Folk Process - is it dead?

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 02 Feb 07 - 01:29 PM

The element that will keep most rap out of the folk process is the lack of a tune. Broomfield Hill and Knoxville Girl were passed along not because of the fascinating aspects of homicide involved, but because you could hum the melody. The music becomes a memory aid and organizer. Most rap is beat related.
An example of a violent rap song...

Ludacris - Cry Babies (Oh No)

I caught him with a blow to the chest
My hollow put a hole in his vest
I'm bout to send two to his dome
Cry babies go home!
I just bought some new guns my mama said "it ain't worth it"
But I'm at the shooting range just cause
practice makes perfect
(from Word of Mouf, Defjam, 2001)

This points out another problem with rap. While the lyrics provoke an immediate gut response, there is no story line that can be grabbed hold of. It's as if Stagger Lee had not been written as the tale of a murder recounted by an observer, but as a diatribe by Stagger Lee himself about how bad he is. It might be shocking, and maybe you can dance to it, but I'd bet a dollar no body will remember this thing in 15 years, much less 150.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Mooh
Date: 02 Feb 07 - 01:43 PM

Lonesome EJ..."Lack of tune", that's it in a nutshell.

McGrath of Harlow...I'm not sure what your 12:42 post refers to, except I'm pretty sure it's not in reference to my previous one. PM perhaps?

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Feb 07 - 11:22 AM

My post wasn't directed at anyone, but the argument arose out of points made in previous posts, including yours, Mooh.

My point was, the question of whether something is "folk" is quite separate from other questions, such as whether it a song we might wish to sing or wish to listen to. Saying that isn't an attempt to dismiss such questions as insignificant or wrongheaded.

I can think of a fair number of songs, that no one would deny are folk songs, which I do not like, or might even actively dislike. I suspect most of us could say the same, though we might (or might not in some cases) passionately disagree about which these were.
..................................

Lack of tune? Talking Blues don't have much of a tune. If that means they aren't properly called songs, that's fine - but if that was extended to imply they are part of our folk music tradition, I'd disagree.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Feb 07 - 12:15 PM

My post wasn't directed at anyone, but the argument arose out of points made in previous posts, including yours, Mooh.

My point was, the question of whether something is "folk" is quite separate from other questions, such as whether it a song we might wish to sing or wish to listen to. Saying that isn't an attempt to dismiss such questions as insignificant or wrongheaded.

I can think of a fair number of songs, that no one would deny are folk songs, which I do not like, or might even actively dislike. I suspect most of us could say the same, though we might (or might not in some cases) passionately disagree about which these were.
..................................

Lack of tune? Talking Blues don't have much of a tune. If that means they aren't properly called songs, that's fine - but if that was extended to imply they are not part of our folk music tradition, I'd disagree.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: RTim
Date: 03 Feb 07 - 03:48 PM

The Folk Process.

I would like to tell you of what Frank Purslow wrote on an LP insert in 1975, and was recently re-issued on CD (on Forest Tracks Records) about a version of a song that I recorded - ie. The Saucy Sailor Boy. (on Folk Songs From Dorset)

"These are Mrs. Gulliver's words, but the very fine tune in the mixolydian mode (which was almost certainly pentatonic - minus 2nd & 6th degrees) is from Tim's own repertoire of tunes. This particular one he heard many years ago at Sidmouth and "it just stuck".
Should you feel this is cheating, I can only point out that singers have been altering tunes and texts and changing the relationship of tunes and texts for centuries: it is, in fact, an essential part of the "folk process" {HIS quotes} and is the main difference between art music which is always performed as conceived by the original composer - and folk music - which depends upon continual re-creation (regeneration or degeneration as the case may be) at the hands of each performer.
The usual type of tune to which this song is sung is not, in fact, very English: a heavily accented 3 / 4 obviously inspired by the landler type tunes beloved of the German bands which used to be a regular feature of 19th century towns. I do not think the words are of very great age, probably not earlier than the 1830's. The broadside texts I have seen are all of a fairly late date."

That is the quote in total. I think it explains The Folk Process.

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: GUEST,Frank Hamilton
Date: 03 Feb 07 - 05:01 PM

Lonesome EJ and Mooh,

I don't care for rap music much. I agree that it concentrates on violence. But there are plenty of spoken (not sung) rhythmic examples of folk music from Africa and other places.
The Talking Blues is a home-grown version. (No melody).

As to the violence...check out the Scot's Edward Ballad, American's Duncan and Brady or even T for Texas, Pretty Polly....they don't exactly advocate peace.

Alan Lomax had a theory that the American bloody ballads had an element of titilation for the singers which smoothed it over with a prosaic moral preachment at the end.

As to the tunes in folk music, some of them are dull. Some are beautiful in their simplicity. Some pretty tunes get turned into easilly sung monotous ones.

The big problem with the idea of a Folk Process has more to do with the "Image" of the performer than the material itself. What seems to be "dead" now is caracature of the folk musician. The music will live on. Not all songs can be "concert" art songs, jazz tunes or arias. Some have to be re-written, re-sung and re-introduced away from the stultifying sameness of the performances of artists on the media. Not that these performances are bad, it's that they offer no alternatives. Folk musicians do.

In time, there will probably be "variants" of many songs that are sung today in its original form. Some variants will be improvements and some not. Rap as part of popular culture has to be a part of this.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Mooh
Date: 03 Feb 07 - 05:57 PM

Agreed about spoken "songs" etc, but as for whether they're rap...

Anyway, I'm curious, does the rap community consider rap a form of folk?

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: John of the Hill
Date: 03 Feb 07 - 11:12 PM

I think that if you are hearing 'folk' in rap music it is a mondegreen.

John

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Eric the Streetsinger
Date: 03 Feb 07 - 11:40 PM

I don't see much evidence of a folk process here in Arizona. People don't sing to each other except at Karioke bars, where the folk tradition is short circuited by having "canned" music and follow the bouncing ball lyrics on a TV screen. The few places where you can see live music usually have folks from New Jersey dressed as cowboys playing music with pre-recorded rhythm tracks and Fake books - so they can get it "right" (meaning as recorded so the tourists will leave big tips!) Kind of horrible. Our pop culture seems bent on leaving behind anything of worth and replacing it with campy trash or "original" music which steals from the tradition without understanding it. I hope there are pockets of culture where people still sing traditional songs to each other, and sing them often enough to take ownership and add/subtract lyrics, modify melodies, etc.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 Feb 07 - 04:11 AM

no.
it is evolving,people may pass on material through different mediums,eg learning a tune aurally recorded on a mobile phone.
I taught someone a tune by this method 5 days ago.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 04 Feb 07 - 05:56 AM

Wow, the discussion has moved apace; sorry, I am out of contact with only intermittent internet access. LEJ, good description of the steps of the process; I tried to challenge it in my mind, but failed - it seems to fit all examples I can think of. Scrump, beyond a certain amount of change, the song could be deemed to have a new variant, which could be attributable to whoever made those changes. A little bit like parodies can be attributed to the latter writer, even though a nod is given toward the original. And the two variants can co-exist without a problem, I think.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 Feb 07 - 07:47 AM

So is LITTLE BOY BILLEE[written by w m thackeray]and performed by singer songwriter/traditional singer Bob Roberts, a variation of a traditional song or a new song in its own right[it also has a different melody].

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 Feb 07 - 07:56 AM

THE SHIP IN DISTRESS,was the song I had in mind

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Alec
Date: 04 Feb 07 - 08:48 AM

Much as we all carry the DNA of our parents,a song could be said to carry the "DNA" of its "parents" also,so I would say the example you cite IS a new song in its own right but is a "child" of the original.
It also has the potential,given time, to become a traditional song in its own right.
This is all part & parcel of the Folk process.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 04 Feb 07 - 08:53 AM

Eric-

Aren't there places in Arizona where people just get together--not to make money-- but just to sing and play things they know--or think they do--without reading them out of books? Music parties, jam sessions or similar?

I would think that's where the folk tradition is more likely to carry on--people just singing things the way they think they go--and likely, as a result, changing the words, and possibly the melodies.

Seems to happen around here. (DC area)

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Feb 07 - 11:32 AM

There is a jam starting up in Arizona you can find more info here - and typing your zip come into folkjam will probably turn up something close to home in other states.

-Patrick

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: BB
Date: 04 Feb 07 - 01:14 PM

I would never think of 'Ship in Distress' and 'Little Boy Billee' as being variations of the same song, and I doubt that Thackeray did either, if he even knew 'Ship in Distress'. Just because a song has similar subject matter doesn't mean that they are variants of the same song. I think there needs to be far more in common than, in this instance, the possibility of surviving on a ship by intending to eat a fellow member of the crew! That is the *only* thing in common, surely?

I'm sure folklorists somewhere would be able to define what makes a 'variant' - it's certainly not the tune - I think that's something of a red herring.

Barbara

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: GUEST,Seiri Omaar
Date: 05 Feb 07 - 09:37 PM

It can be the tune. But my brain is failing to come up with an example. How annoying. Mooh?

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Jim Lad
Date: 06 Feb 07 - 03:37 AM

Isn't this thread a part of the folk process?

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Feb 07 - 09:03 AM

Its depends how you see the folk process. To my mind Vanity Fair has been filmed and the story told so many times - and different slants given to the Becky, George, Dobbin and Amy charcters so many times - really its part of our folk culture.

Its probably a bigger part, of peoples consciousness than stuff in the folk process proper.

And I think if you're a working artist as the people who write folksongs have to be, that is what you must concern yourself with.

Leave the rest to the archivers and librarians - god help 'em. I shan't.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 01:25 PM

The "Folk Process" has been compared to biological evolution--and there are good reasons for accepting that comparison. Don't forget, though, that, in biological evolution, most mutations have no survival benefits, and, in fact, don't survive. The Folk Process isn't just about change, it's also about survival.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: GUEST,squeezy
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 07:00 PM

Absolutely Dick, I was trained in Genetics and evolution and have often noticed the similarities between inherited traits in biology and the development of traditional music over the generations.

One thing I will add is that the size of a population generally is critical to it's survival - too small and the chance of adapting to it's surroundings is greatly reduced because the chance of a change or "mutation" being beneficial is proportional to the number of organisms existing at the time.

If they are the same, then that means that too few people interpreting folk traditions will make it less likely that the tradition will change in a way which appeals to modern sensibilities and therefore it will thrive less - a vicious circle of decline? That is why I'm of the school of thought that thinks that anyone getting the bug for traditional music is a bonus whether or not you personally like the way they're doing it! I think that the two worst things you can do are a) wrap the tradition up in a bubble and say it cannot be changed because it was collected at one point in history or b) disapprove of anyone trying their arm at folk music if their interpretation doesn't appeal to you at first.

You can take this analogy quite a long way and say that just like the species that have lived virtually unchanged for millenia (e.g. crocodiles), there are traditional works who's very design (whether designed from scratch or evolved over time) means that they have survived virtually unchanged despite multiple passings from mouth to ear.

The only thing that falls down in this discussion is that only in the last 100 or so years have we been able to listen back to the earliest recordings of traditional music - something which was never possible before and certainly slows down the natural evolution of traditional music while people are constantly put under pressure to constantly refer to it as "the right way to go about things"

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: redsnapper
Date: 04 Mar 08 - 07:17 PM

Absolutely Dick, I was trained in Genetics and evolution and have often noticed the similarities between inherited traits in biology and the development of traditional music over the generations.

Funny... I was also trained in genetics and evolution and had missed that! ( ; > ) )

RS

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 08:55 AM

One of Cecil Sharp's greatest contribution to folk song studies, apart from the huge amount of material that he collected, is possibly his insight that folk songs were subject to an evolutionary process.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: GUEST,Keinstein
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 09:31 AM

in biological evolution, most mutations have no survival benefits, and, in fact, don't survive. The Folk Process isn't just about change, it's also about survival.

So's biological evolution, even more so. As squeezy points out, though, because music can get set down (whether in script or recording), it can get redevelop long after its original environment has been destroyed. I'd compare this to cyst formation in bacteria- they can survive for hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of years in a dormant state.

Going further with the analogy, look out for the "gene"'s "strategies" to survive by mutation to exploit a new environment (folk rock?), symbiotic association (with beer and a laid back lifestyle perhaps in the UK?), incorporation in another genome (Vaughan Williams?) etc. Even ensuring replication by being controversial in the sense of "what's really traditional" is a "strategy" to get quoted, and therefore perpetuated.

But then Richard Dawkins and Susan Blackmore have had a lot to say about this kind of thing as regards selfish genes and memetics.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 09:50 AM

Squeezy said: "The only thing that falls down in this discussion is that only in the last 100 or so years have we been able to listen back to the earliest recordings of traditional music - something which was never possible before and certainly slows down the natural evolution of traditional music while people are constantly put under pressure to constantly refer to it as "the right way to go about things" ".

I had never thought of that, but as soon as you said it it hit me between the eyes. Quite an effect, too. It means that evolution is being in a sense hamstrung by the fact that we can listen to the old interpretations - well, not so much by that, but rather because of the resulting rise of "religious observance" of old styles of interpretation.

But this must have other effects also, some even counteracting the above; for example, the wider access to the various interpretations must surely mean that the critical population sizes now can be much smaller than before.

In other words, the methods of musical evoilution are themselves evolving. Even as we speak/write.

My brain hurts... Off to Oz.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 10:22 AM

Sorry, I've not read the whole thread & apologise if this has been said before, re tunes.

Years ago when I was first learning the squeezer, as I didn't read music, I'd try to remember tunes I'd heard in sessions but I'd often mis-remember them & end up playing snatches of one or more tunes in the same performance.

Sometimes, if others didn't know what I was trying to play would ask the name, or say 'that sounds like so & so'.

In this way evolved some original 'compositions' which I still play, even though I've now mastered the originals.

I guess this may be part of the reason a lot've sessh tunes can sound quite similar, possibly via others' misremembering?

A similar phenomenon happened last night when 'er indoors was doing her fiddle practice.

She can ply from the dots but lately is trying to play without them, so as to play more easily in seshes.

She started off with the A part of Fanny Power then played the B part of South Wind!

I'm going to try this 'new' composition at the sesh tonight, if no-one notices, I could claim it as an 'original'!

Not sure about the title though, 'Wind Power?'

What you think?

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 10:41 AM

Hello Squeezy. Funnily enough I was trained in Evolutionary Biology as well (Richard Dawkins, no less, was one of my lecturers!) and the analogy you make is one I've often considered myself. As is the similarities between the fossil record and the patchy nature of folk song collection.

However I have to quarrel with both you and George about the "religious observance of old styles of interpretation". Several people in the folk revival who I admired made a point, early in my singing career, of opening my ears to the early recordings of traditional singing, but I don't remember anyone ever saying that these were "the right way to go about things". Rather, they were worth listening to in their own right, while at the same time offering stylistic points that could be learned from, as opposed to slavishly copied. No-one was a greater proseletyser for studying traditional recordings than Peter Bellamy, yet his own style was entirely individualistic - mainly because he absorbed all kinds of different influences, including blues and Appalachian balladry, alongside Sam Larner and Harry Cox, and mixed them all up with a large chunk of rock'n'roll attitude and his own flamboyant personality.

It's true that constant referral to recordings from the first seventy or so years of the twentieth century, as if they represented the definition of traditional style rather than merely a random snapshot of it, could conceivably interfere with the normal process of musical evolution. On the other hand, that process is being accelerated at an almost exponential rate by advances in communication, and gently applying the brakes from time to time isn't going to stop the runaway. Compare a recording made of Joseph Taylor in the 1900s with one of Fred Jordan in the 1950s and one of pretty well any English singer you care to name in 2000, and I'd suggest that there's been a qualitative stylistic change over the later period not evident in the former.

Personally I think music is more interesting when it's a bit weird than when it's bland, and if a few of those archaic stylistic features help to differentiate our music from the mainstream, that's no bad thing.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: GUEST,Keinstein
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 10:54 AM

Now Brian, what would Prof Dawkins say to you if you referred to something as interfering with "normal process of ... evolution"? I'm sure he'd point out that that's a progressivist viewpoint, and assumes that there is some goal towards which evolution (musical or otherwise) is directed.

That it has changed by exposure to "source" recordings is undoubted; but just listening to early revivalist recordings, or looking at the often sanitised published arrangements suggests that the access to the recordings has allowed later revivalists to remove a layer of interpretation that (to my taste) we are better off without.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 11:12 AM

People I talk to at sessions often asked whose or what style of music I copy when I play the fiddle. I explain that I am self taught, and obviously I will be influenced by the music I listen to regularly but dont copy any particular style or individual, I just play how I feel like playing! This seems to confuse some people.... why?

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 01:07 PM

No quarrel Brian, I was purposely using extreme language. Like you, all that I admired and still do, and taught me, and still do, have exhibited no such "religious" signs or behaviour. Like in other things, it is as a rule among the less able that you are likely to meet those more "catholic than the Pope"; those that put form above content 100%. Neither are they a majority, by a long chalk. But they can be vocal above their numbers or knowledge in their disapproval of a singer's particular approach.

Yes, I too like some spice with my listening, and archaic does it for me also. But then so does barbershop, so what do I know...

Really have to fly now. On the plane in 3 hours. I'll dip in as I can for the next 3 weeks.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: The Sandman
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 01:18 PM

slightly off thread, I would like to direct to those interested to
my space A.L.Lloyd.
The folk process is not dead, Here is an example,Irecently recorded Banks Of Claudy on my new cd.I listened to it ,yesterday,on my website www.dickmiles.com and I realised I have unconsciously changed the words already.http://www.dickmiles.com

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 02:42 PM

Sorry Cap'n
It don't work like that - (Is that an argument I see coming over the horizon).
What you're describing could just as well be Alzheimer's.
I'm afraid the folk process (certainly as far as song is concerned) is as dead as Monty python's Norwegian Blue.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Gene Burton
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 03:48 PM

No, the folk process is not dead.

(nothing contentious to add, just...NO)

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: GUEST,The Mole catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 04:23 PM

"The folk process is not dead, Here is an example,Irecently recorded Banks Of Claudy on my new cd.I listened to it ,yesterday,on my website www.dickmiles.com and I realised I have unconsciously changed the words already"

lovely bit of self-promotion there...nope the process definitely ain't dead *LOL*

Charlotte ('e's gorn to the great folk club in the sky)

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 04:28 PM

Jim, can't agree with you there.

If folk song is subject to change and people are still changing folk songs then the process continues.

If (for example) A.L.Lloyd puts together a version of Tam Lin and so does Mike Waterson and so do plenty of other people then the process of continuity and change is in action. If Martin Carthy puts together a version of Famous Flower - and so does Damien Barber - then the process continues. If someone then combines these throws out a verse, puts a verse in, changes a couple of words to make them scan, mishears a word perhaps and substitutes another one then the process continues for it was ever thus. And that's without tunes!!

I am always wary when things are copyrighted - pop songs are copyrighted so they never change. Folk songs aren't - generally speaking. I know young singers who are doing precisely this - taking a song they like, chasing various versions (much easier nowadays with the internet and the Round Index on line for example) and taking the best, in their opinion, of what they find - and then putting together their "own" variation.

Seems exactly the right thing to do to my mind. It's not how it used to happen - but so what?

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 04:35 PM

I know with new songs there has to be "an original version" - but more often than not, when I hear a song sung, and like it, I've no idea what that original version is, and there's no likelihood that I would consult it as a way to sing that song myself.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: The Mole Catcher's Apprentice (inactive)
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 04:43 PM

"mishears a word perhaps"

which I believe Ashley Hutchings did when taking down the lyrics to Matty Groves hence Lord Arnold became Lord Donald and the process continues..

Charlotte (the view from Ma and Pa's piano stool)

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 03:23 AM

Dave,
What you are describing could be applied to any form of music from Wagner to the Beatles (copyrighted or not).
The folk process, as I understand it, involves communities in which songs are composed, performed, accepted, adapted, passed on, performed, accepted. adapted, passed on..... ad-infinitum. The songs need to have a significance in and reflect aspects of the communities in order to survive.
It is this process that produced 200-odd plus identifiable versions of Barbara Allen.
Nowadays the songs appear to have no significance away from the point of performance.
Unless you include your local folk club as 'a community' (I don't), this no longer happens generally; the population in general no longer plays any part in the creation and transmission of the songs, other than to act as passive receivers (consumers).
Would love tho find that this is not the case.
Jim Carroll
PS Love the idea of a 'Round' index.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 05:38 AM

Re: Original versions, since we can't know what 'traditional' originals were like, we can only make comparisons of contemporary song makers.

We know, across the whole realm of music, not just 'folk', that even the composers of works who also perform don't produce identical renditions of a particular piece every time they do it.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 06:04 AM

Hi Jim,
That was always the problem with the 1954 definion, there were other categories of music it could apply to.

I would argue that that in each community (travellers as one example, a village as another) there were people - but not everyone, who did this composing, performing, accepting, adapting, passing on, performing etc etc.

There are communities now (even if that is one of people - interested in/ making a profession from - folk singing) who go through that process.

Nowadays the songs appear to have no significance away from the point of performance.

I am not sure what you are saying here. To me a song only has a significance at the point of performance. (Or it is an academic study of course but I feel sure that is not what you meant).

I do include for lack of a better word "the folk community" as a community - and I am sure both of us could point to its generosity and humanity on numerous occasions - in the same way as we would expect any other community to be generous etc. - family, neighbours for example. Sometimes it/they aren't - but that is the way of the world.

Let's take an image we all must have - the old man/woman sat in a pub singing. Whatever they sang those who listened would I reckon hardly play any part in the process of ......etc .etc. They would be just as passive a consumer as people are nowadays.

Also I wonder if we substituted the word "tune" for "song" - if it would look so simple.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: The Sandman
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 06:20 AM

Let's take an image we all must have - the old man/woman sat in a pub singing. Whatever they sang those who listened would I reckon hardly play any part in the process of ......etc .etc. They would be just as passive a consumer as people are nowadays.
good point Dave ,but not if they were joining in the chorus.
or if they knew the song well and were joining in the verses with the singer,either in harmony or in unison .
The latter is a phenomenon that I know many folkclub goers find annoying,But must have happened with songs like Holmfirth Anthem,when people sung in pubs,outside the folkclub situation.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: GUEST,Suffolk Miracle
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 07:15 AM

"Unless you include your local folk club as 'a community' (I don't)"

I'm not sure that I accept this without at least some argumentation.
I admit that the folk club is likely to be a smaller and less heterogenous community than the ones which may have held the folk-song at earlier points in history, but do we really believe that for hundreds of years entire villages and even towns went about their daily lives all, to the last man woman and child, gaily singing folk songs. I suspect that in many places the community that held the folksongs were the men (see Ginny Dunn's Fellowship of Song if you think I am being sexist)who sang at the local pub - ok they probably did it more than one night a week, and didn't divide up into a room for the singers and a room for the 'normal' people and I don't suppose they had guest nights, and with any luck they didn't have their damned books of words in front of them: but otherwise were they so much different from the folk club?

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Waddon Pete
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 07:34 AM

Hello,

My six pennyworth!

"Let's take an image we all must have - the old man/woman sat in a pub singing"

I can take you to places near me where this still happens!

There are two overlapping communities...the folk clubs and the sessions.

Sessions help take our music to the general public in the same way as morris dancers et al do, songs are shared, discussed and enjoyed in an interactive way, and in the best ones, people join in with the verses and choruses in a sympathetic and supportive way.

Plenty of evidence of the folk process processing processsively round here!

No ego's...just good music.

Best wishes,

Peter

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 08:12 AM

I can't see how Jim can make a meaningful distinction between the "community" that currently sings "folk" songs, and any other community that formerly did so.

Lets be clear about what we mean by the characteristics of the folk process:

- personal interpretation of a song or tune by a performer.
- a community sufficiently steeped in music of a given type to select preferred variations.
- that community includes other performers capable of incorporating or rejecting such variations for their own purposes.

It says nothing about the scale of the community in which such a process takes place, though just as a biological community ("species") has a minimum size capable of effective survival, so the various folk communities will be more or less healthy depending on the number of participants. Other groupings which do not participate (the "general public") are simply irrelevant.

To me at least, there's no identifiable difference between a relatively closed community like, say, travelling folk, and the self- selecting community represented by (British) folk clubs. And when it comes to Irish instrumental music, all the essentials of any definable folk community are present in full bloom.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 01:41 PM

"...not if they were joining in the chorus." Chorus singing is pretty unusual in some singing traditions. And joining in the verses is likely to be recognised as bad manners.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 01:48 PM

Chorus singing is pretty unusual in some singing traditions.

And common in others.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 02:08 PM

According to the oft quoted definitions of "Folk Music", "Folk Song", and "Folk Singer", it would appear that, to the traditionalists at least, the "Folk Process" is alive only with respect to the evolution of such folk music as was composed more than one hundred years ago.

If a modern community produces songs about its everyday life, no matter how many times those songs may be sung within, and outside of that community, and no matter how many singers may refine and polish them, and no matter how long the period during which they may be sung, they are not, and never will be folk songs according to the "definitions", and those who perpetuate them will never be folk singers.

That concept fills me with an inexpressible sadness, as it heralds the passing of the music I love into the realms of the "Dead" languages, and the degradation of my own creativity (such as it is) into something that does not, and cannot, have an identity, as it does not fit into any known musical genre.

Thanks a bunch "Folkies"! I wonder what is it I have been doing all these years?

Don T (who always thought he WAS a folkie)

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 02:13 PM

'Let's take an image we all must have - the old man/woman sat in a pub singing...'

I'm old. I sit in pubs and sing (sometimes).......perhaps if I was a man/woman?

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: GUEST,Chicken Charlie
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 02:34 PM

Good point, Don T.

I'm one who has said that singer-songwriters are more than welcome to compose and present new material, but I have wondered out loud why they want to call their creations "folk" songs. I see your side; I really do. If you react emotionally to something in 2008 and you write and perform a song about it, you are doing exactly what I suppose balladeers did in the dim dark distant.

What I've been doing, I think, is thinking about it in terms not of the individual performer but of the whole society of "the folk," i.e., those who are receptive to and perpetuate "folk" music. From that standpoint, you can't WRITE a "folk" song any more than you can RECORD a "gold" record. It gets waxed/taped/burned and then if enough people like it, it goes gold. Septimus Winner wrote a song that touched enough people so that they remember, perform and enjoy, e.g. "Listen to the Mockingbird." That has been proven by "the test to time." More power to you and all composers, but how many songs that are launched from some "point of performance" at an open mic today are going to be remembered even five years, let alone 150 years from now? Are the ones on the "cutting room floor" also "folk" songs? From the composer's standpoint, yes; from the 'consumer's' standpoint, are they?

I don't think so, but you've got me rethinking my categories, so this is a great Socratic exercise.

And here I thought all these 'let's define folk' threads were boring.

Chicken Charlie
Who Must Now Re-Invent His Inner Chicken