English Folk Degree?

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 03:34 PM

WAV, what are you going to do about it beyond whinging? I know you aren't going to answer my question, at any rate.

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 03:35 PM

Steve Gardham, it's a good point, well made. I, too, know several of the tutors and numerous graduates and have made the same points as you.

Why keep going on? Well, look at WAV's track record. He doesn't just spout this stuff on Mudcat. He spams the internet with his verses and his political opinions. He has "gifted" libraries with his work.

Now, we know he's a sad, backward nutter. But what he's doing is spreading the word that his risible politics are linked with English folk. It's the worst kind of damage to the tradition.

When this thread dies, he'll start another, and another. Again, so what - just ignore him, right? But what about the people who surf in and see his nasty insularity go unchallenged?

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: peregrina
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 03:37 PM

WAV: an archaeologist once said that humans are a diasporic species. We all started in Africa and spread across the globe.

Stories and music have spread just as widely: with people on the move, and by being passed on--look at a folklore motif index if you want one illustration of this. Or, as others have pointed out, the transmission of the ballads.

England itself is an amalgam of people and languages and has been constantly changed (and culturally enriched) by incomers: celts, romans, angles, saxons, jutes, scandinavians from various areas, normans and so on--and that's a very incomplete list for the first millennium. The richness of the English language itself reflects all of these peoples' speech.
For populations and culture (including music), all is flux, always has been and will be. If you don't agree, just try subtracting all the non-Anglo-Saxon words from your own conversation and poetry.

Building walls has never worked. We are one species and that's part of why foreign stories and music can touch us enough to lead us to want to adopt them--these things belong to us all and can be shared.

In the long term national boundaries will continue to shift and cultural activities will evolve and be enriched by exchange. Building walls has never worked. Not in Berlin. Not in Cyprus. Not for the Romans. You can't pull up the drawbridge now either. Throughout history, political movements that try to enshrine a 'moment of primary acquisition' lead to violence, exclusion, racial ideology.

If you are worried that English traditional music (or better, the diversity of English regional musical cultures) won't survive without the fiat of a university syllabus, then think again. Or maybe try to be the kind of ambassador for the tradition who can make others want to learn the songs and tunes.

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 03:41 PM

And if you keep repeating the lie, it becomes the truth? No it does not

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: irishenglish
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 03:49 PM

No WAV, I'd have to GET a frank answer from you on any of the many questions myself and others have asked you for you to even be able to say that. You evade direct questions. Why if you could eliminate what you perceive to be attacks upon you, do you answer with prose, or quotes from other threads? Perhaps if you answered directly you might not be getting misunderstood or attacked. Again and again, you quote this poem, or that poem, or something that has no relation to the direct question asked upon you. That is evading the question.

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 03:50 PM

Ruth,
Yes you are right.I concur. This is how the Nazis got started, people turning a blind eye to false propaganda and ideologies.

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 03:50 PM

Why not increase the size of the department in Glasgow to accommodate more Scottish students, and change the degree in Newcastle to one in English folk music, to match that in Glasgow, and Limerick?

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 03:53 PM

I answered the questions please see Here ;-)

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 03:56 PM

WAV said, "Why not increase the size of the department in Glasgow to accommodate more Scottish students, and change the degree in Newcastle to one in English folk music"

Sorry I don't see the British tax payers going for this one, because it would be they who'd end up footing the bill, make no mistake. It simply is not going to happen.

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: glueman
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 03:57 PM

It would be nice to think this thread would die of ennui. OTOH folk does have the whiff of swivel-eyed zealotry about it and if the topic burns itself out here rather than growing like weeds in every other thread I'm happy to keep feeding it.

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 04:02 PM

glueman, it would also entail WAV going away and never coming back, but unfortunately, that isn't going to happen!

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: GUEST,Referee
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 04:03 PM

Democracy, that most English of all English institutions, should have the final say here.

It's increasingly clear to me
That WAV's English Folk Music degree'
Has no real concensus
And insults the senses
Of most English folk here,
You'd agree?

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 04:10 PM

Guest, Refereee, how very McGonagall of you :-D

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 04:14 PM

No - "Off-side, Ref."...there could be a silent majority who want that degree just as much as me; and fancy a "final say" ending with the question "You'd agree?"

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 04:14 PM

From the poet McGoonagal

Fellow citizens of Merry England
Are ye aware how Mudcatters have treated me?
Nay, I do not stare or make a fuss
When I tell ye they have sussed me
Which in my opinion is a great shame,
And a dishonour to England's name

I'll get my goat :-D

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 04:17 PM

WAV says, "there could be a silent majority who want that degree just as much as me"

You have no proof of this, it is all wishful thinking on your part

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: Sue Allan
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 04:31 PM

A degree course doesn't need to be LABELLED 'English Traditional Music' to include English traditional music.

Universities need to attract as many students as possible, and the fact that Scottish and Irish universities have undergraduate courses on musics of their respective countries is presumably because they've done their market research and know this is what students, and their tax payers, want. It's also a political thing, because those countries have historically needed to assert their identities as a response to perceived Anglicisation.

WAV fails to recognise that tunes and songs don't recognise geographical borders in their travels. The early collectors were set on finding a 'national music', but we've moved beyond that now, surely. Most (not all, eg Kidson) also prioritized orally transmitted songs as being in some sense 'pure' folk. We now know that broadsides, music hall, dialect poetry, printed music collections and even recordings have informed the kind of traditional folk music we all love.

The music of these isles is a wonderful kaleidoscope of songs and tunes: a rich mix indeed. As Greg Stephens says elsewhere: "there never was any such animal as 'English traditional music', just various different kinds of 'traditional music in England', quite a different concept altogether."

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 04:40 PM

Sue says, "'traditional music in England'"
I use regional music, to me there is no one "English Trad." There's the West Midlands, for example (where I'm from) It's from this locale that I use Christmas carols for my Christmas programme. I have performed that wonderfully strange song from Sussex, Come All You Little Streamers, learned from the singing of Shirley Collins

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 04:41 PM

Wav, I think it was Ruth on another thread, Scarborough Fair? gave the most pertinent answer to your question. Apparently it's all about economics/money and bums on seats. Ireland and Scotland can attract more students to their own causes from the native stock. We can't as yet, so we end up with those horrible foreigners in our universities! Horror of horrors! I live near Hull Uni and you can't step outside the door without tripping over half a dozen Chinese students.

Then again I organised a Traditional Song Forum meeting last year at Sheffield Uni Music Dept and the stars of the show were 3 Chinese singers/musicians, students on the Ethnomusiclogy course. How dare they invade our wonderful English folk song meetings!

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: irishenglish
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 04:42 PM

Absolutely Sue. Unfortunately, you, me and others have either already said this, or quoted from other sources regarding this point for the benefit of WAV. Just this morning I quoted for WAV's benefit from Reg Hall's notes to the Voice Of The People. Silence was the answer. Or another poem.

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 04:51 PM

I went out three hours ago, just after posting my question at 01:31 above. Ten more comments from WAV, but no reply. Quelle surprise.

you are trying to equate questioning immigration with racism, which most adults now know is NOT the case

This is starting to get annoying. Of course it's the case - how could it not be?

I'll rephrase that. The only way that "questioning immigration" would not equal "racism" would be if immigration were being questioned on grounds completely unrelated to 'race' and the concepts that cluster round it - nationality, ethnicity, culture, religion, etc. We could, for example, question whether anyone should be allowed to enter the country, and never mind where they worship or who their parents are.

But this obviously isn't the kind of "questioning" WAV has in mind. The man's a racist.

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 04:53 PM

I believe in the English nation AND the United Nations AND a degree in English folk music (inclusive of regional variations), to match what our good Scottish and Irish neighbours (with their regional variations) already have.

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: Sue Allan
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 04:59 PM

But what do you do about the 'English folk music' from the north of England (Cumbrian and Northumberland) with all the tunes and songs and variants thereof this region shares with Scotland? Some of the repertoire here is much more closely related to Scottish music than music styles and repertoires from the south of England. I repeat, songs and tunes don't heed geographical or political boundaries and need to be studied in their wider context. Perhaps it's a pity the Scottish and Irish courses aren't just called Traditional Folk Music courses ...

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: The Sandman
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 05:04 PM

to be fair to David Franks,I dont think he objects to foreigners playing English music,or have I misunderstood you Mr Franks.do you object to foreigners playing English music?
Richard Bridge also made an anti Irish remark,he has gone very quiet.,I think in his case it was just a thoughtless remark,which he probably now regrets,I have read a fair few of his posts and he never struck me as a racist.

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: irishenglish
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 05:04 PM

Heard that answer before WAV. Starting to sound like a broken record....er

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: Peter Beta
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 05:05 PM

Reading through this thread, it strikes me that there are basically two strands of opinion here: the bottom-feeding bigots...and WAV!

(Only partly in jest: here's a thought...how about if you people oppose intolerance and closed-mindedness, don't practice it. I think you all know what I'm talking about)

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: The Sandman
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 05:06 PM

verey good point Sue,someone living in BERWICK UPON TWEED,is likely to beinfluenced by scottish music more so than someone living in Devon

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 05:07 PM

Wav, (in desperation) You can do a degree in English folk music in most universities in England, probably anywhere for that matter. You might need a degree in something else first, but any University worth its salt that has a Music Dept will let you do an MMus or PhD if you can prove you can whack it. Sheffield, York, Hull, Newcastle, Leeds, Salford, etc etc. I was offered a PhD course in folk music at Sheffield Music Dept and I haven't even got a degree!

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 05:07 PM

WAV once more says. "I believe in the English nation AND the United Nations AND a degree in English folk music"

What DOES the UN have to do with any of this? I'll tell you, absolutely nothing, it's WAV's way of stating" I absolutely don't know what I'm talking about" He always takes this tack when confronted with direct questions for which he has no answers. It's all pseudo-nationalistic nonsense on WAV's part.

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: oggie
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 05:17 PM

The most enjoyable session I take part in is an occassional one at a Kurdish Cafe where there are a dozen or more of us, from different countries, who each play a tune we know and the rest join in as they will. What comes out can be radically different from what it started as. It's not "folk music" from any country, it's musicians exploring what unites and learning as we go.

There are no geographical boundaries (except to the funders).

Steve

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: glueman
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 05:20 PM

In answer to Peter Beta, I'm too old and ugly to care about people's politics enough to take them to task over it. I do resent a music form I hold dear being used as a Trojan horse to explore national identity in its more negative and macabre forms. Visionaries like Blake could hold the land sacred at the same time as looking beyond its boundaries, real and metaphorical. Imagined villages, like imagined nations are all very well but it depends on what they imagine, surely?
There are only so many threads you can open with a subtext of aren't we great, isn't everyone else trying to put us down and what should we be doing about it before goodwill evaporates.

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 05:32 PM

Don't you PC screamers know the song "The Old Alarum Clock"?

Don't you notice the Irish songs celebrating the deaths of the English?

You only notice when I pick up the song and parody a line from it?

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 05:35 PM

Sorry Peter Beta, if think for one moment, I am going to agree with any of WAV's nonsense, you've got another think coming. I think you what I'm talking about.

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 05:40 PM

Recorded, I think, by both the Dubliners and Dominic Behan.

The Old Alarm Clock
(Trad)
When first I came to London in the year of 'thirty-nine
The city looked so wonderful and the girls were so divine
But the coppers got suspicious and they soon gave me the knock
I was charged with being the owner of an old alarm clock

Oh next morning down by Marlborough Street I caused no little stir
The IRA were busy and the telephones did bar
Said the judge, I'm going to charge you with the possession of this machine
And I'm also going to charge you with the wearing of the green

Now says I to him , Your Honour, if you'll give me half a chance
I'll show you how my small machine can make the peelers dance
It ticks away politely till you get an awful shock
And it ticks away the gelignite in my old alarm clock

Said the judge, Now listen here, my man, and I'll tell you of our plan
For you and I are countrymen I do not give a damn
The only time you'll take is mine - ten years in Dartmoor dock
And you can count it by the ticking of your old alarm clock

Now this lonely Dartmoor city would put many in the jigs
The cell it isn't pretty and it isn't very big
Sure I'd long ago have left the place if I had only got
My couple of sticks of gelignite and my own alarm clock


Tune: The Garden Where the Praties Grow

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 05:43 PM

Thanks Steve - but I was aware of that, including knowing someone doing a PhD in Sheffield, who did the Honours degree in Newcastle, that I hope converts to an English folk degree, with close ties to the EFDSS in London. And to quote the just-mentioned Blake: "I will not cease from mental fight" (Jerusalem) toward this end.

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: Sue Allan
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 05:46 PM

Mental fight? Mental certainly. I can't believe we're still arguing with him.

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 05:47 PM

I'm far from PC, I simply won't have English Trad Arr. used as a vehicle for someone's nationalistic agenda
and you know what? That really isn't a very good song, no matter what country it come from.

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 06:21 PM

Actually, I don't think it's trad, but I have lost count of the times I've heard Irish singers sing it AT an English pub audience. No-one criticises that.

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 06:27 PM

I don't believe I said it was trad in the first place.It's not a very good song, as I did say, regardless of whether it's trad or not; so why would it deserve any notice, except of course if someone wanted to use it as a point of arguement.

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 06:27 PM

Oh, and while I'm at it

Wikipedia on "Roots"

Nothing to apologise for, I think.

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 06:29 PM

Now he's using the EFDSS in his bogus arguements. One word, DON'T! I will never be a "convert" to the idea of an English folk degree.

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: Def Shepard
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 06:31 PM

Oh no, not another who considers Wikipedia to be a reliable soucre ARRRRRRRGGGGHHH!!

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 06:32 PM

"Don't you PC screamers know the song "The Old Alarum Clock"?

Don't you notice the Irish songs celebrating the deaths of the English?

You only notice when I pick up the song and parody a line from it?"

The lyrics of a particular song (I've been to loads of Irish sessions and I've never heard it) is no excuse for making sweeping generalisations about the Irish people based on an outdated and offensive stereotype.

WAV, please leave the EFDSS out of your twisted political agenda. It is an inclusive organisation.

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: Sue Allan
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 06:35 PM

Interesting though that the Wikipedia article says "'Roots' is a work of the imagination rather than strict historical scholarship. It was an important event because it captured everyone's imagination." A metaphor for English (or Irish, or Scottish ... and why does no one ever mention Welsh?) traditional music then?

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: The Sandman
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 07:15 PM

Richard Bridge,Ihave never heard it before,I live in Ireland,and regularly play at Irish music sessions.
I asked you what you meant:no answer.
I think your remark was in poor taste,and easily could have appeared that you were reinforcing stereo types,eg all Irish people go around blowing people up.

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: melodeonboy
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 07:39 PM

Mmmmm...... The lynch mob is out and they're baying for the blood of the two heinous criminals: Richard "Bugsy" Bridge and WAV (well-armed Vern).

C'mon, you lot, ease off on the hysteria. I've seen "racist", "fascist", "BNP" and "Nazi" used on this thread, used by people who don't seem to fully understand their meaning (or is it just laziness?), and who, it would appear, have little or no first hand experience of such things. Some of the comments above are reminiscent of Basil Fawlty in "The Germans".

WAV's and Richard's views are certainly unfashionable in some quarters, and are not considered particularly PC in the present climate, where you can't say "boo" to a goose without being pulled up by some busybody, but I don't honestly think that either of them merit being name-called like that.

Calm down!

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: Peter Beta
Date: 04 Jun 08 - 02:15 AM

Indeed, but sadly it would appear that some have nothing better to do with their lives than engage in name-calling on internet forums. I know who I'd rather spend an evening with.

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: glueman
Date: 04 Jun 08 - 02:30 AM

Not a witch hunt. Just the same rot that defines so many people's idea of folk, the crap that's in its dna repeating itself over and over.

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 04 Jun 08 - 03:12 AM

Melodeonboy, WAV wants to limit immigration so as to preserve English culture. In what sense is that not racist?

And I'm still waiting for a reply to my question of last night - if you're against the country taking in any more of them now, what do you say about those of them who have arrived recently? What can you say, logically, except that you want them to leave?

I'm tired of playing Whack-a-mole with this twit. I'm beginning to doubt that he's got any interest in music at all - certainly he seems to have difficulty avoiding the topic of immigration. (And he can't say he wasn't warned.)
The next time he pops up, maybe we should just ignore him - let him commune with his 'silent majority'.

Subject: RE: English Folk Degree?
From: stallion
Date: 04 Jun 08 - 03:29 AM

I popped in to see what the latest offering on the nukey folkie degree course and found the thread to be way off topic, reading the latest threads I can't be arsed to read through and find the root. Anyway, I met a couple of undergraduates of the said course last weekend, excellent musicians but, I refer what I said in my earlier posts, in contrast to "The Young uns" who have confidence, charisma and no arrogance whatsoever.