Folk Process - is it dead?

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 02:37 PM

'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.'Community' and 'folk' are specific terms with set definitions'.
It wasn't the fact that they sang folk songs which defined them as communities, rather, many communities included folk singing among their activities (while others didn't).
Taking the arguments here, we may as well describe the local book club or darts team as 'communities', which would be nonsense, as the participants in these pursuits only come together for the purpose of pursuing a specified activity, whereas a community includes everybody living within its bounds.
Sam Larner and his neighbours met at 'The Fisherman's Return' every Saturday night to sing songs, as long as he could remember. That session was a part of the Winterton fishing community, as was the local football team, bible reading class, temperance meeting..... that existed in the area.
To describe them all as 'communities' would make the term meaningless.
It seems to me that, just like the term 'folksong' it has become another comfort blanket to somehow validate (totally unnecessarily) our mutual interest in a type of music.
PMB
Not sure where your characteristics came from, but would they not be equally applicable to, say karaoke, music hall.. or numerous other forms of singing?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 03:11 PM

I can't agree with this at all Jim.

"Taking the arguments here, we may as well describe the local book club or darts team as 'communities', which would be nonsense, as the participants in these pursuits only come together for the purpose of pursuing a specified activity, whereas a community includes everybody living within its bounds".

In the same way Sam Larner and the fishing community came together, in my area there is a "community" and an easily defined one, which comes together and sings what most people would recognise both as folk songs indeed many of them are traditional - but it is not the folk songs that defines them. They do it once a month.

A similar community would be the farming community who come together in shepherd meets - which still exist around Sheffield. What defines them is not singing which takes up a large part of the evening - but their membershp of that "shepherding community".

Both groups sing folk songs, those and those songs are altered within that community.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: GUEST,Old folker
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 03:13 PM

Of course it's dead; killed by those who first defined it, mutilated by those who first attempted to commercialise it. Ewan MacColl springs to mind. Mind you, I've been happily enjoying and contributing to the mutilations for years - long may it continue!

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 04:00 PM

Remember the old story about the rumor that starts at one end of a line of people and, by the time it has been passed completely around the group, is almost unrecognizable to the originator? The "process" is not exactly like that, but certainly related to it.

Everyone who sees or hears a piece of music passes it through their own filter of experience and taste, no two being alike. Performing it adds another element. Then, one adds a verse here, a slight change of a chord or a melody line there, and what comes out is "processed."

The point is, there is no possibility of absolute purity or fidelity to an original, given time and human nature. We hope to preserve the essence, but we inevitably change what we touch. I don't happen to think it's good or bad, just inevitable.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: GUEST,Chicken Charlie
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 05:29 PM

Guest: I agree with the "process" you describe. Yes, it is inevitable. I think it's more likely to happen with public domain stuff than it is with newly recorded, copyright protected stuff. When I've heard multiple versions of the same old 'standard,' I'll probably have a favorite, and it won't necessarily be the original version. Maybe I'm wrong about there being more freedom to improvise-within-limits within "Folk" than outside of it. What does anybody else think?

Chicken Charlie

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: GUEST,doc.tom
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 07:19 PM

Oh what a sad person I am - I've just re-read this whole thread! I was stupid enough, early on, to ask if anyone would like to offer a definition of 'folk process' - and of course there were several summaries - mostly idiosyncratic, but justifyable. What is now obvious is that the functional definition of 'folk process' has evolved during the progress of the thread.

There must be a moral there somewhere.

Tom

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: GUEST,Chicken Charlie
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 07:30 PM

Tom: I think it's "Sokrates was right after all." Sokratic questioning makes us re-think all our definitions, hopefully for the better.

CC

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Mar 08 - 03:15 AM

Dave,
No, the fishing community did not come together once a week to sing - just a dozen or so of them; they were not the community, just a part of it. No more does 'the farming community' come together at shepherds' meets, again, just a small part of it.
Would you honestly describe the half dozen or so people who meet regularly in this town to discuss the book they've been reading, a 'community'? Come on, give us a break!!
Guest TJ,
Funny you should mention that game - it always comes into my mind when I get involved in these discussions. It's called Chinese Whispers, and its purpose is to show how wrong people can get a simple message.
Tom - definition;
There are enough examples to be found describing the folk process, Lloyd, David Buchan - Funk and Wagnall gives a beauty, look it up, it's part of the 'folk song' definition. Reluctant to put it up as I'll be accused of sending too long postings (97 verses maybe)! But it's there for the perusal.
Discussions like 'what is a folk song?' I 'am a traditional singer' and now, 'what is the folk process? always call to my mind the Alice In Wonderland statement "words mean what I want them to mean"; I invariably find myself looking over my shoulder for a white rabbit with a pocket watch or a dormouse in a teapot.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: GUEST,doc.tom
Date: 07 Mar 08 - 04:31 AM

Precisely,Jim. Asking for a definition could, of course, be rhetorical.
Tom

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: mattkeen
Date: 07 Mar 08 - 04:49 AM

I am 100% with Don T

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 07 Mar 08 - 05:09 AM

Now that he has gone to another place(OZ)
Over a year ago El greko mentioned he doesnt enjoy songs with subtlties in the music reduced to a three chord trick.
I know what he means(just)
However isnt it better that a less tallented or experienced player can
join in the joy of playing some of the wealth of music around.
Maybe bring a little entertainment or pleasure to the lives of freinds
family and workmates,and in the proccess(folk?) be putting his "version" of a song into the memories of the people who hear him?
Who may then carry that memory forward and at some point pass it on to another set or even generation of people.
I think I understand that it may be somewhat irksome to have your own painstaking work traduced in this way.
But as a very weak peformer myself I would be upset to think that my own enjoyment of the music I love was one of the reasons that others saw as degrading it.
Dunno quite what the process is,and suspect it may be some elitist clique sort of thing.
Hope it isnt and if it has been the reason that I am able to hear so many songs of the past around today
Well,long may it continue

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: TheSnail
Date: 07 Mar 08 - 05:09 AM

Jim Carroll

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.

Sam Larner and his neighbours met at 'The Fisherman's Return' every Saturday night to sing songs

No, the fishing community did not come together once a week to sing - just a dozen or so of them; they were not the community, just a part of it.

Not trying to pick holes Jim but genuinely trying to understand what you mean. Are you saying that Sam Larner and his neighbours were not folk singers because they were not The Community just a part of it? Is song only "folk" if the whole community are involved?

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Banjiman
Date: 07 Mar 08 - 05:20 AM

I've resisted posting on this thread for 160 postings but I can contain myself no longer. The postings by the dyed in the wool traddies are starting to remind me of the (UK) TV caricature of a certain Welsh news reader where nobody but himself is Welsh enough.

I agree wholeheartedly with Don T, by any common usage of the word I am sure that he is a "folk" singer. The academic definitions are just that, purely academic and bear little relationship to what is going on in the real world.

Anyone who is part of this real world (not people who are "looking over my shoulder for a white rabbit with a pocket watch or a dormouse in a teapot." erm....do you see many? ) will know the folk process is alive and well with songs being written, adopted and a adapted on a daily basis. Who are you to tell me, or anyone else, that we are not part of the communities in which we live....what is your basis for this?

Paul

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Waddon Pete
Date: 07 Mar 08 - 05:23 AM

A definition of a community.

Best wishes,

Peter

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: GUEST,doc.tom
Date: 07 Mar 08 - 05:49 AM

Congratulations banjiman on your restraint. So, we presume the 'real world' is (only?)the one you live in? Yes, academic definitions are academic definitions - and spurious definitions are spurious definitions, and elitist definitions are elitist definitions, and...

"Anyone who is part of this real world.. will know the folk process is alive and well." by definition it must be - it is a truism of your own definition. You're not the first person to prove that, according to your own opinions, you are correct!

Who are you to say any particular individual is a "dyed in the wool traddie"? - are you working to some sort of definition here?

Tom

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: GUEST,banksie
Date: 07 Mar 08 - 06:52 AM

>I always assume that somebody else is going to hear something different in a piece of music than I might hear, and I think that, logically, I have to extend this to things that I write<

Quite agree, and there are other, sometimes practical reasons for the folk process to continue working now and into the future. For example, I have written (if that is the right word) a couple of dances used by Redbornstoke Morris, together with the tunes. But the folk process of matching such pairings during practice sessions has, over time, resulted in subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) changes to both the dance and the tune that the difference is very noticeable - and the ressult much better.

And I know of other people singing one or two of my songs, but I would hate it if they thought it right and proper to try and mimic the way I do them - dammit, I can't mimic it, sometimes :-).

If the folk process is dead then all that is left are tribute bands and tribute singers (subject of a different thread, if I recall)

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Banjiman
Date: 07 Mar 08 - 08:12 AM

Tom,

Thank you for your congratulations.....

"Who are you to say any particular individual is a "dyed in the wool traddie"? - are you working to some sort of definition here?"

You could try the 1954 one and see if it fits? I can't see that it is valid as applied to what most people understand as "folk" but it might be a good definition of "traditional".


Your point about realities is valid, and yes I am describing the world that I observe. It seems real enough to me (but who knows?).

I accept that your opinion (for that is also all it is) may be that I am incorrect about the folk process being alive & well.....


Paul

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: The Sandman
Date: 07 Mar 08 - 11:19 AM

the song Wildwood flower,was recorded by the Original Carter Family.
I believe it was originally a 19 century song,a few of the words were misheard by the Carters,so that we have a nonsensical line about pale leader.
the Carters material was what the ordinary folk were singing in their community,and which they learned by ear,so under the 1954 definition it would be folk music,the mishearing of the words pale amarylis is part of the folk process.
they are now classified as country singers,despite the fact they recorded songs from their community[including a version of the golden vanity]which they learned by ear.
the folk process will never die while singers and musicians learn tunes and songs not from a written source,even if the music is from a written source the folk musician will change it unconsciously[the folk process]to suit his/ her style .he may also change it consciously as A LLOYD did[that IMO is also a folk process,although it is arguable] Dick Miles

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: GUEST,doc.tom
Date: 07 Mar 08 - 12:26 PM

Thanks banjiman.

The 1954 definition had a go at 'folk' rather than at 'traditional' - and, with a couple of caveats, it's still not been bettered (in my opinion) but then we've had long threads on that already - lets not start that one again.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Mar 08 - 03:26 PM

Snail,
No, certainly not, and more or less (not necessarily all, but enough of them to ascertain that the songs 'took') - in that order.
Banjiman
"The academic definitions are just that, purely academic and bear little relationship to what is going on in the real world."
Once again you are telling us what is relevant to your "real world" (how do you apply to join - I seem to have been missing out)?.
The reality of 'the real world' is that by and large most people don't give a toss about folk music (whatever the definition).
I will admit that we are all here due to academic tossers like Sharp, Child and Bronson, and we took much of our definition (and songs) from their academic ramblings - what did they know?
"white rabbit with a pocket watch or a dormouse in a teapot." erm....do you see many?"
Yup, just spotted a beauty - welcome to the thread.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Giant Folk Eyeball (inactive)
Date: 07 Mar 08 - 04:42 PM

Can I just interject for a mo to congratulate El Capitan Ricardo Kilometre on his excellent musical taste? Every thread I read seems to feature Dick eulogising about some aspect or other of my favourite music. I instinctively LIKE this man! When you next play Manchester, let's have a pint!

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 07 Mar 08 - 05:24 PM

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

one supposes it could be part of the process, more so than alot of the music

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

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

Jim Carroll

No, certainly not, and more or less (not necessarily all, but enough of them to ascertain that the songs 'took') - in that order.

So why were Sam Larner and his neighbours, who met every Saturday night to sing songs but were only a part of the community, folk singers while people who meet every week, if not more often, in folk clubs and sessions are not?

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

The notion of the "folk process" as a popular concept may be dead but the actual process
goes on. It is necessary to change the concept of "folk process" to fit today's evaluation of it. "Folk music" was co-opted by the popular music business and redefined by it to sell recordings. The actual process is one of modifying, changing and assimilating styles of music that have roots in traditional cultures. This modification might mean "modernizing" them by introducing new musical elements. Example: blues on an electric guitar
or Doc Watson playing "Somewhere Over The Rainbow".

The "process" in my view is one of assimilating the style(s) of folk music and incorporating them into a new context. Where it gets sticky is when the assimilation hasn't really taken place and "anything" is called folk music. To me that's like saying "Boogie-woogie" piano styles are "classical" music or "rock" music is traditionally chamber music. It's too broad and too loose.

The reason this question comes about is that whoever decides to go into this style of music faces the problem of "authenticity". This may be a red-herring. What is valuable, though, is an understanding of folk music from a historical, cultural and musical point-of-view. In some cases, this might be academically learned but as a musician, I think it's a matter of intensive interest in the idiom and you feel your way.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 03:48 AM

Snail,
'The folk process' as I understand it, is used to describe how songs evolved in the tradition.
Sam Larner, Harry Cox, Walter Pardon et al were part of that tradition, today's singers are not. They (some of them) are a part of a revival of those songs and, as far as I'm concerned, can no more be described as traditional singers, than a modern singer of Elizabethan madrigals can be described as 'Elizabethan'.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 07:59 AM

mmmmmm....we do talk about Shakespearian actors. None of them actually shook hands with Bill and bought him a pint.

if you think semantics will disguise the general confusion and muddleheadedness on this subject Jim - I think not!

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 02:40 PM

"if you think semantics will disguise the general confusion and muddleheadedness on this subject Jim - I think not"
In that case, let's go back to the books - if I don't have the answer I know a man who does.
Works most times for me.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 03:02 PM

If the folk process is dead then all that has gone before is frozen in amber.

Which a moment's thought will tell you it isn't.

I would argue that MacColl's taking of Sam Larner's spoken cadences and turning them into the Shoals of Herring is part of a folk process.

I would argue that the constant adaptation and change of tunes in sessions by musicians by ear is part of the folk process. I cannot believe that you believe the folk process only dealt with song Jim.

And if the tunes are evolving then the process is alive.

But I am wary of getting into a "What is Tradition" argument.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 03:27 PM

Which book did you have in mind?

The Burl Ives Song Book, Five Hundred Folksongs for the Campfire, You Can Play Donovan's Greatest Hits with Three Chords.....all classics in their own way!

an' Ezra Pound and TS Eliot are fighting in the Captain's towers
Whilst calypso singers laugh at them and fishermen throw flowers

I think that's a pretty clear reference to Sam Larner, and as such we should admit it to the tradition.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 03:49 AM

"But I am wary of getting into a "What is Tradition" argument."
Sorry Dave, all these arguments come to that in the end.
Folk process, as I understand it, applies to the tradition - if that's alive, so is the process - thirty years of field work has convinced me it isn't any longer, as much as I would like it to be.
WMD
Not familiar with any of the books you refer to, but if they offer alternative definitions, put them up, will be happy to consider them. Sorry, the quote meant nothing to me out of context, and as far as I understand it, we don't get a vote to accept or to reject what goes into the tradition - it's a process.
If I don't know the meaning of something I'll pull a book off the shelf and look it up - habit of a lifetime.
I will not make up a definition because it's convenient to me personally, nor will I accept an opportunist definition (or in this case non-definition - nobody has attempted throughout these arguments to offer an alternative), by somebody with a stake in there not being one. George Orwell called that process 'Newspeak' and we have some wonderful examples at present with 'special rendition', 'collateral damage' and 'friendly fire'.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 04:18 AM

Well in context. Its from Desolation Row by Bob Dylan. Basically its a song saying the point from which song - folksong if you like - works - is isolation. The individual forced to look to his own resources. Rather than the chaps fighting in the captain's towers, or vying for places on the university library bookshelf. It starts off with a montage of horrifying images from the newspapers - they're selling postcards of the hanging.....

In 1964/5 - Dylan must have felt very isolated after his rejection by folksong buffs. He wanted to keep his mind focussed on this world and look for ways of expressing that. His folksong fans wanted him to keep rewriting traditional themes like Franklin, Scarboro Fair, and Who'll Count Your Chickens?

To me and and thousands like me, his search for expression has a perfectly honourable place within the tradition. We don't need an academic formula for folksong. It can only diminish what is already patently there.

Big Al whittle

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 05:33 AM

I am happy to accept that tradition is a process. I just don't believe it is as dead as you believe.

Traditional tunes are still subject to the process.

If the folk process has stopped then you have to accept that the songs to which it applied are now frozen in time.

If they are then we will only be singing the frozen version (or we aren't singing at all). Since we are singing the process continues. Some of the traditon bearers (a phrase I prefer) are still there and others will follow them, from within their communities.

I know the story of how the people you were collecting from stopped singing Jim but at the same time others were collecting from other people and they were still singing (and in some cases still are).

The hunt community still sings around here and so do the commiunity which meet at shepherd's meets. I alluded to this earlier. The folkies trend to ignore the hunters because of the way they chose to spend their free time (when not singing) and I am not supporter of hunting but their singing tradition does continue and as older people go out at the top end so to speak - younger ones from that community do join in.

I interviewed a fiddler on my radio programme a couple of weeks ago who comes from a long line of traditonal musicians and singers both in his family and his community and he learnt material from both by ear from a very early age. By any definition he is a traditional fiddler (and singer) unless you can tell me what stops him from being considered one. I suspect that that same "community" is almost certainly still producing similar musicians and singers.

He is 29. Are you really saying that the folk process as far as he is concerned has stopped?

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: TheSnail
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 06:39 AM

Jim Carroll seems to have abandoned The Community in favour of The Tradition and The Tradition is a foreign country; people do things differently there. He seems to relegate folk song to the glass cases in the museum of anthropology. Beautiful, perfectly preserved and dead. Sam Larner, Harry Cox, Walter Pardon are noble savages from an alien, and now extinct, culture.

For some of us, folk music is alive and well.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: GUEST,Suffolk Miracle
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 07:27 AM

I generally regard myself as a diedinthewool traddy, but for once I, like Robert Clive, stand here amazed at my own moderation. I do not feel the 1954 is helpful to evaluating the folk process. These definitions exist, and have to exist, for the purpose of academic funding. Noone will give money to any reseach into traditional dance until it has been defined tightly enough to be sure that the academic or institution concerned cannot get away with spending it on lap dancers. But for everyday purposes it's more helpful to rely on the fact that if it looks like a camel and smells like a camel, it probably is one and at any rate should be treated as such. I think the bottom line is that performers in folk clubs should have traditional songs/tunes as a part of their repertoire. Note I do not say 'a major part' or even 'a substantial part' - but a part none the less. If you are unable to interpret a traditional song then you are in the wrong place - the more so if you are interested only in performing ONLY your own composed songs (however folky), because I do not believe that level of conceit has ever had a place in the tradition.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 07:41 AM

hard to argue with, Miraculous suffolk person. the thing is though, dyed in the wool traddies tend to be so sniffy as to what actually is traditional. Its hard to get it right. I make no bones about it. I didn't listen to many of the famous traditional singers and I didn't go and see them in the 1970's - the clubs that booked them in Brum were SO unfriendly. so bloody sure they were god's gift.

to be honest I liked the way Joan Baez taught us all Geordie say, more than Martin carthy's attempt to convey how the lady he learned it off used to sing it. And why not. I'm a modern person. my sensibility is what it is. Perhaps I should educate my pallette - but to what end - so that as few people understand what I do as possible?

then I'll be able to walk around in splendid isolation, thinking wot a good boy am I!

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 02:12 PM

more than Martin carthy's attempt to convey how the lady he learned it off used to sing it.

What on earth makes you say that?

Are you also saying that Martin Carthy tries to do that with all his songs? Never heard such round spherical objects.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 03:06 PM

No I'm not. I think you have to be into what Martin does to follow what I'm saying. I have the greatest respect for him.

Joan Baez in her versions usually works to a 4/4 rhythm - which most people are used to listening to. Martin points out that the originals weren't like that. And it matters a lot to him. that's why he has devised the technique that he has.

I think the Baez originals are easier to listen to for the non adventurous listener. You have to respect what someone like Martin sees as the essence of the piece. You could talk about the strange rhythm he uses for Byker Hill, those sort of hesitations in The New deserter. have you heard these things and never wondered or asked him, or yourself about them.

He has a profound respect for the people who sang these songs originally. Usually old people, often gypsies - people not really plugged into the mainstream of everyday culture that most of us live in the midst of.

My own feeling is that I'm glad I learned High Germany in singing together. You obviously have your own opinions - but I'm entitled to mine. I'm sure your ideas aren't balls - neither are mine.

al

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 03:37 PM

"Sam Larner, Harry Cox, Walter Pardon are noble savages from an alien, and now extinct, culture."
Walter Pardon put the death of the tradition in his area a couple of years before the outbreak of WW2 (have it on record); Sam stopped singing publicly around the same time till he was found by Philip Donellan, and it was exclusively the revival that gave Harry Cox his audience.
We can date the death of the singing tradition among Travellers to within 18 months, somewhere between summer 1973 and Easter 1975 when portable televisions ended the singing session.
In West Clare, where the singing tradition lasted longer than in Britain, the singing took place almost entirely at house dances, many of which disappeared following the dancehalls act in the 1940s, when all dances were taxed (about the same time the priests helped to break them up 'because of the risk of immorality').
Not to say that there weren't singers who still remembered the songs, but virtually all the ones we recorded hadn't sung since their youth.
No, I don't regard the songs as museum pieces; I'd guess I've put as much time as anybody on this forum organsing and singing at clubs (when they were still presenting folk songs). I am saying the continuum was broken with the death of the song tradition (music is in a different position Dave - at least in Ireland).
We came in as outsiders, formed the clubs, and for a time did a good job at it. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way we dropped the ball.
No - I didn't abandon the community in favour of the tradition - the tradition was part of the community until they went elsewhere for their diversion.
WMD
Didn't explain why the piece you quoted should be considered a folk song.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 03:42 PM

What you have written there makes perfect sense.

Suggesting that Martin sings Geordie the way he does because he wanted to convey the way a woman he learnt it off, doesn't.

The major reason for that being simply wrong is that the biggest influence on his singing of that song was Levi Smith.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 04:04 PM

Jim - the question was not, "Is the folk process as seen in singing dead?"

I do not see on what grounds you can separate songs and tunes as far as the process is concerned. And it is clear that the folk process as far as tunes are concerned goes on.

What you are in fact saying is that the singing traditon as far as your experience is concerned stopped. That isn't my experience.

Even then, if that is so, then those songs stopped developing there. Stuck in amber. For if they are being changed and I would argue they are - who or what is changing them?

It clearly isn't (or extremely rarely) the world of commercial music. If it is individuals then it was ever thus. Those individuals will rest in a variety of "communities" which could be a family, a larger group of friends, a village community, a hunting community, a shepherd/farming community, a travelling community a community choir, a group interested in carols, or whatever.

As they always did.

And we have not looked at Scotland at all. Though the 29 year-old fiddler I mentioned earlier came from there.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 04:15 PM

And to go on Jim, if Walter Pardon dated the end of the folk process/singing tradition in his area as being in the late 30's then he was clearly wrong - it went on just up the road at Winterton until much later.

It went on at the Eel's Foot and the Ship Inn much later (hardly a long way away) and amongst the travelling community another 35 years from when Walter dated its death, even in your own words. So Walter was actually wrong about the singing tradition - he was right about it in his experience. That's all.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 04:28 PM

I ain't going to look it up but the lady he mentions on his recent DVD is (I think) called Karpeles.He goes as far as to impersonate her speech - ('angin in frames of gold - that's 'angin that is!)
I see no reason for snottiness on the subject. Perhaps he heard two sources, before deciding how to sing it.

Desolation Row containing a reference to Sam Larner was intended as a joke, Jim. A poor thing, but something of my own.

al

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 08:22 PM

Not knowing a lot of Karpeles's it was probably Maud.

She was an influence on his singing to the point where he learnt a song off her as a source singer/ tradition bearer and tried to imitate her?

Remarkable.

Where did he hear her sing?

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 04:00 AM

Dave,
We were in the Winterton and did a little recording there in the early 70s; it was rapidly changing into a holiday village. No singing there, (and hadn't been for a long time) three very elderly singers (one a nephew of Sam Larner) - now all dead.
Yes - there were pockets that continued, virtually all gone now (Sheffield Carols hmmm - maybe). Hasn't the Blaxhall Ship been turned into a C&W cum line dancing venue?)
Tom Munnelly, full time collector for Irish Folklore department, collected 20000 songs here, and as far back as 1975 described his work as a "race with the undertaker". He was still working in the field until the early 90s (getting bits and pieces) when his work dried up and he became desk bound.
This particular area was rich with singers 25 years ago - now the singers are all dead and none of their families took up the songs. That was our experience - if you can produce other field workers whose experiences were different, lets here from them (some work being done in Elphinstone, but looking at their current events - largely with revival singers). The only way, it seems to me, that it can be claimed that the tradition is still alive is by re-drawing your terms of reference, and claiming 'traditional' for revival singers - as has happened numerous times on this forum.
Even when Walter and his contemporaries were still around and singing, we were well aware of the tiny handful of clubs where they were invited to sing, most preferring a navel gazing, guitar scratching product to the real thing.
We helped run the clubs, we arranged bookings for a few of our source singers, we know how difficult it was to get them heard.
Don't believe me - go and look at the pitifully small sales figures for companies like Topic and Leader; (John Reilly, Mary Anne Carolan, Robert Cinnamond, George Dunne, Cecilia Costello - Bill Leader actually went bankrupt trying to give us traditional singers).
If we wanted to put out a record of any of the singers we recorded we had to raise the money ourselves or get support from sympathetic bodies, we certainly couldn't rely on the clubs to cover our expenses. The traditional singers did not get the respect they merited while they were alive, I doubt if they would get it today.
It really pisses me off when somebody describes our work as 'museum keeping'. We tried to introduce the traditional singers we met to the clubs, through personal performances and through albums of their songs - they were appreciated where they were heard, but as I said - navel contemplators won the day - look at the list of 'What's being sung around the clubs'.
Nowadays, our best hope is to archive our recordings and make them available that way. We're in the process of helping set up a local archive here - and guess what - we've still got to find the money ourselves.
Thanks to National Sound Archive, Irish Traditional Music Archive and OAC people will be able to listen to Walter Pardon, Tom Lenihan, Mary Delaney, Mikeen McCarthy and the rest of them a century from now; let's hope that future generations appreciated them more than this one did.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 05:10 AM

Jim,

You are answering the wreong

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 05:53 AM

Sorry about that I pressed the wrong button.

Cecil Sharpe went around collecting just less than 100 years ago because he believed the songs were dying out.

The Folk Song Society believed there were virtually no more songs to collect in 1931.

Walter Pardon "put the death of the tradition in his area to two years before..... [WWII] " ;

Peter Kennedy started collecting after the death of Stanley Slade (about 1952)

It seemed to have died in Winterton around 1960 and amongst the travellers you were talking to in 1972.

Tom Munnelly thought it was a race with the undertaker in 1975 - but went on racing for another 15 years.

The collection from tradition bearers has slowed down and may end eventually - though in my opinion has been greatly exagerrated time and time again - as those descriptions show. And there are tradition bearers as young as 29. I met one the other week as I said. Learnt his music and songs through his family and the part of his village community that was interested in that sort of thing. Even went on family holidays singing and playing with uncles and aunts. As he said - "All my friends were going to Mallorca and Greece for their summer holidays, I was going to Skye to learn music with my uncles". Incidentally his father is still passing traditional muscic on - someone contacted me after the interview and told me shortly after the show.

But we are not talking about collecting - we are talking about the folk process of - to put it simply, adaptation and change.
It may not be adapting and changing in the rural villages, or the travelling communities as mch as it was - though with the hunts it still happens in at least two areas to my certain knowledge. And there are a number of shepherd meets locally.

When I started carolling in 1972 I went to one particular pub. Shortly afterwards the pub changed building structure and the pianist died and a couple of the main singers died and the carolling stopped. All the evidence pointed to the death of the tradition and all for the usual reasons.

I didn't conclude that the carolling tradition had died out. Just as well since it was thriving in Padstow; Glenrock in Pennsylvania where a direct line to England could be traced; Odcombe in Somerset and of course two miles up the road. And that tradition is still adapting and changing and still has tradition bearers singing at it.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 06:01 AM

No I didn't say he imitated her singing voice - her talking voice.

Why not get the dvd - its very good. he talks a lot about his abandonment of the current folkstyles of the 1960's. Particularly the trendy DADGAD guitar tuning - how he tried to stop the guitar dictating the tune - rather than accompanying it. Which is what I was tryting to say.

he says the there was no tradition of English folk guitar playing and he had to try and make it. Its as though he believes the songs simply didn't fit those Baez patterns - not really!

All I was saying, was that I'm damn glad I heard Baez singing henry Martin before I heard The Lofty Tall ship. i think its catchier and has more purchase on the sensibility of a modern audience. I can't see that my observation is even controversial.

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 06:22 AM

to be honest I liked the way Joan Baez taught us all Geordie say, more than Martin carthy's attempt to convey how the lady he learned it off used to sing it.

No I didn't say he imitated her singing voice - her talking voice.

Clearly you don't see a contradiction there. I think it was an easy mistake for me to make, to assume that you meant her singing.

Does he say why he imitated her talking voice?

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 06:27 AM

re-drawing your terms of reference, and claiming 'traditional' for revival singers

Agreed

(1) that the "old" singers usually died out without handing their songs on to anyone else in their local communities.

(2) that this means that the songs can no longer develop within those communities.

(3) that therefore those lines of "the folk tradition" have died out.

But that's claiming a lot more for "the folk tradition" than most would agree with- that a tradition can not be transferred to another community, and that a tradition only exists within a defined economic group. The isolated peasant farming communities of the west of Ireland, small scale fishing, sailing ships and cowboys- all disappeared as economic conditions changed (in Ireland only the isolation really changed for many).

If a tradition can't transfer to a new community, the Appalachian songs collected by Sharp and Karpeles weren't traditional. Unless of course some communities have a mysterious stamp of approval.

If the traditions are bound to economic conditions their demise is inevitable, and must have happened many times in the past. So no music has ever been traditional?

And you are still ignoring the undeniable vibrant and triumphant existence of the Irish instrumental music tradition (for one)- which illustrates the point that you can't really tell the difference between "tradition" and "revival"....




... unless we're going to have a new full- hour session on how and when diddlydiddley segued from the one to the other.....

Subject: RE: Folk Process - is it dead?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 06:30 AM

>> i think its catchier and has more purchase on the sensibility of a modern audience. <<

You are posing an interesting question here, and one that ties in with the "complex arrangments" thread. Is what we now call 'folk music' high art or mass entertainment? Does it belong in the concert hall or the tap room? Should it appeal to the afficionado or the casual listener?

Someone should start a new thread (or has this one already been done?)....

Captain???