In Praise of Traddies!

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: Brian Peters
Date: 19 Feb 10 - 09:26 AM

Traddie, moi? I'll have you know I share many of Mr. O'P's more esoteric tastes, including Gong, Magma, ISB, you name it!

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 19 Feb 10 - 08:45 AM

Hey Mr P - You pinched 200.

Bloomin' traddies. Mutter, mutter...

:D (eG)

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: Brian Peters
Date: 19 Feb 10 - 08:43 AM

"Until that is some Traddie comes along and starts to lecture me on musical righteousness."

And how often does that happen on Piccadilly in Manchester?

Or anywhere else for that matter?

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 19 Feb 10 - 08:43 AM

Walking down Picadilly in Manchester you'll get...

More likely Market Street, Picadilly is too full of buses to hear anything and the gardens have them stupid fountains now! But I will let you off for that one:-)

Did you ever come across the worlds worst busker there? they guy with the out of tune blue guitar who shouted all his songs? I could listen to him with a smile on my face for ages!

Cheers

DeG

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: Jack Campin
Date: 19 Feb 10 - 08:22 AM

I was really thinking of the media barrage that aims at stopping anyone thinking about anything except celebrity culture and brand names. If it isn't going to make Murdoch any money there are dozens of TV channels and Hello! lookalikes telling you to think about silicone tits and Nintendo instead.

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 19 Feb 10 - 08:21 AM

So which one are you?

I see myself in them all actually; some days you'll find me the merry outsider, gooble-gobbling away with the best of them - other days I'll be recoiling at the abject horror of this very freakish thing that has been called Folk...

I think Jack Campin was referring, at least in part, to the constant barrage of noise (usually pop music) that is forced upon us, and the fact that this has increased significantly over the past few decades.

And this interferes with - er - Traditional Music how exactly? Up in Edinburgh I flee from bagpipe & djembe duos - generally for the nearest shopping arcade (or better still Ocean Terminal) there to heal my soul with piped pop. Walking down Picadilly in Manchester you'll get mbira, kora, blues guitar, rock n' rollers, folkie fiddlers, string quartets, homeless penny whistlers and hip-hoppers - and I think to myself, what a wonderful world. Until that is some Traddie comes along and starts to lecture me on musical righteousness at which point I reach for my pistol wondering which of us knows the most deserving misery.

Just listen to me, he who avoids those local folk clubs that use PA systems...

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: melodeonboy
Date: 19 Feb 10 - 07:02 AM

"What you dismiss as Cultural Noise Interference is the glad reality of actual music"

I think Jack Campin was referring, at least in part, to the constant barrage of noise (usually pop music) that is forced upon us, and the fact that this has increased significantly over the past few decades. It's now become almost de rigeur to have piped music playing in shopping centres, airports, pubs, supermarkets, shops, restaurants etc., and often in the workplace as well. I think "Cultural Noise Interference" is as good a definition as any. I find it irritating and distracting. Glad reality, my a**e!

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 19 Feb 10 - 07:00 AM

Oh, there's a cosy looking singaround. Is that the Beech? So which one are you?

Here's a tubey of one I go to, from Knockholt folk camp last Summer Solstice. Poor quality video because the light was dimn (you might recognise Richard Bridge from the Pigs Ear tubey posted elsewhere): Knockholt Folk Camp

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 19 Feb 10 - 06:49 AM

don't think I'd have stuck around here without a sense of humour

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBXyB7niEc0

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 19 Feb 10 - 06:04 AM

"Westwood"

Tim? Yo, Yo! I crack up in fits every time I hear the bloke. He's hysterical!

Anyhoo, Cheers JC - don't think I'd have stuck around here without a sense of humour.

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 19 Feb 10 - 05:02 AM

who have managed to find their way to traditional music despite a much greater volume of cultural noise interference than my generation had to deal with.

What you dismiss as Cultural Noise Interference is the glad reality of actual music; it is the music of what is & thrives in continuance of that which gave us music in the first place. Can we continue to praise Traddies when, unlike their Model Railway Enthusiast counterparts, then continually fail to recognise real trains when they see them? I think, sadly, perhaps not. Once again we're back to Folk as Cultural Autism, at which point I tune into Westwood and rejoice.

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: Jack Campin
Date: 18 Feb 10 - 07:15 PM

And before this thread reaches 200, let's hear it for younger traddies like Crow Sister herself, who have managed to find their way to traditional music despite a much greater volume of cultural noise interference than my generation had to deal with.

And we didn't have the experience she's had, of digging for information in a space that feels increasingly like the downslope end of an elephant cage.

And especially well done for retaining a sense of humour while doing it.

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: John P
Date: 18 Feb 10 - 06:08 PM

Back to praising traddies. People who have given me years of enjoyment and inspiration, some only through recordings and some through playing with them over the years:

William Pint
Gabriel Yacoub
Martin Carthy
Jamie McMenemy
Alan Stivell
Anna Clemenger
Denny Hall
Mike Saunders
Tim Hart
Olov Johanson
Pierre Imbert
Scott Marckx
Danny Carnahan
Tania Opland
Maddy Prior
Bob Kotta
Eliza Carthy

and many more that aren't springing to mind right now.

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 11:18 AM

Oh ~ thank you.

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 10:25 AM

I think he used the 'N' word in a recent magazine interview.

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 08:18 AM

michaelr ~~ RU there? Could I please repeat my ? of 0151 am: what is 'racist' about John Mayer {NoRelation}?

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 08:14 AM

After all, most of us can spot a Folk Song, or a song aspiring to be a Folk Song, when we hear it - just as most of us can tell if a person is speaking French or German even if we can't understand what they're actually saying. ~~ S'OP
                              =======

I would commend this as a most noteworthy & valuable point {emerging from it must be admitted, a certain quantity of quasi-redundant verbiage}.

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: The Sandman
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 07:33 AM

I am in favour of anyone who makes their own music whether it be traditional,jazz, blues,or anything acoustic,Iam not against electric music either.
I am in favour of creativity .
I sing traditional english/irish scottish music for a living because by general consensus I do it better than blues.http://www.dickmiles.com

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: GUEST,S O'P (Astray)
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 06:51 AM

Whether we agree with it or not is irrelevent as just inventing other definitions will only cloud the issue.

I think it's probably better to get rid of the definitions rather than making new ones; neither the Horse Definition or the 1954 Definition tell us anything about the music. A musicologist might however - for more see below.

*

The kind of people who expect sex on the first date, and there is plenty of anecdotal evidence for this - are those who have met in internet chat rooms or other ways across the ether.

People of both sexes have been happily having sex on first dates long before the internet, that they continue to do so, in hotel rooms, is a matter of pragmatics & personal discretion.

*

No, Sweeney. "Folk" differs not in form but in derivation, as the 1954 definition states.

Yes, Richard. Because all music is thus derived. Show me one which isn't.

"Community" is an elastic term and a community may be long or short lived, large or small, dependent on particular links or general, and physical or today virtual, and nothing about that undermines the 1954 definition.

If that's the case we have no argument & there's no difference between the horse definition and the 1954 Definition. So - folk music is tautologous. Where does that get us? Far better we focus on what does make it different, and we won't find that in the 1954 Definition.

There is nothing condescending or patronising as far as I can see in referring to a community as a community - and if there were, so what, it would still be a community.

I'm thinking of the romanticism (and by implication patronisation) that assumes there can be such a thing as a community uninfluenced by popular & art music. The whole thing is couched in a functionalist rhetoric which has no place in today's thinking. How can music remain unchanged? Change is the very nature of the thing.

You seek to build upon an error therefore when you proceed to assert that we have failed to define "folk music".

The essence of music can be found in the material itself, the idioms rather than their derivation. It is a musicological issue, if it is an issue at all. After all, most of us can spot a Folk Song, or a song aspiring to be a Folk Song, when we hear it - just as most of us can tell if a person is speaking French or German even if we can't understand what they're actually saying.

An immediate culture cannot be a heritage. A heritage is what those before you did, and from which you spring.

In which case it's a bit vague to be of any use, even though I'm dealing with various consequences of the past all the the time. When I bake bread, am I doing so as act of heritage or necessity? I think heritage, like folk, is maybe missing the point rather. Both are unhelpful constructs and both are the reserve of a minority of enthusiasts.

PS: Another horse definition. You can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

Or as Stan Laurel said: You can take a horse to water but a pencil must be lead. But that's a proverb surely? There's a few more here:

http://www.ultimatehorsesite.com/info/quotes_horseproverbs.html

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: glueman
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 06:44 AM

The 54 definition is built on a set of terms which were assumed to be permanent. For better or worse descriptions like community have altered, probably irretrievably. The definition has no currency outside the revisionist format of the folk club, and sporadically then.

The changed nature of community has rendered the definition obsolete unless 'folk' and 'tradition' have further qualifiers. Within the world of the club it makes sense, like the scores in croquet or dungeons and dragons or the ascent through freemasonry but those inside over-estimate its thrall when applied to modern definitions of the same terms in the outside world.

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: MikeL2
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 06:31 AM

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: Crow Sister
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 04:51 AM

hi Crow Sister

<" And after all the threads on this topic and all the arguments for x, y and z, I'm just left thinking "so what?" >

Excatly my thoughts too.

It appears that after nearly 50 years of singing folk song I was wrong. And all the folk clubs and events I performed at and sat in the audience were not folk clubs at all.....lol

Hey ho....

Oh the praties they grow small....

regards

MikeL

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 06:03 AM

PS: Another horse definition. You can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink. The temptation to say "think" is almost irresistible, but I suspect that you probably can make a horse think, so long as you expect it to think like a horse.

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 06:02 AM

No, Sweeney. "Folk" differs not in form but in derivation, as the 1954 definition states. "Community" is an elastic term and a community may be long or short lived, large or small, dependent on particular links or general, and physical or today virtual, and nothing about that undermines the 1954 definition.   There is nothing condescending or patronising as far as I can see in referring to a community as a community - and if there were, so what, it would still be a community.

You seek to build upon an error therefore when you proceed to assert that we have failed to define "folk music".

An immediate culture cannot be a heritage. A heritage is what those before you did, and from which you spring.

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 05:59 AM

Positivitly unsanitary Definitely a traddie as well then:-)

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 05:56 AM

"BTW - I call mine Samantha. Far easier..."

But does Samantha give it up on the first date? I bet she does. All those traditional songs are right slags! Not fussy at all about who sings them.. just think of all the people and places they've been and been putting it about with?
Positivitly unsanitary.

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: Folkiedave
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 05:11 AM

Tell me Lizzie - do I count as a traddie?

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: Folkiedave
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 05:06 AM

There are two definitions of Folk that I'm aware of: The Horse Definition (variously attributed, but I always hear it in Satchmo's voice)

Then I offer a third definition - music that accompanies a raffle.

(Courtesy M. Simpson).

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 04:56 AM

BTW - I call mine Samantha. Far easier...


:D

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 04:51 AM

SO'P calls the body of songs that he mainly works with 'Traditional English Speaking Folk Song & Ballad', I call them 'Traditional Songs', other people call them 'Folk Songs'.

And after all the threads on this topic and all the arguments for x, y and z, I'm just left thinking "so what?"

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 04:45 AM

There isn't a working definition of folk music.

I thought there was? The 1954 definition. I do not know it that well but, as far as I know, it is the only one we have. Whether we agree with it or not is irrelevent as just inventing other definitions will only cloud the issue.

Not sure of the relevence to 'In praise of Traddies!' though.

Cheers

DeG

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: GUEST,S O'P (Dreaming of Glenisla)
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 04:23 AM

what you say could only have value if there was no point in knowing what made folk music differ.

There are two definitions of Folk that I'm aware of: The Horse Definition (variously attributed, but I always hear it in Satchmo's voice) and the 1954 Definition (to be intoned in the RP of Maud Karpeles & the International Folk Music Council - now the International Council for Traditional Music whose aims and objectives would be appear to be rather different). In both of these definitions the outcome is the same - that there is nothing about Folk Music that is any different from any other music and that, therefore, all music is Folk Music. Where the 1954 Definition fails is in its romanticised (& patronising) use of the term community. In today's folklore a community can be as many as two; it can exist for as long as a day; and in its history it will develop its own folklore, language, traditions, and perhaps its own folk music too. This is what people do. Of course this isn't going to be of any interest to the Folk Orthodoxy, but that's one of a particular Faith rather than a general actuality. It's a faith I might join in with myself from time to time, much as, as an atheist, I might find meaning in the RC Masses over the Easter Triduum.      

Without that knowledge it would cease to be differentiable and so become diluted to the point of invisibility.

Well, that's not strictly true because in having tried & failed to define Folk Music as being any different from any other music, there remains the evident fact that it is different - but only in terms of Genre & Idiom. What we now might think of as Traditional English Speaking Folk Song & Ballad is an international phenomenon which is quite different from any other but not according to the 1954 Definition which is, as I say, simply too anachronistic to be of any use to us today as a definition - though it does have use, which I'll come to presently. I sing these songs with a passion, but their difference is not how they came about, rather it's their idiomatic essence & enduring potency.      

If that is all you care for your heritage you are rootless.

We are each of us our own heritage and are rooted accordingly. My immediate culture is my heritage & my only interest in the past is where it intersects with the present. The only traditions of any real human value are the ones that thrive today and, unfortunately, Traditional English Speaking Folk Song & Ballad is not one of them. There are, however, millions of others out there that make me praise the new dawn each day I wake up. All music is a joy to me because of its traditions, its heritage, its community, its variation - all the things, in fact, enshrined in the 1954 Definition, the true value of which is to remind us of the essential humanity of music as a totality.

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 01:51 AM

... and in what way do you believe him to be 'racist' ~ I can find no evidence of this on his youTube perfs [mixed race groups &c], or his wiki entry [he explicitly acknldgs his Jewish roots].

So why 'racist' m.r?

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 11:37 PM

Not that I have ever heard of, michaelr. There are quite a lot of Mayer·s, I think. My relatives of that name are all LA-based, AFIK.

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: michaelr
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 11:34 PM

Is John Mayer (the racist pop star) a relative?

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 11:26 PM

and lots of 1930s MGM musical ditties

BTW ~ Yes! relation: Louis B Mayer was my 1st cousin 2ce removed, i.e. my paternal grandfather's first cousin. Why surname spelt differently?: why, becoz Americans can't spell, of course!

His nephew Daniel was a dancer who used to come over with Judy Garland's annual visit & we would all meet him for tea at my grandmother's. Next time you see movie of Guys&Dolls, look out for the crapshooter in the sewer in the big green fedora hat ~ that's my (god knows how-manyeth!) cousin Danny Mayer...

~ Michael Grosvenor Myer ~

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: glueman
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 07:00 PM

"If that is all you care for your heritage you are rootless."

Not at all. My earliest memories are of my mother singing music hall songs (she was born in a zepellin raid), probably learnt from her mother. There were a sprinkling of traditional songs in there and lots of 1930s MGM musical ditties. My 'heritage' is blues, soul, rock and folk via popular music radio and concert going, which I consumed indiscriminately until discrimination showed me they blurred marvellously and I could no more be a sharecropper than a ploughboy.

Plenty of lovely old songs with personal experiences laid over vicarious and imagined ones until they form a palimpsest of history, their provenance defined and re-defined in my own window of time. Far more important than the individual meat pies of someone else's taxonomy.

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: John P
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 06:52 PM

There isn't a working definition of folk music. I could make equally good arguments for it being only traditional music, any acoustic music, rock, rap, and "Happy Birthday".

There is, however, a decent working definition of traditional music, if you are willing to accept wide individualized gray areas. And if you ignore the grumpy, compulsive "don't try to define my music" crowd.

John

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: Bert
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 06:11 PM

OK. What is a working definition of "Folk Music" ?

It's what we do here at Mudcat of course.

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 06:10 PM

Glueman, what you say could only have value if there was no point in knowing what made folk music differ. Without that knowledge it would cease to be differentiable and so become diluted to the point of invisibility. If that is all you care for your heritage you are rootless.

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 06:08 PM

1954. Do try to keep up.

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: GUEST,999
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 05:31 PM

OK. What is a working definition of "Folk Music" ?

There'll be a bloody fight within ten posts.

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: glueman
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 05:26 PM

"Yours is a stereotype I've only encountered on Mudcat..."

Really?!?

"...and then only in the words of people who somehow think it's wrong to desire a working definition of a type of music."

Ah. It'll be their fault then. Not the nutters.

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: John P
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 02:06 PM

Traddie always conjours a grumpy, compulsive type of person to mind and I'm always shocked how accurate such a casually drawn stereotype has become. It's changing but everso slowly and on Mudcat hardly at all.

Obviously, there are few weirdos in the traditional music scene, but the same is true of any group of people, musical or not. "Always conjours a grumpy, compulsive type"? Maybe it conjours this in you, but not in me or in any of the intelligent, well-rounded people I know who happen to play and listen to traditional folk music. Yours is a stereotype I've only encountered on Mudcat, and then only in the words of people who somehow think it's wrong to desire a working definition of a type of music.

If you encounter grumpy, compulsive people in a folk club, in a grocery store, or on the train, I encourage you to emulate me and just walk away from them without worrying at all about what they say.

John

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: glueman
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 02:06 PM

The folk 'attitude' is a modern construction that's arrived in the last 50 years. The price of reviving the music has been a certain cumudgeonliness, a proprietoriality, an adversarial quality the original singers may not have identified with. It's a long way from 'a song I leaned on my mother's knee' to the lab testing it has to submit to now to pass the traddie test.

The simple pleasure of hearing old songs performed well should be sufficient without ownership arguments or provenance contests. That way lies madness. Or academia.

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 01:10 PM

Ah, well, that's fair enuff. I tend to be a bit of a compulsive; but endeavour to keep the old grumpiness under wraps AFAP!

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: glueman
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 12:32 PM

"Is there nothing you engage with, with any degree of love or enthusiasm? Goodness, how sad!"

Many things, but I'm eternally vigilant it isn't terminal bloke-iness, a kind of bubblegum card collecting that's looking for a object of desire, rather than the other way round. Remember, universities are full of people who find moth's wings the most important thing in the universe and make a good living out of their hobby. Is it healthy? - probably not. Will they gain the respect of their peers? - Certainly.

Traddie always conjours a grumpy, compulsive type of person to mind and I'm always shocked how accurate such a casually drawn stereotype has become. It's changing but everso slowly and on Mudcat hardly at all.

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 12:17 PM

Well they might be just a bunch of old songs to you, glueman, but they happen to be far more than that to me ~ &, it appears, to many of us.

I know people who think the Plays of Will Shax are nothing but a boring load of incomprehensibility; & I am genuinely sorry for such people & what they are missing.

Is there nothing you engage with, with any degree of love or enthusiasm? Goodness, how sad!.

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: glueman
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 12:09 PM

One hopes that enthusiasts for any music are able to get it out of its box, give it a good polish and put it away again, safe in the knowledge it'll be there next time they need it. It might be in good enough nick that they can pass it down to the kids.

Unfortunately musical enthusiasm, like any other, is but a short leap into obsessive compulsion and a rapidly diminishing sense of perspective. If traddie means someone who appreciates an old song I fit the bill but if it's wallowing in life-style folkiness forget it. They're just a bunch of old songs.

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 11:58 AM

No, you didn't mention it, but I can gather things are a bit chaotic. Glad it arrived & is approved of, anyhow.

Subject: RE: In Praise of Traddies!
From: GUEST,S O'P (Astray)
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 11:43 AM

CD arrived safe & sound, and has had several plays & received braw hoots & plaudits accordingly. Sound stuff. I'm sure I mentioned it, but it's rather chaotic just now, as ever...