nouveau 'folk'

Subject: nouveau 'folk'
From: Thomas Stern
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 06:54 PM

I've noticed a number of performers/groups reworking traditional source material, performance style and arrangement usually outside the realm of traditional performance.   "Among the Oak & Ash", "Ollabelle", "Uncle Earl", Colin Meloy (the Shirley Collins tribute ep) etc.
Has anyone seen a written comprehensive evaluation of these and others in this vein? Also would be interested in what others are known to you.
Thanks, Thomas.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: oldhippie
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 04:01 PM

Try Snakefarm's CD "Songs From My Funeral"; they have non - traditional arrangemants of St James Infirmary, House of the Rising Sun, Tom Dooley, Streets of Laredo, John Henry,and All the Pretty Horses.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: M.Ted
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 04:08 PM

I am curious to know what "traditional performance' means, especially for UK stuff--

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: treewind
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 04:18 PM

Is "nouveau folk " different from "nu-folk"?

"traditional performance"
Often taken as meaning unaccompanied singing. In the context of "outside the realm of..." I guess he means using instrumentation and arrangements that wouldn't have been used in the context where the songs were originally transmitted from generation to generation, but how should I know, as I'm not familiar with the material he refers to.

Anahata
(+ I'm rambling, having imbibed a pint of Tanglefoot in an attempt to counteract the heat)

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 04:26 PM

I've noticed that, for some of our UK cousins, "traditional" folk means singing traditional words in any style at all---rock, reggae, country, whatever. In the US, the word tends to refer more to the style in which the words are performed, whether or not the words are traditional.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: stallion
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 04:40 PM

Anahata, Tanglefoot or other similiar substitute, in my case Sam Smiths Organic lager!
Dick - Traditional folk in the UK what a b***dy can of worms you opened there! Dick, did you mean singing in the style of the frail old men and women, untrained singers, that they were collected from? As I see it, the songs are out there and one does them the way one wants to, who they appeal to is something else. If I have a contribution it is that one shouldn't try to copy anyone but find your own voice, once you have found your own voice then sing, interpret and enjoy and if others do then it's a bonus.
I personally don't like labels, in the past it put me off some half decent bands! OK I do have a thing about singer/songwriters but some of my best friends are singe/songwriters..........it's just the awful ones!
Oh and, oh well....it will become a list!!!!!!

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Michael S
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 04:46 PM

I find I'm unsure what Thomas is seeking. He is interested in performers who are "reworking traditional source material, performance style and arrangement"

Haven't interpreters (often called "revivalists" in this context) done this for a very long time? How about the Weavers, or the Kingston Trio?

And the performers that interest Thomas operate "usually outside the realm of traditional performance." Do you mean, like, on a stage?

-Michael Scully
-Austin

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 04:54 PM

You just KNEW I would mention the 1954 definition didn't you. It does NOT require a manner of performance. The material is handed down by the oral tradition (that bit needs re-phrasing, to allow for modern methods of transimssion) and is thereby modified. So pickling the style of delivery in aspic is not required.

If the material is folk song or music, then the nouveau-delivery is folk song or music and not "nouveau" at all.

The proposition is based on a failure of understanding.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 05:10 PM

As I've detailed here , for hundreds of years, in England at least, most folk singing was the unaccompanied repetition of a relatively simple tune.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 05:14 PM

Well, WAV, I could not be arsed carefully to read that load of bolleaux by a non-Englishman about what the English tradition comprises, but no, I did not see any rational argument or evidence to such a conclusion.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Leadfingers
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 05:17 PM

English County Blues Band made several albums of Traditional English Lyrics set to Traditional(ish) American tunes ! One that I Stole YEARS ago is John Barlycorn re labelled as .Strong Man' to the tune of Staggerleee !

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 05:40 PM

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: M.Ted - PM
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 04:08 PM

I am curious to know what "traditional performance' means, especially for UK stuff-- .
try this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnHxwZb_Hig&feature=channel_page

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: M.Ted
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 08:12 PM

That would pretty much exclude a lot of your guys, such as Martin Carthy and Nic Jones, and all those bands from being traditional performers?

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 11:41 PM

And how come nobody on this thread has so far mentioned folk-rock - what about Fairport, Steeleye, Pentangle, Trees ????

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 02:58 AM

I'm as baffled as everyone else as to exactly what is required here, and Thomas Stern hasn't yet popped back into this thread to clarify ...

Has anyone seen a written comprehensive evaluation of these and others in this vein?

What other than the collected back issues of English Dance & Song, Living Tradition, fRoots/Folk Roots/Southern Rag, Taplas, Stirrings, all the other regional magazines, several books with 'Folk Revival' in their title, the occasional bit of coverage in the national broadsheets (some of it well informed, some of it not), etc. etc. etc.?

Or are we being asked for a single comprehensive study? I suspect one such will never exist, for all the reasons of opinion, interpretation, and disagreement about scope and definition that are illustrated daily here on Mudcat. The story goes that Sir Walter Raleigh started to write a 'Complete History Of The World' whilst incarcerated in the Tower Of London, but abandoned the project when he realised that he couldn't even get to the definitive truth of the causes of a fight between two workmen he witnessed one morning ...

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: theleveller
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 03:56 AM

"As I see it, the songs are out there and one does them the way one wants to, who they appeal to is something else. "

You've hit the nail on the head, Stallion. I've been involved in folk music for 45 years and that's what people have been doing all that time and, I'm sure, for a lot longer that that. Let's face it, guitar, banjo, melodeon - even fiddle - can hardly be classed as traditional instruments.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Darowyn
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 04:15 AM

Traditional folk:-
1. Like a scene from a Thomas Hardy novel. Country people in a village pub, accompanied by fiddle, concertina or whatever instruments the village Waits had managed to scrounge.
2. Like a post-war Junior School. Teacher on piano thumping out the chords, fifty kids in a classroom singing "The Drummer and the Cook" from a BBC schools songbook.
3. Like Peter Pears at The Maltings, or Kathleen Ferrier. Highly refined and bowdlerised versions of slightly suggestive songs sung and played by classically trained musicians.
4. Like a fifties Folk Group. Four university graduates with guitars and/or banjos, dressed as fishermen, singing folksongs, mainly from America.
5. Like Bob Dylan and/or Joan Baez. Solo performer with guitar singing mostly recently composed songs, often with a strong political or social message, and a transatlantic accent.
6. Like the New traditionalists. Solo performer or duo, guitar played in open tunings and with a very percussive style, fiddle player optional. English songs verified by visits to C.S. house, sung in a rural English accent (or equivalent from the other nations and regions of the UK.)
There are so many traditions, even in one small country, that either everyone is traditional or, nobody is. How many times does something have to be repeated before it becomes a tradition?

Cheers
Dave

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 05:12 AM

...like Joseph Taylor, turning up for a folk singing comp., a century ago, and singing unaccompanied - NOT through want of an instrument on the day, but because that was just the way English folk had performed English traditional songs for centuries.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 05:51 AM

I repeat my post of the 19th, 04.54 EST.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 06:12 AM

That was this: "Well, WAV, I could not be arsed carefully to read that load of bolleaux by a non-Englishman about what the English tradition comprises, but no, I did not see any rational argument or evidence to such a conclusion."...I'm an English repat. (actually born in Manchester the day Alf Ramsey's English team won the World Cup), RB; and that Joseph Taylor argument is rational - check with the EFDSS, if you like.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 06:25 AM

wav,
you are correct to a certain extent,but you seem to have forgotten about English troubadours,who sang traditional material with accompaniment
,BUT,why should we exclude accompaniment,those that wish to sing unaccompanied do it, not because its English but because its how they like to sing.
if I searched hard enough,I am sure I could find English traditional singers ,or singers of English Traditional song who used accompaniment 100 years ago
[lets see we are talking about 1909 ]Cecil Sharp didnt have a problem with songs being accompanied,in fact he wrote piano accompaniments.
are you suggesting Sharp was wrong,to use accompaniment.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 06:44 AM

For what it's worth, GSS, I, myself, double the melody with keyboards occasionally (and often in practice), but I still stand by what I said above (Date: 19 Aug 09 - 05:10 PM)...and, in agreement with you, I did type "most".

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: treewind
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 06:49 AM

"in fact he wrote piano accompaniments"
No no, don't go there. He wrote piano accompaniments so the songs could be reused in middle class social gatherings where singing was generally expected to be accompanied. I don't think we know if RVW thought piano or other accompaniments were part of folk song in its natural habitat.

Nevertheless, there is no reason why instrumental accompaniment might not have been used in the past, as by the troubadors.

The fact remains that a good yardstick for a folk song is that it stands on its own without needing instrumental arrangement. If it can't survive being passed on as an unaccompanied song it won't live long. Many pop songs fail this test, which in my view distinguishes them from modern folk songs.

Anahata

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: treewind
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 06:50 AM

Sorry I meant Sharp, not RVW...
Anahata

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: s&r
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 06:52 AM

Here we go again on yet another thread WAV with your drivellings. Your puerile analysis of music is about as snesible as your weird views on world dictatorship by WAV.
Only you believes that you're English (except for the Australian continent who must be mightily relieved to be rid of your pontificating) Only you believes that you're a musician, or poet or WHY.
Why thrust your delusions on others who make it apparent repeatedly that they hold no truck for your views.

In sorrow

Stu

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 07:32 AM

And actually WAV you refer to the wrong post of mine.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 07:46 AM

'The fact remains that a good yardstick for a folk song is that it stands on its own without needing instrumental arrangement. If it can't survive being passed on as an unaccompanied song it won't live long. Many pop songs fail this test, which in my view distinguishes them from modern folk songs'

Exactly!

Well said, Treewind.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: theleveller
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 08:07 AM

"The fact remains that a good yardstick for a folk song is that it stands on its own without needing instrumental arrangement. If it can't survive being passed on as an unaccompanied song it won't live long."

Sorry, Treewind, I totally disagree with you there; it would be the same as saying that a folk tune will only survive if it can be hummed without the need for instrumentation - but I suppose it just comes back the old chestnut, 'what is a folk song' and I think we've been there far too often.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 08:12 AM

I'd like to second that (as this is a forum for discussion, Stu!).

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 08:13 AM

Treewind's words, I mean.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: theleveller
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 08:56 AM

OK, WAV, Treewind etc., presupposing that there are such things as 'modern' folk songs, there are several things we need to consider. Firstly, were they written to be accompanied or unaccompanied in the first place? Secondly, what kind of singers will be performing them in the future – from 45 years of going to folk clubs and festivals, I'd say that a greater percentage of singers perform accompanied in some way than otherwise? Thirdly, how will these songs be preserved for posterity? I would suggest not in communities, by oral tradition, but on CDs and recordings. If the latter is true then, in an age where variety is valued above homogeneity, the most versatile songs - those that can be presented in the greatest variety of ways by the greatest number of people and are most open to interpretation – are the ones that are most likely to survive.

But, as I said, it's down to what you regard as a folk song.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: treewind
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 10:37 AM

(1) it would be the same as saying that a folk tune will only survive if it can be hummed without the need for instrumentation
That's not far off true. Singable tunes from composed classical works have made it into the folk musician's repertoire, but you won't find that happening with Webern's String Quartets or Varese's Ionization (a piece written for percussion only...), for example, or even the bits of a Mozart Symphony that aren't specially tuneful.

(2)
Firstly, were they written to be accompanied or unaccompanied in the first place?
That's not my point - which was whether the song stands on its own without accompaniment. If it was "written to be accompanied" there's a chance, but not proof, that it won't become a folk song in the sense of having a life of its own.

Secondly, what kind of singers will be performing them in the future - from 45 years of going to folk clubs and festivals, I'd say that a greater percentage of singers perform accompanied in some way than otherwise?
They may well do, but I submit that songs that can't stand up without the original accompaniement/arrangement aren't the ones that will still be getting sung in 50 years time.

Thirdly, how will these songs be preserved for posterity?
I would suggest not in communities, by oral tradition, but on CDs and recordings.

For pop songs, yes, and they will become museum pieces. If a song can't exist without the recording studio resources that were used to produce it (48 tracks of MIDI sequenced patches, vocal effects, drum fills, girlie choruses etc.) how will it ever get performed? (as opposed to just having recordings reproduced)

In an age where variety is valued above homogeneity, the most versatile songs - those that can be presented in the greatest variety of ways by the greatest number of people and are most open to interpretation - are the ones that are most likely to survive.

Well, I completely agree with you there, but I also think it's the songs whose main strength is in the words and the melody that are most susceptible to such re-arrangement. You can take away the original arrangement, put a completely different one back, and it's still the same song. And of course you can take a song that was collected from an unaccompanied singer in 1906 and add an accompaniment to it and it works - I've been doing exactly that for the last 8 years!

Anahata

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 10:54 AM

English folk songs can work well both accompanied or unaccompanied. In the former case it all depends upon the skill, sensitivity and taste of the accompanist.

In 'recent' historical times such songs seem, generally, to have been sung unaccompanied, for reasons which are unclear (at least to me) but may be related to such factors as rural poverty. What happened in earlier times is anyone's guess - well at least the guesses of those who like to invoke s**ding 'troubadors' at the drop of a hat!

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Wesley S
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 11:24 AM

I'm wondering if it's time to start a seperate sub-group at the Mudcat. We can lump threads into three catagories :

"Music"
"BS"
"What is English Folk Music"

Doesn't anyone get tired of this same old argument?

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Folkiedave
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 11:57 AM

Singable tunes from composed classical works have made it into the folk musician's repertoire
Sheffield City Morris dance to Beethoven's Ode to Joy.

Catch us a Whitby festival. Look for the green trousers.


There's thread drift for you.....

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: theleveller
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 12:10 PM

Treewind, I can't, in all honesty, say that I recognise the scenario that you paint. In the end, any song can be sung unaccompanied and the majority that you'll find people (folk) singing and humming in the street won't be folk songs. Nor do I see much evidence of a continuous oral tradition that will be passing new songs down the generations for some latter day Cecil Sharp to collect in 100 years time. I don't say it doesn't exist at all (I have, on one occasion, had a song that I wrote sung back to me as traditional) but I don't believe it happens as an ongoing process. Most performers learn songs from recordings and/or songbooks and often (unfortunately) try to emulate the style of accompaniment as well as the words and tune. This does not mean that they aren't strong songs that will stand the test of time. In this day and age of mass recording availabke to almost anyone who wishes to use it, copyright, myspace, youtube, and professional folk artists, the word Anon is not one that is generally found with new songs.

Like I said, I don't want to get into the 'what is folk' debate because, in the end, it's what you want it to be, but I do think that many of what are generally classed as pop songs will be around and performed for a damn sight longer than 50 years.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 12:14 PM

I try to get through these once per week, so one thing I'm very sure of is that E. trads and hymns both involve the repetition of a relatively simple tune (the latter being slightly more sophisticated); both have had chords and base notes added to them (by RVW, e.g.) but, as Treewind suggests, logically, the survivors are the pieces with good WORDS and TUNES, that, again logically, can sound great unaccompanied.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 01:53 PM

Oh come off it WAV - among the most popular and distinctive hymn tunse ar ones that are almost always noted for a countermelody - eg Bread of Heaven; and Immortal Father Strong to Save. And at least one for a rhythm - Onward Christian Soldiers (also with a fine countermelody)

There is at least one pop song that is working its way into folk (with variants of the words) principally for its drum beat - Queen's We will rock you.

There are TONS of American folk and adopted songs that are instantly recognisable from a piece of accompaniment or a rhythm: -
Walking Blues
Dust my Broom
Born in Chicago
Long Grey Mare
32/20 blues
Tom Dooley
Born Under a Bad Sign

I'm sure the list is endless

Surely anyone can recognise Famous FLower of Serving Men from its curious shifting rhythm base.

Words adapt by the folk process - take Avram Bailey for example, or the several versions of Sir Patrick Spens - and so do the tunes.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 02:28 PM

Richard: I think you mean "Eternal Father, strong to save", and the rhythm is in the tune - hence quavers, whole notes, etc.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 03:14 PM

Yes, Eternal. Long time since I was in a church. But it is the coutermelody, not the timing that gives the song its flavour.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: s&r
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 06:52 PM

Bass is what you meant above WAV, and for consistency if you talk of quavers you should talk of semibreves (or go the American way and have whole notes and eighth notes.

ANd for what it's worth a discussion forum is a sharing of ideas and knowledge rather than tedious cut and paste from a dubious and unaccredited source.

Stu

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: s&r
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 07:35 PM

On a parallel topic Paul Anka does a wonderful (IMO) job of converting Rock to Jazz/swing in his album 'Rock Swings'

Love 'Teen Spirit'

Stu

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 07:59 AM

"ou just KNEW I would mention the 1954 definition didn't you. It does NOT require a manner of performance. The material is handed down by the oral tradition (that bit needs re-phrasing, to allow for modern methods of transimssion) and is thereby modified. So pickling the style of delivery in aspic is not required."

Chop of the hands of the unbelievers ,but go to London for yer hols to get pissed and laid eh?

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 08:13 AM

How about "base" for notation and "bass" for describing instruments, Stu?...but, yes, your correction is status quo. But, apart from my daily poems on the BS "WalkaboutsVerse Anew" thread, I haven't copy/pasted for quite a while, frankly.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: s&r
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 03:25 PM

No - bass is not something that a musician would use. You might mean root, or fundamental or who knows what.

So you cut and paste every day at least once?

Stu

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: GUEST,Sedayne (Astray) (S O'P)
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 04:05 PM

you seem to have forgotten about English troubadours,who sang traditional material with accompaniment

Forgive the pedantry but - English troubadours?

Otherwise, after a few days away it's nice to see WAV's still playing in his piss-puddle with his plastic boat advising hardened mariners on matters nautical.

Shouldn't that be Folk Nouveau anyway?

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: glueman
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 05:00 PM

I began an unquestioning sort of believer, then became agnostic and now I'm a fully fledged folk atheist. I shall continue to attend services, nod at the right time and enjoy the ambience but the dogma is for those who like dogma - truth is folk is all sound and words.

There is nothing but what you hear.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: s&r
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 06:25 PM

Sorry - 'base' is what my earlier post should have read.

Stu

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 22 Aug 09 - 04:58 AM

"truth is folk is all sound and words." (Glueman)...truth is, rather, if, like me, you appreciate our world being multicultural, you appreciate the DIFFERENCES in musical genres - the repertoires, the styles of performance, etc.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Sian H
Date: 22 Aug 09 - 07:38 AM

Hello. I'm a new (nouvelle) Mudcatter and this is my first comment. I'm wondering where the term 'nouveau folk' first came from. I sing in a 5 piece female acapella folk group. We've been adding our own arrangements, harmonies, tempos and we sometimes change the words ( I know!) but the term we use is 'rattling' the song (because we are called Rattlebag). As this sometimes seems to rattle a few people we think the term is quite appropriate. Isn't nouveau folk a bit of a high-brow, arty and pretentious-moi term?