Do We Think We're Better Than Them?

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 07:08 AM

SoP and RB - to your corners until you both learn to use everyday English and how to treat others with respect.

A logical statement of what you think, feel or believe, done without insults and put in the simplest terms, is always best.

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 06:48 AM

Should be embittered invective

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 06:45 AM

when you do your own story-telling sessions, how far around the literature - oral or written - do you range?

I'm actually a bit of a traddy in that respect; whilst I might improvise wildly by way of musical underpinning, my narratives are all classic Indo-European folk tales as this is where my interests lie. Exceptions to this are my wee one man shows at Morpeth Gathering where I've done the miracle stories of Saint Cuthbert (there's a wee YouTube clip of this here filmed by an audience member; there is an official CD-R of this) and Saint Robert. Both of these are canted from printed sheets (shock, horror!) to keep to the sense of the original language. Once again the music is entirely improvised, although I'll weave in traditional songs along the way; so not quite storytelling - I would never use printed texts in a pure storytelling performance which is a much more spontaneous affair altogether. I see these more by way of meditations, for whilst I'm not in the least bit religious myself, there is a potency in such material which lives & breathes by way of a common spiritual heritage.      

This year, by way of contrast, I'll be doing The Long Pack - a Northumbrian tale re-told by Joseph Crawhall & others, in prose & in verse, which looks like being a lot of fun...

*

It cannot be doubted that there have been oral traditions.

Both the Darwinist & the Creationist believe in giraffes, Richard - where they differ is how they came into being. What I'm saying is the Oral Tradition is the consequence of supremely gifted creative individuals inventing within the disciplines of their given cultural idiom. Once we see it in terms of its actual individuality rather than its romanticised collectivity then its nature changes - in other words, just as all music is Folk Music by default, the oral tradition is no different from any other creative idiom.

If you don't have anything constructive to add to this, Richard - please refrain from the embittered inventive; it really is rather tiresome & hardly engenders constructive debate.

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 06:21 AM

... it does NOT maen...

Preaf rooding, Dave, preaf rooding.

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 06:20 AM

What does it matter if a particular song style or art form comes under the scrutiny of academia? It has not changed has it? Or are people working on the basis that once something is studied it changes? Just because someone refers to a song as being in a pentatonic scale with upper fifth and lower third harmonies (is there such a thing?) it does to mean that they have taken anything from it. I'm afraid inverted snobbery is just as bad as anyting coming from the fellows of folk music!

DeG

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: MikeL2
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 06:12 AM

Hi Marje

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Marje - PM
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 05:23 AM

I agree with all you say here. We are now fast approaching a situation where background music is played under background music !!!

I also agree that the ( in the main) tradition ballads are more about lyrics and stories and so the need for attention is greater both for the audience and let's not forget the performer(s).

That said I was only trying to answer Crow Sisters original question briefly - something that is quite unusual here !!!

However in the *folk clubs and events I visit I find that in the main the organisers maintain very good levels of order whether the music is tradition or not.

It is my experience that all performers feed off the audience reaction and require attention to their skills and not to be put off by a noisy element.

Thanks for your constructive comments and I think we are singing from the same hymmsheet.

regards

MikeL2

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 06:10 AM

Having said that I should like to disagree with the apparent assumption that there are no chord sequences in traditional songs

The classic example is "The Laird of Cockpen"/"When she came ben she bobbit", which seems to have been composed from the start in an Italian Baroque style, over a groundbass. But I can't think of a lot more in Scottish tradition before the middle of the 19th century. What examples did you have in mind?

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 06:00 AM

Sweeney O'Pibroch depends on a mysterious combination of two vices for the entirety of his arguments.

First there is a curious inverted snobbery that derides any attempt to understand what any folk art is, where it came from and what makes it (as it is) different.

But this bigotry and hatred of any study of a folk art as distinct from treating it as a form of entertainment like any other is hidden behind a sesquipedalian effulgence that strongly points to a determined attempt to abandon any connection with (and hence to abandon any understanding of) the groupings he pretends to admire and defend.

Once you dig into it, and wrestle the octopus of his verbiage to the ground, it boils down to assertion (indeed irrational assertion) driven by an assumed class hatred cloaked in obfuscation.

It cannot be doubted that there have been oral traditions. It cannot be doubted that many individuals have contributed, some by plan, some by mondegreen, to the shaping of songs and stories, as no doubt many have provided input to the forms now seen in folk plastic arts. There is no ground to assume that no previous performers users or carriers of the tradition understood them. Very likely, as today, and as in the rest of the spectrum, some understood and some did not. Indeed today there (surely) is no assumption that the individuals who remembered (and/or modified) the forms of the oral arts that they had heard did not, on a wholesale basis, understand them.

Sweeney builds an entire edifice (well, a mass of words, since there seems to be no coherent design with any planned outcome) on the insecure foundation of himself assuming that someone, somewhere, has been oppressed by an assumption that that person was stupid.





Having said that I should like to disagree with the apparent assumption that there are no chord sequences in traditional songs. Since rhythm or choice of metre is a voluntary aspect of the telling of any tale or expression of any words, in many cases all it requires ("requires" may be too strong a word - rhythm helps me to envisage the sequences, but others may find it not so) is the assumption of a rhythm for wonderful chord sequences to become implied. Consequently the "naked" form of traditional song becomes a matter of choice. One may do them that way, or one may put forceful chordal accompaniments with them.

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Will Fly
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 05:53 AM

Here's a philosophical question? Are traditional-based clubs preserving the performance of traditional music, rather than the music itself? In these days of recorded sound, written records, archives both printed and digital, resources far more readily available than before - with banks of material noted, recorded, indexed, digitised - and more to be available - it's not the preservation of traditional songs that will be lost. More likely the act and art of performing them that might be lost or overwhelmed. What has been lost, to a greater extent, is the fluid nature of the songs as they were passed from generation to generation. The process of "collection", with all the attendant documentation and academic discussion, probably - and ironically - helped to end that. But I wouldn't say that traditional song is either fragile or vulnerable - whereas the continuing performance of it may be.

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Marje
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 05:23 AM

Mike (above) comments that traditional folk enthusiasts are less tolerant of other types of music.

One reason for this may be that truly traditional music is sometimes rather fragile - and even under threat - in a way that doesn't apply to other types of music. The guitar-driven "acoustic" type of folk is much more closely related to commercial popular music, and shares some of its attributes -e.g. it lends itself to noisy accompaniment and the use of amplified sound systems; it tends to be much more reliant on chord-sequences and fancy riffs, and there's less emphasis on the importance of the lyrics (or even their audibility). In fact, in some "acoustic" clubs, the audience pay little attention to the performers and use the music as background to their conversation. People approach this music with many of the expectations they'd bring to a pop concert, an approach which is simply not suited to much traditional material.

This can lead to a situation (and I've been there) where a traditional singer offering an unaccompanied song is seen as second-best and somehow incomplete in comparison to the guitar-wielding singer or duo. Traditional song (even when accompanied) often has a spare, naked quality about it that doesn't always fit in with other genres. It demands greater concentration and involvement from the listener, and (for those who are so inclined) can be considerably enhanced by an understanding of the song's social and historical and context.

Now, I know the above contains some sweeping generalisations, but there is an important kernel of truth in there regarding the fragility and vulnerablity of traditional song, which may help to explain why some of its enthusiasts prefer to set up clubs and groups where this type of music is preserved and promoted, in preference to other genres.

Marje

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 05:06 AM

"Once more, I fear, were back to the gulf of class-condescension which has so effectively denied the individual mastery of the working classes, seeing them as passive carriers and random generators of material rather than the specific creators of it. It's an idyllic bourgeois dreaming that has the Folklore, Folk Song, Folk Music as the collective consequence of a people who are incapable of appreciating or understanding its true value, hence the highly academicised nature of such cultural studies today - all a million miles removed from the raw essence that was, and continues to be, its very well-spring. "


How very true. As I said in another thread, way back...

...from Peasants to Professors.

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Will Fly
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 04:53 AM

SO'P - just out of curiosity, when you do your own story-telling sessions, how far around the literature - oral or written - do you range? What kind of material do you select, and what are your own sources? I don't go to any events which generally include story-telling, so I'm genuinely curious as to what sort of tale is told.

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 04:47 AM

are you seriously suggesting that there is no basic difference between 'Great Expectations' or Les Miserables, and 'Prince John and The Grey Man of Wisdom' or 'The Gillie Dacker and His Horse' or ' The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Grainne' or any other epic length oral tale we have recorded and believe to have been made and formed by the oral tradition?

The Oral Tradition is the consequence of very wishful folkloric thinking that has so effectively removed individual creativity from the equation and views working-class humanity as a collective mass of instinctive, unthinking, ill-educated primitives. All of this stuff is generated by the same basic means & impulses given that the individual human need for narrative structure operates at a very primal level and that, consequently, narrative will out. Taken to a particular extreme everything becomes folklore - even the writings of a Dickens or a Hugo, once we remove their names that is. After all, there is a just as much of a literary tradition behind The Tain or the stories collected by John Sampson, Asbjorsen & Moe, Thomas Crofton Croker et al (who didn't bother too much with names) as there is behind Dickens and Hugo.

The illusion of an Oral Tradition comes about when there is no paper, nor printing press, only the creative fluidity of the human tongue by which such stories are told & retold, recreated afresh by way of an idiomatic mastery. But the stories of Dickens & Hugo have been re-made too; retold & recreated and will no doubt continue to be as cultural process takes its course. In the end it all comes down to the mastery of individual storytellers; take away their names and what you have is an Oral Tradition - give them back their names and you have an idiom of creative narrative driven by the inner necessities which are common to us all. What shadowy & nameless impulse lurks out there in the Celtic Twilight? What instinctive terror is there that not only generates such tellings, but makes them so immediate to us today?

Once more, I fear, were back to the gulf of class-condescension which has so effectively denied the individual mastery of the working classes, seeing them as passive carriers and random generators of material rather than the specific creators of it. It's an idyllic bourgeois dreaming that has the Folklore, Folk Song, Folk Music as the collective consequence of a people who are incapable of appreciating or understanding its true value, hence the highly academicised nature of such cultural studies today - all a million miles removed from the raw essence that was, and continues to be, its very well-spring.

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Joe_F
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 05:28 PM

Worse is one kind of different.

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 05:12 PM

Cat among the pigeons?...on "Archie Fisher's Travelling Folk, Annie Grace sits in for Archie Fisher with traditional and folk music...", rather than traditional and contemporary folk music..?

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: M.Ted
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 04:30 PM

It's the unreasoned responses that she has a problem with, Michael. Sometimes it seems impossible to make even the most moderate, reasonable, and non-controversial comments without provoking an extreme response.

As a example, in another, current thread, there is a serious discussion about relearning left hand technique. A member by the name of Y Not felt the need to express contempt for the whole idea by saying , " Just shut up you soft soft F### and PLAY and PLAY and PLAY..."

I've got to say that after more than a decade of earnest contribution to the forum, the urge to answer questions, figure out chords, or explain technology is often tempered by the question, "How much grief do I want to deal with?"

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: M.Ted
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 04:29 PM

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: michaelr
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 12:36 PM

Why would you be? I don't remember reading any unreasoned posts from you, Tam.

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 12:30 PM

your prerogative - certainly michaelr.

I am learning the hard way when and where I should say my piece. I am almost always sorry I opened my mouth.

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Mavis Enderby
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 12:17 PM

"whereas the truth out there is one more usually of inclusiveness"

Quite agree Tim. That's been my experience too.

Pete.

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: michaelr
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 12:11 PM

To be honest I am quite turned off by the way communications over the internet are conducted a lot of the time. Heated argument is fine, as I said before, but address the argument and don't resort to personal nastiness and dismissing different views as held by 'nazis' 'purists' 'snobs' etc. In the end (to use your phrase) going about it that way is more telling about the person who throws around these terms than of the people the abuse is aimed at.

Peter, I agree completely, and this is where quite a few people who post here fall short.

If the issues surrounding the definition of "folk" doen't matter to someone, they shouldn't respond in those threads.

Well, I don't get involved much in those disputes, but from time to time I have a "good lord, give it a rest already" reaction. Honestly, I can only shake my head in disbelief at how worked up some of the UK contingent become over these issues. And sometimes I comment, which is surely my prerogative.

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 11:55 AM

"If I listen to Doc Watson singing "I Was Born About 6,000 Years Ago", and then hear him playing "Doc's Guitar", I feel as though it's timeless and borderless music. I don't give a hoot where it came from - it's just great music and great fun. Country music - blues, ragtime - jazz - string bands - jug bands - all American, all part of the accepted melting pot."

Thanks Mr Fly that is how it should be all everywhere.

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 11:51 AM

"Sure, there are clubs where new songs are made and performed, but these are not communities; rather they are small, isolated groups of individuals."
Thanks Jim the info about the collecting is very interesting and helps me to some degree towards more understanding of that.
The bit in quotes though, it seems that small isolated groups are communities to me.
If they are not perhaps you could tell me what qualifies as a community in the context of your point.
I am not just trying to be awkward but I know from visiting clubs and pubs where others,I am assuming here,who have the same love of the Old songs as you have been gathered to sing and play and I have never been made to feel other than welcome.
Often asked IF I want to give something and even after I have explained that I only have my own songs to sing, more often than not been very courteously asked to have a turn.
You see I get the feeling from some of the posts on these threads that I am to be excluded and that even to listen would besmirch the tradition. whereas the truth out there is one more usually of inclusiveness.
One can also get the impression from some posts that unless one has been to the right uni you have no right to an opinion on the matter.
I am not saying that you personally have given that opinion,but maybe the feelings I get from it go some way to explain why there is such ongoing tension between those on the different sides of the same campfire.

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 11:48 AM

To this American poster it just appears like endless, often nasty bickering about something which is in the end quite inconsequential.

My point was a general one, not focussed on any topic in particular. It was founded on, unpleasant, experiences on a number of forums though.

To be honest I am quite turned off by the way communications over the internet are conducted a lot of the time. Heated argument is fine, as I said before, but address the argument and don't resort to personal nastiness and dismissing different views as held by 'nazis' 'purists' 'snobs' etc. In the end (to use your phrase) going about it that way is more telling about the person who throws around these terms than of the people the abuse is aimed at.

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Will Fly
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 11:45 AM

Well, it must be that the guys and girls I know in the US are just very relaxed about the music they make and listen to!

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: MikeL2
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 11:42 AM

hi jim

< " Meanwhile the non-traddie carved his name on his song, buried it deep in his garden under a tree, and announced to the world that it was HIS SONG, so it never changed. Then he went back to his castle and counted all the sovereigns he had ammassed from all HIS OTHER SONGS which he had buried under all the other trees in his garden,>

I think there is a weakness in your argument here.

By your definition doesn't it mean that Rock & Roll is folk music??

Songs like That's Allright Mama for instance which was originally written as a Country song and re-arranged many times by many different singers was picked up by Elvis and recorded and the rest is history.

Why is that different to many of the traditional songs that have changed dramatically in style over the years that they have been sung??

Cheers

MikeL2

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 11:30 AM

p.s. I want to live in that village Will described. And I am American.

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 11:29 AM

There are plenty of Americans who can and do discuss on myriad topics, and I bet some of those topics just look like endless bickering to some UK posters.

It boils down to what matters to each individual. If the issues surrounding the definition of "folk" doen't matter to someone, they shouldn't respond in those threads.

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: MikeL2
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 11:25 AM

hi

As usual Will talks with a lot of good sense.

He is right that there isn't the rift of differences between the different styles of music in America nor in other countris I have visited.

Maybe this is because they don't have the social class differences that we in The UK have.

Some of the differences I am sure emanate from this.

Much of it I believe is sub-concious.

I don't think that any of the music I play and like is any better than anyone elses. As long as they don't try to make me stop enjoying what I like I don't really care.

In trying to answer the original question asked by Crow Sister, I do believe in my experience that the people who prefer Traditional material hold much more strong views and it certainly comes across that they believe that "their music" is better.

My tastes and what I play cross the (apparent) Traditional/Contemporary divide. So I have no axe to grind either way.
In my experience the tradionalists are certainly less tolerant to other peoples' music.

Cheers

MikeL2

Regards

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: michaelr
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 11:15 AM

Peter Laban wrote ..."it seems some (US?) posters can't handle strong opinions put forward with argument..."

To this American poster it just appears like endless, often nasty bickering about something which is in the end quite inconsequential.

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Will Fly
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 10:34 AM

There's an interesting phenomenon in one of the village singarounds that I go to on the Sussex/Surrey border, where there's a local family whose roots go back in the village almost to Domesday. The senior member of the family has, for years, written songs about the village, its history, its characters, events both old and new. These songs - all of which are excellent, by the way - are regularly performed by the local people in the monthly singarounds, and sung (unaccompanied) with relish. When I first attended the singaround well over a year ago now, I just assumed they were old local, traditional songs which I hadn't heard before. This was because they kept the style and the feel of traditional material and were relevant to the community in which they were written - I suppose they were in the "folk idiom".

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 09:26 AM

Tim,
When Sharp was collecting he claimed to be catching the last of a dying culture.
When the BBC collectors went out in the 50s they were 'sweeping up the last echoes of a dying song/music tradition'.
Tom Munnelly collecting in Ireland from the 60s to the 90s described his work as 'A race with the undertaker'.
Pat and I were recording from singers who had been without an audience for most of their lives and in many cases hadn't sung in public for 30, 40, 50 years.
Walter Pardon, apart from Christmas parties and harvest suppers had never sung in public except for 'Dark Eyed Sailor', which nobody else wanted.
The one exception in our case was the Travelling Communities (Irish and Scots) who still had a living tradition up to the mid - seventies, when they stopped singing, making songs and telling stories thanks to the introduction of portable television into the caravans (we can put an exact date on this within an eighteen month period).
To one degree and another we were all recording a remembered tradition rather than a living one.
I would dearly like to believe that somewhere out there, there are still communities making songs and tales which reflect the experiences, beliefs and values of the people living in them.
Despite arguments to the contrary, society as a whole have become passive recipients of culture - they've even supplied us with hand-controls so we don't have to get up out of our armchairs.
Sure, there are clubs where new songs are made and performed, but these are not communities; rather they are small, isolated groups of individuals.
I live in the hope that one day people will once again take part in the creation of their/our own culture. In the meantime we're stuck with what we've got, so let's recognise that fact and try to build on it rather than pretend it's something it's not.
Personally, it doesn't matter to me if the songs are centuries or months old. I still get as much pleasure out of a seventeenth century ballad as I do from Hamlet, or a Dickens or Hardy novel, or a book by John Steinbeck, or a MacColl, or Tawney, or Matt McGinn, or Con 'Fada' O'Drisceoill or Adam McNaughton song - ageless rather than old, I would say.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 08:30 AM

I just did Crow Sister - See my last post! It took tea as well as reading the thread though:-)

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 08:17 AM

Nice post there Marje.

Being fairly newish (compared to most here) to traditional song, I was somewhat amused/perplexed (still am I guess) when I arrived at MC by all the anger that I saw around something I just thought was really interesting!

The divide however certainly exists (at least in my observation) and there is an evident underlying antagonism or antipathy between the approximate camps of 'folkie' and 'traddie'.

What inspired this thread was another one - and particularly my respones to that thread - about singing from books. At *no point* did I ever criticise those individuals who choose to use a prompt - yet such criticism was automatically assumed by some of those who responded to me. 'Hmm' thinks I, 'people here are reacting in automatic fashion to something they imagined was writ, just because I'm clearly not of 'them' but of the 'other'.
Secondly however, on reflection I also noticed my own personal disdain, and online ridicule (albeit posted in playful terms), of people who like to all sing together from the same book.

I suppose in posting this thread, I was hoping other folks might take a look at their predjudices and assumptions and antipathies, and think about from whence they arise, and how all this heated squabbling really comes about. Alternatively, it's just a thread I started out of pure badness.
Possibly a bit of both.. ;-)

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 08:13 AM

Peter's right, there is no reason to suggest that because one believes a music to be different, that the conclusion is reached that it is inferior or superior.
To return to SO'P's point
You claim to have some knowledge about storytelling - are you seriously suggesting that there is no basic difference between 'Great Expectations' or Les Miserables, and 'Prince John and The Grey Man of Wisdom' or 'The Gillie Dacker and His Horse' or ' The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Grainne' or any other epic length oral tale we have recorded and believe to have been made and formed by the oral tradition?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 08:08 AM

Am in Grimsby in the UK Jim.
I thought of a folk museum because what I read on here leads me to think that traditional music is already written,morphed and changed and processed in a magic folk processor and therefore finished.
There can be no more than already exists.
So it comes over to me as being kept in a museum.
That makes me feel sad and I know there must be more to it than that.
But what do you do to remedy it.
Move the chalk line to include more and more recent music?
Museum of modern folk?
LOL
I dunno I come and read these threads to learn from you guys.

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 08:07 AM

Thinking about it, after having gone away made a cup of tea and come back, I reckon the no better or worse view is why I get so annoyed at anyone coming out with the 'if yo don't like this/them/that you have no passion and must be a miserable so and so. Or if you do like such and such you must be a idiot because it is media hyped dross or whatever. Sorry, but my tastes are my tastes and those are difinetely no better or worse than anyone else's.

Off soapbox:-)

DeG

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 08:05 AM

Just my luck - now there'll be 100 UK 'Catters jumping on my head

Well, I don't think so. I don't think at all this is about dividing lines between musical genres. It's about style of argument and inter-cultural communication issues.

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Will Fly
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 07:55 AM

From my experience, I would say that my American friends - and I have many - are more laid back about the wealth of traditional and not-so-traditional music in their country, and less concerned about the dividing lines between them than we are over here (at least, judging by this forum).

If I listen to Doc Watson singing "I Was Born About 6,000 Years Ago", and then hear him playing "Doc's Guitar", I feel as though it's timeless and borderless music. I don't give a hoot where it came from - it's just great music and great fun. Country music - blues, ragtime - jazz - string bands - jug bands - all American, all part of the accepted melting pot.

Just my luck - now there'll be 100 UK 'Catters jumping on my head... :-)

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 07:52 AM

I like to think that I have never thought I was better than anyone and conversely I believe that no-one is better than me. Bob Dylan puts it ver succinctly -

I've heard you say many times
That you're better 'n no one
And no one is better 'n you.
If you really believe that,
You know you got
Nothing to win and nothing to lose.

As Dick said earlier, there are some things we better than others and other people do many things far better than I can but that does not make me or them any better.

I have often said of music in particular that none is any better or worse. Just either too my tastes or not and as tastes are extemely subjective there is no point in arguing about them! As to trad and contemporary being from the same roots and therefore the same I find that something of misnomer. Taking that to extremes ALL music is from the same roots and therefore all the same. Which is obviously nonsense or everyone would like all music. Which the obviously don't!

Cheers

DeG

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 07:36 AM

I think Howard is right, it's a problem I have encountered on internet (folk/trad) forums quite a bit. As soon as you make a strong argument why you think for example traditional music is what it is and you will have to respect the form and uphold a standard you leave yourself open to any amount of personal abuse from (more often than not American although not exclusively) posters who go in for the kill, calling you 'purist', 'snob', 'nazi' 'unable to just have fun' and all that nonsense, and that's just for starters.

Often there's a call for tolerance for differing approaches and for politeness in argument(i.e. theirs, certainly not your own, it's a free for all if it comes to your own when you express thoughts as I named above) in the process bandying out personal digs and insults that go way beyond the reasonable. I do think this goes beyond the argument between trad and other, it seems some (US?) posters can't handle strong opinions put forward with argument and take those as personal attacks which triggers all sort of ugly and seemingly disproportionate responses.   No doubt a cultural difference but certainly a reason for myself to abandon most forums I have contributed to, I can pretty much without the acrimony.
I can handle a good (heated but reasoned) argument though, by all means.

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Marje
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 07:26 AM

To return to Crow Sister's original question: do we think we're better than they are?

There are some who think they are better, but they're not all in the one group. Some traddies think they're better because they can sing without accompaniment and do things in an "authentic way", supported by knowledge of the songs' background and history. Some "man-with-guitar" singers think they're better because they can play clever chords and because they are writing new songs, or possibly because they can produce passable cover versions of commercially recorded material.

But most people in both groups don't actually think THEY (personally) are better, they just prefer one particular style of music. And if you prefer something, for you it's "better". I think Christmas pudding is better than rice pudding (for me), but I respect the tastes of those who prefer rice pudding. And I suspect that those who say, "Oh, it's all pudding, what's the differece?" don't really care much for puddings at all. It's not a crime to have a strong preference, and it needn't imply that you don't respect other musical tastes, even if you prefer to listen to your chosen genre of music.

Where it all gets unpleasant is when name-calling and silly stereotypes come into play. Only yesterday I saw another use here of the deeply unpleasant term "Folk Nazis" used to describe people who prefer (and therefore promote and celebrate) traditional music and song. The traddies, do not (as far as I can see) use such extreme language, but they can sometimes be disdainful and sneering towards self-penned material and pop-inspired "covers". The parallel stereotyping in the other direction usually entails finger-in-the-ear/beard/tankard and even Aran sweaters, although I haven't seen one of those for decades.

So let's see if we can agree on this: we all have a right to prefer and to seek out the particular type of music we like. If we want to promote this music at a particular event or venue, we may need to define the preferred genre and its characteristics, to ensure that everyone understands what's going on and can decide whether it suits them. The organisers may even suggest how the music can best be performed and enjoyed in this setting (e.g. with or without books/instruments/joining in/a PA system/an MC to decide who sings, etc etc).

Setting out some ground rules lke this does not - or should not - mean that we scorn and reject other types of music or the people who enjoy it. And more importantly, it is quite wrong for anyone start offensive name-calling just because they don't like the way a club, session or event is set up. If you don't like it, go and set up your own, with your own rules, but please don't insult or belittle the efforts that others are making to promote the music they enjoy.

Marje

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Howard Jones
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 07:13 AM

I don't think it's as clear cut as traddies v folkies. What we do have is a lot of different opinions. Some of these are strongly held principles, others are simply taking a position for the sake of argument. Some are based on deep knowledge, others on total ignorance. Mostly they seem to be based around different perceptions of what "folk" is. You can add into the mix American-British cultural differences and misundertandings.

I think it's probably true that we Brits like a good argument, which seems to alarm our transatlantic neighbours. Possibly (although I've not thought this through) there is a greater stylistic divide between our trad and contemporary songs than theirs which makes the trad v folkie question more of an issue for us.

It's also very easy, when writing thoughts down quickly in response to a post, to phrase them badly and to be misunderstood, and perhaps to appear more aggressive or dogmatic than is intended. I suspect that if we were all to be gathered together, debating face to face, we would all be a lot more reasonable and perhaps find more common ground.

I don't find I experience much animosity in the real world. I've never been to a club which tried to enforce an absolute trad-only policy (if I had I rather think I'd try to slip a modern composition past them to see if they noticed). Out there it's simply a matter of personal taste. If I go to a folk club only to find it's not the sort of music I enjoy, I don't go back. I don't feel obliged to listen to, far less like, a particular singer just because they're labelled "folk".

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 06:50 AM

Sorry Tim, cross posted your last message.
"So are there any folk music performers who get paid for what they do" Yes there are, and we are indebted to the good ones.
"Would you pay people to perform at your club?"
Yes we do and we did, but they were paid for their performance not their compositions.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 06:46 AM

Tim,
Don't know where you are, but here in Ireland there are two national archives, both the result of a huge personal effort on the part of dedicated individuals; Seamus Delargey and Nicholas Carolan.
There are regional archives in the process of being set up, also by the efforts of dedicated individuals.
Thanks to the personal efforts of handfuls of such devotees, traditional music has, over the last decade the music has become recognised by the establishment art bodies as an important part of Irish culture and is now being funded by them and feted by the media who dismissed it not so long ago as 'didly-di' and 'nyaaah' music.
This hard slog has meant that youngsters have come to the music in droves, which more-or-less guaranteed that it will survive and give pleasure for at least another two generations.
Don't know where your "museum was built stocked and funded by all of us,but has became the dwelling of some strange people who are self appointed gate keepers telling you what to think" came from - enlighten please.
The same hasn't even got underweigh in the UK, in spite of the dedicated work of gifted and selfless individuals.
The reason - the present folk scene doesn't take itself serious enough for anybody else to. Folkies who run around like headles chickens flapping their arms and squealing "nobody knows the meaning of folk" is hardly going to do the trick, don't you think?
Neither will describing arguing ones corner as "telling us what to think".
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 06:43 AM

"You forgot the bit about the traddie not putting his name on his song, so it took on a life of its own, became remade again and again and again, and travelled all over the town, the district, the country, the wide world, until nobody knew who owned it, so everybody did, Then thousands of people began to sing it, until it split into two - four -eight - sometimes a hundred pieces. And long after the original maker died, the song continued to be sung, for years, decades, centuries and still continued to give pleasure to those who found it
Meanwhile the non-traddie carved his name on his song, buried it deep in his garden under a tree, and announced to the world that it was HIS SONG, so it never changed. Then he went back to his castle and counted all the sovereigns he had ammassed from all HIS OTHER SONGS which he had buried under all the other trees in his garden, which also never changed and never became anybody elses until they saved all their sovereigns and bought them. And then they went and buried them under trees in their garden................
And they all lived happily ever after.
Jim Carroll"
So are there any folk music performers who get paid for what they do Jim?
Would you pay people to perform at your club?

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 06:35 AM

I'm extremely grateful for Suibhne O'Piobaireachd's timely provision of a perfect example of the nonsensical lengths the 'what is folk' argument can be stretched to - I owe you a drink!

Not so much a matter of What is Folk? as Folk? what Folk? It's all a matter of faith after all, and having just recorded a modal trip-hop version of Butter & Cheese & All self-accompanied (in real time) on my new Kaossilator I might bear witness to the evident continuances in Popular Music these past 2,000 years or so no matter how cheesy (or buttery) the results.

Slipping into the third person if I may... O'Piobaireachd doesn't believe 1954 Folk Music is any different from any other sort of music, but he does believe in the existence of certain body of material we might, for the sake of convenience, call Traditional Songs. In this sense O'Piobaireachd is a Musical Darwinist who sees Folkies & Traddies as Creationists clinging onto a particular sort of faith. Where the Traddie/Folkie sees the product of The Folk Process, O'Piobaireachd sees the product of an ongoing evolutionary cultural tradition that determines all human music. This common material world is all that matters, but O'Piobaireachd sees no evidence of the Supernatural Agencies others would have us believe are somehow self-evident.

That said, Jim - O'Piobaireachd holds you to that promise of a drink, and promises same if ever paths cross.

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 06:33 AM

"I'm not happy at drawing 'chalk lines' around the folk idiom; it tends to be in the ear of the listener. I would be happy to see any musical form communicating facts, ideas, emotions, etc., the way I believe folk forms do so well - I really haven't come across another form which does so as effectively and sensitively as folk song does."
That is a fair and understandable statement(part of).
Folk music is a wonderful thing to hear.
I love listening to it .
I think that all the hundreds of people who gather in pubs to sing the old songs are fab and I will be happy sitting and listening.
The trouble starts when I am asked to contribute because I can no more do that than I can fly or play the blues like will.
I can however play a song or two that I wrote and that some people may find to be ok in that context.
But I don't if not asked and had chance to explain that.

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 06:17 AM

For what its worth I feel this way about the title at the top of the thread.
Firstly I notice it is exclusive of all who are not "traddies".
"Do We Think We're Better Than Them?"
Secondly, I think its a wonderful thing to have a museum full of interesting and at times breathtaking fragments of the past to visit,enjoy and try to learn from.
What is annoying is the museum was built stocked and funded by all of us,but has became the dwelling of some strange people who are self appointed gate keepers and follow you around telling what to think or in what way your thinking or of enjoying the museum is wrong.
Its as if the last real people have left the building to do things in the world and only the nay sayers are left behind.

Subject: RE: Do We Think We're Better Than Them?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 05:55 AM

Will, sorry if I misquoted you - it wasn't deliberate. I really don't think there is too wide a gap in our opinions; I usually find myself agreeing more with your postings than disagreeing with them. I was using your statement to cover some of the others made here.
I partly tried to answer your question on the other thread, but found it, like Topsy - just growed. I will attempt to do so anon, but, as you say, I believe it to be a complcated one to tackle.
I'm not happy at drawing 'chalk lines' around the folk idiom; it tends to be in the ear of the listener. I would be happy to see any musical form communicating facts, ideas, emotions, etc., the way I believe folk forms do so well - I really haven't come across another form which does so as effectively and sensitively as folk song does.
I'm extremely grateful for Suibhne O'Piobaireachd's timely provision of a perfect example of the nonsensical lengths the 'what is folk' argument can be stretched to - I owe you a drink!
Jim Carroll