Original Music That Sounds Traditional?

Subject: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: The Shambles
Date: 30 Jan 99 - 08:32 AM

In the John Tams thread there was some mention of songs written by him that people would have said were traditional. It was also mentioned that Richard Thomson had also written songs that were the same and I'm sure there are many others, Ewan McColl, Cyril Tawney spring to mind from the UK. I'm sure there are many more from here and any other parts of the world. Further examples would be welcome.

It opens up an interesting line of debate.
1 Is it a good thing that songs can be written in a style that could be mistaken for a traditional song?
2 Is it a good idea for new writers to consciously try and write songs in this style?
3 Is it the only way that some people will actually be prepared to listen to original material?
4 If the original songs in this style can be so easily mistaken for the 'real thing' does this not make some of the purist's views somewhat invalid, in a musical sense if not a scholarly one?

In the 'Ashokan Farewell' thread. the same thing seems to be happening for tunes. The tune sounds so traditional that some people are reluctant to believe that it was written fairly recently by Jay Ungar.

I personally think that traditional is a nonsense word when applied to music (as are most of the labels and categories used to describe it). Despite our improving attempts to record music, by it's nature it is something that only really exists in the present, in the air, at the moment of creation and is gone. All that remains is the emotion triggered by those moments. (Phew that was a bit heavy)

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 30 Jan 99 - 09:55 AM

Hi- Traditional doesn't mean old; it means simply belonging
to a tradition (whatevet THAT means). It's fairly easy
to identify songs that are obviously not traditional;
the arguments start with what IS.

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: Bobby Bob, Ellan Vannin
Date: 30 Jan 99 - 12:18 PM

The other point is that a song may not necessarily be written "to deceive" people into thinking it's traditional. Some singers come up with a song that sounds the part, but it may be that singer's take on a pop song. Martin Carthy has been doing this recently. De Danann did some Beatles tunes and the result was pretty folky.

Many a person may never have heard of Ewan McColl, but may have heard Ewan McColl's songs, and sung a version of them, changing them to fit their own memory of how it went or some new circumstance. The song is, arguably, no longer McColl's because oral transmission has taken over.

In another thread, there were the lyrics of "Annan Water". That's quite clearly taken on a life of its own outside of the words written by Sir Walter Scott. I've heard the song over the years, but never realised the Scott connection.

Similarly with "Now Westlin' Winds", which I found out later was a Burns lyric. However, I've heard different people sing it, tweaking the lyrics to their own requirements. Is there, then, a "real" text and the others are merely "mistakes"?

Many of the collectors report their informants' comments about a song being as old as the hills, before coming out with something that was clearly drawn from the music hall. The point is, the informant hadn't necessarily heard it there - probably hadn't, in fact. The informant had picked it up from somebody else's singing, and no doubt with some changes too.

There was a sleevenote with a Planxty album some years ago, and I think Christy Moore made a reference to a "field trip" - through somebody else's record collection. If we hear it, like it and sing it, we probably don't reproduce exactly what we heard. Is this not just an up-to-date oral tradition?

Shoh slaynt,

Bobby Bob

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: Len N (inactive)
Date: 30 Jan 99 - 12:47 PM

Dick, to build off of your comment, I would say that all music comes out of a tradition, (ther is very little if anything in the way of music, or any other artform that has been created in a vacuum, the relevant questions would be, what tradtion does a particular song come out of, and whether it honors the particular tradition it came out of or not.

Len

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From:
Date: 30 Jan 99 - 01:35 PM

There is the music of people like Stan Rogers and Tom Lewis which people will sing, even knowing or not knowing who wrote them. Totally enjoyable, but they are such that they feel timeless. The Last Shanty seems like it's been around forever, yet is probably only about 10 years. Other singer/songwriters like Dave Stone and Vince Morash from the Halifax area write other songs of the sort which are easy to remember and sing. The songs we NOW sing as traditional folk were written by someone at some point in time. To gain acceptance by the world at large, they have to be heard first, and upon those first exposure to an audience will define whether is is traditional or not.

Every area has their own singer/song-writers who have a feel for this kind of music, and will write in that vein. They're not looking to "cash-in" on the traditional music market. If they were looking to make money, they probably wouldn't be writing in this form. However, they LOVE this music, and it permeates the   music they write and perrform.

Someone in another similar thread said they were disappointed in hearing these original songs touted as folk. Most of them are singing totally from the heart. For instance, a local performer, Bill Shaw, wrote a song called The Planters. It takes a little known portion of Nova Scotia history, from the Evangeline period, and imbues it with his personal feelings. His family came to Nova Scotia as one of those Planters. Vince Morash has written a song about the fishing industry, Fishing Where I'm Not Supposed to Be which is about a cousin of his who got hit hard by the cuts in the fishing industry. His song Roger and Lila addresses the concern of all people in the fishing industry on the subject of what happens when they get old! These songs may be NEW, less than 10 years, but they are well thought of but audiences, and other song-writers.

So, original songs may be traditional quite easily, and be part of the tradition as well. It depends   on the person who performs it and the one who hears is.

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 30 Jan 99 - 03:30 PM

I think that we learn music much the same way that we learn language. When we learn language, we learn more than just words. We learn speech patterns and melodies, ideas, and culture. As we make a language a part of ourselves and begin to express ourselves in it, we become part of the idiom of that language. It becomes part of us, and we part of it.
Same for music. If our music of choice is traditional music, it becomes our musical style. If we write music, it's likely to come out in a "traditional" style. "Traditional" is our musical language. Therefore, I think it's very natural that Jay Ungar and others would produce music that soungs traditional - that's their language. They're not copying another style. They're expressing themselves in the style that is their own.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: The Shambles
Date: 30 Jan 99 - 04:08 PM

Well said Joe, good common sense a usual.

It's the notion of validity or of being the 'real thing' that I have trouble with. If it works musically then that is all that matters to me, for it is music we are talking about.

The words to a song like 'The Mountains Of Mourne' are not traditional or from the tradition but are pure Music Hall, written by Percy French. That does not mean that the emotions created by the words (and it's wonderful tune) are any less than those created by a 150 year old ballad.

Bobby Bob, good points again.

As to what you were saying about the 'singers take' on a song. Could the version of Buddy Holly's 'Rave on', performed in a 'Young Tradition'/'Waterson's' fashion by Steeleye Span, some 20 years ago, be considered a traditional song?

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: Tiger
Date: 30 Jan 99 - 04:27 PM

It may not be folk, but I thought it was.

"Edelweiss" from "The Sound of Music" sure as hell sounds like it was traditional Austrian, sung for a hundred years, maybe.

Not so - straight from the pens of Rogers & Hammerstein.

......Tiger

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: katmuse
Date: 30 Jan 99 - 05:45 PM

Apropos especially of Joe O's and George S's comments above, here's an excerpt from a longer posting I just added to the "Ashokan Farewell" thread, having just read all the previous ones there as well as here:

For what it's worth, I've heard Jay Ungar say that he had the tune (Ash.F.) running around in his head, and that it has similarities to other tunes that he'd been playing in similar idiom; so it's no wonder that it sounds like an old trad. tune. I believe he's also said that his creative imagination may have put the tune together [or maybe it put itself together in his creative ear] from bits of other, similar old-style waltzes running around in his head from his immersion in traditional music, but didn't lift the tune itself. (My paraphrase of his thought as I understood it.)

I'm sure he composed it himself -- the collective unconscious/subconscious ear is a powerful directing force when a musician doodles around a lot on his/her accustomed instrument in a particular familiar genre (it's part of the _play_ in "playing"), steeping like tea, seeping like -- oops, I'm getting tangled in a metaphor/simile swamp -- anyway, it's easy to think while doodling that one is coming up with a new tune and then later realize that it feels SO RIGHT! so resonant, because it's really _almost_ that other tune you loved so well, or contains partial phrases thereof that grab you and won't leave you alone.

In any case, Ash.F. is a gorgeous tune, one that can endure on its own and become part of the trad. body of Celtic-Anglo-Amer. music, as is happening quickly in this case...

======

And then there are cases like the original songs composed by Jean Ritchie (e.g., Blue Diamond Mines," under the name of Than Hall) in the idiom of the Kentucky mountain tradition that she grew up in, altho she wrote them after she had become part of the more urban, more self-aware folk-revival world that most all of us here now discussing cats inhabit and debate about.

Someone sings about the things with which she/he identifies, issues of personal and cultural concern, humor, etc., in her/his culture, in the style(s) available within that culture. At what point is it considered "traditional" or "non-trad.," when our various inherited smaller-group traditions become more widely accessible and begin to intermingle increasingly, as they've been doing for this last half of 20th century?

These discussions about "What is traditional, and where are the boundary lines, and what fits exactly where, and who can be considered The Genuine Folk, and if it sounds/looks like the real thing is it really the real thing, or close enough for acceptance even if it was acquired from the outside rather than the inside," etc., have been going on for at least the last 40 years that I know of, and probably longer. (In the folk-art field for over 60 years that I've read about.) I used to feel more purist about the questions and definitions than I do now. Maybe my thinking has degenerated, or has it evolved? (If it quacks like a duck but isn't a duck will the other ducks consider it duck-like enough to quack back?)

(But Buddy Holly filtered thru Steeleye Span a la the Watersons/Young-Tradition of 20 yrs. ago -- whose tradition would this be a traditional representation of? The modern all-of-us? Or the kind of crossover that's in the direction of Kiri Te Kanawa singing "Good Night Irene"? (Or Marion Anderson or Paul Robeson singing black spiritual songs from their own cultural traditions but in white concertization style rather than in black family-community style?)

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 30 Jan 99 - 06:18 PM

Kat, I have to say I like all of those recordings you listed in your last paragraph. Robeson and Marion Anderson (and Jessye Norman and Kathleen Battle) have concert recordings of spritituals that are absolutely thrilling. Another excellent recording is the first volume of the Smithsonian/Folkways Wade in the Water Series, "African American Spirituals: The Concert Tradition." The whole collection is good - some of the best of the recordings presented by Bernice Johnson Reagon on her "Wade in the Water" series on National Public Redio.
I haven't heard Kiri Te Kanawa singing "Good Night Irene," but she does great work on the songs of Gershwin and Irving Berlin. I imagine I'd like her recording of "Irene."
The Steeleye Span recording of "Rave On" is good - but it ain't traditional, and it certainly ain't Buddy Holly. Buddy Holly's songs are certainly classics that will live for generations, but they certainly aren't the style that we call "traditional." There is one thing about all these recordings that's different from "traditional" music - they're identified with individual performers, and not the music of a community.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 30 Jan 99 - 08:08 PM

A classic of this genre is "The Night They Drove Ol Dixie Down".It has the mood of the time, an accuracy of content, and a traditional melody and chorus that make it sound authentic 19th century. Levon Helm was the author,I believe. A popular hit was Joan Baez's version, which certainly screwed up the lyrics.Instead of "Stoneman's cavalry" she sang "SO much cavalry", and in another line she sang"I took the train to Richmond to sell" which was more forgivable, since I have yet to figure out what Levon was singing there.

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Jan 99 - 08:13 PM

"If it quacks like a duck but isn't a duck will the other ducks consider it duck-like enough to quack back?"....

well, THIS duck will! I like certain types of music...'most' of which are traditional, and if you write a song today that fits that mood, style, feeling, subject matter, etc., I will welcome it as 'in the tradition', though not yet traditional..(you want PRIME examples? do a database search on Craig Johnson). If, on the other hand, you write a breathy, atonal bit of navel-gazing, and happen to play it on an acoustic guitar, it will NEVER be traditional folk! [It may become traditional "introspective multichordal fluff" someday...but those who DO that sort of thing don't seem to like my labels.. *grin*...they want to use pre-established categories and just surreptitiously expand the boreders]

Some has to write music, else there will be no new music...and when a song feels right, sure...bring it in! It is being done occasionally, as noted above, and there is some good music being written that is NOT 'in the tradition'...and I will listen and enjoy...but I won't put it in the same bin just because I like it. Categories have a purpose!

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: The Shambles
Date: 30 Jan 99 - 09:21 PM

Bill D Great stuff Bill.

Kat

Thank you for your contribution, I would suggest that your thinking has evolved rather than degenerated.

Joe

I'm not too sure that I follow your reasoning re 'Rave on', their version is certainly done in traditional style, it certainly is Buddy Holly and it is good. Can it not be all three? By some of the reasoning I have seen here, (i.e.; that if it is done in traditional style, it is traditional) it would be considered traditional.

I'm not claiming that it is traditional, it doesn't matter to me what it's called. I only use it as an example of the tangles we can get ourselves in, with the use of these labels. I think there always was an element of humour in that recording anyway, as long as we don't ever lose that things will be OK.

I take your point about being the music of a community; maybe the community has just changed to a larger one? There are not many song sessions I go to, that would not have someone singing a Buddy Holly song at some time. My father and my brother taught me to play Peggy Sue along with Goodnight Irene, St James Infirmary and Scarborough Fair, does that not make Peggy Sue a traditional song?

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 30 Jan 99 - 10:46 PM

I stand in awe of your curmudgeonry, Bill D. Wehn I grow up, I wanna be just like you....
But Shambles, you are truly misguided. A thousand years from now, "Rave On" will still be a Buddy Holly song, forever identified with its author. Yes, I suppose that in some ways, it will be as much a part of tradition as the songs of Cole Porter and George & Ira Gershwin and Rodgers & Hart will be, but it will never be in what we refer to as "traditional" style. Not even if Peter, Paul and Mary choose to record it.
I think I'm learning from Bill already....
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: Don Meixner
Date: 30 Jan 99 - 10:56 PM

Bill D.

I must say that you and I are probably related in some way. " Atonal...Navel Gazing." I love it. Very few people can do a good job of introspective writing that I find I like. Gordon Bok does nearly all the time. Kate Wolf was hit or miss for me, mostly miss.

I will still argue that it is more the singing that is the tradition and less the song. For centuries songs and ballads were the entertainment and to a certain degree, the way the tribal (human/clan/family) history was passed along. "Roddy McCorley" would have been an unknown participant in a little known rebellion in the history Ireland had not somebody taken the time to create the song we know as traditional today. But the song spread the story and both Roddy's heroic stand and the Antrim rebellion have their places assured in history because of it.

The topical songs of Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton, and that Bob guy carried the tradition along. The Ballad of Medgar Evers, Goodman and Schwerner and Chaney, The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carrol are great examples of this thesis. These songs all tell the stories of these people who were martyred in the cause of civil rights. They all tell a story start to finish through song. Had they been written in a less technological age we would probably never know the names of the authors but the songs would still be here. Mainly because of other singers spreading the story. (I'll grant that Life Magazine will help to carry these stories along too, but thats only futher acceptance on my part of the technological age.)

Its the singer more than the song that is the tradition.

Don

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 30 Jan 99 - 11:11 PM

You know, since I joined this forum, I've found at least a half dozen 'Catters whose contributions I always seek out and read. They make good sense to me, even if I don't always agree with them completely. May I ask the lot of you to move over and make room for another?

Welcome, Katmuse! I'm looking forward to more of your contributions.

Sandy (senior newbie curmudgeon)

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: Frank in NJ
Date: 31 Jan 99 - 03:22 AM

I'd like to say thanks again to Joe Offer for his "take" on yet another "sticky" subject. I have wracked with the subject of this thread for many years and jumped in as soon as I saw it looking for an answer. My wife and I sing in a "Traditional" 1800's style. The songs we choose to cover may be only a few years old but are written in a "traditional" "style" that we choose to follow (as we see it). Our style of singing makes the song sound very old. Are we doing "traditional" music or are we doing something else in a tradition/style (if I understand what Don Meixner is saying)? Those that attend our performance have not a knowledge beforehand of the songs, or of our style, yet they bawl their eyes out as the intensity of the old style drives the very sad lyric. Afterward they appreciate learning of our effort to present a style from 100 years ago, but are not aware or seem to care from where the songs come. I now think the question if there is one is more convoluted than the answer. I will rely on the finality of the Mudcatters decisions. Keep em' comming! And thanks,Frank.

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: The Shambles
Date: 31 Jan 99 - 03:39 AM

Joe

Thanks for putting the backslash back in my life. I wiil respond again when I have had time to read and understand exactly what all these fine contributors are saying. I am enjoying the ride though. Rave On? (*smiles*)

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 31 Jan 99 - 05:39 AM

Say, Frank in NJ, do you thing you can do "Rave On" and "Peggy Sue" in your "Traditional" 1800's style? The recalcitrant Shambles insists it should be so. Wanna try?
I suppose it could be done, and has been done, but it comes off as a parody of both the traditional style and of the rock 'n roll song.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: The Shambles
Date: 31 Jan 99 - 09:26 AM

Joe

Sorry to 'Rave On' but as ever you have made me think.

A good example of how the community has changed can be shown by using groups like Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention. I have been away and have come back to the scene as it were. When I was first involved, groups like these were considered by the folk establishment as 'young upstarts' and their music close to heresy. When I returned to active involvement after 20 years or so, I was amazed to find that these groups were now considered as the very model of tradition itself (and also considered by some in the U.S., to be Celtic!, but that's another story and yet another label).

I think it would be fair to state that in their earliest line ups, that Buddy Holly (and his Strat) were more of an influence to Fairport Convention that the English Tradition.

As for Frank in NJ (a warm welcome to you both) singing Buddy Holly songs in their style, being a parody of both styles. It depends on this concept that some people have, of validity or the 'real thing', if you don't have that and the song works musically (which is all I am interested in and Frank too by the sound of it) then there is nothing to parody. But I do see your point.

The fact that 'Rave On' will always be associated with it's author, Buddy Holly, has more to do with efforts of his publishers and the executors of his estate, than it does to it's suitability for inclusion in the tradition.

This is all good stuff though and I would still be interested in the answers to the questions, 1, 2, 3 and 4, in the first posting.

Frank in NJ

The answer is 42, it is indeed the question that is the problem. Just keep on what you are doing and in time, you too will be considered the very model of the tradition. (*smiles*).

The (recalcitrant) Shambles.

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From:
Date: 31 Jan 99 - 12:53 PM

Isn't it "I took the train to Richmond, it fell"? Richmond that is, not the train. Why would he sell the train, and to whom?

Actually I've never thought that that song made much sense anyway, although it has a nice melody.

Who is Stoneman, anyway? I don't recall ever reading a reference to him or his cavalry.

"Fiddlers' Green" is a prime example of a fairly recent song that sounds traditional. So is The Dark Island. Down east most people think that Cape Breton Lullaby is traditional. It isn't, was written by Kenneth Leslie, first appeared in print in the 1960's, and is very much still in copyright. Some of the well-known Newfoundland songs which people think of as traditional were written in this century, and their authors are known.

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 31 Jan 99 - 01:29 PM

Richard Nixon's the neame and I won every damn campaign,
Stonewalled Congress's game and tore up the tapes again,
In the summer of '74 they were angry and demanding more,
By August 8th I had to tell because a tape can remember all too well.

Chorus)
On the night they drove old Dickie down,
All the people were singin',
On the night that they drove old Dickie down,
Dan Rather was singin',
He went, "Ya ya ya ya ya ya---ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya...

(That's all I've ever heard of this parody from the Watergate era.)

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From:
Date: 01 Feb 99 - 07:32 PM

I wonder whether tunes are in a different category to songs. Going to sessions, you hear all sorts of tunes, and if you like them, you try to pick them up and play them. I am aware that there are tunes at sessions which have been written, but that's not to say that I could actually pick them out. If someone starts a tune, everyone will pitch in because it's just a tune they've heard in sessions. The fact that the author may be sitting next to you is neither here nor there.

I also had an odd experience some years ago. For a Christmas presentation in a primary school, I wrote a Christmas nativity play (hypocrisy is another issue) in Manx Gaelic with some simple songs in it. One of the songs was then used in a school book teaching Manx Gaelic in schools. The following Christmas I had the pleasure of hearing in a concert where it was described as a "traditional Manx carval". I'm quite happy with that - to be frank I'm chuffed to little mint balls.

But my original thought was, tunes you pick up as they're played: words are more of a "set text". These days, it's hard not to know when words are recently written because of copyright laws, and people, not unexpectedly, would like to earn something from their efforts.

There was a young lad in Blackpool who came home from school round about Christmas time and sang a song for his mother. "That's nice," said his mother, and told him that it was written by his father, who was Alan Bell of the Blackpool Taverners. "It can't be," said the lad, "we learned it in school!"

Somebody, somewhere, ultimately wrote everything. Why not just enjoy our ignorance!

Bobby Bob

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 02 Feb 99 - 12:11 AM

Hey Art...now we know which version Joan Baez should've recorded.Tim...you're right,why would Virgil sell the train and to whom? Joan was suggesting that this poor Tennessee dirt farmer was so destitute he was forced to pawn his train in order to survive.Truly heart-rending! Stoneman was a union cavalry commander under Sherman who specialized in disrupting roads, bridges and,yes, rail-lines during Sherman's march.

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: Martin _Ryan
Date: 02 Feb 99 - 06:34 AM

Sometimes a minor mystery is solved - before you even realise it is there! The Voice Squad have been doing "Rave On" as a show-peice for years - I never even knew Steeleye had done it!

And I'm not trying to "stir things" with the showpiece reference. Things like this are done for fun and valid in their own right..

Regards

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: The Shambles
Date: 02 Feb 99 - 09:15 AM

I didn't bring ducks into this debate but strangely enough they are a very good analogy to use, because the arrival of the duck as we know it is a relatively recent development, in evolutionary terms. All species (a label or category that we invented and that ducks do not always recognise) of duck, being closely related tend to hybridise quite easily and readily. The result is that we can see in the duck, the continuing process of natural selection as it happens and some very confused bird-watchers, trying to identify some of the results in the field.

If it quacks like a duck and other ducks quack back, to the extent that they get together to produce little ducks, then what they produce is most certainly a duck, whatever you may want to call it. It may not look (or sound) like the duck that you are used to, know and love but that is your problem not the ducks (or the music's).

1998 MEACHER MOVES TO SAVE THE WHITE-HEADED DUCK A new Task Force will co-ordinate action in the UK to conserve the globally threatened white-headed duck, Environment Minister Michael Meacher said today. The birds are threatened by hybridisation and competition with the North American ruddy duck.

You could argue that there would not have been a problem in the above case had the 'Ruddy Duck' not been imported into the UK, but it was and you have to accept the situation as it is. The process of evolution in nature and in music will continue and leave behind those who cannot adapt. The dinosaurs moved on to become DUCKS?.

I am sorry if I appear to be labouring the point, but music (and the other arts) to me offer some hope for our troubled world. It is a universal language and I do not like to see the same narrow aguments used in the world, used in music as well.

Too much suffering has been caused and is still being caused by people not neatly fitting in to the categories that others have defined for them. All I ask for is tolerance in all things.

I would suggest that categories in music are more for critics and writers than for those that listen to it and create the music. They prevent people from being exposed to music that they might otherwise like.

If we must have some in music can we have as few as possible and can they be wide and flexible rather than narrow and fixed?

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Feb 99 - 11:08 AM

shambles...I see your point exactly, I think...you are pleading for the creative process and the enjoyment of music to not be hampered and clouded by bickering over details of classification...and in some respects, you are right on! Writers & composers SHOULD feel free to create what moves them and, usually, they will..(taking into account those who 'write to the audience' for profit only).

The problem is, your duck analogy misses a couple of points. Evolution, driven partly by natural selection and partly by random mutation, cannot be directly compared to conscious and intentional (and I would add, gratuitous) changes in musical styles.'Evolution', as pertaining to species, is simple not the same concept as 'evolution' in music, or clothing styles, or architecture...(I think the logical fallacy is called 'equivocation')

Second, although your point is clear and well-taken, it is, in the last analysis YOUR point. For some reason, people just have differing views on categories, even in regard to natural species. Take dogs...most of them can interbreed, also, and left alone would produce mutts! But some folk LIKE a certain 'look', and take great pains to define, breed, and maintain canine categories. There are equivalent processes going on to preserve the look (and flavor) of various poultry (including ducks). You probably have some preferences in cusine, (Chinese, Italian, Mexican, French, etc., and their various sub-categories) and you probably would be upset if your favorite restaurant started changing the dishes with spices and sauces you were not used to, and didn't care for. (My wife is 2nd generation Italian, and you should hear her expound on cilantro & goat cheese!!)

Almost every hobby, from model trains to quilting, has the arguments we are struggling with here...some organized clubs have VERY strict definitions of what they allow in their shows and publications, etc., and those who want changes, or have some creative need to 'evolve', are obliged to start a new group. It is not a matter of 'better', just a matter of 'different' .

The fact is traditional folk music comprises a pretty small portion of the market these days..(ask Sandy Paton how many millions of the wonderful things HE produces get sold each year!)... and if we simply shrug when far-reaching changes are made, then people like me who go to the record store to find a new CD discover that all the 'singer-songwriter' and 'new-age Celtic' has been crammed into the formerly small 'folk' bin just because it was a convenient, short, name.(yeah, I know 'some' stores make an effort...but...)

I am NOT asking that nothing ever change!! That would be silly, as well is inpossible and stultifying, but I must take issue with your summation...

"I would suggest that categories in music are more for critics and writers than for those that listen to it and create the music. They prevent people from being exposed to music that they might otherwise like."

This is true ONLY if you assume that 'critics and writers' and 'people who create and listen to music' are different species somehow. You may create more, and I may critique more, but we all participate in the process. And I truly doubt that a large number of narrow categories prevents people from "being exposed to music that they might otherwise like". If they are naturally eclectic in their musical tastes, they will find the categories...especially with MTV, the internet, and hundreds of radio stations pouring it out all day! On the contrary, many categories, properly used , can make it easier for both narrow, purist little ME and eclectic YOU to find the kind of music we want right NOW!...Is it always fuzzy around the edges?? Sure....no category is perfect...but the rock & roll crowd no more wants to have to paw over Almeda Riddle & Martin Carthy than I want to have to struggle thru Nine Inch Nails and Green Day!(and I presume that there are those who would complain that Green Day and 9' Nails NEVER belong in the same categroy)

(and here I stop...though I have made about 10% of the point that were swirling around in my head...it is not easy being a curmudgeon)

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: Margo
Date: 02 Feb 99 - 01:12 PM

Hey guys and gals!

I am composing some songs using the poetry of a well known poet of the 19th century. I have wanted to write these songs for a long time but had no inspiration. Then I found out that the poet was from Scotland.

Suddenly I have melodies springing fourth right and left, and they are all in the style of traditional folk music from Scotland. Not surprisingly, the poet's verses lend themselves to this style easily. I am having so much fun with them and I want to eventually record these songs on a children's CD.

I want these traditional sounding songs to be a tribute to the memory of this poet. I think he would have liked them.

I do so like the traditional songs and I am in favor of writing in that style if it suits a person.

Margaret

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Feb 99 - 02:37 PM

bully for you, Margaret! A lovely thought!..I hope someday YOU are considered traditional...

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: The Shambles
Date: 02 Feb 99 - 04:57 PM

Bill D

First off I will agree wholeheartedly with you, I only managed about 10% of the point I was trying to make as well. We two do seem to represent the extremes, there must be a lot of views in between ours?

I did enjoy your post it deserves more time and more thought before I can respond properly, but there are few things first off don't think that the creative process is hampered much by the bickering at all, they will just do it whatever. It is those that enjoy the music that lose out and in the long run the artists, because they do need someone to listen to their efforts. If you stick a narrow label on a performance, some will go because they like it but more will not go it because they think they do not like that type of music, even though if they went they may enjoy it. The label enables you filter things out but you may be 'throwing the baby out with the bath-water'.

You make the point that things in your narrow categories get "fuzzy around the edges". Is that not the place where all the firm categories, boundaries, ethnic groupings and educational grades fall down? In the borderline cases? The ones that don't fit neatly into one or could be fitted into two or more? It's these to me that make your categories unacceptable. Especially when the casualties are people.

The evolution in music I refer to is the change that comes about when musicians are exposed to the music and instruments of other cultures. We are living at a very exciting time and the pace of that change is getting faster. The more forced concoctions will not survive the evolutionary process but others will grow, it is a natural process that has always happened, it is just faster now. It is very similar to Natural Selection, if the mutation works it will become part of the body of music.

I can see the attraction to some people of having an ordered world, I just can't see it like that. I look up the night skies and I find no answers, just more and more questions and I glory in all the paths there are to take to find those answers.

P.S. I like 'mutts'.

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From:
Date: 02 Feb 99 - 06:02 PM

Nonsense. I say that any duck that is called a "ruddy" duck must surely be English. A North American would curse at a duck much differently.

Besides, you Europeans sent Zebra Mussels over here to infest the Great Lakes, and starlings to squawk at us. It is only fair that we inflict grey squirrels, racoons, Canada Geese, and Canadian beavers on you. Just wait until we send over our robins. They must be three times the size of yours.

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: The Shambles
Date: 02 Feb 99 - 06:44 PM

Tim

Just remember you did send us The Carpenters.

Bobby Bob wrote

I wonder whether tunes are in a different category to songs. Going to sessions, you hear all sorts of tunes, and if you like them, you try to pick them up and play them. I am aware that there are tunes at sessions which have been written, but that's not to say that I could actually pick them out. If someone starts a tune, everyone will pitch in because it's just a tune they've heard in sessions. The fact that the author may be sitting next to you is neither here nor there.

Interesting that. I write a lot of tunes and I sometimes play them at sessions. The bodrhan players don't mind and the guitar players usually pick up on them, but the melody players are not too happy, understandably as they can't really add too much without knowing the tune. So I don't play them too often, as sessions are usually best when everyone can be involved.

But the issue that does come up, when I do play them, is the nationality of the tunes, which is a bit of a problem for me.

Once at a session I played a 4 part tune of mine called the 'Rusty Tushkar' and I was asked what it was called and I said the title and when asked, also explained that a tuskar was a tool that I used in Shetland for digging peat, that was going rusty in my shed. To which the chap replied "so it's a Shetland tune"? Well was it? I am English but I don't think that many of my tunes would fit in with an English Music Session. Do I have to come up with a nationality for them? Some sound American, some Greek, some Irish and some like no place I can think of and most of them without me ever consciously trying to make them sound like they come from anywhere.

I get the impression that people at sessions would prefer the tune to be an unfamiliar tune from somewhere, than to know that it is original and effectively from nowhere.

What bin do I put them in Bill? (No don't answer that!*smiles*)

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Feb 99 - 07:06 PM

well, it's interesting to note that there are people even to the right of me...

you are quite right that it does take a bit of time to respond to these ideas properly..but you did say

"We are living at a very exciting time and the pace of that change is getting faster."

and..

"..you may be 'throwing the baby out with the bath-water'"

..it seems to me, that when things change at a very fast pace, it becomes necessary to 'throw out'...(meaning, to "ignore") a few things...I simply cannot keep up! And smaller and narrower bins make it easier to choose. If you think I may have missed something neat and important..let me know, and I will take a look and listen, and if I agree, I'll have one more bin to browse.

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 02 Feb 99 - 08:06 PM

a challenge to all:

Write a song to be titled:

"THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY GET DIFFERENT"

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: Pete M
Date: 02 Feb 99 - 08:42 PM

Hi Shambles me old mucker, now that's a cunning way to start of version 967 of the "what is folk" thread! ;-)

Actually I've tried to take my time before contributing as it is clearly a subject which deserves a thoughtful response, and as usual if I wait most of the things I would have liked to have said have been said already.

So, rather than opting for a "me too" I'll try and address each of your original questions in turn; always bearing in mind that phrases like "a good thing" have never been the same since Sellars and Yeatman!

1 Is it a good thing that songs can be written in a style that could be mistaken for a traditional song?
I think that this is not only good, it is essential and inevitable. Inevitable because we create within a frame of reference which includes the "traditional" music of western culture, so that will influence the outcome - now the degree to which this is obvious will vary tremendously but it will be there. It is also essential if the folk tradition and here I would define the folk tradition as being something of, by and for the people ie excluding anything written for an audience, or personal aggrandisement; is to continue.

"Traditional" folk music, like most things which are currently unfashionable (eg hierarchical management structures) have survived for thousands of years because they work within the situations for which they were created or from which they evolved.

2 Is it a good idea for new writers to consciously try and write songs in this style?

Probably the hardest to answer as it "all depends". For people like MacColl and Tawney, it works, and it is hard to imagine them writing in ant other style, for others it doesn't work, and for still others it should not even be considered. I think if you are steeped in the tradition within which you are writing and the subject matter, your natural style of writing and your tune fit, then there is a good chance of it working.

3 Is it the only way that some people will actually be prepared to listen to original material?

I think you had your tongue firmly in cheek with that one mate! I'm sure, as I suspect you are, that the only people most to get steamed up over current songs written in traditional style are those who have a narrow definition of "traditional folk" which includes "more than x years old", and who think that nothing else is worthwhile. I don't think any of us including the curmudgeonly twins (Bill D and me (hope you don't mind Bill)) dislike new songs in any style (except for new age !@#$ navel gazers) We might get excited if someone tries to pass them of as traditional, but we would welcome songs which, if they stand the test of time, will become a valid and necessary contribution to the continuance of the corpus of "traditional" songs.

4 If the original songs in this style can be so easily mistaken for the "real thing" does this not make some of the purist's views somewhat invalid, in a musical sense if not a scholarly one?

Nah! Firstly I don't believe there is such thing as "purist" category into which we can all be fitted or we wouldn't be having this conversation. Fortunately or unfortunately, we humans love taxonomical quibbling and there is constant changes in what is "in" or "out" of classifications in all fields. Also I think you, and the "if it sounds like a duck" argument are missing the point of this particular category. To stretch the analogy, a duck may answer a duck call, in other words the hunter sounds like a duck to a duck, but he doesn't pass the Turing test, a duck can't get meaningful responses from him. Similarly a song may be identical to a "traditional" song in subject matter, style, music and the use of language, but that is not the only criteria which is relevant. To me it is like eating with a peg on your nose, its Ok and fills you up, but there is not the same enjoyment. Again, I would stress there is no implication that the new song is of any less worth, just that it is not (yet) "traditional". I think that at the root there may be a confusion that "traditional" implies static. Clearly, folk music has and is growing and evolving, some songs which could now be considered "traditional" were not written when Sharp was collecting and some which were sung and popular then have been quietly forgotten as not belonging in "our" bucket.

Oh well, time for a work break. Lets try out Mike's changes and see if this posts OK

Pete M

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: The Shambles
Date: 07 Feb 99 - 07:15 PM

I couldn't seem to be able to start a new thread, just seeing if I dig up an old one.

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: Frank in NJ
Date: 08 Feb 99 - 02:11 AM

I would be so ever enchanted to take on the suggestion of Joe Offer, with the chore of making "Rave On" or "Peggy Sue" sound circa 1800's. But I know I'm beat there Joe! These songs, as do most modern songs, present a special difficulty with their lack of range or choice of notes present. Most modern songs sound like short cuts to me, in that the notation choices are very lazy. Just the musical notation within the introduction of an 1800's song before one even gets to the song proper, sports a melody and harmony line inclusive enough to make enough modern songs to uphold a modern artists entire career. Peggy Sue being an excellent example, sports so few notes that the choice of harmonic notes available severly restricts the possibility of a "traditional" sound. The old songs seem to me to be each to its own ethnic backround, and of yet a previous century. Each time people come together as during a war, their individual song styles become a little more homogenized. Just take note of the large influx of styles that came together during recent wars, The Spanish American and WW1 especially. Notice the results in the early or late blendings of two very different American music styles with root origins of the British Isles, as one flourished in the Eastern Mountains with the Native American syncopation and the other in the flatlands with the African American. The results are vastly different in many ways, yet were at one time the same tunes/songs. Likewise what is "traditional" Cajun Music? Not only were the old French tunes "refreshed" by the introduction (70 years ago)of the German accordian syncopation, they also became as a result limited to less than an octive and choice of only two keys. I have only the knowledge of how the old tunes were done from cylinders of the 1880's to 1905. The "Parlor Era". The revelation of hearing these recordings and some of the one sided 78rpm discs that replaced them as opposed to the sheet music interpretations is enlighting. Songs such as "Lorina" or "The Green Fields of Virginia" even with their simple folk style are masterpiece examples of their times. Audiences who have never heard the old "traditional" music are stricken by their beauty. Give me another chance Joe? I cry "stonzies"!

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 Feb 99 - 02:28 AM

Well, Frank, I really enjoyed your response. I think what you said means that you agree with me - an attempt to sing "Peggy Sue" or "Rave On" in a traditional style comes off as a parody of both the song and the style - it's not a good fit, even though it may be fun to try it.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: AnWeaver13 (inactive)
Date: 08 Feb 99 - 04:08 AM

And there's always Kinship (a celtic-style BC Band who write a lot of pseudo-folk songs) and the incomparable guy who's name escapes me who wrote Queen of All Argyle and Ramblin Rover.

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From:
Date: 08 Feb 99 - 11:46 AM

Still - who DID write 'Old Dixie'? My database comes up with the name Robbie Robertson and three fat question marks! And - on which album / which year did Joan Baez record the song? - Now I'll go home and read the rest of this thread, having lost five days. - Susanne

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: The Shambles
Date: 09 Feb 99 - 12:34 PM

Joe

I think Frank in NJ was agreeing with me. Oh well maybe not, I suppose you win.

Frank

Have you ever heard the version of Rave On by Steeleye Span? I've no idea what record/cd it is on, maybe someone could tell us?. If you ever do hear it let us know if you think it a parody of both styles? I think it adds to both but then again I have a 'Cornish' keyboard, so what do I know?

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: Jerry Friedman
Date: 10 Feb 99 - 12:11 AM

Bobby Bob, "chuffed to little mint balls"--I'm ROTFL!

Margarita, who's the secret Scots poet?

Shambles, outside of mathematics, every category has fuzzy boundaries, as Pete M. so rightly remarked about "purist". That doesn't mean every category is useless. Tufted ducks may hybridize with ring-necked ducks, but MOST of the time you know which one you're looking at. (I'd love to look at a tufted duck some day--a great tick for an American twitcher. And they eat zebra mussels.)

Dick's comment about traditions, and something several people have said about every song having an author, bring up a point I'd like to make. There's a theory that folk songs are the work of many hands. Maybe somebody wrote the original version, but since then it's been folk-processed.

Thus in a sense it's the work of the people, the folk, as a whole. [*] To some folkies, this quality has a certain mystique. Such a song is not and never was any kind of individual property; it arises from and belongs to a tradition. The version(s) we have came from no commercial or motive and no pose; most of what brought them to being was people making the song the best they could and remembering the best they could, in the way that was natural to them. I believe this, not what Dick said, is the usual meaning of the word "traditional".

I see nothing wrong with responding to this mystique. I don't myself; I don't enjoy "Die Loreley" any more when it's credited to Silcher than when it's called a folk song. But is this part of what the people who like the "traditional" category are responding to?

[*] Of course, Tom Lehrer had the last word on this (in his intro to "The Folksong Army), as he did on so many things. Is this the first footnote in the Mudcat?

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: Margo
Date: 10 Feb 99 - 03:20 PM

Hi Jerry. It's no secret. The Scots poet is Robert Louis Stevenson. The poems I liked so well as a child are in "A Child's Garden of Verses". You can find the volume easily at the bookstore.

Of course he's known better as the author as such novels as "Kidnapped" and "Treasure Island". But his poems give such a tender portrayal of the wonders of the child's world.

It is my hope to record my RLS songs along with some traditional children's music from Scotland and that area. It should be fun.

Margarita

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: The Shambles
Date: 10 Feb 99 - 07:02 PM

Jerry

Who started with these 'Ruddy Ducks' anyway?

I think that in time mathematics will be shown to have fuzzy boundaries too. It depends on what measure of time you use. In the span of human life-times you could say that mathematics are certain and non fuzzy. In the time that the universe exists, mathematics may not in fact, turn out to be so certain.

In human life-times you may be sure what constitutes a Ring-Necked Duck, because you see it frozen in the form that it is in at that moment. In evolutionary time it is in the process of constant change, just happening too slowly for us to see. If your only experience of a horse, was a still photograph of one galloping, showing that all four feet were off the ground, would you be certain that it was a flying animal?

If a Ring-Necked-Duck is uncertain enough about it's identity to mate with a Tufted Duck, how can we be so sure about what category to put it in? In natural history we know that the species definition is imperfect but we carry on because it is safer to think that way. You say "most of the time you know which one you are looking at" but it is surely those exceptions that should be teaching us caution?

The only thing I know for certain is that I know 'bugger all' for certain.

To bring us back to music, I didn't say all categories are useless, what I said was, I personally think that traditional is a nonsense word when applied to music (as are most of the labels and categories used to describe it). For music is only really created in the present and there is only one music, but I only listen and create it, I don't get paid to write or talk about it, so one big category is enough for me.

I have ticked off Ring-Necked-Duck in the UK (I think?). I also think I've ticked off a few Mudcatter's too? *smiles*

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: Pete M
Date: 10 Feb 99 - 08:04 PM

Talking about the mating habits of Tufted ducks, I once heard Human beings defined as the only species that will fornicate with anything that will keep still long enough.

Pete M

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Feb 99 - 08:55 PM

*grin*...Pete...funny you should mention it..many years ago,(27-30) in Wichita,Kansas, a police patrol noticed a car on a side street, (cold day, windows frosted over)..and the car was shaking...the police stopped and investigated, and heard strange, loud noises coming from the interior. They somehow managed to open the car, or convince the guy inside to open it, and found him in flagrante delecto with a duck he had stolen from the local zoo! Feathers everywhere! ....and it just so happens that a close friend of mine worked at that zoo, and was one of the keepers of that poor duck..(he carried a newspaper clipping of the incident around for years!)..Not only that-- he and another friend wrote a parody of Roger Miller's "Chug-a-Lug"..."**** a Duck".......so, the folk process goes on, using life as its model....

(and Shambles....there are violent arguments in Philosophy between the Metaphysicans who LIKE categories, and the 'Ordinary Language' philosophers, who do not........and I guess that's what it comes down to- I like 'em, you don't...but if you should ever open a record store, I doubt I should be able to shop there if you did not separate the Gregorian Chant from the Bluegrass....it just happens that 'traditional' does mean something to a lot of people. Even though it may not be an 'exact' definition, it CAN at least exclude some things.)

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: Barbara
Date: 10 Feb 99 - 11:58 PM

In re categories, Bill, my favorite mycological taxonomist (David Arora) sorts out his colleagues into two categories: "lumpers" and "splitters".
Seems like we have a similar situation here.
Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: Jerry Friedman
Date: 11 Feb 99 - 09:49 PM

Susanne, according to the well-organized discography at the Joan Baez Web Pages, "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" has appeared on a lot of her albums, mostly greatest-hits collections. The first album it appeared on was Blessed Are... (1971). The song is credited to J. R. Robertson, who of course is Robbie.

Barbara, I think the split between lumpers and splitters is universal in taxonomy.

Shambles, what Bill D. implied is right: I'm way out of my philosophical depth here. But... fuzzy edges make you doubt categories, but categories are still useful (essential?), and some ways of binning things may be more useful than others.

Katmuse mentioned what quacks like a duck, etc., and you were the one who brought up ruddy ducks (and then I dragged in the Aythyini).

Pete M., whoever made up that definition had never owned an entire male dog (or even a rabbit).

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: The Shambles
Date: 12 Feb 99 - 11:07 AM

Well with a lot of help from you all I am beginning to see the light. I can go with the mystique of 'traditional music' as defined by Jerry. Mystique, I would probably define as something that is indefinable and in that sense I can see the attraction of something that belongs to you as much as everyone else and can be attributed to no one person. Even though it might in fact be a myth. But Bill, I can't see if something is so mysterious and by it's nature indefinable, how you can exclude anything from it for certain or why you would want to?

Would it be fair to say that a lot of the hostility towards singer-songwriters is due to the sense of exclusion created by the fact, that it is felt that what they produce (especially the introverted songs) cannot ever belong to anyone but the author?

The attraction of all music to me is the mystique of it or to use another word magic. I may not be able to define what magic is but when I hear it I know it exists. Is that the same for you with 'traditional'?

Out of interest, I have never spoken to any performer of 'traditional' material who truly felt that they were the 'real thing', although others would, with no hesitation describe them as such. Which unfortunately brings us back to ducks. "If a Ring-Necked-Duck is uncertain enough about it's identity to mate with a Tufted Duck, how can we be so sure about what category to put it in", or more importantly, be certain about what category to exclude it from?

I can understand the need for us to order the world (and record shops), but we have tried many way to do this throughout history and have constantly had to re-order it, in the light of new information. I suppose I can just live in the world as I find it.

The following is a bit heavy and I have moved away from music I know, but it will I hope, show you why I persist in addressing some of the issues mentioned here. I don't expect you to agree with all the points I have made or their relevance here but I hope you can understand and excuse the depth of my feelings.

There was a BBC TV series in the 70s called The Ascent Of Man, presented by Dr Jacob Bronowski. In which there was one moment from it that I hope I will never forget.

He was in Auschwitz, and standing in a muddy pond where the ashes of 4 million people were flushed. He held the mud in his hands as he quoted these words by Oliver Cromwell.

"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken".

Subject: RE: Original Music That Sounds Traditional?
From: Bert
Date: 12 Feb 99 - 11:38 AM

Shambles,

I think that hostility towards singer/songwriters often arises from the s/songers perception of what is entertainment. I think that a s/s should know what their audience expects (that's their job) and restrain themselves from outpourings of boring descriptions of personal experiences.

Jerry,
Mathematics has it's fuzzy side. The whole concept derived from separating the concepts aof quatity and number. It doesn't get any fuzzier than that.

A Duck story.

We had this duck named Lizette and after she recovered from the loss of her drake 'Charlie' to a neighbor's dog, she would flirt outrageously with our rooster.

Bert.