English Folk - Peasants to Professors

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 11:37 AM

It wouldn't have mattered who "jumped in".
You were deliberately misrepresenting what large numbers of people, in threads passim over long weary time, have said.
Not clever and not funny, nor peasant-like nor professorial.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 11:46 AM

I see Richard Bridge is indulging in his epic length pretentiousness AGAIN! (Cecil B. DeMille must be so proud*LOL*)

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 11:46 AM

Backwoodsman, this thread was never going to be "an interesting discussion" because it was started in a spirit of shit-stirring. Plus ca change.

I found your abrasive and confrontational post equally depressing. So I guess we're even.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 11:47 AM

It's schoolgirl playground stuff Diane.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: glueman
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 11:48 AM

Business as usual in the ossuary then. Onedownmanship, the unplumbed depths of human nature over old songs with a side order of vanity and delirium tremens.
Not very edifying this folk business.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 11:48 AM

Gg, the first thing you learn in legal writing (and I do have a bit of a string of publications to my name) is that it is wise not to write things that are meaningless. The second is to try to be sure that what you have written means what you intended. You seem to fail on both counts.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: glueman
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 11:50 AM

See above.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 11:53 AM

Ruth, you and Princess Di are pissed-off with LC - I understand that. But the value of much of the real discussion has been detracted from by the hysterics and personal insults (both ways), which have no place here.

If people dislike one anther, fine. I understand that too - I'm not stupid and I've seen the stuff on other threads (and I've defended you when you were being attacked recently). But take the shrieking and rowing behind the bike-shed and slug it out there, in private.

Please ladies.

And yes Diane, don't bother. I know you're not a lady.

10-4 Good buddies.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:00 PM

I'm not going to argue with you, my late mother always said never to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person. It seems to me that you enjoy calling other people pretentious, but when the role is reversed, you can't deal with it.

There's a fairly old saying I'm familiar with...if you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:01 PM

WTF?

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:02 PM

Mudcat is apparently all about free speech. Don't like it, don't read it is the credo these days. People who only participate in a discussion to tell off the participants can be particularly tedious and smug. IMHO, of course.

I feel all of my responses in this thread have been perfectly measured and appropriate, which is more than I can say about the recent discussions in which the OP repeatedly attempted to put the boot into the festival where I work and an organisation with which I am associated. Yeah, you're right - it fuckin' stinks.

If you disagree, take it up with the management.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: glueman
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:12 PM

"If you disagree, take it up with the management."

Joe Offer doesn't get involved as you know on the not unreasonable basis that folkies 'eat their young.' Others provide the place settings and cutlery.

"People who only participate in a discussion to tell off the participants can be particularly tedious and smug."

Indeed.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: GUEST,Silas
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:14 PM

Does this post accept 'guest' posters?

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:16 PM

I'm neither middle-class nor a graduate, I'm a fresh enthusiast who sings and thinks that the history adds interest - and indeed respect to the songs originators. If it doesn't add interest for someone else, there's no reason to sweat it? No-one's forcing anyone to write a thesis. I don't know a lot about the songs I sing to be honest - I check out some of the information available and store the bits that interest me away, much gets lost too (but like Lizzie, I'm not a walking archive either). But where I do read stuff about them, I like to know it's at least right. And I don't expect a lengthy lecture at a singing session either. Though some brief conversational intro's are indeed most engaging. I do however think, that professional recording artists have a degree of responsibility, to ensure that they get whatever historical facts they choose to publish about the songs they record, as up to date as possible (because the public will trust it's correct). Same care shown with key details as you would any piece of publishing surely? Mistakes will of course always be made, but that's not a very good excuse for willfully perpetuating them IMO, or indeed abandoning the history altogether as irrelevant. I don't know where Lizzies's coming from in her assertions that 'professors stole it off the peasants'. This entire thread seems daft - maybe they're a nicer bunch now? There's an argument being made out of no argument, or so it seems to me! Like I said, Lizzie's style makes me bloody laugh sometimes. Though I do wish she could back off the academic bashing. I don't see what her justifications really are, except that they can be grumpy old men at times - though usually amongst themselves. Then again, that makes me laugh too...
What is this thread all about? I'm off to skin me a ferret pelt bikini.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:16 PM

Ruth, some of us read to learn. A lot of what I read is informative (much of it from both you and Princess D, AIH). That we don't post is not what matters, it's the content of what we read that's important. And much of the content of this and certain other threads is not by any stretch of the imagination 'discussion', intellectual or otherwise, it is simply public provocation, ranting and insult-hurling.

I'm fully aware that there are things 'going on' - it's deplorable that individuals feel the need to poke others with sharp sticks - I'm not taking sides, just asking those who want a punch-up to do it elsewhere so that those of us who want to read, learn, discuss, whatever, can do itb without the distraction of fishwifery and schoolgirl antics.

You, and others, give your opinions on this forum frequently, robustly and, at times, abrasively. It's equally my right to do the same. My comments aren't made in order to poke you or anyone else with another sharp stick. They are simply a request for order - made to everyone involved in this unseemly, petulant brou-ha-ha.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: GUEST,Silas
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:18 PM

It would appear that the OP has achieved her objective.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:20 PM

Rifleman, Gg spouts gibberish. The way to show it is gibberish is to take it apart. Your problem?

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:22 PM

Oh, and in case any other dimshits have not got it the point of my "arrest warrant" thread is to demonstrate that knowing the difference between folk music and other types does not prevent enjoyment of the other types, nor does it inhibit the folk process.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:23 PM

"I'm off to skin me a ferret pelt bikini."

I love it! :0)

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:27 PM

"of my "arrest warrant" thread " which despite my great sense of humour, really isn't very funny.
and now I've wasted far too much time on this...time to plan an actual gig rather than talk up one..ahhh..busy busy!

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Banjiman
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:32 PM

What Backwoodsman said at 12:16 PM. I'm with that.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:39 PM

Oh, hurrah! Sanctimony R Us! Talk about predictable - it's the Lincolnshire Heavy Mob!

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: glueman
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:46 PM

"(and I do have a bit of a string of publications to my name)"

Post of the Month?

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:48 PM

I've explained myself. Understand or don't understand. Your choice, not my problem.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Folkiedave
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:49 PM

most of their songs were "from the singing of" - in my naivety I assumed that they had indeed learnt them face to face, but further research revealed that they could only have learnt them from records.

If you learn a song from a recording - alter it, add or subtract some verses and you feel you ought to credit it to the source you started it from - what form of words could you use? Perhaps you don't feel it necessary to do so, and there is no problem with that. I think it is a generally recognised convention within folk music. I may be wrong.

"From the singing of....." sounds OK to me. It means I learnt it from a record - usually - but I may have altered it.

"I learnt this from....." implies face-to-face a totally different meaning.

Undoubtedly some people mix these up and interchange them. I can live with that.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:51 PM

Oh, and in case any other dimshits have not got it the point of my "arrest warrant" thread is to demonstrate that knowing the difference between folk music and other types does not prevent enjoyment of the other types, nor does it inhibit the folk process.

Indeed not - pedantry in all things however so benign the eclecticism. It's no less than we've come to expect. English folk - peasants to pedants...

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:54 PM

I've always understood that 'from the singing of.....' is intended to imply that, whilst the song was learned from the performance(s), either face-to-face or recorded, of a given artist, the artist was not the composer, or the composer is anon.

I could well be wrong - I appear to be wrong about most things at the moment. :-)

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:58 PM

Backwoodsman, go back through the thread. Read my contributions again. Then read those by others. There was abuse, there was name-calling. It wasn't by me. That's a presumption you've made.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Folkiedave
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 01:28 PM

telling someone their opinion is 'bollocks',

Since I was probably the first person to say on this thread that what she wrote was bollocks. would you be kind enough to place that into context?

In this and other threads Lizzie has made unsubstantiated statement after unsubstantiated statement about folk music. She has a history of it. She does it on the basis of non-existent evidence. This thread started with her "impression". She is perfectly entitled to her "impressions" but to publish them on a board like this which is for discussion of a particular genre of music I would have thought needs a certain amount of "rigour".

Here she is as the OP:

"I get the impression that Kate is regarded poorly by The Traditionalists because she dares to change the songs around, chop bits out here and there, add other bits.

Evidence for this impression? None.

I know of no-one else who says this about anyone who does that to songsMost singers do it with traditional songs. It makes them singable. I showed Lizzie where this was done with a couple of well-known books.

I also pointed out to Lizzie that the EFDSS magazine runs a feature about this and quoted a current example.

And I don't know who these "traditionalists" are. It is after all a name she has made up. I don't know who the Professors are either. She made a post about me being a member of the "Folk Police" on another board that was frankly libellous. It was taken down when I complained.

So what she writes is round spherical objects – unless she can back it up with evidence.

Here she is again:

"What I'm trying to say is that many people are put OFF the songs that once used to belong to them because of how serious it's all become."

Is she personally put off the songs? Actually no, she isn't – she tells us that constantly. So who are these "many people? I don't know and whilst I have never particularly looked for them I have never come across anyone who says anything remotely like that.

Round spherical objects again.

You could do this with virtually every single post she makes.

It isn't that she has opinions that people I and others disagree with. It is that she has opinions that are generally demonstrably wrong. What people do is point this out.

Or to put it another way, she talks bollocks.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: theleveller
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 03:25 PM

"I'm off to skin me a ferret pelt bikini. "

Now that's downright cruel - especially if you wear the furry side inside.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 03:34 PM

Time and again Lizzie starts threads purely with the intention of provoking a response or winding people up. She knows exactly what she's doing.

Time and again decent people who should know better fall for her game hook, line and sinker and contribute to escalating a minor irritation into a major event.

Time and again eminently sensible people like Joe Offer and Big Mick implore us to ignore provocative threads and refuse to rise to the bait.

Yet here we are up to 180-odd posts on the back of a few lines of nonsense!

Can I please, please implore that we let our better natures triumph and greet future threads like this with the silence they deserve? PLEASE...

That's all I have to say on the matter. Don't tell me any of you are actually enjoying this?

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: BB
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 03:46 PM

I'm seriously wondering whether I dare jump in here, but someone way up there on this thread (I think it was Glueman, but I can't now find it) said that they never use more than ten words to introduce a song.

I find that very sad. I'm not suggesting lectures, but conversationally toned intros. just putting songs in context is surely going to enhance an audience's enjoyment of the songs. Obviously too one picks where one does that - i.e. it needs to be somewhere where the audience is actually quiet enough to listen to the intros. - a (folk) club, concert or village hall - not a pub gig or anywhere where the audience couldn't give a damn.

And this doesn't just apply to 'folkie' audiences - it's been my experience in village hall gigs with not a folk enthusiast in sight. In fact, those are the very people who sometimes need the songs put in context, because they're not used to the genre, and it helps them to understand where these 'strange' songs are coming from.

And how do I know what they think? - because they've come and told me afterwards how much they've enjoyed the fact that we do tell them something about the songs - sometimes with the words, 'I didn't think I liked folk music, but ...'

No, introductions are not for all people, circumstances or venues, but they have their place, and with skilled introductions can make a real difference to people's perceptions.

Barbara

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Banjiman
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 04:23 PM

Barbara,

I think you have hit on a really interesting question around the best way to introduce songs that probably deserves a seperate, sensible thread..... fancy starting one?

Paul

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 04:40 PM

I have found that some musicians tend to introduce songs with a lecture or a sermon, generally they're preaching to the converted so to speak.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Gedi
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 05:03 PM

I second what Spleen said above. Time for a little decorum folks!

Ged

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: The Barden of England
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 05:25 PM

Looking more like 'Pedants to Professors' with each post. :o)
John Barden

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 03 Jun 09 - 03:13 AM

I promise I will NEVER even open a Lizzie Cornish thread EVER again, they are without exception started with one purpose in mind, so that people will talk about Lizzie Cornish, she craves and adores the attention, she doesn't care what is said as long as it is about her, for me, no more forever.

Dave H

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: GUEST,Mike Rogers
Date: 03 Jun 09 - 03:51 AM

SpleenCringe is absolutely 100 % right.

Don't feed the troll.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 03 Jun 09 - 04:03 AM

Thank God the Pissing-Contest appears to be over.
Amen DH.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 03 Jun 09 - 04:32 AM

"I promise I will NEVER even open a Lizzie Cornish thread EVER again, they are without exception started with one purpose in mind, so that people will talk about Lizzie Cornish, she craves and adores the attention, she doesn't care what is said as long as it is about her, for me, no more forever."

Excellent Dave, that's one less poster to abuse me from now on then. Thank you for finally bowing out.

Hey, do you recall though, that conversation we had, when I told you how upset I was, over having had my freedom of speech taken away on the BBC, by you and your mates, after years of constant abuse? Do you recall that you came back to me, saying 'Hey Lizzie, it's just a bit of fun, that's all.'...and do you recall how I told you that it had gone way beyond 'fun'. Write what you want to me 'in private'....but please, don't distort the views of those who may know nothing of what's been following me around for years.

This thread was...actually...started in exasperation over the pedantic ramblings concerning A.L. Lloyd, in Kate Rusby's thread...a thread which I started for no other reason than to pass a link on to others, should they want to watch it, because I happen to love Kate's music. I know that many others do as well, including many on Mudcat. But down came The Professors, who sucked out the joy and happiness in that thread. Fair enough, threads go like that, conversation goes of at tangents all the time, and there are always some things that come out of threads going off topic which always prove interesting...

But I started this thread because I am sick of the way certain people think they are the be all and end all of the folk world, and their condescending manner really gets up my nose at times. I started it to try and find out how it's happened and why.

Yes, of course it's interesting to hear the stories behind the songs, and...if you have the gift of telling the story in the right way, then much will be learned by many. I've spoken about how John Tams does this so brilliantly, above.

But just coming out with intense facts and dates, can actually, (for me at least) be really boring and a complete and utter turn off. Far more than that though, is the condescension involved by those who deem themselves The Professors, and feel it is their right to talk down to The Peasants.

It ain't.

Teaching is NOT about being condescending. Teaching is about an absolute willingness to share your knowledge, in an inspirational, uplifting and non-abusive manner....and as you can see, by much of the crap written in here...it is a gift that not everyone in the English folk world has.

As I've said before, I do NOT see this sort of reaction in the Australian, US and Canadian posters....They have the gift of simply seeming able to love the songs, never using the facts that lie behind them as weapons.

And someoe mentioned above about starting a new thread, leading off this one, about how people introduce songs. I think that's a wondeful idea, but of course, if I do it, the usual crap will start, so I hope that someone else may do that instead..

Good to hear that I won't have to endure any more of your verbal abuse though, Dave. That's really cheered me up. I thank you for that.

Lizzie

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 03 Jun 09 - 04:43 AM

"is the condescension involved by those who deem themselves The Professors, and feel it is their right to talk down to The Peasants.
"

The best way to avoid these people is to wear tin-foil under your hat.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 03 Jun 09 - 04:58 AM

First : what Ruth said supra, 2nd June at 0935.

Second : what Dave H said, 3rd June at 03.13.

I am with you, Dave H. The whole point of Mad Lizzie starting a thread is so she can get the attention which is patently absent otherwise in her life.

Sad. There are certain 'Catters, whose threads I give the go-by.

Mad Lizzie has just joined this exclusive sect.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 03 Jun 09 - 05:27 AM

If you can't see that folk is perceived through the historically valorised position of its enthusuasts to the detriment of other readings, nothing I say will convince you.

What's really amusing is that you're accusing other people of living in a "hermetic world".

Ahem. I was just going to say I agree with Bryn and Dave H and Ruth, but I got sidetracked. I'd better pledge not to respond to glueman for good measure.

Anyone want to start that 'introductions' thread?

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: GUEST,Mary Brennan
Date: 03 Jun 09 - 05:38 AM

What Bryn said!

Any thread that Lizzie gets involved in goes the same way: lots of twittering from Lizzie then she starts abusing people who try to discuss things with her.

I find Lizzie's whole attitude abuse very upsetting so I don't contribute much.

I just wondered why some of you call her the OP.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: GUEST,Mary Brennan
Date: 03 Jun 09 - 05:39 AM

Lizzie's attitude and abuse - of other posters.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 03 Jun 09 - 05:42 AM

While Lizzie can be infuriating, she is not always wrong. The Eliza Carthy thread for example was I think helpful to a number of people and pointed them to something they were happy to see. I did not and do not see the need for the spikiness pointed at LIzzie there. The Krusby thread itself is in a different position. Lizzie's posts there did get steadily more fanzine, but to some extent she was driven to it. What is not in order, it seems to me, regarding that thread is her winge about the attribution debate. Attribution is important. That is why for example modern authors have "moral rights" of attribution - the right to be identified as the author of a work. Also, given the nature of the difference between folk and other music, a scholar's deliberate falsification of his research is worthy of comment - and indeed the slipshod nature of modern documentary making deserved a baying mob.

On the other hand, this thread is based on a lie: that the "professors" have in some way stopped the "peasants" from participating in the peasants' heritage. They have not.




Unfortunately it is not always possible to avoid threads from people who annoy: the thread titles do not identify the OP until the thread has been opened.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Jack Campin
Date: 03 Jun 09 - 05:56 AM

I just wondered why some of you call her the OP.

"original poster", the person who started the thread in question.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: glueman
Date: 03 Jun 09 - 05:58 AM

Folk will get a real, honest to God, 3-dimensional appraisal one day soon, away from narcissists whose lives are so entangled with it they think three hundred years will disappear if they stop bitching for 3 seconds but it probably won't be on this board.

This board is for polishing your ego. It has almost nothing to do with folk music.

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: GUEST,Mary Brennan
Date: 03 Jun 09 - 06:11 AM

Durr!!!!!!!!

Thanks. I feel silly now!

Subject: RE: English Folk - Peasants to Professors
From: Folkiedave
Date: 03 Jun 09 - 06:37 AM

Lizzie is not always wrong and I simply avoid her too when she does not make unsubstantiated statements. As most people do.

As (orginally) a history teacher I dislike it when people get facts wrong. (Like stating black is a colour- mea culpa).

From your Kate Rusby thread:

"Kate's not frightened of chopping and changing traditional songs around, she readily admits that, and perhaps that's why she gets such strife from some folks in the pedantic English folk world, who demand that songs are sung the 'correct' way, 'their' way.

I know of no-one who says that about Kate, and the important thing is Lizzie - neither do you. I have never met in the past thirty years involvement in folk music who demand that people sing a song in a particular way. But all I ask is that you produce let's say two people who have said something vaguely like that.

Let me just take another example of how Lizzie turns things around to produce nonsense, this from her latest missive.

involved by those who deem themselves The Professors, and feel it is their right to talk down to The Peasants.

There isn't anyone who has deemed themselves "Professors" Lizzie, nor is there anyone who accepts the term "Peasant" about themselves that I can see - they were terms you alone and by yourself with no help from anyone came up with. But of course that was some days ago now and you have probably forgotten.

The only thing the English folk world is not accepting of, as far as I can see is people who write unsubstantiated nonsense. Or as I prefer to call it - bollocks.