It opens up an interesting line of debate.
1 Is it a good thing that songs can be written in a style that could be mistaken for a traditional song?
2 Is it a good idea for new writers to consciously try and write songs in this style?
3 Is it the only way that some people will actually be prepared to listen to original material?
4 If the original songs in this style can be so easily mistaken for the 'real thing' does this not make some of the purist's views somewhat invalid, in a musical sense if not a scholarly one?

In the 'Ashokan Farewell' thread. the same thing seems to be happening for tunes. The tune sounds so traditional that some people are reluctant to believe that it was written fairly recently by Jay Ungar.

I personally think that traditional is a nonsense word when applied to music (as are most of the labels and categories used to describe it). Despite our improving attempts to record music, by it's nature it is something that only really exists in the present, in the air, at the moment of creation and is gone. All that remains is the emotion triggered by those moments. (Phew that was a bit heavy)

Many a person may never have heard of Ewan McColl, but may have heard Ewan McColl's songs, and sung a version of them, changing them to fit their own memory of how it went or some new circumstance. The song is, arguably, no longer McColl's because oral transmission has taken over.

In another thread, there were the lyrics of "Annan Water". That's quite clearly taken on a life of its own outside of the words written by Sir Walter Scott. I've heard the song over the years, but never realised the Scott connection.

Similarly with "Now Westlin' Winds", which I found out later was a Burns lyric. However, I've heard different people sing it, tweaking the lyrics to their own requirements. Is there, then, a "real" text and the others are merely "mistakes"?

Many of the collectors report their informants' comments about a song being as old as the hills, before coming out with something that was clearly drawn from the music hall. The point is, the informant hadn't necessarily heard it there - probably hadn't, in fact. The informant had picked it up from somebody else's singing, and no doubt with some changes too.

There was a sleevenote with a Planxty album some years ago, and I think Christy Moore made a reference to a "field trip" - through somebody else's record collection. If we hear it, like it and sing it, we probably don't reproduce exactly what we heard. Is this not just an up-to-date oral tradition?

Shoh slaynt,

Bobby Bob

Len

Every area has their own singer/song-writers who have a feel for this kind of music, and will write in that vein. They're not looking to "cash-in" on the traditional music market. If they were looking to make money, they probably wouldn't be writing in this form. However, they LOVE this music, and it permeates the   music they write and perrform.

Someone in another similar thread said they were disappointed in hearing these original songs touted as folk. Most of them are singing totally from the heart. For instance, a local performer, Bill Shaw, wrote a song called The Planters. It takes a little known portion of Nova Scotia history, from the Evangeline period, and imbues it with his personal feelings. His family came to Nova Scotia as one of those Planters. Vince Morash has written a song about the fishing industry, Fishing Where I'm Not Supposed to Be which is about a cousin of his who got hit hard by the cuts in the fishing industry. His song Roger and Lila addresses the concern of all people in the fishing industry on the subject of what happens when they get old! These songs may be NEW, less than 10 years, but they are well thought of but audiences, and other song-writers.

So, original songs may be traditional quite easily, and be part of the tradition as well. It depends   on the person who performs it and the one who hears is.

It's the notion of validity or of being the 'real thing' that I have trouble with. If it works musically then that is all that matters to me, for it is music we are talking about.

The words to a song like 'The Mountains Of Mourne' are not traditional or from the tradition but are pure Music Hall, written by Percy French. That does not mean that the emotions created by the words (and it's wonderful tune) are any less than those created by a 150 year old ballad.

Bobby Bob, good points again.

As to what you were saying about the 'singers take' on a song. Could the version of Buddy Holly's 'Rave on', performed in a 'Young Tradition'/'Waterson's' fashion by Steeleye Span, some 20 years ago, be considered a traditional song?

"Edelweiss" from "The Sound of Music" sure as hell sounds like it was traditional Austrian, sung for a hundred years, maybe.

Not so - straight from the pens of Rogers & Hammerstein.

......Tiger

For what it's worth, I've heard Jay Ungar say that he had the tune (Ash.F.) running around in his head, and that it has similarities to other tunes that he'd been playing in similar idiom; so it's no wonder that it sounds like an old trad. tune. I believe he's also said that his creative imagination may have put the tune together [or maybe it put itself together in his creative ear] from bits of other, similar old-style waltzes running around in his head from his immersion in traditional music, but didn't lift the tune itself. (My paraphrase of his thought as I understood it.)

I'm sure he composed it himself -- the collective unconscious/subconscious ear is a powerful directing force when a musician doodles around a lot on his/her accustomed instrument in a particular familiar genre (it's part of the _play_ in "playing"), steeping like tea, seeping like -- oops, I'm getting tangled in a metaphor/simile swamp -- anyway, it's easy to think while doodling that one is coming up with a new tune and then later realize that it feels SO RIGHT! so resonant, because it's really _almost_ that other tune you loved so well, or contains partial phrases thereof that grab you and won't leave you alone.

In any case, Ash.F. is a gorgeous tune, one that can endure on its own and become part of the trad. body of Celtic-Anglo-Amer. music, as is happening quickly in this case...

======

And then there are cases like the original songs composed by Jean Ritchie (e.g., Blue Diamond Mines," under the name of Than Hall) in the idiom of the Kentucky mountain tradition that she grew up in, altho she wrote them after she had become part of the more urban, more self-aware folk-revival world that most all of us here now discussing cats inhabit and debate about.

Someone sings about the things with which she/he identifies, issues of personal and cultural concern, humor, etc., in her/his culture, in the style(s) available within that culture. At what point is it considered "traditional" or "non-trad.," when our various inherited smaller-group traditions become more widely accessible and begin to intermingle increasingly, as they've been doing for this last half of 20th century?

These discussions about "What is traditional, and where are the boundary lines, and what fits exactly where, and who can be considered The Genuine Folk, and if it sounds/looks like the real thing is it really the real thing, or close enough for acceptance even if it was acquired from the outside rather than the inside," etc., have been going on for at least the last 40 years that I know of, and probably longer. (In the folk-art field for over 60 years that I've read about.) I used to feel more purist about the questions and definitions than I do now. Maybe my thinking has degenerated, or has it evolved? (If it quacks like a duck but isn't a duck will the other ducks consider it duck-like enough to quack back?)

(But Buddy Holly filtered thru Steeleye Span a la the Watersons/Young-Tradition of 20 yrs. ago -- whose tradition would this be a traditional representation of? The modern all-of-us? Or the kind of crossover that's in the direction of Kiri Te Kanawa singing "Good Night Irene"? (Or Marion Anderson or Paul Robeson singing black spiritual songs from their own cultural traditions but in white concertization style rather than in black family-community style?)

well, THIS duck will! I like certain types of music...'most' of which are traditional, and if you write a song today that fits that mood, style, feeling, subject matter, etc., I will welcome it as 'in the tradition', though not yet traditional..(you want PRIME examples? do a database search on Craig Johnson). If, on the other hand, you write a breathy, atonal bit of navel-gazing, and happen to play it on an acoustic guitar, it will NEVER be traditional folk! [It may become traditional "introspective multichordal fluff" someday...but those who DO that sort of thing don't seem to like my labels.. *grin*...they want to use pre-established categories and just surreptitiously expand the boreders]

Some has to write music, else there will be no new music...and when a song feels right, sure...bring it in! It is being done occasionally, as noted above, and there is some good music being written that is NOT 'in the tradition'...and I will listen and enjoy...but I won't put it in the same bin just because I like it. Categories have a purpose!

Kat

Thank you for your contribution, I would suggest that your thinking has evolved rather than degenerated.

Joe

I'm not too sure that I follow your reasoning re 'Rave on', their version is certainly done in traditional style, it certainly is Buddy Holly and it is good. Can it not be all three? By some of the reasoning I have seen here, (i.e.; that if it is done in traditional style, it is traditional) it would be considered traditional.

I'm not claiming that it is traditional, it doesn't matter to me what it's called. I only use it as an example of the tangles we can get ourselves in, with the use of these labels. I think there always was an element of humour in that recording anyway, as long as we don't ever lose that things will be OK.

I take your point about being the music of a community; maybe the community has just changed to a larger one? There are not many song sessions I go to, that would not have someone singing a Buddy Holly song at some time. My father and my brother taught me to play Peggy Sue along with Goodnight Irene, St James Infirmary and Scarborough Fair, does that not make Peggy Sue a traditional song?

I must say that you and I are probably related in some way. " Atonal...Navel Gazing." I love it. Very few people can do a good job of introspective writing that I find I like. Gordon Bok does nearly all the time. Kate Wolf was hit or miss for me, mostly miss.

I will still argue that it is more the singing that is the tradition and less the song. For centuries songs and ballads were the entertainment and to a certain degree, the way the tribal (human/clan/family) history was passed along. "Roddy McCorley" would have been an unknown participant in a little known rebellion in the history Ireland had not somebody taken the time to create the song we know as traditional today. But the song spread the story and both Roddy's heroic stand and the Antrim rebellion have their places assured in history because of it.

The topical songs of Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton, and that Bob guy carried the tradition along. The Ballad of Medgar Evers, Goodman and Schwerner and Chaney, The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carrol are great examples of this thesis. These songs all tell the stories of these people who were martyred in the cause of civil rights. They all tell a story start to finish through song. Had they been written in a less technological age we would probably never know the names of the authors but the songs would still be here. Mainly because of other singers spreading the story. (I'll grant that Life Magazine will help to carry these stories along too, but thats only futher acceptance on my part of the technological age.)

Its the singer more than the song that is the tradition.

Don

Thanks for putting the backslash back in my life. I wiil respond again when I have had time to read and understand exactly what all these fine contributors are saying. I am enjoying the ride though. Rave On? (*smiles*)

Sorry to 'Rave On' but as ever you have made me think.

A good example of how the community has changed can be shown by using groups like Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention. I have been away and have come back to the scene as it were. When I was first involved, groups like these were considered by the folk establishment as 'young upstarts' and their music close to heresy. When I returned to active involvement after 20 years or so, I was amazed to find that these groups were now considered as the very model of tradition itself (and also considered by some in the U.S., to be Celtic!, but that's another story and yet another label).

I think it would be fair to state that in their earliest line ups, that Buddy Holly (and his Strat) were more of an influence to Fairport Convention that the English Tradition.

As for Frank in NJ (a warm welcome to you both) singing Buddy Holly songs in their style, being a parody of both styles. It depends on this concept that some people have, of validity or the 'real thing', if you don't have that and the song works musically (which is all I am interested in and Frank too by the sound of it) then there is nothing to parody. But I do see your point.

The fact that 'Rave On' will always be associated with it's author, Buddy Holly, has more to do with efforts of his publishers and the executors of his estate, than it does to it's suitability for inclusion in the tradition.

This is all good stuff though and I would still be interested in the answers to the questions, 1, 2, 3 and 4, in the first posting.

Frank in NJ

The answer is 42, it is indeed the question that is the problem. Just keep on what you are doing and in time, you too will be considered the very model of the tradition. (*smiles*).

The (recalcitrant) Shambles.

Actually I've never thought that that song made much sense anyway, although it has a nice melody.

Who is Stoneman, anyway? I don't recall ever reading a reference to him or his cavalry.

"Fiddlers' Green" is a prime example of a fairly recent song that sounds traditional. So is The Dark Island. Down east most people think that Cape Breton Lullaby is traditional. It isn't, was written by Kenneth Leslie, first appeared in print in the 1960's, and is very much still in copyright. Some of the well-known Newfoundland songs which people think of as traditional were written in this century, and their authors are known.

Chorus)
On the night they drove old Dickie down,
All the people were singin',
On the night that they drove old Dickie down,
Dan Rather was singin',
He went, "Ya ya ya ya ya ya---ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya...

(That's all I've ever heard of this parody from the Watergate era.)

Art Thieme

I also had an odd experience some years ago. For a Christmas presentation in a primary school, I wrote a Christmas nativity play (hypocrisy is another issue) in Manx Gaelic with some simple songs in it. One of the songs was then used in a school book teaching Manx Gaelic in schools. The following Christmas I had the pleasure of hearing in a concert where it was described as a "traditional Manx carval". I'm quite happy with that - to be frank I'm chuffed to little mint balls.

But my original thought was, tunes you pick up as they're played: words are more of a "set text". These days, it's hard not to know when words are recently written because of copyright laws, and people, not unexpectedly, would like to earn something from their efforts.

There was a young lad in Blackpool who came home from school round about Christmas time and sang a song for his mother. "That's nice," said his mother, and told him that it was written by his father, who was Alan Bell of the Blackpool Taverners. "It can't be," said the lad, "we learned it in school!"

Somebody, somewhere, ultimately wrote everything. Why not just enjoy our ignorance!

Bobby Bob

And I'm not trying to "stir things" with the showpiece reference. Things like this are done for fun and valid in their own right..

Regards

If it quacks like a duck and other ducks quack back, to the extent that they get together to produce little ducks, then what they produce is most certainly a duck, whatever you may want to call it. It may not look (or sound) like the duck that you are used to, know and love but that is your problem not the ducks (or the music's).

1998 MEACHER MOVES TO SAVE THE WHITE-HEADED DUCK A new Task Force will co-ordinate action in the UK to conserve the globally threatened white-headed duck, Environment Minister Michael Meacher said today. The birds are threatened by hybridisation and competition with the North American ruddy duck.

You could argue that there would not have been a problem in the above case had the 'Ruddy Duck' not been imported into the UK, but it was and you have to accept the situation as it is. The process of evolution in nature and in music will continue and leave behind those who cannot adapt. The dinosaurs moved on to become DUCKS?.

I am sorry if I appear to be labouring the point, but music (and the other arts) to me offer some hope for our troubled world. It is a universal language and I do not like to see the same narrow aguments used in the world, used in music as well.

Too much suffering has been caused and is still being caused by people not neatly fitting in to the categories that others have defined for them. All I ask for is tolerance in all things.

I would suggest that categories in music are more for critics and writers than for those that listen to it and create the music. They prevent people from being exposed to music that they might otherwise like.

If we must have some in music can we have as few as possible and can they be wide and flexible rather than narrow and fixed?

The problem is, your duck analogy misses a couple of points. Evolution, driven partly by natural selection and partly by random mutation, cannot be directly compared to conscious and intentional (and I would add, gratuitous) changes in musical styles.'Evolution', as pertaining to species, is simple not the same concept as 'evolution' in music, or clothing styles, or architecture...(I think the logical fallacy is called 'equivocation')

Second, although your point is clear and well-taken, it is, in the last analysis YOUR point. For some reason, people just have differing views on categories, even in regard to natural species. Take dogs...most of them can interbreed, also, and left alone would produce mutts! But some folk LIKE a certain 'look', and take great pains to define, breed, and maintain canine categories. There are equivalent processes going on to preserve the look (and flavor) of various poultry (including ducks). You probably have some preferences in cusine, (Chinese, Italian, Mexican, French, etc., and their various sub-categories) and you probably would be upset if your favorite restaurant started changing the dishes with spices and sauces you were not used to, and didn't care for. (My wife is 2nd generation Italian, and you should hear her expound on cilantro & goat cheese!!)

Almost every hobby, from model trains to quilting, has the arguments we are struggling with here...some organized clubs have VERY strict definitions of what they allow in their shows and publications, etc., and those who want changes, or have some creative need to 'evolve', are obliged to start a new group. It is not a matter of 'better', just a matter of 'different' .

The fact is traditional folk music comprises a pretty small portion of the market these days..(ask Sandy Paton how many millions of the wonderful things HE produces get sold each year!)... and if we simply shrug when far-reaching changes are made, then people like me who go to the record store to find a new CD discover that all the 'singer-songwriter' and 'new-age Celtic' has been crammed into the formerly small 'folk' bin just because it was a convenient, short, name.(yeah, I know 'some' stores make an effort...but...)

I am NOT asking that nothing ever change!! That would be silly, as well is inpossible and stultifying, but I must take issue with your summation...

"I would suggest that categories in music are more for critics and writers than for those that listen to it and create the music. They prevent people from being exposed to music that they might otherwise like."

This is true ONLY if you assume that 'critics and writers' and 'people who create and listen to music' are different species somehow. You may create more, and I may critique more, but we all participate in the process. And I truly doubt that a large number of narrow categories prevents people from "being exposed to music that they might otherwise like". If they are naturally eclectic in their musical tastes, they will find the categories...especially with MTV, the internet, and hundreds of radio stations pouring it out all day! On the contrary, many categories, properly used , can make it easier for both narrow, purist little ME and eclectic YOU to find the kind of music we want right NOW!...Is it always fuzzy around the edges?? Sure....no category is perfect...but the rock & roll crowd no more wants to have to paw over Almeda Riddle & Martin Carthy than I want to have to struggle thru Nine Inch Nails and Green Day!(and I presume that there are those who would complain that Green Day and 9' Nails NEVER belong in the same categroy)

(and here I stop...though I have made about 10% of the point that were swirling around in my head...it is not easy being a curmudgeon)

I am composing some songs using the poetry of a well known poet of the 19th century. I have wanted to write these songs for a long time but had no inspiration. Then I found out that the poet was from Scotland.

Suddenly I have melodies springing fourth right and left, and they are all in the style of traditional folk music from Scotland. Not surprisingly, the poet's verses lend themselves to this style easily. I am having so much fun with them and I want to eventually record these songs on a children's CD.

I want these traditional sounding songs to be a tribute to the memory of this poet. I think he would have liked them.

I do so like the traditional songs and I am in favor of writing in that style if it suits a person.

Margaret

First off I will agree wholeheartedly with you, I only managed about 10% of the point I was trying to make as well. We two do seem to represent the extremes, there must be a lot of views in between ours?

I did enjoy your post it deserves more time and more thought before I can respond properly, but there are few things first off don't think that the creative process is hampered much by the bickering at all, they will just do it whatever. It is those that enjoy the music that lose out and in the long run the artists, because they do need someone to listen to their efforts. If you stick a narrow label on a performance, some will go because they like it but more will not go it because they think they do not like that type of music, even though if they went they may enjoy it. The label enables you filter things out but you may be 'throwing the baby out with the bath-water'.

You make the point that things in your narrow categories get "fuzzy around the edges". Is that not the place where all the firm categories, boundaries, ethnic groupings and educational grades fall down? In the borderline cases? The ones that don't fit neatly into one or could be fitted into two or more? It's these to me that make your categories unacceptable. Especially when the casualties are people.

The evolution in music I refer to is the change that comes about when musicians are exposed to the music and instruments of other cultures. We are living at a very exciting time and the pace of that change is getting faster. The more forced concoctions will not survive the evolutionary process but others will grow, it is a natural process that has always happened, it is just faster now. It is very similar to Natural Selection, if the mutation works it will become part of the body of music.

I can see the attraction to some people of having an ordered world, I just can't see it like that. I look up the night skies and I find no answers, just more and more questions and I glory in all the paths there are to take to find those answers.

P.S. I like 'mutts'.

Besides, you Europeans sent Zebra Mussels over here to infest the Great Lakes, and starlings to squawk at us. It is only fair that we inflict grey squirrels, racoons, Canada Geese, and Canadian beavers on you. Just wait until we send over our robins. They must be three times the size of yours.

Just remember you did send us The Carpenters.

Bobby Bob wrote

I wonder whether tunes are in a different category to songs. Going to sessions, you hear all sorts of tunes, and if you like them, you try to pick them up and play them. I am aware that there are tunes at sessions which have been written, but that's not to say that I could actually pick them out. If someone starts a tune, everyone will pitch in because it's just a tune they've heard in sessions. The fact that the author may be sitting next to you is neither here nor there.

Interesting that. I write a lot of tunes and I sometimes play them at sessions. The bodrhan players don't mind and the guitar players usually pick up on them, but the melody players are not too happy, understandably as they can't really add too much without knowing the tune. So I don't play them too often, as sessions are usually best when everyone can be involved.

But the issue that does come up, when I do play them, is the nationality of the tunes, which is a bit of a problem for me.

Once at a session I played a 4 part tune of mine called the 'Rusty Tushkar' and I was asked what it was called and I said the title and when asked, also explained that a tuskar was a tool that I used in Shetland for digging peat, that was going rusty in my shed. To which the chap replied "so it's a Shetland tune"? Well was it? I am English but I don't think that many of my tunes would fit in with an English Music Session. Do I have to come up with a nationality for them? Some sound American, some Greek, some Irish and some like no place I can think of and most of them without me ever consciously trying to make them sound like they come from anywhere.

I get the impression that people at sessions would prefer the tune to be an unfamiliar tune from somewhere, than to know that it is original and effectively from nowhere.

What bin do I put them in Bill? (No don't answer that!*smiles*)

you are quite right that it does take a bit of time to respond to these ideas properly..but you did say

"We are living at a very exciting time and the pace of that change is getting faster."

and..

"..you may be 'throwing the baby out with the bath-water'"

..it seems to me, that when things change at a very fast pace, it becomes necessary to 'throw out'...(meaning, to "ignore") a few things...I simply cannot keep up! And smaller and narrower bins make it easier to choose. If you think I may have missed something neat and important..let me know, and I will take a look and listen, and if I agree, I'll have one more bin to browse.

Write a song to be titled:

"THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY GET DIFFERENT"

Actually I've tried to take my time before contributing as it is clearly a subject which deserves a thoughtful response, and as usual if I wait most of the things I would have liked to have said have been said already.

So, rather than opting for a "me too" I'll try and address each of your original questions in turn; always bearing in mind that phrases like "a good thing" have never been the same since Sellars and Yeatman!

1 Is it a good thing that songs can be written in a style that could be mistaken for a traditional song?
I think that this is not only good, it is essential and inevitable. Inevitable because we create within a frame of reference which includes the "traditional" music of western culture, so that will influence the outcome - now the degree to which this is obvious will vary tremendously but it will be there. It is also essential if the folk tradition and here I would define the folk tradition as being something of, by and for the people ie excluding anything written for an audience, or personal aggrandisement; is to continue.

"Traditional" folk music, like most things which are currently unfashionable (eg hierarchical management structures) have survived for thousands of years because they work within the situations for which they were created or from which they evolved.

2 Is it a good idea for new writers to consciously try and write songs in this style?

Probably the hardest to answer as it "all depends". For people like MacColl and Tawney, it works, and it is hard to imagine them writing in ant other style, for others it doesn't work, and for still others it should not even be considered. I think if you are steeped in the tradition within which you are writing and the subject matter, your natural style of writing and your tune fit, then there is a good chance of it working.

3 Is it the only way that some people will actually be prepared to listen to original material?

I think you had your tongue firmly in cheek with that one mate! I'm sure, as I suspect you are, that the only people most to get steamed up over current songs written in traditional style are those who have a narrow definition of "traditional folk" which includes "more than x years old", and who think that nothing else is worthwhile. I don't think any of us including the curmudgeonly twins (Bill D and me (hope you don't mind Bill)) dislike new songs in any style (except for new age !@#$ navel gazers) We might get excited if someone tries to pass them of as traditional, but we would welcome songs which, if they stand the test of time, will become a valid and necessary contribution to the continuance of the corpus of "traditional" songs.

4 If the original songs in this style can be so easily mistaken for the "real thing" does this not make some of the purist's views somewhat invalid, in a musical sense if not a scholarly one?

Nah! Firstly I don't believe there is such thing as "purist" category into which we can all be fitted or we wouldn't be having this conversation. Fortunately or unfortunately, we humans love taxonomical quibbling and there is constant changes in what is "in" or "out" of classifications in all fields. Also I think you, and the "if it sounds like a duck" argument are missing the point of this particular category. To stretch the analogy, a duck may answer a duck call, in other words the hunter sounds like a duck to a duck, but he doesn't pass the Turing test, a duck can't get meaningful responses from him. Similarly a song may be identical to a "traditional" song in subject matter, style, music and the use of language, but that is not the only criteria which is relevant. To me it is like eating with a peg on your nose, its Ok and fills you up, but there is not the same enjoyment. Again, I would stress there is no implication that the new song is of any less worth, just that it is not (yet) "traditional". I think that at the root there may be a confusion that "traditional" implies static. Clearly, folk music has and is growing and evolving, some songs which could now be considered "traditional" were not written when Sharp was collecting and some which were sung and popular then have been quietly forgotten as not belonging in "our" bucket.

Oh well, time for a work break. Lets try out Mike's changes and see if this posts OK

Pete M

I think Frank in NJ was agreeing with me. Oh well maybe not, I suppose you win.

Frank

Have you ever heard the version of Rave On by Steeleye Span? I've no idea what record/cd it is on, maybe someone could tell us?. If you ever do hear it let us know if you think it a parody of both styles? I think it adds to both but then again I have a 'Cornish' keyboard, so what do I know?

Margarita, who's the secret Scots poet?

Shambles, outside of mathematics, every category has fuzzy boundaries, as Pete M. so rightly remarked about "purist". That doesn't mean every category is useless. Tufted ducks may hybridize with ring-necked ducks, but MOST of the time you know which one you're looking at. (I'd love to look at a tufted duck some day--a great tick for an American twitcher. And they eat zebra mussels.)

Dick's comment about traditions, and something several people have said about every song having an author, bring up a point I'd like to make. There's a theory that folk songs are the work of many hands. Maybe somebody wrote the original version, but since then it's been folk-processed.

Thus in a sense it's the work of the people, the folk, as a whole. [*] To some folkies, this quality has a certain mystique. Such a song is not and never was any kind of individual property; it arises from and belongs to a tradition. The version(s) we have came from no commercial or motive and no pose; most of what brought them to being was people making the song the best they could and remembering the best they could, in the way that was natural to them. I believe this, not what Dick said, is the usual meaning of the word "traditional".

I see nothing wrong with responding to this mystique. I don't myself; I don't enjoy "Die Loreley" any more when it's credited to Silcher than when it's called a folk song. But is this part of what the people who like the "traditional" category are responding to?

[*] Of course, Tom Lehrer had the last word on this (in his intro to "The Folksong Army), as he did on so many things. Is this the first footnote in the Mudcat?

Of course he's known better as the author as such novels as "Kidnapped" and "Treasure Island". But his poems give such a tender portrayal of the wonders of the child's world.

It is my hope to record my RLS songs along with some traditional children's music from Scotland and that area. It should be fun.

Margarita

Who started with these 'Ruddy Ducks' anyway?

I think that in time mathematics will be shown to have fuzzy boundaries too. It depends on what measure of time you use. In the span of human life-times you could say that mathematics are certain and non fuzzy. In the time that the universe exists, mathematics may not in fact, turn out to be so certain.

In human life-times you may be sure what constitutes a Ring-Necked Duck, because you see it frozen in the form that it is in at that moment. In evolutionary time it is in the process of constant change, just happening too slowly for us to see. If your only experience of a horse, was a still photograph of one galloping, showing that all four feet were off the ground, would you be certain that it was a flying animal?

If a Ring-Necked-Duck is uncertain enough about it's identity to mate with a Tufted Duck, how can we be so sure about what category to put it in? In natural history we know that the species definition is imperfect but we carry on because it is safer to think that way. You say "most of the time you know which one you are looking at" but it is surely those exceptions that should be teaching us caution?

The only thing I know for certain is that I know 'bugger all' for certain.

To bring us back to music, I didn't say all categories are useless, what I said was, I personally think that traditional is a nonsense word when applied to music (as are most of the labels and categories used to describe it). For music is only really created in the present and there is only one music, but I only listen and create it, I don't get paid to write or talk about it, so one big category is enough for me.

I have ticked off Ring-Necked-Duck in the UK (I think?). I also think I've ticked off a few Mudcatter's too? *smiles*

Pete M

(and Shambles....there are violent arguments in Philosophy between the Metaphysicans who LIKE categories, and the 'Ordinary Language' philosophers, who do not........and I guess that's what it comes down to- I like 'em, you don't...but if you should ever open a record store, I doubt I should be able to shop there if you did not separate the Gregorian Chant from the Bluegrass....it just happens that 'traditional' does mean something to a lot of people. Even though it may not be an 'exact' definition, it CAN at least exclude some things.)

Barbara, I think the split between lumpers and splitters is universal in taxonomy.

Shambles, what Bill D. implied is right: I'm way out of my philosophical depth here. But... fuzzy edges make you doubt categories, but categories are still useful (essential?), and some ways of binning things may be more useful than others.

Katmuse mentioned what quacks like a duck, etc., and you were the one who brought up ruddy ducks (and then I dragged in the Aythyini).

Pete M., whoever made up that definition had never owned an entire male dog (or even a rabbit).

Would it be fair to say that a lot of the hostility towards singer-songwriters is due to the sense of exclusion created by the fact, that it is felt that what they produce (especially the introverted songs) cannot ever belong to anyone but the author?

The attraction of all music to me is the mystique of it or to use another word magic. I may not be able to define what magic is but when I hear it I know it exists. Is that the same for you with 'traditional'?

Out of interest, I have never spoken to any performer of 'traditional' material who truly felt that they were the 'real thing', although others would, with no hesitation describe them as such. Which unfortunately brings us back to ducks. "If a Ring-Necked-Duck is uncertain enough about it's identity to mate with a Tufted Duck, how can we be so sure about what category to put it in", or more importantly, be certain about what category to exclude it from?

I can understand the need for us to order the world (and record shops), but we have tried many way to do this throughout history and have constantly had to re-order it, in the light of new information. I suppose I can just live in the world as I find it.

The following is a bit heavy and I have moved away from music I know, but it will I hope, show you why I persist in addressing some of the issues mentioned here. I don't expect you to agree with all the points I have made or their relevance here but I hope you can understand and excuse the depth of my feelings.

There was a BBC TV series in the 70s called The Ascent Of Man, presented by Dr Jacob Bronowski. In which there was one moment from it that I hope I will never forget.

He was in Auschwitz, and standing in a muddy pond where the ashes of 4 million people were flushed. He held the mud in his hands as he quoted these words by Oliver Cromwell.

"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken".

( I often wonder why I keep chewing at the problem...but I do think that this exchange of ideas really can help us, if not agree with one another, at least understand one anotther better..)

Singer/songwriter has, I believe, become a self defining category, there are a whole raft of people, some of great talent, who write and perform their own work, but who we would never dream of putting in the s/s basket; Paxton, McTell, MacColl & Guthrie, for example. As Bert has said, s/s's are often so omphalistic and/or narcissistic that they fail to meet the basic purpose of a performance, ie to entertain, but fail to recognise their failure. Some of course become hugely successful commercially despite these traits, but then so is MacDonalds!

On the taxonomical side of things, I think you are missing Bill's point about exclusion. It is quite possible to define a condition, which in practice, can only be said with any degree of certainty to exist by excluding all other possibilities. Medicine is a prime field for this kind of exercise.

I am not a great fan of reductionism; but it is undoubtedly a useful tool in the right place, also the category we put something in will depend on our own world view as much as anything, and that inevitably changes with time, so yes, I believe that a structured taxonomy for "folk" music is of great help to most people most of the time, but that does not imply that the categories are or should be rigid. I would suggest that more understanding arises from discussions about the fuzzy overlaps than anything else. The issue of categories in Music shops is I think, a red herring, those categories are defined not to differentiate on any basis meaningful within the field, merely to maximise sales by often intentionally misleading.

Yes I think there is a mystique or magic which a song acquires, like a patina, with absorption into the folk process, for me it has nothing to do with age per se although a certain amount of time needs to have passed for it to occur; it may ultimately be indefinable except at an emotional level, but its real for all that.

I also remember the Ascent of Man, and agree totally about the danger of people who are absolutely certain they are right. Can't think of any Duck angles though!

Pete M

We haven't had much conversation about ducks recently. I kind of miss it.

All the best,
Dan

1. That in general nobody claims it. It's fine to write something and be capable of being identified as the author. What I mean is that nobody is going to sue you for singing it or for getting the words "wrong".

2. That somebody, not the author, felt it worthwhile learning - generally orally - to sing other than for profit (rules out recorded covers of Beatles hits).

This suggests two unusual traditional songs which you might wish to comment on or add to.

One is "Norwegian Wood" as sung in our folk session. We don't do it like The Beatles and, though the words are much the same, the stresses are markedly different.

The other is "Delilah", song in some very interesting modal keys by people leaving one of our (three) village pubs at around midnight.

Would I be willing to die to include these in the traditional corpus? - depends.

Ian

Another approach might be to define "traditional".

Interesting things definitions.

If you assert that the need for the oral tradition precludes songs first published in written form from ever being folk song the "the Cutty (or Cuddy - but not Ruddy) Wren" (1342, I think) is not a folk song. But it must surely be traditional.

I am told that "Darcy Farrow" is modern. But many think it sounds like American traditional.

(Though navel study shouldn't be disparaged. Ducks can't do it after all, ruddy or otherwise, it's only us placental mammals. And there's lots of people round the folk scene who haven't been able to see their navels in years, including some singer-songwriters I dare say.)

How come we keep on talking about "the tradition". There are all kinds of different traditions, some of them longstanding, some very recent indeed. For convenience we bundle a few of them together and call that "folk", and then argue as to which ones should be included, and what are the common factor linking them.

While a tradition is alive, new stuff can be produced which is part of that tradition. Once it's dead, the songs and the music are still available, but new stuff in the same style aren't part of that tradition, they are part of another distinct modern tradition. So Sea Shanties came frtom a tradition which was involved them having a role as work songs. You can't have new songs which are part of that tradition. If you make a "new sea shanty" it is something else, even if in form it looks and sounds like a sea shanty and it might be a great song.

Just as you can have reproduction furniture, and it can be good furniture, you can have reproduction songs, and they can be good songs. But I don't think it's right to artificially age songs to pretend they are something they are not. The exception I suppose is where for a particular purpose, such as a play, a song is written "in costume" - that is where John Tams and people like Graham Moore come in. And it is easy for songs like that to be taken as taken as traditional. I'd sooner use the term "in the tradition" (meaning in some particular tradition).

But generally the best songs are songs which may draw on traditional elements, but don't dress up. Stan Rogers, for example. I'd say these are songs coming out of the particular tradition, raher than as being in the tradition or traditional.

As for singer-songwriters, introspective or not - I'd call that a currently living tradition in itself, analogous to the french chansonnier tradition. And like any living tradition, some is good, some is not. Over time most of the chaff is blown away, most of what survives is good (and a lot of good stuff is lost as well.) It seems bizarre for people to sneer at the idea of people singing songs they have written , but then, when examples are given of good songs being sung well by the people who write them, to turn around and say "no,they aren't singer-songwriters". If course they are, they just happen to be good singer songwriters. (Not a term I would ever use myself.)

As for "Rave On" - would it be more acceptable if it were sung "Rove On"?...

Two extra verses I added to She Moved Through the Faire (which I sometimes use to replace the third verse which begins "The people were saying no two e'er were wed"):

I gave my love a ring of fine silver thread
A garland all of roses I made for her head
But the roses are now withered, the silver gone grey
And it will not be long now 'til our wedding day.

The frost lies on the field, the snow on the hill
The crow flies in the orchard, the fairground is still
But I wait by my window for my love is come soon
And the swan in the evening flies over the moon
.

To me, these extra verses expand on the mystery...did she just take off and disappear? To me the final verse always seemed to make this into a ghost story (she come sin quietly at the window as in a dream), so I wanted to embellish that possibility.
And having the swan fly over the moon, while physicallyu difficult to imagine, parallels the swan on the lake in verse two of the original and enhances the dreamlike/fantasy/illusory element...

peg

Two extra verses I added to She Moved Through the Faire (which I sometimes use to replace the third verse which begins "The people were saying no two e'er were wed"):

I gave my love a ring of fine silver thread
A garland all of roses I made for her head
But the roses are now withered, the silver gone grey
And it will not be long now 'til our wedding day.

The frost lies on the field, the snow on the hill
The crow flies in the orchard, the fairground is still
But I wait by my window for my love is come soon
And the swan in the evening flies over the moon
.

To me, these extra verses expand on the mystery...did she just take off and disappear? To me the final verse always seemed to make this into a ghost story (she come sin quietly at the window as in a dream), so I wanted to embellish that possibility.
And having the swan fly over the moon, while physicallyu difficult to imagine, parallels the swan on the lake in verse two of the original and enhances the dreamlike/fantasy/illusory element...

peg

Two extra verses I added to She Moved Through the Faire (which I sometimes use to replace the third verse which begins "The people were saying no two e'er were wed"):

I gave my love a ring of fine silver thread
A garland all of roses I made for her head
But the roses are now withered, the silver gone grey
And it will not be long now 'til our wedding day.

The frost lies on the field, the snow on the hill
The crow flies in the orchard, the fairground is still
But I wait by my window for my love is come soon
And the swan in the evening flies over the moon
.

To me, these extra verses expand on the mystery...did she just take off and disappear? To me the final verse always seemed to make this into a ghost story (she come sin quietly at the window as in a dream), so I wanted to embellish that possibility.
And having the swan fly over the moon, while physicallyu difficult to imagine, parallels the swan on the lake in verse two of the original and enhances the dreamlike/fantasy/illusory element...

peg

peg

Regards

Great lyrics! I may have to make off with them when yer not looking!

But I once found a set of lyrics for "She Moved..." that claimed to be the original, that had, to start the last verse, the line...
"I drempt it last night, that my dead love came in"

How much do you know about that lyric and it authenticity?
Talk about a ghost story eh... I find it hard to play past that line without the image of this Romeroesque zombie woman, reaching her hand up this poor guys bedclothes... He smiles in his sleep... rolls over sluggishly.. kisses her... her lips fall off.. his eyes shoot open... the obligtory scream!

{~`

You are welcome to the lyrics, just don't forget my royalty check...

They're good verses Peg - but myself I feel the story gains by being pared to the bone. In fact when I sing it, I leave out the verse about the people and the sorrow that never was said, because that was how I heard it first from Margaret Barrie, and it seems complete that way. It's a beautiful verse, but says more than needs to be said, to my mind.

And it has always been "dead love" for me. I've seen it printed with the last verse as "young love", so maybe that is how Padraic wrote it. I find it much more powerful with "dead love" - especially with the promise that they are still getting married - in other words, he'll be dead soon enough himself. Too eerie? Well, if someone isn't at ease with eerie is this the right song for them to be singing anyway? Anyway, whether it's sung as "dead" or "young", I think she's died sure enough.

Most people are right! The song is traditional - Colum adapted his version from an existing one. While his is by far the most commonly sung, there are others still in circulation.
This is not, of course, to put down the process by which songs get polished by poets and put back into ciculation! "Down by the Sally Gardens" is a very similar case.

Regards

Yes, it was a lot easier to dig this one up again but I had been thinking about the subject again recently and I did have something new to say. It is also nice to see some new opinions being voiced here.

To my great honour and surprise, I found that I had one of my songs in the DT. I had been posting songs to the forum for sometime, as I found it easier, in some cases, to post my thoughts, contained in a song, than to write them. When I came to gather them together for inclusion in The Mudcat Songbook, I found there were quite a number of these songs.

This is not a criticism of the DT or the selection methods used. I only mention it to demonstrate my feelings, as although I was pleased to see a composition of mine there, if I am honest, I was a little disappointed in the fairly untypical nature of the song that represented my efforts.

It was what I would describe as a 'cod' traditional folksong. Written in a setting and style of the past and as a conscious effort (if genuine) attempt to write a (folk) song about a subject that interested me, life on the inland waterways of Britain. For although I honestly thought that this was probably the best way to treat the subject, it was done, as a fairly academic exercise, to see if I could do it.

I did have some knowledge of the subject but the song is not a first hand account or a scholarly work, just mainly, my imagination and personal view. Not too different to most of the other songs of mine that I had posted. So why then, I ask myself, does that one appear in the DT and not the others? Myself does not answer very clearly.

Do songs like these have any merit or do they exist only because of the curmudgeons and their narrow definitions?

Would it have mattered, if I had not claimed authorship but that the song appeared in the DT as traditional?

Kris