Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From:
Gibb Sahib
Date: 07 Sep 14 - 04:41 AM
As a scholar, I don't accept the word "folk." The capitalized "Folk" I'm cool with, but the lower-case "folk" I reject.
Big-F "Folk" is a label that means different things to different people. (duh) As with other labels that attempt to group music, for some purpose, its meanings are not only multiple but also necessarily fuzzy. It is useful, when true precision is not important, when you are speaking/interacting with other people who likely share the same rough sense of the kind of stuff you're talking about (and not talking about). For example, to say Mudcat is a place to discuss Folk music is perfectly acceptable. Being in English language gives me the first clue as to what sort of "Folk" is under discussion. Then, seeing the sort of discussion, including the musical items that figure in, completes the picture.
Use of little-f "folk," carries with it, to me, the belief on the part of the user that the term has a more precise and constant meaning - that it is somehow technical or scientific. At the very least I think this "folk" is nonsense. At the most, it carries ideological baggage that is distasteful, and it is too ethnocentric in its concept to have validity for the way I think about music - in its broad historical and cultural and biological (human) dimensions.
OMG that's so twentieth century. … Phrenology, anyone?
I don't find there is anything I need to describe as "folk", in a scholarly context, that I can't describe with a more precise and/or neutral way. If it's amateurs performing, I say that. If it's oral transmission that is important, I say that. If there are certain stylistic features - specific textures, timbres, harmonies, intonation, instruments used, etc - I just say what those are.
I have published a good amount of scholarship on dances of the Punjab region. These are dances typically performed by a group of people moving in a circle to the rhythms of a drum. You'll hear Punjabi people -in urban, Westernized contexts - wanting to call them "Punjabi traditional folk dances". One reason why they do that is because the words "traditional" and "folk" have a certain "ring" to them. What they are saying, indirectly, is that they value things called "traditional" (as opposed to its supposed opposite, "modern"). They think there is something essential better, more pure, etc about "traditional," and just thinking about these dances that way gives them a little buzz. Same goes with "folk." But not only is the "traditional folk" part redundant, it's also superfluous. These are the "Punjabi" dances. There are no Punjabi "classical" dances or Punjabi "pop" dances or anything else. The dance belong to the Punjabi region, hence "Punjabi dances" - that's all I need to call them.
Similarly, when others use "folk" as if it were a scholarly term, I suspect it is something they *like* to say because it gives them a little buzz…tickles a little romantic spot. At the least, it carries an expression of *valuation*. I think in good scholarship, however, there is no room for such valuation. We need to strive for neutral terms.
That romance was there through the days of Karpelles to Lomax. I get the sense it really delighted them to be writing things talking about "folk" stuff. We're past those days now. That bubble has burst. Scholars can't position themselves as valuing "folk" stuff as opposed to "popular" or "classical", etc.
I think those definitions in the encyclopedias that Lighter quoted are nonsensical. There is some kind of Emperor-wears-no-clothes lip-service going on. The scholars that produce those are/were in a world where they are forced to deal with that terminology because someone has put it on the table but they haven't grown the balls to take it off. There's too much attachment to it. And there are too many institutions in place - archives of "folk" stuff and departments of "folk" whatever - to pull the plug. The thing is, these institutions, etc can carry on as long as people are thinking "Folk" (and finessing that as they go) and not full of themselves; as long as people are not drawing the conclusion that because there is a "Folk Archive" then the little-f "folk" is the operative conceptual framework.
It may sound harsh that I say it's nonsense when scholars use (little-f) "folk", but that doesn't mean I reject these scholars' work. I just think we are past that. Old folks can keep on what they did in the past, I suppose - no biggie. But they risk sounding parochial to the newer generations of scholars. Hence, the very active (professionally) and younger scholars - in which I include myself - can't afford to do it if we're to be considered very seriously.
I really don't - sincerely I don't - have a major beef with the (older?) scholars who use "folk" a lot. But I want to make it clear that "1954" concept of "folk" is not a standard thing among scholars of today. To summarize: scholars today are receptive to the many ways performers and audiences conceptualize what they (performers and audiences) call "Folk," and in their own work, seek more precision and terms that reflect the latest and best (not 1950s) ideas.
|
sj
