty
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 03:33 PM

If it's undiscovered, you will never know how much there is until you find it.
But - yes - source singers are still being found and material collected simply because time is passing.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: nutty
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 03:38 PM

to continue - material that would have been considered contemporary by anyone collecting at the tine of the revival is now at last 50 years older.
Songs originating in he Music Halls are now an established part of Folk Collections and University and private collections of sheet music and broadsides are becoming more broadly available.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: greg stephens
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 04:06 PM

Well, it depends what you mean by folk, obviously......

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Azizi
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 04:17 PM

Hello, Ivor!

You asked is anon folk music still being composed & collected.

I guess it depends on your meaning of "folk music."

:o)

Here's my list, since I consider these to be sub-categories of folk music:

1. children's handclap rhymes and other types of children's movement rhymes

2. children's cheerleader cheers

3. children's taunts, including teacher taaunts that are parodies of Christmas songs & other familiar songs

4. other popular songs parodies {children's and adults} as long as those parodies have no known composers

5. university fraternity & sorority chants

6. military cadences and other forms of adult cadences

7. football songs/chants {UK}


Best wishes,

Azizi

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Azizi
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 04:19 PM

greg stephens, I hadn't read your post before sending mine.

Great minds and all that jazz...

:o}}

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: GUEST,Don Firth
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 05:02 PM

A pretty fair potful, I think one could say. I have a bookcase about five feet tall and four feet wide, with four shelves. This contains collections like four books by the Lomaxes, one by Carl Sandburg, two volumes of Cecil Sharp's English Folk Songs in the Southern Appalachians, books of ballad collections and scholarly analysis by MacEdward Leach and several others, and on and on, books of sea chanteys and (genuine) cowboy songs. A thick book containing a batch of whaling songs. I also have things like The Joan Baez Song Book, The Coffeehouse Songbook, The New Song Fest, two song books by Richard Dyer-Bennet, and many, many more, including Rise Up Singing, and The Folk Singer's Word Book. Paperback collections I picked up in the 50s and early 60s. The stuff I keep in this bookcase has slopped over into others. I also have a filing cabinet full of song folios (saddle-stapled, containing anywhere from 20 to 50 songs each). This doesn't mention a four-foot stack of vinyl records and an equally high stack of CDs. I have no idea how many miles of tape (cassettes and open-reel) I have.

My cache of material is dinky compared to some I've seen. Granted, there is a lot of duplication, but that's still one helluva lot of songs!

And this is almost totally made up of British (English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh) and American folk songs and ballads. I do have Theodore Bikel's song book and a few others with songs of other countries, but not a whole lot. There is a whole galaxy of world folk music out there that I haven't even touched.

In the 55+ years I've been learning and singing songs, I've developed a pretty big repertoire. But the songs I have in my head are only a fraction of the songs I could lay hands on by going to the bookcase or the filing cabinet. And keeping my ears open, I'm always hearing new stuff—traditional stuff—that I haven't heard before.

I'm not worried about running out any time soon. . . .

Don Firth

P. S. I think we're gonna run out of breathable oxygen and drinkable water before we run out of folk music.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: greg stephens
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 05:21 PM

MS and printed sources for Englisdh fiddle tunes run to considerably more than ten thousand tunes(just how many I am sure nobody knows). That's just the tunes that got written down. And then there are the songs. And England's one tiny country in a big world. No, I don't thinkl stock will be ruinning low for a while yet.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: autolycus
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 05:53 PM

Thanks everyone so much. I do appreciate your posts.

Greg, that's the kind of thing I had in mind, that 10,000, tho' there doesn't sound like there's a 'master-list'

As I didn't make clear, my definition was 'anonymous',and because of copyright, i doubted that anon folk-music was still being written. I'm ill-informed, so don't know.

Is there a vast list (or lists) anywhere of known folk-songs for any period or area,as the Uni. of Melbourne Music Library has quite a big one for popular songs?

It is a slightly idle inquity,(oh,that's a good one, should say 'inquiry' -[if you think this is iniquitous, i wouldn't blame you]); just that a part of me wants to get a sort of theoretical control over a vast field.

The New Grove does it for classical; the rough Guides for folk and world musiv performers.

The folk field just seemed more amorphous.



    Ivor

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 06:01 PM

I specialise in selling books about folklore, folklife and folk music.

I have about six hundred in stock and have probably sold three times that amount in the past few years. There are a few duplicates (Bronson, Child) but not many.

Dave

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Amos
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 06:34 PM

There was actually a PhD thesis done on the question of how much folk music there is. Although it was controversial, they finally came up with a satisfactory algorithm and an analysis.

The answer is 392 billion, 178 million, 16, 289 plus or minus 1.5%.


A

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 06:36 PM

Wasn't there a rival thesis done shortly afterwards saying that the figures were wrong because the author had not provided a satisfactory definition of folk?

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 06:45 PM

look! a tenner, take it or leave it....its a bargain, signed by Cecil Sharp, certificate of authenticity from Ewan MacColl, and two polythene fingers to stick into the orifice of your choice, and a list of Albanian folk clubs where you'll be welcome, and your performance of two folksongs (duration not more than 2 minutes) will be warmly reeceived.

I do Paypal.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 06:51 PM

The bulk of known material has never been published, and remains in various archives as manuscript notation and (more recently) sound recordings. The closest you will ever get to a 'master list' of known examples of traditional song is the Roud Folk Song Index; by definition it will never be complete, but it is the single most important and comprehensive catalogue ever compiled.

See http://library.efdss.org/

Note that the Index doesn't include arrangements of traditional songs recorded by revival performers (though you can often use it to find out where they got their material from if they didn't bother to acknowledge their sources) or, for that matter, 'art song' arrangements such as those of -for example- Butterworth, Vaughan Williams, or Britten; nor recordings of those.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 07:05 PM

Interesting...but would you take these peoples estimation for a fact? I think the miners' strike taught us that ordinary people still have things to say in song. I was running a small recording studio in Nottinghamshire at the time, and people were popping in with bits and pieces they had wrote.

Maybe it won't reach the folkclubs for another hundred years. who cares...but those of us with an IQ above room temperature know that you won't kill this process (which is embedded deep in the human soul - the need to create) by wrapping it up in stupid definitions of folk music.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Kampervan
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 08:13 PM

Robb Johnson did it a bit quicker than that.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 09 Sep 07 - 08:59 PM

'autolycus' made it perfectly clear that he wasn't asking about contemporary singer-songwriter material.

A thing I make today may survive long enough to become an antique; or it may not. It doesn't start life as an antique. By the same token, a song made now isn't folk music by traditional definitions, though it may perhaps grow into that in time.

I'm not sure what 'weelittledrummer' means by 'these people', or what definitions of 'folk music' are 'stupid' from his or her point of view.

I am glad to see that he or she don't feel that trying to define things (and thus better understand them) risks 'killing' them. I agree entirely. As for the apparent non sequitur that follows, I am still baffled by the anger and hostility that WLD expresses so regularly in discussions of this sort. What is that all about?

A little more reasoned argument and a little less of the apparently crippling chip on the shoulder might not be a bad thing.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: GUEST,DJ Melton
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 12:02 AM

The answer is "Not nearly enough!"

Seriously, it goes on. Commercial music from the 20's and 30's, as well as popularly recorded folk music from all eras, is played in back bedrooms, dens, and garages and in town squares and city halls within the bluegrass tradition.

My father, who did a lot to promote bluegrass music in NE Texas, is in bed now in his final days of a sudden illness. For two weeks he has been singing lines from a Tom Paxton song, "The Last Thing on My Mind". Several lines of the melody are different, and a word here or there. Some of his friends have learned it from him, as he learned it by listening to others. In another 50 years, there will be several different versions, because this is a song that captures people's imagination and lives on in their hearts long after the guitar is set down. (And lest you think my father is being too maudlin, the other one he alternates it with is "Salty Dog!" Yea buddy!

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 02:48 AM

I think the problem is Malcolm that one senses a lot of hostility from people who can't create anything themselves, so they disguise their non creative state in a lot of waffle about a tradition - a tradition, which by and large bypasses the huge mass of the population.

The Trimdon Grange explosion and Rawtenstall Fair didn't happen yesterday, but there are things happening in the world that capture folks imagination just as much. Look at 9/11 and that song Paxton wrote about the firemen. Young soldiers are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I've heard several people at our local folk club in Derby try and express their thoughts and feelings about it in song.

Moreover when politicians get songs like The Men Behind the Wire, or Caledonia banned - I think they know damn well they're dealing with a feeling that comes from the people. Some elemental creative force we should be proud to call folk music.

I'm with the bloke whose Dad re-writes Salty Dog and Tom Paxton every week. Its an expanding universe of folk music.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: GUEST,Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 04:26 AM

WLD,
Writing a song about a 'relevant' subject doesn't make it folk - folk is a process not a type.
It's the passing on and adapting (deliberately or otherwise) that gives the song its uniqueness - and a parallel thread about bloggers is going a long way toward convincing me that that is no longer happening without the aid of a cheque book.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: mattkeen
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 04:57 AM

Klang......!

(The sound of minds clamping shut)

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: autolycus
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 05:01 AM

I've been showing my ignorance because i didn't realise that people still wrote folk music without copyrighting it (as in the Nottingham example), not that existing songs continued to be re-writtem amd re-worked, both of which sounds like the folk music process in action. Which is WLD's point, I think.

Debates about boundaries and definitions rage in every field. (The philosopher hegel ran into problems when he appeared to think that his definition of 'Truth' was the correct one. Some people just don't recognise it when it stares them in the face :-) ).

Thanks for that, Malcolm, just te kind of thing I had in mind, even if it's just the English language variety. Perhaps googling is, once again, the way forward. No, no, there are experts here who might like being asked.

As a psychotherrapist, I'll avoid voicing an opinion about the psychologies of posters. Just to say that if you are passionate, you're more likely to be upset, and folk music is something to be passionate about.

Something music has in common with other musics, is that there isn't one reason for listening.


Amos's precise answer (tho' I'm really not happy with that + or - 1.5% onelittle bit), reminds me of the joke about the two people in a Hungarian chess cafe discussing the age of the Universe.

"No, no, it 3 billion years old."

At which a chess player nearby whips round and aske,

"What did you say?"

"That the Universe is 3 billion years old."

"Thank goodess,"says the chess player turning back to his game,

"For a moment, I thought you said 3 million !"



      Ivor

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: PMB
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 05:10 AM

Ethnocentric or just ethnocentric? There are other countries that have folk music, besides British Isles and the US of A. South Africa might have a wee bit, then there's Namibia on the left and Mozambique on the right, then work upwards till you reach Alifarkatoureland. If you turn right at the top, there's Asia....

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: greg stephens
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 05:23 AM

I have just been working on a mosaic project with kids, and one lad about 7 years old made up songs(and sang them) all day, as he worked.They were not very politically relevant and contained no references to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, so they might not suit WLD, but I would reckon they were folk songs all right(or possibly the raw material that supplies the folk process). He was like one of those holes they find on the seabed were hot volcanic gases bubble out and nourish strange growths of bacteria.I think I may have discovered one of the secret sources of folk music. I presume there are plenty of kids like that around, so supplies of folk song for the next century should be OK.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 06:03 AM

"Writing a song about a 'relevant' subject doesn't make it folk - folk is a process not a type."

Amen to that, Jim! And the minds that I hear 'klanging' shut are those which don't want to accept this simple and elegant model. They are, in fact, those minds who have already decided what folk music is and get very upset when the model doesn't fit with their preconceptions.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Rasener
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 06:24 AM

In Lincolnshire we have the very own Brian Dawson. He collects songs but they are stored in his head and not on paper so I beleive.
I just wonder how many people we have like that, who may well take their songs with them one day.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: GUEST, Sminky
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 10:34 AM

"They are, in fact, those minds who have already decided what folk music is and get very upset when the model doesn't fit with their preconceptions."

That accusation could equally be applied to you and Jim Carroll, Shimrod.

The folk will decide what is a folk song. Not you. Keep the definitions coming though - I for one enjoy ignoring them.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Dave Tyler
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 10:35 AM

*I just wonder how many people we have like that, who may well take their songs with them one day.*

Sounds like Cecil Sharp to me.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 10:49 AM

Is there still being stuff freshly collected?

Yes.

Example: Spirituals. During slavery, according to contemporaneous accounts, a new song could spring up at the puff of a breeze, and often did. From there they passed among slaves at the plantation where created, and/or across plantations with slaves sold/traded, and/or via campmeetings, and/or in freedom via church and cultural diffusion.

Some of these thousands (millions?) of songs were lost-- discarded as newer songs burst out of day's feelings. Some were "collected" at the time via transcription (Allen). Some were passed along orally and collected later via transcription (several collectors). Some were passed along orally and then arranged for performance (Fisk, etc.)

These may or may not have been published; some were recorded and published or transcribed later (or not).

Choral arranging from ALL these sources continued, with various published versions said to be "definitive" (but they aren't).

The genre got to the opera stage, as African-American, operatically-trained performers included them in non-opera concerts (Robeson and others). Then there was Porgy and Bess.

Some of them swam into the deeper water-- Gospel. Black Gospel. Southern Gospel. Bluegrass Gospel. Other Gosepl.....


Alongside ALL of that mess going on (mess is good), some MORE original pieces (from slavery time) bubbled out of "the grandmothers'" oral tradition at various times, into more mainstream (commercial) culture. Some of them still do-- there are still "new" pieces popping out of memory with modern interpretation and perspective.

Then there's hiphop and rap.


A subgenre of Folk that defies "definitive" approaches and "the end of the material," for sure.

~Susan


~S~

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 11:15 AM

"*I just wonder how many people we have like that, who may well take their songs with them one day.*

Sounds like Cecil Sharp to me."

Would you care to elaborate, Lizzie? In what way did Cecil Sharp not record and archive the songs he collected?

Villain, you're right about Brian. Songs - and SO much more. A lovely, lovely, thoroughly self-depricating man. Someone needs to collect it all from him - the problem is, he doesn't acknowledge the value of all the wonderful things he knows!

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 12:00 PM

I think some 'folk' just don't LIKE extra categories....and they want everything they 'like' to fit neatly under one category.

Sure...there are nice, interesting songs written every day about subjects of concern to the 'folk'.....but we have had a name for those for a long time. They are topical songs. If they are good, popular topical songs, they may in time be passed on in ways that eventually qualify them as folk/trad.

This doesn't mean we 'folk' singers can't sing them yet....it just means they are not sorted and absorbed yet. Some of Woodie Guthrie's
songs got 'absorbed' pretty fast...as have Ewan MacColl's. But writing a song protesting about Iraq does not automatically qualify it as folk/trad.

No one is judging 'quality' per se...just noting that some songs are listed in certain categories for convenience and relevance.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: autolycus
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 12:51 PM

If only broadcasters like the Beeb took the experiences of Greg, the Villan (good luck this season), and Susan really seriously, boy would folk music programmes change.


   Ivor

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 12:52 PM

I'm sure that he can (and probably would prefer) to speak for himself, 'Sminky' but I hope that you realise that Jim Carroll is a distinguished authority on, and collector of, folk songs. I'm sure that he didn't decide what is or isn't a folk song on the basis of some airy-fairy notion that he dreamed up in the bath and then demanded that everyone else endorse.

I, on the other hand, am not particularly distinguished in any field - but I do recognise that the "folk is a process not a type" idea makes a lot of sense - certainly a lot more sense than the 'folk songs are indistinguishable from past and future pop songs' notion. Supporters of the latter notion rather remind me of enthusiasts for the paranormal who scream "closed minds!" when scientists quite reasonably point out that there is very little, if any, evidence for such phenomena.

Mind you I'm not sure why I bothered writing this as you're going to ignore it anyway ("Keep the definitions coming though - I for one enjoy ignoring them"). You appear to have a closed mind by your own admission.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: GUEST,Mad Jock
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 01:21 PM

Send me one penny for each and every song out there and I would be rich beyond my wildest dreams.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 01:54 PM

If only broadcasters like the Beeb took the experiences of Greg, the Villan (good luck this season), and Susan really seriously, boy would folk music programmes change.

Don't be too hard on the Beeb-- share and share alike, eh? I know that as far as my particular specialties go, they'd have to focus on it pretty hard to get even a nuance of what I can finally, after 10 years of study, say in one post.

~S~

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: autolycus
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 02:45 PM

Susan, I just meant, if they did fieldwotk progs, exploring the continuing development of folk music, the progs would be pretty different, less commercial and finished.

btw, I love and cherish the beeb, and always pleased it's supported outside the UK. Just want it to keep improving,c'est tout.


Ivor

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 03:24 PM

Yes.... but they do what they do, pretty well. To trace the spirituals, for instance.... I am not sure they could do it, the way titles and tunes shift across time and genre's. When I try to do it my head spins. I'd have had to have kept track, song by song, as I discovered (heard) the connections, and instead I just learned and enjoyed the songs.... any single song sprouts its own wildly-tentacled tree, and crosses other branches, and autografts, and re-brances...... I could not go back now and reconstruct it for any individual song, and I am not sure I could have done it as I went.

[shrug] It's for having and doing, not studying, really-- that subgenre anyhow.

~S~

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Dave Tyler
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 03:28 PM

"*I just wonder how many people we have like that, who may well take their songs with them one day.*

*Sounds like Cecil Sharp to me."

Would you care to elaborate, Lizzie? In what way did Cecil Sharp not record and archive the songs he collected?*

I said that. Why not get over your obsession with Lizzie. I wasnt talking about him not recording or archiving the songs he collected. Where did you get that idea from? What I said merely related to the idea of Cecil having that thought himself.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 03:41 PM

Well you have lost me there.

Having had what thought?

How's the weather in Canada?

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 03:52 PM

Not enough
Shimrod,
Jim Carroll ,is a collector of folk songs,he is not an authority on anything,anymore than anyone else on this forum.
Many other people have collected folk songs,Peter Kennedy, Mike Yates,John Howson, Sam Richards.Mick Haywood etc
just because someone is a collector,it does not make them an authority on what is a folk song.
Jim Carroll is entitled to his opinions,his information about Walter Pardon is interesting,but he is not god.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Amos
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 04:36 PM

ANd while we're at it, how much weather IS there in Canada? More than eleven?


A

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: greg stephens
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 05:06 PM

Sminky's assertion that the "folk" decide what is and is not "folk music" doesn't really work. The folk may well decide what will or will not last, what stays unchanged, what changes, and if so into what.But they dont decide what is and is not folk. The folk apply the folk process. But since when were the folk interested in defining folk music? The concept of "folk music" is a recent bit of useful academic classification, somewhat perverted of late into new meanings, such as "songs with acoustic guitar", or "songs about Afghanistan and Iraq from a broadly liberal/left viewpoint". The "folk", as far as I know, do not sit about debating whether Seth Lakeman's latest composition is, or is not, a folk song. That is a discussion for Mudcatters and others of that ilk. We may be just plain folk, but we are not "The Folk".

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 05:23 PM

Alas, it's always been a small pond in which we swim.

Art

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 05:39 PM

Cap'n,

I never claimed that Jim Carroll is God (perish the thought!). But he and Pat McKenzie have collected hundreds of folk songs over several decades and, surely, that entitles them to have some sort of view about what folk song is or isn't? Personally, I would tend to give such a view a bit more credence than the view of someone who has not collected hundreds of folk songs, or, for that matter, the view of someone who has a conceived a notion that he/she finds pleasing and now demands that everyone else uncritically endorse.

I wouldn't be surprised (or at all upset!) to find that the other people you mention have slightly, or even radically, different views from Jim and/or Pat. If any of those people chose to share their views with me I would listen with great interest and think carefully about what they have to say. I certainly would not fly into a paddy and start accusing them of having "closed minds" (even if I should happen to disagree with them)!

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: M.Ted
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 01:04 AM

When asking "How much folk music is there?" you have to keep in mind that every language has a culture associated with it, that means the more than 6,000 languages in the world each of must have a body of traditional songs and stories--

The next thing to keep in mind is that only around two thousand languages have a written form, so the songs and stories are only orally transmitted, and there is no way to transcribe them.

The last thing is that more than a quarter of the languages each have a thousand speakers or less and are dying--It is estimated that nearly 3,000 languages will be extinct within a hundred years.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: autolycus
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 03:15 AM

Thanks, MTed, I know things like that in the same generalised vague grip on the whole field way.

Which does make it all endless, as art music is endless, ditto films, ditto.............................

And some people don't know what to do if the tv and radio sets are broken !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


    Ivor

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 04:12 AM

"Keep the definitions coming, I enjoy ignoring them" - now there's an open mind if I ever saw one!
Cap'n - why do you insist on doing this - haven't you got enough bruises already?
I am not just a collector any more than I am just an electrician (any more than I am sure you are not just somebody trying to make a living as a singer). Pat and I set out to meet traditional singers in order to find answers to questions such as this one. Walter Pardon, Tom Lenihan (Clare) and Mikeen McCarthy (Irish Traveller) were happy to oblige and we thought their contributions worthwhile enough to pass on too others, so we made it available via the NSA and ITMA. If you would like to compare it with your own researches you are more than welcome to do so - I would be fascinated to hear your conclusions.
I don't know if there is much more to be collected. Azizi's list summed it up for me, though a couple of categories apply to the US rather than this side of the pond.
Childrens' songs certainly have proved a rich source in the past, but I am not sure how much the one-to-one nature of mobile phone texting has affected the the communal communication that once went on in the schoolyard - I hope it still goes on.
I confess I have always found football chants, while interesting as a study, usually limited to "the blues are great and the reds are crap"; ie. somewhat uninformative and unsatisfying.
Up to twenty five/thirty years ago there were still new singers and songs to be recorded, nowadays I am not sure there are. We virtually witnessed the demise of the singing tradition of the Irish Travellers (somewhere between the summer of 1973 and Easter 1975 when they all went out and bought portable televisions and stopped singing and telling stories around the fire. The pool table, juke boxes and televisions in pubs pretty much put paid to any singing that went on there. The case was the similar in rural Ireland where singing had died out in the home, where the singing mainly took place, again thanks largely to television.
Walter Pardon's family tradition died out sometime between the wars and his magnificent repertoire was the result of his own efforts in painstakingly reconstructing it.
Collector, Tom Munnelly (who died last week), as long ago as the late seventies, described his work as a race with the undertaker and in my opinion his collection of 22,000 songs makes his opinion worth heeding.
I would love to think there are more singers to be found in isolated corners of these islands, but somehow I doubt it.
What there is I believe are large relatively untapped sources in libraries, archives, lofts and garden sheds waiting to be found and made available. The Carpenter Collection, the largest collection of ballads recorded from the oral tradition is an example of one such hoard.
When we decided to assemble a local archive of songs and music here in West Clare, literally hundreds of private tapes (mainly of music) were immediately made available to us with very little effort on our part.
We discussed to some extent the passing on of material on the 'bloggers' thread. The conclusion we have reached is that it requires some time, effort, thought, but above all the generosity of those who have access to such collections.
Here in Ireland the pioneering work of people like Brendan Breathnach, Nicholas Carolan and Tom Munnelly have paved the way for people to receive government assistance and arts council grants for setting up archives and other music resources. I hope that this becomes possible in the UK, but so far there is little sign of it happening.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 05:30 AM

I agree with much of what you have said there Jim.

I still think there are on or two singers with family traditions who might have some worthwhile material. I was learning about the Millen Family only this past weekend - although they are not a really recent discovery.

For certain there are some singers around whom few if any people know about and from whom we can still learn things. Nowadays around here they tend to be in the hunting fraternity/shepherds meets and these are a bit of a closed area.

But in my own area of interest - traditional carols - I heard about another one this very weekend....so it happens.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: GUEST, Sminky
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 06:14 AM

"But since when were the folk interested in defining folk music?"

They never were. And neither am I. And neither should anyone else.

As for a "useful academic classification" - useful to whom? Academics presumably. Anyone else?

Or perhaps you are worried about the "uncountable rabble of ryming ballet-makers and compylers of senseless sonnets"?

That was written as recently as 1586.

"songs with acoustic guitar"? Ah yes, accompanied music. Ever heard of minstrels, with their pipes and harps? They've been around since at least the Norman Conquest, I believe. They were 'instrumental' in spreading many of the ballads throughout the land. Indeed, some may have been composed by them.

Singer-songwriters is the term used today - often with contempt.

There's nothing new under the sun, folks. Step away from the microscope and enjoy the music!

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 06:24 AM

Vive le difference
Luckily I like all sorts of music.
So whoever you side with in yet another debate about what Folk Music is/isnt or maybe.
Kindly carry on collecting it, stealing it, writing it arguing over it etc.
Sing it in silly but authentic accents,get in rows about should it should be sung at this or that time of the year or in one place or another.
(I was gonna say but mind that the poor old buggers who know the stuff now dont kick the bucket while you are busy arguing the toss.But they are keeping it going even if they dont earn money or degrees or Kudos from it,and I dont wanna jinx them)
That way I will have somats to listen to if I am the mood for it at the time.
When I meet folkies they are always nice and welcoming if a bit sniffy sometimes that I dont play old music myself.
Then come on here and there we are arguing again.
OH well
More power to your elbows

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: GUEST,Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 06:54 AM

Sminky
"But since when were the folk interested in defining folk music?"
They never were. And neither am I. And neither should anyone else.

Do you know this; it is our experience in talking to traditional singers that nobody ever asked them.
Would be fascinated to get any information to the contrary
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: GUEST, Sminky
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 07:21 AM

Nobody asked them, Jim, because the obsession with definitions is a recent phenomenon.

Be that as it may, I would be fascinated to know what definition your singers came up with...

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 08:05 AM

The problem is that no one [including Jim Carroll],could come up with a satisfactory definition of folk music on previous threads.
Shimrod,why then should I take any more notice of Jim Carrolls definition of a folk song,than say a singer songwriter like Wee little Drummer, or a revival MUSICIAN like Greg Stephens,or a collector of folksong books like Folkie Dave, or a folk club organiser like the Villan, their opinions are just as valid.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 09:00 AM

Nobody asked them, Jim, because the obsession with definitions is a recent phenomenon.

Errr.....not really - sorry but I can produce a hundred (well a large number anyway)of quotations showing just the opposite. Remember Cecil Sharp called his first book "Folk-Song, Some Conclusions". It was about amongst other things, definitions.

The problem is/was that people like Sharp "knew" what a folk-song was, so that was what they collected.

Child knew it didn't include broadside ballads for example.

But no, it isn't a recent phenomenon at all. Sorry and all that.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: GUEST, Sminky
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 10:53 AM

Sorry, Dave, but it depends on your definition of 'recent'. Given the the length of time the music has been around, then Sharp's activities were like yesterday. The obsession with definitions only started once the academics got involved.

And if Sharp 'knew' what a folk-song was then where is his killer definition?

And if Child 'knew' it didn't include broadside ballads then he was wrong, wasn't he? Because some folk-songs did end up on sheets. Indeed, in a few cases the broadside version is the only source.

If you read what the singers themselves said, you'll find that most of them referred to the material simply as 'the old songs'. No fancy definitions there. No need.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 12:27 PM

So when are you talking about and which academics?

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: M.Ted
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 01:06 PM

The point is, Sminky--Sharp's "Killer Definition" is the body of material that he collected. And Child wasn't "wrong"what he collected, he has passed on to us, and what he didn't was left for others or lost-- Every collector knows what they want and what they don't want, and it's helpful for us to define that as much as we can, so we know what they've left for us.

It doesn't really matter what most people think a "folk song" is, because their opinions don't contibute anything to what's available. The opinions that count are those of people who are collecting, recording, publishing, transcribing, performing or otherwise documenting, because they are building the archive--

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Azizi
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 01:37 PM

With all due respect, Susan, with regard to African American spirituals, there are a number of religous songs being written in the formats of {pre-emancipation African American} spirituals. However, these types of religious songs composed after the end of the 19th century, are usually categorized as gospels and not spirituals.

If the definition for folk songs is songs which have no known composers, and also songs whose words have been re-worked as a result of the folk process, newly African American religious songs which "sound like spirituals" would not fit that definition and thus would also not be considered folk songs.

Here are two video examples of newly created songs which I think "sound like spirituals" but are categorized [by their composers and other African Americans and other folk] as gospel songs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QyVPKbZzww
Byron Cage - "The Presence of The Lord Is Here"

and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on4nFUY8GEk&NR
Edwin Hawkin Singers-"Oh Happy Day"

And here is the lyrics of another song that seems to be written in as a spiritual:

SPIRIT OF DAVID {When The Spirit Of The Lord}
{Fred Hammond}

When the Spirit of the Lord comes upon my heart
I will dance like David danced
When the Spirit of the Lord comes upon my heart
I will dance like David danced

I will dance, dance, dance like David danced
I will dance, dance, dance like David danced

When the Spirit of the Lord comes upon my heart
I will pray like David prayed
When the Spirit of the Lord comes upon my heart
I will pray like David prayed

I will pray, pray, pray like David prayed
I will pray, pray, pray like David prayed

When the Spirit of the Lord comes upon my heart
[ Lyrics provided by www.mp3lyrics.org ]
I will sing like David sang
When the Spirit of the Lord comes upon my heart
I will sing like David sang

I will sing, I will sing, sing like David sang
I will sing, I will sing, sing like David sang
I will pray, I will pray, pray like David prayed
I will pray, I will pray, pray like David prayed
I will dance, I will dance, dance like David danced
I will dance, I will dance, dance like David danced

I will dance, I will dance, dance, dance
(Repeat)

-snip-

Here is that song as sung by the original group who recorded it but used as background to a youth group's dance group's video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZuKZyr54Eg&mode=related&search=

For contrast, here is the same song as it was sung during a Black church service:

When the Spirit of the Lord (Dance like David Danced)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQtYsaLpE4w&mode=related&search=

Note: that in the end of this video clip, the church slowed down the song's tempo and then eventually speeded it back up again and then slowed it down again a couple of times {changing tempos within a song is a custom that is used with many African American songs}.

These songs have known writers/composers, fixed words, fixed order of verses, and relatively fixed tune, and a relatively fixed tempo. This doesn't mean that no one is changing the order of verses or adding additional ones, or changing the tempo. However, fwiw, I wouldn't call these songs either spirituals or folk songs. I'd call them what their composers/writers calls them- contemporary gospel songs.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Azizi
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 01:53 PM

Jim Carrol, with regard to your comment:

Childrens' songs certainly have proved a rich source in the past, but I am not sure how much the one-to-one nature of mobile phone texting has affected the the communal communication that once went on in the schoolyard - I hope it still goes on.

Children are still creating rhymes. However, text messaging is definitely changing the way that children/youth write down the rhymes & cheers that they say and do. Transcriptions by children & youth of this material from their head to the Internet, shows a widespread pattern of using elements of short cut texting such as abbreviated words, and the use of letters and numbers in place of words {such as "b/c" for "because"; "u" for "you" and "4" for "for" or "four"}. What is also very common is the practice of writing lyrics in essay style with run on sentences and very little punctuation and capitalization or inconsistent use of punctuation and capitalization.

Here's an example from a message board page for children's rhymes:

brick wall waterfall girl u think u got it al but u dont i do so poof with the attitude poof i know karate i know kongfoo u mess with me ill use it on u bounce bounce goes the ball theres a baby cryin in the hall a couple bat hundreds of rat here comes mom screaming SCAT better run better hide so FREZE (then everyone frezes until theres only 1 person that hasnt moved

posted by ehren at April 8, 2004 http://blog.oftheoctopuses.com/000518.php

Also, see this comment that was posted with another example on that same website page:

( this is my version of the song ... plz dont take ne credit 4 it i made this part up myself so if you tell anyone about this verson b sure not to say u made it ) ... thanks .. i will give more comments & post more rymes & songs soon !

posted by Cassi at April 17, 2004

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 01:57 PM

Yes mted, so the performers opinions are as valid as the collectors.
One of the daftest definitions of traditional song I ever heard was this, traditional is everything before 1900 , after it is not .

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: GUEST,Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 03:25 PM

Here we go again.
There is, and has been fr a long time, a perfectly workable definition of the term folk song, that of the IFMC,- go and look it up. If you disagree with it, suggest changes, or even a new one.The fact that people choose to ignore it is really their problem.
Not wishing to promote the article wot I rote, but suggest you read my reply to Mike Yates' The Other Songs (entitled 'By Any Other Name' I think, on the Musical Traditions website.
Folkiedave is of course quite right; the question of definition is certainly not a new one.
Sminky wrote
"They never were. And neither am I. And neither should anyone else".
Surely whether people should be interested in defining folk song is purely a matter for themselves. I have occasionally been accused of being a member of the 'Folk Police' (nasty vaccuuous litle term that!), but I can't recall ever telling anybody what they should or should not be interested in.
Azizi, thanks for that information
Cap'n, as much as I enjoy our little set-to's, you quite often remind me of one of those wasps that find their way into the car around the end of October; do dozy to do any real damage, but irritating enough to become a regular pain in the arse. Please desist or I will be forced to turn you into a pillar of salt.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 04:07 PM

Jim,You remind me of the reason why I prefer to sing songs, rather than listen to people pontificate, endlessly about the unimportant.
In literary terms you are rather like a cross between Pooter,Gradgrind,and PoohBear.
Being The butt of your wit, is rather like being under attack from a dead Dodo.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 05:12 PM

Sorry to be a pain (well, I'm not sorry really!) but definitions ARE important. How on earth can we answer a question like "How much Folk Music is there?" if we don't know what folk music is?
I've never been happy with this idea that if you label/define something you somehow diminish it. Just as a 'non-folk' example of why this attitude is wrong, at this moment in history we appear to be losing thousands of species from the biosphere and not being able to identify/name them will contribute nothing, whatsoever, to saving them from extintion.

I also suspect that those who insist that there is no acceptable defintion of folk song/music (in the face of the highly authorative and convincing IFMC definition, for example) are guilty of mis-direction for their own purposes. In the Introduction to the new publication, 'The Folk Handbook' (Backbeat, 2007) Vic Gammon writes, "It [the post-war Folk Revival]also produced some unexpected spin-offs, including a whole group of comedians who honed their craft in folk clubs, ...". My belief is that people like these comedians benefited from the lack of widely accepted definitions within the Revival because folk clubs were the most accessible platform for their ambitions at the time. It was in their interest (and the interest of other ambitious but marginal performers) to spread the idea that "all music is folk music' and that, therefore, 'anything goes in a folk club'. Sadly, this pernicious myth lives on and is oft-repeated - all too often on this board ...

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: greg stephens
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 05:38 PM

Sminky: of course folk songs can be accompanied on an acoustic guitar(an instrument on which I play to earn my living, so I naturally agree). But it is a logical fallacy to say: because a folksong may be accompanied on an acoustic guitar, therefore a song accompanied on an acoustic guitar is a folk song.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 05:54 PM

I agree,.
however when pressed ,nobody on this forum was able to define it exactly,.
there were a number of grey areas,some people thought footballsongs were ,some didnt, etc.
However I do not accept that only unaccompanied songs should be sung,although I am quite happy to [and enjoy it] perform unaccompanied if that is what the organiser wants,neither do I think blues should be excluded.
Shimrod the point is,that within the terms folk club and folk festival,there are differences, Cropredy caters for a different audience than Whitby.
Might I also suggest that there was some benefit to folk clubs from folk comedians,They brought more bums on seats,some of those bums,learned to appreciate,serious folk music,in the same way Fairport brought young people in through electric folk,who later went on and developed as traditional style musicians.
The Spinners also brought a Lot of different people in.
I do not find the IFMC definition authoritative or convincing,nor do I believe anything goes.
The market generally sorts itself out[and the guest list gives a pretty good indication of what to expect ]for example you wouldnt see Bob Lewis or Dick Miles OR RonTaylor ,booked at Dartford folk club.,neither would you have seen WizzJones at Nottingham Traditional music club.
so why waste time on definitions,we can decide from looking at a guest list.
Jim Carroll ,I do find your information on WalterPardon interesting.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: greg stephens
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 05:55 PM

However any if us define folk does not of course affect the quality of the music of the world in any significant way. It is rather similar to the obvious fact(that not everybody has grasped) that whether or not I believe in the existence of God does not actually affect whether God exists or not.
   There is, however, one glaring exception to the above(as it applies to folk music). If an arts administrator controls the allocation of funding to folk music, or if a company controls what music is played on a folk radio programme, then the belief of the people concerned can directly affect the popularity of the music. And in those cases, these definitions are of great significance, as it means one person can improve or destroy someone else's livelihood.
   It is for this reason that the "meaning of folk" is not just an academic discussion.This finacial consideration gives many people a vested interest in enlarging, or changing, the category of "folk" so that includes themselves, but not others. As anyone can observe, this is currently diverting financial resources from old-definition trad folk to new definition singer-songwriters with guitars. Whether this is a good, a bad or a neutral thing is a matter of taste. It may be that the only sensible action would be the abolition of the earmarking of grants, airtime etc to certain categories of music.
    In the longterm these matters will be of little importance. There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will: and in this case, the name of the divinity is "the folk".

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 07:43 PM

Azizi, I think you missed and/or misunderstood my main point upthread.

I agree with your statement: newly African American religious songs which "sound like spirituals" would not fit that definition and thus would also not be considered folk songs.

It's possible that to understand my point, one would have to be a musician; I generally write from a musician's perspective, not a folklorist's.

~S~

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Azizi
Date: 11 Sep 07 - 09:42 PM

Susan, it's true that I'm not a musician and that I don't write from a musician's perspective. If I understood you correctly, thanks for the compliment that I write from a folklorist perspective.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Sep 07 - 03:12 AM

Greg,
While I agree totally with what you say, your statement begs one question - who are 'the folk'?
By and large, it is the people working within a discipline, artistic, scientific, whatever, who define the characteristics of that discipline, not the general populace.
'Cap'n said,
'Jim Carroll ,I do find your information on WalterPardon interesting.
Cap'n
While you have the ill manners to discuss me, what you think I am or believe on an open forum as if I wasn't there, I don't give a toss what you find of mine interesting.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 12 Sep 07 - 04:52 AM

"Might I also suggest that there was some benefit to folk clubs from folk comedians,They brought more bums on seats,some of those bums,learned to appreciate,serious folk music,in the same way Fairport brought young people in through electric folk,who later went on and developed as traditional style musicians."

Ah, Cap'n - the old 'trickle down theory' (combined with the 'arse education theory' - novel!) - I've never been very convinced by it myself. A competing theory might involve words like 'dilution' and 'marginalisation' (of folk/traditional music).

"It is for this reason that the "meaning of folk" is not just an academic discussion.This finacial consideration gives many people a vested interest in enlarging, or changing, the category of "folk" so that includes themselves, but not others."

Yes, Greg - exactly! Thank you for making this point so eloquently.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Sep 07 - 06:08 AM

Shimrod. I personally know people, my partner for one,who was introduced to folk music through Fairport Convention,and who became a very good player of traditional music,helping to run Dingles Folk club,Dancing and playing for New Esperance Morris, playing at many irish sessions and WHO is also featured on my latest cd. http://www.dickmiles.com

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Sep 07 - 06:23 AM

Jim Carroll,the folk as I understand it,is the general public.
The point of the radio ballads,was to illustrate the conditions through song of working class people,these people were part of the working class ,working class heroes.
Since you knew, Maccoll.perhaps youcould tell us,what was his idea,behind the radio ballads,you are not going to say, I hope, that it was intended for artists and scientists and those who characterise that discipline,and not for the general public.
you see this is where,more commercial groups like The Spinners,Fairport ThinLizzie,Horslips have succeeded,they have reached out beyond Folk enthusiasts and brought the general populace in [yes I can think of six people of my acquaintance ,who have found an interest in music this way].

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Mo the caller
Date: 12 Sep 07 - 08:11 AM

Someone, in a reply above which I can't find now, said

"for example you wouldnt see Bob Lewis or Dick Miles OR RonTaylor ,booked at Dartford folk club.,neither would you have seen WizzJones at Nottingham Traditional music club.
so why waste time on definitions,we can decide from looking at a guest list."

YES BUT......

I'm a folk dancer who goes to an occassional concert. I know what I like (Martin Carthy, Jim MaGeen, CHARM). But I don't know any of the names above. So the guest list is no help to me.
Definitions like "traditional" mean that I know what sort of thing I'm getting.
Not that I don't enjoy some recently written songs, but I wouldn't want to spend time at whole concert of them.

So back to my warhorse. People should be given as much information as possible (especially on Folk Festival Programmes). Those who are 'in the know' will know anyway. Those who don't know the kind of songs WLD sings or the kind of dance Hilary Herbert calls (challenging ones usually) need that information. I took my daughter and friend to Whitby this year and they found half of the programme unintelligible -"what is Playford, is it a concert, a dance or what?"

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Amos
Date: 12 Sep 07 - 09:19 AM

Well, it seems apparent, now that the dust has settled, that the answer is roughly eleven. Right? It's gotta be eleven.

A

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: GUEST,Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Sep 07 - 01:15 PM

Amos,
Thought it was seven (the answer to life, the universe and everything).
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Snuffy
Date: 12 Sep 07 - 01:25 PM

Or 42.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 12 Sep 07 - 01:52 PM

Most unusually Jim Carroll With whom I normally agree is not entirely correct on this occasion. The answer is indeed 42.

You can in fact find it here.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Sep 07 - 04:32 PM

Cap'n,
Not sure what the Radio Ballads have to do with it, while they drew from the tradition for their inspiration they were creations of three revivalists, MacColl, Parker and Seeger.
The term 'folk' was never intended to apply to everybody. The standard dictionary definition gives folk as a specific group or kind – ie 'city folk', and folk music as 'music and song originating among the common people of a nation or region and characterised by a tradition of oral transmission and usually anonymous authorship'.
William Thoms, an English antiquarian, first applied the term to 'primitive' culture in 1846.
The Funk and Wagnall Standard Dictionary of Folklore says, "How well it was received is attested by its immediate and continued use. The word has established itself in several languages as the generic term under which are included traditional institutions, beliefs, art, customs, stories, songs sayings and the like current among backward peoples or retained by the less cultured classes of more advanced peoples".   
A bit patronising – but there you go.
In 1954 The International Folk Music Council adopted the following definition of folk music based on Sharp's Some Conclusions:
'Folk music is the product of a musical tradition that has been evolved through the process of oral transmission. The factors that shape the tradition are: (i) continuity which links the present with the past; (ii) variation which springs from the creative impulse of the individual or the group; and (iii) selection by the community, which determines the form or forms in which the music survives.
The term can be applied to music that has been evolved from rudimentary beginnings by a community uninfluenced by popular and art music and it can likewise be applied to music which has originated with an individual composer and has subsequently been absorbed into the unwritten living tradition of a community.
The term does not cover composed popular music that has been taken over ready-made by a community and remains unchanged, for it is the re-fashioning and re-creation of the music by the community that gives it its folk character.'
Nowadays it's all academic as 'folk' culture has been replaced by a universal one which is more-or-less passively received rather than participated in. Folk music is now in the hands of a revival made up largely of outsiders who took it over and (hopefully) took responsibility for its well-being.
The above definitions are the ones we signed up for when we became involved in the revival and, as far as I'm concerned, any re-defintion has to be based on them.
It would be nice to think that people are queuing up round the block to get into our clubs, or buying our albums by the million, but it ain't like that unfortunately.
Jim Carroll
PS
Folkiedave; - What Adams didn't take into consideration was..... ah, sod it.
Sorry, meant to apologise for not including the Sheffield Carols in my list. I always think of them as a custom rather than songs, but that's not really fair.
We were there once many years ago (along with Tom Munnelly) and enjoyed it very much, but I have always worried that it would turn into a folkie event and spoil the local nature of it - hope this is not the case.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 12 Sep 07 - 05:39 PM

We were there once many years ago (along with Tom Munnelly) and enjoyed it very much, but I have always worried that it would turn into a folkie event and spoil the local nature of it - hope this is not the case.

Well I am a folkie and I've been going thirty+ years. A definition of a local used to be one who could get in at the back door before the pub doors opened and stayed afterwards after they called time. After a few years the local MP invited me in through the back door. So I suppose I am a local. Actually I can see a carolling pub from my house and when fitter I always walked there. It is certainly part of my tradition and I would honestly say the "local nature" is only changing the nicest possible way Jim.

Always a problem with such a high profile event, but I have been fortunate enough to see the tradition change in front of me. I can remember three songs added to the tradition - by determined locals - who for example having been introduced to "Portugal" at the various bi-ennial carols festivals. So they brought it into the repertoire by learning the words, persuading the organist to learn it etc. etc. And the lead singers tend not to be folkies and would not go to any other "folk" event apart from the carols. Some of the locals sing at hunt suppers and shepherds meets.

In addition I have seen the repertoire change in another way, - with a change of organist a song called Swaledale came into the repertoire because when asked to sing, Albert Broadhead sang his favourite song. You'll find it listed in the latest books as the Swaledale "Carol".

I can also see words of carols changing. And there are lots of carols rarely sung - some still being written etc. etc. etc. Carols at the less high profile places have been revived and have used their own local carols, Grenoside and Thorpe Hesley for example.

I would suggest it is a perfect example of your definition as listed above and thanks for that - it made me think a bit.

Of course all the locals are miserable bastards and don't bother welcoming people - so it ain't much fun anyway. They only have Euro-fizz on sale and they put the prices up charging strangers 0.50p extra if they recognise them. Food? You'll be lucky? Lager? Served warm. Crisps - well you can get them if the landlord remembered to go to the Cash and Carry. Wine? Well he opened a bottle last Xmas so it won't have gone off yet.

Don't bother coming - you wont enjoy it.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Sep 07 - 05:44 PM

Jim,perhaps you would answer my question anyway,who do you think Mccoll Parker and Seegers intended audience, were for the Radio Ballads.,and what do you think their purpose was in doing this production,do you think that they were only intending to broadcast to folk revivalists,or were they [as Ithink] aiming at a larger audience The general public aka the Folk.
These radio ballads although the creation of revivalists,in at least two instances,featured traditional singers Sam Larner [singing the fishing]and Belle and Sheila Stewart,Joe Heaney,Elisabeth and Jane Stewart[the travelling people]they were traditional singers,singing and talking about their lives,they were the ordinary folk,[ not revivalists although these are not some seperate breed],and I believe their intended audience was Joe Public as well as those already interested in Folk Music.
Sam larner, The Stewarts ,Joe Heaney are the folk,They are not artists scientists,and those characterised by this discipline[who you claimed earlier were the folk].
Finally you mentioned earlier I quote[Walter Pardon Family tradition died out sometime between the wars and his magnificent repertoire was the result of his own efforts in painstakingly reconstructing them].So he wasnt a traditional singer,any more than Bob Blake was?, did he or did he not learn his songs orally,or did he only learn some of them?,
However he made a conscious effort to revive them,that makes him also a revivalist.
It of course doesnt affect his singing ability,any more than it did BobBlakes[another excellent singer],It just shows how ludicrous this terminology revivalist and traditional singer is.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 12 Sep 07 - 07:53 PM

No, it isn't 'ludicrous'; the distinction is helpful if you know what you are talking about. The problem is when people insist on bandying about terms they clearly don't understand, and trying to base arguments on them without thinking the whole thing through first.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Sep 07 - 03:18 AM

Cap'n,
I'm sorry, I can't follow your question at all.
Of course the Radio Ballads were for anybody who would listen to them, but in realistic terms the audience they got was mainly the one that was also keyed into traditional song and, hopefully, some of the people from the communities dealt with, (miners, Travellers,etc) or those who had a particular interest in those communities.
This has nothing whatever to do with the subject in hand - that of defining folk-song.
Every Traditional singer we have met has increased their repertoire in some way or another, quite often the reason for this has been that our interest has prompted them to dig into their memories for half remembered songs and re-construct them. Fred Jordan had a number of songs he learned from new in order to build his repertoire for club performances.
Walter first heard his family's songs as a child, at harvest suppers or at Christmas parties. He filled gaps in songs from books (occasionally he had only ever known a few verses of some, (in some cases, so had his sources - his uncles or his parents). The only song he learned completely from new was 'Topman and The Afterguard' because he believed the version he heard in the army was too 'obscene' to sing in public.
A traditional singer is, as far as I'm concerned, somebody who has come from a background where the tradition was active, a revivalist is a singer who has taken the songs up as an outsider ( a bit simplistic, but it'll do for this hour of the morning.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 Sep 07 - 05:07 AM

Jim as far as I am concerned a traditional singer,is someone who has learnt his songs orally from his family or from his local environment.
If Walter Pardons family repertoire died out between the wars,and his repertoire was reconstructed painstakingly by Walter,[your words],he had to revive the songs,in the strict meaning of the words Walter was a Revivalist,his family songs had died out and he had to revive them.
To my way of thinking a traditional singer is someone who doesnt have to consciously revive a song.
I think what is more important is the calibre of the singer,Walter was a good singer ,so was Bob Blake,and here I would like to quote MikeYates[talking about Bob Blake]

"At the end of the day it doesn't really matter whether or not Bob Blake was a 'traditional singer'. Bob, I'm sure, was true to himself, and if a young, inexperienced song collector (i.e. me) was willing to impute a label onto Bob that, with hindsight, was probably inaccurate, then the egg is surely on my face! What really matters is the fact that Bob was a fine singer and luckily we did manage to record him singing some of the songs that he knew. Also, many people today want a world of certainties, a world where our every thought and desire can be seen in terms of black and white. But, of course, life is not like that and, kicking against this, we so often find ourselves suffering from the unsatisfactory nature of things. Bob Blake gave pleasure to many people by singing his songs. Singers like the Coppers, Bob Lewis and George Belton became his friends and accepted him as their equal. I'm glad that I met him and heard him sing, and, at the end of the day, that's what really matters to me.

Mike Yates - 8.8.06"
The above is from musical traditions.
Malcolm Douglas,I prefer Mike Yates,s take than yours .

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 13 Sep 07 - 10:27 AM

"To my way of thinking a traditional singer is someone who doesnt have to consciously revive a song."

There's a lot of patronising assumptions about traditional singers in that remark, Cap'n. Presumably you think of them as illiterate, apple-cheeked rustics who guilessly soaked up their songs at their mothers' knees (or something like that)? In fact my impression is that many traditional singers were highly intelligent men and women who learned their songs from a variety of sources (eg. family members, members of their own communities, people passing through their communities, broadsides and even books). I think that there may be a case to be made for seeing many traditional singers as amateur collectors who collected songs in order to build up their repertoires.

My view is that, in Britain at least, it is useful to categorise singers of tradtional songs under two broad categories:

(i) Traditional singers (who tended to be raised in a milieu in which the singing of traditional songs was relatively commonplace at some time in their lives and who learned their songs and singing styles from within that milieu).

(ii) Revival singers (who learned their songs during the post-War Revival. This was/is a traditional song singing milieu but it had/has no strong continuity with the past).

There are exceptions to these two broad categories (and Bob Blake may be one of them). There are also, of course, people who sing traditional songs which have been adapted to a classical music setting.

NONE OF THESE CATEGORIES TELL US ANYTHING, WHATSOEVER, ABOUT THE QUALITY OF THE SINGERS IN QUESTION!! Sorry to use capitals but this is a complete 'red herring' which you insist on raising in every one of your posts.

And there's no point in repeating the Mike Yate's quote ad-nauseum. That has been dealt with in another thread - which you started!

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 Sep 07 - 10:42 AM

Shimrod ,dont be presumptious,
Isee them as singers who learned their songs orally from their families or friends in their local community.
Jimmy MCbeath Jack Elliot[Birtley] BobRoberts, Harry Cox,all traditional singers from different backgrounds.
I have never mentioned apple cheeked rustics.you are presumptious and insulting.
some traditional singers were and are also part of the revival,Fred Jordan,Willie Scott,Bob Roberts,Harry Cox,BobLewis JeffWesley.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 13 Sep 07 - 12:09 PM

Cap'n,

I don't believe that I was being presumptious. It was you who talked about trad. singers not having to CONSCIOUSLY revive a song. The use of that word implies to me me that you think of them as in some way acting by instinct rather than design.

And I notice that you haven't addressed my point about you constantly confusing category and quality. Both traditional and revival singers can be brilliant or bad and speaking purely aesthetically it makes very little, if any , difference to which category a particular singer belongs.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 Sep 07 - 12:25 PM

Shimrod,you are being presumptious ,when you say Presumably you think of them as illiterate ,Apple cheeked Rustics,Presumably means youare making presumptions.
you are also associating rustics[people that live in the country] with being illiterate.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 13 Sep 07 - 04:40 PM

I see them as singers who learned their songs orally from their families or friends in their local community.

Are you saying what they sang was unimportant, so long they learnt it like that?

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 13 Sep 07 - 05:46 PM

Cap'n,

I expressed MY view of traditional singers as follows:

"In fact my impression is that many traditional singers were highly intelligent men and women who learned their songs from a variety of sources ..." (my post, 13 Sep 07 @ 10:27 am).

And I'm pretty certain that they did it CONSCIOUSLY and not in some sort of rustic, rural, mystical, ethnic trance.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Giant Folk Eyeball (inactive)
Date: 13 Sep 07 - 06:24 PM

QUOTE: "and not in some sort of rustic, rural, mystical, ethnic trance"...

Having said that, that's a state I'd quite like to find myself in!

Cheers

Nigel

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 13 Sep 07 - 08:32 PM

Dick:

You've quoted Mike Yates selectively and, I feel, misrepresent the point he was making by taking it out of context. That seems to be a habit of yours. However, it doesn't have anything to do with my earlier comments in any case. Perhaps you have confused me with somebody else? That wouldn't exactly be unprecedented, either.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 Sep 07 - 08:49 PM

Malcolm ,if you dont like it paste the whole article from musical traditions website.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 13 Sep 07 - 10:02 PM

Certainly not; that would be an infringement of copyright, and inexcusably discourteous.

On the subject of discourtesy, when you quote from others, you have a duty to ensure that you do not misrepresent them. This usually requires that you read and understand what they have said before trying to use them to support whatever argument you are trying to make. Perhaps you ought to try doing that. It might be a new experience for you, and I'm sure that you would find it educational.

Since you didn't bother to provide a proper reference, I should add that Mike's article can be read in its entirety at Musical Traditions:

Bob Blake and the re-invented self.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: The Sandman
Date: 14 Sep 07 - 08:52 AM

get Your glasses nitpicker.
I have already credited it as an article in musical traditions,with the author and the date.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 14 Sep 07 - 09:25 AM

Malcolm was complaining about you asking him to cut and paste the whole article. He was right and you were wrong.

Saying it is from musical traditions as you did without capital letters is meaningless. It is not a recognised form of citation - except possibly by you.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: The Sandman
Date: 14 Sep 07 - 11:03 AM

In my opinion it is not meaningless.
I am only wrong in your opinion,and that is because you have an axe to grind.,your opinion on this and other matters such as Glor na gael[where you really exposed your ignorance.]are of no interest to me.
I have drawn attention to the musical traditions site , I have credited Mike Yates,hopefully more people will read other articles there.
I have criticised EFDSS in the past.Malcolm is the librarian at CecilSharpHouse,you too are a member.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 14 Sep 07 - 11:20 AM

It is not ignorance and nor is it a matter of opinion it is simply a matter of capital letters. However punctuation and grammar are not your strongest points, so you probably are unaware of the difference. I refuse to waste my own time any further.

I have criticised EFDSS in the past.Malcolm is the librarian at CecilSharpHouse,you too are a member.

I am sure Malcolm Douglas - who lives in Sheffield and is a fiddle player and works for the Post Office - is delighted to be mistaken for the librarian at the RVWML at Cecil Sharp House.

Whether Malcolm Taylor OBE the librarian at the RVWML at Cecil Sharp House is equally delighted we can only guess.

Give up Captain - you are not very good at this.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Mary Humphreys
Date: 14 Sep 07 - 11:34 AM

You have the wrong Malcolm there, Dick.

Malcolm Taylor is the librarian at the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, based at C#House.
Mary.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: The Sandman
Date: 14 Sep 07 - 12:53 PM

Apologies,to both Malcolms.
Folkie Dave,the pot calling the kettle black,what was that about Glor na Gael ,Never organising music competitions.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 14 Sep 07 - 05:14 PM

Glor na nGael is a government-funded programme to support the Irish language. It may as I said do this in a number of ways - but it is a programme to support the Irish language. That's what it says on its website and I believe it. It does it by having a series of local committees.

If you say you judged music competitions I believe you did so - but they were local music competitions designed by local committees to raise money in all probability, or to raise the profile of the Irish language.

Why not offer them your £200.00? I am sure they would appreciate it and the EFDSS might then see what they missed.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: The Sandman
Date: 14 Sep 07 - 05:56 PM

no, again you show your ignorance,
The Glor na gael competitiions, I judged were not that,they involved people from the whole county[county Cork is the largest county]and were designed not to raise money,but to encourage Irish traditional music/song and the Irish language.
You have already insulted the organisers and the participants,by saying they probably organise beetle drives,[How Patronising and uninformed]
what you cant get in to your head is that Glor Na Gael,Comhaltas,and the GAA Scor[the last two organise national competitions]are responsible to a large extent for the extremely high standard of Irish song music and dance among children and teenagers.
Would you not like to see the children of England enjoying traditional music,and getting the satisfaction of acquiring musical skills,if you do then think about it,it may not be ideal but it works.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 14 Sep 07 - 06:34 PM

Every time I go to a folk festival I see children playing. Folk Arts England encourages them.

I said it was to raise money or to promote the Irish language.

Glad you agree with me. ..were designed not to raise money,but to encourage Irish traditional music/song and the Irish language

If the organisers of Clor na nGael believe I have insulted them let them get in contact with me Dick.

Dick you were the man who thought the highly respected fiddle player, author and post office worker - Malcolm Douglas, was the highly respected librarian at the RVWML - Malcolm Taylor.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 15 Sep 07 - 04:44 AM

I read this on another thread:

This forum bans (some) female protagonists for being overtly contentious. Please ban this silly captain person. He seems to bring out the worst in everyone with his obvious need for self-important confrontations. And his English/grammar/typing skills/coherence/argument diminishes as the whisky bottle empties.
Leave him alone - he might go away.

I am not in favour of bans. But I must agree with the last sentence.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: The Sandman
Date: 15 Sep 07 - 02:09 PM

There is still fresh material being collected,an international approach is healthy.Alan Lomax tried this approach successfully 30 to 40 years ago.The likelihood is the more remote an area,the more success you will have in finding it[but keepaway from the Borneo HeadHunters]
Dave,a lotof people on this forum[including yourself]have a nom de plume,I assumed Malcolm Douglas was a nom de plume,I have apologised.
You in your ignorance accused me of talking nonsense[the subject was did Glor na Gael organise music competitions]I pointed out to you that I had Judged at two such competitions ,so they do .
I gave my apology,I am still waiting for yours.

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 18 Sep 07 - 09:23 AM

A discussion about the song JOHN THE REVELATOR includes this excerpted post:

Subject: RE: ADD: John the Revelator ^^
From: WYSIWYG - PM
Date: 17 Sep 07 - 09:08 AM

This is an example of how a spiritual can pop out of the past. I can't know for sure if this IS one of those, but it illustrates the difficulty of "tracing" an "attributed" song. It also evinces the musician's approach of just DOING it and not worrying about the origin because (A) the song stands on its own and (B) because the singer's relationship with the origin is an internal experience (and (C) sometimes a mystical one).

When I songlead/teach a spiritual or a song styled as a spiritual, I start out (just like Son does in this video), singing both the call and the response parts and using body language to point up which is which. Where Son leaves off in this video (because it is, after all, a performance), I go on (because I am, after all, songleading) to get the people involved in the responses.

For a performer it's the whole, many-layered experience of the performance that matters. For me, when I songlead, it's about the whole experience of the interactivity. "Interactivity" (what a sterile term for a richly organic complexity) was one of the main thrusts of the spirituals, among the people who originated them.... In that interactivity I feel (organically) the privilege of being able to share at least that much with the originators.


Further support for this view (of likely spirituals-originating material popping into mainstream culture later) can be found in the work of the late JOE CARTER, especially in an interview that includes songs, persectives, and how he remembers learning spirituals through family memories (referenced in the African American Spirituals Permathread).

Additionally, an early variant noted upthread is from the same general time period as the The John and Ruby Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip (a Library of Congress collection also referenced in the African American Spirituals Permathread): The fieldnotes, prepared by John and Ruby Lomax during and shortly after their 1939 recording trip in the South, contain their itinerary, notes on the geography and culture of the regions visited, biographical and anecdotal information on some performers, historical and descriptive information on some recordings,excerpts from correspondence, lists of song titles, typed portions of song text, and handwritten song text. During that time period-- within the life span of former slaves-- a lot of songs were shifting out of memory and into the growing Black Gospel and Blues traditions. There are MANY songs first accepted in widestream culture as "blues" that have turned out, with later attributive detail added, to have been based on/extended textually from spirituals.

The Fort collection of that time period is further contemporaneous illustration.

My point is not that these can be "proved" as spirituals, but that an early recording or text date syaing otherwise does not DISPORIVE them as spiritualks, and that we, at this point in time, cannot know for sure because the genre defies rigid definition. To attempt to "definitively" say that any given song is not a spiritual or based heavily upon one textually and melodically is, IMO, revisionist and anachronistic and to rely on fragmentary "evidence" as though it is the whole story.

But we know, from thread after thread, in every kind of folk subgenre I can think of, that even when someone has written in their diary, "I wrote such and such today," there is often an earlier influence, source, or fragment involved that comes to light later. This can happen innocently or not innocently... there are examples of artists who have put a song into the record in some way, and claimed royalty rights by attaching their name-- this was not the same terrible plagiarism we might think of today, but fairly relaxed practice in the dawn of the popular recording industry.

Again, my point is just that we can never be sure we have the whole story on a folk song-- that's part of what MAKES it a folk song! And that therefore, we can never be sure we have them all.

~Susan

Subject: RE: How much Folk Music is there?
From: joseph
Date: 19 Sep 07 - 07:40 AM

There is so many folk songs in Ireland alone That it would take me five lifetimes to learn them all. not vwith standing all the English,Scottish ,American,etc.It's nigh impossible to say how much there is.