Is the 1954 definition, open to improvement?

Subject: RE: Is the 1954 definition, open to improvement?
From: GUEST,doc.tom
Date: 21 Sep 07 - 05:29 AM

Well said Richard! The IFMC were happily going with thier definition when Douglas Kennedy, the then Director of EFDSS, proposed the addition of the third paragraph. It addresses, specifically, the issue of contemporary popular music - very well in my opinion. To quote my own PhD (sorry!)

"It is debateable that there had been 'a community uninfluenced by popular and art music in England for several centuries. The three 'factors' given in paragraph one of the definition, together with the 're-fashioning' and 're-creation' cited in the third paragraph, are important aspects of the definition. They actually focus not on the music but on the performer and, crucially, define him or her as creator rather than copyist - even though the material may be received, rather than invented by the performer(s). The definition distinguishes between this and meterial that has been 'taken over ready made' - and thus suggests that manner or style of performance mat be at least as important as the content. The question of context appears to be crucial to any definition of folk material although this is not considered within the IFMC definition which seems to have assumed the retention and performance of the material only within the communities within which it was 'discovered'. The IFMC definition also precludes any newly written material being classed as 'folk' until, and unless, it has undergone the process of 're-fashioning' and 're-creating."

The people who created the definition knew what they were talking about (I don't mean they were correct, just that they understood what they were talking about!) - and it was very different to what the folk revival calls folk! I don't see how their definition can be improved - for a contemporary definition we would need to take a new starting point!

But it's fun trying - and people undoubtedly will.

Tom

Subject: RE: Is the 1954 definition, open to improvement?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 21 Sep 07 - 05:03 AM

Nice to see an intelligent discussion on this, but how long will the horse brigade stay away?

I suggest that the point about "popular" was that it was the most likely source of taint, and that rather than simply deleting that word, it should be replaced by the words and symbols "popular (or other)"

Much jazz would I think fail branch (i) of the 1954 definition but "trad" jazz would get within it and IMHO rightly so since it is the "folk" music of a particular part of the community. The borderline could get a bit iffy though!

This particular form of the definition does not require that the work should be of no known authorship, and so long as the other branches of the test are satisfied that might be a good idea and resolve part of the argument with the ARSS tribe.

The consequence would be that (for example) "Fiddlers Green" and "Ride On" would then be "folk".

Subject: RE: Isthe1954definition,open to improvement
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 21 Sep 07 - 04:13 AM

Oh, bring me my tools of misunderstanding
Where is my spear of sarcastic rhetoric
With the unavoidable opportunity to open old wounds
And deliver me the utter joy of personal abuse kindled afresh
Without a care in the world for a perfectly reasonable request

(Jones 2007 ©)

Subject: RE: Isthe1954definition,open to improvement
From: PMB
Date: 21 Sep 07 - 04:06 AM

It excludes most "folk music" played and sung these days, as major (the major?) transmission mechanisms are recorded material, whether written or electronic.

I don't know why they needed the qualification of "popular" on music which has not been re- created. And if re- creation is a major criterion, most jazz, other than the strictest New Orleans variety, would qualify as folk. Unless of course you define "community" to exclude (jazz) musicians.

Or to put it another way, why bother trying to define a process as a static object?

Subject: Isthe1954defining,improvable
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Sep 07 - 03:51 AM

Definition of Folk Music, decided by the International Folk Music Council in 1954.

Folk music is the product of a musical tradition that has been evolved through the process of oral transmission. The factors that shape the tradition are: (i) continuity which links the present with the past; (ii) variation which springs from the creative impulse of the individual or the group; and (iii) selection by the community, which determines the form or forms in which the music survives.
The term can be applied to music that has been evolved from rudimentary beginnings by a community uninfluenced by popular and art music and it can likewise be applied to music which has originated with an individual composer and has subsequently been absorbed into the unwritten living tradition of a community.
The term does not cover composed popular music that has been taken over ready-made by a community and remains unchanged, for it is the re-fashioning and re-creation of the music by the community that gives it its folk character.

Is this definition open to improvement, and do you have any suggestions as to how it can be improved. Dick Miles