1954 and All That - defining folk music

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: M.Ted
Date: 01 Apr 09 - 10:01 PM

The difference between the two clips is one of quality, the song, and the idiom, are the same. Actually, a pretty good arguement could be made that Louis Armstrong and company are folk artists playing a traditional, or "Folk" tune, and that the other people are a pop musicians playing a jazz tune, or, as some are prone to say, "ripping off a jazz tune"--it certainly isn't part of their musical tradition--   

And now we know where you are coming from, Sinister Supporter--your examples are really helpful--

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 03:02 AM

You're a better man than I am, M.Ted - I don't know where he's coming from, and I know him!

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 04:42 AM

"You're a better man than I am, M.Ted - I don't know where he's coming from, and I know him!"

I think, Pip, that he's making it up as he goes along (?)

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Howard Jones
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 05:41 AM

SS, the problem I have with your definition (although I can see your logic) is that it is self-referential - "whatever I do is folk because I do it in a 'designated folk context'". It is also an attempt to justify your club's open music policy by saying that because it calls itself a "folk club " then anything that takes place there must therefore be "folk", whereas it would be less misleading to say the club does not limit itself to folk but welcomes all genres of music. As a "definition", all it defines is your and your club's activities.

According to your definition, if I sing a song in a "folk context" it is "folk", but if I sing the same song in exactly the same way at a different type of venue - an Arts Centre or village hall, or concert hall for that matter, it is not "folk".

I distinguish between "folk song" and "folk". To me, a "folk song" means a traditional song, whereas "folk" means the wider genre which has traditional song at its core but which includes a lot of other material. So "Streets of London" is not a "folk song", but it is "folk".

To be "folk", non-traditional music has to tick a number of boxes:

1) Musically, the tune should share the broad melodic and rhythmic structures of traditional music. This is more obvious with tunes, where to be accepted into the "folk" repertoire a newly-composed tune generally needs to follow the traditional idiom fairly closely, not least because there is still a strong link with dancing, and tunes need to fit the pattern of the dance. With songs, this is less important. but it is still there. Someone in an earlier post commented that folk music seems to some to have been written by aliens. In a sense, this is correct - for about a century popular music has been largely based on the rhythmic, melodic and harmonic structures of black American music, and to people brought up on this music the rhythms and melodic patterns of English traditional music as as alien and foreign as those of Japanese or Arabic music. To qualify as "folk", the tune should bear at least some resemblence to traditional idioms rather than those of popular music.

2) The words generally contain some sort of narrative, and probably stand alone when separated from the music.

3) The song itself is important - it is not merely a part of the musical sound, it is at the centre of it. With a popular song, it may not matter that you can't hear all the words or that they dont make much sense, provided the overall sound is enjoyable. With an operatic aria, whilst there is an underlying story, the main point is to show off the singer's voice and it doesn't matter if the words are in a foreign language. With "folk", if you don't hear and understand the words you've usually missed the point.

Whilst there is a certain "folk" style of playing, usually involving acoustic instruments especially guitar, fiddle or free reeds, there are so many variations to this that I don't think it is entirely helpful when defining the music. A traditional song is still a "folk song" whether it's sung unaccompanied by Walter Pardon, with guitar accompaniment by Martin Carthy, with a rock band by Steeleye Span, with Bellowhead's madhouse big band, or in a classical arrangement by Benjamin Britten. A pop song is still a pop song even if it's played in a folky style - this may make it more palatable to a folk audience but doesn't alter its fundamental nature.

A composed song which ticks the other boxes may be "folk", even if it's performed in a non-folky style eg with an electric band. Where I start to have difficulty is when songs with no musical resemblance to traditional music and performed in a non-folky style are nevertheless described as "folk" - some of Tuung's music, for example. I can't see how these can fall within the genre.

"Folk song" can be identified because it has gone through a particular process. "Folk" as a genre is easier to recognise than to define, and there will always be difficulties and disagreements at the margins (as there are with other genres). But it definitely exists.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 05:49 AM

You seem to be just about the only person who thinks that. True, we have some difficulties in defining the boundaries but the same can be said for most musical genres.

Give me a single example of Folk Music as an exclusive corporeal genre & I guarantee you a pint if ever our paths should cross.

I'm now confused by your introduction of the term "Traditional Balladry". Are you now excluding traditional songs which are not ballads? Or is this just a fancy way of referring to traditional songs?

I used the term Traditional Balladry (implying the stuff I do personally) because it can be defined as a genre, whereas Traditional Music can't (What sort of Traditional Music? Irish? Norwegian? Northumbrian? Sephardic? Inuit?). Traditional Songs might include ballads too, of course. As I say, even the 1954 Definition isn't a defining Folk Music in terms of a genre.

I can see differences in the styles in which the two versions of "Saints" are performed, but they are fundamentally the same song

They are conceptually the same song certainly, but the corporeal, cultural & contextual realisation makes them very different. It is not merely a matter of style.

and the structure of the tune says "jazz" rather than "folk".

That is to treat Jazz and Folk in terms of being genres, which they aren't, although Jazz would appear to be the more exclusive of the two in terms of musical parameters. There is, for example, a considerable difference between Folk Rock and Jazz Rock, not just in terms of genre, but of pragmatic usage. Rather like Pork Butcher and Family Butcher.   

I understand the point you're making, but it describes the performance rather than the song.

A Eureka moment here methinks. The performance is the context, the point where the conceptual becomes corporeal; when a mere idea is brought forth into the world to shine like a star, which both of these do, for me anyway. The difference is that whilst you'd really have to have your shit together to play with Louis Armstrong, such a consideration is less important with the late Matt Armour, in whose company even the most timid shaky-egg player would have been welcomed into the fold. As I say I love them both - I never knew Louis personally, but I knew Matt, whose musical parameters were as big as his heart.

If I only listen to the soundtracks rather than watch the videos, I've no way of knowing that one took place in what you call a "folk context" and therefore no way of knowing that the song has suddenly, if temporarily, undergone genre reassignment.

Oh no? Put a blindfold on and I'll see if I can come up with some more examples! But seriously, with folk music it is really the being there, the living breathing inclusivity that demands we check in our egos, aspirations & expectations at the door, which I'll be doing tonight, in The Steamer in Fleetwood, where anything can happen & probably will. Such is Folk Music.

*

Meanwhile, an almost relevant anecdote.

In the good old days in England Sam Smith's pubs carried music licenses and sold cheap (though barely drinkable) bitter such as Old Brewery, which at one Durham public house could be had for a quid a pint, thus making it very popular with musicians. Thursdays was the Folk Club; Tuesdays the Trad Jazz, and Mondays was the Irish Session, the players of which took themselves Very Seriously Indeed, and rightly so in terms of the impeccable standard of their playing which existed in direct correlation to the utter tedium it inspired in the casual listener, such as myself. Said public house was also the scene of many an hearty outrage; one night, for example, I was in there when a fight broke out in the bar between several inebriated men of the same family after a funeral. It was a Tuesday, and the Dixieland Jazzers played on as the chairs flew, and the men brawled, and the locals stood there as if nothing was happening. A lovely summer night it was as I recall, the sun shining, the doors open, and everything at peace with the world; a peace barely disturbed by the proceedings in the bar.

Anyhoo. One Monday night after an arduous coach journey from London I popped in for a pint (those who say to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive have never travelled by National Express). The Session Musicians were through in the club room, playing their particular brand of music with fierce concentration and earnestness - a music which filtered through to the bar as a mildly irritating ambience: difficult to ignore, but not really loud enough to engage your attention, especially when one was in there on one's own, enjoying a solitary pint of an autumn evening with a half-ounce of Golden Virginia (Job papers & Swan Vesta matches) and a copy of Heart of Darkness (if only to get a literary measure of Apocalypse Now). Into the bar comes an old lady in her slippers, hair-net and dressing gown. In the absence of the barmaid, she helps herself to a large glass of Grouse from the appropriate optic. Taking a sip, she savours the poison, pondering all the while the nature of the entertainment taking place through in the club room, where our Session friends are playing with such indefatigable gusto they might well get through the whole of O'Neill's before closing time. Then a look of realisation dawns on her wrinkled face as it all becomes clear; something at least approaching a smile plays about her lips as she turns to me (there is, alas, no one else in the bar) and utters the immortal words:
"Eh, that's that Riverdance music isn't it?"
"It most certainly is," I reply, happy for the first time since parting from my girlfriend at Worth Abbey some ten hours earlier.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Will Fly
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 05:57 AM

Howard - that seems to me to be a very logical and persuasive comment, and a very clear statement.

Much of this thread - as usual - concentrates on the songs. I'm still interested in views on whether the tunes are as easily categorised. Sure, some are overtly traditional and others are overtly composed, but I think there's a deal more shading somehow. Others may differ. I always quote Carolan as a composer who, because he lived so long ago, and because much of his music has been assimilated into the tradition, now seems to be a "folk composer".

A lot of discussion is generated about songs as springing from the working class, for want of a more appropriate phrase, and articulating, through the folk process (as defined by the 1954 def) stories, experiences, feelings of the common folk. But tunes, to my mind, are classless. Simple, sophisticated and all shades in between, but classless all the same.

Just a passing thought...

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 06:01 AM

Cross posted there...

SS, the problem I have with your definition (although I can see your logic) is that it is self-referential - "whatever I do is folk because I do it in a 'designated folk context'".

No. Whilst I personally believe that the ultimate Folk Context is Planet Earth, this is not my argument here at all. I'm sorry brought the self-referential stuff into it all, it's muddied the waters of what was intended as a purely objective observation of what is done in the name of Folk Music.   

It is also an attempt to justify your club's open music policy by saying that because it calls itself a "folk club " then anything that takes place there must therefore be "folk"

Not just our club. This is true of all Folk Clubs, not just ours; it is also true of all Folk Festivals, Folk Radio Shows etc. etc.

whereas it would be less misleading to say the club does not limit itself to folk but welcomes all genres of music.

We do say that, but as I say folk is not a genre - it never has been, not even by the 1954 definition.

As a "definition", all it defines is your and your club's activities.

No - if defines the nature of Folk Music as it occurs throughout the world; in England certainly. Go to any folk festival, listen to any folk radio show, look through the folk section of your local HMV, and you'll see this to be true.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Will Fly
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 06:06 AM

SS - there are all sorts of interesting logic questions in your descriptions of musical moments. I'm reminded of some of the questions posed by Lewis Carroll (C.L. Dodgson) in his various writings - and hinted at here and there in his Alice books. He noted the differences between, in logical terms:

- the name of it
- what it is called
- what it is
- what it is known as
etc.

Not the same things at all. You wouldn't, by any chance, be a connoisseur of the odd Oxford Don, would you? :-)

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 06:57 AM

"...Bellowhead's madhouse big band.."

That description is symptomatic of the thinking behind this issue. Bellowhead, whatever one may think of them are undoubtedly folk and do what the name implies - provide a traditional bacchanalia: eat drink and be merry for tomorrow is the press gang, the hanging, love lost or at least the miserable bugger in the office to face.
To problematise what the band do by counterpointing it with the solo voice is disingenuous; it comes down to taste, not definition.

People seem to imagine B'Head and their like are a Trojan horse in the folk paddock waiting to kick the stable doors down. I see no evidence of that, they're fulfilling one side of the folk remit. It's up to other performers to chip in with the rest and find an audience.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: M.Ted
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 07:29 AM

So, Howard Jones, black American music doesn't include any traditional idioms?


And, Sinister Walkabout, "corporeal, cultural & contextual realisation" while entertaining diversions, make very little practical difference, because, as long as you can play the song in time, you could play "The Saints" with either Louis Armstrong or Matt Armour--that is, in fact, true of all music and all musicians-

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Howard Jones
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 08:17 AM

"So, Howard Jones, black American music doesn't include any traditional idioms?"

Of course it does. But on the whole they aren't the same idioms found in English traditional music, which is why people raised on popular music find it so hard to understand folk, especially English folk - Irish tunes somehow seem to be more accessible.

I once played for a ceilidh at a folk festival which had attracted quite a large crowd of the local youth. Watching them trying to dance to a hornpipe was highly entertaining - they just couldn't get the hang of the rhythm. I'm sure they were well able to dance to the rhythms of their own preferred music.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Howard Jones
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 08:25 AM

As a "definition", all it defines is your and your club's activities.

No - if defines the nature of Folk Music as it occurs throughout the world; in England certainly. Go to any folk festival, listen to any folk radio show, look through the folk section of your local HMV, and you'll see this to be true.

Actually in my experience, most folk clubs, festivals, radio shows etc stick more or less to my understanding of "folk". Likewise the folk section of my local HMV - I certainly wouldn't look there for George Formby imitators or renditions of "When the Saints go Marching In".

I accepted in my previous post that there are uncertainties around the margins, and certainly I do hear things in all these contexts which strain my understanding of "folk", but that doesn't mean that anything or everything can, or does come, under the umbrella

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Howard Jones
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 08:26 AM

Glueman, my description of Bellowhead was meant as praise, not criticism. My point was that a "folk song" remains a folk song no matter how it is performed.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 08:52 AM

Glad to hear it HJ. So much of what passes for folk's critical theory is preference dressed in a different hat.
If Bert Lloyd and the rest of the collectors were discovered to have written every word it wouldn't make an ounce of difference to the continued performance and reception of folk. Like the adherents to Genesis (the biblical prologue, not the popular music combo) if people's beliefs stretch no further than literal truths they're destined to be endlessly disappointed.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 12:35 PM

"If Bert Lloyd and the rest of the collectors were discovered to have written every word it wouldn't make an ounce of difference to the continued performance and reception of folk"

A similar thought occurred to me when I discovered that 3/4 of The Sloe Gin Set, from Bellowhead's Burleque recording, was actually written by Messers Spiers and Boden. I had a brief vision of the traddies screaming that therefore it wasn't folk music...but it passed *LOL*

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 02:27 PM

"With an operatic aria, whilst there is an underlying story, the main point is to show off the singer's voice."

Just a small nit-pick to set the record straight.

The purpose of an aria in an opera is essentially the same as that of a soliloquy (a dramatic monologue that represents a series of unspoken reflections) in Shakespeare's plays, or in a novel when the author takes you inside a character's head. Simply put, it's a piece of inner dialogue. And this, of course, can be an essential part of the story.

That's the intent that the librettist and the composer have in mind. Whether or not it is a show piece for the singer's voice is the singer's worry. There are a number of operatic arias that are actually not all that difficult to sing.

In most opera houses today, the problem of an opera being in a foreign language is taken care of with "supra-titles;" like the sub-titles in a foreign movie, but projected on a panel just below the proscenium arch above the stage. The Seattle Opera House is so equipped.

#####

Sin, you're hanging in mid-air twenty feet out from the canyon's rim, just like Wile E. Coyote before he looks down and realizes his situation.

corporeal :   having, consisting of, or relating to a physical material body.

The species we refer to as "elephants" are a corporeal genre. I don't see how the word "corporeal" relates to music of any genre. The idea of "genre" itself is an abstraction.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 02:59 PM

The species we refer to as "elephants" are a corporeal genre. I don't see how the word "corporeal" relates to music of any genre. The idea of "genre" itself is an abstraction.

I use corporeal in terms of empirical actuality; corporeal as oppose to conceptual, or even yet abstract. I don't suppose you've read Harry Partch or even listened to his music. Corporeal is a word he uses a lot to underline this vividness of musical experience; a vividness I regard as being integral to the experience of Folk Music. You know, the material physicality of sound which resonates in the physical material air, from one physical material body to another.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 03:06 PM

I use corporeal in terms of empirical actuality

Pray tell what that actually means, please. You are so far up your own arse...

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Goose Gander
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 03:10 PM

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone," it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less."

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 03:10 PM

In case anyone doesn't understand what "up your own arse" means, there's a good definition here

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: M.Ted
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 03:34 PM

With due respect, Sinister Walkabout, it became clear a long time ago that, though you say a lot, you don't have a lot to say.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 03:38 PM

The above quotation from Monsieur Dumpty is most apt, especially within the context of this thread.

I remember a bizarre conversation I had back in the 1950s with a fellow who was hanging out in the University District, but was not a student. He favored the abolition of all dictionaries. In fact, he favored the abolition of all books and other reading material. He was cognizant of the fact (one of the rare facts he was cognizant of, actually) that the English language had a rich vocabulary of over 600,000 words, each of which signified a concept, and that by mixing and matching, one could fine-tune meaning quite precisely.

He maintained that this led only to confusion, bewilderment, and ultimately to misunderstanding. His recommendation for saving the world was to issue a mandate reducing the English language to no more than 350 words. Think of all the money society could save if it didn't have to spend it on such things as schools, colleges, and universities.

I don't know what ever became of him, but last I heard, he was seen in a back alley somewhere in the University District shopping for lunch in a Dumpster.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 03:55 PM

"I now have my 5 year old dancing up a storm to the Rochdale Coconut Dance (lots of jumping up and down involved) *LOL*"

Nice one! My six year old counts as his favourite songs Bellowhead's "Up to the Rigs of London Town", The Clash's "Rock the Casbah" and Kirsty McColl's "There's a Guy Works Down the Chipshop..." Result!!! I reckon.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 04:08 PM

PS This thread is just getting abusive now. Guest, Ed: if you don't understand what Sinister is saying, why not ask him to clarify rather than stoop to playground tactics? Don and M. Ted, you're not so far behind... And Ted, if you read Sin's posts you'll quickly realise he has BUGGER ALL to do with the ubernationalist pillock you so wrongly conflate him with. I don't wholly agree with SS's thesis (and I suspect he wishes the scenario he describes not to be the case, if only to avoid people singing Hotel California), but I understand exactly where he's coming from. I don't believe he's trying to redefine folk, but merely to understand and describe what he sees when he goes into, erm, designated folk contexts.

Having said that, a singaround pal last night suggested to me that "Spleen Cringe" was in fact Sin using a second Mudcat ID...

Off to turn my bathroom into a temporary DFC...

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Art Thieme
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 04:43 PM

1954--a peaceful time: and a more bland and gray time it was too here in the USA. Kids I knew had a toy back then--the President Dwight D. Eisenhower doll. You wind it up------and it sits on it's ass for eight years! Lurking as a subculture in the back o' the yards was this folk revival---happening incrementally----until the '60s happened. The music burst forth with all it's scholarship and ballads, striped shirt trios and field recorded songs from the collecting done through the last 30 or 40 years---just to save it, and have it for us here and now.

People, it's no wonder at all that we graphically illustrate the resultant folkie hodgepodge every time we post something to a Mudcat thread.

I love it---all of it. Go for it. Find your niche in it and uphold and defend your found querencia. It's a dry place, and warm. It is as good as any place to spend a life. Parodying Woody Guthrie, I respectfully put a sign on my banjo: This Machine Kills Time! Looking back from age 67 now, it was and is glorious, and a farce as well. As Robert Cantwell intimated, "When we did it well, we could be very good." ("Making music" he meant.) And that was in his book "When We Were Good" -- a sometimes right-on volume that was also often infuriating and naive.

With admiration for you all no matter whatever,

Art

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 04:50 PM

Mr. Cringe, I hardly thing M.Ted and I are "stooping to playground tactics." And I understand perfectly well what Sinister is trying to say. I've heard that sort of circular argument before, in both this and other contexts. It's hardly "abusive" to point out to someone that their argument is full of ad hoc re-definitions, and is, hence, nonsensical.

One can "prove" anything, if you suspend the rules of logic and are allowed to define words any way you want to. And it certainly looks to me as if he's trying to redefine "folk" and "traditional" to mean anything he wants these words to mean.

If M.Ted and I are being "abusive" and resorting to "playground tactics," then so were Aristotle, Socrates, and a whole pantheon of logicians and philosphers.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 05:26 PM

Sorry Don, slight overreaction on my part in defence of a pal. I doubt SS will be eating from dumpsters just yet, however...

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 06:19 PM

If Bert Lloyd and the rest of the collectors were discovered to have written every word it wouldn't make an ounce of difference to the continued performance and reception of folk.

What interests me about this hypothetical is that we already know it's not going to happen. Take (for example) Skewball, Reynardine and the Recruited Collier. In every one of those cases I can show you Bert Lloyd's version & I can also show you what was there before he got to work on it. This isn't speculation or blind faith - we've got the data. When people talk about the folk process they're talking history, not religion.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 06:37 PM

Ah, but suppose it became clear old Bert had inserted the odd verse, or indeed made whole songs around, say, a discovered song title and got a taste for period songwriting. Would it matter? Not a jot. Some might suggest they could no longer be described as traditional but the song would remain identical.

As for Sinister, I find him a vision of clarity compared to those who insist a song has qualities by the mere expedient of it being old. Qualities apart from oldness that is.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 07:06 PM

Ah, but suppose it became clear old Bert had inserted the odd verse, or indeed made whole songs around, say, a discovered song title and got a taste for period songwriting.

Again, we don't need to speculate - we know that he did this, sometimes improving the song, sometimes buggering it up. You can imagine a kind of alternate Bert Lloyd who was an incredibly skilled ethnographic forger, with access to the Bodleian ballad collection and the ability to control Cecil Sharp's thoughts, but if you're going to do that you may as well imagine him with X-ray vision and leaping tall buildings at a single bound. Back in the real world, there are some cases where we can see what was trad. and what was Bert, and others where we can make a pretty good guess. It's history, not religion.

those who insist a song has qualities by the mere expedient of it being old

Who would those people be? There's a big difference between an old song that's been through the folk process and an old song that's been preserved unchanged - songs in Shakespeare's plays, for example.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Betsy
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 07:21 PM

Thanks Pip - you make a lot of sense to me.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Apr 09 - 09:13 PM

". . . those who insist a song has qualities by the mere expedient of it being old." I don't think anyone ever said that, glueman. It's a bit more than longevity that gives a folk song its essential qualities.

Don Firth

P. S.   A Fable:   Someone asks Big Bill Broonzy if the song he just sang is a folk song. Broonzy responds (allegedly), "It must be. I've never heard it sung by a horse."

At which point, the Truth Fairy swoops down and announces, "Wrong!! Broonzy was just moving his lips! The horse is a ventriloquist!!"

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: M.Ted
Date: 03 Apr 09 - 01:19 AM

Mr. Cringe--Though your pal may not share the political views of Mr. Walkabout, he shares the style of presentation, the techniques of argumentation, the same supreme self confidence, and the same propensity for going on and on...

I don't think it is abusive to point these things out, but perhaps am being a bit tedious, I apologize for that, but, in my defense, I am not the only one.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Apr 09 - 03:14 AM

Spleen Cringe:
Guest, Ed: if you don't understand what Sinister is saying, why not ask him to clarify

I'd have thought "Pray tell what that actually means, please" was doing just that. Obviously not...

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 03 Apr 09 - 04:37 AM

Define 'clarify'!

I'm sure that, in this context, SS will tell us that it means something completely different from the mundane "make clear ..." definition in my, oh so mundane old 'Oxford Dictionary'. Why, in a 'folk context' it can mean anything that SS wants it to mean!

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 03 Apr 09 - 04:41 AM

This started out with a disambiguation of the terms Folk and Traditional with respect of the 1954 Definition of Folk Song as originally stated by the International Folk Music Council. As we have seen, the IFMC changed their name to The International Council for Traditional Music, to clarify their objectives with respect of traditional music, including folk, popular, classical and urban music, and dance of all countries.

Whilst we don't know the status of the 1954 Definition with respect of the ICTM, but we do know the status of the 1954 Definition with respect of certain Folk Fans, which is to say that of a shibboleth, the questioning of which is heretical despite that fact it does not adequately describe the sort of musics being performed in the name of Folk Music in the Folk Clubs, Folk Festivals etc. in 2009 - and some time before that.

Having attended Folk Clubs, Folk Festivals etc. for some 35 years, I ventured the suggestion that Folk Music as more a matter of Context than Content. This is no idle theory, but an observation of the sad fact (for a Traddy like me) that precious little of the music performed in Folk Clubs, Folk Festivals etc. is in anyway Traditional Music. Indeed, from what I have experienced, it can in fact be anything from amateur stabs at operatic aria to (and it hurts me to even write it it believe you me) Hotel California.

Some posts ago I summed up my position by saying if life offers you leons, make lemonade.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 03 Apr 09 - 04:42 AM

Ignore that. I'm still working on it. Hit the Submit Message Button by mistake.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 03 Apr 09 - 04:46 AM

"Some posts ago I summed up my position by saying if life offers you leons, make lemonade."

There's your problem. If life offers you leons, you need to make leonade.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Will Fly
Date: 03 Apr 09 - 05:08 AM

I quite like the Kings of Leons.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 03 Apr 09 - 05:09 AM

Pip - Not very helpful. As I said, I hit the Submit Message button by mistake - when I was clocking to correct the spelling of LEMONS actually. Amended post to follow.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 03 Apr 09 - 05:14 AM

PR - posters on this thread have insisted folk music has an exceptional quality to it. I'm still asking what it is? I'm not being obtuse, I can hear subject matter, musical modes and presentation that suggests folkishness but none that are exclusive enough to justify those who say only traditional music has these qualities.

Traditional music provided a template for the future with the different qualities alluded to. If Bert Lloyd records twenty traditional songs but only has a first verse to go on for the 21st and embellishes the rest based on the idiom he's familiar with, is that song audibly different to the others? If there's no difference I can hear, no nuance, stylistic trait or whatever the characteristics lie in the textual origins, fascinating in their way but of no consequence to a living music.
Intellectually, those who say they prefer traditional music exclusively because of the way it sounds simply haven't thought the matter through.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 03 Apr 09 - 05:15 AM

I quite like the Kings of Leons.

And they play folk songs

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 03 Apr 09 - 05:57 AM

This started out with an attempt to effect some sort of disambiguation between the terms Folk and Traditional with respect of the 1954 Definition of Folk Song as originally stated by the International Folk Music Council. As we have seen, the IFMC changed their name to The International Council for Traditional Music, to clarify their objectives with respect of (and I quote) traditional music, including folk, popular, classical and urban music, and dance of all countries.

Whilst we don't know the current status of the 1954 Definition with respect of the ICTM, we do know the current status of the 1954 Definition with respect of certain Folkies - which is to say that of a shibboleth, the questioning of which is heretical despite that fact that it does not adequately describe the sort of musics being performed in the name of Folk Music in the Folk Clubs, Folk Festivals etc. in 2009 - and, indeed, for some considerable time before that.

Having attended Folk Clubs, Folk Festivals etc. for some 35 years now, I ventured the suggestion that Folk Music was more a matter of Context than Content. This is no idle theory, but an observation of the sad fact (sad for a Traddy like me that is) that precious little of the music performed in Folk Clubs, Folk Festivals etc. is in anyway Traditional Music. Indeed, from what I have experienced, it can be anything from amateur stabs at operatic aria to (and it hurts me to even write it, believe you me) Hotel California (fruitcake anyone?)

Some posts ago I summed up my position by saying if life offers you lemons, you make lemonade. So I make an attempt, as objectively as possible, to define Folk along the lines of Folk Is What Folk Does - in other words, Folk Song is that which is sung by Folk Singers in Designated Folk Contexts such as Folk Clubs, Folk Festivals, etc. and includes pretty much any type (or genre) of music, or attempt at same, by musicians both amateur and professional, who evidently believe that Folk Music is a matter of context too - otherwise they wouldn't do what they do. Does Jez Lowe do Folk Music? What about Rachel Unthank? Is her cover of Robert Wyatt's Sea Song folk music? What about the unaccompanied version I heard some weeks ago sung by a female singer in a singaround who had never heard of Robert Wyatt but had assumed it was (and I quote) a proper folk song?

So these are the facts of the case. I have seen nothing in 35 years of attending Folk Clubs, Folk Festivals etc. to convince me otherwise. Indeed, interest in purely Tradition Song is often wholly anomalous in a Folk Context - and as a few people here have pointed out, there are depressingly few singarounds that actively welcome big ballads. Indeed, at one Folk Festival we regularly attend, there is a session devoted exclusively to Ballads which follows on from a general singaround mid-way through the Saturday afternoon in the same bar. I have never seen a room empty so quickly as when the announcement is made that the Ballad Session is about to commence. Once I heard the comment (from an otherwise respected singer of traditional songs) that singing Child Ballads was a bit dodgy with the present concerns of Paedophilia. I kid ye not.

So - if life offers you lemons, you make lemonade. Which is all I'm attempting to do here by the way, to take a look at this thing we call Folk Music as an empirical phenomenon of human music making and how it might differ from other musics. In many cases the only difference is that it calls itself Folk Music, which is telling in itself and leads one to consider if it can really be so simple as a matter of designation. I look a bit deeper and see there are other differences afoot; a certain philosophical mindset perhaps that might will any music to be Folk Music simply by saying it is so, and a certain something I have no hesitation in calling Cultural Autism which many Folkies and Traddies (myself included) suffer from to a greater or lesser extent.

One clear manifestation of this autism is a fear of change and a need for clearly defined boundaries; a lack of personal security and a deep seated need for belonging which exists, paradoxically, alongside ones status as a resolute outsider. In The Tradition we often find the collective meme being safeguarded by the most idiosyncratic of performers - Davie Stewart is a classic example of this, known as The Galoot even by his own community. In the old songs, the traditional songs, we find a tangible link to a vanished past; it's comforting, reassuring; and for many this is all they want - comfort and reassurance - and who can blame them? Maybe it's these same individuals who then go on to write their own songs about the past - idiomatic laments and paeans that still might pass as Folk Song (though not by the 1954 Definition) and might be sung heartily in singarounds. I think of Scowie's When All men Sing as a near perfect example of this. When I sing this in good company, I cease to exist; my corporeal body is absorbed into a greater human whole much as it might be in the singing of Sorrows Away or Blood Red Roses.

Nostalgia is a persuasive beast. It might make those same singers throw in the occasional bit of pop music from the past, or some Dylan, or whatever; something special to them, something they want to bring into the fold in the name of Folk, and something which becomes a Folk Song simply because it embodies a similar level of meaning to the singer as might any old traditional chestnut. Did I mention the chap who once sang his own composition which he introduced as a Folk Song about Rock n' Roll? To me, that says it all really.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 03 Apr 09 - 06:47 AM

The folk process, by any but the most dogmatic definitions, has shortened immesurably since 1954. The expansion of popular music on the radio, the accessibility of classical works from the auditorium through tv, radio, magazines; jazz, funk, soul, house, all forshortened with their own myths, histories, heroes, gods and demons.

"What about Rachel Unthank? Is her cover of Robert Wyatt's Sea Song folk music?" SS

Rachel Unthank's Sea Song is Meta-Folk but folk nontheless. It is self-conscious second generation performance revival folk with Prog Rock sensibilities but contains all the audible ingredients that mark it out as folkish.
If the tradition connects us with an imaginary or real musical Eden, technology has allowed new creation myths, some so close to the origin as to be undetectable, some only covering themselves with the glamours of the garden, other's with no more than a passing salute. Technology gave us the time machine to glimpse the past and see it all at once 'as in a poet's eye.'
An audience can connect with its heritage singing, "partly fish, partly porpoise, partly baby sperm whale" as with When All Men Sing.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 03 Apr 09 - 07:21 AM

It is self-conscious second generation performance revival folk with Prog Rock sensibilities but contains all the audible ingredients that mark it out as folkish.

I find it a lot easier to recognise the sound of a traditional song than to follow you into this thicket of qualifications and corollaries.

Let's start at the end: all what audible ingredients? Can you list them? Which of them are essential to mark a performance out as folkish? Can a Designated Folk Context host performances which are un-folkish?

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Will Fly
Date: 03 Apr 09 - 07:27 AM

Heh heh - interesting idea there, Pip. If a Non-Folk performance enters a Folk Designated Context, does it become Folk? and if enough Pop-Song performances enter a Folk Designated Context, does it then become a Pop-Designated Context?

Dance, Angels, Dance - the pin's head is big enough.

Remember Carrollian logic questions: what It is may not be the same as what you call It. And who will care?

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 03 Apr 09 - 07:54 AM

"this thicket of qualifications and corollaries"

Thicket; nice folk word Pip.

"It is self-conscious second generation performance revival folk with Prog Rock sensibilities but contains all the audible ingredients that mark it out as folkish."

Try the easy version then: "self-conscious".

All modern performances of folk, traditional or in-the-style-off are one would hope, self-conscious. Unless you believe dangling a leather tankard and hooting 'as I roved out' means you've done any actual roving lately or the pub ran out of glasses.

"second generation"

The Unthank girls family 'tradition' is the folk revival, especially sea shanties IIRC. They therefore have the sensibilities and material of that revival and being modern geordie lasses, a good ear for pop and rock too. Not Venus from the clamshell perhaps, but a fair chance of doing justice to traditional material.

"prog rock sensibilities"

My guess is progressive and experimental blues rock, to give it a more descriptive title, formed a fair bit of many folkies musical education. Remember we're talking folk revival here, a fashion, a response to the political and social climate of the 50s and 60s, not mainlining tunes heard on mother's knee from her mother's mother. On that basis why not sing Wyatt?

Rather than list which audible ingredients suggest it is folk can you list the musical factors than means it isn't? We're talking things you can hear and repeat remember, not stuff that has to be checked in a library; stuff of the common man and woman not intellectuals, taxonomists or PhD students.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 03 Apr 09 - 08:49 AM

" ... and a certain something I have no hesitation in calling Cultural Autism which many Folkies and Traddies (myself included) suffer from to a greater or lesser extent.

One clear manifestation of this autism is a fear of change and a need for clearly defined boundaries; a lack of personal security and a deep seated need for belonging which exists, paradoxically, alongside ones status as a resolute outsider."

I prefer the word 'alienated' to 'autism'. I find myself alienated with respect to much modern, popular culture - which seems shallow and lacking in 'texture' to me. And I have been thus alienated since childhood. I distinctly remember, in the mid 1950s, my younger self's delight in the English traditional songs that we learned at school and my antipathy towards the alien rock-'n'-roll which was just beginning to flood our culture. My main motivation for contributing to threads such as this is to argue against the replacement of traditional-type music by rock-based 'pap'.

As for "fear of change" - yes, I'm terrified of change - I freely admit it. And that's because of the havoc that I've seen wrought on the world by uncontrolled, unregulated change in my lifetime. I think that, from now on, it should be the duty of every responsible citizen to resist change with all of their might!

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Will Fly
Date: 03 Apr 09 - 08:57 AM

Hi Shimrod - I also remember, even now, much-loved songs I learned at school, and I still like them. I also remember Elvis singing "That's All Right Mama" and "Hound Dog" and thinking "Yes!"

One doesn't have to replace the other. Elvis also had his roots - they may not be our roots, but they're worthy ones, just the same. There's something very seductive about the rhythms and riffs of 50s rock'n roll and rockabilly - so much so that I played it for 13 years. Didn't stop me going to folk clubs, though. :-)

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 03 Apr 09 - 09:06 AM

"As for "fear of change" - yes, I'm terrified of change - I freely admit it."

It would be easy to take the piss out of that response but it's an attitude that runs deeply within some sectors of the folk community and one should recognise that. It is still wrong headed. Nostalgia for a golden age, politically, socially, musically is based on myths and elegies are by and large, mischief.