Does it matter what music is called?

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 03:31 PM

: What also concerns me in this conversation is what seems to be a link to ONE tradition -
: a tradition that starts with a British tradition and splinters toward cultures in the North
: America and elswhere, but it completely different from other cultures. To use a term such
: as "folk music" is perfectly acceptable to me if it includes music from the Balkans, Italy,
: Spain, China, Nigeria and other countries of the world - and the various regions and traditions
: in each.

Me too, because I'm quite happy to gove any of those a go. (Whereas I've already heard enough Dylanoid crap to know I never want to hear any more of it, whatever it might be called).

I already raised that issue, by asking what people knew of the way the word for "folk" is used in other cultures. The one I know most about is Turkish, where the word "halk" is used, if anything, MORE restrictively than the "1954" usage, while attracting a much larger audience than in the English-speaking world. Whereas singer-songwriter music independent of folk tradition, unlike the situation in English, DOES have a distinctive label - "özgün" - and virtually nobody gives a shit about it any more.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: glueman
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 03:26 PM

Having gone to a grammar school I know letters and stuff. Sometimes I gets irritable vowel syndrome. Actually folk, 1954 and living, foreign and domestic is overrepresented in my record collection. Which is where I prefer it, filed in a cover. Not hey nonny nonnying in close proximity while I think up excuses to be somewhere, anywhere else.
Fireside singalongs and story telling have been prematurely consigned to the bin, they still happen. The only telly in our house is the eldest son's and he's learning to give it up and listen to blues, hymns, gospel, northern soul, funk. Like most country boys his folk is electric rock but then he's ten and doesn't know any better. I also repeat the lies my mother taught me and still put coal on the fire. Oh yes, we're proper folkie, us. It didn't die on The Somme.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: M.Ted
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 03:13 PM

Here's a real traditional artist, STEFCHE STOJKOVSKI in addition to the wonderful music clips, there is a bio, which explains the means by which Stefche came to be considered a traditional folk musician.

It won't settle anything, but music is much more interesting than anything anyone ever has to say about music.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: TheSnail
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 02:10 PM

glueman

I should have said I don't visit the places anymore, 1973 being the last time I ventured into one.

Might suggest that you're not that well qualified to judge.

Have they changed much?

If you never go you'll never know. Actually, in 1973 I was going to well attended traditional clubs with competent residents and a strong guest list and that's what I'm doing now. Can't say it's been like that all the time in between though.

any traditional that needs a club to keep it going is no sort of common man tradition at all

You seem to have shifted your position there from saying that there is no folk happening in folk clubs to saying they shouldn't exist at all.. I'm afraid that young Jonny no longer ploughs by horse; they don't cut the corn with scythes and the milk maid has been replaced by the milking machine. On the other hand, we do have antibiotics, anaesthetics, piped water, decent sanitation....

That world has gone. Either let folk music go with it or keep it alive wherever you can. I don't see why the Folk Festival is any more or less a legitimate place to do that than the Folk Club.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 02:02 PM

That might be "grammar"?

What profession do you think I pursue?

And the smell is petrol.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: glueman
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 01:21 PM

Still the school teacher, eh Bridge? 'Userp' was a response to an earlier misspelling. Besides, I didn't think you still marked spelling and grammer as having any bearing in your profession? The whiff of the staff room pervades your posts Herr Bridge. Is that camphor or embalming fluid I smell?

"we're not the folk, and any new music we make is never going to be folk music".
You're wrong there Pip and as a quick shufty at any record store rack will confirm. As well as grossly outnumbered.

"Dontcha just love the logic?"
Ah, undone by a tense. I should have said I don't visit the places anymore, 1973 being the last time I ventured into one. Have they changed much? My issue with them - as I'm sure you're dying to know - is that any traditional that needs a club to keep it going is no sort of common man tradition at all and anyway they'd already been taken over by Ralph McTell and John Lennon clones. Festivals are more rewarding, you can chose who to listen to and when to go to the bar. In a club I'd be sat near a Santa lookalike with a tankard and halitosis droning on about some agrarian job he'd never had.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: TheSnail
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 12:55 PM

glueman

Folk is still happening, just not in folk clubs which is why I never visit the damned places.

Dontcha just love the logic?

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 12:55 PM

I really don't understand this Pip. It seems to come from a peculiar self-loathing combined with a search for some bucolic hearthfire.

I've explained what I think about three times in this thread alone, so I'm not sure why I'm bothering to try again, but here goes.

Live music is a specialised activity in this society. It wasn't always, but it is now. That's not bucolic fantasy or self-loathing, it's just the way history's turned out.

Obviously there are degrees: singing in a pub, playing tunes in someone's kitchen or getting a band together in a garage is a lot less specialised than getting your kicks at the Wigmore Hall - but it's still specialised. See how many pubs have a singaround going on and how many garages have bands in - on an average night it'd be one in what, 100? Live music made by ordinary people without making a big deal of it - because it's what you do, because it passes the time, because everyone's got a song in them - has basically died out in this society. Live music made by enthusiastic amateurs (and a few enthusiastic professionals) is great - I'm well into it, without any loathing whatever - but we're not the folk, and any new music we make is never going to be folk music.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 11:48 AM

I'll be more inclined to accept people as having something to contribute to a discussion about the meanings of words when they can spell "usurp".

Plainly, to those who can read, the 1954 definition is not culture-specific. Hence (apart from the issue of known authorship) most Delta Blues is American Folk music, while what the Coppers do is English Folk music, and more or less the same applies in respect of the Balkans, etc, and a wide range of African Folk music.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: glueman
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 11:30 AM

"We're singing, but we're not the folk."

I really don't understand this Pip. It seems to come from a peculiar self-loathing combined with a search for some bucolic hearthfire. Kids are making acoustic music together and delivering it to their friends. My Richard Thompson and John Martyn stuff is gathering decades of dust, unplayed, the Hank Williams still gets an occasional spin. Folk is still happening, just not in folk clubs which is why I never visit the damned places.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: mattkeen
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 11:25 AM

I must admit that prior to coming to the world of Mudcat, I thought "folk" was the broad winsome sort of acoustic stuff that has been mentioned (and assumed that the word had developed this meaning since its use in the 60's to mean "Dylan and Baez").

I stupidly used the term "traditional music" to describe the the music and song as performed by the Coppers or Scan Tester for example.

I also believe that you can, and in fact are almost duty bound to try, and add to this canon of music if you are a composing /creative musician working with this sort of material.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 11:21 AM

glueman - I used to. Then I started to get a bit tired of 'folk' nights that were 20% trad, 20% Richard Thompson/John Martyn/Hank Williams and 60% I-wish-I-could-be-Richard Thompson/John Martyn/Hank Williams. Then I started going to singarounds, which were 90% trad - and I found them much more enjoyable and, oddly enough, much more varied. At that point I began to feel that I'd been missing out.

Ron: I truly believe that our communities and traditions have evolved since 1954, and as the esteemed commmittee recognized, it is a "living tradition".

Do you sing while you work? Do your workmates? Do you sing at home to relax? When your friends or family want some music of an evening, do they suggest having a few songs?

The oral tradition - and the 1954 definition - is about communities and societies where people can, by and large, answer Yes to all four. Those conditions may still obtain in some parts of the world, but they certainly don't in Britain or the US. Folkies pass songs along, but that doesn't make us a community. We're singing, but we're not the folk.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 11:19 AM

Ron, perhaps I'm naive in thinking that there are two ways for folk music to evolve and expand: organically, in the Balkan/Home Counties analogy, but also as a very cynical and premeditated marketing tool. One I'm quite happy to accept, but the other is what makes me want to abandon the F word altogether.

Have a look at the link I provided up the page. Have you heard bands like Bat for Lashes? The Meeedja is telling us that we should now consider them folk music. Have a listen on Youtube. Tell me what you think. If that represents a "new meaning and an unexpected lease of life" for folk, how does the word have any meaning left at all? I'm not saying it isn't good music, but it's pop music. Why on earth cite it as the saviour of folk? Is folk really so desperate that it needs a salvation that has nothing at all to do with folk music?

By the way, the pejorative sense that you attributed to the word "folk" is more of an American phenomenon, I think. Every few months in the UK we seem to have some sort of new, trendy folk phenomenon.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Lord Batman's Kitchener
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 11:09 AM

So I went into two shops yesterday, first of all a greengrocers, I asked for some fruit. The rejoineder was;yes but what sort of fruit? Next I went into a record and CD shop and asked for some folk music.....well I'm sure you can guess the rest..

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 11:08 AM

"Does nobody else rejoice in the fact folk can mean a gloomy, home counties chick with a Martin and a Balkan shepherdess with the same lovelorn aspect?"

I agree with you 100% Glueman, but I have the feeling that others are not as inclusive. I'm afraid some consider it a country club.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: glueman
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 11:04 AM

Does nobody else rejoice in the fact folk can mean a gloomy, home counties chick with a Martin and a Balkan shepherdess with the same lovelorn aspect? It's a wonderfully inclusive term and I commend it to the 'ouse.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 10:56 AM

"To use a term such as "folk music" is perfectly acceptable to me if it includes music from the Balkans, Italy, Spain, China, Nigeria and other countries of the world - and the various regions and traditions in each."

Just to clarify the point I was trying to make here:

People have used the example of going into a store and looking for a CD under "folk music" and having an idea of what it contains. My point is that there are so many traditions at play that two words cannot give an accurate description, rendering that argument pointless.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Lowden Jameswright
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 10:56 AM

"I've been away at Ely "FOLK" festival and alas there was comparatively little English "FOLK" - but there was a very nice "guilty pleasures" session in the beer tent late Sunday night with a good range of 60s and 70s pop songs - in some cases in forms starting to show adaptation and possibly assimilation..." (R Bridge)

assimilation.... resistance is futile.....

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: glueman
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 10:52 AM

It's curious how the expansion of the word 'folk' is still spoken of as a new phenomenon that must be nipped in the bud lest it gets out of control. Userp? When does a word reach normacy? Is that userp in the sense that the Normans have userped 'our' culture?

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 10:50 AM

"It seems to me that unless you provide a viable alternative definition you throw our music to the media wolves (Time Out included) and let them decide what it is ."

Jim, the part I am having difficulty with in this discussion is the danger people like youself see in the term as applied to the style of contemporary music.

Even the 1954 "definition" as created by the international Folk Council has some wiggle room that is open to interpreation. They stated that the term "folk music" could be "applied to music which has originated with an individual composer and subsequently has been absorbed into the unwritten living tradition of a community."

I truly believe that our communities and traditions have evolved since 1954, and as the esteemed commmittee recognized, it is a "living tradition".

What also concerns me in this conversation is what seems to be a link to ONE tradition - a tradition that starts with a British tradition and splinters toward cultures in the North America and elswhere, but it completely different from other cultures. To use a term such as "folk music" is perfectly acceptable to me if it includes music from the Balkans, Italy, Spain, China, Nigeria and other countries of the world - and the various regions and traditions in each.

Perhaps I am wrong, but I get the impression that those of you who are arguing against the "looser" interpretation of the words "folk music" have a sterotyped image of a singular tradition.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 10:36 AM

Jim - I don't want a different definition; I want a different word. :)

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 10:28 AM

Ruth;
In a hurry (off to see 'Kung Fu Panda and see if he has any answers).
It seems to me that unless you provide a viable alternative definition you throw our music to the media wolves (Time Out included) and let them decide what it is . Lets face it; when have the media ever got it right? Sorry, - too important for that, I'll stick to what I know. If I was prepared to let others do my thinking for me I'd probably devote my life to Amy Winehouse and Madonna (now there's a thought!).
Are you equally prepared to accept the Grocer's apostrophe and geneology? (my spellcheck tells me no).
Another problem I omitted from my previous posting and have constantly been blanked on in the past; how do you propose to deal with the mix of public domain and copyrighted material - do we accept that 'folk' no longer falls under public domain, or are our composers happy to remove their name and any claim from their compositions as a gesture of goodwill?
More later.
"anything rejected by the folk police is liable to make it."
Thought we'd managed to avoid schoolyard invective in what so far has been a fascinating and civilised discussion - pity.

Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: glueman
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 10:08 AM

Your last point is well made mattkeen. Any form that uses a known name as the criterion of whether music is folk deserves to implode from nit-picking. A musician may have used a nickname or be known by something other than his given one which was common in rural communities. Does that validate his folk credentials by his identity being hidden? And can an author be included in what's loosely called the canon by virtue of insufficient research being performed into the song's authorship?

Then there's the issue of 'who are the folk?' Who indeed? A rag tag band of rural enthusiasts from the 1960s. Edwardian middle class music collectors with a temporal telescope? Some latter day self-appointed folk police? Victorian social hobbyists? Then there's the point about singer songwriters assuming the condition of traditional performer. Are they really trying to do that, to have their work changed by successive use? Are beleaguered record company execs trying to highjack folk, one of the most unpopular of popular forms and sneak it under the noses of folk's border control? I think we should be told!

Any folk festival that exclusively used 1954 definitions as a condition would be short of punters. Folk is a broad church as the Cambridge Folk Festival (a title that's yet to receive a legal challenge AFAIK) will attest.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Zen
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 10:03 AM

Apart from Chris Wood, is there anyone on the panel that strikes you as a leading voice on the folk scene? The sort of people who ought to be spearheading such a debate?

Barb Jungr was certainly a regular on the folk scene while back...

Zen

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 09:52 AM

Matt,
Please forget this one. Whether the composer is known or not is totally irrelevant.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 09:52 AM

Jim:


'Who "in the rest of the world" and to what has it been changed?'

I'm thinking of the vast, music-listening public beyond the "folk world". They are constantly being told that some new singer or band or phenomenon is folk music, and why should they argue? So anything acoustic is now folk. A lot of music that references late 60s psychedelia is thought of as a type of folk. Any music that is remotely rootsy falls within the folk category.


'Even if I were to allow a body as predatory and self-serving as 'the music industry' to change my concept of a music I am familiar with, whose interests would it serve to accept their definition (which is what)?'

I think, realistically, it doesn't matter whether we within the folk community accept these eternal definitions or not. What I'm trying to say is that the music industry communicates with many, many times more people than the relatively small folk community. As they persist in using "folk" as a catch-all term, it develops and evolves beyond whatever we might understand into something else, or many somethings else. And it becomes less and less useful as a descriptive term.


'The general populace has no conception of the term 'folk';'

I disagree, Jim. The term has been used a lot over the past 10 or 15 years to describe all sorts of music - just because the general populace's understanding of what folk is may be different from our definition doesn't mean their conception(s) is the one which will eventually die off. As I've said, there are lots more of them than there are of us.


"By accepting the singer-songwriters (or anybody who choses to describe themselves as 'folk') into the definition how then are we going to relate our music to the terms 'folklore' or 'folktales' or the hundreds of books which have been and are still being published under the banner 'folk'?"

Actually, this is clearly problematic. I kind of feelthat the use of 'folk' to describe music has become almost seperate as an entity from folklore, folk tales and folk art - largely because these entities have not been commodified within popular culture to anything like the same degree as folk music.


"On a more personal note, is any change going to make it easier for me to find the music I (or anybody) would like to go to a folk club and listen to occasionally? On the contrary - it would be accepting the mis-use of the term by making it meaningless."

I'm afraid I see this as a lost argument. We can't make people stop "mis-using" the word, and at the end of the day it doesn't belong to us.

"The only winners in all of this would be the usurpers of the term who have been largely responsible for the present mess the folk scene is at present and who, so far at least, haven't even bothered to produce a viable alternative (at present it seems to range from "whatever I choose to call 'folk' to 'anything that is presented at a folk club'."

Again, I'm not sure what you could do about this. The "userpers" will use the word and define folk however they choose. And this willcontinue to undermine the usefulness of 'folk' as a descriptive term for music.

Have a look at this:

Who Gives a Folk?

From the website above:
"In the last few years, however, a revival of English folk music has seen a plethora of new folk styles sprout up, from nu-folk to twisted folk, from Bat for Lashes to Tunng and even twindie, a new generation seems to be giving folk new meaning and an unexpected lease of life. Has folk finally left behind its parochial, twee image?"

IMHO, this event is a perfect example of the fact that we have no control over these debates. Apart from Chris Wood, is there anyone on the panel that strikes you as a leading voice on the folk scene? The sort of people who ought to be spearheading such a debate? I certainly don't think so...but look at how folk is being defined, and the sorts of bands being namechecked. Do they mean folk to you? They don't to me. But they do to other people. And they're a lot sexier and more media-friendly than the kind of stuff that you and I might define as folk. Moreover, the music you and I would describe as folk is written off here as parochial and twee. So how on earth do you fight it?

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 09:43 AM

"There are indeed vested interests who have have a very real reasojn to enlarge the definition of "folk" to involve contemporary acoustic/singer song writer music."

From a business standpoint, that would be ridiculous. "Folk" is a commercial "F" word, conjuring up impages of old men in flannels and grandmas in paisley dresses singing out of tune songs about whales or cowboys. If a singer-songwriter wanted to hitch onto a commercial trend, they would call themselves rock or alternative or country or new age or anything but folk. There is a terrible image of what "folk music" became, and the examples of bickering that goes on here reinforces reasons why outsiders look at the music a big joke. There is more harm done in the holier than thou attitude and indignation that goes on over what songs should be sung that you are burying the music you love out of selfish pride.

You are not wrong to consider the criteria of what constitutes a traditional "folk song", and what tradition that particular song belongs to - but when you create a country club attitude, you are slamming the door in the face of future generations. You will be remembered as the ones who killed the tradition.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: mattkeen
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 09:12 AM

Steve said: 'There is of course still the question of how anybody working now can add to the canon of material. Assuming that they are working identifiably within the traditional style.'

The only people who can decide whether something is or is not added to the folk 'canon' are the 'folk' themselves, whoever they are, certainly not the song writer or you or me. Where there is a strong lively oral tradition (soccer chants, playground songs) material is being added all the time but it is filtered subconsciously by the folk involved first.

If you mean added to the folk-scene canon then anything rejected by the folk police is liable to make it.


Largely because of technology, it is almost impossible for a composer to be "Anon." Assuming that all other factors are the same as (for example) the writer of a tune in 1620 that was then taken up by folks and has come to us now, does that mean that if the composer is named then the composition cannot be a folk tune/song?

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 09:10 AM

Ruth
"I think the nature of what the rest of the world considers to be folk music has been changed irrevocably by the music industry itself, which has commodified the term and changed it beyond all recognition."
Who "in the rest of the world" and to what has it been changed?
Even if I were to allow a body as predatory and self-serving as 'the music industry' to change my concept of a music I am familiar with, whose interests would it serve to accept their definition (which is what)?
The general populace has no conception of the term 'folk'; our failing is not to have managed to involved them in what we believe important - so where does "the rest of the world" come into it.   
Is re-defining the term going to put one more bum on one more seat?
By accepting the singer-songwriters (or anybody who choses to describe themselves as 'folk') into the definition how then are we going to relate our music to the terms 'folklore' or 'folktales' or the hundreds of books which have been and are still being published under the banner 'folk'?
On a more personal note, is any change going to make it easier for me to find the music I (or anybody) would like to go to a folk club and listen to occasionally? On the contrary - it would be accepting the mis-use of the term by making it meaningless.
The only winners in all of this would be the usurpers of the term who have been largely responsible for the present mess the folk scene is at present and who, so far at least, haven't even bothered to produce a viable alternative (at present it seems to range from "whatever I choose to call 'folk' to 'anything that is presented at a folk club'.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 08:43 AM

Well, well. How nice to see some others supporting the concept of a definition of folk music (one consistent with other academic uses) while not using it as a badge of quality.

I've been away at Ely "FOLK" festival and alas there was comparatively little English "FOLK" - but there was a very nice "guilty pleasures" session in the beer tent late Sunday night with a good range of 60s and 70s pop songs - in some cases in forms starting to show adaptation and possibly assimilation...

There was also some very fine squeezing at breakneck speed...

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 08:14 AM

Some quite intersting and thoughtful comments here.

I recall an anecdote which I think reinforces both Pip's definition and Glueman's query about 'Streets of London'. A few years ago, a singing session I was in was visited, and particpated in, by a perplexed singer-songwriter. We would say 'this is a Robert Burns song' (or whatever), and eventually he burst out 'don't you do anything except cover versions?'

Actually that was quite a good question. when does a cover version (of 'Streets' etc) become 'actually, no we are absorbing songs into an oral tradition and thereby passing them on as folk songs'? (Which is what we like to think we were doing).

I think it comes to what Pip said about there only being one way to play/hear Streets of London and what Jack C said earlier about guitarists learning verbatim tab. If we change the tempo, key, accompaniment sufficiently, we are starting a song off into the oral process (even if its something contemporary - I've heard a folk club version of David Gray's 'Babylon'). But, if I learn the tuning, fingering and Tab for say, Martin Simpson's arrangement of Polly on the Shore (which is a traditional folk song), I'm not really passing on an oral tradition if I play that arrangement exactly as written (if only...).

How does that sound?

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: TheSnail
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 08:11 AM

Assuming that they are working identifiably within the traditional style. Whose characteristics I belive to include use of narrative based on experience, modal based or modal sounding tunes etc etc.

From Richard Bridges essay on the Seth Lakeman thread -

Cecil Sharp wrote: "The majority of our English -folk times, say two~thirds, are in the major mode.

And if the Child ballads were based on experience... they led interesting (if short) lives.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 08:07 AM

Guest,

'There is of course still the question of how anybody working now can add to the canon of material. Assuming that they are working identifiably within the traditional style.'

The only people who can decide whether something is or is not added to the folk 'canon' are the 'folk' themselves, whoever they are, certainly not the song writer or you or me. Where there is a strong lively oral tradition (soccer chants, playground songs) material is being added all the time but it is filtered subconsciously by the folk involved first.

If you mean added to the folk-scene canon then anything rejected by the folk police is liable to make it.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 07:54 AM

Agreed Ruth


Thats largely why I prefer to use the term traditional for what many here call "folk"

There is of course still the question of how anybody working now can add to the canon of material. Assuming that they are working identifiably within the traditional style. Whose characteristics I belive to include use of narrative based on experience, modal based or modal sounding tunes etc etc.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: GUEST,B etsy at Work
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 05:23 AM

Who really gives a Folk ?

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 05:00 AM

I don't think it's just about singer/songwriters and others trying to find a label - I think the nature of what the rest of the world considers to be folk music has been changed irrevocably by the music industry itself, which has commodified the term and changed it beyond all recognition.

Unfortunately, Sony and HMV have a lot more clout than I do, and if they categorise certain artists or genres as "folk" (even with qualifying prefixes such as "nu" or "twisted" et al) the world believes them. It's a term we've lost, to all intents and purposes, as describing a specific type of music which conforms to certain parameters. And I don't feel it's one we're likely to get back - at least, not in any meaningful form.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: greg stephens
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 04:48 AM

There are indeed vested interests who have have a very real reasojn to enlarge the definition of "folk" to involve contemporary acoustic/singer song writer music. There are bodies who provide funding to maintain examples of traditional architecture for example, and similarly some art funding bodies have been induced by campaigning to help out the world of "folk" with some ring-fenced funding. And if there's a bit of money about, the supply and demand works in this as in any other field: naturally the number of people who want a slice of the money increases. So if the Arts Council coughs up some money to make films about folk, or some funds are avaiable to take folk into schools, suddenly there are more people who suddenly become "folk". A whole new world has quietly grown up in the last generation: I well remember when I had a phone call from a regional arts organisation ten or fifteen years ago, asking if I'd go into schools and help the kids write folk songs about the canal. No I would not, very emphatically. I've been writing songs for the theatre for years, and would happily work on song writing with kids, and I do. But no, I will not go and write "folk songs" with kids. Load of baloney. But, you see, there was special "folk money" in it!

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: glueman
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 03:51 AM

You're flapping Jim! Which oral tradition? Who are these common people? What makes them common and why are they no longer able to contribute?
I'm not hiding behind language, the proponents of those definitions are - they're wooly terms, comfortable, suggestive certainly but they don't stand up to scrutiny. Medieval song and their singers have nothing to do with 19th century ballads except in the minds of C20th folkies. By using them loosely they've lost the historical high ground and turned themselves into a cult with no more relevance than Mods and Rockers.

These threads are always about the same thing, a rearguard action to stop the word folk being used in an ongoing, creative, contemporary context. There is no legal framework to stop it's use, it's not a trademark so you've lost I'm afraid.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 03:13 AM

basically the definition remains unchanged - it just has a much broader interpretation than you wish to attribute to it

Horse feathers. No amount of interpretation can make the 54 definition fit contemporary singer-songwriters' work. More to the point, I don't understand why anyone would want to make it fit - or want to claim the word 'folk' for their own compositions.

glueman: where I depart is the idea that folk can have no present or future tense, that 'we are not the folk' and never can be because of the vicissitudes of recording. Human nature hasn't changed so we're left with a verbal abstraction

'Human nature' is a verbal abstraction - I'm talking about actual changes in the way people live The uniformity imposed by mechanical reproduction has been eroding the diversity of the oral tradition for a long time, going back to pianolas and mass-produced parlour songbooks. Ironically, the oral tradition finally gave up the ghost (in this country at least) at around the same time the Revival was really getting going.

We aren't the folk, and the folk aren't singing. We're singing - which is great, and I hope some of our own material will be good enough to stand the test of time. But it won't be folk music.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 02:47 AM

Glueman,
"'the common people' ..... meaningless".
Only if you choose to make it so - they are to be found in numerous books on social history on my shelves; several of which include them in the title
Oral tradition ....meaningless ..... balls!!!! - Ruth Finnegan, John Blacking et al roll over.
I find it interesting the way you feel free to dismiss existing definitions in the arbitrary way you do, then scurry behind 'masters degree' and 'courts of law' to bolster up your somewhat leaky point!
"contemporary society has already changed the definition of folk music"
Contemporary society has done no such thing, any attempts to change the existing definition have come from a small and dwindling group of singers motivated by personal taste and self interest who have been unable to find their own pot to piss in and want to use this one. Society in general doesn't give a toss - but they can always go to the dictionary should they change their minds.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 13 Jul 08 - 07:07 PM

I'm sorry you disagree Don, but I feel that contemporary society has already changed the definition of folk music - and the change can be traced back to the early days of the folk revival of the 1940's.   It does NOT include ANYTHING "they" want to include. It is more than just a "FEW" members of contemporary society who have worked to recognize the change. I think if you look hard enough, you will see that most people are comfortable with the way the words have evolved.

You are right though, because basically the definition remains unchanged - it just has a much broader interpretation than you wish to attribute to it.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Don Firth
Date: 13 Jul 08 - 06:49 PM

"Contemporary society has changed the definition of folk music."

Sorry, no cigar. A few members of contemporary society (some of whom have a vested interest in giving their work a legitimacy that they would not possess otherwise) would like to change the definition of folk music to something much looser, fuzzier, and more indefinite, so they can include anything they want to include, whether or not it meets any established criteria beyond their own wishes. But—until they get far more general agreement than they have now, the definition remains unchanged.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 13 Jul 08 - 05:44 PM

"At this time I interrupt the Don & Ron Show to point out that there's a difference between "getting" someone's point and buying the point."

I've been saying that all along.   I understand what Don is trying to say even though I don't buy his point.

There are a great many traditions that can fit Bill D's answer to the question I posed asking to Dick to share his definition of "folk music".    I completely agree with Bill D's answer, but - and here is where we diverge - I do consider that there is such an animal as a "new tradition" and "new community" and that common usage of the word "folk music" for contemporary singer-songerwriters will not cause the Earth to spin off it's axis or the planets to fall out of alignment - or even more important, IT WILL NOT HURT TRADITIONAL MUSIC.

The work Dick and Susan have done is amazing, and the Digital Tradition Database is a valuable resource that we are lucky to have. I am very happy that many of the contemporary singer-songwriters are included in the Digital Tradition Databse. No need to think up a new term, we all understand the differences between songs.

Contemporary society has changed the definition of folk music. No big deal.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Jul 08 - 05:17 PM

Ron..you ask Dick Greenhaus "Dick, can I ask you a question - what do you consider "folk music"?"

I do not presume to speak for him, but the DT database is a pretty good indication of his general view, I'd guess...*grin*.

It is VERY heavily oriented toward traditional music...with songs by known authors included when they seem to exhibit many of the characteristics of traditional music. I have argued for years that a working definition of folk/trad could be obtained by examining the DT, looking at all the songs which everyone would agree are 'folk', and asking what common characteristics such songs share.

Those criteria could be used when looking at a song about which there is doubt.
Yes, yes...of course there would still be gray areas and songs where there was disagreement whether it was "written mostly for commercial purposes" or whether it "had a melodic style too complex to be trad" or whether the subject matter was 'universal' or 'personal navel gazing'....etc.

   We'd still never get a perfect, universally agreed on list of NEW stuff...but the very exercise of EVALUATING the common characteristics of the OLD stuff would help un-muddy some points.

Dick & Susan have created a database that DOES show what the more 'picky' of us fossils think is a good starting place. To them...and to guys like me, it is 'almost' intuitive what should be listed in a 'folk' database. This database is one of a few 'lines in the sand' that help keep alive the very idea that there is a difference between 'folk' and 'faux pholk' that gets labeled because it's such a nice, short, convenient word.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: glueman
Date: 13 Jul 08 - 03:12 PM

A very good analysis Pip but I'd take one issue with it. Streets of London, a song I carry a particular antipathy for, is a folk song because it's generally spoken of as such. If we're going to be particular about language, then we must also be consistent and recognise terms like 'the common people' and 'oral tradition' are meaningless. They wouldn't stand up unaided in masters degree let alone a court of law.

My favoured position is closer to 1954 than many would give credit for but where I depart is the idea that folk can have no present or future tense, that 'we are not the folk' and never can be because of the vicissitudes of recording. Human nature hasn't changed so we're left with a verbal abstraction. The hard line/authentic definition has its merits but has created a popular image of folk music as anachronistic and of being of no more relevance to the common man than a breast plough. It's an activity like pretending to be a Napolionic foot soldier, quite possibly enjoyable but divorced from the realities than necessitated the job and mainly about fancy dress.

As I've said before, what people usually mean by folk is folk revival, the frozen moment, the historical snapshot which saw time compressed. It's illusory because it puts mid-Victorian sensibilities on a par with medieval ones while making it impossible for the current day to add its mark. Truly, most people don't give a flying **** about titles, they're just getting on with making music in the tradition.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Don Firth
Date: 13 Jul 08 - 02:39 PM

Excellent analysis, Pip!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 13 Jul 08 - 02:24 PM

glueman - let's take some examples. I learned the song "Fare thee well my dearest dear" from a version recorded by Shirley Collins. Shirley Collins learned it from a version written down by Ralph Vaughan Williams, and he learned it from somebody who sang it to him, in 1904. What's recognisably the same song, with variations, can be found on broadsides dating back to the seventeenth century. Obviously somebody wrote it - I don't think anyone here's claiming that traditional songs emerge fully-formed from the collective unconscious. What's important is that, some time in the eighteenth century, that song entered the oral tradition, and it was still being passed along orally when Vaughan Williams turned up with his notebook.

You can do something similar with a lot of traditional songs. "Pleasant and delightful" comes off a nineteenth-century broadside; "Sam Hall" was a music hall turn; "Rosebud in June" was written for a play (it was a show tune, in other words). Old pop songs, really - not chthonic outbreathings of the soul of the people. But they're still folk - it's how they've reached us that makes the difference. This is why Bert Lloyd cared enough to fake the attribution for "Reynardine" and "The recruited collier", and also why many people care that he did this.

But "Streets of London", say, isn't a folk song and never will be. The problem is that there's a single, readily-available answer to the question: "what should that sound like?" We know the right melody, the right chords and the right words, and if we want to know how it all fits together we can listen to the writer singing it. That's a huge change from the conditions that existed as recently as a hundred years ago. Oral transmission, as a primary route for handing songs along, is essentially dead; the universal availability of recorded and broadcast music killed it. Oral transmission within the community of folkies goes on to a small extent, but that's not a community so much as an optional, part-time network that's selected itself around a specialist activity. It's a fantastic activity and an important network, but it's not a community: we are not the folk.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Don Firth
Date: 13 Jul 08 - 02:11 PM

I'm ba-a-a-a-a-a-ack! Sorry about that, but I thought I'd look in from time to time and occasionally kibbitz as I lurk up here in the chandelier.

"At this time I interrupt the Don & Ron Show to point out that there's a difference between 'getting' someone's point and buying the point."

Well spotted, Uncle Dave!

As to the idea that if it were not for singer-songwriters adding to the repertoire, we soon wouldn't have anything to sing (colorfully and acrobatically described as disappearing "up our own backsides"), I have a working repertoire of a couple hundred songs (what I tend to call "folk songs," ones where the authors' names are not recorded in history and that have been around anywhere from several centuries to fairly recent times—along with several that I don't regard as folk songs, some of which are old and some new, where the author is known, and that are not generally sung except by professional singers), I know a couple hundred more that I would need to refresh because I haven't sung them for some time, and several thousand more in books and on records, tapes, or CDs that I would like to learn and sing, but I doubt that I will live long enough to absorb more than a small fraction of them.

And most of the singers of folk songs that I know personally, such as Bob (Deckman) Nelson, Nancy Quensé, Stewart (Stewart) Hendrickson, Mike (miken) Nelson, John Weiss, Judy Flenniken, and a couple dozen more, have repertoires as big as mine and are constantly learning new songs. Folk songs, by the strict, hard-nosed, academic definition. We know many of the same songs. But we each know many songs that the others don't. And we learn songs from each other (a la good old fashioned folk tradition), but there again, none of us will live long enough to learn all of each others' repertoires.

So I don't lose much sleep over the danger of running out of songs to sing!

Jim Carroll says, "I often wonder why many singer/songwriters are so desperate to label their compositions 'folk' especially as so many of them are in the forefront of those claiming that definitions are unimportant.

Perhaps if they removed their names from their songs and didn't copyright them they might make the grade..... but I won't hold my breath!"

I echo that wonderment.

(Okay, I'll crawl back up in the chandelier. For now.)

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 13 Jul 08 - 12:58 PM

If we don't have singer songwriters in Folk clubs we may as well disappear up our own backsides.

I couldn't agree less. The traditional repertoire is vast; there's enough there to keep any number of folkies going indefinitely.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Jul 08 - 10:52 AM

Folk songs are songs that were almost certainly made, but were definitely taken up, sung and adapted by 'the folk' (sorry - another dictionary definition) -ie the 'common' or 'ordinary' people. They acted not only as entertainment, but as reflections of the experiences, emotions and ideas of the people who made them and the communities that accepted and transmitted them. They were composed in such a universal manner as to not only circulate in the communities where the originated, but were taken up and adapted by other communities - hence 200 plus versions of Barbara Allen!!!)
It is this that makes them unique and underlines their importance.
The manner of their transmission and because those who made and transmitted them were almost certainly illiterate, they were virtually all anonymous compositions, or were so changed from their original forms (whatever that may have been) as to be untraceable; they became common property; this is what gives them their 'folkness'.
They are inseparable from their companion genres of folklore ('common' practice and belief) and folktales (the oral literature of the 'common' people).
Not only are folk songs anonymous, but there is no evidence that they were even started by one individual - we know of at least two which were begun by groups of people (one made by Irish Travellers and another by a group of fishermen in West Clare). On both occasions the singers we got them from were unable to remember who began to make them up in the first place (they remembered the incident but not the participants).
I often wonder why many singer/songwriters are so desperate to label their compositions 'folk' especially as so many of them are in the forefront of those claiming that definitions are unimportant.
Perhaps if they removed their names from their songs and didn't copyright them they migh make the grade..... but I won't hold my breath!
Jim Carroll
PS Schubert wrote songs and died - traditional??? Don't think so really.