Should Folk Music be Recorded

Subject: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: ositojuanito
Date: 24 Sep 06 - 11:04 AM

The music we love, whether we want to call it traditional or folk or whatever is often an imprompu thing. The blues springs to mind here with the repeat lines hopefully enabling these guys to think up and having the time to think up the next line. When a lot of the stuff we care about was written there were no recording techniques and I'm not sure that the music suffered because of it. Shouldn't Folk Music be the music where people gather and give to and interpret and change with feeling. What I'm saying is: Should folk music be a definitive kind of thing, like a modern day record/recording, or should a creation within this genre be ever changing and ever interpreted and always lend itself to creativity.

John

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: treewind
Date: 24 Sep 06 - 11:20 AM

"these guys" were very happy to have their blues songs recorded with whatever technology was available at the time.

Folk song has been recorded for long enough to make it quite clear that recording it hasn't preserved it in stone. As long as we keep playing it live (and you won't stop musicians doing that!) the evolution continues.

Anahata

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: Big Mick
Date: 24 Sep 06 - 11:20 AM

I don't think they are mutually exclusive, John. There are many collectors who record different versions of songs by various performers. That is an old process. When I think of the field recordings that Sandy and Caroline Paton of FOLK LEGACY RECORDS did of Frank Profitt and Jeannie Robertson, one realizes that recording them have preserved their take on the music for future generations.

Mick

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Sep 06 - 11:24 AM

record everything...just maintain perspective about the source and genré. You may 'record' something today that is truly 'source material', and you may find a recording 50+ years old that is pure commercial songwriting.

It takes years to really sort out the aspects of music that allow sensible catagorization.....but only a few minutes maybe to decide it's worth keeping while you study it.

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 24 Sep 06 - 11:25 AM

Certainly I have learned songs (sometimes folk songs) from recordings and then changed all or any of the manner of performance, arrangement, song, tune, and words....

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 24 Sep 06 - 12:18 PM

I'm with Bill D on this. Everything should be recorded if at all possible. With Gigabytes costing pence, there is no good reason not to do it.

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: Alan Day
Date: 24 Sep 06 - 12:55 PM

After trying to compile a 3CD set of English Concertina System players as a follow up to the Anglo collection, I would strongly agree with this subject.There are many fantastic players that due to the fact that they do not make a record or a CD their music and playing has been lost forever.Most of these old players and singers are taken for granted,their special style,their own tunes gone when they go.The recordings we are left with are mostly dreadful,with people coughing,dropping things,talking through the performance,dogs barking,children screaming and recorded nowhere near the performer.
At most festivals and Folk clubs the evening ,or performance is not recorded,a fantastic performance gone and the artist twenty years later forgotten.We progress as musicians by hearing what has been done on the instrument before and then try to take the instrument further.That is progression.
I have been extremely lucky as a number of archive collections have been donated to me for use on these projects and after hours of listening I have at least a representative collection of playing over the last 60 years.
Thanks ,I feel better now
Al

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: GUEST,Zulu
Date: 24 Sep 06 - 01:22 PM

Tunes have always been changed through passage of time and i guess so has lyrics or poems.The written word or a music score has long been kept in transcript.Folk or any other type of artistic expression will always be recorded for the future one way or another.We as creators want this as our legacy for what we have achieved.
So wether it is in the memory,on paper,on vinyl,tape or cd it will remain unique and past on.Nothing set in stone,but from the seed music and song develope.As Lennon said,"never throw anything away." You may need to fall back on that little gem of a line or a tune one day.Get recording them anyway you want.

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: Andy Jackson
Date: 24 Sep 06 - 04:06 PM

Should folk song be recorded?...Hmmmm...long think.
Answer...YES

Otherwise Forest Trackshas wasted a lot of time.Nearly thirty years now!!

Some threads just ask a blatent plug don't they.

Andy

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: Andy Jackson
Date: 24 Sep 06 - 04:12 PM

Spool chucker not engegad agin!!
Serious now.
Anything and everything should of course be recorded, that is not the problem.
The problems start when the recording is held up as the only way a song or piece of music should be interpreted.
As an example I have just been listening to a truly dreadful recording of Uffa Fox with the Michael Sammes singers etc. Lovely man, great sailor, loads of memories, but no singer. I am pleased to have this is my collection though, and if I "collect" a song or two from it I certainly won't be performong them in the style of this "Music for Pleasure" Oxymoron. Oh and I'm a rotten sailor by the way.

Tee Hee,

Andy

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: Don Firth
Date: 24 Sep 06 - 05:06 PM

"Should folk music be a definitive kind of thing, like a modern day record/recording, or should a creation within this genre be ever changing and ever interpreted and always lend itself to creativity."

Well, John, if the fear is that recording a song will set it in concrete and prevent it from evolving further, I don't see that actually happening. Some of the songs I sing, I learned directly from other people, but the vast majority of my repertoire comes from song books and recordings. If I hear someone sing a song, say, at a song fest or in a concert and I want to learn it, but I can't learn it directly from the person who sang it, then assuming it's a traditional song and not something the person wrote, if I dig a bit, more often than not I can find a version of it in a song book (one of the more serious collections, like Sharp or Lomax). Or these days, if I remember a line or two from the song, I can fire up the computer, google it, and usually find it, or at least a version of it. BUT—I rarely find it exactly as I first heard it.

At this point, what I generally do is assemble as many versions of the song as I can find, and either try to reconstruct it as best I can as I first heard it, or take a bit from here and something else from there, and cobble together a version of my own.

But even if I were able to get the song verbatim from the person I first heard sing it, I usually discover some time later that I'm not singing it exactly the way I learned it, without necessarily intending to make changes in it. It just happens. Then someone learns it from me, and they do the same thing.

Don't think that a person should make indiscriminate changes in traditional songs, but I do believe in the "minstrel's prerogative:"   that if, for example, a line sings awkwardly, it's perfectly all right to make a few carefully thought out changes, as long as I don't change the essential meaning of the line. And I've noticed that among most of the singers I know, they tend to do the same thing.

So interpretation and creativity are still there, as is the ever-changing nature of the songs. Time was when people learned songs from each other directly, by word of mouth. But now that many people are learning their songs from song books and recordings, the folk process hasn't really changed that much. The book or the record may be a different kind of link in the chain, but still, it's only a link.

If it weren't for song books and recordings, most of us city-billys wouldn't have much to sing, except what we hear on the radio.

Now there's a horrible thought!!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 24 Sep 06 - 08:04 PM

No *not* everything should be recorded.

We *need* events with unrecapturable spontaneity and the unselfconsciousness that only comes with not having the censorious ear of the future snoopng on us.

And people need somewhere to learn: "listen damn carefully, you will not get another chance at this".

Very little of what I've done has been recorded. Am I bothered? No. I've passed musical ideas on to people who were in the same room at the time and they got it better than any recording medium could convey.

There is a comment of Kierkegaard's about the transmission of the truth (he was thinking of religious truth) where he says it can only walk on its own legs - meaning it had to be tranbsmited in person; the mass media could do nothing to convey it, the essential meaning would always be garbled and twisted into lies and gibberish. Same goes for music.

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Sep 06 - 08:18 PM

The alternative to recording it would be Runic script?

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Sep 06 - 08:29 PM

Listening is a kind of recording in itself.

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Sep 06 - 08:30 PM

Not with my memory it isn't.

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: jeffp
Date: 24 Sep 06 - 08:36 PM

Should stories be written down?

Duh.

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Sep 06 - 09:16 PM

recording technology..

amazing invention.. can only enhance folk culture and knowledge.. and pleasure in music..


BUT...


music intellectual copyrights 'ambulance chasing' lawyers..

bunch of greedy ****s.. can only restrict and diminish future of folk culture

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: Gurney
Date: 24 Sep 06 - 11:03 PM

I once had the pleasure of introducing a 'source' singer to recordings by others of his two songs "from my Dad." It inspired him to get out and sing more often.
It wasn't Fred Jordan, but something similar must have happened to Fred.

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 24 Sep 06 - 11:27 PM

This song can also be sung to the tune
"Will the Circle be Unbroken".

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: Amos
Date: 24 Sep 06 - 11:35 PM

Alas, the question comes too late. Personally I am glad.   I can't tell you how much good folk music I would have missed had it not been recorded. And personally, I demur with the forebodings as far too precious. When I have a mike on me I belt out what I am singing as best I can. When I do not have a mike on me I belt out what I sing as best I can. There is such a thing as being too delicate concerning others' opinions.

A

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: Scrump
Date: 25 Sep 06 - 04:21 AM

Of course it should be recorded - most of us value the chance to be able to listen to songs and artists we like when we're not able to see them live (at home, or in the car, etc.). But the recordings should not be regarded as definitive in any way, just as snapshots of the song and performance by the artist. If you see the artist do a song live, you shouldn't expect it to be indentical to any recorded version they may have made previously. That's one thing I like about live music - sometimes a live performance of a song done in a different way can cast a completely different perspective on the lyrics.

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: JennyO
Date: 25 Sep 06 - 07:17 AM

If you see the artist do a song live, you shouldn't expect it to be indentical to any recorded version they may have made previously

This is a point I was going to bring up. That is why it is so important to keep on having live performances along with recordings. Unfortunately I have noticed that when you buy the CD of the fantastic band that had everybody up dancing at a festival, on the strength of their live performance, you are often disappointed to find that their presence and energy and the extra little bits that delighted you are missing from the recorded version. This is true of some performers more than others.

What I really like to have is a recording of a live performance by some artists, which often gives a much better representation of what they are like. With particular artists, such as Martin Pearson here in Oz, anything but a live version tends to be a pale imitation.

On the other hand, recordings do have an important role in preserving music, not only for the enjoyment of the listener, but for learning later, and for capturing the way certain people sang the songs. I agree with Don, in that I don't see the fact that a song has been recorded as setting it in stone as the definitive version, or in any way stifling creativity.

Shouldn't Folk Music be the music where people gather and give to and interpret and change with feeling.

John, I understand what you are saying, but in my opinion the fact that folk music has been recorded shouldn't, and doesn't have to prevent that from happening.

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: GUEST,The black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 25 Sep 06 - 07:46 AM

Any recording of me performing any of my material should be viewed in the same way as a snapshot photograph. It is how I did it on that day and you are welcome to try out your own versions/alterations as you see fit.
If it is a recording of me performing anything "traditional" then almost the same applies. Just remember that how it sounds to the listener is not neccesarily what I had in mind as to how it should sound!
It is good practice to mention who wrote the item so that we know who to blame!

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: GUEST,Zulu
Date: 25 Sep 06 - 02:42 PM

For many years now most what are supposed to be recordings of live music are not.A lot of crowd and other affects are used to enhance the cd.For years i thought some of my favourite live albums was the real thing,only to discover they are mixed to hell later in the studio.

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Sep 06 - 03:12 PM

Amen to that.

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: Andy Jackson
Date: 25 Sep 06 - 03:47 PM

I was part of the heaving throng in The Raiway in Portsmouth when Vin Garbutt recorded for,I think, "The Old Tin Whistle Pest". We where certainly live that night!!!

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 25 Sep 06 - 05:11 PM

Zulu has a point - and it's not just that studio recordings are mixed and cut and pasted, but that most people probably sing differently (and more carefully) into a studio mike from when they sing to an audience during a live performance. Trouble is that with recordings of non-studio performances you get all sorts of extraneous noise!

Kitty

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: Tootler
Date: 25 Sep 06 - 05:23 PM

Any recording of me performing any of my material should be viewed in the same way as a snapshot photograph. It is how I did it on that day ...

Any recording of me performing anything should probably be thrown in the bin ;-)

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: Scoville
Date: 25 Sep 06 - 05:42 PM

When a lot of the stuff we care about was written there were no recording techniques and I'm not sure that the music suffered because of it.

Same applies to classical and a number of other genres.

Personally, I'd rather have recordings than have this stuff disappear when it goes out of fashion. I recently bought a CD that is recordings of ragtime piano rolls, which were made by the composer (James Scott, I think it was). They sound like piano rolls--sort of tinny and stiff--but it's as close as I'll ever get to hearing the genuine article.

If there are diehards out there who don't want it recorded, fine--don't record it and don't listen to what's been recorded--but it seems to me that not recording it (and thus not having it available for later generations to hear and learn to appreciate) would be an awfully effective way to kill it off. I've heard a lot of recordings of stuff that I would not otherwise have heard and that I have, as a result, become interested in learning to play.

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Sep 06 - 05:47 PM

Trouble is that with recordings of non-studio performances you get all sorts of extraneous noise!

Special prize to Herga Kitty for entirely missing the point....

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: Andy Jackson
Date: 25 Sep 06 - 05:52 PM

Ah Piano Rolls, now there's authentic recording at its best. Admitting the difference between Pianola and Player Pianos ( search Google I expect) The piano roll is incredible. The holes are made in the roll as the piano is played with all the timing and with the best systems even some of the nuances of the player. Years later, yes even now, a player piano can use these rolls to actually play the piano. No hiss no quantizing errors no printthrough non of that technical mumbo jumbo, just a mechanical device playing as the original artist did...Beat that.

Andy

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: Andy Jackson
Date: 25 Sep 06 - 06:01 PM

I couldnt resist taking my own advice. Go here and follow the link to Greig MP3. Greig was recorded in 1906 and played again in 2005. Now there's clever. Oh I realised when I saw this page that the better instruments are known as "Reproducing Pianos" for obvious reasons.

Cheers

Andy
My english conni still more portable!!

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: shepherdlass
Date: 25 Sep 06 - 06:04 PM

Just a thought, perhaps sometimes recordings don't solidify a particular interpretation as definitive, but can allow more freedom in future versions of the song? If a singer had to hold on to "their" version of a song prior to recording, then they might be tempted to keep it much the same throughout their life. Now, they can document that particular version, and then allow their interpretation to develop and change over the years.

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: GUEST,Zulu
Date: 25 Sep 06 - 06:22 PM

I have found i don't sing my songs the same as the years go on.I always think recordings could be done slightly better,but alas you need that first recording to judge it in the first place.Be proud of your early recordings and if you or someone else can improve them in time,then why not.But the main point is,get it recorded as proof that we at least created words and music that will always be yours.

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: Grab
Date: 25 Sep 06 - 06:45 PM

How many performers sing stuff exactly like the recording...?

Graham.

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: Big Mick
Date: 25 Sep 06 - 07:20 PM

Good point, Graham. I think it makes a point for recordings though. Usually I will listen to a number of versions of a song, and then do it the way it is playing in my head. I don't know if it is an amalgam or what but it usually comes off somewhat unique. Two examples recently from two very different venues. I had to have a folkie song for a couple that was married. I chose Call and the Answer. I listened to a number of versions, but chose to do a kind of semi Travis pick and sing it in a different kind of tempo. It was very well received. I can't say it is like any other. For a funeral of a very dear friend I chose Dave Carter's When I Go. Again I downloaded about four versions, monkeyed, came up with my own. It was unique and smack on for the funeral. Perfect expression of necessary sentiment.

Mick

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: Don Firth
Date: 25 Sep 06 - 07:26 PM

Not very many, if any. Thinking of singers such as Harry Belafonte, Peter Paul and Mary, and miscellaneous others I've seen in concert after they've had recordings out, when they do a song they've recorded, it's always a tad different from the record. The song and their arrangement has evolved a bit. Sometimes quite a bit.

The only two I can think of off-hand whose live performances were almost (almost) exactly the same as their recordings are Joan Baez and Richard Dyer-Bennet.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: chrisgl
Date: 25 Sep 06 - 08:17 PM

My 2d worth:

Since the invention of the recording machine there has been a change in the way information/stories/songs are handed on. The tendency is to learn from the source _material_ not from the person. And I bet that's partly due to the lifestyles people lead - there isn't the opportunity to stroll home from work singing/listening/learning together.

That's just my 'should be going to bed' theory. I do wonder how people in the 'olden days' learned the songs.

Should we record? I think so; particularly with a view of preservation for the future, but, as said elsewhere, the recordings should not be viewed as the 'ultimate' version. I liked the idea of an audio snapshot.

Should we record _everything_? Probably not. _Some_ things should simply be remembered.

chris :-)

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 25 Sep 06 - 08:19 PM

Thanks, guest - special prizes are so rare...

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: GUEST,Zulu
Date: 26 Sep 06 - 01:50 PM

Have i won a prize ?I hope it is one of Helian Keys cd's,coz as a performer you are last to get one of your own cd's.Ha ha.

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: Scoville
Date: 26 Sep 06 - 03:26 PM

I hate it when something is described as the "definitive" recording of something. I know what is meant by it, but it always seems like everyone else latches onto that as the way it's "supposed" to sound and uses it as an excuse to throw water on someone else who wants to be creative.

I think shepherdlass makes a good point. I think it's very interesting to hear different versions of a song over time. Ditto regional variants. All that stuff.

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: lady penelope
Date: 26 Sep 06 - 03:40 PM

People "in the olden days" learnt by rote and tended to have a limited repetoire. Literally due to the constraints of travel and meeting people who knew different songs. That's why songs, pre mass transport, are easily defined by area.

Personally I always enjoy and am impressed by a performer who will go out of their way to perform songs differently live, against how they do them in the studio. Sometimes the results aren't what you might hope, but it shows a willingness to use the technology, rather than be bound by it or afraid of it.

Besides, have you ever met a bunch of musicians who can leave any piece of music alone for more than any given number of performances of it? For recordings to cause the stagnation of any kind of music you'd have to cut limbs off and gag all musicians. Music is like chaos theory you can hum......

Subject: RE: Should Folk Music be Recorded
From: Don Firth
Date: 26 Sep 06 - 03:57 PM

"Music is like chaos theory you can hum......"

Good one!!

Don Firth