Chords in Folk?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 22 May 08 - 04:54 AM

Thanks, M.Ted for the Dim Lights, Thick Smoke link, just the ticket first thing in the morning.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 22 May 08 - 03:28 AM

"This, of course, is not the first time that someone who discovered folk music (or anything else you can name) just two weeks ago leaps to the podium and condescends to explain it all to those who've been at it all their lives.

Sort of like a freshman back from his first quarter at college. He knows EVERYTHING and is more than eager to explain it all to his father and uncles, all who hold Ph.Ds.

Don Firth"

Presumably, this is where we get the term Sophomore (wise fool)?

It's not just the fact that WAV wishes to condescend to everyone on Mudcat. Note: someone suggested earlier that if he would actually sit back and listen to some of the points made here, he might learn something. But WAV is not here to LEARN. He is here to TEACH. And to pimp his risible "life's work" by providing as many links to it as possible. He has made it very clear that a ten-a-penny humanities degree and a few childhood tennis trophies make him the intellectual superior of everyone around him, and his website - a huge, onanistic homage to himself - serves to prove that he is, in his own mind, a great literary and musical talent. As many people as possible obviously need to be made aware of this...

But there are plenty of attention-seeking nutters on the internet. Myspace is certainly littered with them. Keeps them off the streets, I guess. The thing I really find objectionable is that WAV harnesses his very dubious monocultural politics to English traditional culture. Anyone reading his pronouncements on cultural isolationism, the role of women, homosexuality etc, and then sees that this person espouses English folk music as representative of his world view, is doing the tradition the worst kind of damage.

If it weren't for this, I'd say his self-important, barely literate ramblings were best ignored. I'm half inclined to believe that this is probably the case anyway.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Melissa
Date: 22 May 08 - 02:28 AM

I'd say that a good term for a song that NOBODY knows is "lost"?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 22 May 08 - 02:27 AM

No, I'm not saying that it's untraditional, but if nobody knows about it.... You are right, there isn't an overly complete definer.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Melissa
Date: 22 May 08 - 02:16 AM

There are still songs that haven't been "collected"
I don't care about nit-picking terminology, but if I DID care, I wouldn't like the idea of our old-old local music being considered non-traditional for having survived in an isolated pocket and passed by ear.

The idea of Trad=Collected is probably a good basic guideline but maybe not an overly complete categorical definer.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 22 May 08 - 01:51 AM

"GUEST,Volgadon
I still hold that traditional songs are those which were collected, be the author known or long-forgotten.
So a song doesn't become traditional until it's been collected? What were they before? "

Unknown. I'm sure many, many other songs were sung in the 'tradition' (I hate that term, can't think of a more convenient one) but if they weren't collected, or mentioned anywhere, how can we know about them?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 May 08 - 09:18 PM

Forget about the points for debate--and just listen--this is your "old time, down home, grassroots harmony" and if it's not exactly traditional, it's better.Dim Lights, Thick Smoke...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 May 08 - 08:19 PM

Cooking is a folkway--those who can stand the heat Washington in July know that the Smithsonian Folklife Festival always features both music and food from the areas of interest--this year, Bhutan and Texas-

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: TheSnail
Date: 21 May 08 - 07:39 PM

GUEST,Volgadon

I still hold that traditional songs are those which were collected, be the author known or long-forgotten.

So a song doesn't become traditional until it's been collected? What were they before?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 21 May 08 - 07:26 PM

and a fair number of people who can actually cook, as well--

I was feeling left out until I saw cooking might qualify me.

I can even make bread - I don't need that Warburtons stuff. Just get some flour produced at a local watermill and I'm away...








(of course I do need a breadmaking machine...)

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 May 08 - 07:06 PM

This, of course, is not the first time that someone who discovered folk music (or anything else you can name) just two weeks ago leaps to the podium and condescends to explain it all to those who've been at it all their lives.

Sort of like a freshman back from his first quarter at college. He knows EVERYTHING and is more than eager to explain it all to his father and uncles, all who hold Ph.Ds.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 May 08 - 06:32 PM

More TV! This is an example of what happens when a mind is fed a combination of television and instant soup-

WAV, are you aware that some of the people here are trained musicians, and many have been performing "folk music" for twenty, thirty, forty, years and more? Some are collectors who have done the kind of field work that you only imagine--There are songwriters, some of whose work is well known, academics of various other sorts, and a fair number of people who can actually cook, as well--

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 21 May 08 - 05:58 PM

would be flown into one's young gob as an aeroplane

As a kid, I'd make an entire aeroplane of a single stotty; actually two entire aeroplanes, Spitfires, one out of each half, sliced down the middle, and fried before adding the bacon & ketchup. Don't eat red meat at home these days, but this stirs in me a memory that might have to be revisited. Time I thawed out another stotty...

Warburton's sliced white is good with fish and chips (Pisces in Fleetwood; Christian's in North Shields; Seashells in Monkseaton...) but my favourite sliced loaf is Morrison's Sunflower & Pumpkin Seed.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 21 May 08 - 05:48 PM

He misses the point constantly, and deliberately (I swear). Songs, ditties, whatever ALL had a composer at some point, this sort of thing doesn't JUST appear out of thin air, we may have forgotten or never known the names of these people, but just because we have doesn't mean they never existed. Ye Gods!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 21 May 08 - 05:44 PM

No, Volgadon - for another e.g., when I've watched Classical TV, either the composer's name OR the word "traditional" comes onto the screen, if someone has done a classicised version of a folk-song with an unknown composer.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 21 May 08 - 05:31 PM

He's doing it again, twisting other people's words around to make it appear that they are agreeing with him.

To re-iterate. I've noted that Walkaboutsverse is very good at doing this, making it appear that a person is agreeing whole -heartedly with his (Walkaboutsverse) point of view, which, most assuredly, I do not.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 21 May 08 - 05:14 PM

Did I? That's news to me, as I was saying that I absolutely disagree with your assertion that 'traditional' excludes songs with a known author. I reluctantly used the term folk to reffer to songs with unkown authors, but that doesn't imply any agreement with you. I still hold that traditional songs are those which were collected, be the author known or long-forgotten.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 21 May 08 - 05:08 PM

"Anyway, I thought that traditional was more than just what we call by the strange name of 'folk' music, music without a known author." Volgadon - please surf back to this post of mine "Date: 21 May 08 - 12:56 PM; some seem to get most upset if they actually agree with me on something, but I'm afraid you just did...will you sleep tonight?!
That was it - soldiers "into soft boiled eggs" Sedayne; but sometimes they, with their yokie pilot, would be flown into one's young gob as an aeroplane, yes? Neither my local baker nor supermarket have stotties, sadly (at least they have Warbuton's sliced bread), but, whenever I'm in towm, I always get a couple from Gregg's.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 21 May 08 - 05:05 PM

And, whilst we're at it, don't forget to include the U.S. G.I.'s favorite (and someone has probably composed a song to memorialize it), creamed chipped beef on toast, alias S.O.S. Heinz or Worcestershire is very optional... If no one HAS composed such a piece, I see a whole new thread opening up.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 21 May 08 - 04:06 PM

red sauce is added

I'm guessing Heinz tomato sauce, right? Worcester Sauce might prove an interesting addition. Otherwise - seems like soldiers are universal, though we'd dip ours in soft boiled eggs. Of course, Gregg's stotty is perfect for this.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 21 May 08 - 03:50 PM

Lettuce, in soup???? Hardly traditional.... =))))
Anyway, I thought that traditional was more than just what we call by the strange name of 'folk' music, music without a known author.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 21 May 08 - 03:38 PM

Vegetable, Sedayne...prepared the usual way and then added to a pot with baked beans and, today, lettuce. From there it goes into a bowl to be dipped into with (as I knew them about 35 years ago) "soldiers" - toast cut into strips. Oh, yes, red sauce is added, just prior to that.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 21 May 08 - 03:23 PM

I've read this thread ad nauseum, trying to figure out exactly what point(s) Walkaboutsverse is attempting to make. For someone who allegedly has a university degree, Walkaboutsverse's research to back up his pronouncements appears to be absolutely non-existent. The onus is on you, Walkaboutsverse, to prove your theories, and not on the rest of us
Love the Wiley E. Coyote analogy hee, hee, hee

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 21 May 08 - 03:22 PM

Cinque cento you mean I think.

G

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 21 May 08 - 03:18 PM

D'oh!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 21 May 08 - 03:18 PM

400

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 21 May 08 - 03:17 PM

A Bachelors' cup-a-soup goes into the pot...

What flavour, WAV?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 May 08 - 03:12 PM

This matter has pretty well been argued since Sunday breakfast, but it remains that the idea that traditional and / or folk songs were never sung by traditional and / or folk singers with harmony or instrumental accompaniment is patently absurd.   Making a blanket statement like that is a bit like Wile E. Coyote walking off the edge of the cliff and confidently hanging there in mid-air. Until he looks down, realizes his situation, and plummets to the canyon floor. WAV, you just haven't looked down yet.

You're making an awful lot of unfounded pronouncements about the way things are and are not.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 21 May 08 - 03:10 PM

Don, I'll admit, I, at one point in my life, thought Hard Times was American trad. I love that song very much.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 21 May 08 - 03:08 PM

Walaboutsverse says, Dear Don, Def, and all: a song by Steven Foster is a Steven Foster song NOT a traditional song.

Alright; and your point is what exactly? I don't believe I personally ever mentioned Stephen Foster. Don's right about folk, it's not the be all and end all of trad.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 May 08 - 03:00 PM

And that's definite the whole world over, WAV? There are many knowledgeable people who would disagree with you on that.

"Folk" is not the be-all and end-all of things "traditional."

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 21 May 08 - 02:36 PM

Dear Don, Def, and all: a song by Steven Foster is a Steven Foster song NOT a traditional song.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 May 08 - 02:27 PM

Yes, indeed, Def (if I may be so informal as to call you by your first name), I have noticed that. Trying to get a point across to WAV is a bit like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall.

In the United States, and elsewhere, perhaps, considering the number of singers of folk songs in both the U. S. and the U. K. who sing and have recorded, say, Steven Foster's "Hard Times" and "Gentle Annie," the songs of Steven Foster are generally regarded as traditional. They are not, however, regarded by most people as folk songs.

Steven Foster's songs are essentially "parlor (or parlour) songs," which were intended to be and traditionally were accompanied by a piano. Or if the household couldn't afford a piano, often a parlor (or parlour) guitar.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 21 May 08 - 01:57 PM

Don Firth said,WAV, you're reinterpreting what I said so that it reflects what you want it to reflect:   your own viewpoint.

Don, I've noted that Walkaboutsverse is very good at doing this, making it appear that a person is agreeing whole -heartedly with his (Walkaboutsverse) point of view, which, most assuredly, I do not.

Walkaboutsverse, as to your query he/she, I am female and am of the age Sandy Denny would have been had she lived (I'll let you do the maths)which, I think, makes me somewhat older than you.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 May 08 - 01:23 PM

The fact that a song is or isn'"t traditional" is irrelevant to most listeners and singers--as evidenced by the fact that musical "traditions" regularly disappear--Amy Winehouse sings to the "Folk" of today--the "folk" of Sharp, Child, Grainger, et al, are long gone, and their music is a preserved relic--

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 21 May 08 - 12:56 PM

"Tradition" has different meanings in different contexts - indeed, I remember my anthropology lecturer telling us we should always put it in inverted commas. In poetry, e.g., these days, it tends to refer to the use of metre and/or rhyme (e.g., Walkaboutsverse). But, in music, it refers to a piece to which we do not know the author(s) - e.g., the 17 in my repertoire.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 21 May 08 - 12:49 PM

"Plenty of 'traditional' folk songs have known authors"...No, Volgadon, if they have known authors they are NOT traditional."

That is preposterous. I consider traditional as something collected. By your reasoning, if Joseph Taylor or Walter Pardon sang something by a known author, it isn't traditional?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 May 08 - 12:32 PM

"I said 'traditions exist due to folks being impressed by HOW (e.g. the unaccompanied singing of verses to tell of something, or the playing of a tune for dancers) their forebears did things', Don, so we are, in fact, agreeing here."

WAV, you're reinterpreting what I said so that it reflects what you want it to reflect:   your own viewpoint.

I was talking about being attracted to the total experience, and that included the instrumental accompaniment. When I first got actively interested in folk music, some of my initial purchases were recordings of singers I liked, a couple of song books, and a guitar. And what I did was not particularly unique.

The accompanying instrument was part of that total experience. And I repeat:   my interest was sparked not by my forebears, but my contemporaries.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,John from Kemsing
Date: 21 May 08 - 12:21 PM

Walkabouts,
            Surely every bit of prose, doggerel and song were, at one time composed, committed to memory or set down by an individual or more (e.g. broadsheets); these authors were, at the time, known to others. Did the material become trad. once the identities of the authors were lost in the mists of time?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 21 May 08 - 12:16 PM

Walkaboutsverse says (rather patronisingly) DS - on myspace, e.g., again, folk-rock is a separate category from folk, and in it you will find the likes of Steeleye Span. (oh and the short-lived band, Def Shepard ) Now tell me something I don't know, and my space?(I will always consider Liege & Lief to be folk.)and my space? My daughter refers to it, quite tellingly I might add, as My WasteofSpace

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 21 May 08 - 12:07 PM

"Plenty of 'traditional' folk songs have known authors"...No, Volgadon, if they have known authors they are NOT traditional.
DS - on myspace, e.g., again, folk-rock is a separate category from folk, and in it you will find the likes of Steeleye Span.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 21 May 08 - 11:57 AM

"To Volgadon - if you want to make the two main divisions of folk "Traditional Folk", and "Composer Folk" (rather than "Contemporary Folk"), I wouldn't cry over such spilt soya!"

Are you really not paying attention to what I'm saying? Plenty of 'traditional' folk songs have known authors. I would say that contemporary folk is better defined as contemporary, IE, of recent origins.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 21 May 08 - 11:51 AM

".and I thought you might have given something for DS to sing to as he/she knits...Scarborough Fair... "

Scarborough Fair. Now how stereotype is that? Dearie me! thank goodness I got beyond that years ago, if I ever knew the song in the first place

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 21 May 08 - 11:46 AM

Walkaboutsverse says, "Leige and Leaf" should not have been voted the BBC's most influential folk album of all time - as it is not a folk album. ..By that same token I don't play folk music (which I do) because I too use electric instruments, fiddle and mandolin, as I believe I've already stated. Liege & Lief has most certainly been influencial and if you don't like, well you're entitled to your opinion, I consider it a folk album, like it or nor
Oh and Guest MikeS (I do wish these 'guests' would log in, it does add courage tp their convictions), regarding my knitting capabilities, they're just fine, I have great dexterity.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 May 08 - 10:43 AM

Thanks for the posting the Kirk link, Sedayne--it definitely woke me up this morning! I should have figured you for a Kirk fan--seeing him again(because listening is not enough) brought back a lot--I'd forgotten about how effortlessly he could move back and forth between all those horns--wild music that makes you think--

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 21 May 08 - 10:08 AM

"Leige and Leaf" should not have been voted the BBC's most influential folk album of all time - as it is not a folk album.

In this respect we almost agree, WAV. Here's something I wrote about this & other related issues on Harvest Home forum back in September last year:

1) The condition of traditional song is perilous enough without subjecting them to any further interference. Treat them as listed buildings, the interiors and exteriors of which amount to irreplaceable national treasures all too vulnerable to the ravages of time and ill-advised DIY make-overs. What else is Liege and Leif but a sequence of tasteless, bland modernisations of some nice old characterful properties; the wattle & daub of the originals ripped out and replaced with mass produced breeze block and plaster board; sash windows replaced with UPVC and the open fires with flame-effect gas fires?

2) The problem is that there is a very definite cut off point between the cultural and social conditions in which the traditional songs arose, and that which exists now. We have lost the continuity in which these songs came into being and as such the only thing we should do with them is observe, and source, and delight in their myriad wonders.

In a nutshell, they are not ours to mess with in the first place - not in any way, shape or form - and God knows there is enough work still to be done (...) in simply learning and singing them with resorting to such underhand methods as addition and interpretation.

3) We lovers of traditional song are not so much the keepers of a tradition, rather the volunteer curators of a museum, entrusted with the preservation of a few precious, priceless and irreplaceable artefacts: hand-crafted tools we no longer know the names of (let alone what they were actually used for) ; hideous masks of woven cornstalks (which are invariably assumed to be pagan) ; and hoary cases of singular taxidermy wherein beasts long extinct are depicted in a natural habitat long since vanished.

Not only is such a museum a beacon for the naturally curious, it's a treasure in and of itself, an anachronism in age of instant (and invariable soulless) gratification, and as such under constant threat by those who want to see it revamped; cleaned up with computerised displays and interactive exhibits and brought into line with the rest of commodified cultural presently on offer.

But not only is this museum is our collective Pit-Rivers, it is a museum which, in itself, is just as much an artefact of a long-vanished era as the objects it contains. It is delicate, and crumbling, but those who truly love it wouldn't have it any other way - and quite rightly so.   

4) The point is that the traditional songs are already dead; they're as dead as the traditional singers that sang them and the traditional cultures to which they once belonged; they're as dead as fecking dodos the lot of them - but we must never forget...

As far as their adaptation goes... of course anyone can do anything they like with them; God knows I certainly have (though a good deal less so in recent years, m'lud) but to do so in the name of The Tradition shows a complete lack of both respect to and understanding of their cultural provenance which is pretty much the whole of the case.

One thing that's immediately apparent even in the most casual study of traditional song is the fluidity in which they once existed in their natural habitat, hence the innumerable versions and variations we know & love today. Traditional songs were shaped by the innumerable voices that sang them; passing them on via an oral tradition in which the songs evolved according to that mysterious process whereby the subjective idiosyncrasies of the individual singers interface with the objective cultural context of which they were part to create something truly wondrous.

This is primary paradise of tradition folk song; a veritable dream-time in which we find them scampering in the new-mown meadows of what some of us still perceive as an agrarian utopia, before the advent of chemicals and mechanisation. So along come the song collectors, recognising that these songs are part of a social context that even in the early years of the last century is beginning to look decidedly fragile, and they do their level best to preserve them.

Taxidermy is, alas, an imperfect science (as the recent research into the Dodo has shown), so what comes down to us in the collections tells us as much about the collectors as it does about the people they were collective from - the stuffers rather than the stuffed, as it were; because one does get the impression that these well-healed paternalists weren't altogether too concerned with the broader cultural condition of these grubby rustics whose precious repertoires they so hungrily plundered.

One finds the same thing in folklore; the paganisation we see today is the result of the self-same paternalism that was used to justify the evils of colonialism - it's there in the cultural condescension that would interpret any given folk custom as being somehow vestigial of something now long forgotten. For example, when the thoroughly aristocratic Lady Raglan first named her medieval ecclesiastical foliate-head a Green Man, she did so fully in the faith that the Jacks-in-the-Green (etc.) of British folk custom were survivals of pagan fertility rites quaintly perpetuated by an ignorant lower order of society unwittingly preserving as mere superstition an ancient belief system that they themselves couldn't possibly understand, either in terms of its true provenance or else its real meaning. That there is no real meaning is perhaps the ultimate irony; the medium is the message and their experience entirely empirical.   

To take the example of the wonderful Buy Broom Buzzems as recorded by Bruce & Stokoe in The Northumbrian Minstrelsy from the singing of Blind Willie Purvis of Newcastle-upon-Tyne; here they freely admit that they chose to omit several of Mr Purvis's verses because they considered them to be somehow extraneous to the sense of the song. What we wouldn't give to hear those extraneous verses now...

A L Lloyd did some sterling work of course, but as Nigel points out much of it was decidedly suspect; I cringe every time I hear Jack Orion (which is often sung unquestioningly as a traditional ballad) and his theories on the origin of Jazz as outlined in the introduction to The Penguin Book of English Folk song beggar belief, even by the standards of the time.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 21 May 08 - 09:52 AM

Via this theatre of "war", Folktheatre, it has been changed slightly - please use the link just above, and then goto Messages

But you still won't understand it, Folktheatre - owing to the fact that it can only operate via an appreciation of the highly specialised / subjective level of interpretation to which such a statement would make sense. Actually, I think this is what this thread is about more than anything - a quiet place in the universe where we might reflect upon the ephemeral actuality of whatever, whilst WAV perversely persists with his conclusions no matter how off the map they might be.

Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I endure.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 21 May 08 - 09:51 AM

I'd place trad. dance music in there but not the others you mention, Joe; thus, to me, "Leige and Leaf" should not have been voted the BBC's most influential folk album of all time - as it is not a folk album.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Joe
Date: 21 May 08 - 09:44 AM

"To Volgadon - if you want to make the two main divisions of folk "Traditional Folk", and "Composer Folk" (rather than "Contemporary Folk"), I wouldn't cry over such spilt soya!"

What about Folk rock, Disco Folk, Traditional Dance music, English Acoustic, Folk Metal, all the local variations, etc etc

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 21 May 08 - 09:38 AM

Via this theatre of "war", Folktheatre, it has been changed slightly - please use the link just above, and then goto Messages.