The Concept of FREED Folkmusic

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Leadfingers
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 06:43 AM

And where do you hear new songs if you are just listening to the same people all the time ?

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: *#1 PEASANT*
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 06:47 AM

People have played and composed music locally for centuries. We really dont need folk stars traveling from place to place collecting our money.
Keep it local. Make it more accessible.

As I said I appreciate professional musicians.

I do not appreciate virtuoso playing for its own sake. Ordinary music played from the heart wins all the time.

Conrad

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 06:52 AM

I'm still struggling with this concept of "Folk Stars"
Come on.....name one...Just one...Please...

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Will Fly
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 07:19 AM

Ralph Jordan - Folk Star! :-)

I dipped out of this thread because I was fed up with the taradiddle being peddled by Conrad, but this:

People have played and composed music locally for centuries.

simply demonstrates his complete ignorance of any musical process, where travelling people, including itinerant musicians and workers and peddlers of music went from place to place - a process by which music spread from community to community. Let's take just one example - the spread of ragtime in the US in the 1890s. I quote from my 1958 copy of "They All Played Ragtime" by Rudi Blesh & Harriet Janis:

So there existed in Sedalia and throughout the country, a large class of Negro - and some white - pianists, many of them highly gifted and all of them close to the source of folk music. Drifting from one open town to the next, following the fairs, the races and the excursions, these men formed a real folk academy. After the tonks and houses closed, they would meet in some hospitable back-room rendezvous to play on into the morning. Ideas were freely exchanged...

Note that they were travelling from place to place to earn a living. You see, Conrad, even the most cursory reading and research on your part would reveal to you that your knowledge of the business is zilch. You appear to be spouting bullshit from a baseline of no knowledge whatsoever. Now, if you want to provide some decent supporting evidence for your ridiculous statements - let's have it.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Bettynh
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 10:28 AM

"I want to tell stories. Whats the problem. you are protecting a class of uppidy folk pros. Is that it.?"

Like it or not, storytelling for a crowd is a performance art. Time is limited, and the venue you wanted was theme-oriented. If you consider yourself a professional, an audition certainly is no insult. If you need practice, most storytellers begin at libraries and churches. Feel free to volunteer your time and polish your act.

If by "uppidy folk pros" you are referring to the tiny community of professional storytellers, you can't have met any of them. 60 people certainly don't constitute a class.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 02:46 PM

". . . uppidy folk pros. . . ."

I've been at this—lemme see, now—since 1952, I've seen some big name singers of folk songs and had a chance to meet and talk to many of them. Names you would recognize, including such people as Ewan MacColl, Peggy Seeger (a couple of times), Joan Baez, Richard Dyer-Bennet, and on and on. I met them either when they traveled through Seattle, or when I went to events out of town, such as the Berkeley Folk Festivals in the 1960s. NOT ONE of them was anywhere near what could be called "uppity." In fact, every single one of them was friendly, outgoing, responsive to any questions, and generally very helpful and encouraging. Both Guy Carawan and Barbara Dane, after hearing me sing at a post-concert party (they were interested in hearing local singers) made some good suggestions as to a couple of songs they thought I could do particularly well (Thanks again, folks!!).

Conrad, you don't know what the hell you are talking about. "Uppity folk pros" and "jet set folk musicians?" This graphically proves that you are totally ignorant of what professional singers of folk songs are really like. And in your abysmal ignorance, you are contemptuous of and insulting toward some of the people who are doing far more to spread interest in folk music than you ever dreamed of. Otherwise, you would be a whole lot more appreciative and much more polite and respectful.

If things were the way YOU want them to be (all free, strictly local), the ultimate result would be that folk music would die out entirely and be replaced by whatever is currently playing on pop radio stations. Rock, hip-hop, rap, and "easy listening" (elevator) music. Singers of folk songs would gradually fade away, to be replaced by kids forming garage bands and doing rock.

So you want to tell stories. Are you familiar with the work of Richard Chase and his collections of folk tales and folk songs (among his published collections of tales and songs, he has one of the best and most unusual versions of The Three Ravens [Child #26] that I've ever found). How about a story teller with the unusual name of Pleasant DeSpain? I've heard him giving a story-telling "concert" a couple of times, and he's bloody brilliant! Fascinating stuff! VERY entertaining!

Look them up. Try to LEARN something yourself instead of wasting everybody's time by trying to tell those who ALREADY KNOW what they are doing that they're doing it all wrong, and then displaying the magnitude of your ignorance by trying to tell them how you think they should be doing it.

[Now, sports fans, wait a bit and we'll hear Conrad bitch and complain that he went looking for Chase's and DeSpain's books of collections of folk tales and discovered that he'd have to PAY for them instead of getting them for free. And because they're folk tales, Chase and DeSpain should give them away FREE!]

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: mikesamwild
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 03:04 PM

Maybe if we stayed in our locality and community we'd get back to being traditional musicians and singers rather than folkies

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Bettynh
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 04:17 PM

Let's hear a sample of YOUR storytelling, Conrad.

Here's another great collector and teller: Syd Lieberman . Do you see the buttons for downloading? He has released all his recordings, both copyright-free traditional tales and Poe stories, and his personal tellings of his own and our nation's history FOR FREE. People still pay to see him tell in person and buy his cds.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Will Fly
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 04:29 PM

Maybe if we stayed in our locality and community we'd get back to being traditional musicians and singers rather than folkies

Debatable - and now impossible. In any case, earlier communities, in this country, at any rate, were not a series of isolated pockets of civilisation. People travelled, and spread goods, news, words and music around the country. Have a read of "The Time Traveller's Guide To Medieval England" by Ian Mortimer - this gives a good account of the social movement of people and society generally in the centuries after the Norman Conquest, and is a fascinating read.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: *#1 PEASANT*
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 06:02 PM

Yes from time to time people traveled. Generally however, not far. Of course exceptions like O'Carrolan who traveled to the continent but yes in deed generally there were many many communities where traveling far afield was difficult and music was composed locally. In essence it is not necessary to have outside influences to produce music. Yes outside influences did from time to time occur but not essential. Anyone can compose music anytime anywhere.

Of course transportation was much better as time went on. Especially in the 19th century however it is absolutely not necessary for the process.

A good story does not rely on the teller for its goodness. The same for songs quality is not essential when the song or story is good.

There are the exceptional greats who are good and then there are the rest of them. One can always cite exceptions however, many too many musicians are overly professional. Untouchables in it for fame....usually found out at the pool after their performance or socializing only with other musicians.

I stick to short Irish stories although well versed in the ancient longer ones. My web pages of both early Irish tales and five minute tales were the first of their kind years back. They are provided to the world FREE for everyone.

mikesamwild- brilliant exactly not just hero worshipers but doers.

You do not have to be physically isolated to cultivate the local, home grown and the FREE. It is a myth that we need specialists. Again the story is the treasure not the teller. One does not need polished performance simple telling will do. The professional bit is all hype and as it costs money immediately limits access to those who can afford it. Or those who can socialize it at the expense of the poor and needy for whom programs are now being cut. Irish storytelling flourished well before government grants.

Yes cultural grants are also declining actually we should not need them if we had FREE folk.

Conrad

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Bettynh
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 06:17 PM

"quality is not essential when the song or story is good"

This is just stupid. Stories and songs would never be passed on if they weren't entertaining.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 06:34 PM

"A good story does not rely on the teller for its goodness. The same for songs quality is not essential when the song or story is good."

Another glaring example of not getting the whole picture. Yes, indeed. A song or story may be very good indeed, and its quality as it exists in a book or out there in the ether may be that of an exemplary specimen. But we've all had the experience of hearing someone completely screw up a really funny joke because they can't tell a joke to save their soul! Or someone totally carve up a beautiful song because they can't sing for sour owl jowls.

The inherent quality of something as intangible as a song or story simple fails to come across unless the song is at least adequately sung and the story is told with some basic understanding of what it's about.

DO think things through, Conrad.

####

In the U.K., there is a ninnyhammer who is quite similar to Conrad.

Conrad fancies himself a "visionary artist" and expresses himself by filling his yard with debris gleaned from various dumps in his vicinity. Armies of garden gnomes, and miscellaneous parts removed from department store manikins and stashed here and there. He also glues odds and ends to the hoods, roofs, trunk-lids, and sides of old automobiles and calls them "art cars."

The Bozo in the U.K. styles himself as a poet. He writes pure doggerel about his travels, the kind of stuff that a grade school kid could write if so motivated, and he plays the recorder haltingly and attempts to sing (badly off-pitch most of the time).

This Bozo also says we're doing it all wrong. You should sing only songs that are indigenous to the area in which you live. If you live in Cornwall, thou shalt not sings songs from Yorkshire. If you are Scottish, how dare you sing a song from Wales? And for that matter, no American songs either. American singers who sing songs from the British Isles should be flogged.

His advice to me—now, keep in mind that my great-grandfather came to the U. S. from Scotland (with the Hudson's Bay Company), and my grandparents on my mother's side came to the U. S. from Sweden—is that, since I am an American, I should lay aside my (Spanish) guitar. I should beat a drum and sing Native American chants.

Now, although I've heard this sort of thing on television from time to time, Native American chants are totally alien to me. And in addition to that, I once met a Native American who happens to have a degree in Anthropology. He said that although it qualifies as "ethnomusicology," and is worthy of study, he has mixed feelings about taping and listening to Indian chanting out of its natural habitat, even for study, because most of the chants are related to spiritual ceremonies of some kind, and should only be performed and heard when in the context of the related ceremonies. Otherwise, it verges on something that could be considered as "sacreligious." So out of respect for Native Americans if for no other reason, I don't see myself beating a drum and doing Native American chants.

Nevertheless, that's what this Bozo tells me I must do, otherwise I am committing the mortal sin of transgressing his concept of what is correct and what is unacceptable in the realm of folk music.

The amount of abysmal ignorance and rampart stupidity in the world is really appalling. But as to the blithering pontifications of these numbskulls, ninnyhammers, and nincompoops, let us take the advice that Virgil gave Dante as he observed the self-righteous inhabitants of the lowest level of Hell: "Let us think no more about them, but look once and pass on."

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 07:27 PM

"they can't sing for sour owl jowls. "

Would that be a sour owl jowl's son?

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

Yes my point-its not the quality of the telling but the quality of the story. Presentation in music also is only one small part

For me not to understand and appreciate a song or a story it has to be very badly done indeed- never have heard anything done that poorly. And jokes- remember I said if told. That means if it is all there in the right order. Listen to the ancient field recordings. Lots of those folks would not be given a stage today yet their work is wonderful.

I did not say that you had to stick to local material and talent but that there was nothing wrong with it and that locals need no one else for inspiration other than themselves. You dont need outside help. That is my point. So dont adapt it to your negativity in regard to FREE folk.

When you bring in outside talent you raise costs, raising costs is counter productive when it comes to accessibility and by the way if you think you need inspiration from affar there is always you tube and recordings many of which are free.

With all of you telling me that folk musicians have no money it is surprising how so many of them are out there all the time on one tour or the next. I dont have that kind of money for travel.

So either they have money or they dont. Maybe they are getting government funds therefore the real cost is borne by the out of work and hungry whose funds they are using up to be at a festival near you.

And by the way when they get to town land in some hotel drop in to the festival for an hour and its back to the hotel dont think that anyone has learned anything it is mostly entertainment.

Conrad

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Smokey.
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 07:54 PM

How about letting us hear some of your storytelling then?

This site is pretty good for making mp3 files available:

http://www.4shared.com/

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: *#1 PEASANT*
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 08:34 PM

I have never recorded. My computer has a loud humm and at present no microphone. I generally tell the five minute stories available via my web page. Always positive crowd feedback. I have done some paid work but these days most of my time goes in to writing.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Smokey.
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 09:06 PM

That's a pity. See, for me, good stories are ten-a-penny, but good storytellers are much more of a rarity. I enjoy quality performance, sometimes even when I'm not that fond of what is being performed. Just to see or hear something done well is a buzz for me - I see it as an affirmation of human excellence, a reminder of the better side of humanity. Poor quality I can do without, free or not. Each to his own, I suppose.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: *#1 PEASANT*
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 09:23 PM

A cake with no frosting may still be good cake.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Smokey.
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 09:28 PM

For me, preferable, but we aren't talking about cake..

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 11:00 PM

(. . . still doesn't get it. Doubtful that he ever will. . . .)

Conrad, it's not that traveling singers of folk songs can travel because they were born with silver spoons in their mouths and a huge inheritance. They can travel because they are good at what they do, good enough so people not only want to hear them, but are willing to pay to hear them. The reason they don't get rich is because a lot of what they are paid has to be spent on travel and living expenses while they are on the road.

It's called "overhead." And even if an event is free and is all-volunteer, including the singers, it still incurs overhead. No way to avoid it. Sooner or later, Conrad, as someone once said, "You have to pay the piper!"

By the way, I have never, nor do I know any singers who have, gotten paid enough to stay in a hotel sufficiently posh to have a swimming pool where I could hang out.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: *#1 PEASANT*
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 11:05 PM

Storys are for many purposes.


Too often we think only of entertainment but many were created for the transfer of information or moraltiy.....

We too often think of folk performance when performance, that is for entertainment is only one purpose of many of folk artifacts.

The most important purpose is transference from one generation to another. This requires often a different presentation style- rote learning is not always entertaining.

Is transference of folk artifacts from one generation getting overshadowed by the dominance of entertainment which does not serve transference as well.

So often professionals wishing to maintain scarcity fail to transfer and in some cases tell audiences that the story or folk artifact is theirs alone, invoke copyright and prohibit this most important of functions.

Conrad

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Smokey.
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 11:23 PM

I reckon if you have an event where everyone gives their services for nothing and the audience gets in for free, the audience are then exploiting everyone else. What's fair about that?

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: *#1 PEASANT*
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 11:32 PM

Actually at my events there is no audience- everyone is an equal participant. Try it sometime. Always free.

And proud to announce that our Guy Fawkes Celebration will feature top rate craft "nut brown ale" half keg donated by a friend!

People bring what they have. Easy!

The concept of having to have an uplifted raised up performer is really kind of strange.

Conrad

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Smokey.
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 12:19 AM

Well, I suppose if there's no audience that does eliminate quite a few problems.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Smokey.
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 12:52 AM

"Always positive crowd feedback."

"Actually at my events there is no audience"

I have to confess to being a little confused..

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 05:21 AM

It's heartening to discover that the US has it's very own WAV....I thought it was just we Brits!

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: *#1 PEASANT*
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 07:52 AM

WAV?

Thats it my paradigm is so different from contemporary practice that even the concept of no audience is confusing.

Even when you are telling a story if it is in a smallish setting- maybe 20 people it is possible to do way more than entertain. Eye contact and body language work across space from individual to individual. People can chime in with proverbs, ranns, sayings that are appropriate to the story. These are things which are only made difficult when crowds are huge and amplification is necessary. Hard to interact totally with someone you can barely see and through as speaker. In this way there is no division between teller or singer and those who come to take part.

Get rid of the audience performer relationship. Placed in the context of the old music and the courts of kings and chieftains the audience has simply taken over the role of the royalty and is no longer the family or the village group surrounding the player or teller. We need to liberate ourselves from the excessive formality and the dominance of the performer.

Consult the history of the musician as dance master and instructor in Ireland. At first they served in courts and high houses but with loss of power of the Irish warlords they were forced to adapt, begin traveling the country and exployting the ordinary folk making expenditures upon them required for social advancement.

Before that on never saw these folks in the village and villagers simply played as part of their lifeway. As it should be now.

Conrad

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Surreysinger
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 08:14 AM

>>WAV ?
Walk Abouts Verse

Sorry Conrad,but I think I can see the similarities. :-(

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 08:37 AM

"Before that on never saw these folks in the village and villagers simply played as part of their lifeway. As it should be now."

They didn't have the Internet either. Are you willing to give that up as well? I do hope you'll lead by example.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: *#1 PEASANT*
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 10:15 AM

Nothing wrong with using the internet. I dont tend to pay for music on the internet. Nothing wrong with buying music though. Just another form of transmission.

The problem is having all of our folk venues dominated or at least made more expensive by the worship of pro musicians who drive the costs up, ration their music and take public moneys from more needy purposes.

We need to do what we can to lessen costs and improve access, strengthen transmission at the expense of entertainment

Of course there are some wonderful exceptions. But they are not the rule.

Conrad

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 11:23 AM

"Nothing wrong with buying music though"
Hah! Gotcha! Hoist with your own petard at last.
You and Wav should form a duo....Bound to pack in the crowds.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 11:42 AM

"We need to do what we can to lessen costs and improve access, strengthen transmission at the expense of entertainment"
Huh?

What on earth does that mean?
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I thought performers (of any genre) would like to entertain others?
Isn't that the whole point?
Now...where did I put that hair shirt?

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Bettynh
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 12:25 PM

Following a Conrad thread is sorta like watching a bug with three legs. You know it's wrong (don't feed the trolls), but it's fascinating to see the vital fluids leak out and the bug squirm.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Smokey.
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 12:26 PM

Thats it my paradigm is so different from contemporary practice that even the concept of no audience is confusing.

No it isn't, only when you've just mentioned that you always get 'positive crowd feedback' when you perform. Either there's an audience or there isn't, and if there isn't, you aren't exactly expanding the market, are you?

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Smokey.
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 02:39 PM

The point is, Conrad, that your 'paradigm' is already happening in the field of 'folk' music, and always has. However, if it wasn't for professionals, amplification, stages and big organised events (with toilets) there would never have been any expansion and many people would be fairly oblivious to it. In other words, if you keep it small, it stays small. It's a simple thing to understand. Every professional knows that if they charge too much they don't get the job; they don't 'ration' themselves, they need all the work they can get. I don't really know the economics of the US folk scene, but in the UK it's impossible to make a living from folk music without a great deal of travelling and playing large festivals. Even then it's not a decent living unless you are prepared to play outside the country, where gigs tend to be significantly more lucrative - if you can get them. Maybe you would prefer folk music not to be entertainment, that's your prerogative, but to the vast majority that is not the case. As for volunteers being exploited, the key to that one is the word 'volunteer'. Likewise the audience, who volunteer to buy tickets so that the events which provide their favourite form of entertainment can be perpetuated. I don't particularly like the fact that public money is necessary to keep the UK folk scene going, but on the other hand the same is true for classical music the world over, and I wouldn't want to lose that either. As they say, there's no such thing as a free lunch.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 06:20 PM

"You and Wav should form a duo....Bound to pack in the crowds. "

Sadly, neither would appreciate the other, nor think the other was good enough to cooperate with.


"Get rid of the audience performer relationship"

So without an audience, what are you doing?

... 99, 100, change hands ....

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Don Firth
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 06:26 PM

Yeah, Smokey, it sounds like the economics of the folk scene in the U.S. is pretty much as it is in the U.K.

As far as Conrad's wanting no differentiation between performers and audience, I don't see that working in any kind of really large event. But I've already described the "hoots" or informal gatherings that folk music enthusiasts have been engaging in for as long as I've been at it (since 1952, and I know they were going on for years if not decades before I came along). Simply informal gatherings, more often that not in someone's living room or recreation room. No separation between performers and audience, and any member of the "audience" who feels so moved can jump in at any time. Nothing as formal as a "song circle," and no "rules" beyond simple courtesy and willingness to let anyone who wants to take a turn rather than one or two people trying to dominate the scene.

Oftentimes, some of the older performers at hoots will offer suggestions to the newer ones. Early on, I learned a lot while singing at hoots. I'd do a song, and when I'd finished, Walt or someone might say something like, "Have you ever tried to put a Dm in near the end of the second line before going to the G7?" Good stuff!

And in performances where there is a separation between performer and audience, such as a concert—or for that matter, a television show!!—as far as setting "entertainment" aside in favor of "education," you'd better keep it entertaining or people aren't going to hang around long enough for you to "educate" them. But you've heard the old gag about, "I knew he was a folk singer because he talked for ten minutes introducing a three minute song!" What, I wonder, does Conrad think the performer is talking about during that theoretical ten minutes? About the song and its background! Not giving a recipe for making your own guacamole!!

And as far as performers doing more to "educate" their audiences, my major break as a performer came in the form of being asked to do a series on folk music on KCTS-TV, Seattle's (and the whole area's) major educational television station, which was based at the University of Washington at the time. The series, "Ballads and Books," was funded by the Seattle Public Library. As a result of this educational series, not only did I get a regular paid job in Seattle's nicest coffeehouse, I was asked to do presentations in American History classes in various schools.

How did I first meet Richard Dyer-Bennet? My voice teacher had heard me mention Dyer-Bennet during my lessons. She taught singing one day a week at a school in Bellingham, Washington, an hour and a half's drive north of Seattle, and said that if I could contrive to come to Bellingham and be at the school at 10:00 in the morning, she would see if she could arrange for me to meet him. I did, and she did. Dyer-Bennet was not doing a concert as such. He was performing for students at an assembly. Sponsored by the school's English Literature and Music departments.

And Richard Dyer-Bennet, the "Twentieth Century Minstrel," who did concerts in Carnegie Hall and New York's Town Hall, and often performed wearing white tie and tales, was the nearest thing to a "jet-set" professional singer of folk songs that I can think of. He usually traveled from engagement to engagement (many school assemblies) by train or bus!

Old friend Bob Nelson put together a six-part course relating folk songs to American History. He talks about various historical events, then sings the songs that grew out of those events (much like Burl Ives's radio program back in the late 1940s that I used to listen to). Last I heard, Bob has done his series at six different schools so far. Bob has also been asked to do a radio program on folk music at a local radio station. Entertainment AND education at the same time.

Conrad doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. It's really kind of sad when someone tries to re-invent the wheel when he doesn't even know what a wheel is for.

He needs to go to a home for the terminally bewildered.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Jack Campin
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 06:50 PM

Don - thanks. Your link led me through the Dyer-Bennet site to look up Sven Scholander on Spotify.

I think you'd have to know Swedish to get it. It's amazing that somebody like that should have been a major indirect influence on the postwar Anglo-American revival.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Tootler
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 06:53 PM

The more this thread goes on, the deeper the hole you are digging for yourself, Conrad and the harder it will be for you to get out.

You say

Actually at my events there is no audience- everyone is an equal participant.

We've been doing that for years here in the UK. We call it a singaround. Don Firth has been doing it a long time, only he calls it a "hoot". Nothing original there, then.

All in all, Conrad, I find it hard to find anything original in what you are proposing. It has all been done before. The only difference is that most of us don't have the contempt for professionals you have.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: *#1 PEASANT*
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 07:41 PM

Dont claim to be original but just try to get performers to attend a free very traditional and non bulshit event when there is highly commercial fairy festival based upon masquerade or nothing else. They follow the money and dont give a hoot about loyalty to tradition.

I do it.

Yes others do it but by and large it is hard to find such events and they are rare.

Generally its folk musicians aping rock stars.

Yes don you have lots of exceptions. Come to Baltimore and Washington area and you will find lots of exceptions on the other side of the equation. Nothing but professional lefty, adgenda pushing, rock stars sucking the blood out of the experiences, limiting access via funds.

You cant keep dwelling on exceptions. Each one of those is wonderful.
Get on the the meat of the argument.

The reason folk music has not expanding- its called rationing and exclusion of all but the small number of the elite generally. That should change. Yes they have barely enough elite to keep them going.

But you all keep telling me that the status quo does not make any money and that you are all poor.....ok then time for a change right?

Lets hear some proposals for FREE folk rather than ways to keep it from happening....

Ha!

Conrad

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: *#1 PEASANT*
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 07:45 PM

And another thing.....

the DC Baltimore crowd does not do trad they do new singer songwriter techno, rock celtic of their own creation.

Nothing wrong with that but they should do more to preserve and transmit the own material rather than being so selfish and ego centric.

We have little resources, little time, why ration, why play only or mostly your own material, why just perform why not teach. Why not help get the treasures of the past out there too.

But no pro musicians only want to sell their own take, their own material, become famous and do the national tour and sell those cds.

We need more of a guardianship of the tradition.

Less fame and fortune.

Conrad

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Smokey.
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 07:53 PM

I think this contempt for professionals and professionalism is, as Don pointed out, pure envy. Envy based on a non existent fantasy world where folkies get to loll about by swimming pools and somehow make even more money by rationing their performances. A world where shit doesn't smell and people eat their litter.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Smokey.
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 08:48 PM

I'll tell you something else, Conrad - only a miniscule proportion of working rock musicians ever get to see a hotel swimming pool unless they're cleaning it. Or jazz musicians, or classical musicians. The chances of actually becoming rich through playing any sort of music are so ridiculously slim, that unless one is seriously deluded, the motivation has to be love of the music itself and the satisfaction of sharing its benefits and beauties with an audience. To accuse musicians of deliberately 'rationing' is deeply insulting.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Don Firth
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 08:53 PM

Well, then, Conrad, it sounds like you live in an isolated little enclave populated by nothing but mercenary barbarians. My condolences!

Yours is a very insular and parochial viewpoint, Conrad. You are extrapolating from your unfortunate circumstances and assuming that the way things are in your benighted community is the way things are the world over. Not so! The rest of the folk music world is doing just fine, thank you!

I would suggest that you either move to a more civilized area of the world, or get busy locally and try to change things in your community, Stop trying to mess things up where they are working well.

The old wheeze is, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

And, Conrad, where I am, and where most of the people on this thread are, it ain't broke. So stop insisting that we fix it!

Clean up your own yard before you try to tell other people how to do things!

By the way, Conrad, since the general demise of small communities during the past century, the migrations of many formerly rural people to large cities, and the advent of mass entertainment media such as radio and television, to a large extent, professional musicians who perform folk material ARE the guardians of the tradition. They are often an inspiration to others to learn to play and sing themselves. Have you never heard Pete Seeger enthusiastically urging his audiences to make their own music? Good, entertaining performers, who are also informative tend to spread enthusiasm wherever they perform. It behooves them to do so. After all, their livelihood depends on enthusiastic, and if posssible, ever-increasing audiences.

So your idea that professional musicians have a vested interest in "rationing" folk music and keeping it "scarce" is patently nonsensical!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Jack Campin
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 08:56 PM

What Conrad has not yet realized is that folk music is controlled by us Reptilians. Of course we're not interested in keeping him entertained.

http://www.davidicke.com

Keep it coming. You're snakefood.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Don Firth
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 09:02 PM

Cross-posted with your last post, Smokey. EXACTLY RIGHT!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Smokey.
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 09:11 PM

Heh, I didn't spend 40 years at the arse-end of the music business without learning something, Don..

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Smokey.
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 09:18 PM

Jack - shhh, don't tell everyone..

Remember, Icke is supposed to look like a loony.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: *#1 PEASANT*
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 09:47 PM

hey smokey I as a traditional player playing as part of my life do not envy pros they are despicable leeches. (most of the time except for those exceptions cited by Don)

Ok the story thus far.....organizers say they take public funds and proceeds and spend it all on musicians and set up. Musicians claim to not make money at all hardly. Which is wrong...probably both...

Ok why worry about free folk if your not making much anyway....

Don thanks for once again bringing in the exceptions! You have not given us anything or way to improve have you. Exploitation of volunteers and hero worship and limiting accessibility is ok then for you.

Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
From: Smokey.
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 10:11 PM

I don't worry about free folk, Conrad, that seems to be a concern of yours, not mine, and I no longer look to music to make a living. I'm not sure what you think you are going to achieve by blathering out all this offensive rubbish, but it certainly isn't popularity or influence.