Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 07 Oct 13 - 09:58 AM

I still firmly agree with Blandiver's point in an earlier discussion like this that traditional music in England today is the equivalent of model railway enthusiasm, with the key difference that the model railway enthusiasts at least know their toy trains aren't real.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Eldergirl
Date: 07 Oct 13 - 09:53 AM

Bob Dylan?? What was he modelling??? The mind boggles!
Re. Nicki Minaj perfume, d'ya think Kate Rusby has missed a trick there? Or Laura Marling?
Suzy S-P, I agree with your view on love/money in trad music. As Nicky Johns sings, It's not a bad life
       But you don't get rich..
As for me, I'm there for the songs. A little recognition is nice occasionally, but the songs are the main thing.
Slaid Cleaves, whom I had the great good fortune to hear last night at Hitchin folk club, released an album a while back called Unsung. Songs people hadn't picked up on, that he at least thought were worth putting out there. He was right. If you haven't heard it, then try.
It's the songs that get carried forward. If you like a particular song, get out there and sing it. Keep whatever tradition you are from or in, going. (within reason!)

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 07 Oct 13 - 09:07 AM

"seriously researched works of social / cultural history by authors who remain essentially, and impressively, impartial throughout.

Harker?? ROFL!

"the basic historical substance of the thing is sound"

Some of Bearman's other pronouncements have done him no favours, but in the case of 'Fakesong' he was dealing specifically with Harker's treatment of statistical data.

And I've managed to find a few other holes in 'Fakesong', come to that.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Suzy Sock Puppet
Date: 07 Oct 13 - 08:18 AM

Thank you Eldergirl.

I'm glad the title of this thread uses the word traditional instead of folk. To me, the term folk is somewhat murky. To me, traditional music is something that could not only be described as popular or folk music of an earlier time, but also as the product of a natural process that was radically altered first by publishing and secondly by recording (not to mention all the capitalist endeavors that surround those things).

Now, it's not that publishing, recording and passing the hat don't have their place in the preservation and promotion of traditional music, it's just that it's not a money thing. It's a love thing. Publishing and recording have been a very double edged sword when it comes to music of any kind. And if traditional music should become a money thing, then it becomes something it was never meant to be. I think we can see how money has corrupted in the various revivals. I'll never forget the time I saw Bob Dylan in a Victoria Secret commercial. I was like, "You've got to be kidding me!"

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 07 Oct 13 - 08:17 AM

both rap and folk share the problem of both largely being underground music and a visitor would be equally unlikely to come across   either

Oh yeah? Name me one Folk Artist with their own range of perfume on prominent display in Boots the Chemist...

Nicki Minaj Pink Friday Eau de Parfum

Nicki Minaj is worth checking out actually - one of the most gifted & constantly astonishing voices of our time. And her rapping is out of this world!

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 07 Oct 13 - 07:14 AM

I don't want to personally get involved in the 'what is folk' part of this thread.

However both rap and folk share the problem of both largely being underground music and a visitor would be equally unlikely to come across   either genre unless they know where to look, probably more so with rap.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Vic Smith
Date: 07 Oct 13 - 06:59 AM

Half a dozen references above tell us that what we need is green hats .... including Al Whittle:-
"I still think the green hats is a good idea."

I wish someone had told me earlier

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Eldergirl
Date: 07 Oct 13 - 06:37 AM

It's astounding how good we are at misreading stuff.
Wouldn't hear it otherwise is not same as Never heard.
Johnny Collins was singing somewhere. Bloke wanders in, listens for a bit, then turns to his neighbour(who happens to be Johnny's partner) and says This is good.What sort of music is this? So Joyce answers It's folk. To which bloke replies, Nah I don't like folk. This can't be folk, this is good!

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 07 Oct 13 - 05:14 AM

The people who've never heard Folk... My God, aren't they the lucky ones! Imagine that level of purity & innocence? Like having never heard of God and religion. I wish, I wish, but it's all in vain...

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Eldergirl
Date: 07 Oct 13 - 05:02 AM

Concrete road, take me home
To the place I belong....

(another little Japanese song)

I think I agree with guest Rev Bayes' last posting.
Where there are human beings, there are disagreements.
Now let's get back out there and sing and play whatever we call Folk to the people who wouldn't hear it otherwise.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 07 Oct 13 - 04:39 AM

I guess it maybe loses something in translation.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Oct 13 - 03:33 PM

If you insist on relying on one set of experts you can only expect others to quote another set of experts.

"I see no quotes in contradiction of what I've said here, perhaps you could point them out?"

I have contradicted you on many points but you have only insisted that I have insulted you on a personal level and not yet explained why you believe that is the case. I have said, at least twice, that your 'expert' testimony is questionable. Other people have confirmed that this is the case.

Your last post quotes something that you feel is relevant but, upon reading, I find rather pretentious and naïve at the same time. I think it is probably good but not to my taste. How about I quote you one of my favourite songs?

Twinkle, twinkle little star.
How I wonder what you are.
Up above the world so high.
Like a diamond in the sky.

So, now, why, once again, do you believe that your taste in music is any better than anyone else's?

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 06 Oct 13 - 02:29 PM

If you insist on relying on one set of experts you can only expect others to quote another set of experts.

I see no quotes in contradiction of what I've said here, perhaps you could point them out?

*

If a genius rapper were to devise a rap that rivals Hamlet in depth, interest, originality, humanity, and nuance, it would be brilliant *in spite of* rather than because of the form. I'm waiting.

Do you find anything like that in Traditional Folk Song? I think not - thank God - though I recall Martin Carthy's Hamlet song with great affection from the clubs back in the 80s. In any case some of my favourite 'Rap' is very lyrical indeed - and rather quite Folky to boot, like this which Battle Royale fans will be well acquainted with.

Dragon Ash : Shizukana hibi no Kaidan Wo (Climb The Stairs Of Quiet Days

Translation:

Grass and trees become green, flowers colorfully bloom.
Seasons come by again. A comfortable spring day,
With out anything to do I think by myself
in the tree lined street.
The days go by without any break.
I am struggling to manage myself here.
Sometimes, let's live a life
Without thinking so deeply.
Morning comes, the sun rises again.
Outside the window the south wind
blows the pain in my heart.
Shall the tears I shed in the past days
be pulled into my unconsciousness.
what is important is the light,
I'd like to stay here a bit more.

WE GO EVERY DAY, let's go with laughter
To the direction of the shining light
heading into the open future ahead.
WE GO EVERY DAY, let's go with laughter
Like pouring water into a vase
my wishes please be granted.


SO The face and the tears
washed by an off season rain
before the rain stops,
GERRA I smile with a clean face.
Like that, goes away ONE WEEK.
With my tired body I take ONE DRINK
At the meeting place my friends are all there.
like every day we spend the night chatting nonsense
to continue on with these days
I flap my wings like a bird.
Everyone is doing their best. Don't lose; we don't have a pinch runner.
Going over the people laughing at you,
catch the dream you imagined into your hands.
Wish to the shooting star after the rain.
Now stand up my friend.

WE GO EVERY DAY, let's go with laughter
To the direction of the shining light
heading into the open future ahead.
WE GO EVERY DAY, let's go with laughter
Like pouring water into a vase
my wishes please be granted.

Without no reason I set off my mobile.
In the far back of the noise
can't you hear the voice of the wind
drifting away now where and why.
Obvious though, I listen on.
Like putting your own future over it.
Wanting something to be said about my self, is the same feeling.
My life goes away bit by bit.
Now I possess multiple copies of my childhood dreams.
I make a stupid face
as I brush my teeth in front of the mirror in the morning.
Going outside. I live a day like this.
I'll stop waiting for the night.
Resting isn't bad, charge up your energy.
quietly the city ticks away time.
Connecting our dreams, we make an arch.

Shizukana hibi no kaidan wo
Shizukana hibi no kaidan wo
Shizukana hibi no kaidan wo
Shizukana hibi no kaidan wo
Shizukana hibi no kaidan wo
Shizukana hibi no kaidan wo

The stair steps of a quiet day
The stair steps of a quiet day
The stair steps of a quiet day
The stair steps of a quiet day
The stair steps of a quiet day
The stair steps of a quiet day

Under the sky without the breeze,
I reach out to catch tomorrow.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Rev Bayes
Date: 06 Oct 13 - 01:43 PM

Also, I think the OP's question can be fairly easily answered by observing what this thread has turned into.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Lighter
Date: 06 Oct 13 - 01:24 PM

"Folk music" isn't a naturally occurring term: it's a theoretical construction to begin with.

It seems to me that it's a matter of style as well as derivation, though there are cultural and regional and temporal styles.

Like early jazz, rap is undoubtedly a "folk" style. It began as an amateur phenomenon (the "toast") far outside the realm of trained musicians. But it was soon commercialized.

But (as I may have said), so what? Not everything "folk" is wonderful, and not everything wonderful is "folk." Except as a game of rhymes and assonances, rap seems unusually narrow simply as a style.

The content of rap is another issue.

If a genius rapper were to devise a rap that rivals Hamlet in depth, interest, originality, humanity, and nuance, it would be brilliant *in spite of* rather than because of the form. I'm waiting.

AS for Steeleye, when they adapt, for example, "Fighting for Strangers," the song *in the abstract* is still a "folk song." But Steeleye's *version* (including the sophisticated arrangement, etc.) is only marginally folk, if that. That doesn't make it bad or irrelevant, just very different from a genuinely trad performance. That would seem to be an important point in any serious discussion, because no Steeleye performance sounds like, say, any Harry Cox performance.

To get back to the OP: "going wrong" implies that "we" are somehow hindering the appreciation of traditional music. I'm not even sure what that means, or if we could mess it up. It seems to mean that lots more people should adore traditional music. Whether they should or not, I'm not certain that there's anything we can do beyond playing it and making it available.

And downloads make it more readily available to a larger audience than ever.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 06 Oct 13 - 12:55 PM

The argument is set out above that "folk" is a matter of style. It is not. At the theoretical level (1954 or Karpeles definition) it is a matter of derivations.

If it were a matter of style then if English traditional song could be folk music then there could be no Chinese or Russian folk music - because it sounds different.

Further, if it were a matter of style then when Fairport Convention or Steeleye Span or Blue Horses did a folk song then it would no longer be a folk song.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Lighter
Date: 06 Oct 13 - 12:06 PM

Don't take my word for it:

http://www.mustrad.org.uk/enth36.htm

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 06 Oct 13 - 12:00 PM

"Folkies assuming that their particular brand of specialised easy-listening revivalism is somehow superior to other living / breathing musical traditions - such as that much maligned 'Rap Music',"

The fact is though that everyone has personal taste. I have actually a reasonably wide taste in that I listen to most genres but it is just that as a genre I find rap boring and repetative and lyrically undecipherable most of the time. I'm not saying that because I don't particularly like it that it is then inferior to folk music. I've just said why I don't like that much and given the reason why. We are all free to like what we want!!

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Oct 13 - 11:32 AM

Like I said, Blandiver. The works, although seriously researched, are extremely subjective views as the above comments prove. If you insist on relying on one set of experts you can only expect others to quote another set of experts. Authority is one of the more serious flaws of logical argument.

I am still worried by your feeling that I have been too personal and potentially insulting. Can we get to the bottom of that to settle my mind at least.

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Eldergirl
Date: 06 Oct 13 - 11:32 AM

I'm with you, Suzy S-P.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Oct 13 - 11:18 AM

""Fakesong," at least, has been discredited (by C. J. Bearman and others) as tendentious and inaccurate"
And others, including (indirectly) after the first wave of criticism, by the author himself who refused to discuss it publicly
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Suzy Sock Puppet
Date: 06 Oct 13 - 10:50 AM

This is a great thread. I have nothing to add at the moment but keep talking. I'm listening.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 06 Oct 13 - 09:34 AM

I can't see how such basic observations & essential truisms can be 'discredited'; maybe 'disagreed with' might be more accurate. A lot of people around here might 'disagree' with it, but the basic historical substance of the thing is sound. Likewise The Imagined Village - and The Ladybird Story of Music if it comes to that (although it neglects to name the 'Gardener' from whom Sharp plundered 'The Seeds of Love' from which he made his nice parlour Trad. Arr. to perform for his posh pals during their postprandial soiree (presumably as a mere Tradition Bearer Mr England was not invited) thus establishing a precedence for such misappropriation / misinterpretation of so-called Traditional Folk Song that endures to this very day.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Lighter
Date: 06 Oct 13 - 08:23 AM

"Fakesong," at least, has been discredited (by C. J. Bearman and others) as tendentious and inaccurate.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 06 Oct 13 - 07:40 AM

The works you refer to are history books written from a specific view with the point, it must be said, to make money for the authors

These aren't works of popular fiction, DtG - they are seriously researched works of social / cultural history by authors who remain essentially, and impressively, impartial throughout. One hopes their efforts earned them a working wage, but I doubt the authors were looking to cash in on that academic folklore market which has attracted so many with its allure of filthy lucre.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Oct 13 - 06:55 AM

WAY too personal (and potentially insulting) a response to an entirely impersonal discussion, DtG.


Not intentionally so at all, Blandiver. Tell me which bit(s) you find too personal and potentially insulting and I will happily address them.

The works you refer to are history books written from a specific view with the point, it must be said, to make money for the authors. Again, nothing wrong with that but there are as many differing conclusions as there are books! There are no 'facts' about how folk music came into being just as there is no single agreement on what folk music actually is. Only opinions, and let's not go there again! Like the question I asked before about why is one music better than another, that still remains unanswered btw, why is one authors opinion better than another? Unless, of course, it happens to coincide with your own :-)

I do like the plate in that Ladybird book BTW - Wonderful stuff:-) I don't understand what point it drives home though. Unless you are saying that 'folk' as perceived by Cecil Sharpe and his contemporaries is the plundering of working class music. Which I would entirely agree with. I think we have moved on somewhat since then though.

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Andrez
Date: 06 Oct 13 - 06:17 AM

Hmmmmmm methinks it takes all colours to make a rainbow. Think about it, and just play or listen to whatever takes your fancy!

Cheers,

Andrez

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 06 Oct 13 - 05:52 AM

Don't delude yourself that you are 'telling it like it is' either. You are simply one opinion amongst many. One that is, in the main, entirely ignored anyway. Still, I do like the idea of a 'partially active & wholly imperfect Folk Gene' so I will accept that you may be one or two sandwichs short of a picnic:-)

WAY too personal (and potentially insulting) a response to an entirely impersonal discussion, DtG.

My 'opinion' is simply the facts of how folk came into being. You can read all about it Dave Harker's 'Fakesong' and Georgina Boyes' 'The Imagined Village' and elsewhere. That Folk is born of social & cultural apartheid (& must define itself in such a way as to secure its position in what is a terrible case of cultural plunder & misrepresentation in which the working-class are effectively denied their creative heritage and are selectively screened for their potential as genuine authentic pure-blood traditional song-carriers depending on the degree of contamination from less savoury popular influences, like hip-hop) is hardly a secret. You can even read about it in 'The Ladybird Story of Music'; there's even an illustration just to drive the point home:

Cecil Sharp's Folk Epiphany

In 40 years of folkin' I've become aware of the prevailing social, cultural & ethnic demographic of punters & perpetrators alike, which is entirely consistent with its essentially theoretical / visionary / religious / cultist / academic nature. All of which, I have to say, is fine by me because that's what folk is. What isn't fine by me, however, is Folkies assuming that their particular brand of specialised easy-listening revivalism is somehow superior to other living / breathing musical traditions - such as that much maligned 'Rap Music', which, sadly, is a recurring theme here on Mudcat.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Eldergirl
Date: 05 Oct 13 - 08:32 PM

Not sure that when Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, he was telling the audience Go, and do thou likewise.
Am totally sure that Johnny Collins was one of the most Inclusive performers ever, he made jolly damn sure that people joined in, which is one of the main reasons for folk music, surely?
Rumncoke, I'm sorry, but I must admit to having been a folkie on internet radio.. It was fun, but I've no idea if more than 3 people were listening!! Maybe that's why we're being told to do it that way. Another method of diluting our musical input.
Incidentally, title of OP has the words Traditional Music. why are we wittering on about rap? That's from another tradition altogether, W African I think. Not that many W Africans on this thread?

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Rumncoke
Date: 05 Oct 13 - 05:56 PM

All was explained on BBC Radio 4 today - we aren't supposed to be doing it out there in the community - we're supposed to put folk music on the internet.

Yeah - right.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 05 Oct 13 - 01:18 PM

I am just picturing line-dancing to sea shanties. What a blast :-) Thanks for that image Mick.

Haul around the capstan
my achy-breaky capstan...

:D tG

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 Oct 13 - 01:14 PM

"Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern"
They're dead, you know?
According to Tom Stoppard anyway!
I suppose everybody is aware of 'Oor Hamlet' - Adam McNaughton's magnificent take on the finest play ever written?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 05 Oct 13 - 12:49 PM

More stereotyping? European doesn't necessarily mean Jewish. The names Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are those of aristocratic families.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Mick G
Date: 05 Oct 13 - 12:42 PM

Maqy be of interest. About 4/5 years ago I was in Great Yarmouth as a member of the 'Grand Turk Press Gang Singers' (Gt Yarmouth Maritime Festival - Grand Turk sailing ship (Indefatigable from Hornblower series) we went to a local folk club to perform (with Johnny Collins, Sue and John Griffiths of the Mollyhawks) When we got to the folk club it was full of members in jeans and stetson hats doing line dancing. The hired act had a break and we manged to inveigle an invitation to perform our shanties. The locals were amazed and wanted to know why they couldn't have music like this every week. A question we couldn't answer. We were made very welcome. When the hired act came back on they started with 'Rolling Home' the John Tams classic and the locals really appreciated that also. I think it's all down to how it's presented. Pity Johnny Collins isn't about any more.
It was a very enjoyable evening and not what we were expecting when we went in (I don't think it was what the locals were expecting either, but they enjoyed it also)

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 05 Oct 13 - 12:32 PM

You know the genre has got something going for it when a rap version of Hamlet manages to annoy the Tory Cabinet into making a national issue of it:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-24351371

The storyline of Hamlet includes the hero doing a completely random killing (Polonius), sexist abuse of Ophelia driving her to suicide, sneakily engineering the murder of two guys with Jewish names, and finally setting off a bloodbath that kills every developed character left on stage. And we're supposed to sympathize with him. Is any character in a rap lyric as gross as the one Shakespeare created?

For that matter, how many rap personas can match Don Giovanni, Turandot or Mr Punch?

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Eldergirl
Date: 05 Oct 13 - 12:03 PM

Allan, I guess they come along to enjoy the music for its own sake, which is what a lot of us do. Much like my home town folk club, in fact.
As for being overprivileged; the description surely applies to most of the western/developed world, compared to the rest. Not just a few folk enthusiasts.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 05 Oct 13 - 11:57 AM

It's music for & a white middle-class graduate demographic because of its essential academic / theoretical status.

I am white, middle-class and while lacking in said academic certification I do believe I belong to that demographic. Is this supposed to be wrong somehow? Are we all supposed to be black gangsta's? Why, in your opinion, is one kind of music inferior to another?

Don't delude yourself that you are 'telling it like it is' either. You are simply one opinion amongst many. One that is, in the main, entirely ignored anyway. Still, I do like the idea of a 'partially active & wholly imperfect Folk Gene' so I will accept that you may be one or two sandwichs short of a picnic:-)

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 05 Oct 13 - 10:50 AM

"Folk, OTOH, is the esoteric dreaming of a privileged few"

A few of those who attend our club are pretty well off. One or two are what you might call at the bottom of the rung financially. I think the vast bulk though are just ordinary people. Certainly not overly privileged or particuarly wealthy. I don't understand the above comment.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Eldergirl
Date: 05 Oct 13 - 10:36 AM

'Folk' round our way looks like an attempt by many musically enterprising younger people to break into the music biz and maybe even become Stars..
I say Looks Like. Appearances are not everything.
BTW, cheers DtG, ah'preciate it.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Lighter
Date: 05 Oct 13 - 08:07 AM

> Rap is alive and thriving internationally; Folk, OTOH, is the esoteric dreaming of a privileged few.

So what?

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Eldergirl
Date: 05 Oct 13 - 07:31 AM

Guest Rev Bayes is thinking of the folk music that speaks from the human core eternally.
Lucy Wan, or Down by the Greenwood Sidney..oh this bloody spell checker!!
Apologies to Sidney,whoever he is!
Any trad music should contain all aspects of life in the nation/country/neighbourhood from which it springs? But it won't always glorify the crap.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 05 Oct 13 - 07:23 AM

glorifying violence, abuse of women, etc etc.

You listened to any Traditional Folk Songs / Ballads recently?

Why then are you posting to and, presumably, reading a folk music forum? :-)

Because I am cursed with a partially active & wholly imperfect Folk Gene & have even been known to participate from time to time... BUT I'm under no illusions as to Folk's nature & purpose, much less its origins. I'm not seeking to rub anyone up, just tell it like it is : Folk is born from a bourgeois fantasy of proletarian culture and carries on in essentially the same vain to this day. It's music for & a white middle-class graduate demographic because of its essential academic / theoretical status. This includes all the Folk Music I've ever taken part in.

Rap is alive and thriving internationally; Folk, OTOH, is the esoteric dreaming of a privileged few.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Oct 13 - 06:56 AM

Why proselytize ?

Not having to drive as far to a session or a concert venue that could sell enough tickets maybe. But what else ?

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Rev Bayes
Date: 05 Oct 13 - 06:55 AM

Well, then, let's talk about the folk music that glorifies rape and trivialises domestic abuse.

Some crackingly ignorant posting going on here.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 05 Oct 13 - 06:36 AM

Blandiver - Why then are you posting to and, presumably, reading a folk music forum? :-)

To be serious though, you are being as guilty as others of gross generalisations. SOME rap is far more complex etc. SOME folk is heritage hobbyist etc. Can you not see that when you tar all with the same brush you are bound to rub some people up the wrong way?

I have said quite categorically that I don't particularly like a lot of the rap music that I have heard but I would not dream of saying it is all created for an 'select elite of comfortable middle-class' of white teenagers wanting to be black 'gangsta's'. I have not heard it all. There is some I do like. Even the stuff I don't like, some people do, so it must therefore have appeal to others.

Same with folk music. A lot is to my taste and some is not. I don't particularly like a lot of the Irish music I hear and find a lot of amateur songwriter stuff overly self-indulgent. But again I would not dream of saying it is a disgrace. Nor do I believe that one particular music speaks 'from the human core'. As humans we are all different and the music I feel speaks for me is, most likely, far different from the music that speaks for you.

If your post was meant to alienate 'true folkies' (whatever they are) you have most likely succeeded. If, however, it was meant to be a serious analysis of the situation them I'm afraid, to my eyes anyway, it fails to convince. Just try to see that we are all different, not only in musical tastes, but in levels of sensitivity :-)

Cheers

DtG

BTW - Eldergirl. I will speak to you. Exactly the same points I was making earlier.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Eldergirl
Date: 05 Oct 13 - 06:30 AM

Trouble is, the rap getting most publicity is the rap glorifying violence, abuse of women, etc etc. Yes there is rap that doesn't , but how much of it gets through to the general listener?
OTOH, a list of Victorian songs held at the British Library has lyrics about bankers, factory owners, lords of whatever manor, grinding the faces of the poor and otherwise disadvantaged, which could have been written early this morning.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 05 Oct 13 - 05:49 AM

Rap may be a fantastic outlet for "political" expression (not that I think it is) and still be execrable as a form of music or even as a way of declaiming verse.

Spoken like a true Folky!

FYO : Rap is far more complex / exciting / sophisticated / rooted / involved / traditional / dynamic / relevant / diverse / wondrous & musically satisfying than the bland retrograde easy listening pre-digested toothless excreta that gets passed off as Folk these days, which is well and truly execrable and a disgrace to the bucolic joys of the traditional song / music forms which it claims to revive and revere.

Folk is heritage hobbyist comfort-blanket banality created by & for a select elite of comfortable middle-class graduate escapist nerds; Rap, OTOH, is actually happening and celebrating the human condition in all its filth, depravity, pride, yearning and struggle. It speaks from the human core eternally.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Eldergirl
Date: 05 Oct 13 - 05:07 AM

Some English people are/were ashamed of/apologetic about their culture, thinking it would be associated with the British Empire, international bullying, ... etc.(e.g.apologising for The Crusades. No the crusades weren't a good thing, but will apologising now make any difference?)
Other English people thought that as they were now Educated and Improved, they no longer needed that old hokey folk music stuff.
Some English people were Upper Class and didn't rate old folky stuff anyway.
Some English people are proud of the wrong stuff; don't we have the most unmarried teenage mothers, the worst football hooligans, the most litter-filled streets in our cities.. And a number of youngsters who take pride in being ignorant and stupid?
NO NOTALLOFTHEM!! This is just what seems to make the news and TV. Does someone out there want us to sling our culture out with the bathwater? NB I'm saying ENGLISH, have we not been oppressed? The Lower Classes have, for centuries, this is where the folk music bubbled up from, mostly.. so is England's problem that it's full of snobs?
Er, this seems to have been a Rant. Oh dear, now nobody will speak to me Ever Again..
X el :-\

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Suzy Sock Puppet
Date: 04 Oct 13 - 07:56 PM

SPB-Cooperator, good assessment.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,giovanni
Date: 04 Oct 13 - 03:58 PM

I'm eclectic in my tastes and always have been, and over too many decades of listening to music, Mike Skinner is one of very few who can make me well up with his music.

So don't frap the rap.

g