Folk Music Degrees - Discuss (Nicely!)

Subject: RE: Folk Music Degrees - Discuss (Nicely!)
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 03:52 PM

I think it is capable of advancing knowledge of folk music (and you all know how I think that is defined - and for the purposes of this post "music" includes song) of a range of cultures, and so long as that does not lead to the subordination of British music (it's a British course, I'd expect an American equivalent to concentrate on American folk music, nodding to the British music that went over there to become American) to other music then I think that is good.

It is likely to lead to more performance and interpretation of such music, and that is good, and with luck it will not lead to fossilisation, as I have heard it said that Eistedfodds (sp?) did for Welsh arts.

It's a bit like studying Roman law in order better to understand English law, which I didn't do, but I did study American copyright law in order to gain insights that might be useful in UK copyright law.

We need to know where the music came from in order to appreciate where it may go.

Of course it would also be interesting to study the effect of American folk music (including, for this purpose, blues) and singer-songwriter music on later British music, and on our interpretations of British folk music - the use of harmony is largely audibly different.

The big worry will be if the accountants get hold of it and reduce it to a profit centre, or if someone from the music industry gets hold of it and narrows it down to what the music industry wants (I know one allegedly academic institution where most law courses are run by policemen, which really makes me wonder...)

I think I'm for it. I'm all for proper academic degrees. A degree should not be for academic gain, but about learning, and learning to learn. I'd worry if the emphasis became too heavily on the quality of performance: some singers (not, I hasten to add, by and large, singers of folk music) have been spectacularly stupid.

I'd worry even more if it became as stupid as the propsed new science GCSEs being widely condemned as "More suitable for the pub than the classroom" - although in the case of folk music perhaps it ought to be suitable for the pub as well.

Subject: RE: Folk Music Degrees - Discuss (Nicely!)
From: BB
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 03:24 PM

I don't know a lot about the Newcastle degree course, and I haven't time right now to look it up, but I am aware that there is considerable variety in the music and song that is coming out of it.

I also know that the students are being made aware of the traditional performers - song and music - which they may not have had access to or regarded as important before they went on the course.

Having talked to Damien O'Kane of Crosscurrent, before he went on the course he didn't even know that English traditional music existed - he does now!

Vic Gammon is now in charge of the course, and I'm sure that many of the concerns that a great number of us had were concerns which he shared - personally I trust him to do the best for the music as well as for the students and the university.

Barbara

Subject: RE: Folk Music Degrees - Discuss (Nicely!)
From: oggie
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 02:09 PM

If you click on the 'What skills will I learn?' button on the course page you'll discover that the key skills are those of most 'specialist' degree courses, communication, IT, teamwork etc. The difference is the vehicle for the learning is folk music (rather than Sports Studies, Mixed Media Studies etc). Many of us with degrees do not uese our degree subject professionally, or change careers later on.

My feeling is that it's as valid a way to spend three years as any other. The question will be whether as student debt soars and the horror stories of £25,000 to get a degree it will keep it's appeal, but the same could be said of many other subjects - would I have spent 3 years getting a degree in Economic History with that kind of price tag on it? Not sure.

All the best

oggie

Subject: RE: Folk Music Degrees - Discuss (Nicely!)
From: s&r
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 02:07 PM

Well said bloke

Stu

Subject: RE: Folk Music Degrees - Discuss (Nicely!)
From: shepherdlass
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 02:02 PM

I'd have thought the main advantage of doing the degree is that it opens up new avenues of enquiry. Rather than simply learning a tune, you have the time and tutors available (yes, they're there in the non-academic world too,but isn't it nice to have them readily accessible?) to help you hear it in lots of different ways and to understand more about how and why these different styles evolved. Then you can adapt your own way of playing if you want to ... if you don't want to, then I'm sure that's no problem either.

The churning out of a "house" style might be a concern, but you hear that same worry raised about jazz courses too. The truly exceptional players usually find their own ways of expression despite going through exactly the same training as the soundalikes.

Subject: RE: Folk Music Degrees - Discuss (Nicely!)
From: Bloke in the Corner
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 02:01 PM

What? Are you MAD? Suggesting that folk music needs for some reason to be kept 'real' by being learned completely informally? Not so long ago there was a real danger of traditional music from the British Isles effectively dying outside C# House. Go to any session in this country, you will probably be playing with middle aged men- probably no-one young, no-one female. Anything which brings the tradition forward is to be welcomed, and to have a good number of YOUNG PEOPLE - YES, YOUNG PEOPLE IN THEIR TEENS AND EARLY TWENTIES - playing and showing virtuosity and dedication is the best possible hope for the music we love existing far into the 21st century. Don't put up daft arguments about not needing degrees to play well, fall on your knees and thank your God that the course exists. And if you ever get to play with these young folk, you will find out how good they are! Here endeth....

Subject: RE: Folk Music Degrees - Discuss (Nicely!)
From: greg stephens
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 01:46 PM

Ian Stephenson has been quoted as an example of what the course turns out(Kathryn Tickell band, etc). One might cite Julian Sutton as well(I bwekieve he falls in the same category, course and band). Trouble is(see my previous post) what does that prove? They were both wonderful musicians before they went on the course. The question is, did they get better when they were on the course? Or, to be more precise, did they get even more better than they would have done in three years of ordinary life, whether as professional musicians or part-timers?

Subject: RE: Folk Music Degrees - Discuss (Nicely!)
From: Anne Lister
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 01:29 PM

There is also a degree course in Leeds (which my godson Matt Crum has followed, and graduated from this summer) which includes folk and trad music. He's had a splendid, wide-ranging experience on his degree course which would be as useful to him as (if not more than) my largely medieval French degree. I do use mine to some extent and I'm sure he'll use his. He's now gigging with various bands including Peeping Tom and teaching music as well.
Not sure what the problem is ... I don't think you *need* a degree in folk music, or music generally, any more than you *need* a degree in anything else. Some graduates will be fine musicians and others not, just as some of my peers could speak fluent and well accented French on graduation and others not. But while there is a proliferation in degrees of highly dubious worth in the workplace (such as the infamous Media Studies...and there are plenty more of even quainter specialisms) I don't see there's any problem in finding the academic content to make a folk music degree worthwhile.
Does it make a musician a better musician? Probably not, but why worry? The gigs will go to the people that the event organisers want to book, whether or not they have degrees, surely?

Anne

Subject: RE: Folk Music Degrees - Discuss (Nicely!)
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 01:05 PM

I must admit to having doubts but I do suspect they stem more from some sort of "inbuilt prejudice" (ie that's not how you learn folk, etc.) than anything else.

As luck would have it, earlier this year I met someone in a session who will now have just started this course. It will be the first time I've had a sort of chance to see a "before, during and after product" (naming a well known player who has attended the course gives me no clue what the course itself might have done for them). I will be interested to find out how it goes.

Subject: RE: Folk Music Degrees - Discuss (Nicely!)
From: s&r
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 01:00 PM

I am fortunate to know a number of young people who have invested huge effort in folk music. I believe that the work involved should be recognised and treated as any academic skill. No one would question a degree in music, nor in classical or baroque, nor in fine art - recognise the learning and effort involved

Stu

Subject: RE: Folk Music Degrees - Discuss (Nicely!)
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 12:49 PM

Ian is playing guitar in the Katyryn Tickell band as well as 422.
Fay Heild is one of the Witches of Elswick amongst other things.
I am not sure how many others about are graduates of the Newcastle course.
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: Folk Music Degrees - Discuss (Nicely!)
From: GUEST,Auldtimer
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 12:42 PM

I have heard too many degree holding "traditional" performers who just play by numbers. Note perfect, maybe, but shallow, souless, pale and uninteresting. But then what do I know, I don't have a degree on informed opinion forming, collating and diseminating.

Subject: RE: Folk Music Degrees - Discuss (Nicely!)
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 12:40 PM

In my opinion the best university, is the univesity of life,.
I have had the pleasure of playing with many very good musicians,none of whom had a degree, but they all had one thing in common, they enjoyed their music.This came across in their playing they were never too worried about how many twiddles they were twiddlingthey just enjoyed themselves.
   last night on tg4 there was a programme about KittyHayes[west clare anglo player]she played with a stately simplicity that was refreshing to hear., an ordinary person without a degree who played musically. you can have all the degrees on the compass ,but if you havent got alove of music your playing will reflect just that.

Subject: RE: Folk Music Degrees - Discuss (Nicely!)
From: catspaw49
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 12:30 PM

Ian is also curreently playing with the Kathryn Tickell Band. He truly is a fantastic musician.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Folk Music Degrees - Discuss (Nicely!)
From: catspaw49
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 12:23 PM

He no longer posts much here, but Mudcatter Ian Stephenson was one of the first to graduate from the Newcastle program. Many of us in the states were happy to have Ian and Sam Pirt accompany Bill Sables here on one of his trips. They came to our place in May/June of 2001 and it was a memorable night. Ian and Sam played music and frisbee in equal doses and Ian taught Karen and Connie how to make proper Yorkshire tea, which Bill always brought along.

I'm sorry none of you remember Ian going to school and graduating but the last I heard all was going pretty well for him and Sam as well. I haven,t checked past postings but here's a link for Sam and Ian and their group--422.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Folk Music Degrees - Discuss (Nicely!)
From: dermod in salisbury
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 12:17 PM

There are some thought provoking parallels to this topic. Take languages as an example. The most fluent English speaking foreigners have usually acquired their proficiency by working as waiters in tourist hotels rather than by formal study. Similar, striving would be pop starts invariably learn their craft strumming in the attic all night, not be attend one of the royal schools. If the desire and the enthusiam is there, a curriculum can probably get in the way. BUT, the work done in recent years by some universities to cherish and preserve fading local traditional arts can only be esteemed. I can cite not only Newcastle, but Aberdeen, Edinbrugh, and Queen's Belfast, and there are doubtless others. Scholarship and research of this kind is the proper role of universities, in folk art no less than any other art. The mere existence of such departments will attract students who love the subject and wish to steep themselves in it. Whether they become famous performers is not relevant. The only danger I can see is, the academic approach being what it is, sooner or later 'experts' will start abstracting formulas and rules to manage classify their subject, then the next thing there will be a 'right' and a 'wrong' folk music, a model answer folk music, etc, etc. I see no sign of that yet.

Subject: RE: Folk Music Degrees - Discuss (Nicely!)
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 12:05 PM

Interesting link. I see that 'world music' appears as a module. Oh bugger!

Subject: RE: Folk Music Degrees - Discuss (Nicely!)
From: Folkiedave
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 12:04 PM

Sorry, I did not mean to exclude other folk music degrees from that. But the Newcastle one is the only one in the UK.

Devil´s Interval - who I understand will be on the next Waterson:Carthy CD, and are on the forthcoming Waterson:Carthy Frost and Fire tour and are making a name for themselves around the scene are graduates. See home page

Subject: RE: Folk Music Degrees - Discuss (Nicely!)
From: Folkiedave
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 11:57 AM

I think what might help people to contribute to this thread with more understanding is if they read what the degree is about

Subject: RE: Folk Music Degrees - Discuss (Nicely!)
From: greg stephens
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 11:42 AM

I dont think most qualified music teachers are much good at teaching people to play Soldiers Joy well. They can certainly teach kids to play the notes in the right order, in tune, and as fast as you like: but that is not quite the same thing as playing it well. I think a university course in folk music should make students study folk music, and then they might be able to teach it well.

Subject: RE: Folk Music Degrees - Discuss (Nicely!)
From: Peace
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 11:37 AM

"I didn't say the sole purpose was to get jobs"

I am aware of that, thanks.

Subject: RE: Folk Music Degrees - Discuss (Nicely!)
From: Scoville
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 11:35 AM

I didn't say the sole purpose was to get jobs (I've got a BA in history; talk about not a degree for getting a job), but I still think it's something to keep in mind and in perspective, at least on the student's side.

--

Greg--so, why not get a music teacher certification?

Subject: RE: Folk Music Degrees - Discuss (Nicely!)
From: greg stephens
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 11:28 AM

The smearing out of regional styles seems to me the most cogent arguments against any formalisation of the teaching of folk music. This could only really be avoided by having one college in every village(as it used to be, but informally). Now, maybe the staff at Newcastle are equipped to watch out for this danger, and avoid it, I dont know. Does anybody with any actual knowledge of this course have any opinions in this direction?
   Presumably, as this course has been running a while, there should be some pudding around, which we could prove by eating: I mean, what musicians were actually on this course, and are their records(or live performances) notably better, or worse, than when they went to the university? Anybody know? Incidentally, it is no use arguing that people who have been on the course play better than those who weren't, as the university selected high fliers to start with.A difficult question this, I know, as you would have to make allowance for the fact that most 18/19/20 year old musicians would be teaching themselves even if they weren't at university, as people always have done. So, just how do you go about proving this course is a good thing?
   My own general impression is that these courses are not of any particular value in improving the standard of musical performance, but of great value in disseminating knowledge of the music. I would not, personally, use a university to teach people how to play Soldier's Joy. I would definitely use a univesirty to teach people how to teach other people how to play Soldiers Joy.

Subject: RE: Folk Music Degrees - Discuss (Nicely!)
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 11:26 AM

One thing it has already produced is a "hot spot" of talented musicians. It has given a number of young people the exposure which has allowed them to get a regular income as performers. It has allowed them to play music together in combinations which would otherwise not have happened.
Something similar was already starting to happen as a consequence of the Folkworks initiative, but the Degree course has intensified the process.
What effect this process will eventually have we can only guess, but it is certainly one to watch.
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: Folk Music Degrees - Discuss (Nicely!)
From: Peace
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 11:12 AM

The purpose of getting degrees is not necessarily to get jobs. Often, the purpose is to learn. My 'studies' in Old and Middle English do me little good in the world of work, but what I learned there helps me read stuff that predates Modern English.

Subject: RE: Folk Music Degrees - Discuss (Nicely!)
From: Scoville
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 11:08 AM

Okay, not that I object, but WHY?

I already know two people with Ph.D.'s in Medieval music who couldn't get jobs--one is a library cataloguer (went back to school for an MLIS after the Ph.D.) and the other is a stay-at-home mom.

Of course, study what you want to and love; life's not all about money, but it seems like an expensive way to learn about folk music that will likely have little opportunity even to break even at the end of it all, and school ain't getting any cheaper.

***

I tend to be very pessimistic about academics in general so there's no way I'd want to study something I loved so well at this level of formality. I guess there are tradeoffs--formal academcs often equals funding, which is good. On the other hand, I'd be suspicious of it for all of the possible drawbacks written above. I'd hate to see standardization--which i think already happened to some degree during the 1960's when the stuff was popular and selling--of a genre that has done so well with improvisation and experimentation, but who knows?

Subject: RE: Folk Music Degrees - Discuss (Nicely!)
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 10:36 AM

People might take a moment to read about what the four-year BMus course actually entails. such as course content and entry requirements, before deluging this space with the usual prejudices such as 'we never needed this sort of thing in my day' and 'reading music stops you being a proper trad musician', blah blah . . .

Also they might bear in mind that England is very much behind other countries (not least Scotland and Ireland) as well as Finland and Sweden, in giving equal recognition to traditional as to establishment arts.

The website is a bit crap and I can't link to the actual course page. You have to click through from 'Learning & Participation'.

http://www.thesagegateshead.co.uk/

Subject: Folk Music Degrees - Discuss (Nicely!)
From: GUEST,Dazbo
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 10:04 AM

Prompted in part by the repeat showing of Kathryn Tickell's TV programme last night and coming across a tape I made of a BBC Radio 3 documentary from about 3 years ago that included a section on students and Folk Degree in Newcastle I thought I'd start a discussion on the whole thing. (Also in part by a burning desire to wrap a baseball bat around one of the student's head).

As I see it some of the possible benefits are:
A higher profile for folk music,
Any degree level education is a good thing in and of itself,
Exposure to other traditions
Meeting and learning from the "masters" of their trade
How to be a professional musician

Some of the possible pit falls:
Many of the students ending up with the same or similar style
Losing individual traditions in favour of a mish-mash of traditions
Production of an elite group of musicians vs the rest
Concentration on the technical aspets to the detriment of the music
A 'right way' and a 'wrong way' to do the music.

Other points:
Is there enough interest to keep or increase the number of courses available or will the course(s) disappear in a few years?
Is there a danger of creating 'Academic Folk' that's different from (or is it to?) 'The People's Folk'?
Can a folk degree be as academically rigorous as a normal, classical say, music say
Are all musical instruments treated equally (piano accordion/one row melodeon;classical flute/tin whistle) or is their a bias towards the 'classical' instruments and away from the simple?

What do you think?