1954 and All That - defining folk music

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 05:34 AM

Guess what I'm listening to when I switch on the laptop this morning to check out Mudcat?? The Smithsonian Folkways CD of Ballads so exquisitely sung by a certain Jean Ritchie. It's one of those things I reach for after a rough night - a sweet salve to the very soul so it is. Although I didn't get to hear it until 2004, I see this was recorded in 1961 - the year, indeed, I was born. How cool is that?

She cannot be termed a folksinger, because she has been to college

Priceless.

And for those who don't know: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IBuW1HA5x0

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,sPLEEN cRINGE
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 05:45 AM

Thanks for that link, Sin, absolutely wonderful. When you listen to something that haunting and beautiful, all these discussions start to feel somewhat irrelevant.

Nice to see there are so many enthusiasts of the godlike genius of Elmer P. Bleaty on this thread, too.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 05:48 AM

I hesitate to follow a post from the great Jean Ritchie (respect, Ma'am!)but her quotes from Maud Karpeles and Alan Lomax suggest that even the great and the good occasionally say things which are, to say the least, debatable!

I think that it needs to be re-stated (for the umpteenth time) that this is NOT about dictating to people about what they can or cannot sing or questioning people's taste(s) in music or in labelling types of music 'good' or 'bad'. It is really about whether Folk Music is a limited, definable genre or not. Some of us say that it is and believe that the 1954 definition is a good guide to the limits. Others are insistent that it isn't (limited and definable) and further insist that music that they like is Folk Music. The 'music-that-I-like-is-Folk-Music' brigade then go on to insist that the people in the first group drop their opinions and agree with, and endorse, their views. Naturally we are reluctant to do so and are subsequently accused of all sorts of wickedness (of being 'folk policemen', 'folk fascists', 'ethnic cleansers, 'heretic hunters' etc., etc.). This doesn't seem to me to be a very adult way of conducting a debate and it's high time that the 'music-that-I-like' brigade took responsibility for their own views and stopped insisting that other people support them; it might also prove useful if they got into the habit of thinking things through a bit more thoroughly.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 06:58 AM

Just to point out that the second long paragraph of my last post was not intended to be a comment on anything that 'kytrad' had said previously - it was just a continuation of the '1954' debate.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 07:14 AM

it might also prove useful if they got into the habit of thinking things through a bit more thoroughly.

Shimrod - to clarify, I'm not proposing anything that isn't there already. By its very usage Folk Music can no longer be contained by the 1954 Definition; even the International Folk Music Council (who came up with the 1954 Definition) have changed their name to the International Council for Traditional Music, their objectives being to further the study, practice, documentation, preservation and dissemination of traditional music, including folk, popular, classical and urban music, and dance of all countries. So - think that one through, if you will. Clinging on to the 1954 Definition is not only reactionary in the extreme, but counter-productive to the very nature of Folk Music itself which, one would would hope, is primarily about the Folk rather than the Music - Folk exploring their diverse specialisms and passions under the all-encompassing umbrella that Folk now must be - indeed, which Folk now is.

To insist upon the 1954 Definition is to dictate; worse, it is to accept the vaguest of theories as an absolute theology. As it stands, it might serve as a basic model to aid an initial understanding of Traditional songs and how they may (or may not) have come about, but the reality of Folk Music in 2009 is that Traditional Song is but one of many specialisms.

The 'music-that-I-like-is-Folk-Music' brigade then go on to insist that the people in the first group drop their opinions and agree with, and endorse, their views.

On the evidence of this thread I'd have to say the real music-that-I-like-is-Folk-Music are the 1954 faithful. Last night at The Steamer we had Kipling songs, Chanties, Bothy Ballads, Traditional English songs, Ron Baxter songs, Richard Thompson songs, Self written songs, Gillian Welch songs, Ivan McKeon songs, Debbie McClatchy songs, Traditional Irish songs, Droll Monologues, Norwegian Eventyr, Cyril Tawney songs - and all in the one cosy friendly space we call The Fleetwood Folk Club. We don't have any views, only an all encompassing need for the inclusivity that is Come-All-Ye!

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST, Sminky
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 07:55 AM

Let's just take a step back from all the bickering for a moment. It happens every time and leads us nowhere.

Let us take a practical, longer-term view:

IF you believe folk music to be THIS (by whatever definition - right or wrong)

BUT public opinion (the folk) believes it to be THAT (by whatever definition - right or wrong)

THEN .....

....and your may supply your own answer.

But think very carefully of all the implications.

For example: the issue of funding is often raised in these debates as a reason for the need for the 1954 defintion. But who will the funders listen to in the future - you or everybody else?

I agree with Shimrod (yep, really) when he says that people need to start "thinking things through a bit more thoroughly". Because what he proposes entails taking on the rest of the world - and there is only ever going to be one winner in THAT contest.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 10:39 AM

Perhaps 'Sminky' has got us a little bit closer to what this debate is really all about - prevailing orthodoxy. We must bow to the weight of "Public Opinion". And these days Public Opinion tends to favour lowest common denominator pop music - and it is my observation that the musical horizons of Mr/Mrs/Ms Average extend no further than the latest, fashionable 'sounds'- and I can get those anywhere. As for "taking on the rest of the world" all great changes and reforms have come about because people have been prepared to do that. After all MacColl, Lloyd, Lomax etc. were taking on prevailing orthodoxy after the War - and look at the enduring legacy they left behind!

It is my belief (and it is not my attention to force anyone to believe what I believe - even if I could!) that if we remove the limits all we will get is a sort of 'lowest-common-denominator' mush (which will, incidentally, no longer be of any interest to me). I've been interested in Folk Music for over 40 years now and fashionable mush clubs have come and gone but it's the clubs which favour trad. song which have tended to endure.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 11:20 AM

"quotes from Maud Karpeles and Alan Lomax suggest that even the great and the good occasionally say things which are, to say the least, debatable!"

Naturally. It should also be recognized that a debate does not mean that one side is right and the other wrong.

"It is really about whether Folk Music is a limited, definable genre or not. Some of us say that it is and believe that the 1954 definition is a good guide to the limits. Others are insistent that it isn't (limited and definable) and further insist that music that they like is Folk Music. "

There are two HUGE assumptions in that statement, both of which tend to cloud the debate.

One assumption is the statement whether folk music is definable. I don't think anyone is arguing against a definition - the arguement is how that definition is interpreted.

The second assumption is that "music that they like is Folk Music". No one is making an assumuption that everything is folk music.

I think all these threads are filled with people talking over each other and not enough time spent trying to understand the other sides views.   There is more common ground than people wish to admit to.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 01:54 PM

Folk as Flotsam:

Fleetwood Beech, North Fylde, Lancashire, England, Friday March 27th 2009

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 03:14 PM

"Lowest common denominator"....??? Now there's a class ridden statement if ever I saw one, and 'e goes on at me for being 'unenlightened' HA!!!

I was going to throw a spanner, regarding the great hurdy-gurdy player, Nigel Eaton (he late of Blowzabella) playing for Loreena McKennit, and Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, but I won't *tee hee*

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Howard Jones
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 03:26 PM

The question wasn't "what music is acceptable at a folk club?", it asked for a definition of "folk music". Whilst I agree that the usage has gone far beyond "1954", I don't think it is possible to define it in this usage, particularly at the outer limits.

So far as I can see, there are no defining characteristics which can be applied to the wider usage. It seems to me to be fairly random what is accepted and what is not. Of course there are some modern songs which stylistically fit comfortably alongside traditional songs, but there are others which I've seen described as "folk" which seem to me to have absolutely nothing in common. It seems to depend as much on the credentials of the songwriter and/or performer as anything.

By way of an example, on the "BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2008" CD set there is a song, "Bricks", by Tuung. The song is not traditional, nor does it resemble a traditional song, and the style of performance is not what I would consider "folky". In my opinion it's not folk, and I'm bewildered why it's on the CD at all - it doesn't seem to tick any of the "folk" boxes. Clearly, in someone else's opnion (and I don't want to start another Smoothops-bashing debate!) it is folk.

The general public would probably describe songs by Ewan McColl or Cyril Tawney or Ralph McTell or early Dylan as "folk". I'm not so sure they would include Richard Thompson, although for most of us his his songs are probably acceptable in a folk club (I hope so, because I sing some of them). I very much doubt the general public would regard songs by the Beatles or Oasis or Nirvana as "folk", not even when performed in a folk style on acoustic guitar.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 03:51 PM

Rifleman: I was going to throw a spanner, regarding the great hurdy-gurdy player, Nigel Eaton (he late of Blowzabella) playing for Loreena McKennit

I don't give a monkey's who Nigel Eaton plays with or what he plays. If it sounds good, great. If it doesn't, too bad. If it's folk, it's folk. If it's not, it's not. Two completely separate questions.

Ron: I don't think anyone is arguing against a definition - the arguement is how that definition is interpreted.

I think the argument is what that definition is. Nobody's really advanced an alternative to 1954 other than "what gets played in folk clubs".

Having said that, I did like SS's comment -

Folk Musicians and Singers in Folk Clubs and singarounds aren't professionals, they are hearty amateurs, very often non-musicians; non-musos certainly. Therefore much of the charm of actual folk music (its folk character if you will) lies in the evident and entirely corporeal shortfall between intention and result. It lies in the immediacy of its empirical realisation and experience thereof; it can never happen that way again

That suggests it's not so much a matter of what gets played in folk clubs as of how it's played in folk clubs. And it's true that a song has to get its tie loosened and its hair messed up by that entirely corporeal shortfall between intention and result if it's ever going to become a folk song. So folk clubs - whatever kind of material you hear there - are one of the places where bits of the folk process can still operate, and that's worth celebrating in itself.

BUT (it's a big but)... there's still a difference between songs that have been marinated in the folk process for a couple of centuries and songs that get dunked in it every other Wednesday - not least because, in between times, I can always go away and find the correct words to a ballad or play a recording of Anne Briggs doing it properly. Not only that, but traditional songs almost invariably sound different from new ones - they tell different stories in different ways, they require a different kind of concentration from the singer and a different kind of attention from the audience. It's great to get up in front of other singers and sing something by Dylan or Neil Young or Morrissey in your own arrangement, or something you've just written yourself; it's great to do something that hasn't been done before, and it's even better when it goes down well. But if so much of that kind of 'folk character' comes in the front door that traditional songs go out the back - which is the case in the club nearest to me - then something's going wrong.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 04:40 PM

This reminds me of religious changes in the C16th when belief became an intellectual assent to a credo. If 1954 is a closed door it's pernicious nonsense. Folk cannot be academic, it's oxymoronic to believe it can, all top down definitions will fail a bottom up form.

But then I don't accept folk music is a museum piece any more than classical music died with the nineteenth century. The atomisation of humanity didn't end with the railway and he gramophone.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 04:50 PM

what I actually said was
"I was going to throw a spanner, regarding the great hurdy-gurdy player, Nigel Eaton (he late of Blowzabella) playing for Loreena McKennit, AND Robert Plant and Jimmy Page".

Of course the latter two definitely don't fit into the trad folk idiom, for which I am eternally grateful.

Folk music ain't a museum piece or yer grandmothers clock sitting on the mantlepiece, collecting dust, it's a living, vibrant, and, I hope, an ever evolving music.
You want museum pieces? Go the V & A.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 05:28 PM

" "Lowest common denominator"....??? Now there's a class ridden statement if ever I saw one,..."

So, so keen to identify moral failings, aren't you, Rifleman?

Why do you assume that this is a 'classist' statement? After all much popular music, these days, is a mass-produced 'product' to be passively consumed by people of all classes - and a huge percentage of them don't know any better because they've never experienced anything else. And this huge edifice of manufactured pop-pap is so monumental that it tends to overwhelm everything else. Also, let's face it, a huge majority of 'music consumers' don't have their own tastes at all but are completely under the influence of various 'arbiters of cool'.

I don't think that class comes into it.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 06:57 PM

songs that have been marinated in the folk process for a couple of centuries

Oh how sweet the assumptions of the faithful!

Otherwise, I did this (images & music) today: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EznkdwwOg0w

How folk is that?

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 07:23 PM

I'm sorry, SS, but let me reorder the words a bit:

How is that folk?

I'm not trying to be a smart-ass. I'm just curious as to how that qualifies "folk." I'd put it in the category of "new age."

Don Firth

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 07:32 PM

what I actually said was
"I was going to throw a spanner, regarding the great hurdy-gurdy player, Nigel Eaton (he late of Blowzabella) playing for Loreena McKennit, AND Robert Plant and Jimmy Page".

And what I actually said was that I don't give a monkey's who Nigel Eaton plays with or what he plays. If it sounds good, great. If it doesn't, too bad. If it's folk, it's folk. If it's not, it's not. Two completely separate questions.

Oh how sweet the assumptions of the faithful!

Again, you're mistaking me for someone else. 'Faithful' is denying that Bert Lloyd ever lied about his sources and claiming that the Blackleg Miner is 200 years old. I try to go by what we actually know, e.g. that Farewell my Dearest Dear was collected over 200 years after its first appearance on a broadside, or that Willie of Winsbury also answers to the name of Thomas (and to John from the Isle of Man). Something happened back there; I don't think there's anything mystical about saying that what happened was oral transmission with variation, i.e. the folk process.

How folk is that?

Is that a trick question? It's weird, striking, uncompromising, idiosyncratic, obstinately glitchy and pretty cool, but it's about as folk as Nelson's column.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: The Sandman
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 08:05 PM

Folk music ain't a museum piece or yer grandmothers clock sitting on the mantlepiece, collecting dust, it's a living, vibrant, and, I hope, an ever evolving music.
and can be found on football terraces.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 08:05 PM

I'd put it in the category of "new age."

New Age? You know, I think that hurts even more than Jim Carroll dismissing efforts at Traditional Balladry as bad pop singing.

Anyway, the music was realised by filtering & looping one of my rubber squeaky penguin toys as a real-time improvisation on my lap-top by way of an analogous folk process. One of the things we used to hear a lot on the old Harvest Home forum was that a lap-top computer was just as valid an instrument for folk music as a concertina. So here we have a single squeaky toy reed transfigured (beyond recognition) into the three elements of Traditional Folk Music (drone, rhythm and melody) to accompany the image of the bestial simulacra as found today on the beach. This sculpture was the the product of nature (sea & wind) rearranging various man-made artefacts (the seaweed notwithstanding) into something with string echoes of certain folkloric & ceremonial ritual masks. Also, I reckon a more extended version of this music would make an ideal accompaniment for a spirited rendering of Child #36. Also, for all us Darkly Wyrd Goth Trad Folk types in the UK, any such obvious a homage to Jonathan Miller's 1969 adaptation of Monty James's Oh Whistle and I'll Come to You My Lad is to honour that which is integral to the whole Folk Concept.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Goose Gander
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 08:34 PM

Well, I just looked at and listened to 'Fylde Coast, March 27th 2009' and I now know why you and I will never agree on an appropriate definition for Folk Music.

"Anyway, the music was realised by filtering & looping one of my rubber squeaky penguin toys as a real-time improvisation on my lap-top by way of an analogous folk process."

Sorry, but there is no 'folk process' - analogous or otherwise - involved in running random sounds through a computer program. Interesting, even mesmerizing, but not folk.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Howard Jones
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 08:36 PM

"One of the things we used to hear a lot on the old Harvest Home forum was that a lap-top computer was just as valid an instrument for folk music as a concertina."

Quite possibly, but that doesn't make any music made on a lap-top "folk", any more than any music played on a concertina is folk.

SS, apart from "drone, rhythm and melody", which are features of pretty much all music, not just folk, can you please explain what elements of your Fylde Beach track you consider qualify it to be "folk". Then we might understand your perspective.

Also, could you explain why it is so important to you that it should be described as "folk"?

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: M.Ted
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 09:25 PM

Most of the traditions that preserved and transmitted the "traditional" music that we love , at least, the English speaking ones, are gone.

Mercifully, a lot of it was taken down, recorded, transcribed, and even better, a whole contingent of others have embraced it, learned it, tried to recreate the way it was performed, or tried to use it in more modern ways, or tried to make new things out of it, or tried to make new things like it.

For good or ill, folk/traditional/ethnic music got swept up into popular music for a period of time, and that created a tension amongst collectors, performers, listeners and fellow travellers that out lasted long after the last song fell off the pop charts.

After Jean Ritchie posted here most amusing introductions above, I pushed a couple buttons and listened to the Edna and Jean Ritchie version of The Four Marys, followed by Alameda Riddle, and then by everyone who was posted to YouTube. It was entertaining, educational, and ocassionally electrifying.

My point is that everybody showed a different aspect of the song, from traditional ballad to ersatz pop tune, to quasi-historical document, to an excercise in midi programming, to feminist tract, to just plain fun.   

I could have found a principled objection to each one, from "sterile museum relic" to "rip-off of the folk art of the people", to "academic self-indugence" to "mass-produced 'product'--but the fact is that each, had an integrity of its own, and I wouldn't give up the experience of having heard all of them for anything.

The reason that this song survived is because it speaks to different people in different ways over time. That's why there are a lot of different, and sometimes incompatible ways to look at it.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Betsy
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 09:49 PM

Were all discussing this matter through a medium, (on this Internet thread ), which could never ever been conceived during my childhood ,teenage, or young adulthood .
The whole story has moved on , and so must we, and the music we love.
Criticise people for not sticking to the 1954 definition , and you shackle people .
It was a honest definition generated some 50 years ago - since then, people have landed on the moon , many unbelievable things have been invented happened and evolved .
Keep the music simple and entertaining - WE all know what Folk music is, (in our own individual minds so stop beating ourselves up, and enjoy the good bits , and forget about the indifferent bits .

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 28 Mar 09 - 03:55 AM

Amen

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Peace
Date: 28 Mar 09 - 03:57 AM

Amen to your Amen.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 28 Mar 09 - 04:29 AM

The fly in 1954s ointment is nostalgia. Attribute authenticity because you can't trust people to trust their ears. Bunkum. My ears are fully functioning folk-o-meters.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 28 Mar 09 - 04:53 AM

Sorry, but there is no 'folk process' - analogous or otherwise - involved in running random sounds through a computer program. Interesting, even mesmerizing, but not folk.

In selecting a sound by editing & sampling (so hardly random) and treating this via Ableton Live (not so much a computer programme as a way of life with a tradition & community all of its own) I am, in terms of the 1954 Definition, evolving a music from rudimentary beginnings and re-fashioning and re-creating that music (with respect of the community) to give it its folk character. Otherwise, see my response to Don's New Age comment.

Also, could you explain why it is so important to you that it should be described as "folk"?

I am a Trad / Folk Artist - a storyteller in essence - working with both primal & contemporary technology and all points in between. What interests me is the availability of that technology and how that might be considered with respect of Trad. or Folk Arts. Can photography ever be a Folk Art? What about film making? Or sound? Certainly there emerges a Folk Character with respect of the sorts of things people can do with these available technologies, and, much as we might accept (say) quilting, knitting, sour-dough modelling and macramé as being Folk Arts - crafts if you like - I feel computers enable another level of creativity which remains very much Folk in terms of its humanity, creativity, collectivity, and availability. It also allows for a very essential idiosyncrasy which, I feel, is Folk by default - the realm of the outsider in terms of any given establishment. I don't see myself quite as an outsider - I get paid very handsomely & pride myself on providing a reliable & professional service - but to lose sight of the actual nature of any given Folk Art with respect the human creative genius (that idiosyncratic spark which is common to all!) is to miss the point rather.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: DMcG
Date: 28 Mar 09 - 05:47 AM

Sorry, Sinister, but I only see an individual there, not a community. Even if lots of people are involved in the computer program, there is only one person involved in developing the music. The 1954 definition's use of the 'evolution' and 'community' seem to be quite different to the way you are using the words.

There was a comment above - way above - saying that classical music for example is also a fresh interpretation each time. This ties in to me with the idea of generations and also what I understand by 'evolution'. In classical music, the written form we can call generation 0 (G0). Normally, each interpretation is based on that, so (almost) every performance is G1. Occasionally, a movement will be dropped and this will become established, or similar variation become the norm, so you get to G2, i.e. an interpretation based on a G1 version, not G0 directly. Getting to G3 and G4 is rare in classical music. For 'evolution' in the 1954 sense, G4 and much higher generation numbers are common. Singer-songwriter material is in this evolutionary sense closer to classical music in that people try to stay close to the G0 version.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Howard Jones
Date: 28 Mar 09 - 06:01 AM

SS, your argument appears to be that you're a "folk artist" so anything you produce will be "folk". But how can you be considered a "folk artist" unless you're playing folk? This is another circular argument, just like your earlier position that anything played in a "folk context" is therefore folk, when a "folk context" can only mean somewhere folk music is played.

You can call it what you like, but it doesn't help us either to define "folk music" or to stablish what is acceptable in folk clubs (which is a slightly different question).

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 28 Mar 09 - 06:42 AM

Thanks, DMcG - well put.

What I've been saying is that folk music is music that's come through - that's been preserved without being written down, by people other than the original writer/performer, and developed & changed in the process.

I don't think there's any such thing as "folk character", "folk style" or a "folk performance".

I don't think "folk" is a value judgment.

I don't think folk songs are 'museum pieces', or that they have to be sung in a certain style, or accompanied on certain instruments. Folk songs have survived this far - they can take whatever we throw at them now. Jim Moray's Lord Bateman (arranged in 5:4 for keyboard & beatbox) is as "1954" as any other version of the song.

I don't think that people like me saying that the 1954 definition makes sense is going to stop everyone in the world using "folk" to mean, er... whatever it is that they're using it to mean. I do think it's a point of view worth expressing - and, frankly, one that's held by more people than I thought at the start of this thread.

"Is" and "ought" are never that far apart; if you talk about how the world is, you're usually also saying that you like it that way, or else that you'd like it to change. (Unless you're a geologist.) I think we can all agree, by this stage, that in practice the word "folk" means anything and nothing. The disagreement is about whether we think that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 28 Mar 09 - 07:28 AM

Even if lots of people are involved in the computer program, there is only one person involved in developing the music.

Just like there is only one person involved in singing an unaccompanied traditional folk song you mean? When I say Community and Tradition with respect to Ableton Live, I mean the community of musicians who use Ableton as a tool for music creation & production. Indeed, Ableton themselves describe Live as an instrument, and just like any other instrument, there will emerge techniques and conventions readily identifiable as part of its character which is defined by traditional & communal usage.

The 1954 definition's use of the 'evolution' and 'community' seem to be quite different to the way you are using the words.

The 1954 Definition is wholly redundant and inadequate to reflect the actual usage of the term Folk Music in 2009 - in other words the reality of folk in the light of which even the IFMC have change their name. I wonder - how many folkies does it take to change a light bulb? Maybe back in the day the 1954 Definition was illuminating, but it's long since popped. By all means go sing a song about good it was, but until you replace the bulb you're blundering about in the fecking dark.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Howard Jones
Date: 28 Mar 09 - 10:16 AM

No one is disagreeing that the term "folk music" has widened to mean more than "traditional music". The trouble is, what it has come to mean is so nebulous that it is meaningless. Everyone has different ideas what it encompasses. For me SS's Fylde Beach offering doesn't tick any "folk" boxes, but for him it clearly does - who is to say either of us is right?

I don't think SS's claims that his music is folk because he is a folk artist, or that folk music is what is performed in folk clubs, are helpful because they are circular arguments. Also, there is stuff performed in folk clubs which quite clearly is not folk music.

The one thing we can say with confidence is that traditional music is folk music. The problem lies with the other stuff. What shared characteristics does the other stuff have which enable us to recognise it as a genre?

By definition, we're talking about composed music. It seems to depend in part on whether the composer or performer has "folk" credentials (whatever that means). So Richard Thompson is OK, Lennon/McCartney aren't.

Instrumentation is no help. Traditional folk is performed unaccompanied, with accepted "folk" instruments such as guitar or concertina, with electric or electronic instruments, or with an orchestra. Performing a traditional song in a non-folky way doesn't make it any less of a traditional song, so why should performing a composed song in a folky way necessarily make it "folk"?

And yet, having said that, a folky style of performance is one of the things which makes a song acceptable in a folk club, at least to me. But it still doesn't make it folk: "Lola" isn't a folk song just because Swan Arcade sang it in folk-style harmony in folk clubs, "Sweet Georgia Brown" isn't just because Hobson & Lees played jazz guitar duets in folk clubs.

None of this brings us any closer to a definition. The best I can do is to say that I have my own idea of what "folk" is, but I recognise that it may not be the same as yours, and it's certainly not the same as Sinister Supporter's.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 28 Mar 09 - 12:09 PM

Precise definitions are important for the commodification of a music but not necessarily for its dissemination. Many people buying an album of a mainstream artist like Kate Rusby would be pressed to tell the difference between one of her own compositions and traditional material.

If the delivery, instrumentation and style are identical one has to ask what this quantitive difference is? Taxonomists create theoretical divides that have nothing to do with aural reception. 1954 is a comfortable framework for those who seek (un)certainty in their musical provenance but tells us little about folkishness and (IMO) has contributed to the the form becoming a hobby - and a hobbyhorse - that's light years away from its origins.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 28 Mar 09 - 12:14 PM

"Why do you assume that this is a 'classist' statement? After all much popular music, these days, is a mass-produced 'product' to be passively consumed by people of all classes - and a huge percentage of them don't know any better because they've never experienced anything else. And this huge edifice of manufactured pop-pap is so monumental that it tends to overwhelm everything else. Also, let's face it, a huge majority of 'music consumers' don't have their own tastes at all but are completely under the influence of various 'arbiters of cool'

None of which is really any of your business. People will choose to listen what they want to listen to, regardless of who suggests what and to whom. Face it, "folk" music is a minority taste and always will be, I personally don't see the masses being converted anytime soon. Good God! then folk would become "popular" music and the 'arbiters of (folk) cool' would be telling people what to listen to.

*wanders off singing Will The Circle Be Unbroken*

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 28 Mar 09 - 01:08 PM

If the delivery, instrumentation and style are identical one has to ask what this quantitive difference is?

I'll answer that one by echoing Howard:

Traditional folk is performed unaccompanied, with accepted "folk" instruments such as guitar or concertina, with electric or electronic instruments, or with an orchestra. Performing a traditional song in a non-folky way doesn't make it any less of a traditional song, so why should performing a composed song in a folky way necessarily make it "folk"?

Personally I'm not talking about what individual pieces of music sound like. Unaccompanied folk, acoustic guitar folk, concertina folk, laptop folk, drum and bass folk, string quartet folk, death metal folk - it's all folk music if the song is a folksong to begin with. And if not, not.

If you're not an enthusiast for traditional music (and you sound fairly dismissive of the idea of being an enthusiast), then you probably aren't bothered about how much traditional music people are able to hear. I am, and I would really like to hear more folksongs in folk clubs. There are lots of acoustic clubs and singer-songwriter clubs and open mic clubs where folk music is treated as just another speciality, and a slightly quaint one at that ("and here's Pip, who I expect will give us something traditional"). I don't object to those clubs - I've been at some great nights of assorted vernacular creativity and artistic imperfection. But I do object to being told that a completely undefined and open-ended mishmash of material, from Dylan to Rudyard Kipling to free improv, is in some mysterious way the definition of folk.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Goose Gander
Date: 28 Mar 09 - 01:10 PM

"In selecting a sound by editing & sampling (so hardly random) and treating this via Ableton Live (not so much a computer programme as a way of life with a tradition & community all of its own) I am, in terms of the 1954 Definition, evolving a music from rudimentary beginnings and re-fashioning and re-creating that music (with respect of the community) to give it its folk character."

A rubber ducky? OK, maybe I should have said 'found sounds' - is that terminology still current?

". . . not so much a computer programme as a way of life with a tradition & community all of its own . . ."

A way of life? Good grief. But where is the 'folk process' at work upon your composition? Do you mean this as a metaphor? Because I honestly do not understand what you mean. Traditions take time to develop, the folk process takes time. It's not something you put together in a afternoon with a rubber ducky and a laptop.

Here's an idea: Early 20th century fiddle music in North America used repetition of commonly known melodies, floating lyrics, drone notes, etc. Musicians would 'sample' bits and pieces of popular tunes and work them into new compositions. Similar principles are used in the production of contemporary 21st century dance music. Therefore, Fiddle Music is Techno. Right?

Your definition of Folk, as I understand it, follows a similar logic.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 28 Mar 09 - 02:12 PM

"If you're not an enthusiast for traditional music (and you sound fairly dismissive of the idea of being an enthusiast), then you probably aren't bothered about how much traditional music people are able to hear. I am."

FWIW almost all the 'folk' music in my collection is authentic traditional music, much of it older recordings.
It has almost nothing to do with folk club and leather tankard hobbyist end of the 'scene'. I bought it because I like the way it sounds, not for actual or spurious reasons of authenticity. I dig simple, straightforward music with limited or non-existent production values. Those preferences inevitably put folk music in my sights.

I think you can tell contemporary music that is folk that may - or more likely may well not not be played in traditional modes or instrumentation, by its intentions but a listener has to trust their ears.

I doubt the atomisation of communities prior to the industrial revolution or mass transport or recording leant their music anything wholly exclusive - at least I've never heard any regional form that wasn't at least half some other form - so I'm forced to conclude those divisions are arbitrary. And if form is notional, then why not other accrued values?

One of the problems (for me) with clubs is performers and bookers believe singer-songwriting that resembles traditional styles will be acceptable to its audience. I'd be more well disposed to SS's loops and digital sequences if it had genuine folkish marks than new writing in old styles if it was merely pastiche. It relies on being able to tell and I'm afraid that requires discrimination and - dare I say it - knowledge and taste.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 28 Mar 09 - 02:12 PM

"Face it, "folk" music is a minority taste and always will be, I personally don't see the masses being converted anytime soon."

Rifleman, I've already faced it! Converting the masses has never been any part of my agenda (where did I say that it was?). Actually, I rather like the fact that folk music is a minority taste - I've never been keen on crowds and I can't really see any disadvantages.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 28 Mar 09 - 02:15 PM

By all means go sing a song about good it was,
ummm....
The Ballad of '54
In 1954 We Had It So Good (non-folk song)

oh and I came across this in something I was reading

Why is a critic like a eunuch in harem?

He sees sex every day, he knows what sex is, he knows how the sex act is performed, but he can't do it himself.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 28 Mar 09 - 05:15 PM

A way of life? Good grief. But where is the 'folk process' at work upon your composition? Do you mean this as a metaphor? Because I honestly do not understand what you mean. Traditions take time to develop, the folk process takes time. It's not something you put together in a afternoon with a rubber ducky and a laptop.

It was a rubber penguin not a duck.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 28 Mar 09 - 05:26 PM

"But I do object to being told that a completely undefined and open-ended mishmash of material, from Dylan to Rudyard Kipling to free improv, is in some mysterious way the definition of folk. "

We kinda understood that several hundred posts ago. The reality is, no one gives a flying fuck about your opinion, my opinion, or any opinion that has been posted here. The reality is reality.   You have an issue with the music that is being presented in clubs, so what do you do about it besides posting here? What are you trying to do to promote the music that you excited about? (If you think that you are more of an "enthusiast" than those that disagree with your opinions, you are living in a fantasy!)

This issue is not going away if we call it "folk". Let's just say that we all agree with the 1954 definition. Laws are passed that forbid the signing of Richard Thompson whenever the word "folk" is on a banner. Do you honestly think that agreeing on a definition is going to change interests and tastes?

If you want a REAL folk song - you sing it. Some punter on a stage is making music to entertain,perhaps educate, and hopefully to enjoy the experience of making music.   Folk music can be found in a community brought together in song. The application is just as important a part of the definition as the content.

Traditional music is not going to die out. There will be an interest, and the great work that many of you have done to preserve it is a treasure that people of my generation and younger generations can look to with deep respect and sincere thanks. You cannot alter the way the world spins no matter how many threads are started and opinions shared.

As I said in my first post in this thread - the topic is only going to create flames - and judging from all these posts, my thought came true.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 Mar 09 - 05:30 PM

Somewhat further back, I concluded that this thread, similar to some others like it, was degenerating into a series of hissy-fits and was going nowhere. Yet, miraculously, it seems to have developed into a fairly reasonable exchange of viewpoints.

My record and CD collection consists pretty much of the same sort of thing as yours, glueman. Mostly traditional songs (songs I have always thought of as "folk songs"), some sung by traditional singers such as Jean Ritchie, many sung by non-traditional singers (urban-born, not raised in a folk singing tradition or community) who sing traditional songs, some in a more or less traditional manner, others (like Richard Dyer-Bennet) not so. But traditional—folk—songs nonetheless.

However a folk song began, whether written by a professional composer (such as an ancient troubadour or minstrel who made his living writing songs to sing) or a couple of guys sitting in an ale house making up new verses to a well-known tune, it doesn't become a "folk song" until it acquires certain characteristics that come only from being learned and sung by other people, and being gradually modified through conscious or unconscious "editing." This takes time, and it also requires that a sufficient number of people over, perhaps, a number of generations, like the song enough to learn it, sing it, and pass it on to others.

One of my grandfathers was a shoemaker. I have the hammer he used all his life. The wooden handle is polished from decades of use, and there are indentations worn in the handle by his thumb and fingers. The essential characteristic of a genuine folk song is that it have this kind of polish and wear from being used over a period of time, and in the case of a folk song, by many hands.

That is the intrinsic quality that a song must gradually acquire before it becomes a folk song. And it is this intrinsic quality that I referred to above as "prestige." Now, whether anyone recognizes this prestige or not makes no difference to the song. And since this is an intrinsic quality, it has nothing to do with who sings it or how or where it is sung. A folk song sung by an operatic baritone from a concert house stage and accompanied by a piano or symphony orchestra is still a folk song. And the words and tune to "The Anvil Chorus" from Giuseppe Verdi's Il Trovatore, whether you are singing it a folk club or in your own back yard while chopping firewood, is not a folk song.

It is this "prestige" or intrinsic quality that someone is trying to claim when he or she announces that "this is a folk song" that they have just written. It is not a folk song. It's fresh from the factory, right out of the box, and has not yet acquired any of the polish and wear that comes from the kind of usage that makes a song a folk song.

Now, this is not a qualitative judgment. The folk song in question many be a really dorky song—such as "Billy Magee Magaw," a degenerated form of "The Three Ravens" (Child #26), which, in Thomas Ravenscroft's 1611 collection, Melismata, is well-constructed, poetic, and haunting. Traditional songs and ballads can degenerate into doggerel in this manner—through the folk process, which does not always improve a song. Yet, it's still a folk song.

The newly composed song may sound like a folk song, be really well-constructed, expressing emotions that resonate with just about everyone who hears it, or that tells a really gripping story that rings true, while, at the same time, is set to an interesting and memorable tune. It may inspire may people to want to learn it and sing it. In short, it may be a really great song.

But—it is not yet a folk song.

Now, I don't derive this viewpoint form the 1954 definition, but from years of association with folk music, much reading on the subject, and many conversations with folklorists, ethnomusicologists, and singers of this kind of material, some of whom have been raised in the tradition and many who have not.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 28 Mar 09 - 06:04 PM

I don't think anyone is going to question anything you say with respect of Traditional song, Don. Folk song, however, is in no way synonymous with Traditional song, rather, Folk song is an umbrella term for many types of songs, including Traditional, which occur in a designated folk context, such as a Folk Club, Folk Festival, Folk Radio Show etc. This isn't a matter of opinion, but a matter of observable fact.

Great post though!

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 28 Mar 09 - 06:19 PM

no one gives a flying fuck about your opinion, my opinion, or any opinion that has been posted here

On the basis that "no one" includes you, Ron, I'm slightly hurt. Then again, on the understanding that "no one" includes me, I don't have to pay any attention to your opinion - so never mind.

Still. Just between us Mudcatters, in the full awareness that hardly anyone outside the hallowed virtual precincts of this site gives a damn, what do you think the definition of 'folk' is? Or do you think it's better left undefined? It's just that it seems to me (just between us Mudcatters, etc) that leaving it undefined has had deleterious consequences, particularly in terms of limiting people's exposure to traditional music. You may not be an enthusiast for traditional music, in which case you won't necessarily think that's a problem, but I am and I do. Obviously the opinion of one keyboard-bashing traddie isn't going to change the world, but I think it's worth expressing - just between us Mudcatters, you understand, and in the full awareness that hardly anyone outside the hallowed virtual precincts of this site gives a damn.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 28 Mar 09 - 06:29 PM

It's just that it seems to me... that leaving it undefined has had deleterious consequences, particularly in terms of limiting people's exposure to traditional music.

You're beginning to sound like WAV, Pip.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 28 Mar 09 - 06:32 PM

This isn't a matter of opinion, but a matter of observable fact.

I refer the learned gentleman to my earlier squawk:

""Is" and "ought" are never that far apart; if you talk about how the world is, you're usually also saying that you like it that way, or else that you'd like it to change. (Unless you're a geologist.) I think we can all agree, by this stage, that in practice the word "folk" means anything and nothing. The disagreement is about whether we think that's a good thing or a bad thing."

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 28 Mar 09 - 07:03 PM

The disagreement is about whether we think that's a good thing or a bad thing.

It matters not what our personal tastes might be, or yet our specialisms; we get on with that regardless and bring that to the pot. The important thing is the sense of unity we find in the Folk Scene as a whole which comes through the mutual appreciation of the diversity which is essential to the very nature of Folk. You know - this sort of thing:

Matt Armour - When the Saints go Marching In

Matt's legacy is the human warmth of inclusivity. His singarounds were legendary in this respect - a utopia of perfect belonging & community regardless of whatever stripe of folk you were.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Goose Gander
Date: 28 Mar 09 - 07:42 PM

"It was a rubber penguin not a duck."

My apologies.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Betsy
Date: 28 Mar 09 - 09:07 PM

I don't have a CD player, but I have loads of CD's which people have sent me, because they have recorded my songs. All of them sing (as I understand) the songs better than I do ,(or did) so let's all think about what we're saying on this thread, because,the music and song come come first.If there is no fun in folk music - I want to be out of it.