Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Suzy Sock Puppet
Date: 15 Oct 13 - 10:21 AM

Oooh, now that's what I call a snappy comeback :-)

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 15 Oct 13 - 09:53 AM

Trouble is, Suzy, most people who HAVE played tables (and paint cans) are not percussionists either :-(

:D

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Suzy Sock Puppet
Date: 15 Oct 13 - 09:43 AM

Anyone who has never played a table (or a paint can for that matter) is likely not much of a percussionist.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Will Fly
Date: 15 Oct 13 - 09:09 AM

Ah, Phil - we should never bow to popular opinion! Always do what you feel is right for you - well... as far as music is concerned anyway, and bugger the nay-sayers.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Phil E
Date: 15 Oct 13 - 08:25 AM

"every single type of music I've played in all that time, whether solo, in a duo, trio or larger outfit, has been a minority music at the time I played it."

Most people would have taken a hint by now!

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Oct 13 - 08:02 AM

"Again with the personal there, Jim. Just stick to the subject, eh?"
You are the one referring to "pseud" songs - just picking up your drift.
Certainly songs like 'Herring" and 'Freeborn Man' don't mimic anything and they don't pretend to be anything other than they are - they are easily distinguishable from traditional forms for the reasons mentioned - that others might claim them as traditional is, I have no doubt, not an attempt to pretend anything, just a mistaken interpretation of tradition - "pseud" doesn't come into it from either point of view.
MacColl's song were unique, but because he was a skilled songwriter (which he undoubtedly was) but because he drew his inspiration directly from the language of the people who were the subject of the songs.
If you go through the MacColl/Seeger/Parker actuality recordings you will instantly be able to identify where the individual songs came from - Shoals of herring, Sam Larner and Ronnie Balls; Moving on Song, Belle Stewart and Minty Smith; Dark the Night - Sylvester Boswell; The Big Hewer - Jack Elliot and Ben Sunshine; Shellback - Ben Bright...... all available for checking in Ruskin College and Birmingham Central Library for those who would raise their bums from their armchairs.
MacColl's uniqueness was his respect for working people as creators of great art, his love and understanding of vernacular speech, and his skill in using that speech in his own creations - no pretence, no copying - no pseud - just a desire to draw attention to the artistic skills of working people and their creative abilities.
If my arguments are personal, I wouldn't know how to begin to describe those who would denigrate the unchallenged work of a composer who has now been dead for a quarter of a century.
All this aside, Will is right; this is an unnecessary diversion and has no place here.
"I've never played a "table","
You've obviously never sat next to a prat with a couple of pennies nausing up a great music session with his death-rattle.
"How long after the first songs & melodies were composed did they become Traditional Music? "
Age has nothing to do with definition - we were recording traditionally processed songs in the West of Ireland which were made well within the lifetimes of the singers and Travellers were still composing them in the 1970s, and may well still be.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 15 Oct 13 - 07:20 AM

How long after the first songs & melodies were composed did they become Traditional Music?

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Will Fly
Date: 15 Oct 13 - 07:10 AM

Ahem - I've never played a "table", but could probably play a "tabla".

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Will Fly
Date: 15 Oct 13 - 07:08 AM

The original proposition in this thread is an assumption that something has gone wrong because English traditional music isn't at the forefront of peoples' consciousness - i.e. piped into airports, supermarkets, shops, tourist information bureaus. etc. - in the mainstream (whatever that is).

Well, "wrongness" or "rightness" can only be measured against a known target or a defined aim or an agreed set of standards. What target, aim or standards set would we agree for English traditional music (gawd 'elp us!) without the dreaded Definition rearing its ugly little head - and how would we measure how far along the road we'd travelled to gauge any "success" or "failure"? English Folk Music's 5-year Plan, eh?

I've been in the music game for nearly 50 years - sometimes for money and sometimes for free - and every single type of music I've played in all that time, whether solo, in a duo, trio or larger outfit, has been a minority music at the time I played it. Mainstream jazz in the late '70s/early '80s - 1950s rock'n roll in the '80s & '90s - Memphis and New Orleans Funk from the '90s to the mid-2000s. I currently play in a ceilidh band and also in a jazz duo doing stuff from the 1930s. And all through this time, I've dipped in and out of folk clubs and sessions, remembering where it started in a practical fashion for me all those years ago. Why did I choose the various kinds of music that I've played over the years? Because I liked it - because it hit the spot at the time and still does so, from time to time, today. No other reason. It's been largely minority interest music, away from the charts, only on national radio or TV on rare occasions - I never gave a flying fuck one way or the other about its national profile, and still don't - I just loved it and loved playing it for what it was.

Jim - just a word or two on the analogy you use (quite a bit here) of wanting music to be "what it says on the tin". Well, I can see the logic in all of that, particularly when one is paying for X and gets Y - but I'm sure you know as well as I do that music is not tins of beans (unless it's "canned" music, of course - groan…). And the difficulty - for me - of slavish attention to packaging and canning and labelling with a "commodity" like music is that music is a slippery and shape-shifting thing. The morphing from one style to another is what it does when we aren't looking. I happen to like that. Which is why, for example, the sound of Hamish Moore and Dick Lee weaving jazz phrases around "Staten Island" - on two high whistles in D - before sliding into bass clarinet riffs with table accompaniment, is utterly magical. To me.

Where would that fit into the 5-year plan, I wonder...

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 15 Oct 13 - 06:45 AM

Are you a pseud, I ask myself?

Again with the personal there, Jim. Just stick to the subject, eh? It's certainly more interesting than I am - or getting cheap jibes in against me.

A psuedo traditional song is a song that mimics the idiom of traditional folk song; we've all written them & we all sing them. Every year at Fylde Festival we do a wee show where we set the psuedo-folk songs of Ron Baxter who's written some belters, but that's FOLK for you - not TRADITION. Kipling likewise; and Peter Bellamy, of course, who wrote quite happily in his 'Traditional Idiom' and coughed up some classic songs & melodies as a result. He's not alone in that.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Oct 13 - 06:13 AM

"The psuedo folk song is written at some remove from The Tradition in mimicry of an idiom in order (generally) to prove a point"
Many traditional songs were written to prove a point - the earliest printed songs, in Latin and English were political.
A pseudo traditional song is only pseudo if its maker claims it as traditional
You have claimed many songs that are not tradition as being folk-songs
Are you a pseud, I ask myself?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 15 Oct 13 - 05:51 AM

I have argued that all music is born from traditional process, and all idioms are traditional by definition which is a different thing. The psuedo folk song is written at some remove from The Tradition in mimicry of an idiom in order (generally) to prove a point - social, political or otherwise. Not wishing to complicate matters, it seems there is a long tradition of writing psuedo folk songs - hell, even Henry Purcell was at it in King Arthur with 'Your Hay it is Mow'd & Your Corn is Reap'd'!

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Oct 13 - 05:00 AM

"psuedo-folk songs such as 'Shoals of Herring' seems a tad precious."
Yet you have persistently argued for other songs being 'traditional' because they have been re-iterated in different versions - whence the difference?
Shoals of Herring, Freeborn Man, Dirty Old Town.... and others have undergone some sort of process that, if stretched to its extreme limit, might be described as "traditional", particularly among Travellers whose song traditions were still a part of a centuries old continuum right into the mid-1970s.
You appear once again to be wanting to have your cake and eat it.
MacColl was quite positive in denying that any of his songs were traditional, they weren't made by the people who were in the position to make them traditional, the 'Universal Fisherman, Miner, Traveller, Navvy...., ran counter to the way traditional songs were composed, modern technology reacted against the changes that had taken place in the older songs creating multiple version, and copyright laws prevent them from ever becoming the property of anybody other than the original and firmly identified composer.
Sorry - I agree with an earlier remark made earlier about discussions on definition, which have been made pointless by the permanent insistence that such discussions are "police-folking" and "rule-book waving".
I do believe that folk song will never be taken seriously by the people who can 'make it happen' until those involved get their act together and overcome this odd fetish, but definition is not what is being discussed here and attempts to do so is quite likely to send this thread into yet another destructive exercise in tail chasing.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 15 Oct 13 - 04:21 AM

It's not the fallibility of Steve Roud I'm on about - I have a number of his books & regard him with typically cringing respect - rather the notions that underlie 'The Tradition', or what makes one person 'A Traditional Singer' and another person not, especially in a 20th / 21st century post-revival context. I do allow that lots of genuinely traditional material has gone 'uncollected' (Sam Lee is doing much good work in this respect) but extending that to random utterances of psuedo-folk songs such as 'Shoals of Herring' seems a tad precious.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Lighter
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 07:57 PM

> 'Shoals of Herring' has a Roud number, as does Jimmy Rodgers' 'Away Out on the Mountain'

A fragment of "Shoals of Herring," at least, was collected (naively) by H. P. Beck as a traditional song from an Irish singer who, apparently, hadn't learned it from a record. Beck wasn't infallible, and neither was his fisherman singer who knew only part of the song.

Nor has anyone suggested that Steve Roud is infallible.

Even if he *has* done some of the most important work in folk/trad scholarship of the past 50 years.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 05:56 PM

...unlike the English clubs were you couldn't throw a stone without hitting a Carthy copier, Bellamy bleater or Joanie Clone, failing that, a Watersons type mini-choir.

Bejaysus, Jim, you hit the nail right on the head there (I could be curmudgeonly and suggest that you omitted "Dylan whiner..."). OK, stereotypes to an extent, but not without substance, and, in every case, with a strong dash of self-regarding that I've seldom come across in anything resembling Irish sessions (you have to understand that, here in Cornwall, we can only do stuff that resembles Irish sessions!)

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 05:17 PM

I think you are part way there, Jim, when you say you see the same old faces. The same old faces are at the type of club where you get the same old music. Trouble is, both folk music and folk clubs have evolved. They may not have evolved into something that is up everyone's street but, as Selby says, they are there 'playing, singing, dancing and the tradition is live and well'. Unfortunately, for a lot of people, this means that the church that is folk music has become too broad. We will never all agree on what should and should not be played. Best idea is, if you like it, carry on. If not, pack it in! I, for one, have no axe to grind for or against the traditional music of 100 or more years ago. There is some I like and some I don't. Just like most music!

Cheers

DtG

BTW - I think we are talking of the same person in our comments!

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: The Sandman
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 04:34 PM

what a fascinating version of.. away out on the mountain, far superior to grandpa jones imo

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 04:22 PM

My point is that even though "TBPWM" does *not* have a Roud number (any more than does "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," which I happen to prefer) there is nothing in theory to keep either one of them from getting one in the far future.

'Shoals of Herring' has a Roud number, as does Jimmy Rodgers' 'Away Out on the Mountain' - though NOT (apparently) because it was sung by the late great Jane Turriff, as featured on YouTube (what is it with Mudcatters that persist with U-Tube?):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sn2UTXDIDCA

I don't get this, personally. The persistence of 'Traditional' into the modern age isn't something I'm convinced by and smacks of a pure-blood authenticity that sticks in my craw - and is genuinely the point I usually part company with Folkies and go and listen to something genuinely traditional like The Fall or Yes. No doubt 'The Revealing Science of God' or 'Jaw Bone and the Air Rifle' could have Round numbers too if they were to be covered by a 100% genuine bona-fide traditional singer.

A weird world...

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,alan Squires
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 04:08 PM

I recall chatting with Micho Russell, in Doolin in County Clare in 1979and he was very concerned about the onset of commercialism and TV in Ireland which had started to destroy homemade traditional music but he perceived it had only survived and started to grow again as a result of the activities of the Comhaltas, as it is now known as they arranged dancing singing and music classes for all of the traditional forms and promoted competitions( I used to enter some myself when I attended the local irish club) between clubs and thus engendered a love of the music and a facility where you could learn it.
Tell me where can you learn traditional instruments and style these days - to play English music. Did EFDSS take any lessons from Comhaltas - perhaps not. It is however good to see the Newcastle degree course bringing forward some brilliant performers of all sorts - we had to wait a long time for it though

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 04:03 PM

Grumpy - was talking about what was happening into the 80s when singing was on a high - I'm well aware of when the singers died, I heard most of them and spent 15 years recording Tom Lenihan.
There were still a number of influential singers around into the end of the 90 - Maggie Murphy, the Inishowen singers, and others, but the point I was making was that there were still plenty of field singers singing well - and were listened to and learned from - unlike the English clubs were you couldn't throw a stone without hitting a Carthy copier, Bellamy bleater or Joanie Clone, failing that, a Watersons type mini-choir.
It was around the early to mid 80s when I stopped visiting clubs other than the ones I could trust because I was coming away without hearing a song that vaguely resembled a folk song (as I had come to know it)
The success of the Irish scene was due to the foundation that was established - no - rulebook - as the old usual response suggests, just a desire to choose what I was listening to.
As Martin said, the Goilín kept the flag flying here, along with numerous singing weekends, Sligo, Carna, Cork, Ennistimon, Knockroughery, Ballyvourney.... - Ireland never had an extensive club scene in my experience, just a few stalwarts (think I'm right Martin?)
As I said, a fair way to go in order to catch up to the music.
"While the old foggies are here debating what has gone wrong in folk music"
Threads like this, along with U-tube and the dozen or so visits I have made over the last ten years to English clubs suggest otherwise most of which have been populated by the same old same olds I used to know way back when - only the hair is greyer.
As the captain of the Titanic was heard to remark - "What *****' iceberg?"   
If the scene is as healthy as some people claim it is, why do people keep opening these threads?
Someone came up with their answer a few years ago "If you want to hear good singing come to our club" - somewhere on the south coast.
Sorry, not convinced.
Jim Carroll
"Fogies" by the way - can see my way round perfectly without using fog-lights!

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: selby
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 03:34 PM

While the old foggies are here debating what has gone wrong in folk music the under 25's are out, playing, singing, dancing and the tradition is live and well
Keith

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 03:10 PM

Good Soldier Schweik: while I agree that there can be some danger of uniformity with the competitions, if you go to the Fleadh any year you can hear the diversity of styles being played. On top of that, many of these kids go on to be top adult players and to teach the next generation. And they play in sessions, of which there is an abundance almost everywhere in the country. When I lived in England you had to go looking for folk music; in Ireland traditional music almost comes looking for you.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,grumpy
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 01:42 PM

'The song side is still struggling to find its feet, though twenty odd years ago the singing scene was extremely promising, mainly due to the fact that there were still a fair number of the older generation of singers, Tom Lenihan, Eddie Butcher, Joe Holmes, Mary Anne Carolan...'

Jim seems to have lost track of the passing of time.

Eddie Butcher died in 1980.

Tom Lenihan died in 1990.

Joe Holmes died in 1978.

Mary Anne Carolan died in 1985.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Lighter
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 11:49 AM

> superlative covers of 'Plains of Waterloo' and 'Gamekeepers Lie Sleeping' but... in same breath she'd sing sentimental schlock like 'The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' (which no doubt has it's own Roud number by now). The songs belonged to two very different worlds, and I knew which I preferred and why that should be.

Thank God someone else thinks "TBPWM" is sentimental schlock. You are brave to say so.

Unfortunately the "folk" or "trad" label is no guarantee of quality or universal appeal: these are ultimately matters of personal taste. Lomax, and the rest collected plenty of tedious, uninspired but entirely traditional junk (though which items specifically will depend on whom you ask). And they'd have collected even more if they'd used a broader definition of what they were looking for.

My point is that even though "TBPWM" does *not* have a Roud number (any more than does "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," which I happen to prefer) there is nothing in theory to keep either one of them from getting one in the far future.

Except, of course, media standardization, which freezes words and music, and thus halts any significant "trad" changes. Maybe not everywhere and maybe not permanently, but for all practical purposes.

And change and notable variation are among the generally accepted defining features of "traditional music."

What's more, the "different worlds" are confined to our heads. In the real world, all these songs coexist and have their (sometimes contentious) fans.

Jim is right: if the London Philharmonic suddenly switched to Bix (at least without changing its name), its patrons would be confused and angry. And they'd be right, because "philharmonic" has a generally accepted meaning that's intimately bound up with "classical music," whose meaning is also generally accepted, no matter how fuzzy it may be around the edges.

Any label brings socially constructed expectations with it, but no two people's expectations are likely to be identical.

Subjective, occasionally ad hoc, definitions of "folk" and "trad," while useful and interesting, are less so to most people than are discussions of individual songs, styles, and performances.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Will Fly
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 10:30 AM

F# and a bit, 17/6 time

Sweet! Can't wait...

It's OK, Dave - I don't mind being Vic for a bit. He's really busy with the Lewes Folk Festival at the moment, so he'll be glad of the help... :-)

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 10:18 AM

"They never really took to it! ;>)>
Regards"

Well maybe there's something in that?

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 10:14 AM

Sorry - Vic=Will. I am attempting to multi-task. Doen't work for me :-)

Cheers

D.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 10:12 AM

BTW Steve (and Blandiver now I have seen your post too) I am now very particular in who and what I go and see in or out of folk clubs as well. I think it may be an age thing. When you realise that you have already had a lot more than you are going to get you do tend to spend your time a lot more wisely :-) Hence the reason I am no longer involved with the festival I mentioned and am no longer a regular at any folk club. There are some wonderful performers out there. We may have different tastes but I suspect we can all tell when a performance is somewhat short of what it should be.

Like Steve, we also have a session where a group of like minded friends gather round a table, usually with a drop or two
(or three or four...) of fine ale and sing and play until the early hours. Trouble is it is in a pub. No I'm not saying where. Some bastard will always ask us to play something, usually Irish, then proceed to sing half the first verse, three words from the second and a bit of the chorus, in F# and a bit, 17/6 time and go on to tell us how good this folk music is...

:D tG

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 09:54 AM

Yep - Agree with all that as well! Going back to the opening question I suspect there is no single answer but a combination of image and actuality. Trouble is, when I have said as much in the past, I have been shot down by people saying that folk IS a Victorian gentleman's concept performed in dingy back rooms and that there are no poor performers in folk clubs! The last one being from someone in your neck of the woods, Vic!

Maybe all we can do is do out best to improve both image and quality of performance and hope to encourage as many people as possible to do the same :-)

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 09:53 AM

With respect of defining folk there's two approaches. The more practical of the two is the empirical 'Folk Is As Folk Does' definition, which looks at what happens in The Name o' Folk and takes from there. I think of that as my Folk As Flotsam Theory and covers most of the diversity of things you may hear at your average Folk Festival or even see discussed here on Mudcat.

The other is a nebulous academic definition in that it must cover particular idioms of English / American / Australian Traditional Music and Song : i.e. the sort of material we all agree is Folk, just can't quite agree on the finer details. At least I can't! I've had this trouble from the start. Even when I was 13 I remember watching June Tabor in a wide eyed awe at her superlative covers of 'Plains of Waterloo' and 'Gamekeepers Lie Sleeping' but I'd be in utter despair of how in same breath she'd sing sentimental schlock like 'The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' (which no doubt has it's own Roud number by now). The songs belonged to two very different worlds, and I knew which I preferred and why that should be.

Folk wise I'm a total unreconstructed traddy, and, like Jim, have found myself absenting myself from folk clubs over the years until now when I can't face going at all (not the reason I didn't go to see Dick Miles at Fleetwood last week - I was really looking forward to that, but I just wasn't up to it healthwise). Folk songs to me are of the past & tell of that past; they were created within strict idioms by masters of their art - i.e. the not so very ordinary working class women & men who would have been masters of other crafts & trades too. It took Victorian Gentlefolk to define & take an interest in such Folklore - be it song, story, dance, custom, music or whatever. They collected it, stuffed it, ordered it - they didn't stop it from dying, they just preserved it in the museum that Traditional Lore now resides in. I like museums by the way - in my heart of hearts The Revival is like The Pitt Rivers. I applaud the work of Cecil Shiarp as much as I do The Brothers Grim and Asbjorsen & Moe. To paraphrase Ronald Hutton, it is a cornucopia of curiosities to inspire the very soul. At least the souls of those who are inspired by The Traditional.

When it comes to the performance of Traditional Material I'm torn between almost Folksy fiddle 'n' drones, or more Traditional idioms derived from electronic analogue ambience & experimental musics. I don't suppose many here would see that as being in any way 'Traditional', but in the sense of musical continuity and the life & times of my own cultural experience I see the VCS3 Putney and just as much a bespoke 'folk' instrument as a set of Northumbrian bagpipes and the music it produces part of the same wonder of sonic magic that the first musicians felt 50,000 years ago when they began to imitate the sounds of nature on their bull-roarers and antler-bone flutes.

Folk begins / ends here.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 09:48 AM

Excellent post Mr Fly. Though all the above is fine between consenting adults behind closed doors, as that nice Mr Rich said.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: MartinRyan
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 09:40 AM

Incidentally Jim, hasn't Irish traditional music and song dropped the 'folk' appellation?


They never really took to it! ;>)>

Regards

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 09:38 AM

I fully agree with that. I took my first faltering steps (at the age of 42!) in a dingy back room, and the support I got there kept me playing and what I now have is very precious to me. But I won't be spending much time in any folk clubs these days. You risk having a rattling good time - but you also risk having to endure, in churchy silence, some pretty dire stuff that should have been prepared much better (or ditched). I'd far sooner sit around a table with a few mates and play whatever we like and when we like within the idiom (whatever that means). I think I'm unconsciously contrasting almost guaranteed fun versus severe risk of no fun. You either make money out of it or get fun out of it. Other options are possibly slightly insane!

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Will Fly
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 09:12 AM

But I do not believe that is what kills of the traditional clubs. I think it is far more to do with image. When folk aficionados, such as many on hear, are happy to tell anyone who asks that folk is an invention of the Victorian upper classes or that it is performed only by well meaning enthusiasts in dingy back rooms than, as I said a couple of posts back, is it any wonder people are put off?

I would say, Dave, that what might kill off folk clubs and put people off the music is not the "dingy back room" syndrome, or the descriptions of the music as this or that invention. What puts people off is the shitty quality of the preparation - and thus shitty performance - of some of the people doing it. Good on Dave Weatherall - and people like the late Ms. Easby - for being critical of the GEFF (Good Enough For Folk) trope. There are plenty of folk venues in my area, but I avoid some of them like the plague because it's obvious that the people who perform at these places think that "doing" folk music is a doddle - with concomitant crap singing, crap attention to the material, crap presentation, crap attention to the audience, etc.

What we do in our own front rooms is our business, but presenting the music to people out there in a live situation demands engagement, attention, rehearsal, self-criticism and self-awareness. I'm very aware of the welcoming and tolerant attitude that traditionally pertains in clubs - for which I have had cause to be grateful for very many years - but I just wish that some of the people who take advantage of that tolerance and welcome would make the effort to reciprocate with dedication and hard work. I'm not saying that all performers have to be wonderful and top class - that's not the nature of this particular beast - but you sometimes get a level of laziness and ineptness in folk venues that just wouldn't be tolerated in other musical genres.

End of rant.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 08:49 AM

Aye - I get what you mean, Jim. If a newcomer to folk music hears, for instance, Bellowhead or Spiers and Boden then turns up to a club, expecting the same type of music, they will, like as not, be disappointed. They will probably get a mix of trad and contemporary with lots of other things thrown into the mix. It is a very difficult juggling act running a folk event. Do you lean to one definition or another? Or, as you say, do a Humpty-Dumpty and make up your own?

But I do not believe that is what kills of the traditional clubs. I think it is far more to do with image. When folk aficionados, such as many on hear, are happy to tell anyone who asks that folk is an invention of the Victorian upper classes or that it is performed only by well meaning enthusiasts in dingy back rooms than, as I said a couple of posts back, is it any wonder people are put off?

A late friend of mine, Dave Weatherall, rest his soul, once told me off for saying 'good enough for folk' when he was tuning up. And he was right to do so. Until we all believe that folk is not those things that I mentioned earlier, that it has moved on, that it is relevant, exciting and, more importantly, good to listen to and participate in, we will not improve the situation at all.

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 08:31 AM

What happens as folk, or rather what is popularly declared as folk, only sometimes coincides with traditional music and song. Much of it *is* more accurately described as "acoustic music."

Incidentally Jim, hasn't Irish traditional music and song dropped the 'folk' appellation?

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 08:02 AM

Good luck Dave - look forward to hearing how it goes.
The problem with identification terminology is not that people have reached a consensus, but many people have decided that it is not necessary, but have reached the Alice Through the Looking Glass decision that "words mean what I decide them to mean" - fine if that's the garden you live in - no good to those who decide to peep over the wall.
Mention the term 'definition' and out comes the crucifix and garlic.
I've said it before but.... I stopped going to most clubs (from a four/five-times-a-week addict) simply because I wanted the freedom to choose what I listened to when I wanted to listen to it.
I love classical music (in most of its definitions) but I'd be pissed off to turn up to an orchestral concert to be met with a Bix Beiderbeck (who I also love) soundalike - if that happened a couple of times the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall would very soon end up with no punters.   
I remain convinced that this is the cause of the decline in the folk scene as I experienced it.
Martin
Agree entirely - would love to expand when I have more time - hopefully it will pee with rain this afternoon so I can escape from the garden
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Tim Hague
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 07:09 AM

Good Morning
Yesterday at the Vaults Bar in Stony Stratford which must be one of the longest running sessions in the UK, dad came in with two little girls, one clutching a fiddle and the other a guitar, they couldn't have been much older than 6. We all made room and they sat down got their instruments down, played a couple of simple arrangements of scales and got the round of applause. That's the sort of thing we encourage at our session, I hope we are doing something right. I organise an acapella session in Stony Stratford 3 times a year, it's difficult to fight your way into the pub they are so popular, If you get out there and sing and play the audience will find you...

BTW the next Acapella is at 8pm at the Fox and Hounds on Dec 23rd, Stony High Street.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 06:32 AM

If you want to attract new people to what you are doing and you think 'folk music' is important enough to promote and worth passing on, you have to have at least a vague idea of what you mean by the term, otherwise you may as well just call what you do 'sing music' or some such term.

I think that is true, Jim. What I said though is 'nothing further can be said', meaning simply that it has all been discussed before. Whether you believe a conclusion has been agreed is another matter and a different question.

However, as long as people categorise folk music as something either done by well meaning enthusiasts in dingy back rooms or as an invention of 'Victorian gentlemen', then what chance do we have of attracting anyone? Something quite significant has happened to a festival I used to organise until recently. It has changed from a 'folk festival' to an 'acoustic music festival'. I think it is a good categorisation but whether it will attract anyone new remains to be seen. I will let you know next week!

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: The Sandman
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 04:30 AM

yes, guest, that is true, the down side is that some children get put off by the competitive nature, the competitive element can also be seen in attitudes to other musicians, some musicians regard other musicians as competitors, rather than people with whom they might enjoy sharing a tune and having a bit of craic with.
it is arguable whether Comhaltas competitions are a living tradition, there are so many rules about what you cannot do, that it is in my opinion more like an encouragement to play in one particular style,an attempt to make one style dominant, many local styles will not get beyond the regional competitions,in my opinion comhaltas encourage musicians to play in one style, the comhaltas style is not a living evolving tradition,you win a competition if you play in a pescribed style, a style that is approved by comhaltas
you are absolutely right,the comhaltas fleadhs do attract many musicians,but then so does willie clancy week, which is non competitive

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: MartinRyan
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 04:29 AM

What we have here are a largish number of 'singing circles' - anything goes sessions which appear to rise or fall on the standard of the singers involved - other than that, there appears to be no other central force holding them together.

While it is true enough that there is no central force, there are perhaps two distinguishable main sources contributing to the growth in "singers circles" in Ireland in recent years. One is the Góilín Singers Club which for many years has held a weekly session in Dublin and has encouraged so many people to have the courage (and the repertoire) to sing traditional songs when the opportunity presents itself. The second is the singing side of Comhaltas which feeds into the song/recitation repertoire of many people around the country.

There is clearly an element of "gathering the wagons in a circle" about such sessions in the face of the difficulty of finding space to sing at the much more common instrumental sessions. Nevertheless, in my experience, the visibility of singing sessions and singers does tend to open that space up somewhat...

Regards

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 03:58 AM

The level of ignorance of the traditional music 'scene' in Ireland is something to behold. The reality is that thousands of kids play the stuff, most secondary schools have a trad group, Comhaltas run classes and competitions all ofer the country, indeed, all over the world and 250,000 people will attend the Fleadh every year. It's a genuinely living tradition, of and with the people.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Oct 13 - 03:20 AM

"About which, I am sure, nothing further can be said"
Depends what your interests are and exactly were you are involved in folksong
If you are just out to listen to and sing a few songs, and you've found a venue that satisfied your needs - sure - it doesn't matter a rat's ass how you define what you do.
If you want to attract new people to what you are doing and you think 'folk music' is important enough to promote and worth passing on, you have to have at least a vague idea of what you mean by the term, otherwise you may as well just call what you do 'sing music' or some such term.
A grocer doesn't label his tins 'vegetables' if he wants to sell runner beans - simple as that.
Ireland's music is doing well because a group of enthusiasts established a starting point - a foundation, and worked from there.
The song side is still struggling to find its feet, though twenty odd years ago the singing scene was extremely promising, mainly due to the fact that there were still a fair number of the older generation of singers, Tom Lenihan, Eddie Butcher, Joe Holmes, Mary Anne Carolan.... to sit with and listen to - the high point of the Willie Clancy Schools was always Friday's singers concert and extended singing session, which were probably the most memorable for people like myself, and back then Topic Records did a magnificent job in making their singing available to a wider audience.
The interest in singing doesn't appear to have kept pace with the music scene here, though there are signs of a number of excellent young singers coming on to the scene.
What we have here are a largish number of 'singing circles' - anything goes sessions which appear to rise or fall on the standard of the singers involved, other than that, there appears to be no other central force holding them together.
We attended an excellent one of these last week in Kinvarra, where the standard was generally high and the songs nearly all fell into the category 'traditional' - we will go to as many future ones as we can manage, even though it means a 2 hour + journey and probably an overnight stay - if the singing had been otherwise we probably wouldn't bother and put the evening down to a convivial evening among nice people - no more.
As far as definition proper goes, 30-odd years ago we set out to record older singers; not just their songs, but the information that would allow us to put the songs, stories and music into some sort of context in order to understand how and why they were made and what part they played in our social history and culture - we didn't do too badly as far as it goes.
It turned out that the existing definitions, though flawed and very much in need of repair, worked quite well as a setting-out point.
The problem with Blandie, Harker et al... they seem to have adopted the old building trade adage that 'it's far easier to pull down something somebody else has built than to build something yourself'.
They are more than happy to flippantly pass off the work of others without putting something in its place - if Blandie has actually done any research work he appears to want to keep it to himself, and he seems not to even consider the work of others.
I find his destructive put-down attitude both destructive and deeply insulting.
What we've done with traditional singers (I even hesitate to use the term in his presence) doesn't make us right by any means, but at least we've put it to the test with traditional (that awful term again!) singers.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 13 Oct 13 - 01:57 PM

He doesn't hate folksong Richard - just the people who try to make sense of it, especially those who try to ascribe it to ordinary people rather than the invention of Victorian gentlemen


I am having difficulty understanding why anyone would 'hate' people for anything as trivial as the definition of folk music. Surely this does not make sense. Does it?

I have already had the discussion with Blandiver about whether it is the term or the music itself we were discussing and this is what it boiled down to -

(Me)So, are you saying that the term 'folk music' is inherently academic
(Blandiver>Yes.
(Me)Or are you saying that the songs that many of us class as folk music are inherently academic?
(Blandiver)No.

So, once again, it boils down to the definition of folk music. About which, I am sure, nothing further can be said!

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Oct 13 - 11:54 AM

Nope - you openly dismissed the efforts of young people playing Irish music as being sucked into an invented tradition - will dg it out if you feel it worth the effort - think it's the first time I used the term "begrudger" on this thread
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 13 Oct 13 - 08:36 AM

Sorry Blandie, your dismissal of young people now playing traditional Irish music did it for me - probably one of the most mean-minded pieces of begrudgery I have ever encountered -

I think you're mixing me up with someone else there, Jim - or else misinterpreting my weariness of Riverdance blandness with dismissal of more 'traditional' forms. I know lots of people (young & old) who play traditional Irish music & I would never dismiss them for doing so. In fact, more power to them.

Play fair, eh? Serenity Now, indeed.

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Oct 13 - 08:20 AM

"So choirs and competitions as a progression rather than folk clubs "
Did Peter suggest either/or - room for both, surely?
"Serenity Now! Serenity Now!"
Sorry Blandie, your dismissal of young people now playing traditional Irish music did it for me - probably one of the most mean-minded pieces of begrudgery I have ever encountered - and when put next to your own offerings.....!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Oct 13 - 07:57 AM

Peter Laban said:

"This video fragment, which has been taken from Sé Mo Laoch - Eoiní agus Danny Mhaidhcí Ó Súilleabháin, , probably illustrates the point that Nell is an intergral part of the Baile Mhuirne singing tradition. And probably shows, in the context of this thread, how singing and music in Ireland keeps going."

So choirs and competitions as a progression rather than folk clubs ?

Subject: RE: Traditional Music: Where are we going wrong?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 12 Oct 13 - 03:44 PM

Serenity Now! Serenity Now!