Singing with belief

Subject: RE: Singing with belief
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Jul 13 - 03:33 PM

"A folkie sings largely to wow an audience as part of a "performance."
Never met one of them - most people I know sing the songs because they love them enough to want to share them, nothing to do with "performance".
"with implied values which may or may not correspond to those of a modern singer and audience."
What makes traditional song accessible (IMO) is the universality and timelessness of the themes - love, injustice, anger, pride... it is this fact that moves both singer and (if it is done proficiently enough) audience and has made them last as long as they have.
There is a wonderful recording of Harry Cox singing 'Betsy the Serving Maid' (rich parents have poor girl deported to America to stop their son marrying her)
After Harry finishes the song he spits out "And that's what the buggers think of us" - complete contemporary identification with the theme and values of the song.
Same singer, after singing Van Diemans Land he goes into a diatribe about enclosures and land seizure - that's what I'm referring to as "belief".
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Singing with belief
From: Ron Davies
Date: 01 Jul 13 - 05:55 PM

If you restrict yourself to only songs you identify with, you will have little to sing.

I may well have been the person who made the remark which seems to have been the springboard for the thread.   Or perhaps not.

At any rate, as I--and others--have said before, singing often requires acting.

I'm relatively sure, to say the least,about the imaginary nature of hell but I'm not about to turn down the opportunity to sing the Verdi Requiem, belting out the hellfire and damnation parts with gusto.

And face it, even without roasting in hell, masses are hardcore Catholic theology--and very likely some of the most sublime music ever created.    I--and many other serious musicians, whether professional or just passionate--am completely convinced that religious music is in fact the best vocal music.    You can start with the fact that Tallis and Byrd , both Catholics in a Protestant country, are probably the height of choral music. So if you are unwilling to sing Catholic theology, you don't sing probably the best choral music ever.

So in my group we have Jewish singers, Protestants, agnostics, maybe some atheists, and no doubt some believers, all singing:    "Domine Deus, rex coelestis, Deus pater omnipotens, Domine flli unigenite Jesu Christe....qui tollis peccata mundi" etc. with complete conviction.    Since that is what the music calls for.    We are there to serve the music, not to editorialize.

If you can't put the message across, tell the story convincingly, or convey the emotions of the music, your performance will be lifeless. And the audience will know.

Whether or not you identify with a word of what you are saying.

Subject: RE: Singing with belief
From: TheSnail
Date: 01 Jul 13 - 05:56 PM

McGrath of Harlow

I don't hear anything in Dublin in the Rare Ould Times about a black immigrant being a menace to Irish womanhood.

I wondered whether to comment on this but I agree. I think Jack is rather missing the point of the song which is written from the point of view of someone who can't cope with change and progress. He says of himself -

My mind's too full of memories, too old to hear new chimes
I'm part of what was Dublin in the rare ould times

We may be meant to sympathise but not empathise. Peggy Dignan has a more adventurous outlook. The "student chap with a skin as black as coal" is rather more interesting than Sean Demspey.

Subject: RE: Singing with belief
From: GUEST,Musket sans Ian
Date: 01 Jul 13 - 06:18 PM

Jim.

Singing is for entertainment of the audience. It is performance.

Without that fact, the good work of yourself and others is consigned to intellectual interest of an ever decreasing circle of academics with no interest in the beauty of music, just the dissection of the history contained within.

Any deluded alternative to that statement would be narcissist to say the least.

Subject: RE: Singing with belief
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 01 Jul 13 - 07:11 PM

To respond to the above,

Yes, I wrote "The Middle Class Life Is the Best of All" as satire. Listen closely to the words and they have bite. But as with many of the songs I write, I also tried to live in the skin of a booster of middle class life for just about three minutes. That was about the max I could manage.

I was tickled when my good friend Ed Trickett picked it up and sang it.

For some hearers, however, I can imagine the satire didn't come through. It's a funny thing about songs, once you set them afloat, they take on a life of their own, which may not be what you intended.

Bob

Subject: RE: Singing with belief
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 01 Jul 13 - 07:26 PM

Another point raised above: "a folkie sings to wow an audience with a performance" — Jeepers! That's poles apart from the widespread feeling among real traditional singers, who had a way of inhabiting the song when they sang it, consciously remaining in the background themselves to let the song flow through them. Texas Gladden was mentioned ... she's a good example of this.

Naturally not all traditional singers took this viewpoint, but few were showmen/showwomen. For one thing they largely did not "perform," so they didn't sing as a performance. Their singing was private, for themselves or their family and friends. It was fairly restrained by modern standards ... had little of the performance about it at all.

In fact that's the one thing that differentiates the modern "folkie" from the traditional singer, who largely did not sing for effect. No shortage of ego in many traditional singers (Gladden had her share)! But when they sang, the ego tended to sink to the background; the song tended to take over and shine on its own.

I may be criticized for taking a romanticized view. But let me assure you, I've known traditional singers and read of and heard many others, and this "inward" view of a song was pretty common while the traditional people were still a force. "Plugging" a song, copping an attitude with it, was very unusual.

For myself, I find the traditional approach very congenial. I try to let the song sing itself, no nods, no winks, no grandstanding. It's just me in the background letting the song be the star.

Not that I've succeeded all the time, but that's my aim. There are some folkies around still who I think take that approach; more power to them.   Bob

Subject: RE: Singing with belief
From: Janie
Date: 01 Jul 13 - 08:45 PM

Good distinction, guestST. You hit the nail on the head, at least for me.

Unlike Pete, when I sing religious music, I am not singing from a place of religious conviction or belief, but am singing from a place of emotional conviction from the awareness of of the human imperative toward the "will for meaning," as Viktor Frankl put it.

Musket, I understand that many of these above the line threads are generally considered the territory of performers, and so I mostly stay out of them. But rest assured that many, many, many people throughout the world sing to sing and for the joy or solace or connectedness it brings - in the shower, in the car, on the porch, alone late at night, or over the grave of a long-buried loved one - no ears to hear other than the singer's own. Singing is not the strict provenance of the performer.

Music is sound. Sound is universal. Music is universal.

Subject: RE: Singing with belief
From: Janie
Date: 01 Jul 13 - 08:52 PM

Bob, I recently ran across a Utah Phillips quote at the end of youtube video, which I can't find now, in which he appears to be expressing the same sentiment. Write a song and put it out there, and then it has a life of it's own. I don't think he objected to that and don't think I am hearing that you do either.

Subject: RE: Singing with belief
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Jul 13 - 09:33 PM

'Change and progress' - not necessarily the same thing. Some changes are indeed for the better, some are very much for the worse.

But that's continuing drift of the thread that doesn't really belong here.

There's big difference between not sharing a belief and opposing it, and different meanings of belief. There's a sense in which I strongly believe in Father Christmas. There's a sense in which I believe in a just society. But I don't expect to see either of those as I go around.

Subject: RE: Singing with belief
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 01 Jul 13 - 09:41 PM

I frequently disagree with the words and/or ideology of a song I( sing; I always believe in the song.

Subject: RE: Singing with belief
From: Joe Offer
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 02:20 AM

So, Bob Coltman, how could we get a chance to hear "Middle Class Life"?

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Singing with belief
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 03:00 AM

"Singing is for entertainment of the audience. It is performance."
For you, obviously.
I suggest you read what Bob Coltman wrote - he sums it up far better than I could.
The thirty odd years we spent recording traditional singers, talking to them and putting what they had to say to the acid test and comparing what we found with the work of others, then archiving our recordings and findings so that they would be accessible for the future really was a waste of our time. We really should have stuck to the red noses and baggy trousers.
Sorry Musket, I suggest you stick stick with what you know (or don't know).
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Singing with belief
From: GUEST,Musket sans Ian
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 04:27 AM

What I do know is that singing is enjoyable but to forget that it is entertainment is to miss the point of the concept.   It puts thought, views and stories into an easy to remember enjoyable abstract but without the impetus of others enjoying it, it becomes using, not enjoying music.

And that would be sad.




Let's be honest for once. How many of us, in singaround style folk evenings measure our beer glass emptying to be conveniently empty (by coincidence of course) when a retired social worker gets a book out and dirges on about Reed cutting in Norfolk? I have a healthy regard for someone wishing to entertain but if it is just the relaying of traditional story, the book they are reading from supplies the medium, not the excuse to go to the bar.

Subject: RE: Singing with belief
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 06:01 AM

Are you for real M?
Wonder where you got your traditional songs (do you sing them)?
Not one traditional song in the repertoire hasn't passed through the hands of a collector or researcher at one time or another.
Sorry - don't handle trolls too well.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Singing with belief
From: GUEST,Musket being confused
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 07:02 AM

Well if that floats your boat Mr Carroll, then fine but

1. Collecting and classifying can be enjoyable. Hearing music can too. Not the same thing though. If I wish to share the enjoyment of McColl's FirstmTie Ever I Saw Your Face with someone who had never heard it, would I find a flat toned old bloke in a pub to recite it or play the rather wonderful Sterephonics version... Mmmm. Lets see.

2. Pretending not to understand isn't clever, neither is calling someone a troll on the basis you put yourself up as an authority. Authorities in music are technicians, authorities in enjoyment of music are happy people. Beecham once said that the English don't appreciate music but they love the noise it makes.

3. Other than singing in the bath, you are entertaining others, or they are humouring you. The oral tradition is fine but became a quirky old style once Caxton got his press going. Nothing wrong with that, but other than idiots such as yourself, people see the oral tradition as an ornament, a bloody nice one, granted, but other media store the human experience of songs and has done for hundreds of years. So sharing is actually entertaining after all.

Music is for the entertainment of people. First, second and so forth. Sharing songs is performing them, you know that and your comments to the contrary do you no justice.

By the way, you can be the most obnoxious troll on this forum at times.

Subject: RE: Singing with belief
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 07:26 AM

I've no intention of making this a one to one with you Musket.
If you think you can't collect, research, study, sing, listen and enjoy - your fish-tank must be a very small one.
If I told you that you had to do all of these things you would, with some justification, almost resort to the old 'folk police' cliche Please don't tell me or anybody what to do and how to do it - mind your own ****** business and leave people to do what they choose to do.
Over and out
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Singing with belief
From: jacqui.c
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 07:47 AM

If people had not taken the trouble to record some of the local singers of folk music a lot of what we know could have been lost as different areas had differing versions of the same song - think about Barbara Allen for instance. Written down, and with the tune set those differing versions from that particular written one could have been lost. I don't read music so have to learn the tunes of any song I want to sing from an existing version, which is how these songs were disseminated for many years. I have heard, in my travels, many singers of songs, some of whom have wonderful voices but give no feeling to what they sing and others who don't carry a tune quite as well but who make me FEEL the song. I much prefer the latter.

Like Musket I have been at sessions where a 'performer' sings or reads to their song sheet, pretty clearly has not rehearsed their song ahead of time and has not put an iota of thought into what they are doing. Quite often these people have a limited number of songs that they drag out time after time, never improving their performance at all. They are few, I must admit, but they do exist. They have no belief in what they are doing and seem just to do it for their 'fifteen minutes'. That's when I take a bathroom break or go to the bar. Those I do not put into the category of the singers that Jim talks about.

There are some songs that I really do feel, even if I haven't been in that particular situation, and there are songs, particularly heavily religious ones extolling the power of a god I don't believe in, that I would be very uncomfortable singing because I can't feel that emotion. Singing, for me, is about putting a feeling across to listeners, whether that be a serious or a comical one.

Subject: RE: Singing with belief
From: Marje
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 08:01 AM

Guest Musket, you clearly have problems with all sorts of aspects of traditional singing - the age of the singer, their professional background, whether they're in a pub or not, whether they use a book or not ... there are numerous other threads where you can read more about these and other aspects of the subject if they interest you, and add your comments there. We're talking here about whether it matters to sing with belief in your song.

You have some doubts about this issue, but picking an argument with one of the most respected and knowledgeable contributors to this forum really doesn't impress. I can't see that Jim is "setting himself up as an authority", as you claim, or pulling rank in any way, but he knows and understands more about traditional song than most of us put together. I don't always agree with him but I read his comments with interest becase he knows what he's talking about. Being wise and well informed, or even taking an academic interest, doesn't conflict with appreciating songs or knowing what makes them enjoyable.

And when Jim says, above: "What makes traditional song accessible (IMO) is the universality and timelessness of the themes - love, injustice, anger, pride... it is this fact that moves both singer and (if it is done proficiently enough) audience and has made them last as long as they have." he absolutely nails it. If the singer is convinced and moved, the audience will be too.

Marje

Subject: RE: Singing with belief
From: Amos
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 10:29 AM

I think the critical element in singing a song is intent, more than belief. It's a communication, after all, not a tape recording.

Subject: RE: Singing with belief
From: Kim C
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 10:35 AM

I'm a storyteller. I just happen to tell the stories in songs.

Subject: RE: Singing with belief
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 11:01 AM

Taking part in a conversation is a bit different from listening to a stand-up comic. While the latter would be classed as entertainment and the former not, both can be very entertaining. A lot of the singing in folk music is closer to the former than the latter, and for many people can be the more important part, with the focus being on song as a medium of communication and socialisation, with entertanment as such being less central.

Subject: RE: Singing with belief
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 11:01 AM

Taking part in a conversation is a bit different from listening to a stand-up comic. While the latter would be classed as entertainment and the former not, both can be very entertaining. A lot of the singing in folk music is closer to the former than the latter, and for many people can be the more important part, with the focus being on song as a medium of communication and socialisation, with entertanment as such being less central.

Subject: RE: Singing with belief
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 11:39 AM

Kim
"I'm a storyteller. I just happen to tell the stories in songs."
That is exactly what every singer we have asked has said to us.
This was highlighted for us while we were recording a couple of elderly brothers thirty-odd years ago in North Clare.
Between them they gave us a dozen or so songs, Child Ballads, narrative and lyrical songs, Anglo and native Irish.
Around half a dozen of them were sung to the same tune, which was obviously regarded as a vehicle for telling the story.
It is interesting to compare this with the tendency nowadays (here in Ireland at least) for the song to be regarded as a means to display musical skill.
A couple of years ago I sang at a session during a week-end gathering.
The son of a friend came over when I had finished the song 'Ranter Parson' and said rather bemusedly - "That's a story, isn't it"?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Singing with belief
From: GUEST,Musket sans Ian
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 01:48 PM

Marje. If you read what I put you will see that I do not disagree with you.   I commented earlier on the subject matter. But my later comments were challenging the absurd notion put forward by Jim Carroll that sharing and entertaining are not the same thing.

If you sing in front of others and don't wonder if you are entertaining or not, you really should be asking if your efforts are having the desired effect.

A semi professional singer I used to know played on his age and background claiming the songs he sung were learned at his mother's knee. People used to tape him and have their Lomax moment. Of course it was entertainment! What he didn't get from Martin Carthy albums he learned from me, and I got them from A L Lloyd tapes....

You can tell a story by speaking it, writing a book or putting it to music. But the story is the story and the music remains entertainment.

Subject: RE: Singing with belief
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 02:40 PM

"Jim Carroll that sharing and entertaining are not the same thing. "
Where on earth did I say that?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Singing with belief
From: Speedwell
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 04:47 PM

I think that most folk singers who are passionate about their singing will eventually phase out from their repertoire any songs that they don't truly believe in. This (IMHO) comes with experience and maturity. A good song has its own(kind of)spirit which is there to be connected with or not.
Marje, you talk a lot of sense.

Subject: RE: Singing with belief
From: kendall
Date: 02 Jul 13 - 07:29 PM

When I perform The Band played waltzing Matilda, Carrying Nelson Home or The Lock Arcrae, you can bet your bippy I belief it.

Subject: RE: Singing with belief
From: Brian Peters
Date: 03 Jul 13 - 10:21 AM

Pasted from Lighter's message:

"Seems to me a folksinger sings mainly to please himself and anyone who might happen to be present.

A folkie sings largely to wow an audience as part of a "performance."

So the question of "believing in the songs you sing" will mainly be a problem for the folkie."

Leaving aside this unfortunate 'folkie / folksinger' terminology, I don't see how the above remarks could be made by anyone who had heard, either first-hand or on record, the singing of Phil Tanner, Sam Larner, Jeaannie Robertson or Fred Jordan. Performers all, both literally and in singing style.

One problem with the catch-all term 'traditional singers' (or 'folksingers') is that the category extends from elderly people racking their brains at the behest of a collector to remember fragments of songs learned as children and quite possibly never exercised since, to consummately skilled public performers who could command a room with drama, nuance and musicality. Not that any of those I mentioned above showed any less committment to their songs, of course.

As for 'folkies', all of the 'revival' singers I've enjoyed most over the years display precisely the kind of passionate committment to their songs that we're talking about here. Ray Fisher, to name but one. And all of those modern 'folkies' who wish to take their songs no further than their local pub singaround are no more giving performances than the denizens of the Blaxhall Ship, retired social workers though some may be.

PS: Jim 1, Blunderbuss 0

Subject: RE: Singing with belief
From: Kim C
Date: 03 Jul 13 - 10:27 AM

I guess it would be fair to say there are some songs I "believe," because they come from That Place Inside, but I also do a lot of murder ballads. I can't really say I "believe" those. I'm not interested in drowning my sister or poisoning my faithless lover. That's where the storytelling comes in.

Subject: RE: Singing with belief
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 03 Jul 13 - 11:32 AM

A couple of events in this area underlined the complexity of the 'belief' of some singers.
We were recording a wonderful singer named Tom Lenihan one night; he'd just sung a song and he burst out at the end, "That's a true song".
When we asked him where and when he thought it had taken place he looked puzzled and said "Do you think it really happened?"
"Truth", in Tom's case meant something different
A friend recorded a fiddle player who had a rake of fairy stories, many of them connected with the tunes.
Later, over a cup of tea, he asked the player and his wife, "Do you believe in fairies?"
His wife replied, a little indignant "Of course not, but they're there all right".
MacColl used to tell of the time when they recorded tales from a number of Travelling women who were staying with them.
The women got into a run of supernatural tales, one trying to outdo the others until, by the end of the evening they refused to walk the few yards down the hall to the toilet unless somebody came with them.
One of the most moving pieces of storytelling I have ever heard is a recording of a Scots Travelling woman describing the the death of her youngest daughter, who died when she was jagged by a piece of rusty wire while they were camped by the side of a quarry.
It starts as straightforward description and turns into an account of omens, premonitions and birds flying into the campfire - still brings a lump to my throat when I think of it.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Singing with belief
From: GUEST,eldergirl
Date: 09 Jul 13 - 12:47 PM

I am puzzled that anyone could sing a song which did not sit comfortably within their heart in some way. But maybe that makes me too fluffy? for me, certain songs beg to be acquired for the vocabulary; some have virtually grabbed me by the throat shouting LEARN ME!! while others can be taken, or left!

Subject: RE: Singing with belief
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 09 Jul 13 - 02:39 PM

Speedwell: "I think that most folk singers who are passionate about their singing will eventually phase out from their repertoire any songs that they don't truly believe in. This (IMHO) comes with experience and maturity. A good song has its own(kind of)spirit which is there to be connected with or not."

Absolutely!!..and well said!

You all might want to study musical theater....BECOME the character...and be VERY picky about the material you choose!

If you can't find it...Write it!

GfS