Other traditions

Subject: Other traditions
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 10 Aug 08 - 09:31 PM

Folk singers are a funny lot. Some seem to think that "tradition" is the exclusive property of acoustic music. When I first started bringing my gospel quartet to folk festivals, there were those who crinkled their noses when I came in with an electric guitar and amplifier. One friend and great appreciator of my music barely talked to me for several years. In the beginning, I'd sometimes kid around, expressing astonishment that people who love tradition would expect me to accompany a black gospel quartet with a Martin guitar. I mean, how un-traditional can you get? I was reminded of all of this at church this morning. The Messengers were asked to provide the music for a small black church at their morning service. These days, black gospel quartets have at lest eight members Some look like a full orchestra, with bass, drums, lead guitar, keyboards and five singers. We just have our voices, and my completely traditional electric guitar.

When the Pastor introduced us, he talked for a long time about the tradition of gospel quartets. He remembers the time when he was a young boy growing up in the south, where many churches were so small that they didn't have a choir. They'd only hold church once a month, and their music was provided by gospel quartets, who traveled through the region, playing at a different church every sunday. The preacher was bemoaning the loss of that tradition, and repeatedly thanked us for carying on the old traditions.

This Friday night, the Men's Chorus we sing in is doing a few numbers at a big concert. All four other groups are "quartets" with enough fire power to bring down the building. I know that my ears will be ringing for a couple of days, after the concert. Even though the concert is held at the church where we are members, they would never have asked the Messengers to perform. I mean, we don't even have keyboards and drums! What kind of a quartet are we, with only four singers? (Three, these days.)

We had a good time this morning, and while the church is small, the few people who were there had a good time in the music. The older ones remembered the days when gospel quartets were like rock stars, traveling from church to church. It made me feel good, hearing how appreciative they were that we are carrying on the tradition.

Me being a folk singer and all.

Not all traditions are acoustic.

Subject: RE: Other traditions
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 12:19 AM

Well, Jerry, there's something about age that makes things "traditional." I guess e have arrived the point where some electric guitar work can be considered traditional. That kind of singing has been a tradition in black churches for a long time now. How long ago do you think it was, that the electric guitar and drums were introduced to black churches.

As a church musician, I have to say I'm jealous. We're a darn good choir, but we can't engage a congregation like a good black gospel quartet can do. I think we white Catholics are a little shy about emotional involvement, so that kind of music has not become part of our tradition.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Other traditions
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 12:32 AM

Nice to *see* you, Jerry!

I know what you are talking about. Every year, in Casper, WY, there was a special celebration in honour of Dr. King AND a young Casperite who was killed down South in the 60s when he went there to work for civil rights. At the celebration, we always had a black gospel band with the minister as lead singer and electric guitarist. They really *rocked* and they could go all night!

Subject: RE: Other traditions
From: Rowan
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 02:19 AM

I think we white Catholics are a little shy about emotional involvement, so that kind of music has not become part of our tradition.

About 30 years ago, when Pageant (six voices, unaccompanied by instruments) was still together but was also the core of Higgins Municipal Bush Band, Michael Crichton booked Higgins as the main band for the newly established Chiltern Folk Festival. Chiltern is a small town in Victoria, south of Wodonga but north of Wangaratta, then and now bypassed by the Hume Highway.

Just before we started playing for the Saturday evening dance, Michael told us that, as part of the deal to get the locals to support the festival, he'd volunteered us to sing during the 11am Mass at the local Catholic church. Well, I'm not sure any of us were even "believers" let alone Catholics; we agonised over what we could sing. Michael assured us we could arrive after the consecration (?) and just do a couple of numbers while the congragation was taking communion; the priest would give us the nod to start.

We duly arrived, to hear a nun and two girls performing (ever so sotto voce) a song (Agnus Dei?) with acoustic guitar accompaniment; very restrained and no emotional content discernable. At the nod, I led us into "Bright Morning Star" and "I will guide thee" and we revelled in the building's acoustics (none of us could be described as shy or retiring and I have been known to deal, successfully and unplugged, with large crowds at dances); the startled response of Chewton's congregation certainly supported Joe's description.

But they were very appreciative of both traditions.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Other traditions
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 09:34 AM

Hey, Joe:

Music in the Catholic church went through a radical (but gentile) change with Vatican Two, back in the 60's. The old stately hymns and anthems were placed with well-intentioned, musically innocuous nylon-string strummed, "nice" music that they called "folk" music. I quickly learned to avoid folk masses, because the music was so safe that it made "It's A Small World After All" sound like heavy metal. It was as if the church was trying to show that it could be up to date by taking the safest, most uncontroversial approach, singing songs that not even your 80 year old grandmother would have a problem with. "Oh, isn't that nice! Look at all those nice young people singing their nice songs!" Give me a Gregorian chant, any day. I was a Catholic at the time, and was quietly bucking the system. I talked two young priests into letting me do a night of music from Woodstock, shortly after going to the festival. I played recordings from artists who performed at Woodstock and other rock artists, showing the similarity of some of the lines in the songs to scriptural passages. We drew the biggest crowd they'd ever had at the church, the kids convinced the priests that we could get the message better if we moved all the pews to the side of the church, turned off the lights, kicked up the sound system, and everybody laid on the floor. I was never asked to do a program again, and after that, the attendance dropped back to five or six, instead of seventy or eighty.

And Rowan:

Thanks for sharing that experience. Along the same lines, my gospel quartet has sung in every kind of church imaginable, from Lutheran, Methodist, Unitarian, Pentecostal, non-denominational and Episcopal to Jewish homes, and a Jewish funeral service. The only faith where we've never been asked to sing is the Catholic church.

I have to believe that most people, given some encouragement, find it uplifting to loosen up and express some emotion when they are hearing, and singing gospel music. The two songs that you chose are both excellent choices, and ones I sing.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Other traditions
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 11:16 AM

One of my friends is a Uniting Church Minister & often arranged Church services at Festivals. She would gather together a collection of friends, some Christian, some not, including a couple of Pagans & present a very thoughtful & uplifting service, with great singing & music.

At one particular Festival the local Uniting Church folks didn't let her use their church the following year, they just held their usual service! I assume they let folkies attend.

Another time 2 traditions clashed was at one of the annual Hymn Singing sessions at the National Folk Festival, run by our very own Hrothgar, supported by many of the best unaccompanied singers at the Festival & everyone who lives singing. It's the place where we take the annual Ozcatter pic! It's the best singing session at the festival (well, some would say apart from the late night Stairwell sessions).

We all sing from the same hymn book (a spiral bound alphabetical list of hymns compiled by Hrothgar) & always end up sharing books as the crowd grows. Each hymns is led by a volunteer from the crowd & off we go, lifting the rafters especially when shanty singers like Danny Spooner are present.

One year folks arrived from the Church service, saying that the session was badly programmed cos it clashed with the service. Several volunteered to lead a song, but started by preaching instead of just launching into the hymn as singing session aficionados like my Jewish friend do.

I was sharing my book with a woman who had a lovely voice, and like the other visitors, the strange habit of waving her left hand about her head as she sung. She also wanted to stand up to sing because as she said "I'm a Baptist & we stand up to sing" so what could I say but "I'm a folksinger & we sit down to sing" which reduced my friend (who did not appreciate the religious folks preaching) to giggles.

sandra

(stairwell session? - well, it's an ordinary concrete stairwell between the singing room & the session bar & is the best acoustic space in the whole festival. It's always packed with singers from late evening until the last few can no longer stand or sing!)

Subject: RE: Other traditions
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 11:19 AM

The Catholic church down the block (mostly white) sings gospel and has gospel choir visitors on occassion.

Last time I was in New Orleans, gospel choirs were singing in the cathedral on Jackson Square. We went three times, and each time the audience was very large - and very appreciative.

Any instrument is fine as long as everybody remembers that the purpose of the gathering is to encourage people to think, rejoice, pray, learn, contemplate.

Subject: RE: Other traditions
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 01:01 PM

Good post, Leenia. Whatever works.

And Sandra: Whatever works. I hope people sing the way they feel like singing, whether it's standing, or sitting down. I sing standing up when I sing in most churches, because they ask everyone to rise and sing. Actually, I'd be tempted to do it on some songs, whether they asked me to or not. I feel a strong need to move, when I'm singing a song with a strong rhtyhm: stand-up move, not sit-down move. But that's just me. I generally perform folk music and blues sitting down, because I like to give leisurely introductions to many of the songs. I feel less comfortable doing that, standing up, for some reason.

I led a workshop at the Eisteddfod one year on singing styles, and encouraged people to talk about who their influences were in developing their own singing style. I was really enjoying it until a woman in the audience went on an insulting diatribe about how people who sit down when they sing have no idea how to sing. She teaches singing, and started going into great detail about the internal organs and why they have more space when you're singing.
Gordon Bok, Sandy & Caroline Paton and I were the participants, and I took umbrage at her attack, because she made it personal. I told her that I'd be sure to ask her to participate if I ever had the desire to teach a Singing Mechanics workshop.

So far, I've successfully resisted the urge.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Other traditions
From: GUEST,Marymac90
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 01:27 PM

I was raised Catholic, and was there during the "folk mass"
era. No matter how bad it was, it had to be an improvement
on "Immaculate Mary" and "Holy God We Praise Thy Name!
They were soooo draggy and sing-song-y!

Remember, before Vatican II and the folk masses, the
congregations in Catholic churches did not sing, nor pray
or respond out loud at all! The prayers and readings were
all done by the priest, the altar boys gave the responses,
and everything except the gospel and the sermon were in
Latin!

The only singing was done by the choir, and the adult choir
was very competent and well rehearsed. At a high mass they
would sing the same words the priest would say, like the
Agnus Dei and the Sanctus. At some low masses they might
have a children's choir sing some hymns in English, perhaps unrelated to what the priest was saying at the time.

People could either follow a translation of what the priest
was saying in their missals, pray their rosary, or just sit,
stand, and kneel their way through it until it was over!
There was no Sunday School for children to go to instead of
mass, either. The main difference with a "children's mass"
was that the nuns would be their to make sure you behaved!

Good Catholice HAD to go to mass every Sunday morning, under
pain of mortal sin, and they did--their might be 5 masses on
a Sunday, and probably 3 or 4 had a LOT of people in
attendance, and those churches were big!

We did begin to sing some more soulful stuff in the folk
mass era--I remember something called "Father River's Mass",
that had a song called "God is Love". There was also an
African mass--"Missa Luba", if I'm not mistaken, though I
think we just listened to a recording of that in school--it
was so different, and so spirited, nobody tried teaching
that to us to actually sing at mass!

There were not many African-American catholics in evidence
in those days. Parish schools were filled with Catholic
baby boomers--sometimes 50 children in a classroom, with one
nun teaching. There were no African-Americans in the parish
schools I attended, though there were black children in the
nearby public schools by 1960. When I started at the new
diocesan high school, there were two black students out of
maybe 400 students. A few more were admitted in following
years. One priest paid for a substitute teacher to replace
him while he went to the Selma march. However, there was no assembly or other forum to hear about it.

Nowadays, catholic schools accept children of other faiths,
and many parents send their children to them because they
are more disciplined, and therefore safer, than many public
schools.

Although I'm now an agnostic, I LOVE spirituals, black and
white gospel music, and Sacred Harp singing. It's not the
doctrine behind the songs, it's the spirit with which
they're sung!

Marymac

Subject: RE: Other traditions
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 01:34 PM

Hey, marymac:

I converted to Catholicism in the mid 60's (and also went ot Woodstock... go figure.) I "fell" long ago, but still have respect for my Catholic friends. The Latin readings were pretty much over by the time I started to go to the Catholic Church. I have no idea what the music is like, these days.

Maybe it was The Singing Nun and Dominique that cured my inner desire for nylon strings.

God Bless 'em, though. It's all right with me.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Other traditions
From: Art Thieme
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 03:52 PM

Jerry,
Good and interesting thoughts for these morphing times we be in. It's a lot o' water through the sluice since Bobby brought my old friend Mike Bloomfield to Newport to back him on electric guitar. Yep, you are correct. You and I have seen each other go through many unique changes. After all the mutations, I still love you---and Ruth too. Like Carol and me---an atheist Jew married to a Jehovah's Witness----life is a gas. Sometimes pure oxygen, and sometimes flatulence---but we continue to breathe deeply--whatever wafts our way. (I'm just glad we ain't breathing in Beijing.)

Art

Subject: RE: Other traditions
From: MartinRyan
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 04:32 PM

I sing in a choir in Kinvara, a small ex-fishing village near Galway. Once a year, we have a wonderful weekend festival called Cruinniú na mBád which is essentially a regatta for the local traditional wooden sailing boats (called "hookers" - but that's another story!). On the Sunday morning, there's always an open-air Mass on the pier, in the Irish language. The choir (a mixed bag of all faiths and none, I suspect) always perform - in Irish and Latin (and at least one macaronic with both). Anyway, one year, the set list contained an Irish language version of a gospel number (damned if I can remember which) as a closing recessional. During rehearsal, one of the group had been accompanying the singing on an electric keyboard, with a nice muted organ setting. On the morning of the Mass, without warning, she switched to what I can only describe as a "whorehouse piano "setting, turned up the volume and laid into it as though there were no tomorrow. I was consumed with laughter, totally unable to sing the first verse, at least! Fortunately, enough people managed to stay with her. To make the whole thing even more bizarre, the Mass was being broadcast live on the national Irish language radio channel!

Regards

Subject: RE: Other traditions
From: Rowan
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 07:19 PM

Hrothgar's Hymn Singings are definitely a highlight of the National, as Sandra says.

Another set of events I experienced could also be described as a clash of traditions.

In the parts of the 1960s-70s folk scene I moved in (SE Oz) it was a tradition, when someone was going "away" for an extended period, to go with them to the departure point and give them a bit of musical sendoff, complete with dancing, if possible. I suspect this was a relic of the times when Australians went "OS" (usually to Britain and Europe) by ship, but we'd go down to Spencer St Station (the interstate railway terminal in Melbourne) or Tullamarine (the airport -as they're now termed) and sing. play tunes and, occasionally, find space sufficient for a set.

Most of the time these traditions didn't clash much with other people's notions of how such facilties should be used but occasionally they did. One Christmas a whole mob of singers had given an extended concert of carols in one of the local cathedrals and were being "sent home" at Canberra airport. The bar wouldn't allow us to sing (not even carols, to the amazement of patrons) and we weren't allowed to properly lubricate our voices outside the bar. Encouraged by most of the patrons, we stood outside the doorway, with our libations held in our hands inside the bar, through the doorway, and carolled everyone for an hour or so.

On another Christmas season farewelling, at Spencer St station, I was playing my Anglo (with a group of friends on other instruments) and singing a farewell. Also being farewelled was a troop of newly commissioned Salvation Army officers, on their way to their new ministries. After the train left the platform, one of the senior SallyAnns struck up a conversation with me about the concertina; he'd had some exposure to them many years before and mine was the first he'd seen in many years. As we walked and talked, his conversation gently turned towards proselytisation, as I'd mentioned that I liked singing traditional and other carols. He asked me to sing an example, as we entered the tunnel part of the walkway; excellent acoustics. So, thinking he may not have heard it before, I launched into "Shepherds Arise". I never thought I'd see a man of faith show embarrassment at a full-throated rendition of a song celebrating part of his faith in a public place but I suspect it was because a railway walkway isn't a venue frequently used for such things, even by the Salvation Army. But we parted on good terms.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Other traditions
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 07:56 PM

Hey, Art:

Yeah, yesterday's certainties are todays I dunnos. The funny thing to me is that at least in Greenwich Village in the 60's, whether something was a "folk" song or not was The Last Thing On most People's Minds. The little traditional music I heard was played in a not-particularly traditional style, and I was the oddity, mining the Anthology of American Folk Music. Yeah, Baez initially was mining the same vein, but from the start, "purity" was hard to find.

I still consider folk music to be acoustic. I guess that I am a purist singer/songwriter. Talk about an oxymoron... I started this thread only to get people thinking about traditions, not all of which are folk.

What about the tradition of bowling, wearing a satin shirt with your name embroidered on the shirt pocket?

Jerry

Subject: RE: Other traditions
From: Stringsinger
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 03:55 PM

I think that you can sing properly when seated or on your back. I agree though that
it's easier to sing standing. In opera, the singer as actor is asked to assume various
positions. True of the Broadway singer also.

The problem with singing is to avoid any kind of rigidity.

I guess you have to ask what constitutes good singing which is opening up
a Pandora's box. What style? What purpose? Etc.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Other traditions
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 04:23 PM

Hey, Frank:

Good comments and questions. When I kidded about calling a workshop Singing Mechanics, I pictured everyone wearing gray coveralls. Thank God, singing isn't all mechanics, or anatomy. I've heard guitarist do the most amazingly complex, technically clean transpositions of a ragtime piece, getting every note right, but not getting the song. Somewhere along the line, their focus was on technical proficiency, not emotion. I used to love listening to a banjo playere, singer, who just strummed three chords (on a 5 string banjo) and sang the song. But, he sang the song. What he lacked in technical proficiency (which was just about everything,) he made up for with the shear pleasure he had in singing the song. And then, there's everything in between. It's the same with singing. Music is first and foremost, expression. With that has to come some level of emotion and personal interpretation. Technical proficiency is a tool, not a goal.

Just my opinion...

Jerry