Does any other music require a committee

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: Darowyn
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 04:56 AM

I suppose that it's possible that the various "Hall of Fame" organisations may have some influence on the perception of what styles or artists are included in their genre. I have observed some of the, sometimes bitter, arguments involved in the nomination and selection of inductees to the Country Music Hall of Fame, and one thing is clear, that the selection criteria do change over time. Perhaps it's just that the older generation, with their preferences, do die off and are replaced by younger successors. I cannot imagine that Kelly Clarkson (an American Idol winner) would have been a candidate twenty years ago, had her songs been around then. Be assured, that with or without a committee definition, the 'Trad' Country fans and the 'Nu Country' people manage to squabble and flame each other on their boards with an equal virulence to anything you'll see on Mudcat.
I've noticed a little bit of "Trad" versus the rest at the Upton Jazz festival too.
It seems to go along with any musical genre that involves overarching lifestyle choices. In other words, if you have to "dress up like a folkie, with a beermug on your belt" (from a satirical song I wrote when I used to go to folk clubs), or wear a trad jazz waistcoat, or high heeled boots and a big belt buckle, then you are likely to become very defensive about the music that you base those lifestyle choices upon. Young people have been killed for dressing like Goths.
If you can call upon the authority of a committee to justify your style preferences.... are you going to miss the chance?
Cheers
Dave

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 04:56 AM

More to the point Glueman - what was the band you were in? And which band did it spawn? Forgive me for asking this, but I'm only human after all...

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: glueman
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 05:06 AM

I'll sidestep that question SS because few on here will have heard of them, though most will know one or two individuals from subsequent work and in truth it's pretty irrelevant to the discussion.
Safe to say I was the one continually pushing us out of the pop rock groove into experimentation, folk, austerity, modernism, mad production and ensuring we remained well outside the mainstream to the frustration of all, except myself.

Plus is was bleedin years ago.

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: glueman
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 05:16 AM

Excellent point Darowyn. As a modest fan of country music nu and old I can't tell the difference between Gillian Welch and Alison Krauss and the old skool except hair styles! On such details can a genre pivot.

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: Brian Peters
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 07:53 AM

Well, I've been playing traditional songs for a fair old time now, and I did think I knew a bit about the subject, but I must admit that I'd never been aware of these so-called stone tablets called '1954' until the topic came up on Mudcat a year or so ago. Having now acquainted myself with the definition the ICTM came up with all those years ago, I'm baffled as to why some people seem to feel so threatened by it. It's a good and well-researched attempt at describing a cultural phenomenon now all but extinct in Western societies. Not any kind of a prescription for the (then non-existent) folk club movement.

As to folk clubs and festivals, which again I've been involved with for many years, these have - in the past at least - almost always been run by individuals or small groups, generally without profit, to provide a platform for the kind of music those people are enthusiastic about. That might be exclusively or predominantly traditional, or contemporary, it might be a bit of both, or it might be an eclectic mixture of music of many kinds. It tends to evolve as people with different musical tastes become involved with the organization. The notion that these varied musical policies might have been 'decided from above' is something I find laughable.

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: Howard Jones
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 08:14 AM

I agree with Brian 100%.

I just don't get the idea that the 1954 Definition, let alone some committee, exercises a huge influence over what goes on. Where is the evidence for this?

I first came across the 1954 definition about 40 years ago, in Bert Lloyd's "Folk Song in England". I don't recall it making a big impression, it simply set out more formally what I already knew in more general terms, and understood sufficiently for my purposes. I don't think I ever thought about it again until very recently, when I began to get involved in Mudcat. Other than on here, I've never got into a discussion about it or consciously used it to decide whether I should add a song to my repertoire (my only criteria for that are that I like the song and feel I can do it justice).

It seems to crop up regularly on here, but only because people are repeatedly asking (explicitly or implicitly) the question, "What is folk?" and the 1954 definition is one of the answers - some would say the most important answer, but its not the only one.

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: Jack Campin
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 08:22 AM

The competitive forms of Scottish music have always had committees, right back to the first-ever piping competition in Falkirk in 1782. The Mod has probably had the widest influence; not many Gaelic singers manage to escape entirely from both the style and repertoire it's been defining since the 1880s.

The commonest present Scottish danceband lineup (a weirdly unbalanced one, with one fiddle, two accordions and backline) has been promoted by fiddle & accordion club competitions for about 30 years now - without them it would surely have died an unlamented death long ago. Box & fiddle club committee members are not easy to distinguish from old-style trade union bureaucrats.

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: glueman
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 08:25 AM

It may be down to the insistence in some quarters that 1954 'is' folk, so what's played under the banner had better fit '54 or it isn't folk, with the various non sequiters and intellectual dead ends that view suggests.

It would be interesting to know whether any club or festival committees take a blind bit of notice of the definition when booking acts. Or has it served its purpose and we've moved on.

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: Brian Peters
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 10:20 AM

> the insistence in some quarters that 1954 'is' folk <

I don't recall ever seeing one of these endless Mudcat threads about definitions being started by a 1954 defender telling us that all folk venues should present traditional material, or that all singers should be vetted for their adherence to 1954 criteria. What I have seen is a lot of threads instigated by people who *don't* believe in 1954 - or, I suspect, in any kind of definition at all - challenging the concept. At which point those who find 1954 intellectually coherent feel obliged to defend it.

> It would be interesting to know whether any club or festival committees take a blind bit of notice of the definition when booking acts. Or has it served its purpose and we've moved on. <

They don't - that was precisely my and Howard's point. But then, that was never 'its purpose' in the first place; its actual purpose remains valid. Anyway, you lot have already put the '1954' thread to bed. What this thread is supposed to be about - and what I would like to know is: where is the evidence that anything is 'decided from above'?

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: John P
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 10:49 AM

I'm with Brian on the laughable nature of the premise of this thread.


Glueman, you say: I was hoping to avoid another hack at '54 . . .

Bullpucky. You started this thread to have another hack at '54. You said in your OP: . . . folk requires authority from outside to determine it according to some sources. Is folk self-regulating or decided from above?

Accusing anyone of requiring an outside authority to decide what to play - or even to arrive at their personal definition of folk - is taking a hack at '54, whether you realize it or not.

Clearly there's a link between IFMC 54 and now because performing musicians and singers regard it as a source.

The question is do other forms of music have institutional bodies that have left their mark so deeply on what's actually played now?

I keep asking this and no one answers: Who are these traditional music people that need an academic definition to tell them what to play and how to play it? Which folk festivals program music according to 1954, rather than the tastes and interests of the organizers? Bee-dubya-ell, perhaps you could chime in as well?

It seems to go along with any musical genre that involves overarching lifestyle choices. In other words, if you have to "dress up like a folkie, with a beermug on your belt". . . If you can call upon the authority of a committee to justify your style preferences.... are you going to miss the chance?

SS, you're joking, right? In thirty years of playing traditional folk music I've never seen anything like this. Costumed performers are doing some sort of recreation activity. It really doesn't have anything to do with the music. Or is this an honest assessment of what you think players of traditional music are like?

Given the negativity toward 1954 I'm seeing here, with broad statements being made describing, in a completely unsupported way, a mind-set that no one has actually seen, I have to conclude that SS and Glueman are having conversations within their heads that aren't actually taking place in the outside world. C'mon gentlemen, support what you are saying with something real, or get off it. How many people have to tell you that 1954 is nothing more than a useful description of a social phenomenon before you stop thinking it matters in any way to anyone's life or music making?

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: glueman
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 11:37 AM

"or that all singers should be vetted for their adherence to 1954 criteria"

I absolutely agree with that statement. I've never heard that in the thousands of posts either. It seems there is a definite sense of what folk is and clubs and festival committees override it as irrelevant.

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: glueman
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 11:47 AM

"You started this thread to have another hack at '54." John P

On the contrary. I had no idea about the Scottish piping festivals and was only barely aware of the strength of feeling in the trad-modern jazz debates, neither of which would have emerged under a 1954 title.
Have another read of my original question. If people see it as an affront they might examine 'why?' Please try to follow the 'love and understanding' request yesterday and see if your post furthers those objectives.

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: glueman
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 11:59 AM

"SS, you're joking, right?" John P

It wasn't SS posting.

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: Darowyn
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 12:00 PM

John P,
Have you never been to a Folk event and noticed that there are distinctly folkie modes of dress? or styles of hair and beard?
Trad Jazz fans do often wear waistcoats covered in badges, Country Fans do wear cowboy boots, western shirts and even sometimes, holsters.
I'm not talking about costumed performers, but the attending audience. It should be clear that people are making a bigger committment to a particular lifestyle than merely supporting a preferred genre of music.
I don't wear a powdered wig to go to a Bach concert, or evening dress for Lizst!
It is very understandable that people who have incorporated a particular musical genre closely into their self image, are going to see an attack on their music as an attack on their very selves, and will use any supporting evidence for their definition as a vital part of their defensive argument. Lovers of traditional folk have the 1954 definition- of course they will think that it is important, and will refer to it constantly.
On the other hand, there are those who have noticed that the stereotypical folkie can hold the wider movement up to ridicule (The same applies to the other Pariah genres, Trad Jazz, Goth and Country etc.)
In order to sustain their wider definition, it becomes important to marginalise the trad group in the quest for wider public acclaim. One strategy is to ridicule as obsolete a definition arrived at by a previous generation.
Logically the process of marginalisation ought, in this view, to result in a Borg-like assimilation.
I've said it before- this argument cannot be settled by rational debate. It means too much at a much more fundamental human level.
Cheers
Dave

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: John P
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 12:07 PM

It seems there is a definite sense of what folk is . . .

There is? I think one thing that everyone here can agree on is that there isn't a definite sense of what folk is.

. . . and festival committees override it as irrelevant.

I assume you're referring to 1954, or any idea of an academic definition, when you say "override it". Overriding something requires a decision, that someone actually know about it and think about it. In all my years of playing music, organizing concerts, serving on folk music committees, and attending and putting on festivals, no one I know has used anything other than their own tastes, or what they think would be good for their festival or club, to make any decisions.

Really, where is the evidence that anything is decided from above? Continuing to make the same unsupported statement over and over again isn't going to convince anyone that your idea for this thread isn't based on a false premise.

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: glueman
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 12:23 PM

"Is folk self-regulating or decided from above?" - part of my original question.

On the basis of attending festivals I'd say folk was entirely self regulating in an organic way. Balladeers and bands with electric guitars doing folk-rock rub along prefectly well, as do bright eyed audience members with gnarly gentlemen with Santa Claus beards. I can only recall seeing one fight at a folk event and suspect it was a domestic; fear and loathing is notable by its absence.

For clubs I can't speak, but if some Mudcat posts are a guide 1954 defined tradition is nearer to the surface as a booking policy, though it seems other clubs follow a wider folk-acoustic-roots-world music agenda. The main part of the question asks whether other kinds of music have formal frameworks that in any way efect what's played. It seems they do and I'm interested to know of others.

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: TheSnail
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 12:43 PM

glueman

Is folk self-regulating or decided from above?

It is self-regulating. Next question.

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: John P
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 12:58 PM

"SS, you're joking, right?" John P

It wasn't SS posting.

Right, sorry, it was Dave, who goes on to say:

Have you never been to a Folk event and noticed that there are distinctly folkie modes of dress? or styles of hair and beard?

Well, sure. Most groups of people have a mode of dress that they tend to prefer. Business people wear suits. Surfers like to be tan.

It should be clear that people are making a bigger committment to a particular lifestyle than merely supporting a preferred genre of music.

You've lost me here. Preferring a particular style of non-costume dress automatically means that someone is making a big commitment to a particular lifestyle? Can you offer any support for that statement?

I don't wear a powdered wig to go to a Bach concert, or evening dress for Lizst!

Whew, I'm glad. I don't either. And I often show up at folk festivals in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.

It is very understandable that people who have incorporated a particular musical genre closely into their self image, are going to see an attack on their music as an attack on their very selves, and will use any supporting evidence for their definition as a vital part of their defensive argument. Lovers of traditional folk have the 1954 definition- of course they will think that it is important, and will refer to it constantly.

Again, you are making an assumption that I don't see supported by any evidence in the real world. I'm a lover of traditional music who never heard of 1954 before a couple of weeks ago. I do think that traditional music is part of my very self, but I feel the same way about the blues and about playing drums. I certainly don't need to go to any definition to defend my tastes in music - or dress, for that matter. No one I know actually refers to 1954 in any way.

On the other hand, there are those who have noticed that the stereotypical folkie can hold the wider movement up to ridicule

Who? Where? Ridicule? When? What did they say? Are you suggesting that anyone who doesn't think modern composed songs ought to be called folk music is ridiculing anyone? Isn't it possible that they are just arguing over the definition of a word? Besides, every traddy I know who actually cares about such things (a very small group) gave up on trying to contain the use of the word folk decades ago. Everyone just plays the music they like, and calls it by the best name they can come up with. And somehow manages to get along with everyone else.

In order to sustain their wider definition, it becomes important to marginalise the trad group in the quest for wider public acclaim. One strategy is to ridicule as obsolete a definition arrived at by a previous generation.

Well, OK, I've seen some of that here, although I'm not sure about the quest for wider public acclaim. I've never seen it in the real world. Everyone just plays the music they like, and calls it by the best name they can come up with.

I've said it before- this argument cannot be settled by rational debate. It means too much at a much more fundamental human level.

If you are talking about agreeing on "what is folk?", I agree. If you're talking about investigating whether or not anything about folk music is decided from above, I think we all know the answer.

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: Wesley S
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 12:59 PM

Can someone tell me why it's the English that are willing to have these endless "What is folk music" discussions? I think it is silly beyond belief myself.

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: The Sandman
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 01:01 PM

Wesley,Iagree with you,but Iam English

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: glueman
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 01:03 PM

John P, fully entitled to your opinion as you are, please remember not everyone necessarily shares it. Who? What? When? Where? approaches can come across as aggressive and imply the poster is lying. People's experience differs.

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: Wesley S
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 01:03 PM

I'm not saying that there are no sensible English people - but when I see a thread of this sort that goes over 50 posts - and there are tons of them - you can be assured that the bulk of the posts are from our English members and "guests".

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: High Hopes (inactive)
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 01:08 PM

you can be assured that the bulk of the posts are from our English members and "guests"

You know the answer to that, don't look or contribute, and you've obviously done both...

Life's A Riot Between The Wars

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: Wesley S
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 01:18 PM

"You know the answer to that, don't look or contribute, and you've obviously done both..."

Wow - That's a novel solution - I don't think that concept have EVER been offered at the Mudcat before. Thanks. But actually - every time I feel like I'm getting my OCD out of whack these threads make me feel better right away.

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: glueman
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 01:21 PM

"Can someone tell me why it's the English that are willing to have these endless "What is folk music" discussions? I think it is silly beyond belief myself."

I can't answer your question Wesley but I've a few ideas. Folk, perhaps more than most music forms, has mature players and audience (with some notable exceptions) who may have decided long ago what folk is and what their own preferences are. At a half century old I come into the mature category but folk has always been a private vice, 35 years of listening to what friends would describe as 'your auld shyte'.

Having followed my nose and the sleevenotes to Topic records as to what was what I was astonished - properly astonished that is - to find definitions raised such ire on Mudcat; somewhere between comic and sad. Not all of us have 'enjoyed' decades of civilised debate to work out what's behind the uncivilised stuff hereabouts. My first post a year ago was dived upon as the work of some mad man with an agenda, when it was one of complete naivety.
I'm still learning.

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: High Hopes (inactive)
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 01:38 PM


Oh it probably has, but what with the world's current penchant for sound bites etc and short attention spans....

These threads are rather like a car wreck, you REALLY don't want to look, but you know you want to, and it really buggers the flow of commuters in the rush hour

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: Howard Jones
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 02:19 PM

"Lovers of traditional folk have the 1954 definition- of course they will think that it is important, and will refer to it constantly."

In more than 40 years of involvement in folk music, as audience and performer, I have never once heard anyone refer to it. The only reason it keeps getting referred to on here is because of the constant discussions about "what is folk?", to which this is inevitably one of the answers.

What I find most surreal about this debate is that the people who seem most keen to drag 1954 into the discussion are the ones who most disputing its validity. So can we please get one thing sorted,: it does not, and never did, have anything to do with what gets performed at folk clubs and festivals.   

So can someone, ideally the OP, explain just who are these higher authorities and which clubs or festivals they are supposedly influencing, and above all how they exercise that influence?

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: glueman
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 02:28 PM

You might be better asking the person whose quote you refer to HJ.

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: Stringsinger
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 02:30 PM

Folk is a branch of show business when it appears on a platform. Critics often get into the act whether they know anything or not. Jazz is usually assessed by the musicians who play it as to how good it is. Then there becomes the war of commerciality vis a vis content such as the Kenny G. and Pat Metheny controversy.

The committee is often just the audience who will dictate interest even in trad folk circles.
There's the large buzz and the small buzz depending on the appeal of the performer.

Critics do play a role in evaluating what an audience thinks about a performer but over the long haul, the audience accepts or rejects that which they hear. Sometimes it takes time
for an audience to catch up to the performer. A lot has to do with timing.

There is the PR of the performer which is in every branch of music including the rarified atmosphere of the traditional folk performer. I think that those who have studied folkmusic for any length of time can come up with names that the folk audiences have never heard about.

All music seems to require a buzz coming from audience and critics to some degree.

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: John P
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 02:58 PM

John P, fully entitled to your opinion as you are, please remember not everyone necessarily shares it. Who? What? When? Where? approaches can come across as aggressive and imply the poster is lying. People's experience differs.

Right, sorry. I'll try harder to avoid sounding confrontational. The questions are merely more of me trying to get people to support statements about phenomena that I've never experienced in all my years in the traditional music community, except for a few run-ins with demented authenticity police -- who probably aren't bothering anyone except other trad players anyway.

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: John P
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 03:22 PM

The main part of the question asks whether other kinds of music have formal frameworks that in any way effect what's played.

No. Lots of arguments about "what is jazz?", "what is early music?", or "what is country?", but these arguments, as far as I can tell, don't have any effect on what actually gets played. Nor do arguments about "what is folk?" have any effect on the playing of folk music. The only very tangential connection might be that a specific club or festival organizer might well book mostly music from one side or the other of such an argument, but it's not because of the argument. It's because that's the music the organizer likes and/or thinks the audience will like. These debates really don't have any effect on the actual playing of music.

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: Jack Campin
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 07:51 PM

Of course there are committees. They just aren't called that.

How else could academics and producers have eliminated all melody and harmony in the course of the 20th Century?

The paranoid conspiracy theory of 20th century musical aesthetics has much the same dynamic as "the Folk Police are persecuting me" so beloved of singer-songwriters.

Perhaps you would care to name some names, saying exactly WHO you're complaining about, and for doing WHAT?

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: GUEST,Sedayne (Astray)
Date: 18 Apr 09 - 04:05 AM

"the Folk Police are persecuting me" so beloved of singer-songwriters.

More likely the Folk Police will prosecute you for singing traditional material in a way that doesn't meet their particular criteria as to what constitutes acceptable traditional performance - like a certain uber-traddy on this forum who once dismissed my own singing of a traditional ballad as being somehow akin to bad pop music. Still smarting? Fecking right I am. I do my utmost to encourage anyone singing traditional material in whatever way they like, but always refer them back to the traditional singers (rather than revival stylists, which is a different issue) by way of reverence and NOT so they might impersonate them. I believe in Pure Drops and Pure Sources, but what people do after that is entirely up to them. Still, its a cranky old curmudgeonly world is Folk.

Last night at my Morpeth Gathering singaround we had 11 singers and an even mix of traditional & original material in an atmosphere of jovial conviviality by a huge baronial fireplace from 1656. I touched the ancient wood, feeling for the musical echoes of the last 350 years...

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: Peace
Date: 18 Apr 09 - 04:13 AM

"Don't get me started about committees!"

'A camel is a horse that was designed by a committee.'

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: glueman
Date: 18 Apr 09 - 04:38 AM

One of the things I was trying to discover was the extent to which committees formal, informal, small, large, designated and expedient determine what is performed. Looming large in Mudcattery is '54 - if almost nowhere else - but more interesting (to me) is the functioning of lower level but more influential groups who decide what goes.

There may be an insidious, tentacled, illuminati style folk conspiracy reaching into every village hall but it's more likely boundaries are decided by 'taste makers', the larger than life personalities with which folk music abounds who get to say what happens. These are the people who decide whether something is acceptable or improper in the name of folk and it would be interesting to know what their criteria are.

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: Peace
Date: 18 Apr 09 - 04:42 AM

"These are the people who decide whether something is acceptable or improper in the name of folk and it would be interesting to know what their criteria are."

We have a similar agency in Canada. Here, they are called censors. They have a few written criteria and they are heavily influenced by their individual opinions.

Always beware of stupid people in groups.

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: greg stephens
Date: 18 Apr 09 - 04:49 AM

Glueman and those of his ilk continue to miss the point, as ever. Like Brian Peters and others, I recently became aware of this date 1954 because of of people banging on against it around Mudcat.I have been playing folk music professionally(and socially) since the early 60's, and nobody has ever come to me brandishing a bit of paper with 1954 on it trying to say what, or how I should play. Of course folk music doesn't need a committee, and nobody has ever said it should. You may well need committees, or universities, or learned journals, to study things. But "things" don't need the committees. Ph D students study elephants. Elephants didn't need Ph D students to eveolve, evolution took care of that. This simple point contunues to elude the "anti-1954" brigade we keep seeing here.
People will continue to decide what they do and don't like, whatever Glueman and others may say. The 1954 defintion is an interesting attempt to give a name to music that arises out of certain social conditions. You may think that music needsd a name, or you may not. You may think the word used should be "folk" (as did the dreaded "committee"). Alternatively, you may, as many do, suggest that the word used nowadays should be "traditional", as "folk" has now started to be used to describe quite different sorts of music. YOu might, again, decide to think up a completely new word to describe communally evolved music. Up to you. It is unlikely, however, to effect how music eveolves in society.
As an attempt to analyse what "1954" means to me, I looked at how we sort our record collection at home. (Not very efficiently, mainly, there are CDs lying about everywhere). Broadly speaking, I do keep "classical" separate from "folk", but I certainly do not keep 1954 "folk" separate from singer-songwriter "folk". We tend to work along nationalistic/ethnic lines, I notice. The American folk seems to be largely separate from the British folk, and the British folk tends to be partly separate, and partly mingled with Irish.Africa is spearate, but northern Africa is with Kurdish and Arab. Much like real life in fact. Anyway, traditional song seems to be cheek by jowl with singer-songwriter and rock, on my shelves anyway. George Formby seems to be next to Vaughan Williams, not sure why.
Anyway, I would just like to extend the usual challenges(so far unanswered on a thousand threads). Who, and where, are the so-called folk-police who tell us how we are supposed to play folk songs? They've never come knocking on my door. And, for those who say singer-songwriters should be included within the "folk" definition: how, exactly, do you decide which song-writers are folk and which aren't? What are your criteria? Do you have a committee to help you? Did it have a date when it met? Come on, Glueman and Sinister Supporters etc. Give us the gen.
And, one last request. Maybe 1954 is a term that could be laid to rest for a while(or more properly, reinstated as the year when Lonnie Donegan recorded Rock Island Line, a fact of more significance to the current folk scene than any definitions of folk).

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 18 Apr 09 - 05:53 AM

I have a feeling that the following quote from Brian Peters is central to these 'what-is-folk' threads:

"I don't recall ever seeing one of these endless Mudcat threads about definitions being started by a 1954 defender telling us that all folk venues should present traditional material, or that all singers should be vetted for their adherence to 1954 criteria. What I have seen is a lot of threads instigated by people who *don't* believe in 1954 - or, I suspect, in any kind of definition at all - challenging the concept. At which point those who find 1954 intellectually coherent feel obliged to defend it."

I also suspect that those who believe that, 'anything-goes-in-a-folk-club' and are 'anti-1954',are, at heart, somewhat insecure in their choices - they have a need for those choices to be sanctioned by 'higher authority'. They confuse the 'higher authority' of the 1954 committee with the 'arbiters of cool' whose authority seems to prevail in the world of popular music. If people like 'glueman' and 'Sinister Supporter' are as 'free thinking' as they claim to be then they shouldn't need to rely on 'higher authority' for their choices! And, as Brian Peters makes clear above, no-one is forcing them to make different choices.

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: glueman
Date: 18 Apr 09 - 06:08 AM

We've established beyond reasonable doubt that the 1954 definitions have absolutely nothing to do with the performance of folk today. The question then is, how is it decided upon and who makes those decisions?

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: glueman
Date: 18 Apr 09 - 06:15 AM

"Glueman and those of his ilk continue to miss the point, as ever"

Greg, can I suggest that packaging me in that way reveals very little? I have no ilk, belong to no clubs, play only in front of family or friends and no agenda beyond a liking for folk music. I'm not trying to get any music under the wire, I'd just like to know where the wire is, what it looks like and who decides.

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: Howard Jones
Date: 18 Apr 09 - 08:09 AM

The decisions are made by the performers and by the people who book them, or allow them to sing in their clubs. People vote with their feet, and naturally gravitate to the events where the music matches their tastes.

The musical style of an individual event may be dictated by the preferences of the organiser, or it may evolve out of the preferences of the regulars. There's no overriding authority dictating what can and cannot go on - if there were, we might not have recently spent nearly 1000 posts arguing over the meaning and boundaries of "folk".

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: Mr Red
Date: 18 Apr 09 - 09:21 AM

The word "orange" is not an orange. This needs to be remembered occasionally. Thankyou Greg. Mind you - when I go to a Boat Band gig (or Bayou Seco for that matter) I know I can expect Polkas, Waltzes, Cajun onestep, twostep, Mamou, and I am sure if we asked we would get maybe bourees and mazurkas. Now which label should we hang for that?

But having said that - if I didn't know the Boat Band - I would like a "label" to hang on the music. The expectation is part of the entertainment. I may have danced French all last night and want a change. Those labels have to be close enough to fullfill the expectations. If for no other reason than I pack leather soled shoes for French and trainers for EC and Cajun. If you are a musician going to a session, similar expectations apply to instruments. I am sure concert-goers have similar expectations even if they are less physical.

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 18 Apr 09 - 09:33 AM

"or more properly, (1954 should be) reinstated as the year when Lonnie Donegan recorded Rock Island Line, a fact of more significance to the current folk scene than any definitions of folk."

Just in case anyone missed it the first time round...

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: TheSnail
Date: 18 Apr 09 - 09:38 AM

greg stephens

how, exactly, do you decide which song-writers are folk and which aren't?

According to one authority, they "should lie within recognisable parameters" although quite what those are remains unclear.

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: Stringsinger
Date: 18 Apr 09 - 12:04 PM

All music has its own committee often self-appointed. It means absolutely nothing in terms of the quality of the music.

It does, however, affect whether a musician gets a job. Critics can often be damaging in
this respect.

Folk music aficionados have often had an antiquarian bent. It runs into the concept of
"the noble savage" by Rousseau and Dryden. Extra-musical romanticism enters here.

This explains the academic leanings of some of the "folkier-than-thou" crowd.

A music will find its audience regardless of critics, self-style aficionados, in-groups,
and missionaries for "folk".

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: greg stephens
Date: 18 Apr 09 - 12:49 PM

Glueman says "We've established beyond reasonable doubt that the 1954 definitions have absolutely nothing to do with the performance of folk today". ("We" means Glueman, I take it). Actually I doubt if the 1954 definition had all that much to do with the performance of folk in England in 1954, either. But then, I dont think it was meant to. It was meant to analyse the origins of folk, and how they might differ from classical and popular music.

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 Apr 09 - 01:49 PM

Snail,
if i might attempt to provide you with an answer,those songs are ones[written by songwriters] with what we in England ireland scotland wales,call a folk sound,that is they are written in a few modes,the dorian mixolydian aeolian and ionian.
sometimes they are songs of social comment, some times love songs,but musically they generally have boundaries.unlike american folk music they dont generally modulate,but occasionally do[see Alan Smethhurst,but he was influenced by JimmieRodgers] and rarely use diminished chords.
for example not many english scottish irish welsh songwriters use the phrygian mode,which is one of the modes associated with flamenco music[a perfectly valid folk music].
a lot of these songwriters now use open tunings to get a certain sound
most of them are now being written to a formula,a hookline or short chorus,and are resricted to four modes.
of course some of these songs are just pop music with a folk flavour,some of them like Leon Rosselson are very critical of the establishment.

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 18 Apr 09 - 02:30 PM

The Incredible String Band didn't need a committee.

That's all I have to say on the subject.

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: Reinhard
Date: 18 Apr 09 - 02:37 PM

Wasn't it Supreme Court Justice Potter Steward who ruled out the need for committees: "Hard-core folk music is hard to define but I know it when I hear it."

Subject: RE: Does any other music require a committee
From: Peace
Date: 18 Apr 09 - 02:46 PM

My audience is the committee when it comes to my songs. That's it, that's all.