Does it matter what music is called?

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 29 Jul 08 - 03:13 PM

P.S. If you don't know why a music is called what it is, you haven't studied it.

Frank

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 29 Jul 08 - 03:12 PM

Nick,

The problem is one of a broader perspective than a narrowing of definitions.
The educators are not at fault because their education was limited. Most of the people
who evaluate folk music today are not aware of other kinds of music and what they contribute to the folk process. There has always been an interactive relationship between formal musical composers and what we know as folk music. Many self-styled folk authorities have never heard of Jussi Bjorling or Cecil Taylor. It reinforces the old
bromide that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing". In short, folk music educators
have not been doing their job well enough, so you may have a point there.

To put a limitation on folk as to 60's or 70's is missing the point that folk music transcends eras or trends. There are so many practitioners in the folk revival that were at one time known but now forgotten as well as many traditional artists who emanate from
a specific cultural milieu. I remember that a narrow view of folklorists such as the one who refused to have Joan Baez at a UCLA folk concert because she wasn't "authentic" enough really caused a breach which didn't have to be there.

I submit that the very definition of folkmusic implies evolution and change. As there are
no pure racial stocks, there is no pure folksong as much as that concept has been idealized by romantic ex-urbanites or college sophomores.

Even at the period of the late 1940's and early 50's, the notion that folk music was somehow recognized is to deny the point that many of those who grew up in the Left-Wing Popular Front era did not support folk but preferred to dance to Benny Goodman.

Judy Collins is a fine artist and singer. "Turn Turn" is a Pete Seeger classic. In the sense that the song may be a folk-styled song, it doesn't represent a particular "folk" culture.
Judy has the breadth of musicianship and sophistication to know what's "folk" and what's not. She is a highly trained singer not unlike those who aspire to art song or opera or the best of popular music or Broadway stage. I never thought she was a folk singer in the way that we have come to know the term, although, like Jo Stafford, she did sing folksongs
quite well with a great deal of artistic integrity. "Texas" Gladden or Almeda Riddle she wasn't. (Jeannie Robertson or Margaret Barry as UK examples).

I don't know Jenna Reid, Christine Kydd or Janet Russell but I'm sure I would enjoy them
beside the fact that I appreciate "Big Bill" Broonzy or Doc Boggs as well. It is not confusing to me that they may sound different and have respective dissimilar musical backgrounds.


Ewan's raison d'etre was to revive the unaccompanied ballad tradition in music and I think he popularized this very well as did A.L. Lloyd and Frank Warner over here. They were concerned with the traditional aspects of folk music and not singer/songwriters which is
a different genre these days.

Although I am not familiar with Bob Copper and have heard the Watersons on occasion, I can attest to the fact that Taj Mahal has grasped and mastered the tradition from which he emanates.

I think that as a lover of music, you are not trapped into a wrong definition but perhaps
a narrowed definition given to you by those who have an incomplete grasp of music.

Much of what can be learned about any specific musical form is highly accessible today.
All it requires is the requisite time to absorb this information. The problem is that
the marketing of music tends to be about trends rather than valuable info.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: The Sandman
Date: 29 Jul 08 - 02:03 PM

Micheal Raven,cuts no ice with me.hornpipes /reels are interchangeable at the musicians discretion,some work, some dont.
IMO The Scholar works. IMO Madam Bonaparte does not The rest of the article seemed to be a promotion for a band.Dick Miles

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: The Sandman
Date: 29 Jul 08 - 01:34 PM

but the point is it is a set dance,like the Blackbird,the Garden of Daisies,Rodneys Glory,St Patricks Day.
It is a specific tune for a specific dance.
and if anyone ruins the Blackbird, by turning it into a reel,I will throw a pint of beer over them.
Madam Bonaparte is an irish set dance.I like the northumbrian variations but I do not like it as a reel.
Tootler, you are free to do with it what you will,but dont expect me to like it.
Jim Carroll,hi ,is it raining in Clare.
Dick Miles

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Tootler
Date: 29 Jul 08 - 11:40 AM

"Interesting article.
ha bloddy ha,since when has Madam Bonaparte,been a reel,its a set dance played as a hornpipe,whoever wrote this is an ignoramus."

Just because the article has an error does not mean the article is not interesting or have a useful point to make. You may not agree with it. I am not entirely sure about what the article is saying, but the author still has an interesting point to make. IMHO.

On your point about Madame Bonaparte, to quote from Michael Raven's book "One Thousand English Country Dance Tunes" on Hornpipes and Reels

"...Hornpipe and reel melodies are especially fluid in their application...By simply varying the tempo and lilt, the same tune can be made to serve both dances..."

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: MartinRyan
Date: 29 Jul 08 - 03:55 AM

Nice one, Richard, given that the target thread had been started by me!

Regards

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Jul 08 - 03:20 AM

Thanks for that Richard.
Hugh was a wonderful man; his book on narrative song should be top of the reading list of anybody with an interest in folk song - a man who had no problem in understanding and explaining the word.
There is a very strong case for gathering together Hugh's articles and publishing a selection of them; would make threads like these redundant.
Now I'll go and make myself a strong cup of coffee and try and work out the previous posting - still corpse-wrestling the Jimmy Miller/Ewan McColl battle after all these years I see Cap'n!
Can't work out who has earned your disapproval this time, but not everybody who makes mistakes is an ignoramus - we all do from time to time, and I seem to remember........ ah well!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: The Sandman
Date: 28 Jul 08 - 06:05 PM

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Tootler - PM
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 05:30 PM

Interesting article.
ha bloddy ha,since when has Madam Bonaparte,been a reel,its a set dance played as a hornpipe,whoever wrote this is an ignoramus.
however Glueman is right to a certain extent,the sound of traditional english ,scottish, irish, welsh, folk music,does have narrow boundaries the melodies are restricted to four modes,the major ,mixolydian dorian and aeolian,once you start using other modes it no longer sounds authentic.
flamenco music uses different modes,and to try and write an authentic sounding tune and pass it off as english, scottish, Irish, Welsh,would not be convincing.
Jimmy Miller [Ewan Maccoll],was quite fond of the Dorian mode,and his songs are well written,and sound as if their roots are melodically in his native tradition.Dick Miles

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 28 Jul 08 - 05:38 PM

Earwig Go

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 28 Jul 08 - 05:31 PM

Not quite circular. Now I'm going to ahve to find it again...

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: MartinRyan
Date: 28 Jul 08 - 02:57 PM

Jim

Not so fick! Looks like Richard made a circular link - presumably unintentionally!

Regards

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Jul 08 - 02:48 PM

Sorry Richard
Am I being fick - or what?
Keep getting bounced back to this list through your website address.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 27 Jul 08 - 05:51 PM

Here is something about a man who apparently did know something about that of which we so freely speak.

http://www.mudcat.org/threads.cfm

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 27 Jul 08 - 04:58 PM

It seems to me there are two versions of the broader definition, both fuzzy but in different ways. There's "six degrees of separation" folk music, which starts from yer actual folk but radiates outwards - new songs in a trad style, new songs in an affectedly archaic style, trad songs in a contemporary style, new songs in a contemporary style by somebody who's known as a folk artist... When people say folk is a 'sound', what they usually seem to be thinking of is the next stage after all of those: new songs in a style emulating - and modifying - one of the many sounds which have been used by people known as folk artists. There are a lot of people working in that broad area; it's a healthy enough scene, but there's nothing at all that unites it - musically, lyrically or in terms of instrumentation.

This overlaps with another broad definition, "you bring it, you sing it" folk music. My local club is very much of this persuasion: we've had honky-tonk piano, we've had classical guitar, we've had songs by the Seekers and the Snow Patrol. Lyric sheets are common and sheet music is not unknown. Again, there's nothing at all that unites everyone in the area (although the acoustic guitar comes close).

The only thing that those two definitions have in common is that they've got very little room for traditional music. I think that's a shame.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Jul 08 - 02:13 AM

"folk music has become a 'sound'. In practice that's what folk now is."
Thinking about all the different sounds claimed to be 'folk' by various people, clubs, music journalists... etc. If you start with Harry Cox, Robert Cinnamond, Paddy Tunney, Joe Heaney, Ewan MacColl, Frankie Armstrong.... onto Seth Lakeman, Jim Moray, Eliza Carthy... then to The Watersons, Steeleye Span, Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Ralph McTell. If you include music hall as 'folk' you have Two Lovely Black Eyes, Knock 'Em in The Old Kent Road, Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom De Ay, She Sits Among the Cabbages and Peas.... Then of course there's 'Parlour Ballad Folk' like Come Into The Garden Maud and Oft In The Stilly Night; not forgetting songs that have "recently become 'folk'" according to some schools of thought like Yellow Submarine, Heartbreak Hotel, Viva Espania...... I wonder what that 'sound' might be now considered 'folk' - all of these, or none maybe.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: glueman
Date: 22 Jul 08 - 05:41 AM

English deserted me on the last sentence but you get the drift.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: glueman
Date: 22 Jul 08 - 05:39 AM

In its application and consumption folk music has become a 'sound'. In practice that's what folk now is. If a musician or singer performed folk that ticked all the boxes except audience expectation of a certain noise most of them would run a mile. There's a lot of denial on the matter but that reality it puts a lid on what folk might really be so it becomes self-fulfilling.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: GUEST, Sminky
Date: 22 Jul 08 - 05:21 AM

At what point did 'Barbara Allen' become a folk song?

What type of song was it before that point?

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: glueman
Date: 22 Jul 08 - 05:21 AM

I agree with Stringsinger.
Especially: "When folk music becomes a "museum piece" it is because it is frozen into a performance art piece for an audience that expects it".

And: "They are not associated with coffee house venues or staged concerts but whenever a lullaby to a child is sung, folk songs tend to survive".

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 22 Jul 08 - 04:49 AM

Maybe they may become folk songs in time when those who have re-written "Over The Rainbow" such as Pete Seeger (much to the chagrin of Yip Harburg), find a variant song in times to come. This is the folk process as it goes from one voice to another.

It's certainly a similar process, but I don't think you can call it the folk process unless the folk are involved. If you add up all the professional singers, would-be professional singers and enthusiastic amateurs, you'll only get a small fraction of the population - most people aren't making music, they're listening to it.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 06:13 PM

Not that I agree but Don, Tony Bennett insists that he is singing a kind of "folksong".
That's how he classifies his tunes.

Maybe they may become folk songs in time when those who have re-written "Over
The Rainbow" such as Pete Seeger (much to the chagrin of Yip Harburg), find a variant
song in times to come. This is the folk process as it goes from one voice to another.

In many ways, the current commercial songwriter is antithetical to the process in that
they claim the royalties for their composition unchanged.

The index is the acceptance of a variation of a song by an assortment of people who
constitute a kind of cultural milieu. The retention of this variant exists over a period of
time. In this sense, "This Land" or "We Shall Overcome" follow a folk process and can
be said to be a part of this tradition. Songs from the Civil Rights Movement, Labor songs,
parodies, kid's schoolyard ditties, and other forms undgo changes and find new acceptance in different times.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 05:58 PM

Traditional folk music is like a river and keeps flowing. The tradition in music can be
conveyed in a variety of ways. One way is exposure to the cultural practitioners. The conditions for the existence of this music remain in the interest of those who understand and attempt to recreate it. The basic idea of folk music is still that people get together
to sing it and share it regardless of its commercial value as a performance art.

Folk music has always been a "pastiche" in that any musical isolated form borrows from
and antecedent. 1920's jazz informs the Piedmont blues pickers. Old time string band music informs Bluegrass. The Irish, Scottish, British traditions of unaccompanied singing
is found in Appalachia. There is no folk music. Classical, pop, jazz etc. has always informed folk music and vise-versa.

When folk music becomes a "museum piece" it is because it is frozen into a performance art piece for an audience that expects it. It has no longer entered the river.

There is a difference between historical understanding and re-interpretation and re-enactment which usually turns out to be wrong since unless you are transported to
the time of the music, you really don't know how it was done. Recordings are only
a small window of that experience.

Folk music is always transformed. It has a cultural base but is changed to adapt to
new environmental situations. Hence, Barbara Allen finds herself walking the "highway" home instead of the cowpath.

Living traditions are often not identified by the uninitiated who are not folklorists.
1954 is not a starting point for any particular attitude regarding "what is folk".
Who is to really say what the "vast majority of folk fans" embrace?

A living tradition means that there is an interest in furtherance of this tradition.
The "museum piece" concept is inimical to the folk process. Sam Hinton put it succinctly.
A printed folk song is like a photograph of a bird in flight.

Folk music traditions are not dead but survive underground in various forms although
they may not be recognizable to many. They are not associated with coffee house venues or staged concerts but whenever a lullaby to a child is sung, folk songs tend to survive.

Folk music is inimical to musical correctness as well. The approach to classic anthropology has always been to study and secure a knowledge of a culture from
the outside looking in rather than to be a part of it. This is akin to taking a picture
rather than receiving the subject in the "flesh". Pop music is not folk. It is predicated
on the business of music however some pop music becomes folk through assimilation.
"Old Dan Tucker" or "Angeline the Baker" finds its way into folk culture through the people who retain the songs and them. This is an important ingredient
in assessing folk music. Hence, Schubert songs become integrated into German folk music. "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" travels from Mozart into a myriad of forms such as the children's "A.B.C." song.

Songwriting is not necessarily folk music because some songs have not been processed
by acceptance into a folk community. What is this community? It exists outside of
most people's perceived recognition of it. It may be going through mutations and variations today and perhaps the music that groups of people are singing today away from the commercial music business of the so-called "singer-songwriter" might be
the folk music of tomorrow.

In order to discover folk music, it is important to rid ourselves of a rigid definition of
what we associate as being folk music. It may include perhaps "rap" on the streets or
"do-wop" being changed or singers deciding that certain changes in songs should be
changed to fit new times and different environments. It might be a cross-pollination
of music from different countries (acculturation).

I think to really understand what folk music is, we have to free ourselves from the
restriction of our perceptions based on what others who don't know it think it is.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 07:06 AM

Insane Beard
"the 1954 definition is just so much academic wank"
No - the real tossers of this world are those who dictate to the rest of us what our interests should be.
You need to remember that not everybody takes their brain out and leaves it in a glass at the side of the bed (and forgets to put it back the following morning) - whoops sorry, dropping to your level now!
Glueman;
Can't find much to argue with in your posting, apart from your analysis of what 'the traditionalists' (whoever they are) expect from a 'folk club'.
I don't know, and can't remember ever knowing anybody who would not enjoy a night of folk songs and ballads mixed in with compositions of say MacColl, Seeger, Rossleson, Tawney, Graham Miles, Ed Pickford, Eric Bogle, Paul Smith, Adam McNaughton, Enoch Kent, Jim McLean, Con 'Fada' O'Driscoll, Fintan Vallely... and all the others who have drawn from the tradition for their inspiration.
While I believe one is folk and the other isn't, I also believe the clubs would, as you rightly say, become museums without the input of all these people.
This is a bit of a long haul from the songs that drove me out of the clubs; the bland, navel gazing, introspective pieces that owe more to middle-of-the-road pop than any folk song I've ever heard; the unsatisfactory music hall stuff (not unlike American/Chinese food - one belch and you're hungry again), the early 20 century pop-pap, et al, and I'm hardy likely to respond well to an evening of Beatles songs. I left home in the sixties because I found that if you didn't like football or the Beatles, Liverpool had sod-all else to offer - not even work!
As far as research is concerned, the term 'folk' is specific - it refers to a specific music, literature.... whatever. Yes, the process that once created the songs is as dead as Baroque, main stream classical, Victorian parlour and tavern singing... but this doesn't mean that the creative folk forms can't be used to make new songs - who knows, we might be able to win back the tradition - but we won't do so by pretending it hasn't gone away.
In the end it all boils down to the fact that I want to know what's inside the tin before I open it, otherwise I'll go to another shop.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: glueman
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 05:08 AM

Anyone who quotes Sun Ra sides with the angels.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 04:47 AM

The difficulty comes in trying to wrap it all up in taxonomy, which is part & parcel of the same cultural autism to which Folk, as a concept rather than an actuality, aspires. The other side to this of course is people, like myself, for who taxonomy is anathema and the 1954 definition is just so much academic wank, preferring to believe that a) what happens happens and b) things either is or they ain't *, in which case, I would suggest, that the Horse Definition as supplied by Louis Armstrong** is of infinitely greater value.

My only contact with the Folk World is strictly empirical - the folk clubs, singarounds and the occasional festival, where things seem to be getting along just nicely and people do what they do without troubling too much over why they're doing it. At least this is the impression I get - they might all have deeply held personal philosophical convictions, but when it comes to the moment, they're out there, vibrating in terms of pure experience. I stopped buying Folk Product long ago, or subscribing to any notion of Folkish Celebrity which to me is just a contradiction in terms, believing as I do that this thing we call Folk (as with Holy Mass, Sexual Intercourse and Golf***) is better served by participating in the ephemeral social interactive & experiential context which is as much the thing as the thing itself as continuity becomes enshrined in the purity of the moment. Thus, at the end of it all, we might go home enriched, enlightened, or else simply roll over and go to sleep; and, in any case, tomorrow is always another day...

Truth to tell, I'm past caring what it's called and how it's defined; just as long as it's happening; just as long as there's singers in singarounds and musicians in sessions, because Folk is the singers and the musicians (as oppose to the celebrities) who do this stuff and make it somehow real, or else corporeal in terms of an experience ritual, whereby there is always at least the potential for transcendence, be it realised or not.   

* Sun Ra, quoted in the sleeve note to Friendly Galaxy.

** For one whom the Hot Fives & Hot Sevens represents a near miraculous manifestation of the divine in human folkish form then I'd personally rather it be Louie who said this than anyone else.

*** I am as perplexed by golf as a televised spectator sport as I am by the existence of Folk CDs or Pornography; gigs and dogging might well represent a different level of participation, albeit at a significant remove, but nothing like the remove of watching golf on TV.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: glueman
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 04:19 AM

I'm surprised you have time for literary criticism RB, what with your scepter'd isle persecution hokum thread.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 03:26 AM

It seems to me glueman (if I truly follow your somewhat convoluted post) that you are confusing what is done with how it is done.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: glueman
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 05:04 PM

The problem isn't that 1954 definitions attempt to demonstrate that an oral tradition existed or to isolate the factors that made it what it was but its remit has been to foreshorten the natural consequences for traditional music. Instead of viewing that music as purely historical and the conditions which served its existence as no longer pertaining - which is a logical conclusion to make - traditionalists insist that the music can (indeed must) continue to be performed from a finite though broad set of material today. It seems like having your cake and eating it.
If the music limited itself to historical re-enactment (your 'museum') no-one could complain about folk as descriptive title. If on the other hand it presumes to occupy an oral space in the present it has to accept that the people transmitting it are creating a pastiche, they are infected by the whole range of musical influences - classical, pop, jazz and the inflections those forms bring. I'm much closer to your idea of folk as a museum but I fear that isn't the position many traditionalists will see of themselves, they will perceive their role as maintaining a living music. I can't buy that, the demands their modernity brings to it transforms the music.
If however the tradition saw itself as a springboard for contemporary folk (or whatever), a tradition that was wholly undiminished by what came subsequently and differed in subtle ways but was in keeping with sound and social space (a practical application I feel the vast majority of folk fans have embraced), rather than picking at the stitches of difference, logic would be served. Instead 1954 trads isolate the newer music as being no different to pop - fine, but lets not have any nonsense about living traditions, standard bearers and the rest of the bollox. The music is dead. This raises our circular and vexed question of wanting an authentic label because "then I know I'd like it", as though the tag was a guarantor of musical correctness.

In real terms folk exists in multiple spaces concurrently with people taking a relaxed view of nu-folk because its preoccupations, sound and performance resemble traditional music - singers may readily switch between the two in a set - and it offers the music the opportunity to find new audiences in the spirit of the tradition. Personally my listening is nearer 1954 but I trust my ears - a lot of the rest of the stuff I'm told is sung in folk clubs is not folk.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 03:04 PM

Glueman - the last thing I want to do is stop oral transmission. I think it has stopped, outside the restricted circles of people like us who care about this stuff, but that's another matter.

An open question to those people here who are arguing against restrictive (e.g. '1954') definitions of 'folk': do you think 'folk' has any definition, other than 'music somebody labels as folk'? Is it ever possible to point to something that's called 'folk' & say, "Actually, no, that's not folk, because to be folk it would need to fit this definition"?

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 02:24 PM

I am most grateful for your posts here Jim Carroll.

Guest, Twonk, I wonder if you are aware of the customary meaning of that word?

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 01:55 PM

Fortunately or unfortunately you have to be able to market music somehow. Otherwise
musicians would be obscure. To do this, you produce labels. Yes it matters what it's called if you care about exposing good music to the public. I think that it matters what you are selling.

The categories no longer fit the classical definitions of the music. For example, academic
folklorists would say that Pete Seeger and Joan Baez are not folk musicians since they come from a "trained" perspective and not part of an agrarian culture that supported them.

"Classical" music is now a misnomer as well. Some today think of American Jazz as being a "classical" music and there is a case to be made here.

Some say that Bluegrass or Blues are different than "folk" so that label has been bowdlerized.

What makes a difference however is that in order to introduce certain types of music to
the public, this requires a definition of what they play. The problem arises as to whom the definition falls.

The critics today don't know too much about a variety of music enough to make informed
and educational contributions that would support musical artists. Many don't see the connection between the music they review and its antecedents or history.

For example, the recent development of Bluegrass is predicated on the early string band ensembles that played for dances in the Appalachian community which would be considered "folk" by historians familiar with this idiom.

Those who think that Rap or Hip Hop started in a vacuum and   sprouted out of the ground do not see the connection between a rhythmic speech narrative style of performance that is in the African and African American cultures. The griots of Senegal
make this clear as does the political commentary of Fela Kouti (maybe one of the
earlier starters of "rap"). The early poetry to jazz experiment in the early Sixties (Ken Nordeen or Bob Dorough) may have had some effect inadvertently also.

In short, it not only matters what music is called, it matters how music is affected historically and culturally and only this context can it really be appreciated or understood.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: glueman
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 01:25 PM

"What do you mean by "the music of the people"?

The music that began with oral transmission.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 01:15 PM

Pip, that has been discussed before. Go back and re-read what I posted earlier and you will understand the community that makes the "music of the people".

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 12:41 PM

What do you mean by "the music of the people"?

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: glueman
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 12:36 PM

"Frankly, it is a set of self-fullfilling rules that will give you the type of song you are looking for."

Precisely Ron. The myth is that folk is a set of criteria which enable a provenance. If that was the totality of it folk enthusiasts would run holding their ears from the possibilities it suggests. The reality is it's a sound as well on the level of consumption and that's the detail where the devil lives - people can explore that sound endlessly and continue to do so. The problem isn't that the new stuff is different, but that it's so damned close, which leads to discussions like this.
Another myth is that the tradition is under threat. I have suggested that there's enough copy in different formats for the tradition never to die, which just leaves the professional careers of its exponents. And when was a music's morphology ever shaped by someone's career?

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: glueman
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 12:18 PM

Museums are fascinating places but few choose to live their lives as shepherds. Even so, lots of people fancy a thatched roof and oak beams. The genus 'traditional' will always exist but observation of its influence suggests it no longer has a unique claim to the word folk - outside of boards like this. Music will never restrict itself to being overseen and compartmentalised by committees, boards, taxonomists and intellectuals, especially the music of the people because that's not the way music works. You can't stop transmission because a few people suggest you'll knacker it by doing so. The evidence suggests we're all getting a lesson, and a living lesson in what folk really is.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Nick
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 11:00 AM

I'm being relatively flippant in this post.

We have a chap who comes and sings and plays sometimes at our gathering. Every now and then someone will sing a song and he'll lean forward and go 'what's that called?'

Usually about three - six weeks later the song reappears with a different tune. Is this part of the folk process? To me 'Mr Punch and Judy Man' and 'Summer Before the War' are both fine tunes that don't need re-writing but it's good to see that the tradition of partially remembering things and then doing them differently still exists! :)

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 10:52 AM

"Folk music" is the process of transmitting songs and sharing within a community.

I'd call that the "folk process". Folk songs are songs that came out of that process (which is now effectively over, or surviving in the odd cultural pocket, like Japanese soldiers on Pacific islands).

You can make a very clear scientific case that will show that Pete Seeger, the Weavers, Odetta, Ed McCurdy, the New Lost City Ramblers and others do not belong in the genre "folk music" - but what is the gain in that?

They're not part of the folk process - nobody, or hardly anybody, is - but they do or did perform folk songs, as well as songs that aren't folk songs.

glueman: What makes current songs unlikely to be taken up as folk (by purely traditional definitions) is that they are generally recorded and offer a perma-text for comparison which militates against transformation and the desire for recognition by the writer/singer.

Zigackly. Most music that most people listen to isn't transmitted orally, which in turn means that there just isn't enough oral transmission going on for the folk process to happen. Which in turn means that folk song is (in Nick's terms) a historical thing that is now over - like Baroque music that finished in the 18th century and can now be played or "written in the style of" but not in anyway added to

Having said that, folk songs are still being tinkered with and embellished and added to, by folk enthusiasts. New songs that sound like the old ones are still being written and sung and learnt by ear, by folk enthusiasts. Folk in performance is a living museum, and being part of it's a huge pleasure as well as a privilege. It's still a museum, though.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 08:52 AM

You can argue that a "folk song" has to fit the set of criteria that has been constantly referred to - the old "oral tradition". Frankly, it is a set of self-fullfilling rules that will give you the type of song you are looking for. I assume that if you discover that someone wrote the songs that Walter Pardon sang, and it did not go through such a process, then it is no longer a traditional folk song.

"Folk music" is the process of transmitting songs and sharing within a community.

You can make a very clear scientific case that will show that Pete Seeger, the Weavers, Odetta, Ed McCurdy, the New Lost City Ramblers and others do not belong in the genre "folk music" - but what is the gain in that?

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: glueman
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 07:58 AM

I meant to say that you could in theory write a contemporary song that was readily adaptable to suit difference circumstances, contained a simple chorus, circular motifs, etc., which would make it much more likely to become a folk song within a generation or two.
What makes current songs unlikely to be taken up as folk (by purely traditional definitions) is that they are generally recorded and offer a perma-text for comparison which militates against transformation and the desire for recognition by the writer/singer.

It's not beyond the bounds of possibility for relatively new material to be passed off as folk, given a reasonable enough pastiche and some hidden provenance of the 'collected from the diaries of an old man in the village' variety.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: glueman
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 07:41 AM

Clumsy digit - that should read rhyme.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: glueman
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 07:39 AM

You could argue for a folk song to be changed by different hands it has to be fundamentally 'simple' in some way. That doesn't mean short or uncomplicated but that the central motifs have currency that can be adapted. If a song utilises the particular at the expense of the general, say for instance it's about a given historical character with a chronolgical build up, a tight thyme and well known tune it may be an old song but has no transferable currency that can make it a folk song.

In folklore emblematic variables are one of the defining traits.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Nick
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 06:30 AM

Jim

Again so that I understand your thinking -

Is 'folk' song a historical thing that is now over - like Baroque music that finished in the 18th century and can now be played or "written in the style of" but not in anyway added to?

Within the various definitions and discussions there at the same time seems to be the suggestion that folk song can be added to - how does that happen in a world where communications are different and things are written down and recorded (in writing-in recordings-on video)?

If I take a song that, to me, is very much in the folk tradition what would you consider it is? Northern Tide by Linda Kelly is a favourite song of mine. I learned it from hearing it sung by Linda (and others) and I sing it to others who add it to their repertoire. If you don't know the song there is a verse or two here (it was done in practice so is not that cleverly sung so apologies to your ears in advance as it doesn't do the song justice).
Now to me it sounds like a folk song. Content-wise it feels like a traditional folk song. But by all the definitions and stuff it would appear that it can't be one. Is the only way for it to become a folk song to be changed over time to become something else? And if it isn't folk music what is it?

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: TheSnail
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 06:15 AM

GUEST,twonk

his first LP is a secret deadly weapon
for bedding inpressionable
young 1st year undergraduate chicks..

The subject matter of quite a few folk songs.

"His voice was so melodious it charmed her where she stood."

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 02:48 AM

"but it can still be "folk music" even if it is not a "folk song"."
Can you explain this please Ron?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: GUEST,twonk
Date: 20 Jul 08 - 12:24 AM

doesn't matter what music is called
while heavy handed self apointed censors
determine public communication and expression

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 19 Jul 08 - 11:27 PM

"To me, if a song hasn't gone through that process, I cannot accept it as a "folk song." "

I actually do agree with you Don, but it can still be "folk music" even if it is not a "folk song".

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 19 Jul 08 - 11:21 PM

"So, it would seem these days, is 'folk'. The word has about as much meaning anymore as 'awesome' or 'cool'. "

It is much easier to be dismissive and cynical as opposed to being open and willing to accept challenges to long-standing ideas.

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: GUEST,twonk
Date: 19 Jul 08 - 10:45 PM

Terence Trent D'Arby

oh wow

what a cool awesome dude..


his first LP is a secret deadly weapon
for bedding inpressionable
young 1st year undergraduate chicks..


but thats probably not 'folk' ?

Subject: RE: Does it matter what music is called?
From: Bill D
Date: 19 Jul 08 - 10:37 PM

I just read an aphorism that kinda hit me....

"Art is anything you can get away with."
         Terence Trent D'Arby

So, it would seem these days, is 'folk'. The word has about as much meaning anymore as 'awesome' or 'cool'.