Chords in Folk?

Subject: Strike a Chord?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 02 May 08 - 04:13 PM

"English folk-music, for centuries, has entertained folks, with telling &/or dancing, via the repetition of relatively simple TUNES." (me)...polyphony and chords were found, rather, in church and court..?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Captain Swing
Date: 02 May 08 - 04:38 PM

Times change - live with it!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 02 May 08 - 04:47 PM

No, Captain, I think I'll just keep singing and playing the TOP-LINE MELODY, and enjoying the performances of those folk who do the same.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Goose Gander
Date: 02 May 08 - 04:59 PM

So now chordal harmony is destroying civilization?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 02 May 08 - 05:01 PM

I feel pretty strongly that tunes/melodies include implied chords (harmonic structure) whether or not any such "arrangements" were ever written, and whether or not instrumental accompaniment (or even additonal vocals) is present for a given rendition. That's just the way I hear music.

It might be argued that my sense of musicality is influenced by the fact that I play guitar, but I didn't take up the playng of that very "chordal" instrument until I was a teenager. I had been singing harmonies for many years before then, and the sense of finding a "correct" or fitting harmony definitely implies a simple chord structure.

One pedantic argument that really annoys me is that sea shanties could never have been sung otherwise than in unison. First of all, no recordings exist that could possibly support or refute this ridiculous assertion. Secondly, my observation of general group singing among living people is that some folks are incapable of singing in usision with others. I can't imagine that a group of sailors would not include a member of two singing an expressive but dissonant countermelody, and several others improviding some sort of more cenventional harmony, if only because their voices couldn't reach the notes required to sing in true unison.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 02 May 08 - 05:16 PM

I'm quite sure there was/is call-and-response in shanties, PG, but, again, I think it would have been just the relatively-simple tune...they were often working to the rhythm as well, yes?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: TheSnail
Date: 02 May 08 - 05:17 PM

It's the polyphonic, choral trousers that are the real problem.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Captain Swing
Date: 02 May 08 - 05:22 PM

And open field farming sustained the peasants for centuries while the nobles ate lavishly. I don't think I'd like to go back to a diet of maize, oats and turnips.

I can't understand this argument that traditional music must be played as it was centuries ago. Traditions by their very nature grow and develop and take on the influences of the time. If they do not live they are not traditions.

So bring on the chords, the electric instruments, the brass, the jazz synchopation, the Asian and African textures and rhythms. These are the influences of our times. Enjoy it and celebrate it for crying out loud. Don't pickle it!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Confrontation Viper
Date: 02 May 08 - 05:29 PM

Here's a word for you, WAV - heterophony

Look it up.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Confrontation Viper
Date: 02 May 08 - 05:36 PM

And watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4Y_tuSsCXw

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 02 May 08 - 05:43 PM

It's widely accepted that for centuries it didn't change much - singing unaccompanied, repeating a tune for dance; and, I think, not just because there was not much other entertainment available to these folk, or the pride that they took in their tradition, but because just the top-line melody played or sung well sounds great.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 02 May 08 - 06:34 PM

I absolutely cannot believe that people never sang in harmony in the "good old days." Of course, I can't prove my point ~ but neither can those who hold the opposite opinion.

One thing that I do believe is that common people throughout the ages, when they sang and/or played music for their own enjoyment, did not concern themselves with arguments over whether or not their performances authentically duplicated those of their ancestors.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,JM
Date: 02 May 08 - 06:56 PM

"It's widely accepted that for centuries it didn't change much - singing unaccompanied, repeating a tune for dance"

Really? Widely accepted amongst whom? Certainly not amongst music academics.

Cite your sources.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 02 May 08 - 06:59 PM

Have you ever sung any rounds? They've been around for centuries, and the reason for them is the chords.

There was a chap who printed book(s) of rounds in England in the 1600's. The name eludes me now, but the rounds were great hits and went through many printings. They are still being sung today.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: JeffB
Date: 02 May 08 - 07:02 PM

Wow! Viper, that's wild! It's been a long time since I've heard singing that prickled the hairs on the back of my neck quite like that. Thanks very much indeed.
A top-line melody might sound great on its own, but put in a snarly dissonant drone and you've got a very different animal.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 02 May 08 - 07:07 PM

I like hearing chords although for example I'm not sure whether I prefer this accompaniment or this one to the same tune (the Swedish Jig bit).

--
From a playing tunes in a session point of view, I really do like a guitar playing chords in with the tunes - a good one can really help keep things together and give a clear rhythm to follow.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Captain Swing
Date: 02 May 08 - 07:13 PM

Can someone tell me why it matters how things were done in the past?

Surely communication of the songs is paramount. I notice you don't use a quill pen and ink to preach your message WAV.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 02 May 08 - 07:53 PM

Nic Jones strong point was the interesting guitar part he used to accompany what had , for the MOST part , been unaccompanied song !
I dont see any problem in adapting the tradition if that is what turns you on , any more than I would object to someone singing a song exactly as it was collected !

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Captain Swing
Date: 02 May 08 - 08:00 PM

It's not adapting the tradition Leadfingers, it's developing it.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 02 May 08 - 08:34 PM

No problem , whatever label you use Captain !

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Confrontation Viper
Date: 03 May 08 - 03:53 AM

The Albanian video is a fairly extreme example of the sort of vocal heterophony that emerges when people sing together; as Poppygator pointed out, people are incapable of singing in unison! Some would call this polyphony, but when one thinks of polyphony one invariable thinks of orchestration, and this is so much more immediate than that somehow. This isn't to say these Guy's don't rehearse, on the contrary, just that it comes out of something living rather than written down, or else composed.

Doo-wop emerged on the streets of Chicago in much the same way, and there's no reason to believe that it was any different with sea-shanties or chorus songs in the English tradition. We hear it in the singing of The Coppers, The Watersons, The Wilsons and we heard it in The Young Tradition too; it's certainly there in Shape-Note Singing and other English speaking traditions, so why wouldn't it be there in the carolling of yore?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 03 May 08 - 03:56 AM

There's about-a-hundred-years-old recordings of the Englishman Joseph Taylor singing unaccompanied in the EFDSS, and I once had a quick look at an English book on fishing? from a few centuries ago where folks would, indeed, sing for their supper unaccompanied. Perhaps others could confirm the name of the book and mention other sources...I've heard several say it, since I got into folk four years ago.
But, to question myself (again, in a way that has not yet been answered in these threads), I've also read and heard on TV documentaries that in the 17th century there was an English cittern in nearly every barber-shop and tavern in England, used to accompany songs; so, if not folk-songs, what songs?..early barber-shop songs..? A period musician came onto a period "reality" programme with cittern and feather plectrum...for playing the top-line melody (embellished)?
Rounds - I've had a brief taste at 1 or 2 singarounds but wasn't so keen...maybe it wasn't done that well on these occasions?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 03 May 08 - 04:10 AM

Isaac Walton, The Complete Angler (1653).

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,JM
Date: 03 May 08 - 05:05 AM

"There's about-a-hundred-years-old recordings of the Englishman Joseph Taylor singing unaccompanied in the EFDSS"

Joseph Taylor was recorded in Lincolnshire by the composer Percy Grainger over several visits between 1906 and 1908. The famous recordings (released by the Gramophone company in 1908) of him were actually done at studios in London. Graingers friend Delius also used them as the basis for his piece 'Unto Brigg Fair' for full orchestra, which Taylor was at the premiere of and was reportedly very proud of.

None of this gives any validity to your earlier point. And I'm not sure what 'the compleat angler' has to do with anything.

"I've also read and heard on TV documentaries that in the 17th century there was an English cittern in nearly every barber-shop and tavern in England "

Well it must be true then...

The problem here is that there are more than a few people on this board who have devoted their life's work to research of traditional music and customs. In another thread you used something you saw about Bob Copper on TV to argue a point against people who knew him well. Now you are trying to use an irrelevant piece of information about Joseph Taylor (which you haven't even got correct) in front of people who are experts in their fields.

Drop it. You are not doing yourself any favours.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 03 May 08 - 05:26 AM

It's not fishy, JM: I'm not into fishing but somehow heard about and checked out this book, The Complete Angler, for it's verses, and it did indeed make several references to unaccompanied singing for a fish or two. So that was in the 17th century, and I also mentioned the Joseph Taylor recordings when someone asked for some concrete evidence about the many centuries of UA singing I mentioned above. It's not I, JM, who is deluding himself.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Santa
Date: 03 May 08 - 05:44 AM

"Can someone tell me why it matters how things were done in the past?"

Because it is interesting in itself. That should be sufficient reason, but if you need more, then because it is a guide to what works, and continued to work for many generations. This form of the music continues to envelop the listeners who enjoy such. As for other forms tried out today or whenever, whether you call it adaption or development, this extends the form but does not necessarily replace it. The pop protest singers of the 60s and the folk-rock of the 70s extended folk music, but did not replace earlier forms. The good will be kept, the bad dropped, but the older forms will continue.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 03 May 08 - 05:54 AM

As I've said in verse, when people lose their OWN culture, society suffers, Santa.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Marje
Date: 03 May 08 - 05:56 AM

You've lost me now, by referring to Joseph Taylor. A solo singer without accompaniment is, by definition, singing only a melody line. He can't sing harmony because he's on his own. People didn't use guitars to accompany traditional songs in Joseph Taylor's day, so what do you expect except unaccompanied melody?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 03 May 08 - 06:10 AM

That's what I said, Marje "English folk-music, for centuries, has entertained folks, with telling &/or dancing, via the repetition of relatively simple TUNES." (me)...polyphony and chords were found, rather, in church and court..? (Early hymns and chants were just a single-line, too, with, usaully three, other lines added by later composers.)

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Captain Swing
Date: 03 May 08 - 06:49 AM

That's fair enough Santa.

To me, traditional material is a blank canvas with no definitives. (Dylan's music is a bit like this too.) That's one of the beauties of this music. You can develop it as you please but communication is paramount.

WAV, your attitude detracts from this. I shouldn't think there will be many queuing up to hear your performances.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 03 May 08 - 07:10 AM

"I shouldn't think there will be many queuing up to hear your performances" CS...myspace should give you some idea of that (being the weekend, there's an English hymn atop at the moment).

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 03 May 08 - 07:19 AM

It's widely accepted that WalkaboutsVerse knows jack shit about music,
or verse.

eric

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Marje
Date: 03 May 08 - 08:06 AM

Having clicked on the link, I see what you mean, Eric. I won't be joining that particular queue.

Marje

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 03 May 08 - 09:07 AM

To Eric the Red: I won't use your language, but I don't know much about chords and polyphony, because I'm a folkie who just plays and sings the top-line melody, with recorders and keyboards. I've been able to read such top-lines for some time now but am only just getting to the point where I can mimic my singing with these instruments - i.e., write music.
To Marje - I've placed in a few folk-festivals and, if you bothered to look, have received some more-positive Comments on that same, above, Space.
Love, WAV

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,DonMeixner
Date: 03 May 08 - 10:32 AM

Hi Walkabouts.

I learn so much from this site over the years. I never would have guess that the English peasant lack so much in imagination as to never musically experiment with the one instrument they likely could afford. Their voices. I just can't buy your premise Walkabout. Not because I can prove it but because when couched with human nature it doesn't make sense.

At some point someone will get bored with what they are singing and rather than leave the After Witch Burning party, they'll try something a little different.

Sea Chanteys were meant to keep time, I can almost buy the idea in this arena. But Foc'sle Chanteys were for entertainment and even on the eve of the Spanish Armada I'll bet some three parters of The Royal Albion lifted above the grates.

I think a chordal structure is common in the way we string tones together to create a melody. Even Ben Franklin had some words on the subject regards to Scottish music.

This could become a doctoral thesis so I thank you for the point to ponder. But excuse me if I think you are a little off base.

Don

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 03 May 08 - 10:49 AM

But, Don, when musically-trained types went out into the field to record folk-singers (many of whom could neither read nor write words - let alone music) they found them singing, unaccompanied, to a repeated relatively-simple tune, and were told that what they were performing had been passed-down to them, by ear..?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,JM
Date: 03 May 08 - 10:56 AM

"It's not fishy, JM: I'm not into fishing but somehow heard about and checked out this book, The Complete Angler, for it's verses, and it did indeed make several references to unaccompanied singing for a fish or two. So that was in the 17th century, and I also mentioned the Joseph Taylor recordings when someone asked for some concrete evidence about the many centuries of UA singing I mentioned above. It's not I, JM, who is deluding himself."

No, you are wrong. Just because you can find an example of someone singing unaccompanied does not mean that (I quote..) "It's widely accepted that for centuries it didn't change much - singing unaccompanied, repeating a tune for dance;". Nobody was disputing that people have sung accompanied for centuries, I am disputing that that is ALL they did.

In fact, all the documentation and historical evidence is against you. The term Heterophony was coined by Plato (428-347 BC), and there are surviving treatises on Organum harmony singing from around 845 AD. The Sheffield Carols, to pick one example, have been sung in impromptu harmony for at least a couple of hundred years.

Besides, I'm with Captain Swing. What bearing does any of this have on "losing culture" or "society suffering"? Theres a quote from Isaac Newton about successive scientific achievements being made "standing on the shoulders of giants" - do you not want to see our culture continue to build on everything that has gone before and develop forwards and upwards? I love my country and its musical heritage and I love hearing new things and being inspired by what is happening now. I simply cannot understand your point of view, and I especially cannot understand your desire to tell others how they should do things. By all means enjoy the things you enjoy, and disapprove of things you don't like, but don't try to justify it with facts unless you have checked they are correct and you have thought it through.

And, in true dragons den style, for that reason - I'm out.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,DonMeixner
Date: 03 May 08 - 11:43 AM

Hi Walkabouts

I believe Cecil Sharpe found many English songs existing in what has been considered virtually pure forms being sung on the Outer Bank Islands of the Carolinas as well as in the remoter parts of the Appalachians. This was prior to and about the time of WWI, The Great War for you British Types. He found them being sung in harmony with chorded instruments. I won't say that this is the way these songs arrived in the States. But I will say even in these very remote areas that is the way these songs developed. So it isn't a stretch to say that is what happened in the UK 200 years earlier.

Don

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 03 May 08 - 11:54 AM

Ok, I'm not much of an angler, so experts please pitch in, but wouldn't it be a bit difficult to play an instrument and fish at the same time?
I would suspect that most rural folk couldn't afford an instrument, or spare a lot of time to practice playing it.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Les from Hull
Date: 03 May 08 - 12:02 PM

Of course, if you record someone who is singing solo and unaccompanied you are not going to hear much harmony are you?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 03 May 08 - 12:05 PM

I see WAV has created YET another canvass for his seemingly never ending ego.
As for chords in folk....as Captain Swing has already stated...times change...live with it, besides which this vision of jolly olde England with high tea, evensong and ye game of tennis never actually existed, except perhaps in the mind of the editor of the Daily Telegraph, and that was at some point in the 1950's

Fishing and playing an instrument doesn't work..you tend to put the worm on the end of the wrong thing *LOL*

Charlotte R

ps..didn't Eliza Carthy call Cecil Sharp a rude name recently? With which, by the way I entirely agree *LOL*

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,DonMeixner
Date: 03 May 08 - 12:17 PM

Hi Charlotte,

What is Eliza's principle bitch with poor maladjusted and much maligned
Cecil Sharp(No "P")?

Don

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 03 May 08 - 12:32 PM

Don she referred to Cecil # as a knobhead. the quote is:

"Folk music is pop music. How else can a classic tune survive, other than being popular How else can a classic tune survive being collected by a knobhead like Cecil Sharp?."

- sourced from the promo material for EC's upcoming CD Dreams of Breathing Underwater

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 03 May 08 - 12:47 PM

Analogous to this DEBATE is what's happened to poetry - for centuries!, it was about telling WITHIN the framework of metre and/or rhyme, until Ezra Pound and friends decided that framework should be chopped (sound familiar?)...

Poem 148 of 230: AUDIENCE LOST

I returned, again,
    To what they pen -
The free-verse poets:
    Deep prose in sets...
I could read, again,
    Of Mice and Men.

From walkaboutsverse.741.com

...and I think most of the changes to English-folk were also of the last century, with little before that; and, yes, it seems it was popular - but with a very different framework from that of American-pop!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,DonMeixner
Date: 03 May 08 - 12:53 PM

Hi Charlotte,

Knobhead he may have been but I was expecting something significantly more rude and descriptive. Like That Hopeless Bludgeon Bastard Cecil #.
Or That Pea Brained Codswallop.

I only partially agree with Eliza. The song doesn't start out as popular but it is made popular by the quality of the people singing it. However, I'd bet that wordologist could defend Folk and Popular as having the same roots. (Popular from populi meaning people. Folk from folk meaning folk/people. Or something to that effect.)

Hows all that for being over scholarly?

Don

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 03 May 08 - 01:25 PM

that 'verse' makes absolutely no sense at all...go figure

comparing the English popular music to American pop is once more comparing apples and oranges..but what else is new?

Well Don, I won't be using it to introduce a song anytim soon *LOL*

Cheers

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 03 May 08 - 02:19 PM

How is Ezra Pound chopping poetry analogous to chords being used to play trad music?
Personaly, I detest Ezra Pound and friend, but I can't say that WAV's makes much poetic sense either.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 03 May 08 - 02:24 PM

"Frameworks", VD

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Mole Catcher's Apprentice (inactive)
Date: 03 May 08 - 02:32 PM

How is Ezra Pound chopping poetry analogous to chords being used to play trad music?

ummmmmm...it isn't?

so Tom and Dick was wanderin' along a country lane, and Dick, taking the straw from his mouth, pointed at some sheep and says, "them there sheep is an hypotheses", Tom looks thoughtful for a moment, and taking his straw from his mouth says "Have you bin drinking with the vicar again?"

well it makes just about as much sense as WAV's analogies*LOL*. That passage can be found in the liner notes to Steeleye Span's Below The Salt, I believe. :-)

Cheers
Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 03 May 08 - 02:54 PM

Hmm, if Ezra Pound played folk music, he'd probably play grace notes exclusively.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 03 May 08 - 02:56 PM

The, CR, centuries-old, frameworks of both poetry and folk were, to some extent, chopped last century; followed by, in both, much rationalisation - "things change or they die" "it enables us to easily translate the poems into other languages", etc...
I like metre and/or rhyme with reason; I like hearing just the top-line melody played and sung.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 03 May 08 - 03:02 PM

As I posted somewhere else...If I wanted a lecture I'd be in a university lecture hall

Umm and yu like metre and/or rhyme with reason?....well ooooook, what ever you say *LOL*

Volgadon, I do believe I agree with you on that point *LOL*

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 03 May 08 - 03:30 PM

WAV, reading through your posts reminds me of something Evelyn Waugh once said.
"to see him fumbling with our rich and delicate language is to experience all the horror of seeing a Sevres vase in the hands of a chimpanzee."
Articles should not be cut off from their objects!!!!!!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 03 May 08 - 03:41 PM

What about economy of exclamation-marks, V.?!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 03 May 08 - 03:56 PM

For print, I'd agree with you. For a semi-formal setting, such as an internet forum, perefectly acceptable. "The, CR, centuries-old, franework...." sounds bad even in speech.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 03 May 08 - 04:50 PM

If it's a good song and singer, accompaniment can detract from the performance, I think; and I wish more people would get a chance to hear good unaccompanied singing...it's found at festivals and clubs, of course, and occasionally on folk-radio - but a lot miss-out.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 03 May 08 - 05:10 PM

Look, for the last time, as far as I'm concerned, music is NOT a static museum piece, or pieces, it grows, it changes, it evolves

you said...

" It's widely accepted that for centuries it didn't change much - singing unaccompanied, repeating a tune for dance; and, I think, not just because there was not much other entertainment available to these folk, or the pride that they took in their tradition, but because just the top-line melody played or sung well sounds great.

well, sunshine, those days are long gone (as well as open field farming) , and all for the good. I and many others going to continue to 'plug in' and play. Me. I'll play my Strat as well as play my acoustic guitar, as well as sing unaccompanied, solo and with others, and dance a bloody jig if I want to.!!! (oh look a plethora of exclamation marks *LOL*)...oh and if I want to use, as an example, North American native drummers as accompaniment (which I have done) I will...got it? Good. Not very English I know, but there ya go.

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 03 May 08 - 05:47 PM

"If it's a good song and singer, accompaniment can detract from the performance, I think; "

I think it can but I think it can also enhance. The performers are free to make their choices and I as a listener may find versions of songs I prefer which may or may not be accompanied ones.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 03 May 08 - 07:40 PM

The dickhead who started this thread began by talking about tunes and then didn't discuss anything but songs thereafter.

The dance music of the British Isles has been accompanied for centuries. Illustrations or descriptions of performances as far back as the Middle Ages mention drums and bass instruments.   Almost as soon as Scottish dance music began to published in large volume in the18th century, it was published with bass lines.   Virtually all the current Scottish dance tune repertoire (except pipe tunes) was conceived for textures including a cello or left-hand keyboard part. It mostly sounds crap on a solo melody instrument (and so do pipe tunes if you take the drones away and put nothing in their place).

This does NOT mean these tunes have canonical chordings like modern pop tunes. They were not conceived with the harmony first; the chords or bass vamps simply serve to delineate phrases in the dance, they don't "progress". It doesn't matter a great deal what the chords are so long as they change with the right timing.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 04 May 08 - 12:39 AM

Walkaboutverse has only been interested in folk music for a few years(how few is up for grabs, as he gives different numbers in different places), and thinking back, in my early enthusiasm, I remember having made quite a few presumptuous and erroneous pronouncements about folk music myself(not to mention the presumptuous and erroneous pronouncements that I've made more recently).

I also have a lot of bad poetry that I wrote, and sang, with varying degrees of success. In fact, I stumbled across a box of old lyrics just this morning, so I am very reluctant to be dismissive of anyone else's efforts-

As to the issue of ego--It has been fairly convincingly put forward that, in order to perform or create in any genre or medium, one must be firmly and unshakingly self-absorbed, and supremely confident that, whatever anyone else may think say, your work, and the world view that it embodies, is the most important(though often useful to affect modesty)-

So, all things considered, he's in good company here--

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 04 May 08 - 02:09 AM

M.Ted.

Thank you for explaining about duckhead dolk singers...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 04 May 08 - 04:23 AM

"TELLING &/or dancing, via the repetition of relatively simple TUNES." (me)...most people, JC!, would understand this to include the SINGING of folk lyrics...and I like you mentioning differences in Scotland, as I love our world being multicultural; further, I think this from you is worth repeating: "This does NOT mean these tunes have canonical chordings like modern pop tunes."
"Walkaboutverse has only been interested in folk music for a few years(how few is up for grabs, as he gives different numbers in different places)" (Ted)...There were some songs I somehow knew already (perhaps primary school in Aus.) but, yes, I've only been into folk for a few years - 2002 I turned up at the 35th Morpeth Northumbrian Gathering (which I've already posted, but follow the link above if you wish); I ended my collection "Walkabouts: travels and conclusions in verse" at the end of 2002 and began making songs or "Chants from Walkabouts", which I first sang, along wiht E. trads, at folk clubs in 2004; Is that precise enough for you? You then go on to be critical (sacrificing yourself in the process!), so I'll say that, although relatively knew, I did have a degree in humanities behind me, and that many of my poems have, since self-publication, been published elsewhere (again see above link, if you wish).

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 04 May 08 - 05:20 AM

I doubt if England ever had very different instrumental lineups for dancing than Scotland. The point is that dance tunes were conceived for ensembles that had basses or harmonic potential, and when they were played by solo instruments the dancers would be filling in an accompaniment in their heads, just as they do now when hearing a well-known pop tune sung as a solo line.

Often if you haven't heard a tune with its original backing, it loses so much that you can't imagine why anybody would care about it. I don't listen to much pop music and never have, so when some kid starts singing a current hit on the bus I can't see anything in it. If I'd heard it in its original band arrangement I'd know why they were so enthusiastic about it. Most people's experience of traditional tunes is similar; they haven't experienced them played with a full band sound, and they sound just weedy as solo lines when you don't know where they came from. (Shetland fiddling is one genre where a solo melody instrument has usually been the norm, but it has often used scordatura tunings to add a quasi-drone, is often played by two fiddles in only partial unison, and it was designed to be played in tiny spaces where a solo melody has proportionately more impact).

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 04 May 08 - 06:05 AM

In the light of other threads (in particular those about Bert Lloyd) I've been thinking about the extent to which Traditional English Folk Song ever existed as an autonomous phenomenon, and to what extent it ever permeated English Culture as a whole. One wonders what else these Traditional singers of Traditional English Folk Song were singing, and how they might have been singing it.

And to what extent can we consider any aspect of English Culture as being autonomous (and therefore distinct) from that of its neighbours? The answer is, of course, we can't. The recordings of Davie Stewart, John McDonald and others would indicate that in Scotland accordions were traditionally used to accompany folk song. Traditional English singer Bob Roberts accompanied himself on a melodeon, and I'm quite sure he wasn't alone in this. So the evidence for chordal accompaniments to Traditional English Folk Song is there if you look for it.

Monophonic modality was considered a defining characteristic of Traditional English Folk Song by early collectors & I've heard it suggested that they were so bent on their agenda in this respect that songs that did not fit this criteria were overlooked, thus giving the somewhat distorted picture that has come down to us today.

To use this distorted picture as blueprint for how things should be done is perhaps a tad misguided, unless of course it fits ones personal agenda, or else ability, in which case one might expect a little more by way of humility when it comes to discussing a subject that, one suspects, might hot have figured very highly, if at all, in their pic n' mix humanities degree.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 04 May 08 - 07:54 AM

"To use this distorted picture as blueprint for how things should be done is perhaps a tad misguided, unless of course it fits ones personal agenda, or else ability, in which case one might expect a little more by way of humility when it comes to discussing a subject that, one suspects, might hot have figured very highly, if at all, in their pic n' mix humanities degree."...Is that fair?...I admitted, above, I knew little of polyphony and chords (just, rather, learning, playing and singing simply the top-line-melody), and I'll add, being yet more precise, that there was no musicolgy department within the school of anthropology where I finished my humanities degree - which should, though, have taught me what to look for when I got into folk. Another thing that I found helpful was a tape called Voices, which had some of the "big-names" from the English folk-scene of the 80s selecting an E. trad. each - most done with "monophonic modality", Sedayne.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 04 May 08 - 08:26 AM

WalkaboutsVerse eh, a self made man who worships his creator, doesn't he just love all this discussion about himself.

The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.

eric

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 04 May 08 - 09:06 AM

If you check, Eric, I've been talking about/debating the issue, and frankly answering those who questioned me. E.g, I just mentioned Voices: English traditional songs - nothing in that for me, but some may find the sleevenotes, which are on the web (at the top via a Yahoo search), intersting and relevant to the topic.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 04 May 08 - 02:05 PM

WAV's thread has started a discussion that has been very informative--I have been curious about the role of instrumental accompaniment in the various UK folk traditions, and have always been dubious of the idea that unaccompanied singing was some sort of cultural universal.

Music spreads easily, and the idea that in something must be popular before it can become traditional makes a lot of sense to me--in a way, the idea of "traditional" music ignores the fact that music is primarily disseminated laterally, that is, within a culture, in a place and time--Paul Simon said that "Every generation sends a hero up the pop charts", and the evidence is that it has ever been so--

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Marje
Date: 04 May 08 - 02:16 PM

WAV, you might like to look out for the follow-up album to "Voices". Also by Fellside and featuring big-name voices, it's called "Voices in Harmony". Great stuff.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Harmonium Hero
Date: 04 May 08 - 04:13 PM

I've been playing folk music publicly for 40 years (not wishing to pull rank, you understand) and for several years before that at home or with friends. For all of that time I've been listening to people making authoritative statements about how English folk songs should be sung , and it always prompts the same two questions: who says so? and on what authority? Folk songs are what people sing, regardless of their provenance. I am of the belief that there is no definable difference between 'popular' and 'folk', as has been touched on in other posts; any definition for one applies equally to the other. These songs are not 'folk' because of how you sing them, but because you do. Some people like to tell us that we should be singing English songs as the shepherds, ploughboys and carters' lads sang them in the back rooms of country inns in the years before the Industrial Revolution. I would make two contentions about that. Firstly, they weren't following any rules about how to sing folk songs, because there weren't any rules. Nobody had told them they were singing folk songs; they were just singing popular songs. Secondly, If you deliberately, and as a metter of policy, sing the songs in the way that you suppose it was done then - not that any of us can remember that far back - then what you are doing is not 'folk' or 'traditional'; it's period music. Nowt wrong with that; I have been involved - on and off - with period music for about 35 years; playing music of an era on instruments of that era and in the way - to the best of our knowledge - it was played then. The pretence is that it's the 13thC or 16thC or whatever, and not that it's folk music.
I have heard people referring to 'the purity of the melody', as though a folk song melody is somehow more pure than any other, and is free from harmonic taint. It isn't. There are inherent harmonies. Some of us can hear them, and some, I suppose, can't. And not only that, but what one person hears may not be the same as what another hears. I have no problem with unaccompanied singinsg or playing - I have done plenty of it myself. But when I accompany a song, whether it be a complex - almost baroque - confection or simply melody/drone, or melody with a few bare fifths or octaves thrown in here and there, it's expressing the way that that song sounds in my head. WAV might not like to listen to it; that's up to him. He has made the comment in one or two posts that what he's learned so far is to play melody. Lots of us have been at it a lot longer; maybe in time he'll find himself doing more. but it won't make the music any less - or any more - valid as folk music.
John Kelly.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Harmonium Hero
Date: 04 May 08 - 04:48 PM

Me again. Sorry to be boring, but another point I meant to make concerns the collectors. Their main concern was to note down the melody and lyrics, not to make a note of how the songs were sung. (And, as we know, they found wide variation in melody and lyrics - not to mention the same song sung to different tunes, and tunes being used for different songs; so much for purity.) Somebody mentioned C. Sharp's activities in the Appalachians; a friend of mine, who knows rather more about this than I do, tells me that when it became known that Sharp didn't want the songs accompanied, and paid more for them if they weren't, peope left the banjos at home. Was this Sharp not wanting the distraction of accompaniment while making his notes, or something more sinister? We know, of course that some collectors were not averse to making the facts fit their own prejudices.
John Kelly.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 04 May 08 - 05:02 PM

Frankly, John, when, on weekends, I go through my repertoire from Hymns Ancient and Modern and see 3 lines other than what I'm playing, I think it's beyond my musical abilities - certainly on the tenor-recorder! and on keyboards I use both hands for just the top-line.
But, on top of that, if you'll pardon the pun, I really do like hearing just top-lines well played or sung, and that's one reason why folk is my favourite genre.
Also, I think that a lot of folk in pubs (if not the stage) is just so nowadays - at sessions most are playing just the tune, yes?..and, at the singarounds I attend, more than half are indeed singing unaccompanied.
And I shall check that shortly, Marje...I'm wondering how many part harmony..?...all singing just the tune in close harmony, or something more sophisticated..?..art-songs from folk-songs, which apparently (I watched an early music series on the BBC a couple of years ago) also goes back centuries..?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Tootler
Date: 04 May 08 - 05:09 PM

WAV,If your first serious experience of English Folk music was the Northumbrian Gathering at Morpeth, then surely you must have heard Nortumbrian pipes being played in two part harmony. Fiddlers and other instrumentalists also do it in this part of the country, it is part of the tradition hereabouts and harmony parts are written for popular dance tunes. I have been guilty of writing such harmony parts myself. I find it quite a satisfying challenge to come up with a harmony part that is also a worthwhile melody in its own right.

If harmony is not part of the tradition, then perhaps you can explain the popularity of various squeezeboxes with their built in chords - the players certainly made use of them. Going further back, Thomas Hardy's village band in "Under the Greenwood Tree" consisted of three fiddles and a Cello. Don't tell me the cello simply doubled the melody an octave (or two) lower.

No, I think it more likely than not that harmony has long been part of the tradition. It is informal harmony, often improvised, rather than the formal harmony taught in music schools and often commits such heinous sins as singing in parallel fifths and octaves.

Of course there is a tradition of unaccompanied solo singing as well. If that's what you like, fine, but please don't tell others what they should and should not be doing - not that they'll take any notice.

Geoff

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 04 May 08 - 05:49 PM

Art songs from folk songs, and also folk songs from art songs--

My point above, lost as usual, is and was not that WAV is either good or bad at music, poetry, or I"MHO philosophy", but that he is actively engaged in the process--listening to, playing, learning about, and thinking about the whole fabric of folk/tradition, which is what keeps it all alive--

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Harmonium Hero
Date: 04 May 08 - 06:04 PM

WAV "... on keyboards I use both hands for just the top line"
Try playing a drone with one hand. Or better, get an Indian harmonium. These usually have drones - up to five - and you pick the two (tonic/dominant) for the key you want. One hand pumps the bellows, while the other plays the melody. No need to do more, although you can throw in the odd fifth or octave, or be more adventurous if you want. Drones give a basic harmony, and playing or singing against drones is a long-standing tradition in popular music throughout Europe and the Middle East; bagpipes, hurdy gurdies, zithers of the langeleik/epinette/Appalachian dulcimer type, and fiddles have used drones since the Middle Ages and earlier. England has not been immune.....
John Kelly.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 04 May 08 - 06:44 PM

For the past three years I've been using an antique Hungarian Citera, unique among the diatonic European Board Zithers (i.e the Langeleik / Epinette / Appalachian dulcimer type) in having a second row of frets for the missing notes of the scale. This is a curious solution to a particular problem which introduces different modal possibilities without compromising the essential purity of the diatonic / Phythagorean scale. In many of these diatonic board zithers, the Swedish Hummel in particular, the melodies are traditionally played by harmonising in thirds against the open drone strings, an approach which certainly suits the citera, be it traditionally or else in the accompaniment of Traditional English Folk Song...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 04 May 08 - 06:56 PM

For the ultimate in portable monophony try the Stylophone! Seriously, the new ones have a mini-jack input for an mp3 player, so I've been creating drones by way of backing tracks and using the mp3 player to play them back through the stylophone speaker, and using the stylophone itself to accompany the voice in unison. I might add that so far this has been an entirely domestic diversion, though I dare say I'll be taking it out into singarounds soon.

For a sample of how this actually sounds check out my Stylophony Number One at http://www.myspace.com/dh7haha.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Captain Swing
Date: 04 May 08 - 07:40 PM

Hey WAV, it's very good of you to keep this thread going and everything but we don't want to waste your time. Surely you must have trains to spot?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Jerry Epstein
Date: 04 May 08 - 09:49 PM

Many tunes (both fiddle type tunes and songs) imply chords. But many do NOT do so at all. In many such cases, putting chords under the tune butchers it -- my opinion of course. English dance tunes often are very chordal in nature, Irish tunes often not, thus accompaniments are often not too much more than one chord, and players of things like bouzouki are often playing the tune with some drone strings sounding. To force standard chords on to these, in my opinion, does real harm, and one needs to provide supporting accompaniment (if at all) with considerably more skill and taste then "Where do I change from C to G?".

This is perhaps even more true for the songs. Listen (among countless others) to some of the old ballads on the Jean Ritchie ballad records from folkways (now reissued   on CD and available from Jean and George). TO put chords under these would be a complete nightmare. . .

One of the signs of good taste is knowning when to leave things alone. Unaccompanied songs or tunes are not necessarily missing something.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 05 May 08 - 05:36 AM

I agree with most of that Jerry but "English dance tunes often are very chordal in nature"?...Morris, e.g., was originally accompanied with just pipe (tune) and tabor drum (rhythm)...yes?
Sedayne - I do look forward to a singaround with you and your stylophone.
To Captain Swing - never been into train spotting, although they are my favourite form of transport/travel...in a coach one can barely swing a...
And I was going to mention trad Indian music, John, which has generally/always? been one note at a time, yes?...and that's why many there have taken to the hand-pumped version of the French harmonium, yes? Also, just the other day on BBC Gaelic radio e.g., I have enjoyed the tune being intoduced on bagpipes, followed by singing over the drone, as you suggest.
I've never tried, but I'd guess electrical keyboards can be set-up similar to the way you suggest for harmoniums - one key plays that note plus a fifth or an octave above it, as well, yes?...that would give a thicker and, some would say, richer/warmer sound but, again, I'm afraid, I'd probably rather just sing with the top-line melody only.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 05 May 08 - 06:37 AM

WAV - If you've got one of those electric keyboards with various voices, choose one with a sustain - organ, flute or violin. Forget about the black notes for now, and imagine the white notes as a pure diatonic Pythagorean scale - though of course it's tempered, which is to say perverted for the sake of western chromaticism so that lot of the intervals are far from pure.

Take a piece of insulating tape and tape down one of the keys as a drone, try the D to begin with, and play a scale using only the white notes between D & the next D. This is a mode - the Dorian Mode to be precise - which has unique musical characteristics beyond either what we might conventionally think of as either Major or Minor. C to C is a Lydian Mode, which is identical to the major scale, each note of which Lydian Mode can become a drone for another mode - D gives Dorian, E gives Phrygian etc. each with their own characteristics largely forgotten in Western musical theory. From hereon in, the territory gets interestingly archaic, but essential, I would think, to any understanding of folk music, which is inherently modal and monophonic, though in no way, of course, does this preclude harmony, or yet heterophony.

For more on this see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_mode

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 05 May 08 - 07:31 AM

Thanks, Sedayne - I see what you mean: really just setting up a keyboard similar to bagpipes, with one (or more) notes taped down as the drone(s); but what I like, and keep trying, to do is play like I sing / and sing like I play (with both recorder and keys), and I sometimes go through the chromatic scale on my tenor-recorder to help with this (see myspace) - indeed, I've read/heard that recorder comes from the olde-English word "recorden," which means to warble or sing.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Jonny Sunshine
Date: 05 May 08 - 08:17 AM

Wandering off topic here, but Sedayne, that Stylophony track is something else. I think I have to get myself a Stylophone after hearing that. Quite right about modes and tempered scales. I love to hear untempered intervals in folk music.

Getting back on topic , accompaniment can take many forms, drones, counter-melody, close harmony, block chords. A good accompanist knows this. Chords aren't the be-all and end-all of an accompaniment and they certainly aren't the End Of The Tradition As We Know It.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 05 May 08 - 08:47 AM

I had a thought. In the medieval court of Yaroslav the Wise there was a semi-legendary bard by the name of Boyan. He is mentioned in the lay of Prince Igor (I can't remember if he features in the opera or not) and became a very popular folk figure. He would accompany himself on the gusli, a form of psaltery. A hundred years or go a form of button accordeon was invented in Russia and named the Bayan, in honour of Boyan. It became immensley popular for both dance tunes and for ACCOMPANIYING FOLK SONGS!!!!
Why? It could play not only the top line, but chords, bass and pretty much whatever your fingers wanted to do. Forget balalaikas, the bayan is seen by most people as the national instrument.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 05 May 08 - 10:17 AM

"Pure" intervals are overrated, you need a fair amount of dissonant tension to give color to a note(solo instrumentalists use a variety of techniques to alter pitch to provide interest,and listeners tend to perceive strict adherence to pitch as artificial and mechanical) and the whole idea of diatonic harmony revolves around resolving from a dominant seventh. One of the reasons that the "tempered" scales were developed was that, with the introduction of metal strings, more "pure" harmonic overtones were audible, and dissonances that had not been apparent became apparent.

As to the idea that modes somehow disappeared from Western music, it is not true--modal theory was incorporated into classical music theory, and, in fact, without using modes, you can't write harmony lines--

And, to set the record straight, "C to C" is an Ionian mode, not a Lydian mode.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Marje
Date: 05 May 08 - 11:27 AM

About the "Voices in Harmony" album, WAV: there are a number of groups (mostly twos and threes) singing in harmony. I'm not sure what you mean when you ask whether they're "all singing just the tune in close harmony" - if they're all singing just the tune, that's not harmony, it's unison. If they're all singing the tune but in different keys (say a fourth apart) that's an old-style harmony called " organum" or "parallel fourths" (or fifths) - it sounds a bit spare and edgy, and it's not usual.

What they are normally singing are conventional harmonies based around the chord that related to each note or each bar. They're not "close" in the sense that barbershop harmonies are "close" - that's something different again. They are similar to the harmonies that would be used if the tune was arranged for, say, piano, or string quartet.

They are very far from being "art-songs", most having quite a rough, earthy sound, and some of the arrangements go back centuries.

What I find fascinating is how very different each duo or trio or quartet sounds, in contrast with classical singing, in which a given setting of a song sounds pretty similar even when sung by diffferent voices.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Marje
Date: 05 May 08 - 11:33 AM

Oh, and a follow-up, WAV, in response to your observation about pub sessions: yes, many of the musicians are playing the tune most of the time, but some instruments include chords and drones that provide a harmony (guitar, mandolin, melodeon, accordion, some concertina playing, some pipes) so there will be quite a lot going on apart from the melody. If the melody is a simple one - say, a slowish waltz - you'll often hear improvised harmonies on recorder/whistle/fiddle or other melody instruments.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 05 May 08 - 11:50 AM

Thanks, Marje - I was already clear on your second post, but not your first: I was thinking if, say, a natural-tenor and a natural-base sang the tune/top-/single-line melody together, it would be harmony singing.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 05 May 08 - 11:54 AM

I have a stylophone. It's not easy to tape the stylus in place, so when I've used it as a drone when playing a recorder I've simply held it between my toes.

"a curious solution to a particular problem which introduces different modal possibilities without compromising the essential purity of the diatonic / Phythagorean scale. In many of these diatonic board zithers, the Swedish Hummel in particular, the melodies are traditionally played by harmonising in thirds against the open drone strings"

Sedayne, you don't know what the Pythagorean scale is. It makes fourths and fifths pure - thirds and sixths sound worse than they do in the equally tempered scale. You are thinking of either just intonation or some version of meantone, which are entirely different.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Sedayne (Astray)
Date: 05 May 08 - 01:55 PM

M.Ted - Slip of the finger; sorry - I meant Ionian, of course.

Jack - When I say Pythagorean scale, I mean a diatonic scale derived from the cycle of fifths. This is how I tune my medieval harp & the thirds sound just fine to my ears, much as they do on the citera. According to Panum (etc.) the European Board Zither (which she refers to as the Balk Monochord, including such instruments as the citera) derives from the Pythagorean monochord. I dare many will dispute this (even I find it a bit far fetched) but it seems at least apposite to a call a fretted non-tempered diatonic scale on a monochordal instrument with such a supposed provenance Pythagorean, though I dare the actual scale on this instrument derives more from the pragmatics of trial & error on the part of the maker than any familiarity with Ancient Greek mathematics as such.

This stuff always gave me a headache to be honest, but years of reading Harry Partch has left me with an enduring mistrust of the various givens of Western Classical Music and the theory and practise thereof.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 05 May 08 - 02:19 PM

I'm almost convinced that WAV knows what he's talking about, note I said almost *LOL*

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Sedayne (Astray)
Date: 05 May 08 - 02:48 PM

Jack - More importantly, I do like the idea of holding down stylophone drones with the feet. I did draw up plans for a mounting of switches until I figured the easiest thing to do would be to solder the stylus wire direct to the keyboard & use the tuner to change the pitch. For now, the mp3 drones do the job just nicely.

Times like this I pine for my old electro shruti box...

WAV - You come along to Joe's Come-All-Ye next month and I promise you some traditional stylophony!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 05 May 08 - 02:49 PM

...we're seeing the light here in Newcastle, too - spring at last! :-)

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 05 May 08 - 02:58 PM

I was joking...of course.....

as I stated earlier in the thread..."I see WAV has created YET another canvass for his seemingly never ending ego."


Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 05 May 08 - 03:29 PM

I am sure Jack will have some interesting things to say about the way you tune your harp, Seldayne, and I will defer the issues scale construction to him--I am curious to know why you decided to tune your harp in that manner--

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 May 08 - 04:06 PM

who put the bom in the bomba bomba bom?

who put the titty into the titty fa la, fa lay?

who put the C, F, G7, Am, Dm7, Em, G, D into Christy Moore?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 05 May 08 - 04:45 PM

If I may skip genres for a moment to the woodwind section of the BBC(4) Young Musician Awards, which I just really enjoyed - but why on earth must they have the accompaniment of a pianist who him- or her-self could be on or off form...why can't we hear just the flute, clarinet, obeo?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 05 May 08 - 04:55 PM

"but why on earth must they have the accompaniment of a pianist who him- or her-self could be on or off form...why can't we hear just the flute, clarinet, obeo?

and...the answer to your question is...because that's the way the piece was played, with piano accompaniment.

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 05 May 08 - 05:03 PM

...but we heard them practising their pieces unaccompanied, and it sounded great, CR.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 05 May 08 - 05:09 PM

Look the finished product had piano accompaniment, regardless of YOUR personal preferences, that's the way it was played, so get over it!

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,DonMeixner
Date: 05 May 08 - 06:22 PM

100 Charlotte, Good on you.

Don

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Harmonium Hero
Date: 05 May 08 - 06:37 PM

WAV: Re the use of Indian harmonium: I think it tends to be used more in popular and devotional music, and chords are used. In what is wrongly called Indian classical music, the melody/improvisation is, as you say, one note at a time; however, this is always accompanied by drones on the tanpura. A drone is a basic harmony, which has been used in European - including English - folk music for many centuries. It gives a fuller sound, and adds atmosphere, and, as has been suggested, can be easily rigged up on keyboards. It's not un-traditional - far from it. You seem to be worryingly entrenched in your anti-harmony views. Why not try a drone or two in the privacy of your own home, where nobody will know you're at it? You never know....
John Kelly.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 05 May 08 - 06:53 PM

I am sure Jack will have some interesting things to say about the way you tune your harp, Seldayne, and I will defer the issues scale construction to him--I am curious to know why you decided to tune your harp in that manner--

I tune the harp this way because this is the way to tune a medieval harp! I've heard this described as the Cycle of Fifths, but this could be something different. Here's how it works in practice...

The Ionian tonic is tuned to pitch from a secondary source; for the sake of convenience let's call this note C. Once you've got all your Cs in tune, the next string you tune is the fifth above the tonic, which gives you G. Then you tune the fifth above the G, which gives you D. Next, you tune an 8ve below the D for your second note in lower sale, then you tune a fifth above which gives you A, and then a fifth above A which gives you E. Then you tune an 8ve below that E to give you your lower E. And so on and so forth until you've created an Ionian / Major scale from pure fifths.

My harp is one Tim Hobrough's small English Harps (circa 1982), 19 gut strings.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 05 May 08 - 07:27 PM

Sedayne's harp tuning is absolutely normal for mediaeval art music, since it gets pure fourths and fifths, and they're the only harmonies used as stable consonances in that idiom. But isn't remotely like what folk instruments like the nyckelharpa use to get built-in pure third sonorities (and what the split frets on Renaissance lutes achieve, and what barbershop singers do).

Let Us Calculate.

Pure major third = 5/4 ratio = 1.2000
Equally tempered major third = 4 ET semitones, 400 cents = 1.2599
Pythagorean major third = 81/64 ratio = 1.2656

That is, if you can't tell the difference between a Pythagorean major third and a just one, you can't tell the difference between just and equally tempered thirds either.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 05 May 08 - 08:36 PM

if you can't tell the difference between a Pythagorean major third and a just one, you can't tell the difference between just and equally tempered thirds either

Very probably, Jack - although I remember being very impressed by a demonstration of the pure 5/4s on Harry Partch's chromelodeon (a reconstructed harmonium - the only of HP's instruments to feature his full 43-note octave). However when I'm playing in thirds on the harp (the 13th century Nobilis Humilis for example) I'm not aware of any imperfections as such.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Marje
Date: 06 May 08 - 04:47 AM

WAV, if a bass and tenor sang the same tune at different pitches, they'd have to be an octave apart to sound right. This may be classified as harmony of a very elementary type, but most people would regard this as unison. It's the same as when you get (say) men and women singing "Happy Birthday" together - they sing in different octaves but it hardly rates as harmony, sing they'll both be singing a G or whatever at the same time. To most people, harmony means a different interval from the octave.

Marje

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 06 May 08 - 05:57 AM

But at a folk-club, Marje, when folks who know the tune and words all join in, they are (usually - I once got some sophisticated accompaniment to The Drunken Sailar, eg.) singing the tune/top-line-melody (if chords/base notes have been added to the score) in their natural voice, and it can, of course, sound great, John - but it wouldn't if they were singing in a different key, with it's different top-line notes..?..so if I intoduced a chorus on my recorder, then transposed it to another key, we would then ALL have sung it in two different keys..?..or if a natural-tenor and -base (which is not an octave apart) both go doe-ray-me...they are NOT singing in different keys..?!..they are both singing in C, yes?!!
I was thinking of fair-competition with these BBC Young Musician Awards (you accept that pianists, themselves, can be off-form) but, of course, classical music is very much about harmonies...perhaps they should all use a pre-recorded accompaniment, CR..?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 06 May 08 - 06:15 AM

Do they still do those Music-Minus-One disks I wonder? A classical musician friend used to have them on vinyl for rehearsal purposes - the full orchestral backing without the solo instrument. Good music for getting absolutely hammered to on hot summer afternoons as I recall - Belorussian Vodka out the freezer and Vivaldi Oboe Concertos sans oboe!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 06 May 08 - 06:17 AM

I know nothing about classical music but I'd have thought it easier having a skilled accompanist who could react if you went a touch wrong than playing to a recorded backup. I think it could provide a bit of a "safety net".

All I do know is that if on a very rare occasion I do find myself "stranded" as the only melody line in a tune in a session, I am very glad if there is for example a guitar player who knows what he's doing with the tune and will keep his accompaniment part going - I know someone like that can cover the odd blunder by me. I may still fail completely but I find something like that a confidence booster.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Joe
Date: 06 May 08 - 07:02 AM

I play a lot of music on fiddle with a Bozouki player, and find that he adds a lot of depth to the music I play. A simple tune, played however well can get pretty boring, but with decent backing can sound incredible.

At a session once a woman fairly new to the melodeon started playing the Bear Dance. Slowly the musicians around her joined in, with chords, runs, counter melodies and all ... which developed into one of the most incredible tunes I have ever heard.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 06 May 08 - 11:44 AM

It's at

http://www.campin.me.uk/Music/Modes.abc

Only single-line melodies, and mostly within ABC 1.6, but about as heterogeneous a collection as you can get within those constraints.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 06 May 08 - 11:49 AM

...and if that didn't make any sense, it was because I thought I was posting to the "Making music on a Mac" thread.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Marje
Date: 06 May 08 - 12:42 PM

WAV, one of us (at least) is getting confused by this discussion.
If two people sing in the same key, either in the same octave or an octave apart, it'll sound fine. If they sing in different keys that are not an octave apart, and both go do-re-mi, they're not both singing in C. Doh is just a name for the first note of the scale, in any key. One would be singing in C and one in G (or one in D and one in F, or whatever) and it would sound awful. That's neither unison nor conventional harmony.

I really don't know what you mean about introducing a chorus on recorder and then changing the key. It sounds a disconcerting thing to do, and why would you do it?

Help me, someone out there! Is any of this making sense?

Marje

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: TheSnail
Date: 06 May 08 - 01:01 PM

Marje

Is any of this making sense?

No.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Harmonium Hero
Date: 06 May 08 - 01:06 PM

Snail just got in while I was logging in to say no, WAV's last post didn't make sense, and he mentioned my name, but I couldn't see how he was commenting on what I had said. Perhaps this is all getting too much for him.
John Kelly.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Sandman
Date: 06 May 08 - 01:10 PM

no.wav, appears to be on a different planet.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 06 May 08 - 01:29 PM

Seldayne--More specifically, I wondered if you were using the harp in a Harry Partch way--

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 06 May 08 - 01:38 PM

Sedayne--I am very sorry to admit that I have misconstructed your name, perhaps as an unconscious reference to the allergy medicine. No offense intended.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Melissa
Date: 06 May 08 - 02:02 PM

Marje,
Yes, you are making sense.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 06 May 08 - 02:09 PM

John (I nearly called you Ted), I mentioned your good name just after saying a chorus/harmony? in a folk club can sound great (whatever it is), in my opinion, as you suggested I'm a tad anti-harmony - "You seem to be worryingly entrenched in your anti-harmony views"; Now, I did admit way back that I know little of harmonies and chords (I could recognise some if I could see a guitarist's or pianist's left hand) but (minus a degree in mathematics) I have tried, Marje, and shall do so once more...there's you a soprano, Ted the tenor, and George the baritone singing from the same hymn sheet...and you're looking at the SAME! top-line melody (in A! given key) and listening to the same organ as you do so - you are NOT, thus, singing in different keys/you are singing the same top-line with naturally different (sop., tenor, baritone) God-given voices, yes?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: TheSnail
Date: 06 May 08 - 02:10 PM

Certainly didn't mean to imply that Marje wasn't making sense.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 May 08 - 02:13 PM

I'm starting a rival thread:-

Old Rope in Folk

Can I count on your support?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 06 May 08 - 03:48 PM

Seldayne--More specifically, I wondered if you were using the harp in a Harry Partch way--

Whilst Partch is a crucial influence on my approach to both singing & storytelling, I'm not intoning in microtones, rather canting with an awareness of what Partch called corporeality relative to a diatonic modal accompaniment built up of 4th, 5ths, 3rds and 8ve unisons. I'm also big on improvisation, which doesn't feature
in Partch's music at all.

There's some choice Partch on YouTube right now - not least The Delusion of the Fury in its entirety (!) and a wonderful clip of HP free-styling in the kitchen (!!).

WAV - before you cause actual nervous breakdowns, I suggest you seek some off-line advice for some much-needed clarification regarding musical harmony. Try your local music teacher, or perhaps have a word with P & K as to how harmony works in shape-note singing.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 06 May 08 - 03:49 PM

Sorry - P & C, or rather C & P!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 06 May 08 - 04:08 PM

"Ted the tenor, and George the baritone singing from the same hymn sheet...and you're looking at the SAME! top-line melody (in A! given key) and listening to the same organ as you do so - you are NOT, thus, singing in different keys/you are singing the same top-line with naturally different (sop., tenor, baritone) God-given voices, yes?"

If I wasn't aware already (which I was), this finally settles it, WAV doesn't know what he's talking about. I'm printing this out and will show it to my voice teacher in the morning.

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 06 May 08 - 04:16 PM

I think, Sedayne, I'll just stick with the the "repetition of relatively simple TUNES" (atop) as with my English folkie foreabears; and the playing and singing of English hymns in the same folkie style (i.e., ignoring the three lines below the top-line in the full-scores of Hymns Ancient and Modern). It's simpler, more authentic (at least as far as E. trads go) and, for me, more enjoyable.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 06 May 08 - 04:22 PM

For me Partch just doesn't work with YouTube-quality sound. Nice to see the staging though.

I like the idea of using antihistamines as stage or band names. Val Lergan (a bit like Val Doonican but even more sedative). Ben A. Drill. Perry Actin and the Zirteks.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 06 May 08 - 04:37 PM

I just re-checked what I'd read years ago on this: "folk song is usually melodic, not harmonic" (The Hutchinson Encyclopedia); Folk "musical structure is the simple repitition of a tune (with or without chorus)" (Philip's Essential Encyclopedia).

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 06 May 08 - 04:40 PM

I'll consult with someone who's far more qualified, than a couple of (questionable) encyclopedia entries, I think.

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 06 May 08 - 04:54 PM

It's simpler, more authentic (at least as far as E. trads go) and, for me, more enjoyable.

Simpler, yes; more enjoyable, if you say so; but it's not authentic in the slightest - as has been made abundantly clear by the various & erudite posts on this thread. Why open a thread if you're not prepared to actually learn anything?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 06 May 08 - 05:11 PM

I have listened, but, to me, those definitions are what actually happens IN PRACTISE at English folk-clubs when an unaccompanied-singer performs a song with a chorus, or a ballad without a chorus.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 06 May 08 - 05:20 PM

"It's simpler, more authentic"

Proof please, from three, independent verifiable sources. One of them can't be Hymns Ancient and Modern

Oh and......

"After the initial success of the 1861 original edition, the editors of Hymns Ancient & Modern published the second edition in 1875. This became the most successful hymnal in the Church of England for more than 75 years and is still in print today. A supplement of 176 hymns was added in 1889. An attempt was made to introduce an historically more accurate new edition of 1904, but after this failed to sell, some of the less controversial material from that edition was added in a second supplement of 140 hymns in 1916. After 1924, the second edition with its two supplements was dubbed the "Standard Edition" of Hymns Ancient & Modern.

In 1950 the revised edition was published with G.H. Knight and J. Dykes having both edited since the death of Nicholson. Many hymns were weeded out for the 1950 edition as the editors wished, in part, to make space for more recent compositions, and in part to thin out the over-supplemented previous versions. In 1983 the New Standard edition was published; this comprised 333 of the 636 hymns included in A and M Revised and the entire 200-hymn contents of 100 Hymns for Today (1969) and More Hymns for Today (1980).

The most recent (2000) edition is called Common Praise, published by Canterbury Press. It is still used in a few parishes.

It seems the hymnal doesn't even bear the title, that WAV has been using, anymore.

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 06 May 08 - 05:27 PM

"I have listened, but, to me, those definitions are what actually happens IN PRACTISE at English folk-clubs"

Funny, when I attended university in England and went to a fair number of clubs, and, indeed, sang, what you state as actually happening rarely did...

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 06 May 08 - 05:41 PM

I think I know what you're getting at, CR: occasionally the folk-club chorus will do something more-sophisticated than just singing in-tune with the perfomer - I gave the eg of The Drunken Sailor above; and I accept that one of those encyclopedias, above, does say "USUALLY melodic, not harmonic." And how about you coming up with "three, independent verifiable sources"!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 06 May 08 - 07:14 PM

WAV--when you play the top line of anything written out in four parts, you playing a part that was written to fit in with the other three lines--

A rule of thumb may dictate that the "top line" is the melody, but it is the melody as conceived by the arranger--even if it is a "folk" melody, it has been regularized to conform to the conventions of standard music theory--meaning that phrase length, note duration, and scale conform to classical rules, that classical cadences, endings, and ornaments are used, and that melody notes may be altered to facilitate classical chordal movements.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 07 May 08 - 01:30 AM

"melody notes may be altered to facilitate classical chordal movements."

Or modified to fit in with restricted vocal ranges. These may include 'octave jumping', or even '4th or 5th jumping'. In a full '4 part harmony' arrangement, the 'melody' can be passed between parts.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 07 May 08 - 05:50 AM

Okay - but, in several cases, composers such as RVW added the other three lines (and occasionally one more above for boy-sopranos) to our hymns LATER: and some were indeed folk-tunes, yes?. Futher, if someone sings and plays just the tune of an E. trad on, say, an English concertina it sounds great/as good as anything to my ear.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Joe
Date: 07 May 08 - 05:56 AM

"to my ear." - Everyone gets the message, you prefer simple melodies played on the top line...

So why do you insist on claiming that a whole tradition matches something that suits your taste? Just because you enjoy a certain thing, whether it be a food, type of music, does not mean you should enforce your tastes on eeveryone else, which seems to be what you are suggesting.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 07 May 08 - 09:51 AM

Two of the oldest English pieces known are the morris-like dance tune in the Coventry MS, which has a written-out ending in two parts, and "Sumer is icumen in", which is in six parts. The Coventry tune is folk by any standard and dates, I think, from around 1240. So RVW harmonizing hymn tunes is not some newfangled alien idea.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 07 May 08 - 10:08 AM

RVW collected folk songs and used them in his work. Those folksongs are available as he collected and transcribed them. Likely someone has done scholarly work that compares his works to the material he collected. If one had the object of playing "E trad" music, the collected folksongs, rather than the composed works, would be the more suitable source.

The hymns that he edited and arranged cannot reliably be considered English folksongs. In the Introduction to The English Hymnal, Mr. Williams enumerates his sources:

The following classification shows the chief sources from which the tunes come:--

A. GERMAN.--(1) Lutheran chorale tunes 16th and 17th centuries. (2) Tunes from the 16th and 17th century Catholic song books (chiefly Leisentritt's, 1567, and the Andernach Gesangbuch, 1608). (3) Tunes of the 18th century, chiefly by Bach and Freylinghausen. (4) Modern German tunes. (5) German traditional melodies.

B. FRENCH AND SWISS.--(1) Tunes from the Genevan Psalters of the 16th century. (2) Ecclesiastical melodies from the paroissiens of various French uses (chiefly those of Rouen and Angers). (3) French and Swiss traditional melodies.

C. ITALIAN, SPANISH, FLEMISH, DUTCH.--Ecclesiastical, traditional, and other melodies from these countries are also included.

D. AMERICAN.--Among American tunes may be mentioned Lowell Mason's tunes, certain tunes from 'Sacred Songs and Solos' and a few 'Western melodies' in use in America as hymn tunes.

E. BRITISH ISLES.--I. Ireland. (1) Irish traditional melodies. (2) Tunes by Irish composers.

II. Scotland. (1) Melodies from the Scottish Psalters of the 16th and 17th centuries. (2) Melodies from the Scottish tune-books of ihe 18th and 19th centuries. (3) Scottish traditional melodies.

III. Wales. (1) Archdeacon Prys' Psalter, which contains the. famous tune 'St. Mary'. (2) Welsh traditional melodies. (3) Tunes by 18th and 19th century Welsh composers, which partake decidedly of the nature of their traditional melodies.

IV. England. (1) Tunes from Day's, Damon's, Este's, Ravenscroft's, and Playford's Psalters of the 16th and 17th centuries (the original versions of these, with the melody in the tenor, are occasionally included as alternatives to the modern version). (2) Tunes by Tallis, Gibbons, Lawes, &c., from their own collections. (3) Tunes from 18th century books--especially those by J. Clark and Dr. Croft. (4) English carol, and other traditional melodies. (5) Tunes by 19th and 20th century composers.

R. Vaughan Williams

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 07 May 08 - 10:30 AM

"The problem with not having a proper Education, is that the less one has learnt, the more one thinks one knows."

:-)

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Sandman
Date: 07 May 08 - 10:37 AM

: 07 May 08 - 05:50 AM

Okay - but, in several cases, composers such as RVW added the other three lines (and occasionally one more above for boy-sopranos) to our hymns LATER: and some were indeed folk-tunes, yes?. Futher, if someone sings and plays just the tune of an E. trad on, say, an English concertina it sounds great/as good as anything to my ear.
I totally disagree,while accompaniment should be accompaniment,the addition of harmony on the English Concertina is preferable to single line melody,or can make a nice change to single line melody or single line harmony, if used as well, an example is on my website,the Banks of Claudy.http://www.dickmiles.com

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 07 May 08 - 11:11 AM

Okay, thanks, and perhaps those behind the above-mentioned encyclopedia were aware of such cases when they put "USUALLY melodic, not harmonic"...Mudcat's Dig. Trad., of course, offers just the tune with a link to a Dulcimer Tab...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 07 May 08 - 11:24 AM

It's a steep learning curve, WAV, but once at the top the view's pretty good - at least as far as the next & steeper hill anyway. Whatever the case, the important thing is to keep moving, question everything &, most importantly, don't come to any conclusions.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 07 May 08 - 12:03 PM

...I think that's a tad condescending, Sedayne, but, anyway, for what it's worth, I shall add "MOSTLY" to the atop definition/conclusion on my website.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Stu
Date: 07 May 08 - 12:24 PM

Thank the maker I took up the Irish Bouzouki.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Sandman
Date: 07 May 08 - 12:44 PM

Many tunes (both fiddle type tunes and songs) imply chords. But many do NOT do so at all. In many such cases, putting chords under the tune butchers it -- my opinion of course. English dance tunes often are very chordal in nature, Irish tunes often not, thus accompaniments are often not too much more than one chord, and players of things like bouzouki are often playing the tune with some drone strings sounding. To force standard chords on to these, in my opinion, does real harm, and one needs to provide supporting accompaniment (if at all) with considerably more skill and taste then "Where do I change from C to G?".

This is perhaps even more true for the songs. Listen (among countless others) to some of the old ballads on the Jean Ritchie ballad records from folkways (now reissued   on CD and available from Jean and George). TO put chords under these would be a complete nightmare. . .
sorry I cant entirely agree,standard chords fit some irish tunes,it really depends on the tune.
chords in open tunings work quite well for the guitar,for example first and fifth,with perhaps a sus 4 or ninth,very often the tunes in modes other than the major ,[the mixolydian and the dorian],work with chords providing the third is left out.
some tunes that are very major orientated sound alright with standard chords.
a chord is any combination of any notes more than two,two notes are dyads.
now obviously drone notes work fine as well
alot of scottish/shetland tunes wotk very well with the jazzy chordal accompaniment that Willie Johnson used.
yet alot of these tunes are in the same modes as the Irish tunes,so logically the willie johnson stryle should work for some irish tunes as well.
there is avery beautiful version of Barbara Allen performed by jean Ritchie.Ialso have recorded this sing with the concertina using chordal accompaniment[see youtube dickmilesmusic]very different form JeanRichie but it works.http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=V_PoPY-mDpA

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 07 May 08 - 03:00 PM

"I think I know what you're getting at, CR"

You have no idea what I'm getting at.

"And how about you coming up with "three, independent verifiable sources"!"

I'm not the one making the dubious claims and seeing as you failed ,to do so, sunshine....and yes I am being condescending.

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 07 May 08 - 04:05 PM

I think that's a tad condescending, Sedayne

Patronising I'll accept, but my intention was to be encouraging.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 07 May 08 - 05:09 PM

So you, latter, two are the superiors of one who has achieved 4 technical certificates, a degree in humanities, travel on a shoestring through about 40 countries, has placed in folk-festival competitions, has played A-grade junior football and tennis...who's deluding themself?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 07 May 08 - 05:21 PM

If I hear shoestring one more time, somebody is going to get throttled with it......

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 07 May 08 - 05:28 PM

'So you, latter, two are the superiors of one who has achieved 4 technical certificates, a degree in humanities, travel on a shoestring through about 40 countries, has placed in folk-festival competitions, has played A-grade junior football and tennis...who's deluding themself?'

And so it was that, at last, the true WAV appeared, in all his glory.

I note that you lack a degree of any sort in music...hmmmm so I must have been wasting my time when acquiring a degree in keyboard and composition and my current studies in voice, oh and did I mention I give piano lessons?

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 07 May 08 - 05:30 PM

Okay, Volgadon - cheaply/on a budget/catching night trains while using a Eurail pass/riding on the top of coaches/staying in low-rent rooms among the people...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST
Date: 07 May 08 - 05:34 PM

"So you, latter, two are the superiors of one who has achieved 4 technical certificates, a degree in humanities, travel on a shoestring through about 40 countries, has placed in folk-festival competitions, has played A-grade junior football and tennis...who's deluding themself?"

Yes. Your posts often make no sense and are full of grammatical errors or misplaced punctuation (as above). Most of all your posts are full of erroneous information. Your self-promotion of both your poetry and your politics is incredibly arrogant and misguided considering both are so badly thought through. Make no doubt about it - you are the one who is deluding himself.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 07 May 08 - 05:36 PM

"If I hear shoestring one more time, somebody is going to get throttled with it...... "

Me thinks Mr. W.A.V. Shoe-String B.S (hyphenated to be veddy veddy English) protesteth way too much and dwelleth far too much on his over-seas excursions...Wait a sec, isn't that what the Victorians used to do, go visiting in the colonies, and then return to regale their fellow club members with travellers tales...hmmm now why oh why is Michael Palin's series Ripping Yarns coming to mind? *LOL*

Charloote R - an exotic in the colonies, awaiting the arrival of the great white father ;-)

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 07 May 08 - 05:48 PM

Catching night trains with a eurail pass, oh, exciting.....
Have you lived in any of those 40 countries and would you?
Just travelling is quite a different experience.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: curmudgeon
Date: 07 May 08 - 05:56 PM

Just for the Hell of it, take a look at the notes on accompaniment in "The Singing Island" MacColl-Seeger and in the "Penguin Book of English Folk Songs, " Vaughan Williams - LLoyd - Tom

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 07 May 08 - 05:56 PM

travel on a shoestring through about 40 countries

They say travel broadens the mind, so where did we go wrong with you I wonder?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 07 May 08 - 06:01 PM

As I've said, CR, I hate imperialism - whether it's Victorian, Nazi, or any other.
I've only "lived", Volgadon, in Australia and England...it's here.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 07 May 08 - 06:08 PM

'As I've said, CR, I hate imperialism - whether it's Victorian, Nazi, or any other.'

Now why oh why don't I believe you...all your badly written and spelled postings scream othewise, oh pompous one. Enough is enough I've entertained ya nonsense for far too long. I see what you are and the sort of world you would have people live in and the imaginary world you dwell in, and it disgusts me beyond all my senses.

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 07 May 08 - 08:40 PM

Having honestly tried here to provide you with insights rather insults to this point, WAV, I am going to change my direction a bit, and tell you straight out that you *are* among people who are who are superior to you--as musicians, performers, composers, folklorists, collectors, researchers, et al.

I am no one of particular consequence here, but I am a both a musician and composer/arranger, and I've accompanied a variety of "source" performers, and helped ethnomusicologists, collectors, and dance ethnographers to recreate music that respected the traditions that they worked with, taught, and generally had fun with this stuff for many years. I've heard all sides, and more than occasionally got caught in between, and there are more and better than me here--

There is an opportunity to learn a lot here, if can stomach the fact that folks like Dick Miles and Jack Campin(among many others) know a lot that you don't--

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 08 May 08 - 12:47 AM

And sadly, even I know more about Music Theory and Practice, from what you have demonstrated - and I am only too happy to admit that I have not 'specialised' in the 'Folk Area' like Dick & Jack, and many others here. I now know that I know far less than I thought I did when I was younger... :-)

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Stu
Date: 08 May 08 - 03:40 AM

Credit were it's due, WAV is getting a right kicking here, but he's sticking with it.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 08 May 08 - 04:31 AM

As you can see from ' his own ' WalkaboutsVerse thread, he takes delight in himself by spouting more complete and utter rubbish, drivel, crap and total pointless [ well you can't even call it verse ] than anyone has ever done on the Mudcat before.

eric

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 08 May 08 - 04:32 AM

Well, WAV, speaking as someone who has both travelled and lived in several countries, I would be far more impressed if you have lived anywhere outside of England and Australia. Travelling and living somewhere are two very different things.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Marje
Date: 08 May 08 - 04:38 AM

WAV, I don't know how else to explain what I mean. If several singers sing an A, they are either singing the same A (eg the one below middle C, which I can sing although it's towards the lower end of my range, and so can a male tenor at the top of his range) or they're singing different As which will be one or more octaves apart. If they're not at octave intervals they're not both As. The voices (all on A) will sound different and distinguishable because of their natural timbres, but that doesn't make it harmony.

And if you're still having trouble with this concept, you're really a bit out of your depth. I don't see how you can have strong opinions on harmony if you don't know it when you hear it. Banging on about your degree and your travel experience doesn't really help - many of us in the folk world have good degrees and other high-level skills and qualifications, but we don't regard it as relevant to our discussions.

In this forum there are some extremely knowledgable musicologists, scholars and experts in traditional music. There are also some well respected professional performers. Although I know quite a bit about music and do perform in front of others, I don't belong to either of these categories - and neither, plainly, do you. A little more humility would help to prevent you alienating people who could be useful and supportive to you. The folk world is very forgiving and inclusive, but there are limits to people's tolerance.

Marje

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 08 May 08 - 04:41 AM

A quick look at WAVs history indicates that he only ever contributes to his own threads, very strange ?

eric

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 08 May 08 - 05:30 AM

I noticed the Young'Uns thread and posted my support a few days ago, Eric.
I admitted I know little of harmony technique, and said I would add "mostly" to my atop definition/conclusion, Marje, yet you accuse me of lack of humility; also, I only mentioned my CV upon belittlement - that's when the majority would defend themselves with their record. And, most importantly, the main issue was NOT about how harmony and chords work, but their use or lack of use in (English, e.g.) folk music. So how about all who read this taking a few moments to look up folk music in your encyclopedias, and post anything they find on melody/tune, chords/harmony - and have the "humility" to do so even if it goes against what they have argued on this thread; I shall repost what I found -
"Folk song is usually melodic, not harmonic" (The Hutchinson Encyclopedia); Folk "musical structure is the simple repitition of a tune (with or without chorus)" (Philip's Essential Encyclopedia).
(And is it not the case that such encyclopedias consult these experts in their field that several of you mentioned above....or why have encyclopedias?)

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Joe
Date: 08 May 08 - 05:45 AM

WAV - the experts in the field are here (although I do not claim to be one of them), people who have devoted a huge proportion of their lives to the study of folk music. Some have many music related qualifications, some are professional performers of traditional music. Who can be more qualified than that?

Whilst you have led a fairly unusual lifestyle, this, along your extremely brief involvement with the folk world does not qualify you to dictate to those who are far more educated in this field than you.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 08 May 08 - 06:08 AM

Encyclopedias often consult other encyclopedias, they don't always undertake in-depth research, so I wouldn't trust their assumptions further than I can throw them.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 08 May 08 - 06:10 AM

I should add that encyclopedias are meant for a quick reference, at a glance, if you will.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 08 May 08 - 06:23 AM

I only mentioned my CV upon belittlement

What you took as belittlement I meant as encouragement. No matter what your qualifications, there is always much to be learnt and much pleasure to be had in the process of learing it. Conclusions are dead ends; definitions likewise, especially for something as essentially undefinable as Folk Music. One would have thought your academic training would have taught you the fundamentals of empirical research so essential to all life's experiences! The more I learn, the less I know. One day, I hope to know nothing at all, but the process of learning only stops at death.

I wonder what use encyclopaedias are for other than taking up much needed book-shelf space & offering very basic & superficial reference. At least Wikipedia is interactive, WAV - see what that has to say about Folk Music - you can always edit out the bits you don't like! But remember - i) always reference your sources, and ii) me doesn't count!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 08 May 08 - 07:12 AM

Superficial, that's the right word.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: TheSnail
Date: 08 May 08 - 08:22 AM

While WalkaboutsVerse is an attention seeking clown who writes terrible poetry, is an appalling recorder player and singer and is completely out of his depth when it comes to elementary music theory, does it occur to anyone that his opening post for this thread is basically right?

For the most part, English vernacular music before the first half of the nineteenth century was melodic in nature. (I call it vernacular because folk music didn't exist before 1954.) There is some evidence of part playing, but it is the exception rather than the rule.

Singing was largely unaccompanied solo and dance music manuscripts from the period rarely give anything but a melody line.

The melodeon, which seems such a fundamental part of English traditional music, is a German invention and the anglo concertina derives from the German concertina invented by Uhlig of Chemnitz. Multiculturalism strikes again. The guitar only came into "folk" music in any big way during the twentieth century, probably from America.

Just because WalkaboutsVerse said it, it doesn't mean it's wrong.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 08 May 08 - 09:38 AM

"Folk music didn't exist before 1954", The Snail?...The English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS), e.g., goes back a tad further than that.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 08 May 08 - 09:42 AM

Everything about it can and has been argued against, from the idea that there is an overarching "English Folk Music" on--

As to part playing, if there was evidence of part playing, there was part playing--you can't rule it out just because it wasn't written out--even classical music of certain periods was written with the understanding that chordal accompaniments would be improvised, and often by a group of musicians. And folk musicians, now as always, work without written parts-

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 May 08 - 09:50 AM

oh christ,not the 1954 definition
.WAV watch out you could be here until 2023.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 08 May 08 - 09:55 AM

M Ted

Those of us who have 'looked at' Medieval & Ren music, know about 'The Ground'... a tradition which had not died out, even by those playing later ages of music...

Just ask any folkie 'accompanying' others - that vampy stuff we play basically still meets the definition... :-)

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: TheSnail
Date: 08 May 08 - 10:05 AM

WalkaboutsVerse

"Folk music didn't exist before 1954", The Snail?...

In order to be called folk music, it has to conform to the definition laid down at the International Folklore Conference in Sao Paulo in 1954. Logically therefore, no music before that date can be called folk music.

M.Ted, would you like to reread my post and try again?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 08 May 08 - 10:11 AM

Just because WalkaboutsVerse said it, it doesn't mean it's wrong.

It's not what he says that's the problem, rather the way he says it, turning a basic notion of universal musical practise - i.e. vernacular monophonic modality - into part of an absolutist cultural manifesto, wherein all things serve a central agenda of an ethnically cleansed English National Culture.

There is no right here, but there are plenty of wrongs, along with any amount of opinions on what might have been and why that might have been the case. All of which is very interesting of course, but about the only thing we can prove is that there are no rules, and that whatever we might think about something, there'll always be someone else thinking about it differently.

He has a right to say such things; but in so doing people have a right to advise him how seriously off the mark he is - not out of any personal malice (for example, I would never offer the sort of critical damnation of his work as you do in your opening sentence!) but in the hope that he might take some of it on board and see the error of his ways - not just in his thinking about Folk Music, but his whole self-published & self-publicised philosophy of life.   

Given that, I think Mudcat gives him a very fair hearing indeed.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Amos
Date: 08 May 08 - 10:18 AM

That's silly, Snail. It's like saying there was no anthracite in the ground because no-one defined anthracite--the word--before 1900.

Lots of music, going back thousands of years, probably conforms to your definition. They didn't know it, though!!




A

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Stu
Date: 08 May 08 - 10:28 AM

Yeah! And what about Martin Carthy huh?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 08 May 08 - 10:31 AM

Yes, Sedayne, initially "self-published" using Serif Desktop Publishing and FrontPage - but in several places since: poems in The Evening Chronicle, The NE Poetry Journal, etc.; and some of my prose has been quoted on interactive segments of the ITV local news. (All as an amateur, thus far - apart from free drinks and entry, a few times).

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: TheSnail
Date: 08 May 08 - 10:31 AM

Amos

That's silly, Snail.

So it's true! Americans don't do irony.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 08 May 08 - 10:56 AM

To Stigweard - I like it when MC includes the melody in his finger-picking, and I'd like it even more if he played the English cittern...has he?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Stu
Date: 08 May 08 - 11:19 AM

I have no idea, but you might not want to ask me as I play accompaniment on Irish bouzouki - I must be an anathema to everything you believe about folk music.

Plus I'm not Irish but Welsh/English and love Irish music bestest, and think the Watersonsand Planxty are gods, and also think the stagnation of any tradition will kill it.

However, we all love an underdog and I have a sneaking admiration for people who plow their own furrow in the face of overwhelming opposition, so stick with it son.

It's music - we should just play what we love how we want to.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Joe
Date: 08 May 08 - 11:28 AM

WAV - try google but I couldnt find anything.

Of the Cittern-

'The tuning and narrow range allow the player a number of simple chord shapes useful for both simple song accompaniment and dances'

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 08 May 08 - 11:29 AM

Here we go again "son", Stigweard!...must you delude yourself?...have you ever seen a "sunshine", CR, above, a "son", or any suchlike from me. And the bouziki, as seen at the Athens Olympics, is a Greek - NOT an Irish - instrument.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: TheSnail
Date: 08 May 08 - 11:40 AM

From The Renaissance Cittern Site

In some ways it could be said to resemble a "Renaissance banjo."

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Stu
Date: 08 May 08 - 11:49 AM

Just offering my support!

My bouzouki is an Irish one (although made in England).

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 May 08 - 11:53 AM

However, we all love an underdog and I have a sneaking admiration for people who plow their own furrow in the face of overwhelming opposition, so stick with it son.
I love flat earthers too.
most singers perform better when they dont have to accompany themselves,they can concentrate on one thing.
when I do a gig,I sing a few songs unaccompanied,a few with Guitar,and some with Concertina,this provides contrast,I also consider subject material,vary keys and tempos etc,but I do use chords and harmony.
knowing when to use and when not to is important,but not to use harmony as some sort of principle is laughable.
but we all love eccentricity,so WAV how about forming a society.poets against chords and harmony in folksongs.PACAHIF.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 08 May 08 - 12:01 PM

Did anyone bother checking their enyclopedia(s)?...or would opening one be too eccentric, these days, CB? Once more, what I found...
"Folk song is usually melodic, not harmonic" (The Hutchinson Encyclopedia); Folk "musical structure is the simple repitition of a tune (with or without chorus)" (Philip's Essential Encyclopedia).
(And is it not the case that such encyclopedias consult these experts in their field that several of you mentioned above....or why have encyclopedias?)

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 May 08 - 12:31 PM

no, they[your encyclopaedia definitions are a lot of baloney],believe me,I have been singing folksongs,for fifty years.
folk music can be harmonic as well as melodic,different traditions vary.
the traditions of England scotland wales Ireland use mainly four modes.the dorian,Mixolydian Aeolian Ionian,most of these tunes are suited to harmony,sometimes they are fitted tastefully by leaving out the major or minor third,but with that consideration in mind they are still suited to harmony or chords.
the traditional flamenco music uses different modes,that are suited by flamenco guitar,but it is still harmony.
go out and listen to some harmony groups like the Wilson/OR Copper families.Dick Miles

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 08 May 08 - 12:44 PM

Sometimes I wish for the old days, when these issues could be settled simply, with a straight razor or a broken bottle. Failing that, someone please, remind me to get a life.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Stu
Date: 08 May 08 - 12:55 PM

Anyone seen my camel?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 08 May 08 - 01:01 PM

...there's what we want, Ted, and there's the tactics we are prepared to use: I'd like to think I compete/"fight" reasonably fairly for what I want...but, as you surely know, others have used very different tactics - not just in "the old days".

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Captain Swing
Date: 08 May 08 - 01:06 PM

Face it WAV - you are on your own with this one.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 08 May 08 - 01:22 PM

The Snail, e.g., is clearly against me on some things, but is with me "on this one", CS - see above.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: TheSnail
Date: 08 May 08 - 01:50 PM

Quite happy for you to accept my post of 08 May 08 - 08:22 AM in its entirety, WAV.

I'm also quite happy for people to demonstrate that I am wrong but they seem to be more interested in opposing what you say because it's you saying it which rather over-rates your importance.

I am NOT happy to be told that, because vernacular music was largely melodic in the past, I should not use harmony now given my main musical activity. (I'm the one with the beard.)

Arrangements for our Chippenham FF sessions will be on the website soon.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 08 May 08 - 01:57 PM

I NEVER thought , on THIS I would post

                         200

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 08 May 08 - 02:15 PM

...and half Snail's luck!!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 08 May 08 - 02:47 PM

i) but, as you surely know, others have used very different tactics - not just in "the old days".

A classic example of WAVs racist dog-whistling. It's interesting that he picks me up for calling his work self-published, but doesn't bat an eye-lid when I mention his agenda for an ethnically-cleansed English National Culture.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 08 May 08 - 02:49 PM

I had been watching a documentary on Leonard Cohen, and it having ended, I am now looking at a large dead elephant. Since I am an American, I see absolutely no irony in this.

Notwithstanding that, I think we shall have to send those other three recorder players off to find comfort elsewhere, since Walka.. or is not going to reconsider those other lines on the score. Best, I think, to all kiss and make up.

For starters, I extend my hand to The Snail, who I seem to have slighted in some way that I still can't make out. Still, I have great respect for him, rooted in what I know of his commitment to Dwyle Flunking, and also tied to the inspiration I have taken from the Harvey's Beer struggle--

For the rest, life is too short--and now I'm off to sue someone, or eat cold cereal, or some other such American thing--

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: TheSnail
Date: 08 May 08 - 02:55 PM

Sorry, M.Ted, but you seemed to be calling on me to defend a position I didn't hold. I was merely suggesting you did a more careful reading of what I actually said.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 08 May 08 - 02:56 PM

"the stagnation of any tradition will kill it."

Got that right, problem is old weird WAV doesn't get it, and ya know, you can put up your
"Folk song is usually melodic, not harmonic" (The Hutchinson Encyclopedia); Folk "musical structure is the simple repitition of a tune (with or without chorus)" (Philip's Essential Encyclopedia)."
as many times as you want, no one is going to believe it. Mind you isn't that what propagandists do, repeat the same phrases over and over until the populous believes it? The imperialists of the British Empire did it, the Nazis did it and the communist regimes did it, and the idea carries on today with the Americans in Iraq...quite the lineage eh?

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 08 May 08 - 03:11 PM

"The imperialists of the British Empire did it, the Nazis did it", CR, again, because Sedayne insists on me responding to everything everytime - I hate imperialism, be it Nazi, Victorian, American, or any other. And why must you use those tactics, Sedayne, I repeat - racism is where someone says they are all like this or that, and I have never done suchlike on this or any other site; I genuinely love the world being multicultural (look here).

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 08 May 08 - 03:23 PM

I've said what I've said, I mean what I said, your own words condemn you for what you are.

Yes you do love a multicultural world....as long as it doesn't happen in England.

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: TheSnail
Date: 08 May 08 - 04:39 PM

...and talking of the Harvey's Beer struggle, we celebrated Restoration Day on April 26th.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 08 May 08 - 05:00 PM

I have already seen the lovely photos--The torch light parade was an elegant touch--and I am completely entertained by the fact that the pub has become world famous. I am pleased to know that the food has gotten better, as well, and the fact that music is alive and well there, well, that's what it's all about--

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 09 May 08 - 06:20 AM

It was heavily ornamented, chords/harmonies were included, and it was called not folk but "folk-fusion" (I'd say folk-classical) but, interestingly, such music did appear from the winner of last night's BBC Young Musician Percussion Comp. - and, thus, will probably be in the final. It involved a young classically-trained tune-percussionist playing marimba, with four mallets; and a bodhran.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 10 May 08 - 12:59 AM

An "Encyclopedia" is merely the personal opinion of those creating it.

And if you don't believe, try participating in 'Wikipedia'... I have... ROFL.... :-)

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 10 May 08 - 05:39 AM

..I accept, Foolestroupe, that Wiki. is more interactive, but remember some do bother to write into the publishers of bound encyclopedias, in a similar advisory way.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 10 May 08 - 10:10 AM

Encyclopedias present a very shallow overview of things. Very dangerous to base an opinion off of them. Read specialised literature.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST
Date: 10 May 08 - 02:11 PM

Chords are now traditional. Without them for most people, the music sounds empty.
There are those who are antiquarians who want to live in the fifteenth or sixteenth century.
That's their choice.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 10 May 08 - 02:22 PM

Chords are now traditional. Without them for most people, the music sounds empty.
There are those who are antiquarians who want to live in the fifteenth or sixteenth century. (and to live in an England that has never existed, and thankfully never will exist)
That's their choice.

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 10 May 08 - 03:15 PM

"Traditions exist due to folks being impressed by how their forebears did things; and, accordingly, taking this attitude is, I feel, vital for the cause of maintaining a nice multicultural-world, against the
forces of globalisation/Americanisation – a cause which U.S. citizens themselves should support." (me)
Just the tune played and/or sung well sounds great - I'm impressed by this (not every) tradition of my English forebears. (Tractors replacing enslaved heavy-horses and bullocks is another matter.)

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 10 May 08 - 03:25 PM

For *some* songs chords are now traditional (mainly, for those songs written since chordal accompaniment became widely heard).

For Gaelic mouth music they sound pretty damn silly.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 10 May 08 - 03:58 PM

Why do you have to add your website to every other post?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 10 May 08 - 05:28 PM

I'd written that before, Volgadon - I copy/pasted it from my site; as with ironing socks, very few bother, but it only takes a second to do the link, just in case anyone wants to read more.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprtentice
Date: 10 May 08 - 05:39 PM

"I feel, vital for the cause of maintaining a nice multicultural-world(other than in England, of course)"

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Stu
Date: 11 May 08 - 05:49 AM

"For Gaelic mouth music they sound pretty damn silly."

Er, except when the exceptional Julie Fowlis is singing with her excellent band, chords and all. Then they sound pretty damn good.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 11 May 08 - 05:51 AM

"Chords are now traditional. Without them for most people, the music sounds empty."

Well, that reflects a severe lack of expression of understanding of music history.

Briefly, Western Music USED to be similar to 'Eastern Music' - there was a series of horizontal melodies, in counterpoint (not in exactly the strict musical definition though). Then Western musicians, after the discovery of the 'staff notation' way of writing it down, began to have named 'composers' of musical works, who discovered various forms of 'vertical' stuff called 'Harmony'. This took a long time to gradually 'corrupt' people (some musical styles remained mostly immune!)... :-P

:-)

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 11 May 08 - 09:38 AM

There was, Foolestroupe, quite recently on the BBC a series on the history of sacred music, which , I think, said it was just the chanting of a single-line in churches until the 13th or 14th century, when Italian composers began to employ polyphony. (Must of been 13th, as Jack above mentioned "Summer is a Comin in" as 13th century sacred polyphony, here in England.)
I like a lot of Gaelic music, Stigweard - except the mimicing of Amerindian chants.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Stu
Date: 11 May 08 - 09:57 AM

"except the mimicing of Amerindian chants"

Forgive my ignorance, but like whom?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 11 May 08 - 10:12 AM

On BBC Gaelic radio, Stigweard, such chanting is played quite often - I think it derives from an old empathy with the plight of Amerindians.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 11 May 08 - 04:06 PM

Umm, there was a tradition of polyphony in Eastern liturgy way before the 13th century. I think even as early as the 4th.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 11 May 08 - 04:36 PM

Maybe, Volgadon, but in what is now Italy, it was plain song/Gregorian Chant of single melody until the Renaissance, when polyphony was developed and quickly spread throughout Europe, I think.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 11 May 08 - 05:35 PM

Look up "organum".

First written about in a Western European source at the end of the ninth century.

I think you'll find that's a bit before the Renaissance.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Tootler
Date: 11 May 08 - 05:41 PM

Maybe, Volgadon, but in what is now Italy, it was plain song/Gregorian Chant of single melody until the Renaissance, when polyphony was developed and quickly spread throughout Europe, I think.

Wrong!

I quote from the Concise Oxford History of Music By Gerald Abraham,

"The earliest unmistakable mention of Western polyphony ... occurs in a Treatise De Institutione Harmonica by Hucbald (c 840 - 930), a monk of St. Amand in the diocese of Tournai"

Three things

The years given, approx 900 AD are a good deal earlier than the renaissance - about 500 years (give or take a few decades).

Tournai is not in Italy, it is in what is now Belgium.

Conscious use of harmony has been in use in Western music for at least 1000 years. Although it started in the church and was subsequently taken up by the aristocracy, I find it hard to believe that it did not seep out into popular music at some point.

Geoff

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 12 May 08 - 04:59 AM

Did anyone else here see that BBC4 series on the history of sacred music - sorry I'm not sure if that's the actual title but I'm quite sure they presented things much as I've said above..?
Also, interesting that, on last night's Young Musician of the Year final, the into. showed FOUR neon lines moving across the screen; I still say that, despite occasional cases of polyphony (above), for a folkie-final it would be just the ONE. And I like such DIFFERENCES in the genres of music.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 12 May 08 - 05:08 AM

I did that Jack, and Wiki. ends with: "Over time, composers began to write added parts that were not just simple transpositions, and thus true polyphony was born." Then, by clicking on the "polyphony" link, we get: "Within the context of Western music tradition the term is usually used in reference to music of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance."

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 12 May 08 - 05:26 AM

i) Please read this: Organum

ii) According to the latest Private Eye the BBC4 series Sacred Music was scuppered by a complete lack of budget, reducing it to four parts from the intended eight, and having The Sixteen singing in (say) 'A Lutheran-style Church in London' rather than on location in the church where the music was actually written, as was the intention. Not so in the case of Rome, where the Vatican has black-listed the BBC because it's covered Priestly Sex-Scandals with Unnecessary Vigour.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 12 May 08 - 05:28 AM

Ah, yes, wikipedia, reliable source, isn't it? If you've seen it on a beeb docu, it must be true.
http://www.polyphony.ge/en/chpolyphony/history.php
http://www.geocities.com/papandrew/outlines/grout03.html

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 12 May 08 - 06:13 AM

It has been suggested (I forget by who) that Georgian sacred polyohony is directly ancestral to the Western tradition (and hence that pre-Christian Georgian secular polyphony is ultimately behind it all).

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Stu
Date: 12 May 08 - 06:32 AM

It is in our house.

You should hear me accompanying myself on my multi-tracked version of 'Chicken on a Raft'.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 12 May 08 - 08:22 AM

Well, Jack, the Renaissance did, of course, invlove a looking back, as well as forward; but, either way, it seems that these single-melody chants did (and still do, of course) go on for several centuries before polyphony came into European churches. And that, over these centuries, traditional music remained, mostly, about the single melody.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 12 May 08 - 03:13 PM

""except the mimicing of Amerindian chants"

that's North American First Nations to you, (racist) sunshine.

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Nitten Regular
Date: 12 May 08 - 03:23 PM

I see Jack Campin is now boring the shit out of everybody on the internet, after having accomplished the same feat in real life at Sandy Bells and Newtongrange.

Tomorrow, the world ???

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 12 May 08 - 04:31 PM

Log-in and mind your language, you two - and should that be compulsory, all..?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 12 May 08 - 04:42 PM

"Log-in and mind your language, you two"

please mind your own business. this is not YOUR personal forum.

"should that be compulsory, all..? "

no

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 12 May 08 - 05:12 PM

Charlotte, he is right, well about the language, that is.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 12 May 08 - 05:20 PM

"Well, that reflects a severe lack of expression of understanding of music history.

Briefly, Western Music USED to be similar to 'Eastern Music' - there was a series of horizontal melodies, in counterpoint (not in exactly the strict musical definition though). Then Western musicians, after the discovery of the 'staff notation' way of writing it down, began to have named 'composers' of musical works, who discovered various forms of 'vertical' stuff called 'Harmony'. This took a long time to gradually 'corrupt' people (some musical styles remained mostly immune!)... :-P


Let me get this straight: harmony did not exist until "Western musicians" devised a way to write it down ~??!!?!

What a load of hogwash! Mustn't there have been something to be transcribed in order for the need to develop written notation (including a way to notate two or more notes being sonded simultaneously) to arise?

Of course, this quality of thought is basic to almost all the arguments put forward by those who insist that music does not have natiral or intrinsic harmony, and that no true "folk" of ages past could ever possibly have imagined how to sing in harmony.

I think it's ridiculously presumptuous to assume that, if there's no scholarly written record of a musical style or approach, then it could never have possibly existed. Singing and playing came first, long before the written transcription of same could possibly have developed, and we simply cannot know for sure how and what people sang and did not sing on their own and for their own enjoyment, in the absense of historians, collectors, recording devices, etc.

Also, of course, as several folks have noted above, many "source" singers tailored their performances to what they believed was expected of them. So, if a given scholar/collector was know to have a bias against harmony, or instrumental accompanmiment, etc., the collectees might very understandably give him whatever he seemed to want.

I believe that human nature and the nature of music and people have both always been pretty much the same. Harmony is an aspect of music that many people enjoy, and some know how to produce, and it has probably been with us for a very long time. Asserting anything else is an insult to our forebearers.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 12 May 08 - 05:32 PM

The language doesn't seem to bother the operators of this site (Joe Offer would have already said something, I think), so I don't feel the need to be any different...and re-iterate no compulsory logging in...

On Friday me and a couple of musicians started singing in harmony, well I almost lost it, because what should pop into my mind, at the most inopportune moment, was this thread... *LOL*

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 12 May 08 - 07:00 PM

I have no problem with the language either.

I do have a problem with people who don't have the guts to put their own names to what they write. At least Walkaboutsverse has never made any secret of his identity.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 13 May 08 - 05:12 AM

"Asserting anything else is an insult to our forebearers" (PoppaGator)...how about some respect for the collectors, many of whom would have been classically-trained and quite capable of notating more than one line of melody - if that's what they had heard/recorded, rather than a single-line of playing/singing.
Also, somewhere in among my myspace Friends (?after 5000, we can't do internal searches) is a post-grad. folk-degree student from one of the Scandinavian countries (Norway, I think), who said on her blurb that their tradition was a soloistic one of unaccompanied singing.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 13 May 08 - 07:15 AM

"their tradition "

yep THEIR....
~~~~~~~~

"harmony did not exist until "Western musicians" devised a way to write it down "

What you thought I said was not what I thought you thought it meant.... :-)

"Mustn't there have been something to be transcribed in order for the need to develop written notation (including a way to notate two or more notes being sonded simultaneously) to arise?"

I did not deny that - if you HAD studied 'classical Music Theory' you would not have needed to call my misunderstood words 'hogwash'. Read up on 'Gregorian Chant', mate! I repeat "there was a series of horizontal melodies" which became transformed over time in to "Formal Theories of (Western) Vertical Harmony"...


"Singing and playing came first, long before the written transcription of same could possibly have developed"

Where did I say ANYTHING that denied that?


IMO WAV's "single-melody chants" is musical gibberish. Read up on 'Gregorian Chant', mate!

This thread is starting to remind me of a comedy skit - can't remember who did it - about two characters who know nothing about anything trying to talk seriously about profound subjects....

"Did you know that the sun is ah - an incredibly long distance away? If you put motor cars end to end, oh, it would take an enormous amount of them to stretch there. And that light, well even though it moves at er, tremendously fast speed - the fastest thing in the universe, you know, when it leaves the sun takes, oh, ah, quite a while to get to the earth"

... I do love such rigours informative discussions...

:-)



and on it goes....

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Darowyn
Date: 13 May 08 - 07:50 AM

This is a crazy argument. So the shepherds that you see on classical Greek Vases- the ones who played the double pipes, never played two notes at once?
So Pythagoras, who explained the mathematical basis of harmony, had never heard a lyre player hit two or three strings at the same time?
Tomb paintings of Egyptians playing shoulder harps with both hands were only playing single note lines?
I cannot believe that musicians have changed so much. the phrase "Hey these two sound great together!" must have been heard long before the dawn of written music history- in every language on the planet.
I'd suspect that finding harmonies was discovered long before the phrase "that's not folk" was first uttered.(probably in Sanscrit)
Cheers
Dave

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Marje
Date: 13 May 08 - 08:08 AM

A friend of mine taught young children in Africa for a while. If she tried to teach them a tune, they harmonised spontaneously, and found it impossible to sing in unison. They were so used to hearing harmonies in their traditional music that the ides of a single-line melody was foreign to them.

This does not prove that harmony is a part of every musical tradition in the world , but it does suggest that it arises naturally and spontaneously when singing is part of a communal culture.

This contrasts with the view that somehow the common people of Europe wouldn't have used harmony until it was developed in church music or noted down by the musically literate. Church music may at times lead the trend in certain musical fashions and developments, but in other ways the Church has, over the centuries, imposed strict controls and limitations on the ways in which music has been used for religious purposes. It's unlikely, I'd have thought, for the whole range of musical expression in a given culture to be reflected in the church music of the time - I don't suppose medieval peasants working in the fields used to chant plainsong as they worked.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 13 May 08 - 09:28 AM

...the price of fish was sometimes, in England, an unaccompanied folk-song sung in situ (see Isaac Walton, The Complete Angler, 1653).

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 13 May 08 - 09:38 AM

How does bragging about the amount of myspace friends do anything for the argument? It does leave a bad taste in the mouth. Poppagator didn't say that the collectors were incapable of notating more than a single line, but that many didn't WANT to.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 13 May 08 - 09:49 AM

For the record, since this discussion began, perhaps as many as 100,000 souls have perished as a result from the Myanmar catastrophe, and the lives and cultures of perhaps another million or two have been changed forever. Add to that the tolls from yesterday's earthquake (10,000 or more declared dead already) and we might be inclined to feel that the end of the world might really be drawing toward us (at least, if the victims had been native English-speakers), and yet this argument, continues unabated.

By what miracle it is sustained, in the face of catastrophe, in the face of disaster, in the face of overwhelming and incomprehensible human misery, we can only guess, as it no longer even has a discernable subject--

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 13 May 08 - 10:10 AM

WAV as any musician will tell you when playing any instrument, if you accidently hit two notes at once and it sounds ok, this is called ' harmony ' so you keep on doing it, this has gone on as long as there has been an instrument capable of playing more than one note at once, the same applies to singing, if two people are singing in unison accidental harmonys often happen.

eric

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 13 May 08 - 11:30 AM

M. Ted, amen.

I suppose I should be embarrassed to have taken part at all, given how ridiculous some of the assertions have been and, more to the point, how completely unimportant the outcome could possibly be (if there ever is an outcome ~ that is, if anyone at all ever changes their mind!)

It just annoys me no end when anyone asserts, with such certainty, how the human race, since time immemorial, always and everywhere, did NOT express themselves musically.

But you're right, expressing my frustration at this kind of pedantry is nothing more than a waste of my time and yours, and in the grand scheme of things, matters not at all.

In my own defense, I have studiously avoided this thread for days at a time, but since it never seems to disappear off the bottom of the page, I have been periodiclly tempted to weigh in again and again, as though there were any possibility that, by rephrasing my arguments, I could actually have an impact on anyone's understanding

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 May 08 - 12:37 PM

wav.I just heard two cuckoos,at the same time,they werent singing the same intervals.Harmonic Cuckoos.
you need to get out there and put them right.instruct them to do it in unison.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 13 May 08 - 12:42 PM

Parts 2 & 3 of "England, Whose England?" (which Mole., I think, mentioned on this, or the Pop Goes the Folk-Singer, thread) is quite relevant to the last few posts, I feel. - note what Sharp actually recorded and what he did with it.
(As for the sad evets in Myanmar, Ted, let's hope for a better universal respect for the UN in future, so that such suffering is at least reduced.)

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 13 May 08 - 02:00 PM

I do have a problem with people who don't have the guts to put their own names to what they write"

and there are a fair number of those aren't there.....?

and please WAV don't use me or any links I provide as any sort of "proof" of your bogus claims. Thank You

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 13 May 08 - 05:26 PM

I'm coming round to M.Ted's point of view - trying to beat any sense into the head of someone who will only think in soundbites is a waste of time and continuing with it is in poor taste.

But I will make a final comment on this:

"a post-grad. folk-degree student from one of the Scandinavian countries (Norway, I think), who said on her blurb that their tradition was a soloistic one of unaccompanied singing"

Almost all Scandinavian cultures have many different coexisting folk genres. If WAV would get off his arse and go look for it, there is some utterly beautiful folk harmony there. At its most basic the soundworld of harmonic-spectrum instruments like the straight-tube no-holes whistle of Norway; at its most sophisticated the fiddle duet music of Sweden (with a harmonic system like nothing else in the world); the subtle sympathetic resonances you get with the Swedish nyckelharpa; and the Norwegian Hardanger fiddle, perhaps the most technically sophisticated folk instrument any culture has produced.

These are not simply oddities that make a dialectical point, they are wonderful and moving sounds, and you'd be a fool not to look for a chance to hear them. (Something like them was the norm in British music in the late Middle Ages, when the crwth was heard everywhere).

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 13 May 08 - 07:49 PM

I have been trying NOT to get involved in this thread , but WAV keeps on about the early collectors only collecting top line melodies and NOT harmonies ! For God's Sake - they were collecting from old men and women , sometimes residents of Workhouses ! WAV , do
you seriously think that IF there were more than one person in any one location who knew the same song as another , that they might possibly have sung together ? And possibly even tried to harmonise ?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Don Firth
Date: 13 May 08 - 09:20 PM

Well, you see, it works like this:   when Cecil Sharp went around getting people to sing their old songs for him so he could write them down, the people he collected from didn't know for sure that he wasn't from the folk police. If he had been, and he'd caught a couple of people singing in harmony, or someone accompanying himself or herself on an old home-made banjo, or a guitar they bought from the Sears-Roebuck catalog, he might have issued them a ticket and they would have had to pay a heavy fine, which they could ill afford.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 14 May 08 - 06:16 AM

By getting off my "arse", Jack I was already aware of everything you said in your last post - when I get back around to that lady's myspace, I shall re-read her blurb and let you know (she's a singer not an instumentalist).
To Leadfingers - you agree that there can be a difference between what folks are capable of and what they choose to do; E.g., many singers and musicians, in many genres, work things out on some kind of keyboard - that they may never play in public. Of course, folkies in England, e.g., would have known other possibilities but it seems they did love this unaccompanied singing of verses. I'll say it again - "Traditions exist due to folks being impressed by how their forebears did things" (here).

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 14 May 08 - 07:20 AM

Traditions exist due to folks being impressed by how their forebears did things

But to what extent did this tradition actually exist in the first place? Was it perceived as such by the singers themselves? Or by objective outsiders seeing something that wasn't actually there?

In this context have a look at the Folk vs Folk thread which makes for sobering reading!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 14 May 08 - 07:53 AM

This just added to Folk vs Folk:

To quote WalkaboutsVerse on the Chords in Folk thread: Traditions exist due to folks being impressed by how their forebears did things, a notion which would at least have the appearance of plausibility about it. However the caveat must be that traditions only exist in the imaginations of the impressed, and that their forebears (or more likely not their forebears at all...) had no concept of tradition as we understand it today, much less The Tradition.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 14 May 08 - 10:16 AM

He keeps saying it in order to believe it, it's like the English attitude to learning foreign languages, we don't need to, if we shout at people they will understand us.

Keep shouting WAV

eric

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 14 May 08 - 12:43 PM

Eric the Who?!

Poem 149 of 230: FOR BETTER OR WORSE

Largely due to America,
    English - to use Italian -
Is now the world's lingua franca,
    Where, it seems, it once was Latin;
But, while brogues are a good thing,
    I doubt American spelling.

From walkaboutsverse.741.com

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Sandman
Date: 14 May 08 - 12:45 PM

in the style of Mcgonagle.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 14 May 08 - 01:13 PM

"Traditions exist due to folks being impressed by how their forebears did things."

Naaaah ~ traditions exist because music and other folklore have long been passed from one living generation to the next, normally with absolutely no self-consciousness, no consciousness of "correctness" or conformity to any set of rules, and no pretense that anyone knew precisely how the long-dead members of earlier generations might have sounded, or what techniques they might have employed.

Young singers and musicians learning the old songs would normally, of course, be aware of following along as part of a local/clan/family tradition, but I seriously doubt that any felt the least need to scrupulously avoid adding of any element of their own style to what they learned from their elders. And I'm quite sure that no one back in the days of real traditions ~ as opposed to artificial academic constructs ~ ever cared the least about whether they were conforming to musical approaches or styles of earlier generations of "forebearers."

And as I've tried to point out on countless occasions, no one has ever known the actual sound of music made prior to the invention of recording technology. The unsophisticated "folk" of past eras, of course, took this for granted, and probably never gave a thought to the task of imitating some long-ago approach to performance.

Today, we have people who claim to know all about how people did and did not make music in past eras. Perhaps they're confused ~ we do know how some folks' music sounded as long ago as about one century, and perhaps these delusional souls figure that this means that they have some kind of additional paranormal ability to know how people sang and played ~ and that they NEVER sang or played in harmony ~ in the long-gone eras even before any music could be recorded.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 14 May 08 - 01:41 PM

To CB - THE WEEKLY WALKABOUT, E.G. is NOT the GEM OF THE DAY!
To PG - they use common sense NOT "paranormal ability": many sailors, farmers, miners, etc. could neither read nor write English/Latin let alone music; thus, these songs must have been PASSED DOWN BY EAR.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 14 May 08 - 01:49 PM

My point exactly ~ real musical traditions have always been passed down by ear, but the "evidence" you offer to support the claim that no one ever sang in harmony is all based upon written history and records of written music.

I realize that I can't prove that people understood, sang, and played harmony though the ages, and certainly before the delopment of musical notation. That's just my opinion; and while I truly believe this option is absolutely commonsensical, there's no way I can change the mind of someone whose opinion is different.

But, conversely, it is just as impossible (perhaps moreso, if there can be degrees of impossibility) to prove that human beings were somehow incapable of conceiving musical harmonies during any past era.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 14 May 08 - 02:23 PM

OUCH< I didn't think he could do worse than to rhyme situ with view, but the rhythm of that last one is painful, let alone how the rhymes seem to have been hammered in.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's Unplugged Apprentice
Date: 14 May 08 - 03:51 PM

"in the style of Mcgonagle"


cringe -worthy is a term that immediatly comes to mind.....

and with that in mind I present the gathered august company with this

McGonagall Online

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Don Firth
Date: 14 May 08 - 04:15 PM

Just because one may find only a melody line written down does not mean there were not other things going on.

Many early music groups these days are concerned with the matter of authenticity, and want to perform the music with the same sound and in the same style in which it was originally performed. One aspect of this is using actual instruments of the period or the most accurate modern replicas they can find. Beyond this, they have the music itself to work from. And wherever possible, facsimiles of the music manuscripts in the composer's own hand, sometimes (although rarely) complete with dynamic markings and marginal notes.

However—much of this is left up to the individual musicians. Many works were written with melody line only, sometimes accompanied by a number or a couple of numbers under the staff and beneath each melody note. This is what is called a "figured bass," and suggests chords or chord inversions to the musicians who are not carrying the melody line, but playing in "parts."

Oftentimes the instruments themselves were not specified. You could use whatever instruments you had at hand, and pieces of early music may not always be played twice in a row with the same instruments or the same harmony lines. There was an improvisational quality to this kind of playing. Different in style, but not in approach to jazz, in which one starts with a melody line, then the musicians improvise around it.

A group of friends getting together to play—whatever instruments they happened to have, be it a "case of viols," and/or a lute or two, and/or a flute or "case of recorders," and/or a virginal (a small, portable harpsichord-like keyboard instrument that could be set on a table top). This sort of playing was an early form of what later became known as "chamber music."

This is not speculation on my part, folks. You can look this up in any good text on the history of music.

I cannot imagine that "the folk" were so isolated that occasional members of the class never heard music of this kind. Or that they were so unimaginative that it never occurred to them to try part-singing. After all, in churches and monasteries sometime in the 1100s, a bass line was added to plainchant. This was partly to accommodate singers with lower voices (basses and some baritones) who had trouble reaching the melody notes sung by the higher voices (light baritones, tenors).

Please don't try to tell me that peasants and serfs never heard any of this.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Bruce Michael Baillie
Date: 14 May 08 - 04:24 PM

...I think walkabout verse is quite right, we should still be doin' it like it used to be done, no harmonies AND we all ought to wear breeches, pony tail periwigs and those natty shoes with the silver buckles like they used to wear back in those days!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 14 May 08 - 04:28 PM

"Please don't try to tell me that peasants and serfs never heard any of this."


and WAV answers with a line from one of his earlier posts......

"these songs must have been PASSED DOWN" Of course thaey were, along with the song structures I wouldn't doubt. My feeling is that WAV firmly believes our ancestors were..ummm..ignorant peasants, so to speak, incapable of thought.

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 14 May 08 - 04:52 PM

No, M., I agree with Don, and what he said fits with an early music programme presented by Charles Hazelwood a couple of years ago on the Beeb - except for what I said just a few posts ago: the difference between what folks are aware/capable of and what they choose to do. Ever been in a folk-club and heard the group/the majority voice the complaint - that's not the right tune!/that's not how it goes! That's tradition.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 14 May 08 - 04:59 PM

"Ever been in a folk-club and heard the group/the majority voice the complaint - that's not the right tune!/that's not how it goes!"

I tend to ignore people like that, either that or "If you know how to sing it why aren't you up here?" Usually shuts'em up (if they're ignorant enough in the first place to commit such an action, which generally they're not. (We are civilized in the colonies you know *LOL*)

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 14 May 08 - 05:25 PM

That's not tradition so much as personal bias.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 14 May 08 - 05:25 PM

...on the contrary, off the top of my head, M., I've sung "Tommy's Gone to Hilo" (E.trad.) and had the pace of the 2nd and 4th lines changed by the group/chorus - yes, most of whom would have attended a lot more folk-clubs than me; it didn't bother me as it was a folk club not a jazz club. And this traditional way of singing verses with, mostly, just the tune (in a manner quite different from what is now called "Pop") is what remained popular, in England, e.g., for centuries; and I like it.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 14 May 08 - 06:21 PM

WAV-I bring this up with slight bit of trepidation, but the fact is that "Lingua Franca" was not Latin, nor was it even a full blown language--it has been described as the original "pidgin", and seems to have consisted of words borrowed chiefly from the Romance languages, mostly Italian or possibly Catalan/Provencal/Occitan, with a simple grammar that was apparently drawn from Arabic.

The term "lingua franca" is a metaphorical usage, and is used to describe languages that to function in as an overarching language--but for the most part, these are full scale languages capable of expressing the full range of human experience-

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 14 May 08 - 06:38 PM

" is what remained popular, in England, e.g., for centuries"

and you have historical evidence for such a statement?
Persnally I doubt it (that you have any evidence)

"That's not tradition so much as personal bias. "

It certainly is... :-D

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 May 08 - 06:06 AM

In the above poem, I didn't say "lingua franca" was Latin, M. Ted. Let me put it another way: practiSe (English spelling)/practiCe (American spelling); licenCe (English spelling)/licenSe (American spelling)!...it's fine/good for different nationals to pronounce English with different accents, but why not just stick with the one English way of spelling it, and the one Spanish way of spelling Spanish, etc.? (At uni., in Aus., we had the choice of either English or American spelling in our essays - I've decided that's silly, and even recalcitrant.) I'm NOT saying I'm the world's greatest speller - far from it - but, when I look up a word, I always choose the English spelling of the English word!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Joe
Date: 15 May 08 - 06:14 AM

Is now the world's lingua franca,
    Where, it seems, it once was Latin;

This kind of suggests the opposite?

With regard to American spelling - I thought you celebrated diversity?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 15 May 08 - 06:25 AM

Diversity, as long as it's the English way.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 15 May 08 - 06:36 AM

As an American, the American spellings seem like the right ones to me--be that as it may, my point about Lingua Franca stands--

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 May 08 - 06:41 AM

I said "bogues are a good thing" (above). And I said "English - to use Italian - is now the world's lingua franca" (above).

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 May 08 - 07:15 AM

Which spelling of English words is used/preferred in Isreal, Volgadon? And, in the USA, M. Ted, are you allowed to use English spelling if you wish to?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 15 May 08 - 07:41 AM

If Americans want to use English spellings, they go up to Canada--I think there are bus tours in the Fall, and the fares are reasonable--

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 May 08 - 07:57 AM

But is there a school in the USA, Ted, that agrees with me - i.e., accents are fine but English should only be spelt the one English way, French the one French way, Spanish the one Spanish way, etc?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 15 May 08 - 08:02 AM

Israel, not Isreal. Both American and British spellings are perfectly acceptable, what's wrong with that?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Joe
Date: 15 May 08 - 08:15 AM

Whats wrong with that? Crossed-cultures is whats wrong.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 May 08 - 08:20 AM

But have the powers-that-be in the USA decided that enough is enough, or are there plans to make it "enuf"? Are you starting to see what I mean - it is silly/recalcitrant.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 15 May 08 - 08:35 AM

Powers-that-be? WHAT??? Have there been any new spelling conventions in the past 30 years? I do think you have a phantom fear, as well as intolerance. Who cares if it is colour or color?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 May 08 - 08:38 AM

So why change it from colour to color, Volgadon?!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 08 - 08:45 AM

For the same reason it was changed from the Old French Coulour, I suppose....

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Joe
Date: 15 May 08 - 08:48 AM

Why not? Whatis the problem with regional variation?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 15 May 08 - 08:59 AM

Have a look a this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_English and note that it is only since 1755 that there has been anything like standardised English spelling. Changes occur constantly - I know several people, for example, who still put the largely anachronistic hyphen in to-day.

One would have thought, WAV, that your love of a multi-cultural world could accommodate a few spelling differences which in all probability evolved quite naturally, the way that language tends to.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 15 May 08 - 09:01 AM

I think you'll find that it was due to Webster trying to approach English on it's own terms, rejecting the French conventions favoured at the time.
English spelling was hardly monolithic for most of it's history and most of the American variations were also used in Britain.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 May 08 - 09:11 AM

Yes, that's it Sedayne - I do love the world being multicultural but stand by what I said above; some UN laws/regulations/standards, for another example, do and should apply to all nationals.
Night follows day in England, e.g. - anyone agree with me?!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 15 May 08 - 09:20 AM

WAV - I think you've lost the plot here somewhat. You can't regulate culture nor any aspect of it. And BTW - not sure now it is in Australia, but here in Britain, day follows night!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 15 May 08 - 09:22 AM

And just for the hell of it...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 15 May 08 - 09:22 AM

300!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 May 08 - 09:30 AM

...I thought you'd say "day follows night", (Sedayne)...but equally farcical is what I mentioned above: "practiSe (English spelling)/practiCe (American spelling); licenCe (English spelling)/licenSe (American spelling)! Why?!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 15 May 08 - 09:53 AM

Day follows night out the Gnostic thinking that DARKNESS is the passive / default principle of the universe. LIGHT is active; hard-won, needing constant vigilance. Without LIGHT there is DARKNESS, without DARKNESS these is NOTHING! The same applies to COLD, DEATH & EVIL; in respect to which WARMTH, LIFE & GOOD are active, hard-won, needing constant vigilance etc.

Anyway, it's far from farcical (if you'll forgive the alliteration) - and in any case practise is a verb & practice is a noun - see HERE.

Why? Because it just is, and gladly so, and you can't regulate these things anyway so why bother trying?

Noting your fondness for exclamation points, did you know this most reviled piece punctuation was originally shorthand for the Latin Io?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Joe
Date: 15 May 08 - 09:58 AM

What is it you hate so much about this variation? Does it signal the end of the world as we know it? Would you have a different opinion of it wasn't specifcally American English?

- A different culture, a different variation on the language? I thought you would like that, afterall its an American thing not an English thing.

Next thing you know they will be introducing chords into our beloved top line melody singing and playing.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 May 08 - 10:00 AM

No, I didn't know "lo"...and it took me quite a while to find what "LOL" was - but that doesn't apply here...and I thought is was exclamation MARKS! (Alliteration's fine.)

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Joe
Date: 15 May 08 - 10:04 AM

What was Alliteration's fine for?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 15 May 08 - 10:07 AM

Sorry, but 'practice' & practise' are BOTH English (UK) words - WITH DIFFERENT MEANINGS! AS ARE 'licence' & 'license'! You obviously did not use your dictionary as much/well as you THOUGHT you did!

WAV, You've got your bowels crossed!

I was going to mention 'throat singing' and a natural Folk music system that DID include harmonies with a solo performer, but... WAV obviously must stand for Wanking About eVerything...

:-)

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 15 May 08 - 10:16 AM

It is NOT LO, but IO...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 May 08 - 10:19 AM

Seriously, Foolestroupe, I do have a Webster's from my uni days, and it gives only practice and license - you better stop whatever you are doing and check youself now.
And to Joe, frankly, I don't know - has any nation other than the USA changed the spelling of English words?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 15 May 08 - 10:21 AM

Sedayne, we cross posted. But we apparently know more 'English' than our 'expert'.


Expert, n, drip under pressure...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 May 08 - 10:34 AM

"Introducing chords into our beloved top line melody singing and playing" (Joe) - doing so would be going pop or classical or, from early music, creating an art song.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Joe
Date: 15 May 08 - 10:37 AM

Britain has changed the spelling of English words?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 15 May 08 - 10:37 AM

One hope this won't upset you too much, WAV - but it can be either exclamation point OR exclamation mark. How recalcitrant can you get?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 15 May 08 - 10:52 AM

"Introducing chords into our beloved top line melody singing and playing" (Joe) - doing so would be going pop or classical or, from early music, creating an art song.

You really haven't got a clue, have you, WAV? But I applaud you for keeping this thread buoyant for over 300 posts out of whatever perverse motives you might have in so doing.

Perhaps you like to move this onto another level and share with us some of the deeper methodology by which you operate in the world - or do I credit wrongly by assuming there must be some method in this madness when, in fact, it is its own sorry end?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 May 08 - 10:55 AM

Seriously, then - if you changed practiSe to practiCe, why wouldn't you leave licenCe alone?! What kind of licence is that?!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 15 May 08 - 10:57 AM

Bless him, I don't think he gets out much...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 08 - 10:58 AM

Yes, it definitely would be going pop or classical. Anyway some changes are needed at the big festivals:

They should gather together all the obviously foreign singers / groups and they should perform in a smaller tent, giving room in the main arenas etc for proper British folk music.

Then any of the British folk music with chords / foreign instruments should also be moved to these smaller venues, where there should be less facilities. Eventually we should pack all of them in trains and get them away from the festivals and 'forget' about them.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 May 08 - 11:07 AM

Use "British folk music" while you can, Guest - a Scottish referendum is pending. I, myself, believe in the English nation and the United Nations - with eco-travel and fair-trade between them.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Joe
Date: 15 May 08 - 11:09 AM

Sorry guest was me - too right, get rid of the scots, the welsh, irish, oh and cornish whilst you're at it. They can take their dirty accompanied music with them too.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 May 08 - 11:32 AM

"The English nation AND the United Nations," Joe - and I've enjoyed listening to quite a lot of Irish, Scottish and Welsh folk-music.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 15 May 08 - 11:44 AM

As a North-Shields born Irish-Northumbrian-Scottish-Jew, I am, and forever will be, British. You think things are bad in England now - just see how much worse should ever Scotland gain independence! We can kiss goodbye to a future labour government for a start; no bad thing in itself of course, but do we really want a Conservative state without any viable opposition? But maybe this is the sort of projected discord people get off on, by way of dividing, and conquering, and belittling, and diminishing, trading on historic / geographical divisions instead of thinking how ultimately none of that matters in the 21st century multi-cultural UK.

Hopefully, on this as in other things, sense will prevail.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 15 May 08 - 11:47 AM

Hopefully, on this as in other things, sense will prevail... otherwise I'll be expatriating myself to Australia!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 May 08 - 12:14 PM

They're due for another Republic? referendum, too, Sedayne...and why not just plan on a VIST to Australia.

123 of 230: FONDLY AND VIVIDLY/AN OLYMPICS-SPARKED MEMORY SONG - AUT. 2000

From way up high in Sydney Tower,
You can see it all:
East there's coastline, west there's ranges -
Blue Mountains standing tall;
There's national parks and gardens,
Sailboards on Botany Bay;
And, out among the people,
You'll soon get that term "G'day."

Yes, I remember Sydney -
Fondly and vividly:
The eucalypts and wattles;
The sun, the sand, the sea.
Yeah, I still picture Sydney -
Fondly and vividly.

And, way up high in Sydney Tower,
You can see it all:
Southern Beaches, Northern Beaches,
A skyline standing tall;
There's the Opera House and Harbour Bridge -
Ferries sail from bay to bay;
And, around Darling Harbour,
You can party the night away.

Yes...

And, way up high in Sydney Tower,
You can see it all:
Olympic grounds toward the west,
The Rocks, too, is worth a call;
Plus Aboriginal culture -
The foremost of a lot to say.
So, if you VISIT Sydney,
I'm sure you'll enjoy your stay.

Yes...

From walkaboutsverse.741.com

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Stu
Date: 15 May 08 - 12:31 PM

Fuck

ing

hell

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 15 May 08 - 12:47 PM

Visit? No fucking way, Cobber. I'd head for the Northern Territories, make my home in sunny Darwin and never give chilly old England a second thought. Actually, my favourite Rolf Harris song is Northern Territorian, which largely concerns the effects of Cyclone Tracy in 1974...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 May 08 - 12:58 PM

...that's another weard thing that happens, Sedayne - no "kidology", I can be in a mess room and make the slightest constructive criticism of modern England (e.g., a Swede/Italian should NOT be managing England) and all hell breaks loose; but if a born-and-bred like yourself says how much they'd like to give up on England for old-rival Aus., no-one bats an eye...maybe Stigweard can enlighten us with his choice words.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Stu
Date: 15 May 08 - 01:21 PM

Walkabout went out
to see the world
with his pen.

"With verse
I shall help
educate them

wot don't know
a thing about
that old top-line."

so setting to work
he spewed forth
his rhyme

which he wrote
in volume
heart and soul

but in his reverie
he forgot about
quality control.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: s&r
Date: 15 May 08 - 02:02 PM

I have travelled the world around
and found
a plethora of song
beyond their ken
These baser men

And they would me berate
O how they prate
They are so wrong
They do not see
They should agree

The license(?) I have got
Should tell them what
They need to know
Well travelled and well read
It's in my head

My motives are so pure
Of that I'm sure
Of that although
My subtle mind
leaves most behind

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 15 May 08 - 02:02 PM

"accents are fine but English should only be spelt the one English way"

The absolute height of English imperialist arrogance. It is remembered what was done in India, and indeed what the English tried to do with the Native North Americans, in Canada with the residential schools. The motto was there is but one way, the English way, for which WAV is the undoubted champion. Sunshine, you are in the wrong century, the 19th would have been perfect for you. You make me violently ill WAV, you and your type.

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 May 08 - 02:14 PM

No, CR., I've said before that I hate imperialism, and even you have accepted that I do indeed love our world being multicultural (above), but, given that FOR BETTER OR WORSE (above) English has become the world language, why not spell it just the one way...and, I repeat, has any country other than the USA changed the spelling of it?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 15 May 08 - 02:21 PM

"and even you have accepted that I do indeed love our world being multicultural (above)," no I haven't, I accept nothing you say as the truth...what I did say was you accept a multicultural world AS LONG AS IT DOESN'T HAPPEN IN ENGLAND,in other words as long as you don't have to deal with it face to face...sorry I don't accept the spelling of English in one way only, you are completely wasting my time trying to convince me otherwise, and yes you are imperilaist and racist, your own words condemn you as such. Again please don't bother trying to convince me otherwise. I thank God that all the English are not like you.

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 15 May 08 - 02:39 PM

I can be in a mess room and make the slightest constructive criticism of modern England (e.g., a Swede/Italian should NOT be managing England) and all hell breaks loose; but if a born-and-bred like yourself says how much they'd like to give up on England for old-rival Aus., no-one bats an eye...


It's not weard (sic) in the slightest; it's a particular aspect of Britishness which you, as naturalised Australian, might have difficulty picking up upon, but which you may have detected in your ongoing mission to repatriate. Basically, on the one hand, it's the that we carry what we are wheresoever we go, proud of our fons et origo but in no way bound by its geographical & cultural limits. On the other hand it's an instinctive scepticism of people trying, for whatever reason, to become something other than what they are.

Mess room, WAV? I rest my case, dear boy!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 May 08 - 03:01 PM

And do you accept that is a somewhat imperialistic attitude, Sedayne?
Also, what if a repat. genuinely likes English folk, the anthology of English verse, Lawn Tennis, stotties, foxgloves, hedera helix, Whitley Bay, The Lake District, Constables, etc?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 15 May 08 - 03:18 PM

I feel like a character in The Sopranos, doing his impression of Michael Corlione in The Godfather: " I try to get out, but they keep suckin' me back in!"

I swore I would quit participating in this inane discussion, but just can't help myself!

Insofar as English has supplanted French (which had replaced Latin) as the default international language, it is American English that the world has adopted, essentially by way of computer usage. Or did I miss something? Is Bill Gates actually a Londoner?

So there!

Also, for someone who presents himslef as such a stickler for proper spelling to actually type the non-word "WEARD" ~ it's just unbelievable, downright EARY!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 15 May 08 - 03:25 PM

.....it is American English that the world has adopted, essentially by way of computer usage.

Exactly and there is no getting away from it. Oh there will be those who will forever be in denial, but that's just ignoring reality. I Canada we use English English spellings and American English spellings, that too is a reality.

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 May 08 - 03:44 PM

StigWEARD was just above that post and addressed in it, and I was not the only one at that stage trying to keep my sense of humour, PG...and what else you seemed to miss was my admission that: "I'm NOT saying I'm the world's greatest speller - far from it - but, when I look up a word, I always choose the English spelling of the English word!" Also, My Webster's, which is from before the "computer age," gives both licenSe and practiCe...why change one when both can be changed, thereby adding to the confusion?! (Why don't I ditch it?...it has a good thesaurus, frankly.)

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,John Doe
Date: 15 May 08 - 03:55 PM

WalkaboutsVerse,

You are an utter fool. There are huge and obvious objections to pretty much everything you say. For whatever reason you choose to ignore those comments and continue to ramble along in your idiotic way. It's rather sad, frankly.

Just one question: which 'England' would you like to set in aspic and have us all live? Century: 1700, 1800, 1900???

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 15 May 08 - 03:56 PM

Sorry ~ I missed that reference to "StigWEARD" completely, so I didn't understand where you were coming from.

Other disagreements aside, I truly would NOT have thought that "weird" was a word you would misspell, and didn't know what to make of it!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 15 May 08 - 03:59 PM

"Just one question: which 'England' would you like to set in aspic and have us all live? Century: 1700, 1800, 1900??? "

My guess would be the 1950's I could be wrong of course, but that's my gut feeling...that and when I read anything WAV posts I get the urge to consult Neil Gaiman's novel, Neverwhere......

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 May 08 - 04:16 PM

John Doe - is it not silly to change licenc/se AND practis/ce? And pray tell me has any nation other than the USA bothered to change the spelling of English, and why? To Mole., a few things are better now than the 1950s but, yes, from what I can gather, England did indeed contain a better society then than now, again, frankly. Finally, it was not I that left chords? for languages? (see above). Having read every post here, John: it is wrong to say English traditional music is ALL about the tune; it is NOT wrong to say English traditional music is MOSTLY about the tune.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 15 May 08 - 04:24 PM

"And pray tell me has any nation other than the USA bothered to change the spelling of English...

as i stated a bit back...Canada uses both English English and American English spellings (not necessarily in that order), that is the reality here..The England you long for never did exist, never will either, that is a reality too
I've a feeling I should do penance...maybe flogging myself with a copy of the Daily Torygraph.....

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,John Doe
Date: 15 May 08 - 05:03 PM

Tell me has any nation other than the USA bothered to change the spelling of English, and why?

WAV, you've had numerous intelligent and well meaning people trying to explain the truth to you: the fact being that langauge evolves!

I've no idea as to your motives, you may be being bloody minded (for whatever reason), or you maybe completely stupid.

I suspect the latter.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 May 08 - 05:21 PM

In that case, it's fair-play to defend myself by saying that, if achievement in sports, education, travel and the arts were tallied-up, I'd be pretty hard to beat, John.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,John Doe,
Date: 15 May 08 - 05:31 PM

In that case

What case would that be?

it's fair-play to defend myself

Agreed

by saying that, if achievement in sports, education, travel and the arts were tallied-up, I'd be pretty hard to beat

Whom would you beat? Your own ego?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 15 May 08 - 05:31 PM

I've read that today's standard British-English spellings didn't becme standard until AFTER the colonization of North America, and that in regard to many of the words spelled differently on either side of the "pond," the US version accurately duplicates the 15th/16th century English usage that was brought across the sea, while today's UK spelling is of more recent vintage.

In any event, in answer to the question "why doesn't someone enforce a standardized spelling," there is no authority in any English-speaking country able to (or even trying to) rule upon spelling and grammer, etc., and of course it's hard to imagine any way of enforcing any such effort.

There's some kind of quasi-governmental apparatus in France whereby the Academie Francoise protects the sacrosanct rules of the French language. I can't imagine what they can actually do, short of burning books...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 May 08 - 05:46 PM

Read my Blurb, then, John, if you wish.
Have you also read, somewhere?, then, PG, which spelling of English the UN use? StandardiS/Z!ation would be good - we may pronounce words differently, but we all accept the same spelling.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 15 May 08 - 05:52 PM

If I may enter into this debate, the originator of this thread, Walkaboutsverse, states "we may pronounce words differently, but we all accept the same spelling." Forgive me, but we do not. The spelling of some words is different in the USA than it is in Great Britain. the best examples I can think of, right off the top of my head, are neighbour and behaviour, in the USA they are spelled neighbor and behavior. There are some others as well, an American English Dictionary and, perhaps, the OED, will furnish other examples.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: TheSnail
Date: 15 May 08 - 07:23 PM

WalkaboutsVerse

Have you also read, somewhere?, then, PG, which spelling of English the UN use?

Never mind spelling, some attempt at grammar would be helpful.

On the other hand, I do object to Americans spelling arse ass.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 16 May 08 - 01:24 AM

"Whom would you beat? Your own ego?"

I'd suggest he's beating something else... :-P


"today's standard British-English spellings didn't becme standard until AFTER the colonization of North America, and that in regard to many of the words spelled differently on either side of the "pond," the US version accurately duplicates the 15th/16th century English usage that was brought across the sea, while today's UK spelling is of more recent vintage."

Right on Poppy! :-)

"there is no authority in any English-speaking country able to (or even trying to) rule upon spelling and grammer, etc.,"

I can't remember the exact name of the brilliant BBC TV series some years about about the History of The English Language. Went from Anglo Saxon times right up to all the modern variations, "Chinglish", "Japenglish", "Pidgin", etc.



"Read my Blurb"

What, the WHOLE SODDING SITE?!!!!



""we may pronounce words differently, but we all accept the same spelling." Forgive me, but we do not. The spelling of some words is different in the USA than it is in Great Britain."

And Australia, NZ, Papua New Guinea etc...



There is an old saying about a fool who has roamed being better than one who has stayed [staid? - :-P] at home.

Don't believe it!


This thread belongs in BS. Just ask Joe to do it, guys. Oh and WAV's thread of 'verse' really has nothing to do with 'Folk Music', either, it should go there too! :-)


~~~~~~~~~
The Fooles Troupe is getting worried it may have to leave here. Too much competition!

:-)

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST
Date: 16 May 08 - 04:19 AM

"by saying that, if achievement in sports, education, travel and the arts were tallied-up, I'd be pretty hard to beat"

I think your poetic and musical contibutions count as an own goal.

Were your sporting achievements not from your childhood?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Joe
Date: 16 May 08 - 04:20 AM

sorry that was me.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 16 May 08 - 04:21 AM

Foolestroupe - the Walkaboutsverse thread has gone into the BS section(perhaps coincidentally, just after Eliza Carthy posted the same as you, on the Pop Goes the Folk-Singer thread), even though it contains CHANTS FROM WALKABOUTS. And the following was obviously a PROPOSAL - "StandardiS/Z!ation WOULD be good - we may pronounce words differently, but we all accept the same spelling."
DefShepard - by not reading this thread, you innocently gave us other examples of American changes...and that's what I said above: is it nowadays a case of enough is enough, or are there plays for enuf?! And, whether it's baseball or cricket, does the ball come off of the bat, or off the bat? Would Ernest (economy-of-words) Hemingway have used off of the bat?
Yours, WAV
16.05.2008

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Joe
Date: 16 May 08 - 04:33 AM

Is this the same WAV who loves the world being multicultural and despises the loss of culture? Does American English existing alongside British English not fit into the bracket of the cultural diversity which you love? Americans speaking their language in their nation? As far as I am aware British English is spoken in the UK, so there is no issue.

Standardisation would lead to a more monoculturally inclined world.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 16 May 08 - 05:28 AM

And do you accept that is a somewhat imperialistic attitude, Sedayne?
Also, what if a repat. genuinely likes English folk, the anthology of English verse, Lawn Tennis, stotties, foxgloves, hedera helix, Whitley Bay, The Lake District, Constables, etc?

Not so much imperialistic as individualistic, which is all I'm bothered about to be honest - the honesty & humility of the individual no matter how s/he is ethnically, culturally, regionally & geographically constructed, just as long as wherever in the world they choose to live they remain aware of what they are in terms of their naturalised identity. This, at least, is my personal manifesto, whereby the culture of any given region / country is made up of the people who live there, no matter what part of the world they might have come from.

Otherwise, there is so much more to English culture than the somewhat esoteric list you give above. Most English people couldn't give two hoots for English folk; likewise the Anthology of English Verse. For the most part I despise poetry, with one or two exceptions, mainly American & Scots - HD, Robert Frost, ee cummings, Edward Gorey, George Mackay Brown, and Kipling (who was, I admit, English) - & would, therefore, strongly advise The Faber Book of Popular Verse as a healthier (and folkier) alternative. Stotties are only good when they come from Greggs, and lawn tennis is a sport for the bourgeoisie from which class I'm naturally excluded on account of my maternal great-grandmother marrying beneath her some hundred years ago. Foxgloves are a poisonous weed, though fine in a woodland habitat & useful in medicine; and Hedera helix, however so picturesque, is nature at its most rampantly invasive - good as a habitat, but it'll make short work of your pointing. As for Whitley Bay - she's not what she used to be, WAV, but pretty similar I'd say; I grew up near there, and the coastline is still hard to beat. One of my favourite walks is from Seaton Sluice to Cullercoats, where one of my favourite folk clubs used to meet on Sunday nights at The Bay Hotel. Long gone now, alas, as is the Bay Hotel too come to think of it, demolished a few years ago to make way for a block of luxury apartments named after the American Watercolourist (or should that be watercolorist?) who once stayed in Room #17. I've never particularly liked The Lake District - I spent a week there once storytelling for Cumbria Libraries and found the relentless mountain landscapes grim & oppressive. Nice to see it across the bay from Fleetwood though, on a clear day the vistas are quite breathtaking, especially in winter with the snow covered mountains. As for John Constable (assuming that's what you meant by Constables unless you're harbouring an affection for the English Bobby), most art, like most poetry, leaves me cold, but currently my favourite English artists are the Macclesfield Master, Joseph Crawhall, and the Chief and Aston Master of the Herefordshire School of Romanesque Sculpture. Otherwise it's Paul Klee, Joan Miro and Marc Chagall, as it has been since I was 12.

Maybe it's time to revive the Icons of Englishness? thread.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 16 May 08 - 05:42 AM

That's it, Joe, joking apart, someone who does love the world being multicultural thinks that there should be SOME global standards, via the UN - the spelling of English being one of them. And, if it's true that the French have tried to insist on their way of spelling only (PG, above), in that case, I agree with them.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST
Date: 16 May 08 - 05:53 AM

there should be SOME global standards, via the UN - the spelling of English being one of them

??? How do you propose that the UN enforce this edict?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,DAVETNOVA
Date: 16 May 08 - 05:58 AM

I thought Webster's was an American dictonary -
Webster's Dictionary is the title given for the common type of English language dictionaries in the United States. It is derived from American lexicographer Noah Webster and in the United States, the phrase Webster's has become a genericized trademark for dictionaries. Although Merriam-Webster dictionaries are descended from those of the original purchasers of Noah Webster's work, many other dictionaries bear his name, such as those published by Random House and John Wiley & Sons.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 16 May 08 - 06:01 AM

"Walkaboutsverse thread has gone into the BS section(perhaps coincidentally, just after Eliza Carthy posted the same as you, on the Pop Goes the Folk-Singer thread"

You see - Great Minds think alike ......... or is that Fools never Differ?

:-)

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 16 May 08 - 07:27 AM

I think that documentary was called the Story of English. Most of the American variations in spelling are actually English, WAV, do read up on the history of our language.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Stu
Date: 16 May 08 - 07:29 AM

"Stotties are only good when they come from Greggs . . ."

The only good thing to come from Greggs is . . .the lardy smell. I get my stotties from the local baker who makes them fresh each morning.

"Macclesfield Master, Joseph Crawhall"

According to wikipedia Crawhall came from Glasgow and has nothing to do with Macclesfield - or have I got the wrong chap?

Of course Tunnicliffe came from near Macclesfield (he lived about a hundred years from where I'm typing this) and him and I went to the same school of art in the town at very differnent times.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 16 May 08 - 07:51 AM

"Webster's was an American dictonary"

Which demonstrates just how nonsensical and irrelevant WAVs ramblings are.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 16 May 08 - 08:01 AM

Joseph Crawhall - the Newcastle wood engraver (1821-1896) - see http://www.fulltable.com/VTS/aoi/c/crowhall/jc.htm

The Macclesfield Master - the name currently being used by academics as the principle artist of The Macclesfield Psalter, which came to light in 2004.

Sorry for the confusion.

Otherwise, I've been eating Gregg's stotties (aka yeasties, or flatties) all my life & no other will do. Even over here on The Fylde our freezer is full of the things, stocked up on our monthly jaunts to Tyneside. Like all other points regarding WAVs English Esoterica my feelings in this matter are entirely subjective, which is, of course, the whole point regarding his attempts to otherwise objectify such matters to make them fit his cultural vision. Also essential in this respect are samosas & onion bhajis from Fazal's in Fenham - a true taste of the Tyne!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 16 May 08 - 08:11 AM

Some of you are - perhaps understandably - NOT bothering to read everything on this never-dead thread! I know my Webster's is an American dictionary for crying out loud - I even explained why I've never ditched it, given my preference for English spelling only of English (i.e., frankly it has a very good thesaurus at its back).
Sedayne - I enjoyed your last post and, to quote the ex-Aus.-PM, Bob Hawke, "let me say this": I am not against you moving to another part of England (you and Bobby Chalton, e.g., prefer, for the time being at least, the NW; I prefer the NE) BUT I would be very disappointed if you left permanently for Aus. As for tennis, you may like to have a classless slash with Phil and I sometime - FOR FREE!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Stu
Date: 16 May 08 - 08:31 AM

Excellent links Sedayne - thanks. Love the Crawhall stuff especially, and I have heard of the Macclesfield Psalter but have never seen it for real. However, the Book of Kells is worth a pike if you're ever in Dublin as it is an incredible work.

Actually, I wouldn't mind moving to either Ireland (Clare would be my preferred location) to learn to play the music from the ceoltóirí there or to Montana or Dakota to dig dinosaurs.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 16 May 08 - 01:25 PM

Just for clarification here, WAV is the person who seems oblivious to what others have posted--and "others" seem oblivious to that--The arguments for getting a life are increasingly compelling--

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 16 May 08 - 02:25 PM

I thought of another reason why so little harmony was noted down by the collectors. Didn't they usually collect from people on an individual basis? Can't really harmonise on your own.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 May 08 - 04:03 PM

Exactly, Volgadon.

If one were to accept the idea that collectors collected only a single melody line along with the words constitutes proof that harmony was never used nor were the songs ever accompanied, then it would be hard to argue with someone who tried to claim that, until more recently, folk songs and ballads were recited but never sung because the really early collectors collected only the words—but no tunes!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 16 May 08 - 08:55 PM

This is a thread that is just going round and round and getting NoWhere ! And Nobody noticed that they had hit the leap year thread (366)

WAV - IF you actually READ and DIGESTED some of the posts and DIDNT put your own Spin to what was posted it would possibly make a bit more sense .

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 17 May 08 - 05:46 AM

Or else, Volgadon, they did indeed sing individually, apart from joining in the chorus - which is, of course, mostly the case at pub singarounds these days, such as the two I attended this week M. (get-a-life) Ted!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Sandman
Date: 17 May 08 - 05:49 AM

WAV,Please desist.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 17 May 08 - 05:52 AM

Sedayne - I enjoyed your last post

To which I might add in terms of Englishness, a consideration of the history of Delaval Hall is most enlightening, especially as it's still in essentially the same family as it was when the lands were granted shortly after the Norman Conquest. Worth a visit - the hall is Vanburgh's masterpiece and the chapel dates from 1102, and there's some charming landscapes thereabouts too - the beautiful Hollywell Dene for example (wherein I once sang Long Lankin), and the historic harbour of Seaton Sluice itself - and all within a short bus ride of Newcastle. All this and Davey Minikin's Blue Stone Folk Club at The Delaval Arms in Old Hartley on a Sunday Night too...

and, to quote the ex-Aus.-PM, Bob Hawke, "let me say this": I am not against you moving to another part of England (you and Bobby Chalton, e.g., prefer, for the time being at least, the NW; I prefer the NE) BUT I would be very disappointed if you left permanently for Aus.

I am an assured citizen of but two things: firstly, my own skin, and secondly the planet upon which (according to family tradition) I was born; the rest is just so much conceptualised clap-trap, however so intriguing in terms of anthropology (which is just so much Academic Voyeurism based on the myth of Cultural Hierarchy) but ultimately useless in terms of our actual humanity. Without human individuals there'd be no culture in the first place, so ultimately, as I say, as long as there's satisfactory atmospheric pressure to maintain the integrity of our human form, then I don't suppose it matters where we live.

As for tennis, you may like to have a classless slash with Phil and I sometime - FOR FREE!

In England at least, WAV, nothing is ever quite classless, but I welcome the invitation even though the last time I ever held such a thing as a tennis racquet I was fourteen, 1975, and I was soundly thrashed by my friend's 11-year-old sister in the courts at Whitley Bay thus losing all interest in the game thereafter.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Stu
Date: 17 May 08 - 06:09 AM

". . .the rest is just so much conceptualised clap-trap, however so intriguing in terms of anthropology (which is just so much Academic Voyeurism based on the myth of Cultural Hierarchy) but ultimately useless in terms of our actual humanity"

Really? That seems like a bit of a sweeping generalisation. Don't you think to a large degree it defines our humanity?

". . . as long as there's satisfactory atmospheric pressure to maintain the integrity of our human form, then I don't suppose it matters where we live."

I would agree with this in terms of nationalism, but not in terms of personal identity. Every culture that has ever existed (up until the advent of the industrial revolution and the urbanisation of a large proportion of the population in some countries) has a deep and intrinsic relationship with the land they live in - as folk musicians we must be more aware of this than most. You don't have to be born at a place to experience this feeling, which early Celtic monks thought was "seeking their place of resurrection. . . they thought they were beneath that spot under the firmament that would one day lead them to heaven."

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 17 May 08 - 08:18 AM

This thread is starting to turn into a jungle... remember we had somebody else here who didn't know when to take the hint to shut up...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 17 May 08 - 08:21 AM

...should it be compulsory to login to post a "comment"..?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Stu
Date: 17 May 08 - 10:58 AM

What are you two rabbiting on about?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 17 May 08 - 11:23 AM

The "comment" I (and Foolstroupe, I think) was "rabbiting on about" has been deleted by the moderator, Stigweard.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Stu
Date: 17 May 08 - 11:48 AM

Ah right. Ta.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 17 May 08 - 11:10 PM

Yeah, thought we had finished off that Austrian House Painter years ago.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 18 May 08 - 06:21 AM

That seems like a bit of a sweeping generalisation. Don't you think to a large degree it defines our humanity?

Informs maybe, but one would would hope our humanity is defined by something a good deal less ephemeral than mere culture. Individuality transcends culture, which at its most negatively persuasive is neither use nor ornament, especially in terms of nationhood. The bottom line is without human individuals culture cannot exist, therefore if culture becomes greater than human individualism then it's no longer of any use. In this sense, culture is just so much optional software, enriching perhaps, but hardly essential to the fabulous realities of our day-to-day living.

You don't have to be born at a place to experience this feeling, which early Celtic monks thought was "seeking their place of resurrection. . . they thought they were beneath that spot under the firmament that would one day lead them to heaven."

I was thinking yesterday about where & when I was born - not so much Preston Hospital, North Shields, 4.30pm 22 August 1961, but the point in the universe where the maternity ward of Preston Hospital passed through at 4.30pm on 22nd August 1961 as our solar system hurtled through the bewildering vastness of the cosmos. I would think that's where I was born, back there some place, a million million miles away by now...

Space is the place!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 18 May 08 - 03:03 PM

I saw this quote in a posting "today's standard British-English spellings didn't becme standard until AFTER the colonization of North America, and that in regard to many of the words spelled differently on either side of the "pond," the US version accurately duplicates the 15th/16th century English usage that was brought across the sea, while today's UK spelling is of more recent vintage.
The following came to mind.

The Prodigal Tongue : dispatches from the future of English
by Mark Abley
to be published in the UK on 5th June 2008



Abley discusses at length how English, Japanese, French, Arabic and other major tongues–are likely to transform and be transformed by their speakers during the twenty-first century. Grammar and vocabulary are just the beginning. Language is not static, nor ever will be, and there is no one 'proper' way to speak it. Never was, never will be. English is a bastard language to begin with, a child of many mothers and fathers.

pre-order the book here

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Stu
Date: 19 May 08 - 02:27 AM

"In this sense, culture is just so much optional software, enriching perhaps, but hardly essential to the fabulous realities of our day-to-day living."

But perhaps culture is essential; humans are not alone in creating and perpetuating culture within their societies as chimps, bonobos and cetaceans all have recognised cultures which have developed within their societies. Culture as an evolutionary trait?

Does individuality transcend culture? I'm not so sure. In one sense it certainly does as we can choose to change our culture if we wish, but I still think we need to belong to some sort of cultural clade, whether it's influence is positive or negative.

As folk musicians don't we all feel like our music is part of a rich cultural tradition that far from being ephemeral is a living force within our own lives, part of our individual identity but also a response to a fundamental desire to belong and be accepted by our peers?

It might be worth starting another thread about this as we are drifting wide . . .

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 19 May 08 - 03:07 AM

"English is a bastard language to begin with, a child of many mothers and fathers."


A Polyglot.

I'm not making this up as I go along, you know .... unlike some... :-P

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 19 May 08 - 05:22 AM

But perhaps culture is essential; humans are not alone in creating and perpetuating culture within their societies as chimps, bonobos and cetaceans all have recognised cultures which have developed within their societies. Culture as an evolutionary trait?

I'm not suggesting culture isn't essential, just that it's maybe not worth killing & dying for when the fundamentals of actual existence are far more precious. Neither is it as ethnically & geographically absolute as WAV seems to be suggesting. No matter how culturally determined our experience of life's fundamentals might be, they do exist beyond the cultural frameworks they are themselves the wellsprings of, and are, therefore, common to all. Two people can meet from opposite ends of the planet, they might not be able to understand each others language or music, but they can still fuck, fall in love & and experience perfect happiness together. That, I think, is all that really matters.

I've never been too convinced by the idea of animal culture; I think perhaps this is anthropomorphism at its most wishful. Behavioural traits, no matter how complex, or diverse, or diverting, do not constitute culture, which depends on language & cognition which are uniquely human. Is this the old Nature / Nurture thing I wonder? I think I've been too long out here in the wilderness to tell!

As folk musicians don't we all feel like our music is part of a rich cultural tradition that far from being ephemeral is a living force within our own lives, part of our individual identity but also a response to a fundamental desire to belong and be accepted by our peers?

Once upon a time, and not so very long ago, I would have agreed with you unreservedly, but in recent months my faith has been shaken (see Folk vs Folk). However, I take heart from the fact that my main interest in music has always been as a free improviser with a vested interested in folk music (and something I might once have called The Tradition). I still scrape razor-shells and seal bones over the rusting antique clock-gongs drilled into the fretless finger board of my vintage Hofner Congress (thus creating some of filthiest noises you're ever likely to hear in the name of music), but therein I perceive an analogous level of beauty and continuity as I do to when I'm singing (say) Child #32 down at our local folk club, however so subjective that perception might be.

I also reflect that if I really wanted to belong and be accepted by my peers, chances are I'd be doing something else entirely!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 19 May 08 - 05:32 AM

As I've said in poem #209, when people lose their own culture, society suffers - be it English, Aboriginal, or any other.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Joe
Date: 19 May 08 - 06:47 AM

No WAV!!!! Have you just ignored what has been written? The culture being referred to is not a national culture. A lot of what could be seen as icons of English culture is irrelevant to a lot of English people. Cultural boundaries and national boundaries are not the same thing.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 19 May 08 - 07:12 AM

"A lot of what could be seen as icons of English culture is irrelevant to a lot of English people" (Joe)...and our society, sadly, HAS gone down - drugs, gun-crime, prostitution, broken-families, etc.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 19 May 08 - 07:19 AM

"when people lose their own culture"

Rubbish - 'Culture' is an evolving thing - Aust Aborigines now wear 'traditional' red loin cloths. They were first given these by the missionaries who were embarrassed that the natives were walking around naked. Now these garments are 'traditional' - with about 200 years documented history... :-P

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Joe
Date: 19 May 08 - 07:47 AM

'and our society, sadly, HAS gone down - drugs, gun-crime, prostitution, broken-families, etc. '

So the perversion of English folk music has led to all this?

But seriously what relevance does that have to nationalism? 'Our society' is not just England, these problems affect many different nations. Such problems could be remedied if people recognised themselves as being part of a society, but introducing nationalistic identities also introduces exclusion, racism and hatred.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 19 May 08 - 07:55 AM

As I've said in poem #209, when people lose their own culture, society suffers - be it English, Aboriginal, or any other.

For the curious, here is WAV #209: PEOPLE LOSE

                   Where, through modern views,
                        Traditions fall-
                            Watch the news -
                               People
                               Lose.

For one who's so concerned about culture & tradition, WAV, you seem to spend a lot of time watching TV, which is, arguably, the single most significant factor in the loss of traditional culture there is. But I don't think that's too bad really; I only listen to folk when I'm at the folk club, the rest of the time I'm listening to anything but - jazz, hip-hop, dub reggae, drum & bass; hell, in the car yesterday we were listening to Dolly Parton's Halos & Horns, and what a damn fine record it is too, especially These Old Bones!

Anyhoo, reading on from WAV #209, we come across WAV #210: SOME-DESIGNERS' DIAPHANOUS ERRS

                     What will be next -
                        Catwalk models
                      Showing pussy
                        As well as breast?

Is this a personal wish, WAV? Because even from ancient times models have shown a lot of, erm, pussy, so I dare say it's simply a matter of waiting & seeing; after all, what goes around comes around.

And then there's WAV #211, perhaps my favourite of them all: AT FRONT LINES

I can't suckle a baby -
    God planned on some divisions;
Women are with war-weapons -
    We have fallen morally.

So God planned that did he? Nice to see he got it so terribly wrong as with everything else! Anyway, I like a woman in uniform, preferably one with a AK47 held to her bosom, thus deadlier than any male ever could be if only because of her instinctive / God-given maternalism & unwillingness to tolerate such paternalistic bullshit.

...and our society, sadly, HAS gone down - drugs, gun-crime, prostitution, broken-families, etc.

No, WAV, these things have always been there, just these days we entertain ourselves by watching them on TV so it just seems more prevalent. Drugs is cool (folk music without drugs? Can any of us take a singaround completely sober?); gun-crime has existed as long as we've had guns - I'm more concerned about knives to tell you the truth & we've had knives since the stone-age, prostitution likewise, and broken / dysfunctional families. Hell, what would the folk singing morris dancing social workers do without them? So - business as usual I'd say, and no amount of folk singing is going to change it; reflect upon it maybe. In fact, I've just this minute been singing I Was a Young Man, which is as choice a tale as familial dysfunction as you're ever likely to get...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 19 May 08 - 08:28 AM

Sedayne - I didn't copy/paste the first poem (as I sometimes do to save folks time) as it is one of my "shaped" poems; and I'd appreciate it if you respect the (C) on my life's work in future. Further, of course these same social problems occur through other times and places, but things ARE worse now than say 1950s England. And most would argue over the cause of the decline - NOT the fact that there HAS been a decline in social standards. A lot of TV, me?...I never watch tele-plays or "reality" TV but, yes, I do watch a fair amount of documentaries, tennis, news, and listen to folk radio, via satellite, from Scotland, Ireland, Wales, as well as the fraction of English folk we get from Mike Harding.
Joe - English folk is, of course, just a part of English culture; and I said "or ANY OTHER (nation)", above.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 19 May 08 - 09:33 AM

Actually, WAV, I would argue that there's been a decline in social standards; it is, after all, only ever a matter of spin & interpretation, and if given the choice of living back then or now I know which I'd choose. But then again, born as I was in 1961 and coming of age in the degenerate mid/late 1970s when flower-power was well & truly wilted & everything we did was in direct opposition to the old-guard reactionary imperialistic establishment that still held sway, maybe I'm part of the problem. Whatever the case, there is no going back to the dark days of England's land of hope & glory post-war day-dreaming, rather onwards to the glorious uncertainties of an as yet unspecified future, or no future after all...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 19 May 08 - 10:33 AM

I, too, don't like the imperialism (which included the use of concentration camps against Boers, e.g.) of SOME of our forebears; but, surely, that should not stop us from appreciating all the good things (traditions, values, etc.) of our past - that ARE being lost, which IS bad for our society and our future.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 19 May 08 - 10:40 AM

Please, WAV - be specific here. What values are being lost? What traditions are being lost? Why are we losing them? And how is it bad for our society?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 19 May 08 - 11:27 AM

Briefly (and may I then just refer again to my above work): the idea that the nuclear family was best for children and society alike - poem #88; firemen were definitely the good-guys of our society - not to be stoned; More-and-more English are singing/playing in an American style; it's harder-and-harder to find a tea-house - or any English-fare-type restaurant for that matter; a lot of our younger women can't cook the roast, apparently, frankly, sadly - poem #229; Why - Americanisation, and children being taught not just to appreciate but to practiSe aspects of other cultures, to the disadvantage of our own; and, finally, if kids are playing cricket with a tennis ball, or soccer, etc. till dusk, or learning to sketch/paint, or playing roll-a-penny, they are not getting drunk, smashing bus-stops, or throwing stones at firemen.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Joe
Date: 19 May 08 - 11:41 AM

Since when was getting drunk, throwing stones at firemen and smashing up bus stops an aspect of American culture?

You have just made a list of things that are bad about our society, I think Sedayne was asking for an example - the loss of A ocurred because of B, which led to C.

The comment about young women cooking roast dinners - you are showing your true colours again.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 19 May 08 - 12:24 PM

I said, above, Joe, that I do watch documentaries and the news quite a lot, and I have seen more than one article on the loss of cooking skills I referred to above. As for your other two sentences, you've either deliberately or accidentally misunderstood me - and I said: "Briefly (and may I then just refer again to my above work)".

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 19 May 08 - 12:53 PM

How is women not knowing how to cook a roast detrimental to society?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the gin craze a whole lot earlier than the golden days of the drab 1950s?
I think you must have thick rose-coloured glasses to believe that in the 1950s most families were functional, or that nobody was a hooligan or abused substances. Granted that drugs werent that commonplace, but is alcohol somehow better?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 19 May 08 - 01:09 PM

Above, I at least tried to make clear my awareness that such problems did exist in the 1950s, e.g., Volgadon...but, overall, things are worse and, again, our politicians and media do tend to argue much more over possible solutions, rather than whether things have indeed gotten worse. And how does this link back to Chords in Folk? - only in so far as their increased use on our folk-scene is one minute example of loss of traditional ways.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 19 May 08 - 03:18 PM

I think we should take a stand. take your Uzi to the folk club.

The next creep who comes up with that C, F, G7 mallarkey give him a burst up the quarter inch jack on his electro acoustic.

Leave the body outside Cecil Sharp house with Bert Weedon's Play in a Day stuffed in their pockets signed, 'WE ARE THE MODAL CADENCES LIBERATION ARMY. We are nice middle class people, but you have pushed us too far. Seth Lakeman sings with the fishes.'

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 19 May 08 - 03:26 PM

There's folk-singing, there's bel canto, and there's "can belto" for those in the pop-pond, WLD.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 19 May 08 - 03:35 PM

let me guess...which is it you claim to hold the undisputed heavyweight title to to defining.....?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Jim Moray
Date: 19 May 08 - 03:38 PM

"I (...) listen to folk radio, via satellite, from Scotland, Ireland, Wales, as well as the fraction of English folk we get from Mike Harding."

Did you listen this week and, if so, did you enjoy the english rap music I picked on the programme, WAV?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 19 May 08 - 03:48 PM

No, frankly, Jim, and it's not a generational thing - I was in my late teens when rap first hit the airwaves: I didn't like it then, and I don't like it now. I quite liked your M.C. and Eliza selection?, mind.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 19 May 08 - 05:17 PM

well it ought to be generational. when you're an old fart like me - you're entitled to have a narrow mind and think anything that's abit challenging to listen to is crap.

At your age, you should be able to understand that rap music, jazz, Stockhausen, even banjos and bodhrans and heavy metal guitar, whatever has enagaged an awful lot of artists imagination and intelligence, and there is probably some substance there.

Don't rush to meet senility, it arrives soon enough. One day - you wake up and its biting your bum - don't jump into a breakfast roll for it.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 May 08 - 05:34 PM

WAV ,have you considered joining the MUHAJADEEN.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 19 May 08 - 05:40 PM

I used to get a Musicians' Channel via satellite, WLD, and did appreciate the make-it-sing skills of the electric-guitar tutor...and, frankly, if I was still in Aus., I'd probably still be into the likes of Crowded House (on my myspace Top Friends, if you want a listen). However, as repat., I practise English folk and hymns; and, to answer your other question, I try to sing folk a bit "earthy", by putting some air in my voice, or singing a tad nasally; and hymns more sweetly/more in my head-voice.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 19 May 08 - 09:46 PM

-WAV-I find it interesting that you found out that English women can't cook a roast by reading it in a magazine. Don't you know any English women?

At any rate there is no great trick to roasting--most anyone who is inclined can do it--depending, of course, on what you mean when you say "roast"--the most traditional roast would likely be deer or boar, spit-roasted--some consider a "Pot Roast" to be a traditional Sunday roast--it certainly is a traditional dish, but it is really a trimmed down version of the French Pot au Feu--

At any rate, far from being a dying tradition, there is a resurgence of interes in the roast, as evidenced here A Traditional English Sunday Roast You should get out more.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Rapunzel
Date: 20 May 08 - 03:51 AM

I do know how to cook a roast - but frankly I have better things to do with my time and generally leave the cooking to Sedayne...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 May 08 - 04:07 AM

I don't read magazines, M. Ted - but I often have the TV on whilst on the web job, etc., searching. I've never tried cooking a Sunday roast - the last time I sat for one was with my relatives, and there is a pub in Newcastle that does it (including a vegetarian version). For what it's worth, I'm mostly vegan but will have whatever is going when out-and-about which, yes M.D., is not too much these days, in order not to go bankrupt (3 singarounds the last week, mind!).
To Rapunzel - does Sedayne ever sleep?!...he has umpteen myspaces, dozens of recordings, gigs and attends folk-clubs, discussion forums, AND cooks you the Sunday roast!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 May 08 - 05:09 AM

Rapunzel's job's far more important than mine, WAV - she's a full time health professional & still manages to sing, do gigs, attend singarounds & run a myspace page! As a mere storyteller, thus might I add house-husband to my CV, and proudly so, no matter how crap I am at it. And please note: this is my only discussion forum since getting locked out of Harvest Home owing to a technical glitch since we switched to Fire-Fox.

Regarding the roast, it's all in the preparation of course, or rather the lack of it. Here's the method:

One nice fat hen: dead, plucked, beheaded & otherwise prepared, preferable local, free range, but often pre-packed from a supermarket (just so the life & death of these poor little bastards haven't been entirely in vain)

A variety of vegetables, seasonal or otherwise: which out of necessity must include ingans (onions), parsnips, carrots, courgettes, leeks, sweet-potato, mushrooms, et al

Herbes de Provence.

Basically, the whole thing is roasted in the one tray - hen, vegetables & all, in an inch or so of water. Preparation time - five minutes tops, if that; the time it takes to turn the oven on & wash and chop the veg basically, although most them go in whole. Of course I might attend on it during the cooking - basting, adding the mushrooms at a later stage - but basically it looks after itself for the ninety minutes or so it's in the oven leaving me free to attend to my other duties.

For gravy I use Bisto and for Yorkshire's Aunt Bessies; never got the hang of Yorkshire's, but with Aunt Bessies I get perfect results every time. Actually, I regard this as a personal failing, perhaps even deserving of another thread.

Yorkshire's notwithstanding, the results are sublime - a roast fit for those who appreciate solid rusticity albeit from a post-modern neo-rural perspective; for those who yearn for the wholesome & the authentic; for those who eschew slick professionalism for the robust misrule of the singaround; for those to whom tradition is a continuity of purposeful ceremony; for those who seek communion thus manifest in the most mundane of culinary ritual; for those for whom the over-boiled bland segrated shite served up by our parents is no longer enough somehow...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 May 08 - 05:27 AM

That strikes a culinary chord, Sedayne, as the pics on M.Ted's (NOT M.D., sorry - I must of been thinking of those Managing Directors..?) link look good. May I...

Poem 93 of 230: ONE-POT COOKING

While living as a bachelor
    I've cooked in just one pot -
Cast iron with a wooden handle,
    It can hold quite a lot:

Slices of potato and carrot
    Are boiled a while,
Before a thinly chopped union
    Is mixed with the pile.

Then I drain off most of the water,
    Add canned lentils and beans,
Stir with spice and tomato sauce -
    To an end, it's a means.

Poem 206 of 230: MY DIET

Chasing breads, nuts, bananas,
    Red sauce, apples, sultanas,
Crackers, conserves, cucumbers,
    Pickles, porridge, pottages -

Lemon barley,
    Cocoa, coffee,
Or cups of tea.

From walkaboutsverse.741.com

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 May 08 - 05:39 AM

Sounds good, WAV - but generally speaking food is always better roasted than boiled! Did you see my Porridge thread? Lots of choice stuff on there. I can't resist pointing out the typo of a thinly chopped union, although it does add a certain resonance somewhat reminiscent of Robert Wyatt's Soup Song:

There's a mushroom on my eyelid
There's a carrot down my back
I can see in the distance
A vast quantity of beans
To you I'm just a flavour
To make your soup taste nice
Oh my god here come the onions
And, I don't believe it, at least a pound of rice

There was a time when bacon sandwiches
Were everyone's favourite snack
I'm delicious when I'm crunchy
Even when I'm almost black
So why you make a soup with me
I just can't understand
It seems so bloody tasteless
Not to mention underhand

Now there's no hope of getting out of here
I can feel I'm going soft
Dirty waters soak my fibres
The whole saucepan's getting hot
So I may as well resign myself
Make friends with a few peas
But I just, I can't help hoping
a tummy ache will bring you to your knees...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: TheSnail
Date: 20 May 08 - 05:48 AM

Sedayne

courgettes? sweet-potato? Herbes de Provence?

This is getting downright multi-cultural. Good God Man! You'll be using garlic next.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 May 08 - 06:22 AM

Rapunzel's not so good with garlic so I tend to avoid it these days, but she might allow four strategically placed unpeeled cloves in the above roast which are removed and discarded prior to consumption.

As an erstwhile macrobiotic, I now happily eat anything from anywhere & yet somehow manage to absorb it into my own particular culturally idiomatic scheme of things; rather like using an Hungarian citera to accompany traditional British balladry.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Stu
Date: 20 May 08 - 06:26 AM

Sedayne - the secret of good Yorkshires is hot fat in the roasting tin. Have a look at Delia's recipe and you'll get the knack. I have had problems with wilting in the middle but if the batter's fresh you can kiss goodbye to Aunt Bessies.

Anyway, partial though I am to a roast since we moved we've got a shite gas oven and roasting has become a bit of a hit and miss affair, so I fancy a decent curry for me tea.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 May 08 - 07:22 AM

WAV,Last night I was playing and singing Willy of the Winesbury,the chord sequence really heightens the story,particularly the fact that the final chord is on the sub dominant,it gives a feeling of suspense,all this would be lost without chords.Dick Miles

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 May 08 - 07:33 AM

Do you also play it with just the top-line melody on the concertina, Dick?..frankly, I'd probably like both ways - but with just the top-line the most - and that, I repeat, would be more traditional. (As I say, I know little of chords but do have some idea of their link with mood - but that's all in the melody also, yes?)

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 May 08 - 08:01 AM

and that, I repeat, would be more traditional

Traditional is a construct, WAV - it has no objective existence outside of the minds of those who speculate on the likelihood of its existence. So something can't be more traditional according to a set of entirely facetious criteria devised for the purposes of a convenient taxonomy devised by those who are, out of necessity, entirely on the outside of the very thing they're observing.

we've got a shite gas oven and roasting has become a bit of a hit and miss affair

Sorry to hear this; having never cooked with gas before I was rather looking forward to it...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 May 08 - 08:03 AM

no, I sing the melody and play the chords,the choice of chords creates the mood the use of a minor chord,for instance gives a feeling of sadness.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 May 08 - 08:47 AM

I did know that, Dick, so I'm not "entirely on the outside of the very thing they're observing" (Sedayne), and I stand by my last post.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: greg stephens
Date: 20 May 08 - 08:54 AM

Sedayne:"entirely facetious criteria"? Are they really? I quite like the idea, but did you perhaps mean factitious?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 May 08 - 09:32 AM

Greg - Factitious is exactly what I meant. Thanks for pointing that out, although facetious does put a certain spin on things...

And, WAV - I didn't mean you personally, rather the movers & academics who study this shit & come up with the definitions, unless you see yourself in that role, which I don't suppose you do, although you might, which is fair enough. But whilst you can say what someone does is more traditional that what someone else does, that doesn't mean that it is more traditional. It might fit your personal factitious criteria, but beyond that it's all down to the performer to do what's right for them. I think once we accept that then we can all play nicely & appreciate that when it comes to folk, there are no rights and wrongs, just the music of what is.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 20 May 08 - 09:45 AM

I actually like those food poems, WAV--but am surprised to find that you are a vegan, given your other seeming predispositions--at any rate, being ever inclined to make simple things more difficult, I suggest altering your recipe by first chopping your carrots and potatoes into small cubes, dicing the onions, then browning them in olive oil in your pot (call this recipe "the browning version")--then set aside--

Then, rather than canned lentils, simply boil some dried lentils in your pot--they cook very quickly, and add the potatoes and carrots. This will add a lot of flavor--

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 May 08 - 09:52 AM

Well..I did say that I'd probably enjoy that song both ways - but moreso with just the tune on the concertina, which I see as more trad. Let me put it another way, strictly hypothetically, if a pop/rock band was to come to me saying we could do some of those songs of yours in a rock-style, so join us - but you MUST learn to play chords on keyboards, not just your beloved top-line melody, then I would accept that, as the pop/rock style, and start learning more about them. BUT, prefering folk as I do, I keep working at the TUNES. Again, having read all on this thread, it's wrong to say English traditional music is ALL about the tune; but it's not wrong to say it's MOSTLY about the tune.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 May 08 - 10:06 AM

Thanks M.Ted, I'll keep that in mind - one can always consult this thread, and it's links, now when short on culinary ideas! (And I learnt from Clarissa Dickson-Wright, the other day, that we in England have used the olive oil you mention since the Middle Ages.) My staple meal has changed slightly since publication - it's even simpler: A Bachelors' cup-a-soup goes into the pot, with baked beans and whatever vegetables were fresh at the local market (including iceberg lettuce, which I find much tastier when boiled in soup), plus toast.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 May 08 - 10:08 AM

Tell you what - we agree.

The next time we hear someone singing the chords and leaving out the tune - he gets a smack in the mouth. No arguments. Its a betrayal of the tradition all right.

And I tell you something else, its those bloody augmented 7ths that get to me. They think they're SO superior, and really they're just chords. Common as muck notes cohabiting in intimate proximity with each other.

we don't need that sort of thing.

Next thing they produce triplets, and who's paying for it......

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 May 08 - 11:11 AM

Spare my days, WLD, and calm down - someONE can play chords but how on earth can they sing them (whatever genre they're into)?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 20 May 08 - 11:15 AM

going back to the very VERY beginning of this thread, can I just point out that there are a lot of clever, learned people here who are actually arguing over the most ridiculous thesis anyone has ever posted? "I heard one recording of Joseph Taylor. It was really old. He was singing in a particular way. Therefore, that is the only way traditional English singers ever sang and the only "correct" way to sing English song."

Admittedly, it's this sort of fact-lite, soundbite crap upon which all of his theories are based. But there are two things I'd like to add:

I was listening to a talk on Vaughan Williams' folk song collecting at the weekend. Vaughan , when listening to village singers and if there happened to be more than one of them, would only note the melody of a song - EVEN IF PEOPLE WERE SINGING HARMONIES.

While the evidence of bygone practice will always be patchy and based on what is extant, I'd have thought that WAV would have some awareness of the Copper Family, as he namechecked Bob Copper in another thread. The Coppers posses one of the few unbroken singing traditions in this country - the current lot are the 7th KNOWN generation to have sung the family songs as they have been handed down. And how have they been handed down? That's right: it's a HARMONY tradition.

Goodbye.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 May 08 - 11:37 AM

Before you go, Ruth "That's right: it's a HARMONY tradition." is, more-or-less, saying: traditionally, in England, no-one ever sung on their own without, at least, the accompaniment of an instrument - that's ridiculous. Again: having read all on this thread, it's wrong to say English traditional music is ALL about the tune; but it's not wrong to say it's MOSTLY about the tune.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 May 08 - 11:39 AM

always sounded a bit dodgy to me - 7 generations, 7 long years, 7 dwarves, 7 types of ambiguity, 7 the mystic number....if you ask me its one o' those things in the tradition that are a bit too neat.

Then theres the bit where they keep looking over their shoulder.   The judge in geordie looked over his left shoulder, I looked over my shoulder in Brigg fair and saw my love coming tripping down by me.....

why over the shoulder...were they Jessie Matthws fans, did they all have dandruff...? I think not.

Maybe WAV is onto something and they were singing harmony without the use of chords. the whole English tradition is a conspiracy theory - find out whodunnit and you'll know who killed Kennedy, and break the Da Vinci Code.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 May 08 - 11:42 AM

someONE can play chords but how on earth can they sing them (whatever genre they're into)

Have a look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPFYTRRHNyA

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 May 08 - 11:49 AM

And a similar thing self-accompanied on an accordion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bcLlvP7ZFk

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 20 May 08 - 12:02 PM

"Before you go, Ruth "That's right: it's a HARMONY tradition." is, more-or-less, saying: traditionally, in England, no-one ever sung on their own without, at least, the accompaniment of an instrument - that's ridiculous."


The Coppers have an UNACCOMPANIED, VOCAL tradition which includes harmony. I'm surprised, as you were bandying Bob Copper's name about on another thread, that you don't seem to be aware of this.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 May 08 - 12:03 PM

That's great throat-singing by each individual, above, thanks, Sedayne...but is it chord-singing?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 May 08 - 12:38 PM

Depends how you define chord; it's certainly multiphonic and based on fundamental harmonic intervals. As an asthma sufferer I often wake up with a decidedly multiphonic wheeze; a legion of whistling voices in my larynx creating all manner of devilish harmonies. I've often thought of recording it, were it not for the other symptoms attending such episodes, but maybe when I do at last record it then I might approach it objectively as somehow being music, at least in an acousmatic sense.

I wonder, does Yodelling count? Check this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whIj6mrUGzQ

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 May 08 - 12:40 PM

Damn that html! That should have been an italic close after multiphonic wheeze

Subject: RE: Dyads in Folk?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 20 May 08 - 12:55 PM

Well, we had another great argument-thread a while back about whether TWO different notes sung/played simultaneously should be correctly regarded as a "chord"; the technically correct term is "dyad." It takes three different notes to form a chord.

So I suppose that it might be argued that none of the many many traditional instances of two-part harmony singing, with and without instrumentl accopmaniment, would qualify as "chords in folk," because they're really only "dyads in folk."

I recognize that there is a certain traditional singing style, and a very few specific songs, that sound best with no accompaniment and no sung harmonies. In these cases, it seems preferable to let all posible harmonies remain ambiguous ~ making a choice to sing/play any specific harmonizing note(s) imposes a limitation, makes the music sound one way or the other, whereas the single-note melody retains both/all possibilities.

But to assert that folk music, ipso facto, cannot and should not ever include harmonies ~ absolutely ridiculous! And to cite the written records left to us by collectors, who in many cases are KNOWN to have consciously omitted harmony parts, as evidence that somehow the introduction of harmony is somewhow anathema to folk music ~ even crazier!

It has been astounding how long this discussion has been going on. I've studiously ignored it for days at a time, then resumed reading when curiosity got the best of me. Periodically, my will-power fails and I find myself trying, yet again, to explain a seemingly-obvious premise that is somehow, apparently, beyond someone's understanding.

I was pleased to see this morning that the thread had morphed into a friendly discussion of the culinary arts. But could a return to the exasperatingly simpleminded assertion that there are "no chords in folk" be avoided? Apparently not.

Why am I doing this? I explained myself as well as I could days ago, as have several others. Most recently, Ruth Archer has made the case for sanity from yet another perspective.

If we can't let this thread die its long-overdue natural death, could we at least please get back to a more reasonable subject, such as the roasting of meat by ex-vegans?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 May 08 - 01:04 PM

I'd say it's timbre that's being altered - not two or more distinct notes being produced (i.e., a chord) from the one mouth at once.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: TheSnail
Date: 20 May 08 - 01:20 PM

PoppaGator

who in many cases are KNOWN to have consciously omitted harmony parts

Fascinating. Do you think you could give references for that?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 May 08 - 01:34 PM

"Mostly" NOT "all" about the tune (just above), PG. I accept that Coppersongs have been notated as two-part harmony; and Jack, way back, gave "Summer is a Comin'", as well as an old dance-tune, with more than one line of notes.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST
Date: 20 May 08 - 01:36 PM

There appears to be a confusion about harmonization of melodies. Melodies that are definable in so-called "Western" or "Occidental" music for the most part contain harmonic ideas. The fact that some haven't mastered the harmonic structure enough to effectively
highlight these ideas doesn't mean that the melodies are essentially injured by harmony.
All this means is that some who are trying to harmonize these melodies don't have the
musical background to do them justice. Most of the "Europeanized" music lends itself well to harmonization with the above caveat.

Asian, African and Native American music would tend not to be harmonized since it is not
in the tradition of the culture to do so. Harmony is not an aspect of this music. One reason is that quarter-tones are employed which are not "harmonizable" in any sense
of the word that we know of with a Euro-centric view of music.

Even the "so-called" "Church modes" contain harmonic information although not as advanced as when Bach came on the scene. There were many chords that were considered "dissonant" for the early period such as a dominant-seventh chord. Now,
the harmonic pallette is so varied that many chords that were considered dissonant in the early days of music are now commonplace.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Stu
Date: 20 May 08 - 01:42 PM

"Sorry to hear this; having never cooked with gas before I was rather looking forward to it..."

It's an old one and not very predicatable, hence the difficulty with roasting. When we moved in we had my mum and her hubby round for dinner and decided on a roast. So having been used to an electric oven that cooked to the minute I checked the bird as we had drinks to find it barely warm.

It took around four hours to cook and by the end we were completely rat-arsed and not hungry in the slightest. Back to an electric for me, albeit with a gas hob because there's no substitute to cooking over a flame.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 May 08 - 02:00 PM

African (...) music would tend not to be harmonized since it is not
in the tradition of the culture to do so

Is that true? From my experience Africa is perhaps the most likely place where traditional music is going to be naturally harmonised with the minimum interference from western influences: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3g15n9qCdc

there's no substitute to cooking over a flame

I've cooked with gas hobs, just not in gas ovens; I heartily agree - flames are the boys for cooking.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 20 May 08 - 02:39 PM

"PoppaGator

who in many cases are KNOWN to have consciously omitted harmony parts

Fascinating. Do you think you could give references for that?

See Ruth Archer, above, 20 May 08 11:15 am, for the most recent mention of this common phenomenon. I'm pretty sure that there are other, earlier posts in this thread citing additional specific instances where collectors transcribed melody-only when the songs were actually being performed with either sung harmonies, instrumental chords and/or countermelodies, or both.

Sorry I don't have primary sources. I'm not interested enough in this crackpot theory to do that kind of research. It just seems SOOO obvious to me that written historical evidence should not be understood as "proof" that any aspect of musicality was absent from an oral tradition.

Consider also that there are many many instances where collectors of folksongs recorded only the words, not any musical notation. By WAV's logic, this would be evidence that these traditional songs were recited, not sung, and that the introduction of melody would be somehow inauthentic.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 May 08 - 02:53 PM

Surely you accept, PG, that any collector of traditional songs (rather than anonymous poetry) of note (if you'll pardon the pun) would have had a recording device &/or the ability to notate.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 20 May 08 - 02:58 PM

Even with recorded material, surely the methodology of the collectors (often visiting one person at a time) will have some impact on the nature of the recordings and what they include, or leave out.

Oh! I've just thought of another example. Sheffield carols (again, not something that's been collected, but a real, living tradition) involves large groups of people engaging in spontaneous harmony singing. So that's TWO of the very few living, unbroken singing traditions in England, both of which incorporate harmony singing.

In fact, when you think about West Gallery music, and the fact that people in the 18th and 19th centuries were learning to use harmonies in their sacred music, you'd have to be a kind of loony cultural purist, the sort who thinks that it's actually possible to put clear, uncrossable boundaries around specific areas of cultural and social behaviour, to think that they would not have incorporated that ability to harmonise when singing secular songs.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 20 May 08 - 03:11 PM

Ruth Archer says again, not something that's been collected, but a real, living tradition

My feeling is that Walkaboutsverse is not interested in a vital, living, breathing, growing tradition, but would rather see it preserved in amber, to be viewed as a quaint museum piece, to be fondly remembered over cups of tea, cucumber sandwiches and jam tarts, after a spirited game of tennis down at the local, very exclusive club.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 20 May 08 - 03:11 PM

WAV, you can have the ability to do something without the DESIRE to do so. Recording the harmonies wasn't as important, as you can come up with them on your own.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 20 May 08 - 03:24 PM

"Surely you accept, PG, that any collector of traditional songs (rather than anonymous poetry) of note (if you'll pardon the pun) would have had a recording device &/or the ability to notate."

I'm quite sure, on the contrary, that many notable collectors did not have recording devices ~ those who worked prior to the invention of (or, at least, the widesprad availability of) recording technology.

And whether or not they had the ability to write musical notation, many transcribers/collectors/publishers of broadsides, etc., gave us WORDS ONLY for pieces they themselves describe as "songs," clearly implying that music existed, even though it may not have been notated.

Look, if you LIKE single-note melodies to the exclusion of any kind of harmony and accompaniment, that's your prerogative and no one begrudges you youe enjoyment.

But I think I speak not only for myself but also for quite a few others that your insistence that harmony singing ~ a very basic aspect of homespun music-making and the enjoyment thereof ~ can't possibly have existed in the past SIMPLY BECAUSE THERE IS NO WRITTEN DOCUMENTATION OF IT is just too exasperating for us to let it pass.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 May 08 - 03:56 PM

You don't read what I post, PG - please check my last few.
Not just "fondly remembered" - as I've said (but you, too, have not read), I do PARTICIPATE in folk clubs and festivals; However, most of your last post is music to my ears, DS.
"Recording the harmonies wasn't as important, as you can come up with them on your own."...but, Volgadon, there's what folks can do and what they choose to do - "traditions exist due to folks being impressed by how their forebears did things" (me). I really like hearing a good folk-singer sing a trad. song unaccompanied - I'm "impressed" by this way, as have been many before me (that's why we still hear it at folk clubs and festivals and radio - Scottish Gaelic radio a lot, English-language a little). Then there's sean-nos.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Don Firth
Date: 20 May 08 - 04:31 PM

". . . traditions exist due to folks being impressed by how their forebears did things. . . ."

To a certain extent that may be true, but I can't say that I buy that entirely, especially as far as music and song is concerned. I found that the songs appealed to me on their own, not because my forebears sang them. The family I grew up in did not sing the songs their forebears sang. I picked it up from contemporaries who were interested in folk music, and most of them had picked it up from recordings or song books.

And this, incidentally but importantly, was back in the early 1950s, some years before the beginning of the popular folk boom in the United States. Folk songs were considered by most people to be pretty esoteric stuff. I just happen to fall in with a small group of college students, one of whom had first become interested from listening to Burl Ives records while in his early teens (Burl Ives was about the only folk singer who ever got any radio play before the Kingston Trio's recoding of "Tom Dooley" came along in 1958) and liked the fact that the songs were a) different from what he heard on the radio, and b) they told stories.

It was the poetic and aesthetic appeal of the songs themselves, not that they were something his—or my—forebears did.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 May 08 - 04:53 PM

I said "traditions exist due to folks being impressed by HOW (e.g. the unaccompanied singing of verses to tell of something, or the playing of a tune for dancers) their forebears did things", Don, so we are, in fact, agreeing here.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST
Date: 20 May 08 - 05:07 PM

"Is that true? From my experience Africa is perhaps the most likely place where traditional music is going to be naturally harmonised with the minimum interference from western influences: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3g15n9qCdc"

The musical example you cited on You Tube is more modern rather than traditional. The drumming might reflect the traditional earlier styles but the harmonies are influenced by missionaries and hymns.

If you listen to recordings of earlier African music, you will hear more monody or unison style singing with appropriate effects. Afro-pop, church music and other European influences have found their way into African music such as "High Life" and other forms influenced by American jazz. Traditional music from Dahomey or the Ituri Forest show little influence if any of Euro-harmonic tradition.

The way in which some kind of harmony enters the picture is when you hear a kind of polyphony in the voices such as with the Pygmies in the Ituri Forest but this is in no way
a Europeanized harmonic form as we know harmony from pop, jazz or classical music.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 20 May 08 - 05:10 PM

Walkaboutsverse says, but you, too, have not read. Ahh, but I have read, for clarity's sake I read, and my opinion hasn't changed. Music to your ears is it? Personally I find tennis to a very boring game, cucumber sandwiches are bland, jam tarts fattening and I prefer coffee, oh and I do like chords and harmony with my folk music (I sing myself as well as play fiddle and mandolin) and I don't like your poetry. That pretty much sums up my opinions regarding this thread. Poppagator is perfectly correct, just because there's no docunentation it doesn't mean it didn't happen, there are parallels in modern day society in other arenas that illustrate this point.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST
Date: 20 May 08 - 05:15 PM

""Folk music is pop music. How else can a classic tune survive, other than being popular How else can a classic tune survive being collected by a knobhead like Cecil Sharp?"

Cecil Sharp decried the bowdlerization of folk music by popular influences to such a degree that he thought that the five-string banjo changed the music by introducing popular elements.

There is a distinct difference between popular music created for a music market than an expression of a folk tradition that lies outside the music market area. This "knobhead" was responsible for a folk music revival and interest in the field that would have been abandoned by the "music merchants". His efforts were prodigious. He went into the backwoods of the US with just tools for annotating music and lyrics by hand when no one else was interested. To call him a "knobhead" is to reveal a level of ignorance that defies
categorization but is reflective of the general dissipating level of education worldwide.

This lack of education is responsible for the terrible standards of writing and composing in much of pop music today.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST
Date: 20 May 08 - 05:29 PM

The throat singing relies on the voice maintaining the fundamental with another area producing the natural overtones of that fundamental tone. if you analyze the overtones, you find that they are not "tempered" as we know it but some of the tones are in the cracks, so to speak. The idea behind overtones created the basis for the system of harmony that we now know however this example is not a typically harmonized development which came later when musical instruments created tones that were slightly out of tune. Harmony that we hear today is slightly out of tune. Pythagoras was one of the few constructing tones that were mathematically accurate but would sound out of tune to us today. Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavichord" was as are all keyboard instruments slightly out of tune with the overtone series. Some stringed players compensate by playing sharped notes slightly higher and flatted notes lower but the overall harmonic effect has
to be slightly out of tune to get the fullness we associate with chordal instrumental or vocal harmony. The reason it doesn't sound out of tune is that we have been conditioned to hear harmony a certain way which resonates with our cultural appreciation of it.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 20 May 08 - 05:30 PM

Poppagator said: "I'm quite sure, on the contrary, that many notable collectors did not have recording devices ~ those who worked prior to the invention of (or, at least, the widesprad availability of) recording technology."

I heard the point made recently that the phonograph was a very delicate and expensive piece of equipment, not really up to being trawled around country lanes on the back of a bike. People like Percy Grainger used to have the singers back to his house, where he would record them. Recording in the early-20th century period of collecting was the exception rather than the rule.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 20 May 08 - 06:00 PM

Guest says, Cecil Sharp decried the bowdlerization of folk music by popular influences to such a degree that he thought that the five-string banjo changed the music by introducing popular elements. Oh dear, I don't think Mr. Sharp would very much like the introduction of electric instruments into folk then, which means I may as well throw out my 5 string Violectra, and my customised Gibson F-5 , Oh and I consider E.Carthy to be far from uneducated

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,MikeS
Date: 20 May 08 - 06:02 PM

Of course, prior to the introduction of melody into music (around 384 BC), all songs were sung merely on one note, and strictly unaccompanied. Surely we should all be conscientiously upholding this tradition, lest we lose a valuable part of our cultural heritage forever. The later intrusion of what we now loosely refer to as harmony into Proper Traditional music only came about through people's inability to accurately follow the tune, which was, in itself an abherration caused by the inability to maintain monophonic regularity. I hope this clears up any doubt on the matter once and for all.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 20 May 08 - 06:13 PM

No, I don't think your explanation clears anything up, but that's something I'll have to live with, in my ignorance. Like I said, I'm going to toss away my instruments and probably take up extreme knitting, full time.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,MikeS
Date: 20 May 08 - 07:37 PM

Well, DS, I sincerely hope you aren't contemplating using more than one needle at once.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 May 08 - 12:31 AM

There is a discussion going on in another thread concerning the notorious 1954 definition of folk music--a close reading of that definition suggests that the hymnal which Mr. WAV is "top-lining" doesn't qualify as folk music at all, because "The term does not cover composed popular music that has been taken over ready-made by a community and remains unchanged" The music in the hymnal being written, arranged, and intended for performance in a standardized fashion--

So whatever sentiments the melodies may evoke, they are composed music, and not, in and of themselves, folk music. When Mr. WAV plays the "top line", he is simply playing a composed piece of music. End of story.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 21 May 08 - 05:35 AM

On myspace, M.Ted, we categorise ourselves into 3 - I put "Folk," "Christian" (because I DON'T see my singing and playing with just the top-lines of my selection of hymns as folk music), and "Other" (as I've tried poetry, also). And I'd agree with those who say folk music can be divided into two distinct categories of it's own - Contemporary Folk (known composer), Traditional Folk (unknown composer).
To DS - I wonder if you'll start singing a folk song to the rhythm of your knitting?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Tangledwood
Date: 21 May 08 - 06:07 AM

"I wonder if you'll start singing a folk song to the rhythm of your knitting?"

Silver threads and golden needles
Little ball of yarn
Green sleeves
Black socks

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 21 May 08 - 06:09 AM

What's that Mike Waterson song - "Stitch in Time"?...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 21 May 08 - 07:30 AM

But what about 18th century songs with a known author/composer? That's not something I would call contemporary.
Also, I wonder why folk music is seen as something artless IE only the top-line should be played with no harmony, with no chords.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 21 May 08 - 07:40 AM

There are other branches of Early Music, Volgadon...and I thought you might have given something for DS to sing to as he/she knits...Scarborough Fair...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 21 May 08 - 07:53 AM

The musical example you cited on You Tube is more modern rather than traditional. The drumming might reflect the traditional earlier styles but the harmonies are influenced by missionaries and hymns.

It's curious to reflect on the multiplicity of cultural confluences that may or may or may not resulted in the one thing or the other, whereby whatever it was that the African people took with them to the New World as slaves morphed by whatever transfigurative process into the musics we now call Jazz (no matter what Bert Lloyd has to say on the subject!), Soul, Blues, R&B and Hip Hop, all of which carry the essence of a continuity that might, at last return to the African motherland in triumph to further transfigure the nature of her native music.

It took a Belgian to invent the saxophone, but it took African-Americans such as Carlie Parker, Ben Webster, John Coltrane, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk (et al) to give it a voice; and in the hands of a native Xhosa tribesman such as Johnny Mbizo Dyani a European orchestral instrument such as the Double Bass becomes as African as any balafon or mbira.

And getting back to chords in folk, and multiphonic voices all in the one mouth, can there be anything so pure as Rahsaan Rolank Kirk's take on I Say a Little Prayer? Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uRnvMwD6jM

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 21 May 08 - 08:13 AM

There's too many anon "GUESTS"s in this thread - what about that policy of just deleting them?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 21 May 08 - 08:37 AM

I'm not talking about early music, WAV, I'm talking about folk songs with known composers/writers.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Joe
Date: 21 May 08 - 08:43 AM

If the anonymous guests are making valid statements then whats your problem? If they are abusive it's a different story ...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 21 May 08 - 08:45 AM

Don't they a contest in Newcastle for writing unaccompanied songs? Never been but I keep hearing about it. Are you part of that at all, WAV?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 21 May 08 - 08:55 AM

I seem to remember the policy was 'you will be deleted if you do not use a consistent user guest name'.

:-)

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Victor in Mapperton
Date: 21 May 08 - 09:10 AM

No Foolestroupe, some Guest posts are quite good. It's arsehole posts that get deleted. Are all yours still there ?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 21 May 08 - 09:17 AM

To Volgadon - if you want to make the two main divisions of folk "Traditional Folk", and "Composer Folk" (rather than "Contemporary Folk"), I wouldn't cry over such spilt soya!
To Sedayne - Phil and Cath could tell you more, but it's about the late folk-singer John Birmingham, who left money to encourage unaccompanied song-writing. I only saw him, just before he died, at The Bridge, but apparently he also went on Saturdays to The Cumberland - did you know him? And, yes, I am a part of it (a singaround the last 2 years, and a comp. the two before - which may kick-off again next year) in that I participate with my Chants from Walkabouts and my selection of E. trads (here). (One of us should have told you - sorry, but it will, in one form or the other, be on about this time next year, so please do note it in your calendar.)

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: folktheatre
Date: 21 May 08 - 09:31 AM

Is it just me or am I the only one who doesn't understand the opening post of this thread?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 21 May 08 - 09:38 AM

Via this theatre of "war", Folktheatre, it has been changed slightly - please use the link just above, and then goto Messages.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Joe
Date: 21 May 08 - 09:44 AM

"To Volgadon - if you want to make the two main divisions of folk "Traditional Folk", and "Composer Folk" (rather than "Contemporary Folk"), I wouldn't cry over such spilt soya!"

What about Folk rock, Disco Folk, Traditional Dance music, English Acoustic, Folk Metal, all the local variations, etc etc

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 21 May 08 - 09:51 AM

I'd place trad. dance music in there but not the others you mention, Joe; thus, to me, "Leige and Leaf" should not have been voted the BBC's most influential folk album of all time - as it is not a folk album.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 21 May 08 - 09:52 AM

Via this theatre of "war", Folktheatre, it has been changed slightly - please use the link just above, and then goto Messages

But you still won't understand it, Folktheatre - owing to the fact that it can only operate via an appreciation of the highly specialised / subjective level of interpretation to which such a statement would make sense. Actually, I think this is what this thread is about more than anything - a quiet place in the universe where we might reflect upon the ephemeral actuality of whatever, whilst WAV perversely persists with his conclusions no matter how off the map they might be.

Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I endure.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 21 May 08 - 10:08 AM

"Leige and Leaf" should not have been voted the BBC's most influential folk album of all time - as it is not a folk album.

In this respect we almost agree, WAV. Here's something I wrote about this & other related issues on Harvest Home forum back in September last year:

1) The condition of traditional song is perilous enough without subjecting them to any further interference. Treat them as listed buildings, the interiors and exteriors of which amount to irreplaceable national treasures all too vulnerable to the ravages of time and ill-advised DIY make-overs. What else is Liege and Leif but a sequence of tasteless, bland modernisations of some nice old characterful properties; the wattle & daub of the originals ripped out and replaced with mass produced breeze block and plaster board; sash windows replaced with UPVC and the open fires with flame-effect gas fires?

2) The problem is that there is a very definite cut off point between the cultural and social conditions in which the traditional songs arose, and that which exists now. We have lost the continuity in which these songs came into being and as such the only thing we should do with them is observe, and source, and delight in their myriad wonders.

In a nutshell, they are not ours to mess with in the first place - not in any way, shape or form - and God knows there is enough work still to be done (...) in simply learning and singing them with resorting to such underhand methods as addition and interpretation.

3) We lovers of traditional song are not so much the keepers of a tradition, rather the volunteer curators of a museum, entrusted with the preservation of a few precious, priceless and irreplaceable artefacts: hand-crafted tools we no longer know the names of (let alone what they were actually used for) ; hideous masks of woven cornstalks (which are invariably assumed to be pagan) ; and hoary cases of singular taxidermy wherein beasts long extinct are depicted in a natural habitat long since vanished.

Not only is such a museum a beacon for the naturally curious, it's a treasure in and of itself, an anachronism in age of instant (and invariable soulless) gratification, and as such under constant threat by those who want to see it revamped; cleaned up with computerised displays and interactive exhibits and brought into line with the rest of commodified cultural presently on offer.

But not only is this museum is our collective Pit-Rivers, it is a museum which, in itself, is just as much an artefact of a long-vanished era as the objects it contains. It is delicate, and crumbling, but those who truly love it wouldn't have it any other way - and quite rightly so.   

4) The point is that the traditional songs are already dead; they're as dead as the traditional singers that sang them and the traditional cultures to which they once belonged; they're as dead as fecking dodos the lot of them - but we must never forget...

As far as their adaptation goes... of course anyone can do anything they like with them; God knows I certainly have (though a good deal less so in recent years, m'lud) but to do so in the name of The Tradition shows a complete lack of both respect to and understanding of their cultural provenance which is pretty much the whole of the case.

One thing that's immediately apparent even in the most casual study of traditional song is the fluidity in which they once existed in their natural habitat, hence the innumerable versions and variations we know & love today. Traditional songs were shaped by the innumerable voices that sang them; passing them on via an oral tradition in which the songs evolved according to that mysterious process whereby the subjective idiosyncrasies of the individual singers interface with the objective cultural context of which they were part to create something truly wondrous.

This is primary paradise of tradition folk song; a veritable dream-time in which we find them scampering in the new-mown meadows of what some of us still perceive as an agrarian utopia, before the advent of chemicals and mechanisation. So along come the song collectors, recognising that these songs are part of a social context that even in the early years of the last century is beginning to look decidedly fragile, and they do their level best to preserve them.

Taxidermy is, alas, an imperfect science (as the recent research into the Dodo has shown), so what comes down to us in the collections tells us as much about the collectors as it does about the people they were collective from - the stuffers rather than the stuffed, as it were; because one does get the impression that these well-healed paternalists weren't altogether too concerned with the broader cultural condition of these grubby rustics whose precious repertoires they so hungrily plundered.

One finds the same thing in folklore; the paganisation we see today is the result of the self-same paternalism that was used to justify the evils of colonialism - it's there in the cultural condescension that would interpret any given folk custom as being somehow vestigial of something now long forgotten. For example, when the thoroughly aristocratic Lady Raglan first named her medieval ecclesiastical foliate-head a Green Man, she did so fully in the faith that the Jacks-in-the-Green (etc.) of British folk custom were survivals of pagan fertility rites quaintly perpetuated by an ignorant lower order of society unwittingly preserving as mere superstition an ancient belief system that they themselves couldn't possibly understand, either in terms of its true provenance or else its real meaning. That there is no real meaning is perhaps the ultimate irony; the medium is the message and their experience entirely empirical.   

To take the example of the wonderful Buy Broom Buzzems as recorded by Bruce & Stokoe in The Northumbrian Minstrelsy from the singing of Blind Willie Purvis of Newcastle-upon-Tyne; here they freely admit that they chose to omit several of Mr Purvis's verses because they considered them to be somehow extraneous to the sense of the song. What we wouldn't give to hear those extraneous verses now...

A L Lloyd did some sterling work of course, but as Nigel points out much of it was decidedly suspect; I cringe every time I hear Jack Orion (which is often sung unquestioningly as a traditional ballad) and his theories on the origin of Jazz as outlined in the introduction to The Penguin Book of English Folk song beggar belief, even by the standards of the time.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 May 08 - 10:43 AM

Thanks for the posting the Kirk link, Sedayne--it definitely woke me up this morning! I should have figured you for a Kirk fan--seeing him again(because listening is not enough) brought back a lot--I'd forgotten about how effortlessly he could move back and forth between all those horns--wild music that makes you think--

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 21 May 08 - 11:46 AM

Walkaboutsverse says, "Leige and Leaf" should not have been voted the BBC's most influential folk album of all time - as it is not a folk album. ..By that same token I don't play folk music (which I do) because I too use electric instruments, fiddle and mandolin, as I believe I've already stated. Liege & Lief has most certainly been influencial and if you don't like, well you're entitled to your opinion, I consider it a folk album, like it or nor
Oh and Guest MikeS (I do wish these 'guests' would log in, it does add courage tp their convictions), regarding my knitting capabilities, they're just fine, I have great dexterity.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 21 May 08 - 11:51 AM

".and I thought you might have given something for DS to sing to as he/she knits...Scarborough Fair... "

Scarborough Fair. Now how stereotype is that? Dearie me! thank goodness I got beyond that years ago, if I ever knew the song in the first place

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 21 May 08 - 11:57 AM

"To Volgadon - if you want to make the two main divisions of folk "Traditional Folk", and "Composer Folk" (rather than "Contemporary Folk"), I wouldn't cry over such spilt soya!"

Are you really not paying attention to what I'm saying? Plenty of 'traditional' folk songs have known authors. I would say that contemporary folk is better defined as contemporary, IE, of recent origins.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 21 May 08 - 12:07 PM

"Plenty of 'traditional' folk songs have known authors"...No, Volgadon, if they have known authors they are NOT traditional.
DS - on myspace, e.g., again, folk-rock is a separate category from folk, and in it you will find the likes of Steeleye Span.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 21 May 08 - 12:16 PM

Walkaboutsverse says (rather patronisingly) DS - on myspace, e.g., again, folk-rock is a separate category from folk, and in it you will find the likes of Steeleye Span. (oh and the short-lived band, Def Shepard ) Now tell me something I don't know, and my space?(I will always consider Liege & Lief to be folk.)and my space? My daughter refers to it, quite tellingly I might add, as My WasteofSpace

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,John from Kemsing
Date: 21 May 08 - 12:21 PM

Walkabouts,
            Surely every bit of prose, doggerel and song were, at one time composed, committed to memory or set down by an individual or more (e.g. broadsheets); these authors were, at the time, known to others. Did the material become trad. once the identities of the authors were lost in the mists of time?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 May 08 - 12:32 PM

"I said 'traditions exist due to folks being impressed by HOW (e.g. the unaccompanied singing of verses to tell of something, or the playing of a tune for dancers) their forebears did things', Don, so we are, in fact, agreeing here."

WAV, you're reinterpreting what I said so that it reflects what you want it to reflect:   your own viewpoint.

I was talking about being attracted to the total experience, and that included the instrumental accompaniment. When I first got actively interested in folk music, some of my initial purchases were recordings of singers I liked, a couple of song books, and a guitar. And what I did was not particularly unique.

The accompanying instrument was part of that total experience. And I repeat:   my interest was sparked not by my forebears, but my contemporaries.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 21 May 08 - 12:49 PM

"Plenty of 'traditional' folk songs have known authors"...No, Volgadon, if they have known authors they are NOT traditional."

That is preposterous. I consider traditional as something collected. By your reasoning, if Joseph Taylor or Walter Pardon sang something by a known author, it isn't traditional?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 21 May 08 - 12:56 PM

"Tradition" has different meanings in different contexts - indeed, I remember my anthropology lecturer telling us we should always put it in inverted commas. In poetry, e.g., these days, it tends to refer to the use of metre and/or rhyme (e.g., Walkaboutsverse). But, in music, it refers to a piece to which we do not know the author(s) - e.g., the 17 in my repertoire.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 May 08 - 01:23 PM

The fact that a song is or isn'"t traditional" is irrelevant to most listeners and singers--as evidenced by the fact that musical "traditions" regularly disappear--Amy Winehouse sings to the "Folk" of today--the "folk" of Sharp, Child, Grainger, et al, are long gone, and their music is a preserved relic--

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 21 May 08 - 01:57 PM

Don Firth said,WAV, you're reinterpreting what I said so that it reflects what you want it to reflect:   your own viewpoint.

Don, I've noted that Walkaboutsverse is very good at doing this, making it appear that a person is agreeing whole -heartedly with his (Walkaboutsverse) point of view, which, most assuredly, I do not.

Walkaboutsverse, as to your query he/she, I am female and am of the age Sandy Denny would have been had she lived (I'll let you do the maths)which, I think, makes me somewhat older than you.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 May 08 - 02:27 PM

Yes, indeed, Def (if I may be so informal as to call you by your first name), I have noticed that. Trying to get a point across to WAV is a bit like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall.

In the United States, and elsewhere, perhaps, considering the number of singers of folk songs in both the U. S. and the U. K. who sing and have recorded, say, Steven Foster's "Hard Times" and "Gentle Annie," the songs of Steven Foster are generally regarded as traditional. They are not, however, regarded by most people as folk songs.

Steven Foster's songs are essentially "parlor (or parlour) songs," which were intended to be and traditionally were accompanied by a piano. Or if the household couldn't afford a piano, often a parlor (or parlour) guitar.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 21 May 08 - 02:36 PM

Dear Don, Def, and all: a song by Steven Foster is a Steven Foster song NOT a traditional song.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 May 08 - 03:00 PM

And that's definite the whole world over, WAV? There are many knowledgeable people who would disagree with you on that.

"Folk" is not the be-all and end-all of things "traditional."

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 21 May 08 - 03:08 PM

Walaboutsverse says, Dear Don, Def, and all: a song by Steven Foster is a Steven Foster song NOT a traditional song.

Alright; and your point is what exactly? I don't believe I personally ever mentioned Stephen Foster. Don's right about folk, it's not the be all and end all of trad.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 21 May 08 - 03:10 PM

Don, I'll admit, I, at one point in my life, thought Hard Times was American trad. I love that song very much.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 May 08 - 03:12 PM

This matter has pretty well been argued since Sunday breakfast, but it remains that the idea that traditional and / or folk songs were never sung by traditional and / or folk singers with harmony or instrumental accompaniment is patently absurd.   Making a blanket statement like that is a bit like Wile E. Coyote walking off the edge of the cliff and confidently hanging there in mid-air. Until he looks down, realizes his situation, and plummets to the canyon floor. WAV, you just haven't looked down yet.

You're making an awful lot of unfounded pronouncements about the way things are and are not.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 21 May 08 - 03:17 PM

A Bachelors' cup-a-soup goes into the pot...

What flavour, WAV?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 21 May 08 - 03:18 PM

400

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 21 May 08 - 03:18 PM

D'oh!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 21 May 08 - 03:22 PM

Cinque cento you mean I think.

G

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 21 May 08 - 03:23 PM

I've read this thread ad nauseum, trying to figure out exactly what point(s) Walkaboutsverse is attempting to make. For someone who allegedly has a university degree, Walkaboutsverse's research to back up his pronouncements appears to be absolutely non-existent. The onus is on you, Walkaboutsverse, to prove your theories, and not on the rest of us
Love the Wiley E. Coyote analogy hee, hee, hee

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 21 May 08 - 03:38 PM

Vegetable, Sedayne...prepared the usual way and then added to a pot with baked beans and, today, lettuce. From there it goes into a bowl to be dipped into with (as I knew them about 35 years ago) "soldiers" - toast cut into strips. Oh, yes, red sauce is added, just prior to that.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 21 May 08 - 03:50 PM

Lettuce, in soup???? Hardly traditional.... =))))
Anyway, I thought that traditional was more than just what we call by the strange name of 'folk' music, music without a known author.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 21 May 08 - 04:06 PM

red sauce is added

I'm guessing Heinz tomato sauce, right? Worcester Sauce might prove an interesting addition. Otherwise - seems like soldiers are universal, though we'd dip ours in soft boiled eggs. Of course, Gregg's stotty is perfect for this.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 21 May 08 - 05:05 PM

And, whilst we're at it, don't forget to include the U.S. G.I.'s favorite (and someone has probably composed a song to memorialize it), creamed chipped beef on toast, alias S.O.S. Heinz or Worcestershire is very optional... If no one HAS composed such a piece, I see a whole new thread opening up.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 21 May 08 - 05:08 PM

"Anyway, I thought that traditional was more than just what we call by the strange name of 'folk' music, music without a known author." Volgadon - please surf back to this post of mine "Date: 21 May 08 - 12:56 PM; some seem to get most upset if they actually agree with me on something, but I'm afraid you just did...will you sleep tonight?!
That was it - soldiers "into soft boiled eggs" Sedayne; but sometimes they, with their yokie pilot, would be flown into one's young gob as an aeroplane, yes? Neither my local baker nor supermarket have stotties, sadly (at least they have Warbuton's sliced bread), but, whenever I'm in towm, I always get a couple from Gregg's.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 21 May 08 - 05:14 PM

Did I? That's news to me, as I was saying that I absolutely disagree with your assertion that 'traditional' excludes songs with a known author. I reluctantly used the term folk to reffer to songs with unkown authors, but that doesn't imply any agreement with you. I still hold that traditional songs are those which were collected, be the author known or long-forgotten.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 21 May 08 - 05:31 PM

He's doing it again, twisting other people's words around to make it appear that they are agreeing with him.

To re-iterate. I've noted that Walkaboutsverse is very good at doing this, making it appear that a person is agreeing whole -heartedly with his (Walkaboutsverse) point of view, which, most assuredly, I do not.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 21 May 08 - 05:44 PM

No, Volgadon - for another e.g., when I've watched Classical TV, either the composer's name OR the word "traditional" comes onto the screen, if someone has done a classicised version of a folk-song with an unknown composer.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 21 May 08 - 05:48 PM

He misses the point constantly, and deliberately (I swear). Songs, ditties, whatever ALL had a composer at some point, this sort of thing doesn't JUST appear out of thin air, we may have forgotten or never known the names of these people, but just because we have doesn't mean they never existed. Ye Gods!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 21 May 08 - 05:58 PM

would be flown into one's young gob as an aeroplane

As a kid, I'd make an entire aeroplane of a single stotty; actually two entire aeroplanes, Spitfires, one out of each half, sliced down the middle, and fried before adding the bacon & ketchup. Don't eat red meat at home these days, but this stirs in me a memory that might have to be revisited. Time I thawed out another stotty...

Warburton's sliced white is good with fish and chips (Pisces in Fleetwood; Christian's in North Shields; Seashells in Monkseaton...) but my favourite sliced loaf is Morrison's Sunflower & Pumpkin Seed.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 May 08 - 06:32 PM

More TV! This is an example of what happens when a mind is fed a combination of television and instant soup-

WAV, are you aware that some of the people here are trained musicians, and many have been performing "folk music" for twenty, thirty, forty, years and more? Some are collectors who have done the kind of field work that you only imagine--There are songwriters, some of whose work is well known, academics of various other sorts, and a fair number of people who can actually cook, as well--

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 May 08 - 07:06 PM

This, of course, is not the first time that someone who discovered folk music (or anything else you can name) just two weeks ago leaps to the podium and condescends to explain it all to those who've been at it all their lives.

Sort of like a freshman back from his first quarter at college. He knows EVERYTHING and is more than eager to explain it all to his father and uncles, all who hold Ph.Ds.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 21 May 08 - 07:26 PM

and a fair number of people who can actually cook, as well--

I was feeling left out until I saw cooking might qualify me.

I can even make bread - I don't need that Warburtons stuff. Just get some flour produced at a local watermill and I'm away...








(of course I do need a breadmaking machine...)

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: TheSnail
Date: 21 May 08 - 07:39 PM

GUEST,Volgadon

I still hold that traditional songs are those which were collected, be the author known or long-forgotten.

So a song doesn't become traditional until it's been collected? What were they before?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 May 08 - 08:19 PM

Cooking is a folkway--those who can stand the heat Washington in July know that the Smithsonian Folklife Festival always features both music and food from the areas of interest--this year, Bhutan and Texas-

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 May 08 - 09:18 PM

Forget about the points for debate--and just listen--this is your "old time, down home, grassroots harmony" and if it's not exactly traditional, it's better.Dim Lights, Thick Smoke...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 22 May 08 - 01:51 AM

"GUEST,Volgadon
I still hold that traditional songs are those which were collected, be the author known or long-forgotten.
So a song doesn't become traditional until it's been collected? What were they before? "

Unknown. I'm sure many, many other songs were sung in the 'tradition' (I hate that term, can't think of a more convenient one) but if they weren't collected, or mentioned anywhere, how can we know about them?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Melissa
Date: 22 May 08 - 02:16 AM

There are still songs that haven't been "collected"
I don't care about nit-picking terminology, but if I DID care, I wouldn't like the idea of our old-old local music being considered non-traditional for having survived in an isolated pocket and passed by ear.

The idea of Trad=Collected is probably a good basic guideline but maybe not an overly complete categorical definer.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 22 May 08 - 02:27 AM

No, I'm not saying that it's untraditional, but if nobody knows about it.... You are right, there isn't an overly complete definer.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Melissa
Date: 22 May 08 - 02:28 AM

I'd say that a good term for a song that NOBODY knows is "lost"?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 22 May 08 - 03:28 AM

"This, of course, is not the first time that someone who discovered folk music (or anything else you can name) just two weeks ago leaps to the podium and condescends to explain it all to those who've been at it all their lives.

Sort of like a freshman back from his first quarter at college. He knows EVERYTHING and is more than eager to explain it all to his father and uncles, all who hold Ph.Ds.

Don Firth"

Presumably, this is where we get the term Sophomore (wise fool)?

It's not just the fact that WAV wishes to condescend to everyone on Mudcat. Note: someone suggested earlier that if he would actually sit back and listen to some of the points made here, he might learn something. But WAV is not here to LEARN. He is here to TEACH. And to pimp his risible "life's work" by providing as many links to it as possible. He has made it very clear that a ten-a-penny humanities degree and a few childhood tennis trophies make him the intellectual superior of everyone around him, and his website - a huge, onanistic homage to himself - serves to prove that he is, in his own mind, a great literary and musical talent. As many people as possible obviously need to be made aware of this...

But there are plenty of attention-seeking nutters on the internet. Myspace is certainly littered with them. Keeps them off the streets, I guess. The thing I really find objectionable is that WAV harnesses his very dubious monocultural politics to English traditional culture. Anyone reading his pronouncements on cultural isolationism, the role of women, homosexuality etc, and then sees that this person espouses English folk music as representative of his world view, is doing the tradition the worst kind of damage.

If it weren't for this, I'd say his self-important, barely literate ramblings were best ignored. I'm half inclined to believe that this is probably the case anyway.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 22 May 08 - 04:54 AM

Thanks, M.Ted for the Dim Lights, Thick Smoke link, just the ticket first thing in the morning.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 22 May 08 - 05:39 AM

...And good morning!, all - lovely day in Newcastle. Firstly, I'd like to think I'm more than instant soup and TV, M.Ted; and I'll look out for that Sunflower & Pumpkin Seed bread, Sedayne. It's a bit more than "two weeks" into folk for me Don - it was 4 years ago that I first turned up at a folk club, and a year later I started playing recorders and keyboards, and learning those beloved single-line melodies that English folk music, at least, is mostly, NOT all, about. But, frankly, despite reading ALL (as ever) your criticisms, I'd like to think I came into the game with a pretty handy background, documented somewhere above, or here, if you like. In an anthology of English poetry, you will find "anon." for a poem of unknown authorship; but, within music, you will find "trad."

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 22 May 08 - 07:05 AM

I can even make bread - I don't need that Warburtons stuff. Just get some flour produced at a local watermill and I'm away...

Interesting link, I'll be sure to look it up if we pass that way during our Norfolk jaunt in June.

Thing with bread is, baking it is fine, but buying it is fine too because, try as I might, I cannot make a satisfactory stotty cake! And as already indicated, when it comes to Fish & Chips, I need a nice shite sliced white with which to make butties & mop up afterwards. And that Morrisons Pumkin & Sunflower Seed bread is rather special, likewise those loaves of Greenhalgh's olive bread they sell here in Booth's. I dare say this is analogous to folk, in that folkies tend to play & sing as much as they consume professional folk product via CDs, records & radio, though I think of it more by way of exotica, whereby if I want to listen to virtuouso Iranian traditional Santour music (like THIS, filmed in the Music Department of Durham University!) I'm hardly likely to try and play it myself, though I will absorb its influence...   

Most of my listening goes on in the bakery these days, or else the kitchen, which is the only place I can listen to music of my own choosing without having to consider the tastes of others. It gets so if I want to listen to something really elaborate, I plan a really long session of cooking - though by really elaborate I'm thinking more of, say, Jordi Savall's masterful Don Quixote album than anything folky as such. That said just yesterday I was playing the vinyl copy of Peter Bellamy's Won't You Go My Way? (Butter & Cheese & all!) that's currently in my keeping, though not, I hasten add, in the kitchen (where, of course, there is no turntable bar the Lazy Susan) but certainly loud enough to hear it from there.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: TheSnail
Date: 22 May 08 - 07:46 AM

Melissa

I'd say that a good term for a song that NOBODY knows is "lost"?

Indeed. A bit Zen. How do you collect a song that nobody knows?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 22 May 08 - 08:02 AM

Such a song was collected from an old fisherman in North Shields in 1927. The Collector, who shall remain nameless, mislaid his notebook and upon going to seek out said fisherman discovered that he'd suffered a massive stroke the previous day which had rendered him incapable of speech or singing. The Collector could only remember the basic sense of the song which was of such a unique quality & undoubted hoary provenance that in his attempts to remember it he resorted to drink, drugs, and, upon the actual death of the fisherman, spiritualism. Alas, all to no avail, whereupon he lost his wits entirely. As recently as 1977 he could be found wandering the grounds of St. Nicolas' Hospital in Gosforth muttering about how he once collected a song that nobody knows...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 22 May 08 - 08:11 AM

This kills a lot of rubbish posted above...

From an ad inside an Oak Publication copyrighted 1976

A FOLKSINGER'S GUIDE TO GRASS ROOTS HARMONY
Edited by Ethel Raim and Josh Dunson
ustrated by Art Rosenbaum

Here are 42 songs presented in traditional folk harmony in a collection of ways to sing them. The tunes have been transcribed from the singing of the Carter Family, the Stanley Brothers, Woody Guthrie and Cisco Houston, Rosa and Doc Watson, Pete Seeger, the Staple Singers, the Georgia Sea Island Singers and others.

000004/$3.95

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 22 May 08 - 08:18 AM

A song may be written down by some means of transcription (of the many possible), or recording of the aural waves. The song may be forgotten by every person on earth.

Someone then coming along and finding this material will be discovering 'a song that nobody knows'.

So There!

I'm not making this stuff up you know...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 22 May 08 - 08:31 AM

...if that someone records it onto a C.D., Foolestroupe, the word "traditional" will/should appear next to its name.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 22 May 08 - 09:08 AM

Thanks for the Santour link, Sedayne--the problem, of course, is that after listening to the posted video, I meander through "related videos", and on to "related videos" "related videos", and the morning is shot--

But seriously, I think we should have some sort of daily,"Morning Music Fix" thread, with links to such inspirational things--it will make a nice alternative to all this small talk--Why don't I just do it?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,John from Kemsing
Date: 22 May 08 - 09:43 AM

"A Treatise of Nations":- "Forge, Courte and Kings"
Simon Butler,circa 1488
"......Hughe did then us treat with his song and melody, so finely sung with heart and spirit that my lady did call for more. She would brooke no hold on his expense nor gainsay his source even though she did knowe the verse from childhood as well she knew her kin...."

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 22 May 08 - 09:49 AM

That's more like it, JfromK; what "small talk" M.Ted?!... these are important matters...how high a pop-singer's heels are is small talk.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Melissa
Date: 22 May 08 - 10:17 AM

That's a truly haunting tale, Sedayne.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 22 May 08 - 10:23 AM

WAV, that is one definition of traditional, authorship unknown, but hardly the only or best one. Try something found in a tradition. Your trouble is that you decide on definitions and insist on forcing everything to fit. Kind of like inserting a square into a circular hole.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 22 May 08 - 10:49 AM

That's a truly haunting tale, Sedayne

I must point out that whilst based on a certain incident, it is, in fact, the synopsis of a short story I've been working on for a while now, called The Collector. The song is at last sung in a moment of clarity on The Collector's death-bed, but the nurse in attendance at that moment is new to the ward, and hears it only in the context of the ramblings of a dying madman. It only later, upon reading the case notes, that he realises what he's heard, and what himself is now the unwitting carrier of...

It's based on the idea that we remember subconsciously everything we've ever heard, just we can't access it the way we can with things we've deliberately learnt. I have an idea that this nurse somehow cherishes this unknown heritage in the hope that, one day, even upon his own death-bed, it will, at last be revealed. Perhaps he makes some provision for this, and when at last he does remember it, it turns out to be something quite commonplace, or otherwise unremarkable, but none the less significant given its provenance. I don't know - as I say, it's just an idea in the throes of nascence!

But seriously, I think we should have some sort of daily,"Morning Music Fix" thread, with links to such inspirational things--it will make a nice alternative to all this small talk--Why don't I just do it?

Excellent idea, but surfing YouTube is a perilous pursuit; how I got from Dim Lights, Thick Smoke to a video of two Japanese girls in nurses uniforms snogging passionately I'll never know...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 22 May 08 - 10:57 AM

...maybe "the collector" (Sedayne) became gravely ill on holiday in Kyoto ..?!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 22 May 08 - 11:08 AM

When Malcolm Douglas talks about the collected versions of a particular song, it is important--you are just a folkie newbie, WAV, so it is just conversation--best thing for you to do is to listen to Ernie, Molly, and Merle sing "Dim Lights" about twenty times in a row--a lot to be learned there--

Which reminds me that in American taverns up until the time of prohibition, it was the custom for the gentlemen to informally gather and sing the old songs in improvised four part harmony--many of the songs sung in this fashion were collected in the volume, "My Pious Friends and Drunken Companions", and a number of those songs are among the body of songs typically regarded as "traditional"--

The harmony tradition was widespread much celebrated, and its passing was much lamented, Prohibition(1920-1933) surely killed it, but it had been fading away, even before then, for much the same reason that the old social singing customs were disappearing in the UK--

Even though the custom has died out, harmony singing still is regarded as having a special fraternal and familial quality about it:

Daddy sang bass (mama sang tenor)
Me and little brother would join right in there
Singin' seems to help a troubled soul
One of these days and it won't be long
I'll rejoin them in a song
I'm gonna join the family circle at the throne

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 22 May 08 - 11:13 AM

I had to read, "it was 4 years ago that I first turned up at a folk club" at least a dozen times with, I must admit, a look of complete amazement on my face. Four years you say, and YOU DARE to come in here and try to tell others what is and what is not, in folk music. I have but one thing to say to you, Walkaboutsverse, you may leave the room at anytime you wish, not only are your various claims unsubstantiatable, your pretentiousness knows absoutely no bounds. You'd like to think that you're more than instant soup and TV? The term sound bytes are us comes to mind.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 22 May 08 - 11:34 AM

To D.S: at a new manufacturing company, I'd say I learn about 80% of what goes on in the first couple of months (not years), and I've heard others say the same. Folk music is of course a different game and I will learn more about it, of course; but, I repeat, I did come into it with a pretty handy background, and the "tools" to know what to look for. And what I've done so far is very folkie - I travelled etc., I wrote the verses, I found a way to sing some of them (without being able to read or write music), and then taught myself the latter two, via recorder and keyboards. And I think I've done okay as an amateur, placing in festival comp's etc., thus far.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 22 May 08 - 11:40 AM

But your 'verses' are not really folk are they? Your background? A degree in the humanities is hardly a 'pretty handy background' Travelling? I've done that, as have my children, it has no bearing on how we perform the music, yes we are a musical family. I stand by, with conviction, what I've already stated.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: TheSnail
Date: 22 May 08 - 11:57 AM

People seem to get highly agitated over the ramblings of this silly man but are quite willing to let statements that -

[before traditional songs are collected they are] Unknown. I'm sure many, many other songs were sung in the 'tradition' (I hate that term, can't think of a more convenient one) but if they weren't collected, or mentioned anywhere, how can we know about them? Volgadon

go by unchallenged.

Who is "we" in this context, Volgadon?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 22 May 08 - 12:05 PM

"But your 'verses' are not really folk are they?"...Have a look, DS - you may find I was a folkie before I was a folkie. One thing I am still trying to figure out, frankly, is this: I'm sure I should record my selection of hymns with keyboards set on the "pipe organ" voice/sound, but I'm not sure whether I should record folk songs unaccompanied or the way I practise them - with just the melody played on my keyboard, set to the "piano" voice...? I have, so far, recorded "The Water is Wide" the latter way - and with a tenor-recorder intro.
And some frankness from you, DS - how has your folk-music learning-curve been? Did you learn most of what you now know in your first enthusiastic year or two? Has it levelled-off at all? Has it gone all pear-shaped?!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 22 May 08 - 12:33 PM

how has your folk-music learning-curve been? Did you learn most of what you now know in your first enthusiastic year or two? Has it levelled-off at all? Has it gone all pear-shaped?!

Speaking for myself, WAV - I've been an active participant in Folk & Traditional Song now since I was fourteen in 1976, and I'm still learning the ropes, and still making new and momentous discoveries. That said, I suppose by 1980 I might have thought I knew it all too, but I was only 18, four years a folk singer (amongst other things!), but 28 years down the line, aged 46 (which is still young for the baby-boomer folk scene!) I'm still getting to grips with it, and still enjoying the process of being a folk-singer which is an end in itself. It never levels off, let alone go pear-shaped, because no matter where you're at, you can always be better.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 22 May 08 - 12:46 PM

" you may find I was a folkie before I was a folkie." Sorry, no you weren't, nor do I believe you are now. My learning is on-going, one day at a time, one tune at a time, one set of lyrics at a time, and , you know, I still don't know anywhere near enough songs, and I've at it for forty years, if you want to talk about time quantity. Other than as a point of reference, Walkaboutsverse, I have absolutley NO interest in your work, and anyone that suggests they learned most of what they know and I quote "I'd say I learn about 80% of what goes on in the first couple of months (not years)" I'd say not.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 22 May 08 - 01:06 PM

"People seem to get highly agitated over the ramblings of this silly man but are quite willing to let statements that -

[before traditional songs are collected they are] Unknown. I'm sure many, many other songs were sung in the 'tradition' (I hate that term, can't think of a more convenient one) but if they weren't collected, or mentioned anywhere, how can we know about them? Volgadon

go by unchallenged.

Who is "we" in this context, Volgadon?"

Anyone that isn't part of the 'tradition'. As much as I love Walter Pardon, Harry Cox, etc., I won't kid myself, I'm not part of that.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 22 May 08 - 01:07 PM

"1980 I might have thought I knew it all too" (Sedayne)...okay - except for the "too", as I just said I'm still learning, and even gave an e.g. of something I'm currently trying to figure-out (see above, again). And your last quote was regarding manufacturing, DS.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 22 May 08 - 01:09 PM

20 years and counting here - and I consider myself a neophyte. So much still to learn, and I learn so much from the people here - not because they have a "degree in humanities" but because many of them have engaged in serious, specific academic study about folk music and traditions. They have context for their opinions, they can cite academic references - heck, some of them ARE the academic references.

As I said often to your friend Lizzie: more listening and less talking wouldn't go amiss. And it would keep you from looking like a complete numpty most of the time.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 22 May 08 - 01:11 PM

You are twisting peoeple's words again, WAV. I'm quite certain that DS wasn't talking about manufacturing. Love how you tell people what they ment.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: TheSnail
Date: 22 May 08 - 01:19 PM

Me

Who is "we" in this context, Volgadon?"

GUEST,Volgadon

Anyone that isn't part of the 'tradition'. As much as I love Walter Pardon, Harry Cox, etc., I won't kid myself, I'm not part of that.

Since I don't seem to be getting my point over, I'd better spell it out. When a song is collected, it is already known to the person it was collected from. It is known to others in their community. It was known by the person they learnt it from and possibly had been for many generations before that. It doesn't suddenly become traditional because someone outside the community collected it.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 22 May 08 - 01:22 PM

But I was talking about manufacturing in that quote of mine, Volgadon.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 22 May 08 - 01:28 PM

Snail, I'm not saying that it wasn't traditional, my definition only applies to WAV's argument that songs with a known author can't be trad. How do we, those of us on this forum, in 2008, know what was trad? Someone collected or noted them down.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 22 May 08 - 01:44 PM

"WAV's argument that songs with a known author can't be trad"...I stand by that, Volgadon. And, for another e.g., Ewan MacColl's songs will never be trad. - because (C), (P), modern technology, etc., will not allow the fact that they are his to be forgotten, even if some mistakenly think they are singing a trad. song or don't show due respect.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 22 May 08 - 02:00 PM

It is my unlearned opinion that Walkaboutsverse doesn't know what he's talking about, and I concur with the poster, Ruth Archer, more listening and less talking, on your part, wouldn't go amiss. How does that old saying go? Better to be silent and appear to be a complete fool, than to open one's mouth and have it confirmed. I think we know which way you've gone, Walkaboutsverse

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 22 May 08 - 02:40 PM

Hollow words, DS. - addressed to someone with 4 tech. certificates and a major in anthropology, with distinctions. I just watched, and read all the subtitles to, a Scottish Gaelic BBC TV programme on Alan Lomax - who did NOT say that those trained in anthropology should stay out of the folk scene. You are deluding yourself.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 22 May 08 - 02:52 PM

Indeed..addressed to someone with 4 tech. certificates and a major in anthropology, with distinctions.
Funny you should say that Walkaboutsverse, I was thinking, only the the other day about how some of the brightest, most aware people, I have ever met have never spent a day inside a college or university, conversely some of the stupidest people I've ever met have degrees and certificates coming out of their ears. (there are exceptions of course) Nothing quite matches actual experience out there on the road.Gigging is what I'm talking about, night after night on the grind. Eliza Carthy and her parent can tell you all about that, indeed many Mudcatters can probably tell you tales of the road, that would make your hair curl, not that you'd listen, hiding there behind your 4 tech. certificates and a major in anthropology, with distinctions. Try gigging for 10 or 12 years then some back and tell us ALL about it, until then,
Better to be silent and appear to be a complete fool, than to open one's mouth and have it confirmed

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 22 May 08 - 03:08 PM

Having a BA in humanities with a major in anthropology does not make you a trained anthropologist.

While DS is right, let's not forget that there are also people who contribute to Mudcat who have got some seriously impressive post-grad qualifications, as well as having specifically studied folk song and culture. But somehow, they don't feel compelled to mention these things in every post.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 22 May 08 - 03:08 PM

More TV--and presumably, more instant soup--there are a few people here who actually knew and worked with Mr. Lomax, lots of people who have studied his books, and lots more who have listened studiously to his recordings, and a bunch of people who have learned how to play and sing music that he collected--that's what it's about here--

So diid you listen to the music clips? What did you think?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 22 May 08 - 03:24 PM

Ruth Archer said, they don't feel compelled to mention these things in every post. Well funny you should say that, I have ;-D..... nope, not going to give Walkaboutsverse the satisfaction, suffice to say I have a couple of relevant qualifications.

While we're at it, lets not forget some more of the real heroes, those that work behind the scenes to make the festivals, concerts and competitions happen, so you, Walkaboutsverse, can enter them, that's real work and frustration, putting them together. The educators, those that go out and remind people of the music, who go into the classrooms and show children what it's all about , regardless of their countries of origin. I love multicultural societies, particularly in England, it adds SO much to the country ; don't you think?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: TheSnail
Date: 22 May 08 - 03:30 PM

GUEST,Volgadon

Snail, I'm not saying that it wasn't traditional, my definition only applies to WAV's argument that songs with a known author can't be trad. How do we, those of us on this forum, in 2008, know what was trad? Someone collected or noted them down.

OK, I sort of see your point, it's just that the way you said it, you seemed to be saying that being collected defined something as traditional especially when you followed it up by saying that a song that hadn't been collected was "Unknown" when it must obviously have been very well known to some people.

As to the point you are making, I fear you are falling into the trap of "If WAV says it, it must be wrong."

I consider traditional as something collected. By your reasoning, if Joseph Taylor or Walter Pardon sang something by a known author, it isn't traditional?

For an opinion on that, see here.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Sandman
Date: 22 May 08 - 03:30 PM

walkabout take this,Willie of the Winsbury without any melody,ALL CHORDS,hope you like it http://www.soundlantern.com/UpdatedSoundPage.do?ToId=1889&Path=willieofwinsbury2.mp3

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 22 May 08 - 03:44 PM

I only mention my CV in my defence, when such terms as "fool" DS are used against me, rather than discussing what I've actually posted - and if you check back, you DID do that.
I said "trained in anthropology" Ruth - and that's a fact (I was, for the record, offered a post grad. place, but turned it down).
To M.TED: it was mostly people (Gaels) talking about his visit, with a few snippets - but I have heard a lot of suchlike on Gaelic radio, which I've enjoyed.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 22 May 08 - 03:56 PM

No, Walkaboutsverse YOU constantly mention your CV..oh I did read back..I was making a general observation using the phrase, only YOU would try and turn something back on another person as has been noted already and not just by me. and what you've actually posted has no basis in any reality I know of, and as I HAVE already stated you've made various claims that are unsubstantiatable. Again, try listening to others instead of your own voice, you just might learn something

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 22 May 08 - 03:58 PM

Captain many thanks for that link, a very good rendition indeed, and it's all chords...ooops did I say that? ;-D

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 22 May 08 - 04:05 PM

I have been "listening", DS...and, back to Chords in Folk?, did anyone bother checking this sean-nos, which I posted above.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 22 May 08 - 04:16 PM

Using Wikipedia to try and prove an academic point regarding is not a good idea, to put it mildly. It's reliability in many areas is questionable at best. Besides which this (Sean-nos) but ONE tradition.
I hope you're not attempting what I think you're attempting (using sean-nos to somehow "prove" that chords don't exist in folk music)

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 22 May 08 - 04:22 PM

"I only mention my CV in my defence, when such terms as "fool" DS are used against me,"

And if you think a BA in humanities with a major in anthropology makes you an expert on folk song, and more qualified to pronounce on it than others here (which is most certainly what you have implied), you deserve the epithet of fool. There are people here with qualifications in ethnomusicology, for heaven's sake, who have studied English folk song extensively.

In any case, and regardless of your qualifications, many of your assertions are highly suspect from an academic point of view. When you did your degree, did you not have to prove some level of research for your theses? Did you not have to provide a reliable range of sources? In posing some of your theories here, you provide maybe one piece of evidence to represent an entire national body of work (ie, one recording of Joseph Taylor means this is the way everyone sang).

Very poor. See me after class.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 22 May 08 - 04:26 PM

Oh, oh...Walkaboutsverse has been called to the beek's office :-D

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 22 May 08 - 04:27 PM

Every contributor to this thread, apart from himself, thinks that WAV is talking bollocks.

Why can't we just agree that, and agree to ignore him? Is there any gppd reason to keep this thread active?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: glueman
Date: 22 May 08 - 04:49 PM

Does the title imply that non-polyphonic note formations are inherently folkish? By that token the cheesiest bluegrass tune would qualify by virtue of staccato right hand plucking whatever fancy shapes the left hand was making. Or does rapidity blur the boundaries, the aural equivalent of persistence of vision? Can an angel dance in the gaps?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 22 May 08 - 04:57 PM

This MIGHT (though I doubt it) be of interst to Walkaboutsverse, writtn by non other than the esteemed Mr. John Kirkpatrick

What English Folk Music by John Kirkpatrick

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 22 May 08 - 05:37 PM

Some of the links on this never-dead thread, DS, have been new to me, but not the one you just posted - I read it a couple of years ago, and, for what it's worth, agree with JK on some things.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 22 May 08 - 05:43 PM

Just as well - JK does more for folk music just by getting out of bed in the mornings than you would achieve in a multitude of lifetimes, WAV.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 22 May 08 - 05:53 PM

An amazing performer, Ruth, I've seen him a number of times, both alone and with various others. I'll very likely be down to London on 18th October for the ceilidh at Cecil Sharp House with JK and Mr. Gubbins' Bicycle

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Don Firth
Date: 22 May 08 - 06:17 PM

"It's a bit more than 'two weeks' into folk for me Don - it was 4 years ago that I first turned up at a folk club, and a year later I started playing recorders and keyboards, and learning those beloved single-line melodies that English folk music, at least, is mostly, NOT all, about."

It's all relative, WAV. So you've been at it for four years, have been attending folk clubs, and for three years playing single line melodies on a recorder (now, playing two lines on one recorder—now that's virtuosity!) and hunt-and-pecking on a keyboard. Good for you!

I used to hear Alan Lomax ("American School of the Air") on the radio when I was a kid, listened to Burl Ives on the radio ("The Wayfaring Stranger") when I was a teenager, saw Susan Reed in a movie in 1948 ("Glamour Girl"—lousy movie, good singing by Susan). I started actively learning folk songs (American and British Isles) and bought my first guitar in 1952 (you do the math), and I've been at it ever since. In addition to majoring in English Literature and Music in college, I studied folk balladry (Child ballads and the compilations of other collectors, along with field recordings), from Dr. David C. Fowler (A Literary History of the Popular Ballad, Duke University Press, 1968, plus a number of books on medieval scholarship). In 1958, I was asked to do a television series on what is now the local PBS affiliate entitled "Ballads and Books," sponsored by the Seattle Public Library. This series was followed by other television appearances, concerts, "hootenannies," folk festivals, and when not thus engaged, I sang regularly in clubs and coffeehouses.

I addition to academic papers I have written in school, I have had some seventeen articles on various aspects of traditional song published in music magazines amd journals.

In my various perambulations I've met, talked with, and sometimes swapped songs with well-known performers and personalities in the folk music field, including four Seegers, Pete, Peggy, Mike, and patriarch and ethnomusicologist, Charles Seeger. I knew Sandy Paton (founder of Folk-Legacy Records) when he lived in Seattle. A long list of recording artists such as Richard Dyer-Bennet, Joan Baez, Jean Redpath, and Theodore Bikel, plus scholars in the field like the aforementioned Charles Seeger, and folklorists Archie Green and Roger Abrahams.

This is barely scratching the surface of my musical CV, but you get the idea. I have been at it for awhile and I believe I know quite a bit about folk music, it's history, and the manner in which it was and is performed. And I am most certainly not the only one here on Mudcat. There are those here whose knowledge and experience far exceeds my own.

So, WAV, you are like a relatively new convert who is trying to preach, not to the congregation, not to the choir, but you are trying to explain theology to a large number of priests, vicars, ministers, rabbis, and imams.

There is a story about a young man who wanted to know the meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything. He went to a well-known master and told him what he wanted to learn. But he explained to the master that he had already read a great deal and studied diligently.   In fact, he told the old lama that he was quite proud of how much he had learned and was on the verge of explaining it to him in detail, when the lama said, "Let us have a cup of tea first."

When the tea was made and the cups were set out, the lama pushed the pot toward the young man. The young man filled his cup. Then he pushed the pot back to the lama. The lama then took the pot and began to pour more tea into the young man's cup. It overflowed onto the table, but the lama kept pouring until it ran off the table into the lap of the young man's brand new monk's robe.

The young man leaped up from the table and said, "What are you doing, you old fool?"

The lama smiled benignly and said, "This is your first lesson, and I would have you go meditate on it."

"My first lesson? What do you mean?"

"You come to me already so full of knowledge that there is no room for you to learn anything more. Go and meditate."

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 22 May 08 - 06:20 PM

"An amazing performer, Ruth, I've seen him a number of times, both alone and with various others. I'll very likely be down to London on 18th October for the ceilidh at Cecil Sharp House with JK and Mr. Gubbins' Bicycle"

Good news! And don't miss the Vaughan Williams event at CSH on the 4th of October, either!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 22 May 08 - 06:23 PM

Re: Don Firth's post: well said. There endeth the lesson.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 23 May 08 - 05:11 AM

To Don Firth: so what do you call the chants, drums and flauting of Amerindians?..."traditional American music"?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 23 May 08 - 09:15 AM

"...if that someone records it onto a C.D., Foolestroupe, the word "traditional" will/should appear next to its name"

Wrong.

If the author's name is written on that sheet of paper, then it is NOT 'traditional'... IT IS BY A KNOWN AUTHOR :-)

... even if it is also 'traditional...

:-P

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 23 May 08 - 10:37 AM

Bur the "..." context here is important as "that someone" was a hypothetical collector of a song of unknown authorship, if you look back, Foolestroupe.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 23 May 08 - 11:12 AM

All this time quibbling over how to define what is, in effect, an entirely nebulous piece of conceptualisation, could be spent expanding our repertoires and sourcing (and polishing) the songs we already know. To this end I've just been blowing the cobwebs off Peter Bellamy's Abe Carmen; not the one as sung by Bert Lloyd on The Transports album, but the re-write he was forced to do when one producer thought the original somehow too jaunty for what was, essentially, a goodnight ballad. PB recorded this on the album he did for EFSDSS (Second Wind, 1985) but I believe these days it's largely forgotten as the original has been sung in subsequent productions. Traditional or not, it nevertheless has a splendid provenance, a known author who was a master of the traditional idiom, as evidenced by his settings of Rudyard Kipling, and is a killer piece of song-writing in itself.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 23 May 08 - 11:24 AM

On that, Sedayne, it would be nice to be able to borrow either the Oxford or the Penguin books of English folk songs, but they were not within the system when I asked at the library. Mainly, I've used Mudcat's DigiTrad...but can anyone report on what those books are like - do they give both tune and chords, or just the tune, with the lyrics?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,John from Kemsing
Date: 23 May 08 - 11:35 AM

WAV,
      "Marrowbones" gives words, melody and chords.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 23 May 08 - 12:29 PM

Mudcat's a good place to start but there are some alarming omissions; better still is to dig into the threads themselves, where one finds songs not included & some highly informed discussion on variants. The Penguin Book has been touched by the hand of Bert Lloyd and may not be all it pretends to be, but still an invaluable reference book. I would have though such a book would be a permanent fixture on the bookshelves of anyone with even a passing interest in traditional song. The songs are given with single-line melody, with a few examples of suggested accompaniment, but being musically illiterate (not out of choice, it's actually a form of dyslexia) this doesn't bother me in the slightest, tending as I do to source songs from singers & recordings, and effect my own accompaniments accordingly*.

I believe there is a new edition, with EC on the cover, rather than the old dancing bear, but otherwise it's the same book. The deeper you dig the better it is, generally speaking. Scour the second-hand bookshops & flee-markets - there's some good book stalls at Tynemouth Station on a Saturday where I've picked up any amount of old ballad collections and stuff; Bob Copper's A Song for All Seasons for example and the invaluable Faber Book of Popular Verse.

* Interesting perhaps in the context of this thread, is that whilst I do use a variety of instruments to accompany my performances, I rarely deviate from the melody of the song I'm singing, nor ever use chords as such.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 23 May 08 - 12:32 PM

Don, a very well told tale indeed. There are those who need to pay attention to it.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 23 May 08 - 12:36 PM

"Bob Copper's A Song for All Seasons "
I recently picked this up at a library sale near where I live. I must admit my knowledge of The Coppers was minimal at best, but this book has opened up whole new vistas for me, so you see, Walkaboutsverse you can never know it all, you can never ever stop learning. Someone said to me once, to stop learning is to stop living. I believe that.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 23 May 08 - 12:41 PM

Thanks for Tynemouth Station market, Sedayne, I'll try there sometime. I actually got Hymns Ancient and Modern from the Oxfam shop in Newcastle - so I no longer have to keep bothering the local library for that one.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 23 May 08 - 01:04 PM

One of the likeable qualities of the late great Bob Copper, DS, is that he was secure in himself, and didn't get the urge to repeatedly take cheap-shots at someone.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 23 May 08 - 01:24 PM

Oh, I am extremely secure in myself, boy, you, on the other hand seem to have this need to constantly remind people of your qualifications, your alleged accomplishments etc etc. You annoy me to no end, you are egotistical, you think yourself better and more qualified than anyone else here (which I assure you, you are not) As Ruth Archer has stated, there are those here with more than you can ever hope to have or hope to be and yet, they do not feel the need to brag about it. I would hazard a guess that your need to brag is itself rooted in insecurity, and you feel the need to pass what is in you off onto someone else. There is nothing cheap about what I say to you, I am, in fact, investing more than I think you're worth in what I do say. You'll never learn because you think you know it all already and because of that, and once more Ruth Archer has the right of it, you are plain and simply a fool, and bore.

Dismissed.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 May 08 - 01:31 PM

"To Don Firth: so what do you call the chants, drums and flauting of Amerindians?... 'traditional American music'?"

First of all, Native American music is not my field of study, so I would leave the terminology to those whose field it is. Unless informed otherwise by someone qualified to speak on the subject, I would probably refer to it as "traditional Native American music."

So what's your point in asking that question?

Don Firth

P. S. Not to put too fine a point on it, I try not to pontificate on subjects I know little about. I listen to those who do know.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 23 May 08 - 02:37 PM

I looked at that link, TheSnail, I wasn't talking about music hall songs, but 'folk' songs, say something 18th century, with a known author.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Nigel Spencer
Date: 23 May 08 - 03:57 PM

"And please note: this is my only discussion forum since getting locked out of Harvest Home owing to a technical glitch since we switched to Fire-Fox".

Please come back, Sedayne! It's dull without you and we all feel terribly lonely. They let me in with Firefox...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Snuffy
Date: 23 May 08 - 04:12 PM

From the Introduction by Vaughan-Williams and Lloyd to the Penguin Book of English Folk Songs

We would like to give a few suggestions for singing the songs in this book. The ideal way to sing an English folk song, of course, is unaccompanied. Our melodies were made to be sung that way, and much of their tonal beauty and delightful suppleness comes from the fact that they have been traditionally free from harmonic or rhythmic accompaniment. They are best suited to stand on their own, and we rather agree with the Dorset countryman who commented on the professional singer of folk songs: 'Of course it's nice for him to have the piano when he's singing, but it does make it very awkward for the listener.'

However, for those to whom the unaccompanied voice seems naked, there is no harm in adding a few supporting chords on the pianoforte, guitar, or other instrument, provided the chords are in keeping with the style of the tune. Special care needs to be taken when accompanying modal tunes, where the chords should be strictly in the mode. As to which instruments should or should not be used for folk song accompaniment, this is entirely a matter of choice. The fashionable guitar has no more traditional sanction than the less fashionable pianoforte. The concertina, mouth-organ, fiddle, banjo, zither, spoons, bones, even the harmonium have all been used as accompaniment to country singers without necessarily resulting in a performance that sounds more 'right' than that given by the voice unadorned. On pages xxi and xxii we print a few examples of the way in which , in our opinion, the songs might be harmonised. But we hope that our readers will sing the songs unaccompanied as much as possible.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 23 May 08 - 04:54 PM

So, without being stuffy, doesn't that, from Snuffy, bring us back to what I said about half way through this never dead thread - it's wrong to say that English traditional music is ALL about the tune; it's not wrong to say that it's MOSTLY about the tune?...but, frankly, I'm still not sure if I should record (some) of my own selection of E. trads with the single-line melody on keyboards..? But spare a thought for Sedayne - pulled from pillar to post/Mudcat to Harvest Home by adoring fans!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 23 May 08 - 05:30 PM

You're the only one that really cares, because when alls said and this really all about you isn't it? what you do, what you sing, what you think, your websites you twist others ideas around to make it sound like you thought of it, you twist other people's words around to make it sound like those people agree with you.

"doesn't that, from Snuffy, bring us back to what I said about half way through this never dead thread?

No it doesn't.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST
Date: 23 May 08 - 06:30 PM

but, frankly, I'm still not sure if I should record (some) of my own selection of E. trads with the single-line melody on keyboards..?

As long as you record them, any way will do. You have a brilliant voice. It shines in the same way that your poetry does.

Keep up the good work, and forget what everyone else says. You are the man!

You may even be God!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 23 May 08 - 06:51 PM

it's wrong to say that English traditional music is ALL about the tune; it's not wrong to say that it's MOSTLY about the tune?.

IMO, English traditional songs are MOSTLY about the words. However you do it, the chosen tune is a device to carry the words.

With the dance music. I would say the rhythm is more than the melody itself (or possible accompaniment).


fwiw and just my outlook: Re chords and harmonies, personally I don't see anything untraditional in using or not using them as you see right for the piece in question and as resources allow. I can't explain it but I'd suggest it really comes down to what you feel is in keeping and fits with that.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 23 May 08 - 07:23 PM

600

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,cStu
Date: 23 May 08 - 09:17 PM

Are you all still here?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Frank Hamilton
Date: 24 May 08 - 05:04 PM

Since a folk song had to start somewhere, it becomes a mystery as to whether it started
as a harmonized piece of music or an untrained melody suggesting chordal implications.
Most European-based music suggests harmony of some sort defined by chordal patterns that have survived in a specific tradition of music.

The unaccompanied ballad has its own merits but is by no means the definitive source.
Folk music is not classical music in that it tends to be a pastiche of varied influences and forms. The times the unaccompanied ballad sounds best is when the untrained musician leaves it alone and doesn't try to harmonize it without understanding the harmonic nature of the melody.

If folk music has a relevance today, then it requires a study of it historically and an interpretive input by contemporary standards. Without the latter, the performance of folk music is relegated to a slavish imitation of the past which is robbed of its true authenticity since it has been taken out of its historical time. Folk song scholarship is not just the unearthing of texts and their study but includes a musical timeline that can be identified.

There is something a bit oxymoronic about folk music scholarship. Folk music is a social music that defies putting it into a glass case or museum. It constantly changes. This is why a folk song has "variants".   A song may be sung one way on one side of town and different on the other side.

There is something to be said for an unaccompanied song but a case can be justly made for a "variant" that has a tasteful accompaniment which may give it a new dimension.

As in the study of logic, the notion that "it has always been done this way" is a kind of
artistic fallacy. It may not have been.

Antiquarians are generally on the losing side of history.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 24 May 08 - 05:37 PM

"Folk music is not classical music in that it tends to be a pastiche of varied influences and forms" (Frank Hamilton)...on the contrary, I think folk is the more local and less "a pastiche of varied influences and forms."

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Sue Allan
Date: 24 May 08 - 07:10 PM

Folk music may be a local variant of varied influences and forms surely?

But what about Frank Hamilton's other points WAV? E:
(1) "the notion that 'it has always been done this way' is a kind of artistic fallacy. It may not have been."

Or:
(2)"the unaccompanied ballad has its own merits but is by no means the definitive source."

What's your response to these?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Tangledwood
Date: 24 May 08 - 07:19 PM

"I think folk is the more local and less "a pastiche of varied influences and forms." "

Are you referring to a specific piece of music or the entire genre?
The answer to that would surely give completely different conclusions.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Don Firth
Date: 24 May 08 - 07:44 PM

WAV, in the spirit of trying to avoid making an ass of yourself by arguing with those who have been involved deeply with folk music all their lives and who have impeccable credentials, you might make an effort to find out who Frank Hamilton is and try thinking a bit about what he says instead of just arguing with him out of your own ignorance.

More.

Still more

Unless you've been at something all your life (and sometimes even then), there are people you should just shut up and listen to. If you stop talking so much yourself, you might actually learn something.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 25 May 08 - 05:38 AM

I've answered that before, Sue, but I can understand someone not bothering to read the whole of this thread - English, e.g., folk-songs have been handed down and collectors have found them being sung unaccompanied; I'd mentioned Walton's book The Complete Angler, which gives verses and mentions of a song for a fish or two. The problem faced by modern folkies is addressed in the quote from The Penguin Book of English Folk Songs, provided by Snuffy, above - "for those to whom the unaccompanied voice seems naked"; and it's getting worse.
Tanglewood - when classical composers have wished to give a nod to nationalism, they have often turned to the folk music of their nation.
To Don - why should I bother addressing someone who keeps referring to the "ignorance" of another who did get distinctions in anthropology? However, I will say this - yes, some have been into folk for a long time: and their selections/choices may have been good or bad for all that time. Others, with a good background and some good fortune, may quickly work out the way to go.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 25 May 08 - 06:10 AM

Have you worked in anthropology, or did you just get distinctions in school?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 25 May 08 - 06:37 AM

No, Volgadon - to work in anthropology nearly always requires post grad. study, which I turned down.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 25 May 08 - 07:30 AM

Right, so isn't that slightly pretentious?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 25 May 08 - 07:38 AM

No, Volgadon - I think post grad. study requires a lot of academic effort, but, the fact is, it nearly always involves focusing a lot time on some micro matter, which I didn't go for; however, the undergrad. courses I took were good and comprehensive, I feel.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 25 May 08 - 09:42 AM

So, you haven't done anything with it for over 20 years?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 25 May 08 - 10:09 AM

After it, and travel, Volgamum!, I put pen to paper for Walkabouts: travels and conclusions in verse, and Chants from Walkabouts - see walkaboutsverse.741.com
(Also, any degree in humanities is, of course, relevant to any kind of supervision/management, which I've done in the past.)

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Don Firth
Date: 25 May 08 - 01:52 PM

WAV, we (and this includes you) are all ignorant in many fields. If you have distinctions in anthropology, that may qualify you to speak with a measure of authority in that field (although from what you said subsequently, it doesn't sound like you've followed it up very extensively). Actually, even an advanced degree in anthropology does not qualify you to speak with authority on astronomy, nuclear physics, Baroque music, neurosurgery—or ethnomusicology (which happens to be the academic term for the subject of this thread's discussion).

I, for one, have long been fascinated by astronomy and all things relating to it, which includes theoretical physics. It was not my major field of study in college (English Literature and Music were), but I took two astronomy courses in college and have read extensively in the field, and I definitely know more than the average person on the subject. However—if I were fortunate enough to find myself talking with someone such as Michio Kaku or Stephen Hawking, I would ask many questions, but then I would shut up and listen to what they have to say. I would not pontificate to them and try to show them how full my tea cup is (see parable in above post). This would be too good an opportunity for me to listen and learn.

If, indeed, learning is the goal. Pontificating may pump up one's ego, but it cuts off the opportunity to expand one's knowledge.

Folk music is such a varied and extensive field of study that four years' acquaintance with it, even deep immersion in it, doesn't even serve out an apprenticeship. There are many highly knowledgeable people here on this web forum, and Frank Hamilton (have you checked the links?) is one of the most knowledgeable.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 25 May 08 - 02:11 PM

Is "pontificate" your word of the week, Don?...does this strike a chord?...

Poem: 79 of 230: PIE IN THE SKY?

From our early childhood,
    We're taught to glorify
Conquering the earth's neighbourhood -
    Shouldn't we question why?

Satellites can aid sibling-hood,
    But some missions could buy
A start for millions to make good -
    Is Mars "pie in the sky"?

From walkaboutsverse.741.com

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 25 May 08 - 02:49 PM

WalksaboutHearse, you haven't actually worked in the field of anthropology much though, if at all?
I'm not terribly impressed by you having had distinctions in a basic course 20+ years ago and as far as travels go, you haven't actually lived in any of those 40 countries.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 25 May 08 - 03:02 PM

Well, Volgadon, if we are not too impressed by each other, at least we should be reasonable relaxed if we ever meet - in this life or the post-hearse one.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Don Firth
Date: 25 May 08 - 03:15 PM

WAV, in reference to your insistence that traditional folk singers only sang the "top line melody" and did not make use of harmony or instrumental accompaniment when available.

pon•tif•i•cate   intransitive verb
Etymology:   Medieval Latin pontificatus, past participle of pontificare, from Latin pontific-, pontifex
Date:   1818
Definition 2:   to speak or express opinions in a pompous or dogmatic way.

Traditional singers often did sing together in harmony (ever hear field recordings of a group of women singing waulking songs?), and were known to use musical instruments to accompany songs if they had instruments and could play them. The harp has been associated with Gaelic song for at least 1,000 years and probably much longer. Otherwise, they sang without accompaniment—by default, not necessarily by choice. Because collectors may not have heard them do this does not mean that it wasn't done. The fact is that many collectors have heard this.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 25 May 08 - 04:28 PM

To Don: the waulking songs I've heard are in unison - same task, same tune, same rhythm; someone sings the verse, then the group join in for the chorus, in unison.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Don Firth
Date: 25 May 08 - 05:29 PM

Well, I've heard that too. But I've also heard harmonies.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: TheSnail
Date: 28 May 08 - 08:34 AM

GUEST,Volgadon

I looked at that link, TheSnail, I wasn't talking about music hall songs, but 'folk' songs, say something 18th century, with a known author

You seem to be narrowing your definition. Can you provide any examples?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Frank Hamilton
Date: 28 May 08 - 04:56 PM

Folk music is not pure therefore it is a pastiche regardless of what locality from which it comes. it contains influences of other forms of music and that's what makes it "folk" because it is recognizable. Classical music is the construct of a single composer. There is no pure "race" and as an analogy, no pure folk music.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Frank Hamilton
Date: 28 May 08 - 05:11 PM

What makes folk music accessible is its ability to reach people because somehow they've heard it before. This could also be said for popular music but in the folk traditions, they are generally a cultural phenomenon and not manufactured for a market.

Folk music regardless of where it emanates has to have an element of being derivative
of some other form of music not attached to the associated culture.

This would be true of Australian music or any other national form.

Chords characterize a style of music. The selection of chords determine this.

Mainly, chords in folk music reflect European-based derivatives. The reason is that
Europe really employed more sophisticated harmonic structural values rather than rhythmic or microtonal scales as found in other less Europeanized music.

Even the highly isolated or regionalized music of for example, the Appalachians contain elements of Europeanized music and even the African-American blues and offshoots from this are derived from hymns, marching bands, classical piano compositions (employed by Scott Joplin or Jelly Roll Morton) however there may be some notable exceptions to this by early forms of field hollers and quills and mouthbow or early banjo playing that come from African musical forms. But the 12 bar blues owes its form to conventional chord progressions even though the melodies deviate from standard European forms.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: s&r
Date: 15 Oct 08 - 06:33 PM

"Also, any degree in humanities is, of course, relevant to any kind of supervision/management, which I've done in the past."

To which of the following does this statement not apply?


Humanities subjects(Some university or other)

American Studies
Arabic and Hebrew
Archaeology
Art History
Classics
Cultural Studies
Dutch
English
European and East-European Studies
Film and Television studies
French
German
History
Information Science
Italian
Linguistics
Literary Studies
Modern Greek and Byzantine studies
Musicology
Philosophy
Portuguese
Religious Studies
Scandinavian languages and literature
Slavonic languages and literature
Spanish
Theatre Studies

Stu

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,EricTheOrange
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 03:12 AM

Does anybody still believe this guys got a degree? Look at how he debates and the arguments he forms. He's so ignorant I think he's a liar as well as a fool.