Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?

Subject: Where are we going wrong?
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 30 Sep 13 - 11:23 AM

Hopefully this isn't too controversial a question.

Having just got back from a holiday in Ireland, I couldn't help but notice that traditional Irish music is heavily promoted by the tourist industry - and it can be heard in gift shops, extensively in pubs, particularly in Dublin and Galway, and on street corners.

Back in London - traditional music is largely ignored, and if a visitor wants to hear traditional music in London he/she has to go to great lengths to find it.

Why, particularly in London, do we make our traditions so hard to find? Is it because the 'public' do not like to listen to English folk music as opposed to Irish? Are English singers so bad??

When I was in the Shanty Crew we could hold the attention of a large number of visitors to St Katherines Dock (yonks ago), and when we sang each month on the Cutty Sark, visitors would stop and listen - we once had a party of French schoolkids sitting on the hatch cover listening to an entire set - and joining in.

Subject: RE: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Sep 13 - 11:32 AM

For what you are about to receive, may the Lord make you truly thankful...

Subject: RE: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 30 Sep 13 - 11:36 AM

I am not sure you should take the Irish tourist industry appropriating music as a commodity to be sold as a sign of the health of traditional music.

If you look however at the number of young people enthusiastically taking up and playing traditional music and using it in a social context, then you're probably looking at a better indicator. Which will indeed show you things are looking healthy enough for another while yet.

Subject: RE: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Sep 13 - 11:48 AM

I agree. We should start at heathrow.

The customs men should be dressed as pearly kings and queens and greet everyone newly arrived to a chheery 'WOTHCHER COCK!'

And maybe a few choruses of Knocked 'em in Old Kent Road.

That would cheer things up.

Subject: RE: Where are we going wrong?
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Sep 13 - 12:10 PM

Simple... a lot of Irish music is fast, exciting and loud, and appeals (for listening especially) to folks who are not necessarily aware of its history. It also features 'tunes' to dance and clap to more often.

At the Smithsonian Folk Festival in Washington, D.C. for a number of years after highlighting Ireland and Lousiana, they tried each year to plan themes which would justify having either Irish or Cajun music... sometimes both! They would take food, workers, crafts, ...whatever... and sneak some degree of Cajun or Irish into it because it always drew crowds of folks who liked to dance and clap along.

*I* happen to like English & Scottish traditional music better, but it takes more ... ummm... 'awareness' to get the words and significance. I am lucky to live in a area where we DO have a decent selection of all sorts... but even here, Irish pubs get the big crowds.

Subject: RE: Where are we going wrong?
From: MartinRyan
Date: 30 Sep 13 - 12:17 PM

"clap along"? Aaaaaaaaaargh!

Regards

Subject: RE: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 30 Sep 13 - 12:27 PM

Yes, Martin that and 'loud and fast?'

Subject: RE: Where are we going wrong?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 30 Sep 13 - 12:47 PM

I don't believe that, Bill. We had the discussion on here not too many weeks back about all folk being classed as Irish by the unknowing. There are plenty of English and Scottish tunes that are 'fast, exciting and loud', if that is what people really want. Trouble is then then assume it is Irish! I, for one, have never been a fan of Irish music for the very reasons you say people like it and I am sure I am not that unusual!

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Jim Knowledge
Date: 30 Sep 13 - 01:04 PM

I `ad that Pat O`Donovan in my cab the other day. `e `ad a ginormous silver cup in `is arms and was polishing it with the back of `is shamrock coloured shirt.
`e said, "To be sure Jimmy boy, will you be taking me up to the Kilburn High road? We`ll be celebrating our victory tonight, I tell you".
I said, "What victory is that Pat? Rugby, shinti, `ockey, Gaelic football or what?".
`e said , "Not at all. It`s the Irish Music Championship. We played more notes in more keys, faster than any of the other bands. They told us it was a world record!!"


Whaddam I Like??

Subject: RE: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Rev Bayes
Date: 30 Sep 13 - 01:23 PM

Teach the kids. Teach the kids. Teach the kids.

Do what they do at Raploch, with concertinas.

But you have to teach them before they hit puberty. Once you do that, you're done.

So teach the kids. Teach the kids. Teach the kids.

Subject: RE: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 30 Sep 13 - 02:37 PM

Do you think Riverdance has something to do with it? It certainly made Irish dance and song known worldwide. I can't think of an equivalent English folk type of show. ('Morrisdance'?!)

Subject: RE: Where are we going wrong?
From: Banjo-Flower
Date: 30 Sep 13 - 03:06 PM

I can't think of an equivalent English folk type of show. ('Morrisdance'?!)

Try Lock in

gerry

Subject: RE: Where are we going wrong?
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Sep 13 - 03:06 PM

"There are plenty of English and Scottish tunes that are 'fast, exciting and loud', ..."

yes, of course... but it is a matter of perception. Irish...(well, at least over here)... makes a point of it. I have been to *sessions* where no one sings and you are simply lost if you can't keep up.
Sorry Martin, but in many faux (or even real) Irish bars, fast & loud and clapping are the point. The band may play something slower for a change of pace... just to relax a bit and let the waiters hear to take more drink orders.

In my 35 years in the folk community of Greater Wash DC, it was MUCH harder to find Irish songs and slow airs than the hard, driving jigs & reels...etc. The bands, on their part, know what sells to certain crowds. They may know all sorts, but I guess one just has to know where to go to hear them bother with airs & songs.
(We used to have a big Irish festival where one could, with care, choose to NOT hear just the fast & loud, but I'm not sure it still runs.)

Subject: RE: Where are we going wrong?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Sep 13 - 03:31 PM

Could it be that music has moved on, the under-40s are busy with their new devices and couldn't care less? (text me and forget it).

Subject: RE: Where are we going wrong?
From: MartinRyan
Date: 30 Sep 13 - 03:44 PM

Bill D

I agree completely - much (not all) of such Irish music as is aimed at tourists (and at not a few others who should know better!) is too fast, too loud and lacks any subtlety. The point is that in Ireland (and in other countries where there are enough players who know different) there is another, quite different scene within which the music operates. The "tourist" form (and, tangentially, the extreme virtuoso form of some artistes) is not the core product - and some of those who experience it DO manage to find their way through the bubbles... So, in a way, we're back to GUESTRev Bayes' dictum - Teach the kids, teach the kids, teach the kids.

Regards

Subject: RE: Where are we going wrong?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 30 Sep 13 - 08:22 PM

Not an opinion - just a suggested point of discussion:

Maybe the old stuff is more popular in Ireland because Ireland has no new stuff that's very interesting to anyone there. (?)

It's much more difficult to teach people to really like the old traditions when there are many new fads close at hand. Perhaps others are just more "connected" to other distractions that aren't known/interesting to a more "closed" Irish culture?

John

Subject: RE: Where are we going wrong?
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Sep 13 - 08:53 PM

The last couple of Getaways, we have had a guy come from the West coast of the US who does wonderful trad Irish songs. Someone IS trying to teach the kids... but you can't hold a gun on them to get them to pay attention.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Oct 13 - 12:35 AM

One should stop confusing traditional music woth commercial pop renditions of traditional tunes....Irish, English or American.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 01 Oct 13 - 04:11 AM

Why? That's the point of folk music, it is modified in the transmission, not pickled in aspic.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Will Fly
Date: 01 Oct 13 - 04:15 AM

traditional Irish music is heavily promoted by the tourist industry - and it can be heard in gift shops, extensively in pubs, particularly in Dublin and Galway, and on street corners

Then perhaps we're doing something right. The thought of all that sort of music - or any other sort of music, for that matter - constantly blasting out all round me down here in Sussex, makes me shudder. That's not music - it's muzak. Eventually it becomes cliché.

Contrary to what many still think, the fact that a certain genre of music is not constantly in the public ear is not an indicator of it's death. All types of music have their devotees who keep it alive and nurtured, even if it's away from the public much of the time. Take 1950s rock'n roll for example. Hardly ever in the public awareness (and the recent repeat of "Rock'n Roll Britannia" on BBC4 is pure coincidence!), but alive and jiving in clubs every weekend all over the country.

So, in my view, there's nothing to go wrong. The music just is, and will remain so regardless of fluctuating public fads and fancies.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 01 Oct 13 - 04:25 AM

In a gift shop in Blarney they were playing a video of a Clannad concert.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 01 Oct 13 - 04:27 AM

People can do what ever they want with any kind of music and it will still be around for someone else to perform in some other way. Most folks songs and tunes are faily simple and for most of us don't benifit from endless repeats.

A couple of exceptions? Hearing songs with odd tunes and strange stories sung in small acoustic spaces and dancing to country dance tunes with other people who enjoy doing the same.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 01 Oct 13 - 04:38 AM

One of my points was the lack of promotion and/or sign posting of traditional music particulalry in London. I'll admit that if I had heard one more rendition of Whiskey in the Jar I would have probably run out in the street screaming!!
Whether or not what is being played is truly representative of traditional Irish music is another issue... but the majority of what I heard were traditional tunes and songs. And it was accessible, and folk music is part of the overall visitor experience.
In London, unless a visiter is a hard-core folky and knows where to look, traditional/folk song an music is outside of the visitor package.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 01 Oct 13 - 04:51 AM

Maybe you're looking at a chicken and egg situation. The Irish tourist industry had no interest in music until it dawned on them a lot of people came to Ireland looking for a 'genuine music experience' (whatever that is). It has since become part of the marketing. Recently I read an article about Tourism Ireland (formerly Bord Failte) in which they put forward a new strategy should be adopted, not promoting Ireland with the same old stale images (their words) of Guinness, thatched cottages and diddly-ay (again, their words).

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Will Fly
Date: 01 Oct 13 - 05:43 AM

Mmm... this is the sort of thing the tourist industries go for:

France: Berets, the Eiffel Tower, striped jerseys, onions, garlic, accordions

Germany: Sausage, lederhosen, oompah bands, lager, Tyrolean hats with feathers

England: Morris dancing, London buses, the Union Jack, bowler hats, postboxes, cricket

Wales: Singing, rugby, women in tall hats and shawls, lava bread

Switzerland: Cuckoo clocks (Austrian of course), yodelling, alpenhorns, William Tell

Scotland: Bagpipes, kilts, tartan generally, malt whisky, shortbread, tweeds

Ireland: Guinness, diddley-diddley music, blarney, green

Etc., etc. Add your own bits and stir until bored. Clichés and stereotypes to pull in the tourist Euro, pound, dollar, yen.

I couldn't care less if the music that I cared about (whatever that might be) failed to be associated with all this nonsense.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Will Fly
Date: 01 Oct 13 - 05:46 AM

SPB C - forgot to add: I can quite understand your view that English traditional music could be promoted in a more positive way by the powers that be. I think where we differ is that you might care about that - and I don't.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 01 Oct 13 - 05:47 AM

I'm with Will here!

Will, last-time-but-one when I made it to The Bull, on the way out, a young couple (20s) started talking to me. They'd just come from Brighton for a meal, but had been so transfixed by the session that they stayed for the whole thing. They asked me: "is that what they call folk music then?"

I said some of it was, some of it wasn't, and that it was a mixture of all kinds of tunes and songs from traditional folk through blues and music-hall to quite recent, but that since we were "folk" and playing it, you could say so. :-)

They were amazed at the quality and range of music played by bunch of people in a pub. I reckon that it's better for a young couple like that to "find their way" to folk serendipitously rather than have it forced on them as "traditional cultcha" in NT shops, tourist offices etc.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Banjo-Flower
Date: 01 Oct 13 - 06:20 AM

"They'd just come from Brighton for a meal, but had been so transfixed by the session that they stayed for the whole thing. "

would they have done that if it had been in a dingy upstairs/back room surrounded by people shushing them all the time

I think not

Gerry

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 01 Oct 13 - 08:06 AM

Intrestin upstairs/back room surrounded by people giving performers a chance all the time

I think ............ who knows - it worked for hundreds of thousands of people for 40 or 50 years

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Lighter
Date: 01 Oct 13 - 08:16 AM

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste, knowledge, or sophistication of the public.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 01 Oct 13 - 08:28 AM

Peter got it right: mass tourism is a function of the clichés rampant in the countries where the tourists come from. As we saw on another thread about tourism to Ireland, that country has a special romantic image abroad, deeply rooted in history, and quite distinct from England.

Really good music is rarely for the crowd.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Banjo-Flower
Date: 01 Oct 13 - 08:33 AM

"Intrestin upstairs/back room surrounded by people giving performers a chance all the time

I think ............ who knows - it worked for hundreds of thousands of people for 40 or 50 years"

and where was it before then?

In the bar with Joe Public and his mates

Gerry

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Peter
Date: 01 Oct 13 - 08:49 AM

surrounded by people shushing them all the time

Why is observing the same standards in a folk concert as in a musical, opera, ballet, theatre etc such a problem?

If I have paid to listen to an act, be it Martin Carthy or the ENO then that's what I want to hear not Gerry "Banjo Flower" blathering over the top of the performance.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 01 Oct 13 - 08:50 AM

As for Will's list, I am quite sure that most international tourists have never heard of Morris dancing. The same applies even to musicians.

If I were to organize a weekend trip to London for mass tourists, and it had to include a concert, a Britpop band would be the safest choice. Nevertheless, "special interest" tours with English folk music can be successful: make a good mixture of authenticity and fun; explain the jokes in slow and clear English if necessary.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 01 Oct 13 - 08:54 AM

Bar music is great, Gerry, and I really enjoy 'open' sessions. One of my favourites is at Swinton Folk Club (plug, plug) October 19 this year - All day session and sing in the bar.

However, the upstairs and back rooms provide a vital function, as Les says, where people can go and hear music without listening to the barman play Sunshine of your Love on E flat cash register and smokey bacon maracas (Thanks Mr Wedlock). In addition, without the folk 'concert rooms' for want of a better description, how would you propose to charge the audience so you can pay the artist? They are also rarely dingy these days.

I think that at times we are our own worse enemies by perpetuating the myth of the dingy back room and being shushed by Arran sweatered folkies :-) If that is how we portray it, is it any wonder that people are reluctant to go?

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: bubblyrat
Date: 01 Oct 13 - 08:57 AM

Sorry to wander off thread a bit ,but can anyone tell me the name of the theme tune to the 1950s TV series "Para Handy" ( with Duncan MaCrae / Roddy MacMillan ) ?? I can play it on guitar ,but can't remember what it's called ! Incidentally , this is one of the many tunes / songs that influenced me as a ten-year-old at the time ; where have all these gone to today ?? Do modern schoolchildren get "exposed" to Westering Home / Strawberry Fair / The Ash Grove /Widdecombe Fair et al in this day & age ?? Teach Your Children ( Well !!) .

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 01 Oct 13 - 09:04 AM

Looks like it could be just called the Para Handy theme song according to Folk Tune Finder. It is in G and 6/8 time :-)

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 01 Oct 13 - 09:14 AM

"In the bar with Joe Public and his mates" - who may now be interested in other stuff than folk music, perhaps?

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 01 Oct 13 - 09:15 AM

Yes but the folktune finder leads you to a tune called Manus Lunny's Terracotta Plower Pop (yes that was correct, Ps and all), which was written by Phil Cunningham.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Banjo-Flower
Date: 01 Oct 13 - 09:19 AM

"Why is observing the same standards in a folk concert as in a musical, opera, ballet, theatre etc such a problem?

If I have paid to listen to an act, be it Martin Carthy or the ENO then that's what I want to hear not Gerry "Banjo Flower" blathering over the top of the performance.

Guest Peter

Where did I mention Folk Concerts or paid performers?
My initial post was a response to Rob Naylors experience with the young couple who came across the music by chance not by going to a concert or paid performer event

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 01 Oct 13 - 09:20 AM

By the way, saying "teach the children" is all very well, by if my lad is anything to go by, most of 'em would turn their noses up at their parents' old punk and grunge albums and even their new albums by hip young indie gunslingers, let alone folk music. Most young kids want chart pop, not what their parents and grandparents are listening to. And fair play to them for that - it's exactly the same as what I wanted at that age. Those who don't are an exception and a minority.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 01 Oct 13 - 09:34 AM

I think there you have the difference between Ireland and England. In Ireland children have the same appetite for modern pop and what have you but they (or at least a healthily sizeable number of them) are also quite happy to play/sing traditional at the same time. They're not mutually exclusive (at least not for all anyway) because traditional music has a wider social context in which it is perfectly fine to play/listen/dance to it.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Derrick
Date: 01 Oct 13 - 09:41 AM

To come across a session if you have never encountered folk music and song before is a good way to become aware of the genre.
If you are really interested you would find out where you can encounter more of it.
By visiting a folk club you would then decide which approach to the music you preffered ie the formal concert folk club, or the informal session.
Either way you have found a new interest.
The club versus session arguement is no diffent to the catholic v protestant arguement, which ever you preffer you are still a folk fan or a Christian.
A little less intolerance is required, folk music is what ever you like it to be.
Some people seem to think their prefference is the only true way

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 01 Oct 13 - 09:42 AM

That's probably true, Peter. The only kids I know in Manchester who are learning to play traditional music are kids with Irish heritage. It seems they are largely doing it becuase their parents make them. That's not to say some of them don't enjoy it and excel at it, but it seems to be rooted in their parents' desire to maintain a sense of cultural identity rather than anything about a deep love of Irish traditional music for its own sake. It's simply one of the things you do, like sending your kids to a Catholic school or attending mass...

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 01 Oct 13 - 09:48 AM

Mmmmmmm true enough Mr Cringe. Speaking of nothing in particular, songs this Wednesday in The Beech M21 9EG and a Ceilidh at The Irish Club this Friday - will you be joining us or possible dragging your family for a dance?

Les

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 01 Oct 13 - 09:55 AM

No, sorry Gerry but I think you are being a bit disingenuous when you say Where did I mention Folk Concerts or paid performers?
My initial post was a response to Rob Naylors experience with the young couple who came across the music by chance not by going to a concert or paid performer event

Your actual phrase was

would they have done that if it had been in a dingy upstairs/back room surrounded by people shushing them all the time

Which I have read over and over and I can interpret it no other way than your description of a typical folk club. I do apologise if that is not what you meant but would appreciate your interpretation if it isn't.

This young couple only came across the music because it was not in a concert, be it a 'dingy back room' or the O2 arena. Had it have been an exclusive event they would have never heard it. So, as I said before, open events are great. But they are not better or worse than concerts, just different.

Peters' point about children being happy listening and dancing to traditional music comes into play here. Why are they not happy doing so in England? Maybe it is because someone has told them that folk music is all in dingy back rooms surrounded by people shushing them all the time :-) Like I said earlier, we are our own worst enemies at times.

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 01 Oct 13 - 10:04 AM

That's probably true, Peter. The only kids I know in Manchester who are learning to play traditional music are kids with Irish heritage. It seems they are largely doing it becuase their parents make them.


There is ofcourse an element of cultural identity and all that (probably stronger outside Ireland than in the country, although I wouldn't discount it there either). But would it be enough to sustain it? Fact is that young people, teenagers early twenties go out to play music, do gigs, dance meet the opposite sex, form friendships and relation and have a great time at it. And it's perfectly normal to play at school events, dance a few sets at weddings or other events. That's context and meaning, that's what is sustaining it into the future.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Banjo-Flower
Date: 01 Oct 13 - 11:37 AM

Hi Dave Rob Naylors Post said Session not Folk club (Do they serve people meals in a folk Club?)I think Guest Peter would be even more offended if he could not hear the music above the rattle of cutlery

Gerry

who seems to have the knack of confusing other people as well as himself

Long live the open session

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: alex s
Date: 01 Oct 13 - 12:17 PM

I agree with Will re muzac - I've just come back from Dublin where almost every pub in the Temple Bar area was blasting out "Trad" nonstop. Can't tell you how many times I heard "Fields of Athenry"....

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Suzy Sock Puppet
Date: 01 Oct 13 - 12:36 PM

You can correct me if I'm wrong but I think that at a certain point in their history, the Brits became too sophisticated for their own good. They let their traditional music slip out of vogue. So now you have certain people who really love it and devote themselves to it's legacy. The Irish, on the other hand, have made it a focus of ethnic pride.

That said, popularity, hype if you will, are no measure of worth. At this this point, another rendition of "Whiskey in the Jar" might get a couple of yelps from me as well.