Creating modern traditional music

Subject: Creating modern traditional music
From: Fay
Date: 23 Oct 03 - 10:50 AM

I'm researching an essay on Bartok, and you are always a good lot to set my questionning head off.

Bartok's music was thoroughly modern, but based on many traditional principles and influences. He talked about becoming at one with the traditional music so that what he wrote came from the same place, it wasn't just influenced, (though he was classically trained in 'Western Music' and discovered Hungarian peasant music in his twenties)

There was a lot of political activity around at the time, he was trying to compare musics over national boundaries during the war, and he had very strong views about the gypsy involvement in what was perceived as the national Hungarian folk music.

He spent a lot of time collecting peasant songs (in the field) and writing on the subject as well as what he is now most famous for, composing.

What do people think about music and his theories/desire to create a new Hungarian (or theoretically any national) folk music?

Comments in a less specific manor about the effects of modern society/politics and the idea of recreating/reviving/inventing/creating folk music also welcome.

Answers on the back of a postcard please!!!

Thanks, Fay xx

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: greg stephens
Date: 23 Oct 03 - 11:03 AM

suggest you have a look at what Kodaly thought about the subject, if you want to get soopa-doopa high marks for your essay. And incidentally, Fay, I do believe you promised me a look at your "Folk-clubs in Yorkshire" essay/thesis/whatever. I would be very interested to have a read of it.

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: Fay
Date: 23 Oct 03 - 11:05 AM

Just read that back and it seems a bit indepth!

Some more straighforward questions...

Can you write new traditonal music?
What effect have politics had on collectors?
Can modern Classical music (Bartok's era) be called folk music?
Why is gypsy music not Hungarian, when does an imigrant influence become part of the culture?

Is that better?

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: Fay
Date: 23 Oct 03 - 11:06 AM

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: greg stephens
Date: 23 Oct 03 - 11:14 AM

"Can you write new traditional music?": well, I would say, you can try, but you're not really likely to know in your lifetime whether you've succeeded.You may have done,you may not: it's not your efforts that make it traditional, it's what succeeding generations do with it that makes the decision.

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: GUEST,Les B.
Date: 23 Oct 03 - 11:21 AM

I would say Greg hit the nail squarely on the head with the idea that you won't know in your lifetime. Perhaps you should be looking at when "popular" music becomes traditional ?

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: Fay
Date: 23 Oct 03 - 11:29 AM

Bartok's music wasn't popular though. His arguement was that the gypsy/hungarian music was popular and was contaminating and killing the real authentic peasant music. He saw the pesants and art musicians as geniuses and pop musicians as churning out sludge. He was associated with the new Hungarian sound, so maybe I should be looking at the difference between a National music and traditional musics...

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Oct 03 - 11:30 AM

Yes you can write new traditional stuff and it is eronious to think it won't become traditional in your life time. Look at Dave Richardson's Calliope House written by Dave and taken up as traditional by Michael Flattley (or what ever his name is) who made millions out of it and paid bugger all to dave except after a big court case. It is also now a standard in most trad sessions.

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: GUEST,Les B.
Date: 23 Oct 03 - 11:31 AM

To clarify my comment about "popular" music - Yesterday I put "Civil War" in the search engine at the Levy Sheet music site and got over 1500 hits. Of all those written and published songs, I would estimate that only two to three hundred of them are known or performed today. What was it that gave some songs staying power and caused others to drop out? Catchy melody, riveting words, political correctness, what ???

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: greg stephens
Date: 23 Oct 03 - 11:40 AM

"Why is Gypsy music not Hungarian, when does an immigrant music become part of the culture?".
   Good question, and one which can be political dynamite. Arguing on this topic has cost many people their jobs, their friends and their lives, if you take a look round various nationalist political hotspots of the past couple of centuries.
   I've made no study of Hungarian gypsy music, so I won't try to answer directly. But from what I have looked at, my opinion is that for immigrant music to be considered part of the culture of the new(host) country (as in "traditional culture"), it's got to have changed. Not assimilated necessarily, or even fused particularly, but it must have changed. So cajun music, for example, is unquestionably Louisiana American music, even though it remains distinct, and is sung in French. It is obviously American, because there's nothing like it in France. But recently arrived ethnic immigrant music, sung to bolster identity or whatever, doesnt seem to qualify as part of the traditional culture of the new country till it's bedded in and started to mould itself a little. Flying Morris Dancers to the South Pole wouldnt make it Antarctic Dancing. They'd have to live there a while, change the steps, modify costumes etc, before they qualified.

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: Fay
Date: 23 Oct 03 - 11:42 AM

Interested in that Les B, and also when something is adopted into 'your' when is it yours and when does it stop being someone elses? i.e. Irish music played in Scotland by Scotish people in an Scottish/Irish style. Is that still Irish music? or Hungarian peasant melodies played by the gypsys for a century, gaining their style is that still hungarian music, or gypsy music.

If the gypsies had lived in Hungary for 100 years, when do they become part fo the Hungarian tradition? If a tune has been played in Scotland for 100 years, when is it a Scottish tune?

I'm sure that'll get some comments!!!

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: Fay
Date: 23 Oct 03 - 11:44 AM

The thing with Bartok's gypsies is that they were playing hungarian tunes, but he didn't consider them to be authentic hungarian.

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 23 Oct 03 - 11:57 AM

1) No; though it may become traditional later on.
2) A great deal.
3) No.
4) When that immigrant group perceives itself, and is perceived, as a part of the majority culture.

As to the "nationalisation" of repertoire, many tunes (for example) of Irish origin and played in Scotland have become part of Scottish tradition, but they will always be of Irish origin, however they are perceived. In the same way, I describe myself as "English, of Anglo-Scottish descent".

Read also R. Vaughan Williams on the development of a National (art) Music from a creative synthesis of traditional forms.

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: Amos
Date: 23 Oct 03 - 12:01 PM

The way "tradition" gets to be around is by being forwarded. To the degree the elements of sentiment, tone, rhythm, voice and soon are well received, there is no reason you can't extend that tradition by adding new music consistent with its legacy. People write new blues all the time, as well as new limericks, new ballads and so on. Greg is right that only time will prove that you interpreted the legacy well enough to actually make something that goes on in time. But someone who really understands the legacy can tell immediately when something blemds perfectly with it, and when something does not. The better something blends the better the chance it has of achieving longevity.

An example of a beautiful addition to the legacy of American 1890's romantic songs is Jed Marum's Letter From Lilac Acres. An example of jarring violation of the legacy is in period films where a not-quite-sensitive-enough script writer has included a phrase that is totally wrong for the period, such as a Revolutionary War soldier saying "No way!", or an Elizabethan courtier saying "Are you kidding me?". You get the same kind ofr thing in some latter efforts to imitate traditional songs. There are certain overtones that mark the literacy of the period, whether high or low, that you have to be sensitive to if you're trying to emulate the legacy. Otherwise it just falls flat.

But there is no reason it can't be done well.

A

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: John Hardly
Date: 23 Oct 03 - 01:51 PM

Style-wise? Yes
Povenance-wise? Not as likely. That requires the element of time.

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: M.Ted
Date: 23 Oct 03 - 02:06 PM

This is a great subject, because it is fairly easy to see the impact that Bartok and Kodaly's work has on what is considered Hungarian music(and folk and traditional music in general) by simply checking out the record bins to see way that   recording of traditional music and performers who try to recreate traditional sounds and repertoires(based a lot on the foundations of both Kodaly and Bartok) have come into the mainstream.

First thing to understand is that folks are getting the gypsy music part of it wrong--we are not talking about the traditional/folk music of Hungarian Gypsies, we are talking about the entertainment music that Gypsy performers played for popular audiences(lots of non-gypsies played it too)--
We are all familar with this type of music, because we've seen and heard it so much in old movies, on TV, and on the stage--it is the "strolling violinist" sort of stuff that is characterized by theatrical emotions, frenetic solos, abrupt changes in tempo, and especially the "locomotive effect" which starts out with a heavy, plodding tempo, and increases gradually and overdramatically, to a breakneck speed and thundering crescendo. It was/is music more to be seen than heard, and is a sure applause getter--

Classical composers and performers of the 19th century including such folks as Liszt and Pagannini, drew heavily on the musicial tricks that Gypsy performers used to get tips, and exploited/created/perpetuated the cultural stereotypes of mysterious, passionate, dark, sinister, gypsies to market their materials--it became standard practice for performers to claim a bit of gypsy blood in their ancestry to lend credence to their performances--and, --to a certain degree, it still is--

Some of the music that was created this way was great, without question, but a lot of it was really tedious, and even the great stuff wore thin after a while. (excluding Bugs Bunny Cartoons, when was the last time you heard or wanted to hear the Hungarian Rhapsody?)

Anyway, the idea that there was real traditional music out there, including really instrumental performance traditions, and real culture to go along with it was very appealing(and still is)--especially for young composers who always need to find material to work with that distinguishes them from the previous generation of composers--

For Bartok, it strikes me that discovering tradtional music was like WC Handy's discovery of the blues--it was new and familar at the same time, and, because he could claim it as his roots, instead of being just another classically trained composer, it gave him a heritage of his own-

As far as the idea of creating at national music,It was (and is)a very useful way for groups of people who are trying to keep things together while empires are falling and being toppled around them to find an identity that is not tied to their rulers or opressors. Furthermore, finding that identity in folkways, like dress, food, music, and dances seems very appealing, because it is so fundamental.

There are a couple of problems though-- folk/traditional music is a local phenomenon--folks down the road, across the river, and over the mountain often play and like different stuff, so a "national music" would be artificial in a lot of ways. If the work of Kodaly and Bartok proved anything, it proved that performance traditions and repertoire could be entirely different from one village to another, and that a "National" music could not naturally exist--

Probably more important, defining a culture by shared traditions means excluding those that don't share the traditions. Also, gathering people together based on a shared past implies a shared destiny, and strongly implies that that destiny is not shared by those who don't share the traditions--no coincidence that the Nazis relied heavily on folk icons--

As a long-time Balkan/Middle Eastern music junkie, I have seen many instances where folk music traditions, real and imagined, have been used as a rallying tool with disturbing racial overtones, and have seen those overtones played out in the headlines and I continue to see them.

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Oct 03 - 04:01 PM

Amos is of course right about language. When a new song has someone from another time or place talking, they ought to use language which fits and doesn't jar. And the narrative language around them shouldn't jar either. It's a matter of taste - I don't think rigorously getting the language exactly right is essential.

It's not a matter of creating a perfect forgery. Indeed, if a song could have been written back then, why not sing a song that was written back then instead? But writing a song about the past is more than just recreating the past. We see historical incidents in a different way, because of who we are and when we live, and I think we should feel free to use this in a song. If we are writing about slavery times, we'll see things differently from the way people would then. If we're writing about the Easter Rising, we'll be carrying within us the knowledge of what happened afterwards. What we write today can bring out aspects of the past that wouldn't have been seen at the time - and it can also say or imply things about the present which need a bit of distance to get into perspective.

The other thing is, I think, we should never feel that writing a new song in the tradition must mean that we can only write about things that happened in the past, in the language of the past. New songs can be written about things that happen today, using the old tricks of the trade, and using the language of today. That happens all the time in living traditions, for example in Ireland. And such songs grow out of the tradition, and belong in the tradition. Whether they survive is another matter, partly depending on whether they are good songs - though it's a mistake to think that all good songs survive, there are so many other factors involved.

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: GUEST,Les B.
Date: 23 Oct 03 - 04:39 PM

Fay - you might want to talk to Vivian Williams, a top-notch fiddler from Seattle who - along with others - writes new tunes in the old-time style, to get her take on your idea. Her book, & address:

"169 Brand New Old Time Fiddle Tunes, Volume 3--Jigs, Reels, Polkas, Waltzes, Marches, Two-Steps, Hornpipes, Schottisches, Bluegrass Tunes by American and Canadian Composers," Edited by Vivian Williams, 1990, Voyager Publications, 424 - 35th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: GUEST,Arnie
Date: 24 Oct 03 - 09:02 AM

One of my current favorite recordings is a CD called "Fresh Canadian Fiddle Tunes" all composed by Brian Pickell - an amazing collection with some of the finest fiddle and backup I have ever heard. I have no doubt that some of his tunes will be played for many years by fiddle players and become part of the traditional repetoire. Canadians involved in trad music often naturally make up tunes on an ongoing basis keeping the music alive. My friends Jim Childress and Pete Vigour from Virinia have composed some really great tunes and I myself make up clawhammer banjo tunes and have recorded some of those.
Arnie Naiman

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: Mooh
Date: 24 Oct 03 - 09:09 AM

Arnie...No kidding, great cd! Brian has published the sheet music too, though after I'd started to work a few tunes out for myself. We've already started to play the Muriel's Waltz set for weddings, folks love it. Mooh.

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: GUEST,Arnie
Date: 24 Oct 03 - 09:15 AM

Mooh - who are you or am I allowed to ask that?

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: greg stephens
Date: 24 Oct 03 - 09:31 AM

I think the question about composing traditional music of the future is not really about whether you can compose something now and pass it off as part of the current tradition. (As "pass it off" is a loaded term, perhaps I should say "insert it invisibly into" or something like that) An easy job to do with a fiddle tune, harder(but possible) with a song.
   I think the question is more about creating the tradition of the future, which is a similar and overlapping topic, but doesnt necessarily imply that you have to include any kind of fake antiquity into the situation.

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 24 Oct 03 - 09:59 AM

HIGHLY ABSTRACT
===============

Fay,

What is the point in defining "folk" in such a way as to include the efforts of someone like Bartok?

As "folk" is defined and redefined to be more inclusive, it becomes less useful. By the time "folk music" is defined in such a way as to include the efforts of someone like Bartok, it has become completely useless. If everything is folk music, then nothing is folk music. By that time, to call something as "folk" music conveys zero information about it.

The purpose of the term "folk" is to distinguish one body of music from another. Such labels save time and energy. The broader the definition of "folk" becomes, the more CDs are dumped into the "folk" bin at my favorite CD store. The more CDs in the bin, the more I have to paw through to find the few that contain the music I am really interested in.

It one word is rendered useless by such definitional broadening, People just have to invent another word.

Don't get me started about "roots" music.

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: greg stephens
Date: 24 Oct 03 - 10:12 AM

GUEST Russ: i think you (and me) have lost this one. Folk now does mean any old drip strumming an acoustic guitar, and thats a fact. better start using traditional or vernacular or something: I know what you mean by "folk", and you know what I mean, but unfortunately the word has changed. So we do need a new one. It's a shame, but such is life.

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: Mooh
Date: 24 Oct 03 - 10:41 AM

Arnie...Sorry, you are allowed to ask. I'm Mike Crocker, and I don't think we've met yet. I am involved with the Goderich Celtic Roots Festival so we likely have some common acquaintances.

Was that you with the banjo at the OCFF conference? If so, bloody great!

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: Santa
Date: 24 Oct 03 - 10:51 AM

If the tradition is alive, then new songs can be created within it. In the North East, there are traditional songs, there are songs from the music halls, from Tommy Armstrong in the mining areas, through Johnny Handle and now Jez Lowe. There is a continuity and you can pass from one to the other and barely notice any join. It's fairly safe to suggest that the best of Jez's songs will be sung for many years.

But there will be no more mining songs, as there can be no more shanties, no more pastoral English folk songs, no more nightvisiting songs. You may get some pastiche, or songs about mining, sailing, ploughing, courting (in a different style!) and some of them may be very good, but there will be a difficulty about absorbing them into "the tradition".

Unless they are very good....

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: greg stephens
Date: 24 Oct 03 - 11:01 AM

Santa: I think you are probably right about mining songs and shanties,that world is past, though it may come again. But I think you'll find there's a fair bit of pastoral still around in England, and I wouldnt be surprised if people keep writing about it. Especially when devolution starts to bite. "It was pleasnat and delightful". Well, it was (superficially perhaps), and it still is.

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 24 Oct 03 - 11:02 AM

greg,

I don't even use the word "folk" anymore except in special circumstances where I am hoping the listener will interpret "folk" to mean "old drip strumming guitar" and lose all interest in the conversation.

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: GUEST,Arnie
Date: 24 Oct 03 - 11:10 AM

Ya Mooh - that was myself. Were you there for the whole showcase? I was l little wierded out by the situation so I wasn't quite with it. Give my regards to Warren Robinson. (respond to my emial since this is off topic, although I did play 2 original banjo tunes) [e-mail]
Arnie

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Oct 03 - 12:30 PM

there are NO such things as "modern traditional songs"! This is a category error. There are songs that do sorta well following the style of some old songs and 'feel' traditional. And some of these may gain traditional status in 40-50 years.

Just using the phrase "traditional music" indicates that you think you will recognize it when you hear it...so...if a new song doesn't fit the template, it is just a new song...maybe a good one, but NEW!

If you look at 10,000 songs and examine what it is in them that makes some feel like 'folk' or 'trad',(tune style, subject matter, lack of commercial format, anonymous author, etc.), you will have a general list to judge new songs by...it won't tell you which are "good", but it will tell you which bin they belong in at the store.

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: Mooh
Date: 24 Oct 03 - 12:59 PM

Arnie...Look for a pm shortly.

The lessons learned from exposure to, culture of, and performance of traditional music are lost on singer-songwriters if they haven't experienced it. Many s-s seem to be floundering about searching for a way of expressing themselves, at least to my ears. This isn't to say that there should be singer-songwriter rules, just that singer-songwriters often sound rudderless.

I personally prefer some ties to song history, be it lyric, melody, or harmony based. This is not for everyone I admit, but without such ties music is less folk, not at all trad, and marketable as many kinds of music depending on the arrangement.

Interesting views here.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: Fay
Date: 24 Oct 03 - 06:22 PM

Thanks for all that, I've printed it off, will read through it and come back...

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Oct 03 - 08:31 PM

No more night visiting? Don't you believe it.

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: GUEST,Obie
Date: 25 Oct 03 - 11:32 AM

In regard to music "traditional" means more than one thing. If we refer to it as something from the distant past with the authour unknown then we would have to be dead and forgotten but survived by our composition in order to qualify.
If we mean that the copyright is expired and we don't wish to pay any royalties the result is similar because we would still be long dead.
If we use older music form to write new music and song this would be traditional if we defined the word to mean following in the older ways.
Greg in an earlier post on this thread mentioned Cajun music. The name Cajun is derived from Acadia , which was a province of New France comprising Canada's Maritimes and south eastern Quebec. The traditional French music of this area is vibrant and alive and although Cujun music is different from it the relationship is very recogniszble.

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: Mr Happy
Date: 11 May 09 - 08:11 AM

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: GUEST,Les B. - PM
Date: 23 Oct 03 - 11:21 AM

I would say Greg hit the nail squarely on the head with the idea that you won't know in your lifetime. Perhaps you should be looking at when "popular" music becomes traditional ?



***********************

Re the above comment, while researching another topic, I came across this gem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_pop_music , so after all '
traditional pop music' exists!!

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 11 May 09 - 12:34 PM

And let us not forget the aims of the International Council for Traditional Music (formerly the International Folk Music Council who came up with the 1954 Definition):

to further the study, practice, documentation, preservation and dissemination of traditional music, including folk, popular, classical and urban music, and dance of all countries.

Subject: RE: Creating modern traditional music
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 May 09 - 01:11 PM

no mention of song there,woulsd some of those people be connected to EFDSS 1954.