Educated folk? The folk degree

Subject: Educated folk? the 1st degree
From: Fay
Date: 07 Nov 01 - 08:06 AM

In four years there will be over 100 students living in Newcastle and studying traditional music. In eight years there will be over 100 'experts' in the field, who will have been taught by a number of other practicing musicians. What sort of effect do you think this will have on the traditional/folk music scene, and on the people involved in the course, and on the people who have decided not to be a part of the course.

Do you think it will cause any problems, or will it just be a blessing on all fronts?

I am on the degree programme, and am interested to see what opinion people have about us, the students who've chosen to spend four years singing songs, and the course.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Nov 01 - 08:13 AM

I've done a degree programme in folklore, which is the model used by most universities for their "traditional music" programmes.

I think it is an expensive way to spend a few years learning to play or sing, and that academe is sanitizing, commodifying, and standardizing the music to ill effect.

But you may be able to get a comfy job out of it.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: GUEST,Tom
Date: 07 Nov 01 - 08:14 AM

Well, I'm not on that course, but I am at Newcastle and the musicians I've met doing that degree are doing more for folk music than most people. The only way to promote music is to play it and let other people hear it. As long as you all keep playing in public as well as for your course, I can't see a down side to it. Good luck with the degree.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: Skipjack K8
Date: 07 Nov 01 - 08:26 AM

Dunno, Fay, but suggest you get your thesis title lodged now before that Stephenson fellow nicks it.

"The Influence of the Internet on World Music"

Extra points if you work Mudcat into the title!

Again, good luck.

An envious Skipjack

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Nov 01 - 08:29 AM

There are many ways to promote music, just like there are many ways to learn music. One need not get a college degree in music unless one expects to get something for it, ie a job working for an agency or organization which promotes the music, or wishes to teach in the schools.

University programmes are job training, not music training.

That said, of course I wish the students good luck with their programmes. Of course I with them good luck in the job market. Of course I wish them good luck with their music endeavors. But that doesn't mean I don't view the recent development of traditional music programmes in British and Irish and American universities with a bit of healthy cynicism about what it means to traditional music outside the academy and other bureaucratic institutions.

It sounds to me Tom, like you are putting a New Labour spin on things.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: GUEST,English Jon
Date: 07 Nov 01 - 08:31 AM

"What sort of effect do you think this will have on the traditional/folk music scene"

None whatsoever. The fact that there is now a course offered possibly shows an increase in interest in the subject, but surely this is a symptom of the "burgeoning folk revival" that has been allegedly going on for the past five years or so. Some great new performers will come out of the course, having said that, you have to be pretty good to get a place on it anyway, by all acounts, so how much is down to tuition and how much is down to talent?

What the course may do is offer formalised study of how music evolves, like any other musicology course. The working methods of ethnomusicology are usefull skills and help build up a good background picture, assisting with context, explaining form etc

"and on the people involved in the course"

Depends, really. Could be a great help, or it could equally be Sanitising and Commodifying as guest above says. I don't think you'll get a comfy job out of it. Some may, but I don't think there are 400 comfy jobs in folk music. What the course may do, if there is a business element, is give practical advice on performing careers, music management etc. Again, not really unique teaching.

The valuable part of the course seems to me to be the chance to work one to one with some of todays greatest performers. Concertina lessons with Aly Anderson, for example. Very useful.

Be aware that a lot of degree courses end up making you wish that you'd done something else...

"...and on the people who have decided not to be a part of the course."

Who will continue making music anyway?

"Do you think it will cause any problems, or will it just be a blessing on all fronts?"

I think it will be a good opportunity to study with some great performers, and will certainly help pass on traditional music. Having said that, if someone wants to play folk music well, they generally teach themselves off records, by playing with others etc, so I don't think this course is necessarilly a significant boon to the world of folk music in generall. Sure, it's good that it exists - kind of prooves that the music is healthy - people want to learn it, but it's value to society is pretty much the same as any other esoteric degree. I studied opera for a bit, and I'm sure the world is a much better place because of it... ;)

Good luck with it though, and have lots of fun. And ask them if they'll ever do an MA/PhD for me, will you?

EJ

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: artbrooks
Date: 07 Nov 01 - 08:33 AM

There are many ways to reach the same destination. I have a friend who received a degree in "ethnomusicology" (sic?) many years ago, and she has made a modest living with music all her life. There are also many people, and a lot of them can be found here on Mudcat, who have no formal education in "folk" or "traditional" music (however you choose to define those terms) but who know more about musical presentation and the background of the music they perform than you can possibly imagine. I expect you and your collegues will do as well as any group of graduates in any discipline, as long as you don't think that the degree alone makes you, as you put it, "experts in the field".

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Nov 01 - 08:42 AM

Yes, the "experts in the field" triggers a negative reaction in me.

I fear that is just what these programmes will create.

I think it most important to remember that the current generation of musicians up and coming, who have the greatest technical mastery of the music ever, did not learn their chops through tuition programmes.

A degree programme suggests that people within academe have more expertise than those outside it. That can't be a healthy development for communal traditions rooted in marginalised cultures.

All disclaimers about opinion apply, of course.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Nov 01 - 08:59 AM

Sorry for following up my own post, but I meant to also agree with English Jon about the individuals teaching. The benefits derived from the programme are going to depend upon each student's circumstances more than anything else. But in terms of quantifiable differences between programmes, I would agree one criteria one could use to judge the quality would be the person(s) doing the teaching. In fact, there may really not be much else to judge on these programmes, considering how new they are.

The other main criteria I would use to compare programmes would be to look at the quality of the musicology and ethnomusicology programmes at the different universities, and attempt to divine each programme's strengths and weaknesses.

But either way, you are likely to have a grand time at university, considering you get to hang out with great musicians, and play the music you love for a few years.

Just be careful of one thing--if you begin to lose your passion for the music that you bring to the programme (remember, you are selected for what *you* bring to *their* programme too), or feeling like something is sucking the life out of you, get out of the programme as quickly as possible, and find some other avenue for pursuing the music or something else that allows you to remain true to yourself and your passions.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 07 Nov 01 - 09:04 AM

A lesson I learned the hard way: If you do it because you love it, don't study it academically.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Nov 01 - 09:12 AM

Wise words, Russ. I pretty much feel the same way.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: Amos
Date: 07 Nov 01 - 09:21 AM

The core values of real folk music are hidden within the music and words, not available directly for academic parsing. Analyzing Latinate influences in the language of "Bar'br'y Ellen" does not a folksinger make, and never even noticing those Latinate influences but being able to envision the emotions and turmoil colliding between Barbry and young Edmund, and actually feel the sparks, does.

That said, it is good to have academics edocumenting and tabulating the historical threads of folk music, and the more folk songs get presented the more people in and out of academe will fall under their mystique. So I suppose it is all for the good, even if the dissertation does kill a few musical souls cold!

A

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: Big Mick
Date: 07 Nov 01 - 09:28 AM

I know a number of "experts" in the field. Sandy and Caroline Paton, Dick Greenhaus, Dan Milner, Rick Fielding, Kendall Morse, Wolfgang Hell, Don Meixner, Alice in Montana, Dick Swain, Frank Hamilton, Rita Ferrara, Lisa Null, Charlie Baum and others. Then there are experts in training. I would put meself in this category. The "experts" I know start by playing the music, becoming intrigued by it, and then collecting and researching it. The program of study won't make you more of an expert, or even equal to the names mentioned above. When Sandy and Caroline started collecting, they did so with a baby on their back, hitchhiking around Scotland, Appalachia, etc. and sleeping in sleeping bags. They sang it and they lived it. See, that is the thing about "folk" music. It is learned on porches, in living rooms, around campfires, etc. You can hear it from CD's, but to get it, you must share it and understand what spawned it. It is interesting to me that the "experts" come to people on those porches to learn it.

Do I think the courses mentioned are valuable? Sure do, as long as you understand that you aren't going to be an "expert" when you graduate. You will be a well trained novice. You will have the advantage of knowing where to start, and what you want to look for. Most of us had to suffer through 15 false starts musically before we settled on something. But make sure you understand one thing.........you are looking for the "experts", you are not one.

Do I see any potential dangers. You betcha. Academics often want to standardize things. It is the Rise Up Singing thing. RUS has many advantages, but this "you aren't singing it the right way" piece isn't one of them. I am an interpretive and introspective singer. I will sing songs the way that makes sense to me. That is the same potential danger in this line of study. It should open your mindseye to the vast and diverse beauty of this music. It should open your heart to sense what spawned it. But if it starts to cause you to try and pigeonhole the music and limit it, you should run as fast as possible to the highlands and sit around a fire singing the songs of the old ones.

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: Steve in Idaho
Date: 07 Nov 01 - 05:32 PM

Whatever works to meet people's needs. I do believe that there aren't any real experts out there. We are all "in training." Chet Atkins once said that the more he learned on the guitar the less he knew. I believe it. We each do our own thing and it has meaning - if there is no meaning - then there isn't anything but rote behavior.

I would have to gently disagree with Guest and Guest Russ about not doing what one loves in an academic setting. I dearly love what I do - and then I went to school for a number of years to be able to get paid for doing it.

The proper university setting has the potential, if the student wants it, to ignite great passion. And passion is the heart of "Folk" music.

Steve

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: sophocleese
Date: 07 Nov 01 - 07:29 PM

I took two courses at University on Storytelling and Oral Narrative. Sounds fancy doesn't it? It doesn't make me a better story teller than anybody who has been telling stories for years without the course but it has given me a little more appreciation for storytellers and storytelling.

One of the immediate advantages I can see for the course would be meeting other people with similar interests. This is very stimulating and great fun on its own. It would be particularly useful for those who have grown up in an area where there wasn't a lot of interest.

You should also have access to various sources for material and be able to research songs well. Whether a student does this or not will depend on their abilities and tastes.

Ideally you can combine a knowledge of Italianate influences on Barbara Allen with a gut feeling of what the song means to you and others. The danger lies in substituting one sort of knowledge for another without understanding the difference.

You could become experts on the literary, documented, backgrounds of various songs which can then help or hinder further personal research into them.

I've never considered University courses as job training which is why I have taken them and remain unemployed. I think it would be a lot of fun to take these courses.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 07 Nov 01 - 07:44 PM

Over here in the states I know some performers who have gone to University and gotten advanced degrees in folklore and it hasn't necessarily improved their performing skills. That said, I wish there were something like that easily available when I went to college in the mid-70's. I probably spent more time playing my guitar and learning songs than I did doing work in my major.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: Cllr
Date: 07 Nov 01 - 07:57 PM

I chucked my job in the legal profession to do a degree in something I love - Politics (all right love is perhaps to strong a word but you know what I mean) So my experience is different to Russ and guest. I also won a scholorship for singing, the tuition involved helped my singing (I hope) but it didn't really change my style of singing in the folk idiom (sound of can of worms being opened)it just improved my technique. Any degree can be of use in the outside world as long as the principles involve things like research ie not just the content but the methodology of learning processes. Going to university as a mature student still meant I learnt an awful lot from events outside the normal academic fields. I would imagine that a lot of people might question a degree perhaps asking why somethings were included and others missed out and it might depend on what they thought Folk music was (quick bolt that stable door before the horse comes out again) I suppose I would only object to a degree if if said that there was only one way of looking at something and as long as there is more than just one tutor I can't see that happening. Any way good luck and have fun. Cllr

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: selby
Date: 08 Nov 01 - 01:14 PM

I have thought about this course often (potential future graduate in our house) there are a miriad of options open for those who complete the course but I think a good majority may slip into teaching. This will then bring lots of positive results at the schools they choose as well as to the local area. Which in my opinion is a positive step forward for traditional music. Keith

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: DougR
Date: 08 Nov 01 - 02:43 PM

Keith, I'm curious. Other than teaching, what kind of job options will the graduates have? I can't imagine that a degreed band will have much of an advantage over a non-degreed one when a venue hires a band, can you?

I can see where such a degree might be helpful if one's goal is teaching, or perhaps research (provided some institution can be identified that would pay for research being done on folk music). But I wonder what variety of jobs might be available to graduates.

Cans someone enlighten me?

DougR

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: Sonnet
Date: 08 Nov 01 - 05:52 PM

Fay, My daughter Rachael, of whom I am immensely proud, is on the same course. Don't take any notice of people who seek to devalue either the course or the talents of all you traditional musicians up there. Some people will never understand why you're all there, and others will mask their jealousy with scorn. I don't think the course is intended to open anyone to the job market - not all university courses are, these days. My MA in Poetry bears no relevence to my job as a library assistant, won't necessarily lead to me being signed up by any of the major poetry publishers, but has given me the skills I need to do what I really want, which is write poetry well, and has provided me with the opportunity to socialise and be taught by poets who are my heroes, just in the same way that you are being taught by yours. As with any degree course, what you get out of it depends on the effort you put into it. Have the courage to do what you want to do with your music. You are so lucky to have this wonderful opportunity, which I feel, from talking to some of you, that the majority of you appreciate. Good luck with your studies. Janet McS

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Nov 01 - 06:35 PM

I would guess most folk music students do go into teaching, just as other music students in university programmes do. And for that, university programmes are excellent job training.

There may also be potential for museum and historical work too, depending on how the courses are in the programme. Again, that too makes a university degree useful for job hunting after finishing.

But as far as performance careers, there is no equivalent of the music conservatory approach for folk music, so I don't know how to evaluate the folk music programmes springing up all over the place these days, to be honest.

But as I said, it would make for a grand time at university, so as others have suggested, enjoy the time there, and worry about the job later!

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: GUEST,Chicken Charlie
Date: 08 Nov 01 - 07:04 PM

As a so-called musician and former academic, I can give a great answer: it depends. This will have no broad effect on folk music, that's for sure. If the faculty is good, the students will learn something; if the faculty is fussy, narrow and parochial, the students will emerge thinking that only they are doing it right, which will be unfortunate. I know some folks who have done commendable scholarly reasearch into trad material but are shit perfomers; and vice versa. Basically formal ed is no magic wand; it is a proven fact that jerks can earn doctorates, but that's no more significant than playing "pin the tail on the donkey." The better students will profit; the dull ones will just become dull and pompous. Life will go on.

CC

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: Art Thieme
Date: 08 Nov 01 - 07:33 PM

I'm a folksinger. I did what I did---learned what I learned---sang what I sang and am what I am---here and now. I'm a self-styled graduate of the University Of The Open Road. One thing I've learned is that the folks I respect most out there are the ones with many hats to wear---folks like Joe Hickerson who as an academic and archivist who held on to so much that is valuable and also presented the gems he found for all of us to have, sing and ENJOY. Michael Cooney and Larry Hanks and Jean Ritchie and Utah Phillips and Hedy West and The New Lost City Ramblers -- so very many others -- all manage to fit into numerous "hats". And they somehow look and sound great in all the headgear.

My hat is off to them. Thanks folks !

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: Tweed
Date: 08 Nov 01 - 07:56 PM

Well said Art. I'm curious though, why would many of you pay loads of money to go to school to learn folklore and singing? Is it only found in Universities now? I don't understand the need to hold a degree in something that always has been picked up a piece at a time and just sort of evolves in the natural world. I'm not flamin' here at all, but just wondering about all that.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: DougR
Date: 08 Nov 01 - 09:42 PM

I wonder if maybe the Universities saw a market that could be filled, which equates to tuitions paid? Or maybe some young people are not willing to learn the art form the way Art, Sandy, Caroline, and so many others did, by going out on the road and living the "folk" life to learn the craft. They may consider it a short-cut to success or something. I hope they don't, and if the Universities are responsible about it, they won't lead students to believe that.

DougR

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: Art Thieme
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 01:34 AM

That was then and this is now. (I'm not being facetious.)

Some people went for the discipline of it---for the detail---for the accurate specificity that being within the brotherhood (generic term--no offense) could give to one's standing in the given community and also in one's own mind. It was a real world stamp of approval that, yes, made it easier to get a respected job within the framework of the system as it stood then --- a system which, then as well as now, seems to want/need credentials that show it you've got the sheepskin to prove your sincerity, tenacity, stick-toitiveness about the given subject matter. Being a great folksinger even while achieving those lofty goals is just proof that your horizons are not limited to the dusty shelves of an archives. It shows, also, that you care about the material so much that you want to bring it to others in an authentic way while still being true to the piece's ethnicity simplplicity and specialness. And lo and behold, when presented correctly (whatever that is), it can still be relavant to someone living in these bizarre times too. Doing it like Woody or Jack Elliott or Leadbelly (or even closer to home) meant coffeehouses and bar gigs instead of concert halls. Having the degree meant (God forbid) you might take home a decent weekly pay check instead of needing a benefit (or two or three) to pay medical bills when it finally hits you that you are not immortal like you thought you were at age 20 if you thought about it at all.

Again, the folk scene, today, is, unbelievably, viewed by so very many as a springboard to pop and/or country music success with big-time agents, roadies and a tour bus. (One need only look at the Folk Alliance to see this in action.) But that's o.k.---even though I liked it better the old way.

But I digress..

How many folksingers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Ten! One to screw it in, and nine to reminisce about how good the old bulb was.

Didn't mean to ramble so much. It's been a long day. Nighty night!

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: Tweed
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 06:35 AM

Thanks guys, I think I get it. I guess you're right about that "then and now" thing.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: GUEST,Ace
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 07:06 AM

Sign me up for PA systems 101.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 07:29 AM

I thought this thread might be about some new form of torture, where the Third Degree wasn't working.

This course sounds like it could be fun and a pretty interesting way of passing a few years. And maybe the academic posts involved will provide safe houses for a few people from the tradition. And there's a lot of fascinating academic work to be done, and Hamish Henderson in Scotland showed how valuable it could be.

But "university programmes are job training, not music training." Seeing university as job training is a horrible idea. And I know it's very much the flavour of the age, and it's a very nasty flavour too.

Universities are there to provide students with a chance to explore learning and to expand their understanding (and have a good time), and for more advanced students (such as academics)to take this further, and to pass it on. (And have a good time as well.)

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 07:52 AM

Explore learning? Expand understanding?

Gimme a break. Universities, like all school which leads up to it, is a way to enforce institutionalized thinking, and training future middle management robots to enforce the hierarchy of the status quo.

Going to university NARROWS one's ability to think, and one does not explore learning, one takes the courses one is told to take to get the degree, certificate, diploma, whatever.

Very few people manage to get university degrees. The institutions are incredibly elitist and exclusionary, and their purpose and function is to train the mandarin class.

And just like any other programs claiming to "educate" people in the so-called "fine arts" (ie creative writing, painting, sculpting, dance, etc) any music program that exists in a university setting is going to have the ONE RIGHT WAY of technique, etc. The "one right way" is the way the person who is the program administrator sees it, and you really have little to no ability to challenge that.

I really do think that it won't be a healthy development for traditional music in the long run, to have an exclusive, elitist group of middle class people deciding what is and isn't folk/traditional, what is the right way to play, and who will be privleged and promoted, and who won't. That is the absolute antithesis of traditional music, IMO, because traditional music's experts are in a community of people who share the music, and not just the people who can get themselves into a college or university, the people with connections, or the innate ability to suck up enough to the professors running the programs to get ahead.

However, I am in favor of anyone who can get a college degree, especially poor and working class people, getting one. But not for delusional romantic reasons, like "studying art" and "working with mentors" crap. I am in favor of it, because it is a well known fact that they are much less likely to remain poor with a college degree. No matter what job they get (mostly) they will earn more than people without a degree, and that holds true for their entire earning lives.

I'm sure university is still a good way for the mandarin class to marry their daughters off to a "good husband", so there is always that perk, too.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: Cllr
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 09:49 AM

I agree with Mcgrath. Cllr

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: GUEST,English Jon
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 10:52 AM

Don't agree with GUEST at all I'm afraid. British University study is currently a very good way to get poor people into serious debt. Nothing very elitist about spending three or four years eating sod all and living in a room the size of a shoebox is there?

And why not study art? If no-one knew the "value" of art, Sotheby's would be knackered and that would screw up the investments of a lot of rich collectors, so there's a business side to that too. Or is that not the point? I suppose there is an argument that art reflects the human condition, but that can't possibly be valid, can it?

University does not narrow thinking. It teaches in certain ways, but it is generally a forum based form of education. Sure, to get the marks, you have to write the essay according to the views of the tutor, but you are quite entitled to disagree as long as you show you've understood the "accepted way".

And as to getting a job...You'd be amazed how many times I've been told I'm "overqualified", whatever that means. Or is the "Institution" nervous about employing graduates. Am I a potential loose canon?

Anyway, seen many signs in shop windows lately?

"Folk singer required: Must be fully qualified. Minimum 2 years experience. Contributory Pension Scheme. 25 days holiday+Company Car. 15k basic + Commission."

Although a "proper job" is the last thing I want. 20 years of musical study, and I find myself mending bloody computers for a living... So much for graduate prospects.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From:
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 11:11 AM

Here's my opinion -- all high school graduates should have salable skills, so they can support themselves and a child (not counting daycare costs..I'll leave that ot of the equation). To my way of thinking, the late teen and early adult years should be spent insuring that one has marketable skills. In addition, a person could take whatever personally fulfilling classes he/she wants. There could be some exceptions, but I don't think a whole lot. You can be a philosopher and an electrician, a folk musicologist and an LPN. Things are not mutually exclusive, in general. mg

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: DougR
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 11:30 AM

I think GUEST may have a point when he/she points out that the University will probably have "one right way" regarding technique, etc. but then I suppose that does make sense. It's not likely they would teach several "right ways" I suppose. I guess it is up to the student to explore other methods and after graduation use whatever they find works for them.

I find it difficult to believe, however, that a young person would spend the money and the time necessary to earn a degree if, at the end, they were not expecting to find gainful employment in their chosen field.

DougR

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: selby
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 12:54 PM

Although many people go into the area of their degree in some industries a degree proves you have the ability to collect,collate and anylis data. I worked in the power industry with a graduate who's degree was in French and she was responsible for Safety. Good luck to all those in Newcastle and enjoy the experience. Keith

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 12:59 PM

Old story.

The music of the subsidized (in this case academic) and more easily accessible musicians becomes more widespread, that of unsubsidized musicians relatively less.

The distribution of the musician population becomes skewed towards those playing the music of the subsidized musicians.

Thus, the musician population becomes more homogenized.

Why would one get involved with traditional music if one did not appreciate diversity per se?

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: DougR
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 01:00 PM

True, Selby. My degree was in Physical Education and I managed symphony orchestras and raised money for theater companies.

DougR

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 03:07 PM

"one has marketable skills" - I suppose that means you've learnt to do something useful and are going to be able to earn a living, which is a good idea. But "marketable skills" makes it sound like being livestock.

I hadn't a clue what I was going to do when I went to university. And nothing I learnt there formally has been particularly relevant to anything I have done in the rest of my life (apart from the folk music, which wasn't poart of the curriculum). I think that's how it ought to be.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: Sonnet
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 04:31 PM

Selby: Valid point. Janet

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: Tweed
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 07:25 PM

I'm with Doug and McGrath. I can't see how college level courses could unlock that "spiritual" doorway that sometimes appears while playing and singing. That only seems to occur during odd moments and in really unstructured settings. I think many of the songs that have survived this long were probably created in that free and easy atmosphere among good friends playing for one another's amusement. I'm not so sure that you could duplicate such a thing or even teach that to anyone inside the confines of a lecture hall. Of course I've not been inside a lecture hall so I could be mistaken here. I can see where a lover of music and musicianship would want to stay on campus and be paid to teach courses in this, but would there then be only campus generated music? I'm sure it's very finely crafted but could it still be real?

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 08:01 PM

But for all that, it can be done. Here's an article about Hamish Henderson to show what I mean.

Maybe if they have High Level Ranters as professors, the course might be in safe hands.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: pastorpest
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 09:24 PM

Somewhere buried in a university library is a thesis I wrote almost forty years ago. My guess is no one including me will ever look at it again. The term ethnomusicologist is applied to many who study folk music. Pete Seeger's father and step mother, Ralph Vaughan Williams and, in Canada where I live, Edith Fowlke. What degrees each of these ascholars had, I do not know. Edith Fowlke was a professor, and folk music in Canada and beyond Canada is the richer for her work. Time has a way of forgetting dull songs from dull song writers and also dull scholarship from dull scholars. If one good scholar emerges from these studies then the whole enterprise is justified.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: Tweed
Date: 09 Nov 01 - 11:22 PM

Hmmmm...good stuff. You 'Catters are alright. You make me start thinking again;~) Thanks.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Nov 01 - 09:54 AM

"You make me start thinking again" - Mudcat University, where one can get a BBS, an MBS, or a BSPhil.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: Mr Red
Date: 10 Nov 01 - 01:14 PM

BF more like!!!! **BG**
AND -- University narrows a person's thinking?
It only narrows shrink-ready crania. And having a chip on one's shoulder does that too. Not being given access to academe can. Any education channels and focuses, that is it's raison detre. We have to be vigilant about it and pedantry is not the preserve of University, look at any thread here. I am often guilty of "putting the record straight" and grateful when I am shown to be wrong in threads. Not hapy but grateful.

Anyway with this University endorsement and us hobbyists both leading by example we can form a pincer movement and musically outflank the "flickaswitch" customs and rituals of modern culture. Or is my thinking a bit "Ivory Tower"?

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Nov 01 - 02:02 PM

Your thinking isn't only Ivory Tower, it is belligerent head in the sand.

Not all of us come to traditional music to be comforted from the ravages of the modern and post-modern worlds.

Some of us actually believe it to be a beautiful living tradition of music which can be every bit as relevant to contemporary life as avant garde jazz.

Ensconcing the music in the Ivory Tower for the benefit of academics in search of easy day jobs is no different than putting it in museums and archives to "protect" it from the masses popularizing and updating it.

Both strategies are extremely manipulative and controlling. Traditional music doesn't need rescuing by self-appointed heroic folklorists and ethnomusicologists, anymore than it needs to be intellectually analyzed by academics whose first interest is securing a comfortable career for themselves in the Ivory Tower.

Give me more of that naturally post-modernized old time music anyday.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Nov 01 - 03:05 PM

By Ivory Tower I take it, Mr Red, you mean too detached from the real troubles and challenges of the world. Can't see it myself.

Not to be confused with managing to find a way to cease being concerned with the various trivialities that are used as a way of distracting people from the real troubles and challenges of the world.

Wherever it happens, folk music can help in doing that latter thing. And that's a way of starting to do something about it.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 10 Nov 01 - 05:17 PM

Generalisations based on other situations can be interesting, but it may perhaps be useful to know a little more about the course in question before we make too many assumptions about it.  There is a brief description at the website of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne:

Folk and Traditional Music, BMus Honours.

Although it is the only undergraduate course of this kind currently available in England, it's worth mentioning that the University of Sheffield has for some time offered opportunities for postgraduate studies of a similar nature, and is likely to be offering a first degree course in the near future; details are not finalised.

I'm not going to make any value judgements at this stage, beyond agreeing, with others, that degrees (at whatever level) do not in themselves make experts; it is, however, certainly the case that most of the people I know who are involved in the academic study of tradition are also actively involved in it at a grass-roots level; something that has not been so much the case in the past.  As for the future, we will just have to wait and see.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Nov 01 - 07:59 PM

From that link Malcolm gave us and digging aroiund in it, herte is a list of member skif Academic staff of the departmnet:

Anderson, Alistair
Biddle, Ian
Cross, Eric
Clark, Jonathan
Clarke, David
Fernández, Agustín
Kerr, Sandra
McDonald, Katrina
Middleton, Richard
Plastino, Goffredo
Williamson, Magnus
Sansom, Matthew
Tickell, Kathryn
Tweed, Karen

Not bad! I reckon anyone getting on that course is in for an interesting time.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: Gloredhel
Date: 10 Nov 01 - 08:19 PM

The education you receive in school certainly needn't have any direct relevance to your later career-as the liberal arts advocates like to say, it's to help you become a well-rounded person. My literature teacher one told us: "The purpose of education is to learn as much as you can and then forget it, so that it finds its way into your subconscious and affects your thinking for the rest of your life."

As for why people might want to study folk music in an academic setting, well, there are those of us who seem to have a mental block about how one would go about living the life of the "open road", and people like me who actually do a better rendition of a song after they've studied it and its origins, so that they understand it better. It may, for some people, sterilize and formalize folk, but for others it's the only way they can learn it.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: Ian Stephenson
Date: 11 Nov 01 - 08:34 AM

As another participant on the folk degree course in question, let me be the first to correct "GUEST" and co. that we are certainly not being taught "the rights and wrongs of folk music".
In reality, we are being encouraged to be our own performer. Our instrument and voice tutors are there to provide us with other techniques and styles for us to absorb. I resent the notion that our tutors CONTROL us or even could if they tried -we are quite a stubborn bunch of kids y'know!

Of course we don't expect to walk out and be handed a 5 album deal or an arts admin job by default, but show me a place where you can be taught 5 days a week by brilliant and inspirational musicians and I'm there!
Please don't cheapen our experience -ask your so-called "experts in the field" if they ever learnt something worthwhile from another folkie -it's an AURAL tradition you know.

Ian s.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Nov 01 - 09:39 AM

Ian,

A gentle suggestion. Go back and read Fay's original post. Her questions weren't about the benefits of the programme to individual students like you and her. She was asking other people's opinions about what the effects would be on traditional music community, as well as on young musicians who don't learn the music through tuition programmes such as yours.

I would guess the majority of people in this forum aren't interested in the music to get an arts administration position, or a 5 album deal. Rather, many are more interested in the traditions and the music itself. Some contributors are bound to have strong opinions about what they see as academic encroachments on the music which, while it might benefit most of the students, it isn't perceived as helping the music, and some would say it can easily cause it harm.

And as to the tutors controlling students--it may be more subtle than you think. But my concern, again, isn't that graduates of such a programme will play a regimented style of the music, but that the "expert" label start to be applied to only certain graduates of such programs.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: John Routledge
Date: 11 Nov 01 - 08:24 PM

Inevitable I am afraid GUEST. Some experts are more equal than others and all we can hope is that they are all "judged" fairly. JR

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: Mr Red
Date: 12 Nov 01 - 07:21 AM

OOOooooooooooH I have inadvertantly hit the someone's very tender button and without any such intent. Do I get a "Brownie" point ? (= Girl Scout's badge in some places) This is a first for me (I think). Does "Guest" status invalidate my gold stars?
Well Guest - I am assuming there is only one of you on this thread - my target is the "flickaswitch" society and the demise of the tradition of "Joe Public Entertaining Himself". If fashion culture and peer pressure driving the populous at large (and youth yet larger) are not a blinkers then they are manacles. Academe have more subtle constraints.
Would I mention "Ivory Towers" if I did not........ Oh I can't be arsed to be condescending
it's IRONY
On second thoughts I give my "brownie" points back it was not a fair fight.
(8^!)

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: Mr Red
Date: 12 Nov 01 - 02:18 PM

SORRY everyone, I was too busy bitching to notice the Staff line-up.
With such talent on the staff as Karen (Twelve Fingers) Tweed and Sandra Kerr I have to declare MY opinion unequivocally that: this particular course will benefit Folk.
Excuse my personal favouritisms there, and no I haven't heard of them all. But wasn't it Sandra Kerr, siren of subtle subversion, who forced me to write a very worthwhile song instead of wearing my writers block like a gong....... in 15 minutes? Without any direct influence. OK I cheated a little - called it "the War Memorial" subtitled "the Old Barbed Why Here?" (sound familiar?) - but I am proud of it and Sandra's inspiration.
This was at that the well known University of "Folk Festival" on the course referred to as: songwriters workshop.
I would be at UNuC (sic) if it wasn't for the money, stamina, talent, geography, and a little bit of musicionship to start with.

It is a moot point but wasn't the humble graphaphone recording apparatus a staticiser, a fixer, constrainer, (pedants at the ready) singular datum, and one true pivot?
No?
YES YES YES. Only with tape machines and now CD burners can folk (& Folk) claim back the plasticity of evolution. Oral tradition, is alive again.
Digital tradition? or finger in the ear? **HoHoHO**

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Nov 01 - 06:10 PM

Irish programs I'm familiar with have Liz Doherty, Fintan Vallely, Lillis O Laoire, and others as tutors. All very high caliber musicians, but I don't know how well any of them teaches.

I don't think the fact that the musicians doing the teaching are of high caliber has much to do with the tradition though, considering that so many musicians will learn without the benefit of these programs. Are we to suppose that, because the tutors are excellent musicians, that those who attend the programs will be superior musicians to those who don't?

And aside from the "who the tutors are" question, we still have that rather disturbing "who the experts are" question, which has gone unanswered in this thread.

What happens to the community experts, when academics gain higher status in regards to knowledge about the music than those who have taken the trouble to learn about the music the old fashioned way?

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: John Routledge
Date: 12 Nov 01 - 06:25 PM

GUEST - Your argument pre-supposes that academic experts will automatically have higher status then traditionally trained musicians and singers.

This does not necessarily follow. Indeed I have no doubt that some of the newly created experts will be regarded as academic ******. Time will tell. Cheers John

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: Art Thieme
Date: 12 Nov 01 - 08:34 PM

The psychology of this thread is fantastic in the true sense of that good term. We are all exhibiting so many of our sacred cow, heavily guarded fantasies that we should offer it to Penthouse Magazine for inclusion in their next issue's Forum section. Indeed, the word "folk" can, seemingly, now, be used interchangably with that other better known vernacular four letter f-word.

All homage to Peter And Lou Berryman--the folkies who first made hay out of that partucular palabra*.

* (I used the spanish there in deference to the trend lately toward World Music, inclusivity and watered-down definitions.)

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: Big Mick
Date: 12 Nov 01 - 08:53 PM

That is coming from the most esteemed expert of all.........our own Art Thieme.

Mick

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: GUEST,Steve
Date: 13 Nov 01 - 02:40 AM

Guest is so hostile to the university as a concept one can only assume he or she had a traumatic experience. His (or her) description of a university bears no resemblance to any environment I've ever seen. I both study and teach at a university, as well as being a folk enthusiast, and this description sounds about as accurate to me as saying "folk music enthusiasts are stuffy old blighters with their heads up their arses." SOME are, just as some professors and some schools might match Guest's description. But it's a singularly uninformed approach to suggest they all are.

I would have to say, given the effects of similar folk music programmes in other countries (say, Sibelius Academe in Finland), that this will be good for the music. To put an enthusiastic group of young people into the hands of Aly Anderson and Karen Tweed et al for a few years and then turn them loose on the world seems to me to be a great idea. And, several of Finland's top folk bands were formed at Sibelius, which has proved to be a great place for young, talented folk musicians to interact with each other at length and create together.

How can this be bad?

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Nov 01 - 07:16 AM

Terribly sorry to disappoint you Steve, but I had a great time doing my folklore degree. It was then that I learned just how badly academic bureaucrats wanted to control the teaching of traditional music. If there is a market for tutoring, regardless of the subject matter, they want a piece of it. They get their piece of the action by presenting themselves as more expert than others, to give added value to their programs.

Problem with that? Well, how many traditional musicians do you know who have university degrees? The cost and admission criteria to get into university can just as easily be a barrier (and it is well proven that it is a barrier for the working class and poor communities) as much as it can be a gateway to a great future.

Considering your obvious prejudices (both studying and teaching at a university), it doesn't surprise me at all to see that you are reading into my opinions what fits easily with your beliefs. But that isn't what I'm about here.

I stand by what I said about the majority of students who attend university to receive job training. There is nothing evil about that, unless you have romantic and/or notions about higher education and the academic life. If that be the case, then I'm sure the idea that university is job training will not fit easily with your beliefs. But that, in and of itself, doesn't necessarily make my assertions wrong and yours right.

I also said I thought anyone who can get a university degree should get one, as it will improve their earning power throughout their life. Hardly hostile. But I will admit to being pragmatic about it.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Nov 01 - 07:20 AM

Sorry, above should have read:

I stand by what I said about the majority of students who attend university expecting to receive job training. There is nothing evil about that, unless you have romantic and/or lofty notions about higher education and the academic life.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: Luke
Date: 13 Nov 01 - 08:46 AM

Probably many of us here work at summer music camps where folks come to be inriched by folkie types. Often times players and singers need to just watch another human doing it and poof just like that something happens and they are off on the road to music and life. In my humble opinion any college that offers these types of classes should be praised and held up as a beacon to the rest. Surely these classes offer more than job opportunities. I would call them life opportunities. This music is about a life. What other way to get that info but from people who are living it. This music is no mere toy or tool with which one simply earns a living. If that is the goal I think standard music school would be a smarter investment. As far as changing traditions. Can't stop it. Can't effect it. Traditional forms are like clay vessels. The ones that are used alot get broken. But they are the carriers of the much needed elixer of life so they are always being recreated with inovations that make them stronger, and sometimes more beautiful to the touch.

Luke

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: GUEST,Steve
Date: 13 Nov 01 - 10:34 PM

Well, Guest, how about:

"Explore learning? Expand understanding?

Gimme a break. Universities, like all school which leads up to it, is a way to enforce institutionalized thinking, and training future middle management robots to enforce the hierarchy of the status quo."

Was that NOT intended to be hostile? Of course, there may be more than one GUEST posting...

At least in the US, where I am located, neither small colleges nor big State schools nor private research Universities resemble this description. Though I admit that many people who pass through them wish to enforce the status quo, many others don't. That's all I intended to convey.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: GUEST,Whoops I lost my cookie -IAN STEPHENSON
Date: 14 Nov 01 - 05:47 AM

I still want to get across that if we, as students of a degree course like this don't regard ourselves as being better than anyone else for having a degree.

why is it that we are being labelled that way? The best thing about this tradition is that ANYONE can do it as good as anyone else -provided they have had experience of the tradition in practice, and I'm sticking my neck out to say that what these degree programmes offer most importantly is folk in PRACTICE.
Of course we as individuals will be better musicians after 4 years of playing and interacting, but only as good as joe bloggs who practices every day for 4 years.
What this course offers us is a structure in which to better ourselves.

As students we have the time to put a considerable amount of work into researching trad music -alastair anderson said this to us just last week -"there is so much GREAT stuff out there just waiting to be found and brought to peoples attention". This is a strong argument for the benefit of the folk scene as a direct result of our degree course. And even if we fulfilled your fantasy of 'snobbish academics' (if you could only see us!) then do you also think the folk scene would be as strong if not for the work of REAL academics like Cecil Sharpe or Vaughan Williams? It is quite a popular opinion that hundreds of songs would be altogether lost if "the collectors" of Cecil Sharpes era hadn't done "their work" (even though large amounts of it were notated badly using inadequate classical methods).

talk about off on a tangent. you have to apreciate, GUEST, that this stuff is fairly close to home.

ian s.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 14 Nov 01 - 10:15 AM

Ian,

Part of what you are hearing in this thread is not about you and your peers. It's about catters' experiences with other academics in other times and other places. Some of it is boomers saying "Yeah, been there, done that, wasn't impressed."

Traditional musicians have traditionally been meal tickets for academics. The relation between academics and tradition bearers has occasionally been exploitative. Discover somebody, publish a thesis or dissertation and maybe a recording, and move on. Traditional musicians traditionally haven't always gotten a piece of the pie created by such academic activity.

Things seem to be changing. I think that if a traditional musician can get a teaching gig and a steady paycheck at a university these days, more power to him/her. But if it were a traditional musician I cared about I would be at least a bit worried about the impact that gig would have on the musician, the music, and the tradition.

I would want to know what the real price of academic participation is. What's the catch?

What does s/he have to do to get the gig? Just be a wonderful bearer of the tradition? Have some sort of track record? A recording or two? Be a performer to some extent? Popular to some extent? Exhibit additional skills? Be able to play well with others? Know the right people? Be a good politician?

What must s/he do to keep the gig? Just play and teach? Or also engage in some or all the busywork that academics normally do? Committee work? Publications? Community service?

If traditional musicians are brought into the world of academe there must be some sort of selection process. As a student I would want to know exactly what that process is and what the criteria are. If there are hidden agendas, I would want them made public.

In my rather cryptic first contribution to this thread I responded to Fay's original question. The most important result of the program will be that some musicians will be selected and marketed and some won't. That is not a trivial result. That will change the tradition in fundamental, far-reaching, and long lasting ways. It won't be a process of "natural" selection. It will be a process driven by ordinary human beings with ordinary (not always noble) motivations.

If you are going to participate in that process, it behooves you to learn how such processes have actually worked in the past. It is one thing to read the mission statements and know the lofty intentions of various institutions. It is another to research the actual results of the activities of those institutions. A study of the history of the EFDSS might be very informative.

Sound like a great program. Just be sure to read the fine print in the prospectus.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: selby
Date: 14 Nov 01 - 01:15 PM

Having just re-read the thread I wonder after the degree course how many of those on the course will still be as enthusiastic about folk music as they are now. But also as trail blazers these youngsters are always going to be stuck between a rock and a hard place if any one of them becomes successful (more than one are already moderately successful)it will be the result of the course if they should turn out a bad cd or performance they will have had every oppotunity and done nothing with it. So instead of criticising them,support them at the begining of their life plan, trust to their families and friends to keep theit feet on the ground.To those on the course above all else ENJOY IT. Keith

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: GUEST,Steve
Date: 14 Nov 01 - 02:46 PM

Yes, in fairness, the academe has not always been good for folk music and folk musicians. But academics have sometimes been meal tickets for musicians as well. Whatever you can say about Lomax's impact on musicians' lives, for example, in many cases they had more money for having met him and gotten the Lomax seal of approval. Cherish the Ladies, the Irish band, owe their existence to an Academic folklorist and an arts center who put together a series of concerts. This has certainly been good for them personally--Joanie Madden once told me she'd probably be an accountant somewhere (shades of GUEST's anonymous drone-robots) if it had not been for Mick Moloney, and hence for academic folklore.

As Ian cautions, this kind of intervention does change the tradition and we must be careful. Who's to say whether the existence of Cherish the Ladies is a good or bad thing overall? I think it's probably good, but an argument can be made that it's bad, and an argument can be made that it's irrelevant, to the actual folk tradition.

More generally, I would suggest that there never was a process of "natural" selection at work in folk music, and that some musicians were always selected and marketed at the expense of others, whether because their brothers-in-law owned the pubs or because they were just better at marketing themselves. The tradition, like all historical processes, has always been "a process driven by ordinary human beings with ordinary (not always noble) motivations." So I'm not sure whether changes to the tradition brought about by degree programs will really be something new, or whether they'll just be more of the same kind of process. If anything, I think that having musicians like Anderson, Tweed, et al involved in the process of selecting and nurturing certain musicians will be better than having other people do it. But there is cause to be cautious, certainly...

Steve

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: dougboywonder
Date: 14 Nov 01 - 04:00 PM

I think people may have overlooked the point that the majority of students of all courses nowadays are simply stalling for time - I know I am. A four year course equates to four more years to decide your path in the world before you have to get a proper job. University courses have always had slightly ethereal merits - think of all the courses in subjects like 'classics' - I've never met anyone who was a 'classicist' for a job.

After three years at music college I'm just about ready to earn a living. Thats not because I've been taught the 'rights and wrongs' of music, it's because I'm older, more sensible, and more able to cope with having to earn a living.

Besides - if Mr. Stephenson needs intensive training in how to be a folk musician, what hope is there for anyone else of coming close?

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 14 Nov 01 - 04:45 PM

Steve,

Excellent points.

However, my main concern is not with the quality of the selectors or the musicians selected or the value of the results of the selection process. My problem is with the loss of variety and the homogenization of traditional music that results.

I've seen the homogenization problem in American old time music. Sometimes it feels like Tommy Jarrell's children, the disciples of the "Round Peak sound," will be all that's left in a few years.

At one time whatever process of selection was at work in folk music, at least it was more or less communal or perhaps at most regional. In the "old days" when the featured performer was the brother-in-law of the pub owner one could still theoretically walk to the pub in the next village where, chances are, the music would be completely different. These days the music in the next village pub will probably sound exactly the same.

Suppose, as Fay warns, we have 100 'experts' in a few years who have all been taught by the same group of practicing musicians. In traditional music 100 is a huge number, a veritable army. Seems to me that we can pretty well kiss whatever diversity there currently is goodbye.

To me it is sort of like the disappearance of a species. No matter how wonderful the remaining species are the net result is that the world is a poorer place for its loss.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: Mr Red
Date: 15 Nov 01 - 11:59 AM

well I have to say it, but look at the intensity and seriousness Universtity has engendered in this thread. Barely a snigger or a smilie.
I happen to think this effect is a good thing. On the spectrum of "comedy" to "tragedy" we sometimes need a pure stratum, and we have it here.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 15 Nov 01 - 04:29 PM

I enjoy the occasional thread that doesn't get hijacked by our resident wits.

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: Art Thieme
Date: 15 Nov 01 - 08:02 PM

;-)

Subject: RE: Educated folk? The folk degree
From: GUEST,Doctor Tom
Date: 16 Nov 01 - 03:50 PM

Dammit! I've been away from home since this thread started and have only just caught up with it. Interesting sets of opinions! I'll go back to the original query and, for what they're worth (which, as always,is only what value other people put on them) offer my opinions.

Like anything, you're only going to get out of it what you bring to it - tempered by your attitude (which itself may be mediated by what you learn). Education? - use it. Use the space it gives you. Use the improvement it offers you. Use the skill, knowledge and experience that its tutors are giving you. But don't expect it to do anything it can't!

It won't get you a job as a musician/singer though some people may be more willing to listen to you in the first place. It won't make you a better singer/musician than you have the potential to be though you may reach that potential quicker.

If you want to be a musician/singer use the course as best you can. If you want to be an academic use the fact that you're already within an academic institution. If you want to be in arts management you'd have been better off on an arts management degree course - and there's a lot more of them around than music degrees.

From the responses within the thread that have come back from people on the course, it doesn't sound as though the approach adopted will be narrowing. That would be my primary concern. Any academic adoption of a discipline will tend to institutionalise it, but as long as nobody thinks that what is taught is all there is, we're O.K. The fact of an academic interest, if properly used, offers the opportunity to expand understanding and knowledge.

As to whether it makes you an expert - an expert in what? A very wise tutor of mine once explained that a first degree stated "The cat sat on the mat", an M.A. asked "What kind of cat and what kind of mat?" and a doctorate asked "How do we know this is a cat and a mat?"

One thing fascinates me though. If this is a folk music course - rather than any other kind of music course - that rather indicates that somebody has managed to define 'folk' (surely that should be lesson 1). Please tell me what it is - so far I've found nothing better than the IFMC definition from the 1950s which, with only minor adaptation, still stands the test of time.