Is it really? (Recordings/Music On a Pedestal)

Subject: RE: Is it really? (Recordings/Music On a Pedestal
From: Giant Folk Eyeball (inactive)
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 03:02 PM

Jeri.

So... travelling minstels, griots, jesters, bards? Are these not all professional entertainers of years gone by? What's with this myth of folk traditions always being about the veneration of the amateur?

It's all well and good to have anyone participating in singarounds, private gatherings, stuff taking place in the home, etc etc. And that's part of the folk tradition (though not always about folk music - private singing within my family was never about traditional song). These informal gatherings are for whoever feels like participating: ability, skill, talent, professionalism etc doesn't come into it. Yes, we'll tolerate pissed up Uncle Fred singing a rubbish song out of tune and getting the words wrong and going on for way too long... after all, he's family...

Professional singers of traditiional song, however, are a different matter entirely. They are taking your money to do a job, and as such certain standards apply - just the same as if they were plumbers or social workers or hairdressers or computer programmers. This doesn't make them 'pop' - it makes them good at their job. And what the hell is 'pop' about a decent standard of musicianship? Does this expectation around professional standards somehow 'taint' folk music? Do you really want badly played, badly sung, badly recorded folk records? Do you really want to keep it small and minority and obscure, or do you want to be able to say to your friends, 'listen to this music I love. It really is something special'?

And a recording may be a moment frozen in time, but the person making the recording better be putting all of their heart and soul into making it special if they're expecting me to part with £12.00 for it: regardless of the programming policies of US radio stations. I think I have every right to expect that. If they're not prepared to put in the effort, frankly, they're in the wrong job.

This is a bit of a rant, I know, but I'd love to get rid of all that is smug and insular and deeply unnappealing about folk music.

Cheers

Nigel

Subject: RE: Is it really? (Recordings/Music On a Pedestal)
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 11:04 AM

Clearly, the moment you play your tune out for the first time it ceases to be yours alone as players (or so the musician hopes) incorporate it into the vast treasury of what has gone before. A musician's greatest achievement is to have the courage to add to our cultural heritage. But the greatest nightmare is to have it buggered up or, even worse, labelled 'f*lk music', a meaningless, way-past-sell-by term.

Of course a recording is a mere snapshot in time. A further example of digital advance aiding musicality is that different takes at different times can be compared bit by bit (as it were). Should you want to.

Subject: RE: Is it really? (Recordings/Music On a Pedestal
From: Jeri
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 09:50 AM

First, you have

Folk music set up on a pedistal is going nowhere - if you want a tune with no ending 'to resolve' then what you do is make one up - because that is what happens when musicians make music. A tune will get away, it runs like water or sand, from one player to the next, from one playing to the next, gliding between instruments and keys and modes and minds and from one playing to the next and never quite the same always taking a little but leaving more, and always from one playing to the next so it is not and never will be what one person thinks of it, because it is always something old and new and borrowed and you can even blue it ... recording it is just like making water into ice, a pause, nothing more.

Then Dave Polshaw sums up his intepretation

What the author appears to be saying is that good music is not worth recording.

Huh?

You really DO have a frozen moment in time, no matter how good the music is. Real life isn't that way, and folk music in the real world isn't that way. I've known people who've recorded a song, but never played it the same way before or after.

And there really should be not criticism of 'good enough for folk'. REAL folk music has to be learned, little children play and sing it, old people whose voices are worn or whose hands don't work as well as they used to, and everybody in between who are just trying to improve. They're not perfect and may not even be good, but they're 'good enough for folk'.

They wouldn't be good enough to record. I wouldn't buy a recording of someone who wasn't a lot better than the average community musician, but recordings are where folk meets pop. Recordings are 'hot' today and totally forgotten tomorrow. Radio stations, at least in the US, play newer releases, and if it's older than a month, possibly less, it's hardly ever played. Radio stations exist to sell records and to give people a taste of what's new. We wind up with charts and polls and awards and all sorts of pop music industry features used for folk.

So, you talk about your folk recordings as if they were pop, and the most important thing is the musicianship, not the music. I will search scratchy 30-year-old recordings all the way up to modern recordings - folk, pop or otherwise - for music I want to learn. Then I will go play it somewhere with other people. I will try to be good and will enjoy it. I will likely change it even if I try not to, but I probably won't record it.

This 'living tradition' doesn't exist to support the recording industry, but the recording industry can help people find and learn songs. At best, the relationship is symbiotic. At worst, some poor soul comes along who tries to make people believe if you aren't good enough to be a 'star', you shouldn't try. You can feel whatever way about it you like, but I and my friends will keep singing.

Oh, and I'd hope future ad hominem attacks aren't tolerated here.
That looks like the fatal trend in the thread started by someone asking about a piece of music used for an advert.

Subject: RE: Is it really? (Recordings/Music On a Pedestal)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 09:09 AM

Maybe I did read too much into it, Kevin. If so I apologise unreservedly to the original poster of the passage. I don't think so though. All the danger signals are there -

1. if you want a tune with no ending 'to resolve' then what you do is make one up.

If this doesn't suggest that it's OK to bugger up someone elses music then I don't know what does. OK - Some may improve with 'making bits up'. The vast majority will not

2. it runs like water or sand, from one player to the next, from one playing to the next, gliding between instruments and keys and modes and minds and

Oh, god. Sorry. I can't even bring myself to repeat any more of this 60's twaddle without a good dose of LSD. As soon as I see or hear it the shutters go up in defence agaist being assailed by more Hurdy Gurning Men, Tales of Pornographic Oceans or Knights Sat in White.

I realy do try to be open minded and there are lots of current singer songwriters of many genres that I do enjoy. But in my time at the local folk club I have heard far more from the Vogon Poets of Adams' Guide than I have of Bob Dylan. Maybe I am just getting too gumpy in my dotage or maybe I have just realised that the limited time left is far to precious to be wasted smiling politely at the people who make the music 'better'!

And I do quite like MFAFH - even with it's lack of ending. But just because an Irish band plays it does not make it folk music. In fact it is as misrepresentative as that Morrisons delivery bloke joining forces with all and sundry to 'help' make 'his roots music' popular.

It was also as much the fact that anyone detracting from the viewpoint that this tune was wonderful and should be played by all and sundry on the brain removal box was stopped from voicing their opinion by an over zelous elf. Why is it that anyone who speaks their mind against a paricular passage of music is silenced but political critisism and character assasination seems to be fair play on this 'music' forum?

Oh, one final thing. Melissa. I was being kind by dropping the line about 'play it, dance it, sing it.' It is nothing but another cliche to add to the passage and if I included that I would also have to include Well this has turned out a pathetic as I thought it might and just stop whigeing, please. Both phrases quite likely to cause 'catfight nonsense'. And no, I did not bring it to another thread to cause trouble. I brought it to another thread because someone did not like the valid arguments on that thread had already decided to close it. What else am I supposed to do if I had further comment to make?

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: Is it really? (Recordings/Music On a Pedestal)
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 05:56 AM

In the first place, the piece of music under discussion is NOT 'f*lk music' (whatever that is) but a quite recent composition of very well-known origin by the late musician/producer Simon Jeffes, whose work has been described as modern, semi-acoustic chamber music arising from a dystopian dream arising from a bout of food-poisoning delirium.

A version of the tune has been sampled for some tellyad for which, it is to be hoped, all royalty dues have been paid. Its precise origin was the composer finding a harmonium in a skip and, indeed Music For A Found Harmonium was the first tune he wrote in it. Allegedly. This may or may not serve to explain why it is constructed (like it or not) the way it is. No-one knows and he cannot now be asked. The fact remains that it is very much in copyright and a different arrangement should be credited as such: Composer SJ / Arr Joe Bloggs.

The subtext of the post Dave plucked from elsewhere is the flawed philosopy of a certain 'good enough for f*lk' gang who think they can do what the hell they like with any music whatever the provenance without credit or payment. They cannot and this is one loophole which the digital revolution is going some way to close. Musicians deserve protection of their livelihoods whether or not you actually like their work. That is not the point.

Subject: RE: Is it really? ('What is Folk?' 2007)
From: melodeonboy
Date: 28 Dec 07 - 08:06 PM

I agree with you on this one, McGrath, especially your first sentence. And your quotation from Sydney Carter is spot on.

What's all the fuss about?

Subject: RE: Is it really? ('What is Folk?' 2007)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Dec 07 - 07:35 PM

It seems to me that Dave has read into that quote quite a lot of stuff that isn't really in there. All Rumncoke seems to be saying is that music keeps on changing as it goes around, and always will. Which seems commonsense to me. It gets written down or recorded, and that's a valuable way of preserving what was played or sung at one particular time and place, maybe by the person who made it up, maybe by someone passing it on.

But there's no reason to assume that that is going to be the end of it - it never has been in the past.

There's a quote from Sydney Carter I had occasion to post in a frecebt thread which seems apposite: "There is nothing final in the songs I wrote, not even the words, the rhythm and the melody. This is not an oversight; I would like them to keep on growing, like a tree. They have a form, I hope; so does a tree. But it is not fixed and final. It must develop according to the time and place, it must adapt itself to soil and weather." Some songwrites don't see it that way. But that's how it sems to work in practice.

Subject: RE: Is it really? ('What is Folk?' 2007)
From: Melissa
Date: 28 Dec 07 - 06:44 PM

Ice melts and turns back into water...it's a perfectly fine form of preservation and I have no argument with the metaphor.

The chosen quote appears obnoxious with the exclusion of the line about "...play it, dance it, sing it..."
Did you bring it into a new thread because you LIKE the catfight nonsense that was going on in the other thread?

Subject: RE: Is it really? ('What is Folk?' 2007)
From: PoppaGator
Date: 28 Dec 07 - 06:35 PM

I'm not entirely clear about what we're discussing here ~ especially if it's not yet another variation on "What Is Folk?"

I'll throw in these semi-random but hopefully relevant observations:

The learning and passing-along of songs is entirely different since the invention of sound recording devices than it ever was before. This is equally true of "folk" and "classical" music.

Within the realm of folk music, and especially within the most improvisatory and informal traditions or "sub-genres" (e.g., The Blues), the existence of a particular recording often takes on a sacrosanct "written-in-stone" aura that was never intended and should not be regarded as seriously as many "scholars" might prefer. A given folk artist may have sung and played a particular song just a bit differently every time he/she performed it, but the version that came out on the day Mr. Collector showed up with his tape recorder has now somehow become the one and only "true original" form. Not true! Contemporary musicians should feel just as free to rephrase and reinterpret as their predecessors did.

Subject: RE: Is it realy? ('What is Folk?' 2007)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Dec 07 - 06:21 PM

Oh - and sorry MudElf. I do NOT want a discussion on what is folk music. I never intimated any such thing. Please explain why you added such nonsense to the title and remove it forthwith.

Thanks

D.

Subject: RE: Is it realy?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Dec 07 - 06:16 PM

Do the phrases

"Well this has turned out a pathetic as I thought it might."

"If it is music then play it, dance it, sing it, whistle in the shower feel it in the street, take it with you when you go -"

and

"just stop whingeing, please."

Really add to the discusion. Jeri? They were the only ones I missed. As to who formulated the whole concept of 'Folk music on a pedestal is going nowhere' then I doubt very much that 'rumncoke' is the first to voice that opinion and will not be the last.

Just what is your point please?

D.

Subject: RE: Is it realy?
From: Jeri
Date: 28 Dec 07 - 06:11 PM

Oh, I got it. Rumncoke, and the whole post was:

Well this has turned out a pathetic as I thought it might.

Folk music set up on a pedistal is going nowhere - if you want a tune with no ending 'to resolve' then what you do is make one up - because that is what happens when musicians make music. A tune will get away, it runs like water or sand, from one player to the next, from one playing to the next, gliding between instruments and keys and modes and minds and from one playing to the next and never quite the same always taking a little but leaving more, and always from one playing to the next so it is not and never will be what one person thinks of it, because it is always something old and new and borrowed and you can even blue it ... recording it is just like making water into ice, a pause, nothing more.

If it is music then play it, dance it, sing it, whistle in the shower feel it in the street, take it with you when you go -

just stop whingeing, please.

I have to agree that recording freezes one particular playing of a song or tune at one particular moment of its history. Doesn't have to stay frozen.

Subject: RE: Is it realy?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Dec 07 - 06:03 PM

Sorry, Jeri - Something to do with music for a found harmonium and it being used as a TV advert. And does it realy matter who wrote it? I am not particularly impressed by names and rarely remember them. Mea Culpa:-(

D.

Subject: RE: Is it realy?
From: Jeri
Date: 28 Dec 07 - 05:59 PM

Dave, what was the thread and who wrote what you've copied?

Subject: RE: Is it realy?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Dec 07 - 05:54 PM

BTW - my tastes are far from 'conservative'. I do love the stuff Maddy Prior has been doing with 'Span and the Carnival Band recently but I also enjoy Amy McDonald, Steve Earle and ChumbaWumba. My last 2 traditional albums were the Stones 'Let it Bleed' and the Beatles White Album while my latest choice of 'modern' stuff was Katheryn Tickells Air Dancing.

Funny stuff this music...

Subject: Is that realy what music is about?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Dec 07 - 05:48 PM

Sorry for the vague title. It's all I could think off. A thread, now closed, contained the paragraph

Folk music set up on a pedistal is going nowhere - if you want a tune with no ending 'to resolve' then what you do is make one up - because that is what happens when musicians make music. A tune will get away, it runs like water or sand, from one player to the next, from one playing to the next, gliding between instruments and keys and modes and minds and from one playing to the next and never quite the same always taking a little but leaving more, and always from one playing to the next so it is not and never will be what one person thinks of it, because it is always something old and new and borrowed and you can even blue it ... recording it is just like making water into ice, a pause, nothing more.


Well, sorry. I just find that unbelievably naive and pretentious at the same time! Music will get away. Of course it will. But are all the avenues it explore to my taste? Are they hell. Are all the highways and byways good? Of course not. What the author appears to be saying is that good music is not worth recording. Why the hell not? If old George MacNuddle down the local has a song that everyone enjoys and is happy with then record it for heavens sake! Old George won't be there for long. If Stefan Bjorn Dillon wants to do his own thing with that tune, in A minor (nearly) then let him. But don't expect Georges family to like it! Or me.

If recording music is like turning water into ice then bring on the frigidaire. Let the new generation listen and learn. And then give us a new but GOOD version. Not all change is good. Not all tradition is bad.

There. Off my chest.

D.