Chords in Folk?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 May 08 - 10:08 AM

Tell you what - we agree.

The next time we hear someone singing the chords and leaving out the tune - he gets a smack in the mouth. No arguments. Its a betrayal of the tradition all right.

And I tell you something else, its those bloody augmented 7ths that get to me. They think they're SO superior, and really they're just chords. Common as muck notes cohabiting in intimate proximity with each other.

we don't need that sort of thing.

Next thing they produce triplets, and who's paying for it......

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 May 08 - 10:06 AM

Thanks M.Ted, I'll keep that in mind - one can always consult this thread, and it's links, now when short on culinary ideas! (And I learnt from Clarissa Dickson-Wright, the other day, that we in England have used the olive oil you mention since the Middle Ages.) My staple meal has changed slightly since publication - it's even simpler: A Bachelors' cup-a-soup goes into the pot, with baked beans and whatever vegetables were fresh at the local market (including iceberg lettuce, which I find much tastier when boiled in soup), plus toast.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 May 08 - 09:52 AM

Well..I did say that I'd probably enjoy that song both ways - but moreso with just the tune on the concertina, which I see as more trad. Let me put it another way, strictly hypothetically, if a pop/rock band was to come to me saying we could do some of those songs of yours in a rock-style, so join us - but you MUST learn to play chords on keyboards, not just your beloved top-line melody, then I would accept that, as the pop/rock style, and start learning more about them. BUT, prefering folk as I do, I keep working at the TUNES. Again, having read all on this thread, it's wrong to say English traditional music is ALL about the tune; but it's not wrong to say it's MOSTLY about the tune.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 20 May 08 - 09:45 AM

I actually like those food poems, WAV--but am surprised to find that you are a vegan, given your other seeming predispositions--at any rate, being ever inclined to make simple things more difficult, I suggest altering your recipe by first chopping your carrots and potatoes into small cubes, dicing the onions, then browning them in olive oil in your pot (call this recipe "the browning version")--then set aside--

Then, rather than canned lentils, simply boil some dried lentils in your pot--they cook very quickly, and add the potatoes and carrots. This will add a lot of flavor--

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 May 08 - 09:32 AM

Greg - Factitious is exactly what I meant. Thanks for pointing that out, although facetious does put a certain spin on things...

And, WAV - I didn't mean you personally, rather the movers & academics who study this shit & come up with the definitions, unless you see yourself in that role, which I don't suppose you do, although you might, which is fair enough. But whilst you can say what someone does is more traditional that what someone else does, that doesn't mean that it is more traditional. It might fit your personal factitious criteria, but beyond that it's all down to the performer to do what's right for them. I think once we accept that then we can all play nicely & appreciate that when it comes to folk, there are no rights and wrongs, just the music of what is.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: greg stephens
Date: 20 May 08 - 08:54 AM

Sedayne:"entirely facetious criteria"? Are they really? I quite like the idea, but did you perhaps mean factitious?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 May 08 - 08:47 AM

I did know that, Dick, so I'm not "entirely on the outside of the very thing they're observing" (Sedayne), and I stand by my last post.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 May 08 - 08:03 AM

no, I sing the melody and play the chords,the choice of chords creates the mood the use of a minor chord,for instance gives a feeling of sadness.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 May 08 - 08:01 AM

and that, I repeat, would be more traditional

Traditional is a construct, WAV - it has no objective existence outside of the minds of those who speculate on the likelihood of its existence. So something can't be more traditional according to a set of entirely facetious criteria devised for the purposes of a convenient taxonomy devised by those who are, out of necessity, entirely on the outside of the very thing they're observing.

we've got a shite gas oven and roasting has become a bit of a hit and miss affair

Sorry to hear this; having never cooked with gas before I was rather looking forward to it...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 May 08 - 07:33 AM

Do you also play it with just the top-line melody on the concertina, Dick?..frankly, I'd probably like both ways - but with just the top-line the most - and that, I repeat, would be more traditional. (As I say, I know little of chords but do have some idea of their link with mood - but that's all in the melody also, yes?)

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 May 08 - 07:22 AM

WAV,Last night I was playing and singing Willy of the Winesbury,the chord sequence really heightens the story,particularly the fact that the final chord is on the sub dominant,it gives a feeling of suspense,all this would be lost without chords.Dick Miles

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Stu
Date: 20 May 08 - 06:26 AM

Sedayne - the secret of good Yorkshires is hot fat in the roasting tin. Have a look at Delia's recipe and you'll get the knack. I have had problems with wilting in the middle but if the batter's fresh you can kiss goodbye to Aunt Bessies.

Anyway, partial though I am to a roast since we moved we've got a shite gas oven and roasting has become a bit of a hit and miss affair, so I fancy a decent curry for me tea.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 May 08 - 06:22 AM

Rapunzel's not so good with garlic so I tend to avoid it these days, but she might allow four strategically placed unpeeled cloves in the above roast which are removed and discarded prior to consumption.

As an erstwhile macrobiotic, I now happily eat anything from anywhere & yet somehow manage to absorb it into my own particular culturally idiomatic scheme of things; rather like using an Hungarian citera to accompany traditional British balladry.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: TheSnail
Date: 20 May 08 - 05:48 AM

Sedayne

courgettes? sweet-potato? Herbes de Provence?

This is getting downright multi-cultural. Good God Man! You'll be using garlic next.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 May 08 - 05:39 AM

Sounds good, WAV - but generally speaking food is always better roasted than boiled! Did you see my Porridge thread? Lots of choice stuff on there. I can't resist pointing out the typo of a thinly chopped union, although it does add a certain resonance somewhat reminiscent of Robert Wyatt's Soup Song:

There's a mushroom on my eyelid
There's a carrot down my back
I can see in the distance
A vast quantity of beans
To you I'm just a flavour
To make your soup taste nice
Oh my god here come the onions
And, I don't believe it, at least a pound of rice

There was a time when bacon sandwiches
Were everyone's favourite snack
I'm delicious when I'm crunchy
Even when I'm almost black
So why you make a soup with me
I just can't understand
It seems so bloody tasteless
Not to mention underhand

Now there's no hope of getting out of here
I can feel I'm going soft
Dirty waters soak my fibres
The whole saucepan's getting hot
So I may as well resign myself
Make friends with a few peas
But I just, I can't help hoping
a tummy ache will bring you to your knees...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 May 08 - 05:27 AM

That strikes a culinary chord, Sedayne, as the pics on M.Ted's (NOT M.D., sorry - I must of been thinking of those Managing Directors..?) link look good. May I...

Poem 93 of 230: ONE-POT COOKING

While living as a bachelor
    I've cooked in just one pot -
Cast iron with a wooden handle,
    It can hold quite a lot:

Slices of potato and carrot
    Are boiled a while,
Before a thinly chopped union
    Is mixed with the pile.

Then I drain off most of the water,
    Add canned lentils and beans,
Stir with spice and tomato sauce -
    To an end, it's a means.

Poem 206 of 230: MY DIET

Chasing breads, nuts, bananas,
    Red sauce, apples, sultanas,
Crackers, conserves, cucumbers,
    Pickles, porridge, pottages -

Lemon barley,
    Cocoa, coffee,
Or cups of tea.

From walkaboutsverse.741.com

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 May 08 - 05:09 AM

Rapunzel's job's far more important than mine, WAV - she's a full time health professional & still manages to sing, do gigs, attend singarounds & run a myspace page! As a mere storyteller, thus might I add house-husband to my CV, and proudly so, no matter how crap I am at it. And please note: this is my only discussion forum since getting locked out of Harvest Home owing to a technical glitch since we switched to Fire-Fox.

Regarding the roast, it's all in the preparation of course, or rather the lack of it. Here's the method:

One nice fat hen: dead, plucked, beheaded & otherwise prepared, preferable local, free range, but often pre-packed from a supermarket (just so the life & death of these poor little bastards haven't been entirely in vain)

A variety of vegetables, seasonal or otherwise: which out of necessity must include ingans (onions), parsnips, carrots, courgettes, leeks, sweet-potato, mushrooms, et al

Herbes de Provence.

Basically, the whole thing is roasted in the one tray - hen, vegetables & all, in an inch or so of water. Preparation time - five minutes tops, if that; the time it takes to turn the oven on & wash and chop the veg basically, although most them go in whole. Of course I might attend on it during the cooking - basting, adding the mushrooms at a later stage - but basically it looks after itself for the ninety minutes or so it's in the oven leaving me free to attend to my other duties.

For gravy I use Bisto and for Yorkshire's Aunt Bessies; never got the hang of Yorkshire's, but with Aunt Bessies I get perfect results every time. Actually, I regard this as a personal failing, perhaps even deserving of another thread.

Yorkshire's notwithstanding, the results are sublime - a roast fit for those who appreciate solid rusticity albeit from a post-modern neo-rural perspective; for those who yearn for the wholesome & the authentic; for those who eschew slick professionalism for the robust misrule of the singaround; for those to whom tradition is a continuity of purposeful ceremony; for those who seek communion thus manifest in the most mundane of culinary ritual; for those for whom the over-boiled bland segrated shite served up by our parents is no longer enough somehow...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 May 08 - 04:07 AM

I don't read magazines, M. Ted - but I often have the TV on whilst on the web job, etc., searching. I've never tried cooking a Sunday roast - the last time I sat for one was with my relatives, and there is a pub in Newcastle that does it (including a vegetarian version). For what it's worth, I'm mostly vegan but will have whatever is going when out-and-about which, yes M.D., is not too much these days, in order not to go bankrupt (3 singarounds the last week, mind!).
To Rapunzel - does Sedayne ever sleep?!...he has umpteen myspaces, dozens of recordings, gigs and attends folk-clubs, discussion forums, AND cooks you the Sunday roast!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Rapunzel
Date: 20 May 08 - 03:51 AM

I do know how to cook a roast - but frankly I have better things to do with my time and generally leave the cooking to Sedayne...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 19 May 08 - 09:46 PM

-WAV-I find it interesting that you found out that English women can't cook a roast by reading it in a magazine. Don't you know any English women?

At any rate there is no great trick to roasting--most anyone who is inclined can do it--depending, of course, on what you mean when you say "roast"--the most traditional roast would likely be deer or boar, spit-roasted--some consider a "Pot Roast" to be a traditional Sunday roast--it certainly is a traditional dish, but it is really a trimmed down version of the French Pot au Feu--

At any rate, far from being a dying tradition, there is a resurgence of interes in the roast, as evidenced here A Traditional English Sunday Roast You should get out more.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 19 May 08 - 05:40 PM

I used to get a Musicians' Channel via satellite, WLD, and did appreciate the make-it-sing skills of the electric-guitar tutor...and, frankly, if I was still in Aus., I'd probably still be into the likes of Crowded House (on my myspace Top Friends, if you want a listen). However, as repat., I practise English folk and hymns; and, to answer your other question, I try to sing folk a bit "earthy", by putting some air in my voice, or singing a tad nasally; and hymns more sweetly/more in my head-voice.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 May 08 - 05:34 PM

WAV ,have you considered joining the MUHAJADEEN.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 19 May 08 - 05:17 PM

well it ought to be generational. when you're an old fart like me - you're entitled to have a narrow mind and think anything that's abit challenging to listen to is crap.

At your age, you should be able to understand that rap music, jazz, Stockhausen, even banjos and bodhrans and heavy metal guitar, whatever has enagaged an awful lot of artists imagination and intelligence, and there is probably some substance there.

Don't rush to meet senility, it arrives soon enough. One day - you wake up and its biting your bum - don't jump into a breakfast roll for it.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 19 May 08 - 03:48 PM

No, frankly, Jim, and it's not a generational thing - I was in my late teens when rap first hit the airwaves: I didn't like it then, and I don't like it now. I quite liked your M.C. and Eliza selection?, mind.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Jim Moray
Date: 19 May 08 - 03:38 PM

"I (...) listen to folk radio, via satellite, from Scotland, Ireland, Wales, as well as the fraction of English folk we get from Mike Harding."

Did you listen this week and, if so, did you enjoy the english rap music I picked on the programme, WAV?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 19 May 08 - 03:35 PM

let me guess...which is it you claim to hold the undisputed heavyweight title to to defining.....?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 19 May 08 - 03:26 PM

There's folk-singing, there's bel canto, and there's "can belto" for those in the pop-pond, WLD.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 19 May 08 - 03:18 PM

I think we should take a stand. take your Uzi to the folk club.

The next creep who comes up with that C, F, G7 mallarkey give him a burst up the quarter inch jack on his electro acoustic.

Leave the body outside Cecil Sharp house with Bert Weedon's Play in a Day stuffed in their pockets signed, 'WE ARE THE MODAL CADENCES LIBERATION ARMY. We are nice middle class people, but you have pushed us too far. Seth Lakeman sings with the fishes.'

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 19 May 08 - 01:09 PM

Above, I at least tried to make clear my awareness that such problems did exist in the 1950s, e.g., Volgadon...but, overall, things are worse and, again, our politicians and media do tend to argue much more over possible solutions, rather than whether things have indeed gotten worse. And how does this link back to Chords in Folk? - only in so far as their increased use on our folk-scene is one minute example of loss of traditional ways.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 19 May 08 - 12:53 PM

How is women not knowing how to cook a roast detrimental to society?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the gin craze a whole lot earlier than the golden days of the drab 1950s?
I think you must have thick rose-coloured glasses to believe that in the 1950s most families were functional, or that nobody was a hooligan or abused substances. Granted that drugs werent that commonplace, but is alcohol somehow better?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 19 May 08 - 12:24 PM

I said, above, Joe, that I do watch documentaries and the news quite a lot, and I have seen more than one article on the loss of cooking skills I referred to above. As for your other two sentences, you've either deliberately or accidentally misunderstood me - and I said: "Briefly (and may I then just refer again to my above work)".

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Joe
Date: 19 May 08 - 11:41 AM

Since when was getting drunk, throwing stones at firemen and smashing up bus stops an aspect of American culture?

You have just made a list of things that are bad about our society, I think Sedayne was asking for an example - the loss of A ocurred because of B, which led to C.

The comment about young women cooking roast dinners - you are showing your true colours again.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 19 May 08 - 11:27 AM

Briefly (and may I then just refer again to my above work): the idea that the nuclear family was best for children and society alike - poem #88; firemen were definitely the good-guys of our society - not to be stoned; More-and-more English are singing/playing in an American style; it's harder-and-harder to find a tea-house - or any English-fare-type restaurant for that matter; a lot of our younger women can't cook the roast, apparently, frankly, sadly - poem #229; Why - Americanisation, and children being taught not just to appreciate but to practiSe aspects of other cultures, to the disadvantage of our own; and, finally, if kids are playing cricket with a tennis ball, or soccer, etc. till dusk, or learning to sketch/paint, or playing roll-a-penny, they are not getting drunk, smashing bus-stops, or throwing stones at firemen.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 19 May 08 - 10:40 AM

Please, WAV - be specific here. What values are being lost? What traditions are being lost? Why are we losing them? And how is it bad for our society?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 19 May 08 - 10:33 AM

I, too, don't like the imperialism (which included the use of concentration camps against Boers, e.g.) of SOME of our forebears; but, surely, that should not stop us from appreciating all the good things (traditions, values, etc.) of our past - that ARE being lost, which IS bad for our society and our future.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 19 May 08 - 09:33 AM

Actually, WAV, I would argue that there's been a decline in social standards; it is, after all, only ever a matter of spin & interpretation, and if given the choice of living back then or now I know which I'd choose. But then again, born as I was in 1961 and coming of age in the degenerate mid/late 1970s when flower-power was well & truly wilted & everything we did was in direct opposition to the old-guard reactionary imperialistic establishment that still held sway, maybe I'm part of the problem. Whatever the case, there is no going back to the dark days of England's land of hope & glory post-war day-dreaming, rather onwards to the glorious uncertainties of an as yet unspecified future, or no future after all...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 19 May 08 - 08:28 AM

Sedayne - I didn't copy/paste the first poem (as I sometimes do to save folks time) as it is one of my "shaped" poems; and I'd appreciate it if you respect the (C) on my life's work in future. Further, of course these same social problems occur through other times and places, but things ARE worse now than say 1950s England. And most would argue over the cause of the decline - NOT the fact that there HAS been a decline in social standards. A lot of TV, me?...I never watch tele-plays or "reality" TV but, yes, I do watch a fair amount of documentaries, tennis, news, and listen to folk radio, via satellite, from Scotland, Ireland, Wales, as well as the fraction of English folk we get from Mike Harding.
Joe - English folk is, of course, just a part of English culture; and I said "or ANY OTHER (nation)", above.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 19 May 08 - 07:55 AM

As I've said in poem #209, when people lose their own culture, society suffers - be it English, Aboriginal, or any other.

For the curious, here is WAV #209: PEOPLE LOSE

                   Where, through modern views,
                        Traditions fall-
                            Watch the news -
                               People
                               Lose.

For one who's so concerned about culture & tradition, WAV, you seem to spend a lot of time watching TV, which is, arguably, the single most significant factor in the loss of traditional culture there is. But I don't think that's too bad really; I only listen to folk when I'm at the folk club, the rest of the time I'm listening to anything but - jazz, hip-hop, dub reggae, drum & bass; hell, in the car yesterday we were listening to Dolly Parton's Halos & Horns, and what a damn fine record it is too, especially These Old Bones!

Anyhoo, reading on from WAV #209, we come across WAV #210: SOME-DESIGNERS' DIAPHANOUS ERRS

                     What will be next -
                        Catwalk models
                      Showing pussy
                        As well as breast?

Is this a personal wish, WAV? Because even from ancient times models have shown a lot of, erm, pussy, so I dare say it's simply a matter of waiting & seeing; after all, what goes around comes around.

And then there's WAV #211, perhaps my favourite of them all: AT FRONT LINES

I can't suckle a baby -
    God planned on some divisions;
Women are with war-weapons -
    We have fallen morally.

So God planned that did he? Nice to see he got it so terribly wrong as with everything else! Anyway, I like a woman in uniform, preferably one with a AK47 held to her bosom, thus deadlier than any male ever could be if only because of her instinctive / God-given maternalism & unwillingness to tolerate such paternalistic bullshit.

...and our society, sadly, HAS gone down - drugs, gun-crime, prostitution, broken-families, etc.

No, WAV, these things have always been there, just these days we entertain ourselves by watching them on TV so it just seems more prevalent. Drugs is cool (folk music without drugs? Can any of us take a singaround completely sober?); gun-crime has existed as long as we've had guns - I'm more concerned about knives to tell you the truth & we've had knives since the stone-age, prostitution likewise, and broken / dysfunctional families. Hell, what would the folk singing morris dancing social workers do without them? So - business as usual I'd say, and no amount of folk singing is going to change it; reflect upon it maybe. In fact, I've just this minute been singing I Was a Young Man, which is as choice a tale as familial dysfunction as you're ever likely to get...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Joe
Date: 19 May 08 - 07:47 AM

'and our society, sadly, HAS gone down - drugs, gun-crime, prostitution, broken-families, etc. '

So the perversion of English folk music has led to all this?

But seriously what relevance does that have to nationalism? 'Our society' is not just England, these problems affect many different nations. Such problems could be remedied if people recognised themselves as being part of a society, but introducing nationalistic identities also introduces exclusion, racism and hatred.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 19 May 08 - 07:19 AM

"when people lose their own culture"

Rubbish - 'Culture' is an evolving thing - Aust Aborigines now wear 'traditional' red loin cloths. They were first given these by the missionaries who were embarrassed that the natives were walking around naked. Now these garments are 'traditional' - with about 200 years documented history... :-P

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 19 May 08 - 07:12 AM

"A lot of what could be seen as icons of English culture is irrelevant to a lot of English people" (Joe)...and our society, sadly, HAS gone down - drugs, gun-crime, prostitution, broken-families, etc.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Joe
Date: 19 May 08 - 06:47 AM

No WAV!!!! Have you just ignored what has been written? The culture being referred to is not a national culture. A lot of what could be seen as icons of English culture is irrelevant to a lot of English people. Cultural boundaries and national boundaries are not the same thing.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 19 May 08 - 05:32 AM

As I've said in poem #209, when people lose their own culture, society suffers - be it English, Aboriginal, or any other.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 19 May 08 - 05:22 AM

But perhaps culture is essential; humans are not alone in creating and perpetuating culture within their societies as chimps, bonobos and cetaceans all have recognised cultures which have developed within their societies. Culture as an evolutionary trait?

I'm not suggesting culture isn't essential, just that it's maybe not worth killing & dying for when the fundamentals of actual existence are far more precious. Neither is it as ethnically & geographically absolute as WAV seems to be suggesting. No matter how culturally determined our experience of life's fundamentals might be, they do exist beyond the cultural frameworks they are themselves the wellsprings of, and are, therefore, common to all. Two people can meet from opposite ends of the planet, they might not be able to understand each others language or music, but they can still fuck, fall in love & and experience perfect happiness together. That, I think, is all that really matters.

I've never been too convinced by the idea of animal culture; I think perhaps this is anthropomorphism at its most wishful. Behavioural traits, no matter how complex, or diverse, or diverting, do not constitute culture, which depends on language & cognition which are uniquely human. Is this the old Nature / Nurture thing I wonder? I think I've been too long out here in the wilderness to tell!

As folk musicians don't we all feel like our music is part of a rich cultural tradition that far from being ephemeral is a living force within our own lives, part of our individual identity but also a response to a fundamental desire to belong and be accepted by our peers?

Once upon a time, and not so very long ago, I would have agreed with you unreservedly, but in recent months my faith has been shaken (see Folk vs Folk). However, I take heart from the fact that my main interest in music has always been as a free improviser with a vested interested in folk music (and something I might once have called The Tradition). I still scrape razor-shells and seal bones over the rusting antique clock-gongs drilled into the fretless finger board of my vintage Hofner Congress (thus creating some of filthiest noises you're ever likely to hear in the name of music), but therein I perceive an analogous level of beauty and continuity as I do to when I'm singing (say) Child #32 down at our local folk club, however so subjective that perception might be.

I also reflect that if I really wanted to belong and be accepted by my peers, chances are I'd be doing something else entirely!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 19 May 08 - 03:07 AM

"English is a bastard language to begin with, a child of many mothers and fathers."


A Polyglot.

I'm not making this up as I go along, you know .... unlike some... :-P

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Stu
Date: 19 May 08 - 02:27 AM

"In this sense, culture is just so much optional software, enriching perhaps, but hardly essential to the fabulous realities of our day-to-day living."

But perhaps culture is essential; humans are not alone in creating and perpetuating culture within their societies as chimps, bonobos and cetaceans all have recognised cultures which have developed within their societies. Culture as an evolutionary trait?

Does individuality transcend culture? I'm not so sure. In one sense it certainly does as we can choose to change our culture if we wish, but I still think we need to belong to some sort of cultural clade, whether it's influence is positive or negative.

As folk musicians don't we all feel like our music is part of a rich cultural tradition that far from being ephemeral is a living force within our own lives, part of our individual identity but also a response to a fundamental desire to belong and be accepted by our peers?

It might be worth starting another thread about this as we are drifting wide . . .

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 18 May 08 - 03:03 PM

I saw this quote in a posting "today's standard British-English spellings didn't becme standard until AFTER the colonization of North America, and that in regard to many of the words spelled differently on either side of the "pond," the US version accurately duplicates the 15th/16th century English usage that was brought across the sea, while today's UK spelling is of more recent vintage.
The following came to mind.

The Prodigal Tongue : dispatches from the future of English
by Mark Abley
to be published in the UK on 5th June 2008



Abley discusses at length how English, Japanese, French, Arabic and other major tongues–are likely to transform and be transformed by their speakers during the twenty-first century. Grammar and vocabulary are just the beginning. Language is not static, nor ever will be, and there is no one 'proper' way to speak it. Never was, never will be. English is a bastard language to begin with, a child of many mothers and fathers.

pre-order the book here

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 18 May 08 - 06:21 AM

That seems like a bit of a sweeping generalisation. Don't you think to a large degree it defines our humanity?

Informs maybe, but one would would hope our humanity is defined by something a good deal less ephemeral than mere culture. Individuality transcends culture, which at its most negatively persuasive is neither use nor ornament, especially in terms of nationhood. The bottom line is without human individuals culture cannot exist, therefore if culture becomes greater than human individualism then it's no longer of any use. In this sense, culture is just so much optional software, enriching perhaps, but hardly essential to the fabulous realities of our day-to-day living.

You don't have to be born at a place to experience this feeling, which early Celtic monks thought was "seeking their place of resurrection. . . they thought they were beneath that spot under the firmament that would one day lead them to heaven."

I was thinking yesterday about where & when I was born - not so much Preston Hospital, North Shields, 4.30pm 22 August 1961, but the point in the universe where the maternity ward of Preston Hospital passed through at 4.30pm on 22nd August 1961 as our solar system hurtled through the bewildering vastness of the cosmos. I would think that's where I was born, back there some place, a million million miles away by now...

Space is the place!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 17 May 08 - 11:10 PM

Yeah, thought we had finished off that Austrian House Painter years ago.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Stu
Date: 17 May 08 - 11:48 AM

Ah right. Ta.