The Concept of FREED Folkmusic

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Howard Jones
Date: 27 Sep 10 - 04:09 AM

Ordinary folk who are competent singers and musicians can get a venue any time they want. If I wished,I could play every night of the week at venues no more than hour's drive away, and all free. Most musicians around the UK could probably say the same. I don't live in a city.

Those who are not competent can't get a venue because they won't attract an audience - they may even drive an audience away. It's not a conspiracy, it's just that people won't waste their time listening to crap - even if it's free.

My point about libraries is nothing to do with advertising, it's about time. I couldn't afford to take several days out of a working week to travel two hundred miles to visit a specialist library in the hope of finding one or two new songs. Professionals do this because they have to - researching or writing new material is part of the job, just as rehearsing, administration and travel are - the public performance is just the tip of the iceberg. It is their work which disseminates new songs.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 27 Sep 10 - 04:25 AM

"ordinary folk cant get a venue ...
Music does not require money. I can prove it by going to any public place and play music."

You contradicted yourself in one breath here. Ordinary folk like me and thousands of other amateur enthusiasts, perform for free all the time. Just the same as you. So there's nothing to prove.

My impression is that you have a chip on your shoulder and while you (same as the rest of us) can perform for free, you resent the fact that no paying venue wants to hire you to perform for cash?

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 27 Sep 10 - 06:09 AM

Tootler:@ Conrad seems to believe that professionals are denying opportunities to amateurs. Well I'm an amateur musician and I don't find there is any lack of opportunity nor do I find professionals telling me I am not good enough. Quite the opposite; the professional musicians I know are very encouraging.

Absolutely! While I'm nowhere near good enough to get a paid gig,or even to play on a stage, there's no way I'm denied opportunities to perform. In fact, I receive lots of encouragement from people much better than am, whether they're amateur or professional.

I now attend singarounds and sessions regularly and have never once felt anything other than strong encouragement to play, even though I know that my current instrumental skill level is very modest, my vocal talents barely adequate and I have a tendency to let nerves get the better of me. I *could* attend sessions locally (within 30 minutes drive) 4 or 5 times a week if I wanted. I try to limit it to once or twice otherwise I'd end up running out of material.

I just don't understand what Cionrad's on about.

- There are no lack of opportunities to perform for anyone who wishes to, IMO.

- I don't know of ANY folk professionals who live "jet set" lifestyles. This is just a figment of Conrad's imagination, I reckon. Even the most well-known "stars" who visit my town stay in either the local Travelodge or at friends' homes. NEVER in the local 4 star hotel.

- As for "bringing traditional music to the masses" people like Fairport Convention, as well as writing their own material, are assiduous searchers of archives and regularly perform newly-unearthed "trad" songs and tunes at their gigs.

As I said about 600 posts up-thread, Conrad seems to have a chip on his shoulder about being alienated from his local "scene"... which is probably something to do with the attitudes and behaviour he expresses. This seems to have been confirmed by "Skivee". As a player of low competence myself, I'm often pleasantly surprised that people in sessions "give me a hearing"....but I reckon that if I started tootling loudly and tunelessly on a whistle during someone else's performance or shouting out for songs while someone else was singing, I'd pretty soon alinate the local community too, and find my presence at events as unwelcome as Conrad seems to.

But the man has a fixed idea in his head which he thinks is radical and that the rest of us can't understand, and nothing anyone can say will deflect him from his self-righteousness.

He thinks he's a MESSIAH. Actually, he's just a MESS.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Howard Jones
Date: 27 Sep 10 - 08:19 AM

Performers in the US will travel by air. However that's because, far from having the best venues stitched up as Conrad seems to believe, they have to take work where they can find it, which means travelling long distances between gigs. Given the scale of North America, flying is often the quickest (and possibly cheapest) means of transport. However they are no different from thousands of others who have to travel in the course of their work. It's not a jet-set lifestyle.

In the UK, distances are shorter but professional musicians clock up thousands of miles each year travelling between gigs. It is not unusual for them to be playing at opposite ends of the country on consecutive nights. Only a very few are able to organise tours to minimise travel - most have to take gigs when and where they are offered. They end up staying in cheap hotels or in organisers' spare rooms.

Believe me, business travel even in 4-star hotels is not glamorous. Sleeping on people's sofas even less.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: *#1 PEASANT*
Date: 27 Sep 10 - 12:18 PM

If you have not read of musicians making national and also international tours you must be blind. You read about them on this forum all the time. When someone says they are in new york and will be in san fransisco tomorrow it is air travel. I know how much It costs to travel as I go to events with artcars. Costs of globalizing or nationalizing your reach as a pro musician are eventually passed on to the audience and therefore a barrier much larger than the cost of local music and keeping it local. Not only is it jet set but its also unionized.

If you and your neighbors had the songs in their heads then research would not be necessary. Thats what use of music for pure entertainment does it causes people to depend on others for music something which is not necessary. If every concert left someone with a song in their heads-they learned it or picked up a song sheet and learned it later things would be much better. But pros dont want competition. If everyone knew the song what would the pro do.

The concepts of competency and quality are all abstractions. Determined by the listener. For me If I can hear an aproximation of melody that is fine if they get the words mostly correct I can in my mind fill in the gaps. When you bring abstract arbitrary quality concers to bear you limit the number of people who have access to audiences- this is a fact. All that is needed is to educate the audience to being more tolerant.

Economic discrimination is bad. When venues use prices to keep certain people out while letting other people in they are discriminating and operating segregating establishment. When racial discrimination and segregation were ruled out econmic, cultural segregation came in. This is well know. "we dont want that type in here" The working classes are excluded by costs. We lost a great german oktoberfest in baltimore. It was held in the national guard armory. The placed was at capacity. Working class, and the working poor could afford to eat and drink and have a good time. The organizers raised prices. At first they had a big enough crowd of the wealthy yuppie elite to make a fair profit but when the economy tightened they would not lower their prices and the bottom fell out.
They had not raised their prices because of cost but because of greed and a strong desire to weed out the lower classes.

Economic segregation should be illegal. Reasonable profit for goods should be regulated.

I dont find many performing for free around here. As a cartist I am in great demand. Almost every weekend can be taken in the summer. I always come for free with the rare exception of havin a little gass money tossed at me. Sort of like the free drinks given players at pubs. I ALWAYS perform for free not occasionally. I do this at big venues too. I am in demand such that I rarely get a weekend off. Last weekend I was at the Baltimore Book fair the one before at H street festival.....I have one next weekend. I practice what I preach.

Conrad

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Will Fly
Date: 27 Sep 10 - 12:29 PM

If everyone knew the song what would the pro do.

A comment which demonstrates your idiocy better than most...

greed and a strong desire to weed out the lower classes.

... although this comes pretty close!

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Howard Jones
Date: 27 Sep 10 - 01:05 PM

Conrad, everything you say contradicts itself. You claim you want to spread folk music, but your actions would restrict it. You want to reduce the diversity of events, now you want to localise it so that people won't get to hear great singers from outside their area.

If you and your neighbors had the songs in their heads then research would not be necessary. Where are those songs going to come from? I wasn't born knowing the words to 'Tamlin' or 'The Trees They Do Grow Hight'. I had to learn them - I did so from books (written by professionals) and records (made by professionals).

I'm a singer, but I don't want to go to a concert to be taught a song (although if I hear a good one I might then go and learn it). Concerts are not teaching exercises - there are plenty of workshop sessions which are - although a good performer will inform the audience about the songs.

Professionals may not want the competition, but they can't prevent it. Promoters are always on the lookout for new talent. If you're good, if you can attract an audience, you'll get gigs. All it takes is talent and hard work, so I can see why you have a problem with it. As for being unionised, you cannot be serious. Yes, some performers belong to the Musicians Union, but there is no bar on non-members being paid to perform.

Economic discrimination is nonsense. The working classes aren't excluded from folk music by the cost. The working classes can afford to go to ball games, to go drinking, to buy cigarettes and drugs, to buy flat-screen TVs, to take foreign holidays. Few folk events here cost more than the price of a couple of packets of cigarettes. The non-working classes may have more of a problem, but if you spent less on beer and food and cars you'd have no difficulty affording folk events. It's a question of priorities. As I've said before, I'm out of work and I don't have difficulty affording to go to folk events.

You want to turn folk music into a joyless activity where people would be limited to listening whatever performers happened to be in their locality, no matter how crap they were, and where the audience is required to learn songs rather than enjoy themselves. If that's what you want, it should be easy enough to find a few other talentless individuals to sing songs to one another in a cheap bar (come to think of it, there's plenty of that around the folk scene as well). Just leave the rest of us out of it.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: *#1 PEASANT*
Date: 27 Sep 10 - 01:24 PM

Cost is always a barrier.

Yes had you the songs you would not do research you did not get the songs so the process is broken so we should fix it so you get the songs.

There are ways to teach via performance or at least send people home with the words should they wish to learn them.

Professionals prevent competition by dominating the venues simple. Average performers dont get jobs because of discrimination not because we need to pay people

I remember on jet setter musician who posts here is unionized as well both attributes cause inflated costs.

Local music did fantastically well for hundreds of years it can happen now.

Lots of joy in local music it was great music and attracted lots of academic attention in the 19th century- they activly preserved their music locally all we do is go and have good times.

Conrad

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 27 Sep 10 - 01:41 PM

Ah I get it now....
I seem to be conforming to Conrads idea of FREED Music.
Just checked next years diary.
One paid gig (with a five piece band) One evening in Lancashire. Combined mileage, between us of about 3500 miles. (The gig is up north UK, we are down south). I reckon my cut of the fee will be about £20. And 3 days out of my life.
Not a Hotel room, Swimming pool, or Aircraft in site!
Probably be sleeping on a friends sofa.
And we'll have a great time. playing tunes that the people who live there probably won't have heard before.
The rest of the year will be playing in pubs, locally for nothing. Not even free beer. Just for the love of it.
So, Conrad. Can I join your crusade? Or does my one gig make me the Devils spawn?

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Howard Jones
Date: 27 Sep 10 - 02:55 PM

we should fix it so you get the songs.

How? Where are these songs coming from? From the half-dozen singers in my locality? We'll soon get pretty fed up with singing those, and the audience even more fed up with listening to them. How on earth do you think that is going to spread folk music?

The only discrimination against performers getting paid gigs is whether they're any good or not. Why do you find that so difficult to understand? Why should anyone pay a performer if no one will pay to listen to them. Why should someone pay to listen if a performer isn't worth listening to?

Local music only did well for hundreds of years because they had no alternative. If you weren't lucky enough to live somewhere with good musicians and singers, you'd have to put up with the rubbish because there was nothing else. But even in those days the best performers were professional, and played for dances and other events for payment both in cash and kind - usually beer. They were always glad to hear new songs and tunes from itinerant workers and gypsies.

As for preserving their music - they didn't. As soon as they had access to the wireless and gramophone most of them willingly abandoned the old songs in favour of modern, professionally-performed music. Which is why folk song now is left to a handful of enthusiasts.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Bettynh
Date: 27 Sep 10 - 03:45 PM

"If you have not read of musicians making national and also international tours you must be blind. You read about them on this forum all the time. When someone says they are in new york and will be in san fransisco tomorrow it is air travel."

OK. I'm in NH today. I'll be in Tenn. on Thursday. I guess I'm going on tour! Wait until my son finds out! He'll be sooo excited! We'll be a new sensation - a touring audience! But we'll be driving, so I guess that doesn't count.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: catspaw49
Date: 27 Sep 10 - 03:48 PM

Okay....Everyone who thinks Conrad is an obtuse jackass, raise your hands.

Spaw

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Bettynh
Date: 27 Sep 10 - 03:58 PM

"If everyone knew the song what would the pro do."

Just how stupid are you?? Do you think we listen to a song once and that's it?? If a professional musician has a song, written or traditional, that is loved by the audience as sung by him/her, s/he will perform that song over and over and over and over again. And the audience will be happy. And the performer, a professional, will perform that song again even though s/he'd rather perform something else.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Bettynh
Date: 27 Sep 10 - 04:01 PM

:::hand raised high:::

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Tootler
Date: 27 Sep 10 - 04:02 PM

Active preservation and composition are most important enjoyment is way down the list. Though valid.

Bollocks!! If I didn't enjoy it, I wouldn't do it. I am retired from the day job, my time's my own and I do things because I enjoy doing them. That includes music making as well as responding to idiotic remarks on Mudcat.

Music does not require money.

Oh yeah?? Have you any idea how much a contrabass recorder costs? or a decent anglo concertina or a decent quality tenor recorder or...? I could go on. Decent quality musical instruments cost serious money, but are worth it because if you are serious about your music, you should buy the best you can afford and also because of the pleasure they give.

Sorry, I forgot. I'm not supposed to be enjoying myself!!

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: *#1 PEASANT*
Date: 27 Sep 10 - 04:34 PM

If you dont pay a performer why should you collect money for people to listen..why come just to listen why not come to learn?

You can start by rediscovery of your local songs. Then listen and learn then adapt and write more....easy

Performers as professionals create scarcity by setting themselves apart. Scarcity causes prices to rise rising prices creates a barrier and not as many people have access.

If there were more demand from an expanded pool of playes for expensive instruments their price would come down.

Conrad

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Smokey.
Date: 27 Sep 10 - 04:54 PM

If there were more demand from an expanded pool of playes for expensive instruments their price would come down.

That's already happened, years ago, giving rise to the production of cheap mass produced instruments. For the most part, they are nothing like as good. Making good instruments demands a very high level of skill and a certain amount of time, neither of which can be compromised without reducing the quality of the instrument. Then there are the materials, likewise.

Then listen and learn then adapt and write more....easy

Sort of like songwriters do? Those people you want to exclude from folk music?

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Tootler
Date: 27 Sep 10 - 04:57 PM

If you dont pay a performer why should you collect money for people to listen..why come just to listen why not come to learn?

I pay to hear a performance because I choose to, because I want to hear that performer. I go to a performance to enjoy myself. I might come away wishing to learn a song I have heard, but that is a secondary matter. If I want to go to learn, I go to a workshop not a performance.

You can start by rediscovery of your local songs. Then listen and learn then adapt and write more....easy

Our local songs don't need rediscovering. There are plenty of people singing them already. Then, tell me how many songs you have written if you think it's so easy. I do not write songs as I find it very difficult, though I do write tunes.

Performers as professionals create scarcity by setting themselves apart. Scarcity causes prices to rise rising prices creates a barrier and not as many people have access.

Once again: complete bollocks. Some performers in other genres might be very expensive, but folk performers are not, on the whole. Yes scarcity might cause prices to rise, but if they rise too much, then nobody will go to the performances so the performer will earn nothing, so at the end of the day it's a matter of what people are prepared to pay.

If there were more demand from an expanded pool of players for expensive instruments their price would come down.

In theory that's correct, but the instrument maker has to cover his costs and good quality instruments need good quality materials and are partially or completely hand made which takes time so there will be a limit to how much the price can come down if the instrument maker is to earn a living.

Your last post is like so many of your others. You have latched on to an idea, but have not thought it through and have only a half-baked idea of the underlying principles. I am an engineer, not an economist but I do have some idea of the principles of supply and demand and it is clear to me that you have not fully understood them or, possibly selected those bits that suit your ideas even if the principles are inappropriately incorrectly applied.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Smokey.
Date: 27 Sep 10 - 05:08 PM

Sorry to pip you there, Tootler, but we seem to be in agreement..

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Tootler
Date: 27 Sep 10 - 05:11 PM

Great minds think alike, Smokey :-)

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Howard Jones
Date: 27 Sep 10 - 05:27 PM

Performers as professionals create scarcity by setting themselves apart Scarcity of what? Do you think a performer can simply name a price and the promoter will pay it?

What you consistently fail to understand is that people are prepared to pay money for things they enjoy. They will pay to see good performers because they enjoy their performances - not out of any sense of "preserving the tradition". They won't pay to see poor performers - they may not even go to see them even if it's free.

A friend of mine, a professional musician from the UK, is planning a tour of North America. That means flying there, and flying around when he arrives. His visit is being eagerly discussed on other forums by people who want to attend his concerts and workshops. You seem to think it's a bad thing that he should do this, and a bad thing that people should pay for it.

What you don't understand is that it's a win-win situation - he gets to earn a living doing something he enjoys, and his audiences come away enriched by good music.

People don't need to be protected from spending their own money on things they enjoy. It's up to them to put a price on their own enjoyment. If an event costs too much, they won't go.

Your problem, as has been said before, is that for all your posturing you don't actually value folk music very highly. You don't think it's worth anything. You don't appreciate it, you think it's easy. You make excuses about the cost, but that's nonsense. It's not a question of not being able to afford it - you can afford to drink large quantities of beer and eat large amounts of food and to buy gas for your cars, you just aren't prepared to spend it on folk music. Well that's fine - it's up to you to decide how you spend your money. But don't then expect other people to give it to you for nothing.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Sep 10 - 05:29 PM

Conrad is talking absolute drivel! He contradicts himself time and again.

Like Peter the Hermit, he's on a Crusade. And he's just as barking mad at Peter was!

####

This is not for Conrad. He's much too thick, and far too dedicated to crawling up his own tailpipe to understand it. It's a modest suggestion for those who genuinely want to reach out to new audiences and present folk music in interesting and educational ways, without lecturing, preaching, or boring the crap out of them.

And as for passing out song sheets, which, in many performance situations, is neither appropriate nor necessary. I've seen Pete Seeger get a whole audience singing like a trained chorus by just lining out the songs. Phenomenal!

It's much better to inspire people to become acquainted with the vast collection of books available and learn the songs—and learn about the songs—that way. This was one of the main themes of the "Ballads and Books" television series, funded by the Seattle Public Library. They had (and still have) shelf after shelf of song collections and books about song and ballad research, along with a vast number of recordings.

One of the best ways of broadening interest in folk music is to reach out to people who have not heard much folk music and who would not ordinarily encounter it or seek it out. Or those who remember "folk music" as a pop music fad back in the Sixties. A very good way is to find a situation where you can "piggy-back" on some other interest as a way of sneakily introducing folk music to audiences who are not especially interested in it and would probably never have any interest in going to a folk venue, free or otherwise.

Case in point:    Jana Harris (pronounced "YAH-nah"), in addition to teaching at the University of Washington, is a novelist, essayist, and poet. She has a number of books of poetry out. She draws much of her inspiration from reading the journals and diaries of the pioneers, particularly women, who came west and settled in the Pacific Northwest (Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming). These people led a pretty hard life, and Jana's poetry collections bear titles like The Dust of Everyday Life and subtitles like The Voices of Pioneer Women. A lot of her poetry is tough, gritty stuff!

Jana does a lot of poetry readings, particularly in book stores, frankly, to promote her books.

I've known Nancy Quensé for years. I first met her when she walked into a coffeehouse in 1961 carrying a hard-shell guitar case containing her Goya G-20 classical guitar. She was eighteen, tall and slender, and with her long, dark hair, she looked very much like a young Audrey Hepburn (think "Breakfast at Tiffany's").

I don't know how she and Jana met, but five or six years ago, Nancy called my wife Barbara and me to ask us if we would be interested in working with she and Jana. Her idea was to put together a presentation of Jana's pioneer poetry that would include showing slides of the many old photographs that Jana had collected along with "incidental music" comprised of folk songs and other music that fit the whole theme.

Nancy sings to the guitar and the 5-string banjo, I, of course, sing, accompanying myself on the guitar, and Barbara plays the piano and the organ. She has a very old portable "camp organ" that folds up to about the size of a foot locker. It's a reed pump organ (activated with pedals, sort of like riding a tricycle while playing it), and many of them came west in covered wagons. They were frequently used in early improvised churches and at camp meetings (you've never heard "A Mighty Fortress is our God" until you've heard it wheezed out on this thing!). And Nancy also recruited Isla Ross, a young woman who plays the violin, and who can fiddle up a storm.

We (Nancy, actually) put together a show that consisted of Jana reading her poetry, with others of us reading some of it (I was assigned to read what Jana called "the guy poems"), and Isla, despite the fact that she is "all growed up," has a sort of "little girl" speaking voice. She does a beautiful, touching job of reading a poem supposedly spoken by a young girl anticipating all the wonderful toys they could buy (". . . maybe even a ball!") with the money that comes in "When Daddy Sells the Horses!" Both Nancy and Barbara also read poems.

While the reading was going on, the slides of the old photographs were projected on a screen, Nancy and I played guitar softly behind the readings, and between poems, we sang the songs (mostly folk songs) that Nancy had researched.

With the readings, the slides of old photos, the music and the songs, the presentations were somewhat reminiscent of a Ken Burns television series, like "The Civil War."

Over a period of a couple of years, Jana Harris and the group "Miscellany" (consisting of Nancy, Barbara, Isla, and me) gave this presentation at book stores, schools and colleges, and libraries all over the Western Washington area. Most people were interested in Jana's poetry, which, of course, was the point of the whole thing and why they came in the first place. But after each presentation, many people asked us about the songs we had sung, where they had come from, and how and where we had found them.

Folk songs. Mostly folk songs. Plus a couple of old hymns, and a few other songs of the period (such as Stephen Fosters' "Hard Times, Come Again No More"). Quite a number of people commented that they had never really thought of folk songs in their actual historical context before! It was an eye-opener for a lot of people.

And here's the kicker:   some of these people started showing up when one or the other of us sang in other venues because they wanted to hear more of the songs. Songs that had some real meat to them! Folk songs.

By the way:   these presentations were free of charge to the audiences, and although we were perfectly willing to do this for free, Jana not only insisted that we be paid, several times she and her husband took us all out to nice restaurants for dinner.

So—if you want to spread interest in folk music, simply offering free access—and free beer—isn't enough.

There are lots of possibilities. Use your imagination!

Don Firth

P. S. And Conrad, as I said, these presentations we did with Jana were free of charge to the audience. And when we took the presentation out of town, we didn't travel by jet, nor did we stay in luxury hotels. We drove. And if we had to stay over night, we usually stayed in a Motel 6 or similar discount motel. No swimming pool and usually no TV. Just a place to lay the bod.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 27 Sep 10 - 05:41 PM

I've only read a bit of this, but surely it's been noted and explained why the home page has been monetised with google ads?!

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Smokey.
Date: 27 Sep 10 - 05:48 PM

If I had the price of a hotel room for every time I've kipped on speaker cabs in the back of a clapped out van, I'd be considerably richer than I am. That was mostly rock band stuff though, and they make far more money than folk musicians :-)

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: *#1 PEASANT*
Date: 27 Sep 10 - 05:56 PM

No exclusion of folk writers just limiting them to their fair share.

Workshop peformances are easy to do.

You are lucky to have local songs in the USA there are none and all are dependent upon those the pros select.

Again local music costs less than jet set imported pros the added costs create barriers to participation and that is not good.

Lining out the songs- yes great but tedious. sort of like a pre paper and writing method. Believe me hand out songs and people will join in without the distraction it really works. I have gotten a few musicians to do this with great reviews.

Google adds the way of the future however access to all the pages is free and there are a lot of pages and many pages of song collections all FREE you dont have to pay google when you look at the pages but if you wish to click on the adds you may. Interesting thing how google selects the ads mosttimes they are related context so perhaps those looking at the page will find them a service other times they are way off. My alternative would be to go to pay per view which I never would do.

Conrad

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Bettynh
Date: 27 Sep 10 - 06:06 PM

"You are lucky to have local songs in the USA there are none"

How cute. Conrad made a joke.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Smokey.
Date: 27 Sep 10 - 06:08 PM

No exclusion of folk writers just limiting them to their fair share.

And what would you consider a fair share, expressed as a percentage?

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: *#1 PEASANT*
Date: 27 Sep 10 - 06:41 PM

It is widely known that the UK produced some amazing local song and I will add seasonal celebration customs. Some borrowing has been documented but it is generally marginal to the individual local tradition. When I was in Durham in the 70s at University I found that a surprising number of people knew a good number of their regional songs and I heard them in the pubs. In the USA scarecly anyone knows the lyrics to a song and especially no one knows local folk songs. Nobody.

Must be less than 50% but hard to put a figure on it. But, it is easy to know when a song writer performer considers folk to be entirely contemporary.

Conrad
Conrad

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Sep 10 - 07:14 PM

Bishop Thomas Percy published his Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, made up mostly of a loose-leaf manuscript he rescued from a maid using it to light the morning fire. It was published in 1765.

Reading Percy's Reliques inspired Sir Walter Scott to write such works as The Lay of the Last Minstrel and publish his collection The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1803).

The more rigorous scholarship of folklorists would eventually supersede Percy's work, notably Harvard professor Francis James Child with his monumental compilation, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, first publish in ten parts between 1882 and 1898.

Cecil J. Sharp was immensely important to the preservation and promulgation of both English and American folk music. In addition to the work he did in England, which some of our English confreres are better equipped than I am to detail, Sharp, following on work initiated by Olive Dame Campbell, in 1916 to 1918, along with his collaborator Maud Karpeles, travelled through the mountains of Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee and recorded a treasure trove of folk songs, many English songs and ballads in versions quite different from those Sharp had collected in rural England. Not only did Sharp collect the words, but unlike many of the earlier collectors who were interested primarily in the words ("ancient poetry"), Sharp also collected the melodies, which led to a number of important ethnomusicological discoveries. English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians was first published in two volumes in 1917.

Then came the Lomaxes, John, Sr., John, Jr., and Alan. John Sr. collected in the American Southwest and compiled one of the first collections of cowboy songs as sung by real cowboys.

In November 1910, the result of his collecting labors, the anthology, Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads, was published in 1910, with an introduction by President Theodore Roosevelt. Among the songs included were "Jesse James", "The Old Chisholm Trail", "Sweet Betsy From Pike", and "The Buffalo Skinners" (praised for its Homeric quality by Carl Sandburg and Virgil Thomson). This was the first publication of many of what are considered classic American cowboy songs such as "Git Along Little Dogies", "Sam Bass," and "Home on the Range."

Lomax and his sons went on to collect and make field recordings of songs in prisons and on chain gangs in the South and Southwest and found such singers as Huddie Ledbetter—Lead Belly. Also, they started the Archive of American Folk Song in The Library of Congress.

There followed other collectors, such as poet Carl Sandburg, who not only collected folk songs and published his collections (The American Songbag, 1927), but sang them in his poetry readings as well.

I have two large bookshelves devoted to folk songs and ballads, and laden with these books, and many others, including many less formal song books put together by singers such as Theodore Bikel, Richard Dyer-Bennet, Joan Baez, Tom Glazer, and host of others, from which I learn songs and study them, musically and historically, in order to be able to present them well to my audiences.

There were hordes of collectors, compiling and recording songs all over the country, such as Frank and Anne Warner, Joan O'Bryant, and. . . .    And on and on! A list as long as your leg!

There are folklore societies in practically every state and region of the country. There are at least TWO in the Pacific Northwest alone:   The Seatte Folklore Society and the Pacific Northwest Folklore Society. All of these organizations are dedicated to the collection and preservation of folk music within their purviews, along with presenting this music to the public, frequently in folk festivals free to the public.

So, you see, Conrad, you're a little late with this.

Don Firth

P. S. Go do something you're good at. Have a beer.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: *#1 PEASANT*
Date: 27 Sep 10 - 07:39 PM

And the point is?

Were these people actually successful in getting the majority of mainstream america to learn and sing these songs for more than a short while in a fad sense?

Yes they collected, I have collected. Most people in america today can not sing you a folksong.

Thats the problem.

Should we continue with the status quo?

NO

Who has benefitted from this- Professional Musicians and professional folklorists teaching in universities. And of course festival speculators and rip off venues.

Conrad

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Sep 10 - 11:32 PM

Here's a clue, Conrad. There are a whole lot of people out there in the wide world who don't want sing folk songs, don't like folk songs, and don't want to listen to folk songs, not matter how good the singer is by ANY standard.

They DON'T CARE a bloody damn about folk music and folk singers.

In exactly the same way that some people can't stand to listen to opera. Or classical music. Or don't much care for Broadway Show tunes. Or rock. Name a genre of music and there will be people who are not interested, and do not want to GET interested.

PEOPLE'S TASTE DIFFER!!!

What are you going to do, Conrad? Round them up and hold a gun to their heads?

AND PROFESSIONAL MUSICIANS HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS!!!.

Get that through your thick skull!!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 12:20 AM

My apologies for the last sentence in my above post. That's a bit harsh.

But I find myself highly exasperated by the sheer lack of willingness to grasp a few simple but obvious concepts.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Ralphie
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 12:25 AM

"If there were more demand from an expanded pool of players for expensive instruments their price would come down."

Let me enlighten you Conrad (Not much hope I know!)
Here in the UK, there are 2 fine makers of quality concertinas. Steve Dickinson (Wheatstone) and Colin Dipper.
I visited Steve a few weeks ago, and while I was there, he had plenty of calls about new instruments from people willing and able to pay the £5000-6000 per instrument..(thats a bit of a guess, but was too scared to ask exactly what they cost!)
He was turning them down....why?
He is a one man business, he's turning 60 in January, and quite naturally would like to retire in about 5 years. If he were to take on all the requests for new instruments, he'd still be make him as he passed 100. Not to mention the repairs to existing instruments for gigging musicians.
I'm sure Colin Dipper is in the same situation.
So, as usual your statement is meaningless drivel. The demand is huge, and the supply is severely limited. Add that to the fact that every part of the concertinas are made by hand.
Steve told me that in a good year he might make 8 new concertinas. More likely 5 (what with all the maintenance work on old boxes).
So, with luck he might make another 25 Concertinas before he hangs up his tools, and I think they have already been ordered.

Quality instruments don't grow on trees Conrad. Massed produced junk does.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 12:43 AM

"Workshop performances are easy to do."

Oh this is hilarious!

I've had to teach people how to use various computer SW & HW.

Teaching someone to drive a car (safely!) is a piece of cake, is it?

As someone who has been involved in theater, theater workshops are not all that easy either.

As someone who was tried to teach people various instruments, even 'a simple instrument lke' the whistle, it's not easy.

Since nobody thinks the same way as anybody else, or has the same degree of previous experience, a good teacher has to adjust the method on the fly to what the students are capable of absorbing - one to one is hard enough, let alone a huge crowd. I have great respect for those who can do this.

The biggest hassle I have found is when your 'students' seem to think that they already know more than you, and aren't prepared to listen .... been there, done that ... :-0

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 01:28 AM

In 1954, I purchased my first Martin, a steel-string 00-18, for $95.00, plus $15.00 for a case. A little over a year later, I started taking classical guitar lessons, and my teacher said that, as nice as the 00-18 was, it would not do for learning classic. So I traded it in on a 00-28-G, Martin's top of the line classic. $175.00.

Now, because of "more demand from an expanded pool of players," the expanded pool resulting from the sudden increase in interest in folk music in the late 1950s and through the 1960s, you could not touch either of these instruments now for much under $3,000.00!!

I have a Spanish hand-made classic (actually, a flamenco) now. A fantastic instrument! But I wish I still had the Martin classic, because a friend of mine has the same 00-28-G model that I had, and his was made at about the same time mine was. He had it appraised, and was told it was worth around $9,000.00!! I could sell it, and that would be a pretty nice windfall!

Some people have noted that because of the increase in demand for Martins and other quality guitars, the various companies expanded production, and as a result (as so often happens), the quality went down. This matter of the diminution of quality, however, is a different discussion.

Increase in demand causes prices to increase. This is—and always has been—a basic principle of economics. If nobody much wants something, the price goes down.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Howard Jones
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 03:44 AM

Conrad, what do you think folk music is for? You sound like a crackpot preacher, trying to spread the gospel of folk music for the good of people's souls. Everyone must learn some folk songs, not for enjoyment, apparently, but for some ill-defined salvation.

You talk about spreading folk music, but the music is already out there. CDs are in the shops, downloads are online, performances are on YouTube. It's even broadcast on radio and TV (not enough, but it's there) People come across folk sessions in pubs and bars. During the summer you can't go outdoors without tripping over morris dancers. Concerts and festivals are widely publicised. People know about folk music, they just don't want to listen to it. It's not ignorance, it's choice.

This has been said to you repeatedly, but I'll say it again: what you are asking for already exists. Everywhere. In fact, I'd go so far to say that the majority of folk events are informal, free or very low-cost performances by non-professionals. The others - concerts and festivals with professionals - exist in addition to these events. The existence of one doesn't interfere with the existence of another. Putting on a concert or a festival doesn't mean an informal session must be cancelled - or vice versa.

If you don't like professional performances, if you prefer the more informal events, that's fine - you have a choice. But don't say you can't afford them - if you can afford to spend $20 a night on beer, you can afford a ticket to a folk concert.

If, on the other hand, you personally feel excluded from and unwelcome at these events, consider that it might be due to your own behaviour and attitude.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 05:20 AM

Don. My point exactly.
I play Duet Concertina, When I took it up in 1973, there were very few players (as far as I knew), and you could buy them relatively cheaply.
This autumn will see the release of a triple CD set Duet International, featuring at least 50 of the best Duet players from around the world. I predict that the price of Duets (If you can find one) will soar.
I also agree with Howard too. but, Howard and I live in a much smaller country than our friends over the water.
I'm sure in the USA there must be small towns in isolated areas, where little or no live music is played, sadly.
But,as you say, we all live in a global village now. The media and the internet, along with books etc, have changed everyones perception.
Nobody (apart from maybe the North Koreans and the Chinese!) has the excuse that anything and everything is available at the click of a mouse, if you want to look for it.
But that's the key word....WANT.
If people don't want to find something, they are not going to look for it.
Ramming crap music down their throats isn't going to make it any more pleasurable.
I can't stand avocados, so I avoid them like the plague.
Also, remember that 25 years ago, we couldn't have been having this conversation, except by letter or expensive phone calls.
That's how small the world has become.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: *#1 PEASANT*
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 07:06 AM

Don I am sorry to hear that you have never heard of marketing!

People who dont like tooth paste are sold tooth paste.
People who dont like yogurt are sold yogurt

Your entire concept that some how people are genetically fixed with a music gene and it never can change is really really funny!

When you are marketing something you have to change its form and shape. When the product you are marketing folk music for example locks people out and sets up barriers you simply remove them and try again.

Don you have to start thinking outside of the box you are in and get folk music freed from pre-conception that just keep it tied down and restricted.

Try again....

And stop being nasty

Conrad

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 07:09 AM

Conrad: you may already know this, but if you want a free host, with no ads, for your Freed Music site, there are alternatives - including Google's Blogspot, which can then be monetised with ads if you wish. As an amateur, mine, e.g., has no ads - http://davidfranks.blogspot.com

When I looked before, I thought you had chosen to monetise it with ads just on the home page..?

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: *#1 PEASANT*
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 07:21 AM

Actually the shortage of instruments is an interesting issue.

It fits right into my model.

Actually instruments are just tangible productions just like songs which are more abstract.

They are products of the folk processes.

Why have not more instrument makers been trained to address the demand.

Probably the same way pro folk musicians have failed to teach the masses to sing and take part. No excuse for failing to train instrument makers and expand businesses. Trouble is that it is capitalistically incorrect as when you increase supply your profit will decline.

I am a certified secondary teacher I know about teaching methods.
If each time there is a performance it is a teaching moment we will benefit. People will have the opportunity to learn the music and the music will expand. Simple. If you dont try and insist on limiting yourself to entertainment dont expect people to learn anything. I would settle for a simple sheet of lyrics.

Folk music works on many levels, education, morals lessonss, history, pschological curative, entertainment? just a blip. But it gets all the attention. Having a song to sing is far more important than a one time fun experience.

Music in the mind is far more durable than music on a cd.

There is no substitute for a song learned not even the internet can solve that problem.

Conrad

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 07:32 AM

Conrad.
This is becoming seriously weird.

"People who dont like tooth paste are sold tooth paste.
People who dont like yogurt are sold yogurt.
Your entire concept that some how people are genetically fixed with a music gene and it never can change is really really funny!"

What are you talking about?
I happen to like yoghurt, so....I buy it.
I don't like Celery, Avocados, and Okra......so, I don't buy them!
Toothpaste is a good and necessary product.
But....
A Music Gene?
Produce your evidence as to it's existence.
I really do think that all the sensible posters should avoid this thread in future.
In the same way that WAV never listened to reasoned arguements. Conrad is ploughing the same pointless furrow.
Dear God. Do we really want this thread to get to 1000 posts?
I promise that I will try and resist posting again.
All the sensible posters are allowed one more riposte. And maybe we can then let this sad and sorry thread die.
Ralph

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Bettynh
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 10:21 AM

"When I was in Durham in the 70s at University I found that a surprising number of people knew a good number of their regional songs and I heard them in the pubs. In the USA scarecly anyone knows the lyrics to a song and especially no one knows local folk songs. Nobody."

That's Durham, Germany, right? Yup, singing in bars is relatively rare in the USA. The Lomaxes probably wouldn't have found much in local bars in many parts of the country, either. And they collected before tv and internet. When confronted by a boozy, dirty person standing in front of a really odd vehicle, I wouldn't be singing any old-timey songs. As an anthropologist, what techniques did you use to collect songs?

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Chris Green
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 10:33 AM

'I am a certified secondary teacher'

I'm relieved to hear it. After reading your increasingly bizarre maunderings, I'd hate to think you weren't certified! In short you're a f***ing nutter - delusional to the nth degree and as such clearly incapable of holding any sort of rational conversation. Which is why you won't be hearing any more from me on this thread.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Howard Jones
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 10:58 AM

Actually, Conrad, in a way you're right when you compare instrument makers with professional folk musicians - in both cases the returns are barely enough to make a living.

A concertina contains thousands of parts, nearly all made by hand, and takes hundreds of hours of work. A craftsman can turn out only a few a year. Even though they sell for thousands of pounds (still probably less than they're worth), after they've deducted their costs they're not left with a massive profit - certainly not enough to employ an apprentice.

I am a certified secondary teacher I know about teaching methods. But nothing about learning methods, apparently. People learn better when they're enjoying themselves.

Folk music works on many levels, education, morals lessonss, history, pschological curative, entertainment? just a blip Once again, you've got it backwards. If people aren't entertained first and foremost, they won't take on all the other levels you mention.

Folk music isn't a social duty, it isn't a religious imperative. It's something which a minority of people enjoy, and through enjoying it they want to learn more - which they can do in all sorts of ways. There are plenty of workshops and sessions where the primary objective is teaching, and people go there to learn. There are other events which have different objectives, although people may still learn something at those.

You want a single model for folk events which covers all eventualities - teaching, entertainment, attracting new fans - and all for free. It should be blindingly obvious (except of course to you) that in trying to do all things you'll achieve far less than when events specialise on one aspect.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 12:25 PM

C'mon, Conrad, you can do it! 156 more to go. Don'll help you!

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: catspaw49
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 12:33 PM

I too am a certifed secondary teacher.....so what. I knew lots of them and they too knew methods and learning.........a waste of time if you can't grab the attention of today's student. If you aren't as entertaining as MTV, get out of the classroom!

You cannot bring back the past. A few can and will keep many facets alive but the majority will move on and anymore they will move on a at a much faster rate. They are not going to come back to folk in droves and those who do return do so becasuse they are entertained first.

Spaw

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: *#1 PEASANT*
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 12:43 PM

Yes I have monetized my pages- most of them Google pays me money when the ad links are clicked it also usually selects ads related to the page content. It does not keep people from the sites in any way. They are still totally free as they have been for something like 20 years.

Ralphie look up Madison Avenue- huge corporations that do nothing but design ways for people to sell things to other people who dont already want them. A big business and it can be done for folk music but people benefit from scarcity and they think small and only in the short term.

Durham University located in the North East of England- studied Archeology, Anthropology History. A great place- mainly because it is not far from the toon- Newcastle upon tyne.

Yes folk music perhaps uniquely, is a moral social duty. We must leave the world with our songs better protected and in more widespread active use than we found them. We found them in the minds of the people then took them and gave them to performers who merely entertain with them and make money they do not do enough to teach them and maintain the living tradition.

If you can not meet the demand for concertinas train someone to make them and have them take up the slack. That has not happened why- easy capitalism rewards scarcity if there were too many concertinas of quality then they would cost less.

Conrad

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Skivee
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 01:44 PM

the same way pro folk musicians have failed to teach the masses to sing and take part".
Wow, this is going to be a surprise to the folks who come to our concerts and regularly join in singing; as well as the thousands of folks I've seen invited to sing along at other performers concerts over the years.

Remember that I've also seen YOU interrupt singers at a party by pulling out a penny whistle and badly playing a different tune than they were singing, in a different key. You were pretty blasted at the time. No doubt you will spin this as a noble attempt to keep things real if you remember it at all. This was a small event, but it reveals much about how you relate to other people.
The other similar examples I revealed in my earlier post were a small sample of the "Conrad..again" stories that friends and associates have shared about you. If your name comes up, most folks around the area shake their heads sadly.

You're probably feeling all superior-like since I've lost the grand argument here by "attacking" you. I don't much care. I'm not attacking you; just telling folks who don't know you in real life that you regularly contradict your own statements by your actions.

You're not the visionary you think you are. I'm sure that you'll just keep insisting that that blue sky up there is really plaid; but we are too close-minded to see it. Your world-view isn't grounded in reality.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: *#1 PEASANT*
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 01:55 PM

I dont mind personal attack its just not "good form" but whine on if you must.
I admit that although I have many many tunes I am not yet skilled at playing ensemble style. Professional musicians keep telling me the way to learn is to take your whistle and join in. I dont do this often. I can make a long list of very strange and generally inappropriate things that well known folk musicians have done in my presence and they go beyond drink and legal entertainments. I have spent nights eating small hamburgers at the crystal in Knoxville tennessee with totally inappropriate and innebriated well known folk musicians who interrupted each other and every one else in the place.....I guess its not your crowd. But don't rule it out if you still have the energy. People get old soon enough. But then I said that this is not the place.

Hey start a thread- the time you saw a folk musician named___ drunk and disorderly- it will grow quickly. Remember we dont all have to be tea totalers or sane or well behaved. We just tolerate them

Conrad

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Bettynh
Date: 28 Sep 10 - 01:56 PM

Conrad, what's the difference between your definition of folk music and hymns? Certainly many groups across the USA gather on Sunday mornings to sing together, part of their "moral social duty." I'm pretty sure the songs will be different in different parts of the country (or different parts of the city for that matter). You will find songbooks in every one, with both music and lyrics. Certainly, there's a living tradition of music within each congregation. The songs are protected and in active use. No beer or food during the performance, though, unless you consider the tiny bit of cracker and wine food.

Anyway, it's been fun, but I'm packing to go on tour. See you in a week if you've managed to keep this thing going.