'Purist - a pejorative?

Subject: RE: 'Purist - a pejorative?
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Jan 12 - 06:15 AM

I'm not convinced by your stance on singer songwriters, Suibhne. Two words at you: 'Bob' and 'Pegg'...

**************

I've no issue with self-styled purists who are quietly and introspectively pure. I do struggle a little with those who see themselves as being on some sort of evangelical purity crusade (like the individual who emailed me in disgust about The Woodbine & Ivy Band and how dare these people do that to our music...).

'Purist' as a perjorative term is all a matter of degree - there's a continuum (several, really) of alleged purity. I might think someone's a bit of a purist - someone else might think I am, another person might think they are and so on. Some 'purists' might want to distinguish traditional music from the contemporary folk singer songwriters and see one as good and one as bad. Some might want to distinguish between 'good' trad music played on fiddles and melodeons and 'bad' trad music played on electric guitars and squeaky analogue synths. Some 'purists' might draw imaginany lines in the sand between professional and amateur performers, or folk club and arts centre performers. Some 'purists' might want to draw a line between singer songwriters who write 'in the tradition' and those who don't (which is a highly subjective and ultimately pointless excercise anyway) or those who perform on the folk scene and those who don't. Then you get the diction fetishists, the unnaccompanied-versus-accompanied brigade, the 'sing in your own voice' versus 'inhabit a role' lot and so on. Ultimately it makes the whole concept of purism so subjective as to render it meaningless. I suspect it's just an excuse to get cross for people who enjoy getting cross, a reason to label things by people who like labels and an excuse for heated debate for people who like heated debates - and I make no value judgements about any of these groups.

Personally, I'm a big fan of impurity, but on my terms. Anyone else's purity or otherwise is their business and their right to indulge in - unless they decide to try to impose it on me and tell me what I should believe. A bit of reasoned discussion's cool, though.

Subject: RE: 'Purist - a pejorative?
From: Mo the caller
Date: 06 Jan 12 - 05:57 AM

I'm not sure that I use the term, but there are contexts that are suitable for being a purist and contexts that aren't.
E.g.
If I'm calling at a dance club I will try to emphasise the pleasures of dancing in time to the music, and using correct moves.
If I'm describing/demonstrating a 'Strip the Willow' at a wedding ceilidh I end up by saying that variations, deliberate or accidental, are fine as long as you end up at the bottom of the set with your partner.

Folk is meant to be a pleasure, and as you learn more you get that pleasure in different ways. Romping at a ceilidh; dancing a complicated dance at a festival with a roomful of experts; joining in and raising the roof on a simple tune or chorus song; listening to someone making their fiddle sing. It's the FOLK you do it with that make it what it is, so I suppose the term I'd use as perjorative would be 'exclusive'.

Subject: RE: 'Purist - a pejorative?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 06 Jan 12 - 05:56 AM

Collected from a toilet wall in Sunderland, circa 1971:

One Sunday morn as I was a fishing in the Wear -
I caught a fish upon my hook that tasted very queer;
I then ran home because I had a dose of diarrhea -
And all that night I couldn't sleep for the itching up my rear!
Wheest, lads - had yer gobs - and I'll you all an awful story;
Wheest, lads - had yer gobs - and I tell you about my worms.

Subject: RE: 'Purist - a pejorative?
From: Will Fly
Date: 06 Jan 12 - 05:45 AM

Better drink plenty of Black Sheep bitter and consume a few pickled eggs beforehand, eh?

Subject: RE: 'Purist - a pejorative?
From: theleveller
Date: 06 Jan 12 - 05:41 AM

Too right, Will. I'm planning an explosive rendition of The Lambton Worm in the centre of York this weekend.

Subject: RE: 'Purist - a pejorative?
From: Will Fly
Date: 06 Jan 12 - 05:24 AM

Folk terorists, eh? Sounds good to me!

I imagine hordes of good folk wielding concertinas, roaming the streets and kneeling down at letterboxes to sing "Lord Randall" and "Nottamun Town" to the terrified householders.

Subject: RE: 'Purist - a pejorative?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 06 Jan 12 - 05:20 AM

Who sees Bellamy as a Purist? No one saw him that way at the time, certainly not - er - Purists, like the hapless lads who booked him once and tried to impress him after the gig by playing Folk records back at the house. 'Got any Rolling Stones?' was his response. His music was pretty pure though, the pure drop in fact; like Jim Eldon, who, like Bellamy, is a master of his Traditional Craft only by dint of a far broader world view that many folkies would regard as anathema (I'd argue their very world view is defined by it). If, like Shimrod, you see folk as our musical genre and specialist area then Purism would seem the sensible option (though I'm with him on the singer-songwriter issue, but that's not Purism so much as cultural ecology). If, on the other hand, you see Folk as one tiny piece of the vast & wondrous jig-saw of the 50,000 year old tradition of human music making (singer-songwriters notwithstanding which is a piece we could do without) then you realise that Purism is a noxious idiotic pedantry, appealing only to the righteously inclined. As perfectly put by gnomad above only a hairsbreadth away from a fundamentalist.

Subject: RE: 'Purist - a pejorative?
From: theleveller
Date: 06 Jan 12 - 05:18 AM

"a purist is often only a hairsbreadth away from a fundamentalist, which is in its turn only a cockstride away from an extremist, and so onwards."

And extremist is next door to terrorist....folk terrorists - now that sounds like my cup of tea. Be afraid - be very afraid!

Subject: RE: 'Purist - a pejorative?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 06 Jan 12 - 04:52 AM

Also, what Suibhne said. The touchstone for me on this one is Bellamy - that well-known singer-songwriter, Edwardian poetry buff, blues aficionado and Rolling Stones fan. He's seen as a purist now because he was committed to it - following the thread wherever it led him. He certainly wasn't a purist in the "I am a purist" sense of the word.

Subject: RE: 'Purist - a pejorative?
From: Will Fly
Date: 06 Jan 12 - 04:49 AM

From the Blessed Wiki:

A purist is one who desires that an item remains true to its essence and free from adulterating or diluting influences. The term may be used in almost any field, and can be applied either to the self or to others. Use of the term may be either pejorative or complimentary, depending on the context. Because the appellation depends on subjective notions of what is "pure" as opposed to "adulterating" as applied to any particular item, conflict can arise both as to whether a person so labeled is actually a purist and as to whether that is desirable.

According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, the term dates from 1706 and is defined as "a person who adheres strictly and often excessively to a tradition", especially "one preoccupied with the purity of a language and its protection from the use of foreign or altered forms."

There you have it folks - pejorative or complimentary, depending on the context.

Subject: RE: 'Purist - a pejorative?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 06 Jan 12 - 04:47 AM

Blimey, that was quick.

Subject: RE: 'Purist - a pejorative?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 06 Jan 12 - 04:39 AM

I've always thought of purists (I see no need to capitalise) as noble, finger-in-the-dyke types intent on preventing our musical genre and specialist area being inundated by a flood of 'guitar-based music which rocks' (which the world has far too much of already).

Subject: RE: 'Purist - a pejorative?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 06 Jan 12 - 04:33 AM

I must point out that was a cross post with Pip; murky deep vasty waters & all...

Subject: RE: 'Purist - a pejorative?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 06 Jan 12 - 04:31 AM

We've been here very recently, but I forget exactly where that was. I remember pointing out that all the self-styled Purists I've met were grudgeful dilettantes (at best) with little knowledge and very evident issues both personal & political, but always reactionary, with views that ran contrary to the nature of Folk of which they had precious little actual understanding or working knowledge. These were Railway Modellers who would most certainly not recognise a real train if they saw one; cretinous cultural autists for whom Folk is a means to a particular sort of ghastly tyranny & self-delusion. On the other hand, those many people I do know who may be deservedly called Purist would, I think, both hesistate to use the term themselves and be resentful of being so called. I know I would; after all, the more one delves, so murkier the waters become...

Subject: RE: 'Purist - a pejorative?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 06 Jan 12 - 04:27 AM

Who could think 'purist' was a pejorative? Only some sort of polymorphously eclectic bricoleur. (Hang on, am I summoning Suibhne from the vasty deep?)

Subject: RE: 'Purist - a pejorative?
From: gnomad
Date: 06 Jan 12 - 04:15 AM

It seems to me that almost any adjective can be used as a pejorative term, that it is all a matter of context.

Adjectival nouns share this quality, and the xxx-ist form seems almost made for the expression of dislike. It obviously has other uses, but there's something about the shape; try saying 'Organist' aloud a few times, it soon sounds like derision or contempt.

As for your specific dislike, well a purist is often only a hairsbreadth away from a fundamentalist, which is in its turn only a cockstride away from an extremist, and so onwards. The term may sometimes be appropriate, as may the actual attitude, but I feel that both should be used with restraint and due forethought.

Subject: RE: 'Purist - a pejorative?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Jan 12 - 01:05 AM

I see myself as better than the purists, more sort of virginal........

Subject: 'Purist - a pejorative?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Jan 12 - 12:59 AM

"And I do wish people would stop using "purist" as a term of abuse. It says far more to the detriment of the users of the term, than about whose of us endeavouring to maintain reasonable standards of useful categorisation, whom they endeavour thus to disparage," I wrote on the ongoing MacColl/Dylan thread.

Opinions, please, on the pejorative use of this term.

~Michael~