nouveau 'folk'

Subject: nouveau 'folk'
From: Thomas Stern
Date: 18 Aug 09 - 06:54 PM

I've noticed a number of performers/groups reworking traditional source material, performance style and arrangement usually outside the realm of traditional performance.   "Among the Oak & Ash", "Ollabelle", "Uncle Earl", Colin Meloy (the Shirley Collins tribute ep) etc.
Has anyone seen a written comprehensive evaluation of these and others in this vein? Also would be interested in what others are known to you.
Thanks, Thomas.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: oldhippie
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 04:01 PM

Try Snakefarm's CD "Songs From My Funeral"; they have non - traditional arrangemants of St James Infirmary, House of the Rising Sun, Tom Dooley, Streets of Laredo, John Henry,and All the Pretty Horses.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: M.Ted
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 04:08 PM

I am curious to know what "traditional performance' means, especially for UK stuff--

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: treewind
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 04:18 PM

Is "nouveau folk " different from "nu-folk"?

"traditional performance"
Often taken as meaning unaccompanied singing. In the context of "outside the realm of..." I guess he means using instrumentation and arrangements that wouldn't have been used in the context where the songs were originally transmitted from generation to generation, but how should I know, as I'm not familiar with the material he refers to.

Anahata
(+ I'm rambling, having imbibed a pint of Tanglefoot in an attempt to counteract the heat)

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 04:26 PM

I've noticed that, for some of our UK cousins, "traditional" folk means singing traditional words in any style at all---rock, reggae, country, whatever. In the US, the word tends to refer more to the style in which the words are performed, whether or not the words are traditional.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: stallion
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 04:40 PM

Anahata, Tanglefoot or other similiar substitute, in my case Sam Smiths Organic lager!
Dick - Traditional folk in the UK what a b***dy can of worms you opened there! Dick, did you mean singing in the style of the frail old men and women, untrained singers, that they were collected from? As I see it, the songs are out there and one does them the way one wants to, who they appeal to is something else. If I have a contribution it is that one shouldn't try to copy anyone but find your own voice, once you have found your own voice then sing, interpret and enjoy and if others do then it's a bonus.
I personally don't like labels, in the past it put me off some half decent bands! OK I do have a thing about singer/songwriters but some of my best friends are singe/songwriters..........it's just the awful ones!
Oh and, oh well....it will become a list!!!!!!

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Michael S
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 04:46 PM

I find I'm unsure what Thomas is seeking. He is interested in performers who are "reworking traditional source material, performance style and arrangement"

Haven't interpreters (often called "revivalists" in this context) done this for a very long time? How about the Weavers, or the Kingston Trio?

And the performers that interest Thomas operate "usually outside the realm of traditional performance." Do you mean, like, on a stage?

-Michael Scully
-Austin

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 04:54 PM

You just KNEW I would mention the 1954 definition didn't you. It does NOT require a manner of performance. The material is handed down by the oral tradition (that bit needs re-phrasing, to allow for modern methods of transimssion) and is thereby modified. So pickling the style of delivery in aspic is not required.

If the material is folk song or music, then the nouveau-delivery is folk song or music and not "nouveau" at all.

The proposition is based on a failure of understanding.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 05:10 PM

As I've detailed here , for hundreds of years, in England at least, most folk singing was the unaccompanied repetition of a relatively simple tune.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 05:14 PM

Well, WAV, I could not be arsed carefully to read that load of bolleaux by a non-Englishman about what the English tradition comprises, but no, I did not see any rational argument or evidence to such a conclusion.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Leadfingers
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 05:17 PM

English County Blues Band made several albums of Traditional English Lyrics set to Traditional(ish) American tunes ! One that I Stole YEARS ago is John Barlycorn re labelled as .Strong Man' to the tune of Staggerleee !

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 05:40 PM

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: M.Ted - PM
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 04:08 PM

I am curious to know what "traditional performance' means, especially for UK stuff-- .
try this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnHxwZb_Hig&feature=channel_page

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: M.Ted
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 08:12 PM

That would pretty much exclude a lot of your guys, such as Martin Carthy and Nic Jones, and all those bands from being traditional performers?

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 19 Aug 09 - 11:41 PM

And how come nobody on this thread has so far mentioned folk-rock - what about Fairport, Steeleye, Pentangle, Trees ????

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 02:58 AM

I'm as baffled as everyone else as to exactly what is required here, and Thomas Stern hasn't yet popped back into this thread to clarify ...

Has anyone seen a written comprehensive evaluation of these and others in this vein?

What other than the collected back issues of English Dance & Song, Living Tradition, fRoots/Folk Roots/Southern Rag, Taplas, Stirrings, all the other regional magazines, several books with 'Folk Revival' in their title, the occasional bit of coverage in the national broadsheets (some of it well informed, some of it not), etc. etc. etc.?

Or are we being asked for a single comprehensive study? I suspect one such will never exist, for all the reasons of opinion, interpretation, and disagreement about scope and definition that are illustrated daily here on Mudcat. The story goes that Sir Walter Raleigh started to write a 'Complete History Of The World' whilst incarcerated in the Tower Of London, but abandoned the project when he realised that he couldn't even get to the definitive truth of the causes of a fight between two workmen he witnessed one morning ...

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: theleveller
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 03:56 AM

"As I see it, the songs are out there and one does them the way one wants to, who they appeal to is something else. "

You've hit the nail on the head, Stallion. I've been involved in folk music for 45 years and that's what people have been doing all that time and, I'm sure, for a lot longer that that. Let's face it, guitar, banjo, melodeon - even fiddle - can hardly be classed as traditional instruments.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Darowyn
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 04:15 AM

Traditional folk:-
1. Like a scene from a Thomas Hardy novel. Country people in a village pub, accompanied by fiddle, concertina or whatever instruments the village Waits had managed to scrounge.
2. Like a post-war Junior School. Teacher on piano thumping out the chords, fifty kids in a classroom singing "The Drummer and the Cook" from a BBC schools songbook.
3. Like Peter Pears at The Maltings, or Kathleen Ferrier. Highly refined and bowdlerised versions of slightly suggestive songs sung and played by classically trained musicians.
4. Like a fifties Folk Group. Four university graduates with guitars and/or banjos, dressed as fishermen, singing folksongs, mainly from America.
5. Like Bob Dylan and/or Joan Baez. Solo performer with guitar singing mostly recently composed songs, often with a strong political or social message, and a transatlantic accent.
6. Like the New traditionalists. Solo performer or duo, guitar played in open tunings and with a very percussive style, fiddle player optional. English songs verified by visits to C.S. house, sung in a rural English accent (or equivalent from the other nations and regions of the UK.)
There are so many traditions, even in one small country, that either everyone is traditional or, nobody is. How many times does something have to be repeated before it becomes a tradition?

Cheers
Dave

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 05:12 AM

...like Joseph Taylor, turning up for a folk singing comp., a century ago, and singing unaccompanied - NOT through want of an instrument on the day, but because that was just the way English folk had performed English traditional songs for centuries.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 05:51 AM

I repeat my post of the 19th, 04.54 EST.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 06:12 AM

That was this: "Well, WAV, I could not be arsed carefully to read that load of bolleaux by a non-Englishman about what the English tradition comprises, but no, I did not see any rational argument or evidence to such a conclusion."...I'm an English repat. (actually born in Manchester the day Alf Ramsey's English team won the World Cup), RB; and that Joseph Taylor argument is rational - check with the EFDSS, if you like.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 06:25 AM

wav,
you are correct to a certain extent,but you seem to have forgotten about English troubadours,who sang traditional material with accompaniment
,BUT,why should we exclude accompaniment,those that wish to sing unaccompanied do it, not because its English but because its how they like to sing.
if I searched hard enough,I am sure I could find English traditional singers ,or singers of English Traditional song who used accompaniment 100 years ago
[lets see we are talking about 1909 ]Cecil Sharp didnt have a problem with songs being accompanied,in fact he wrote piano accompaniments.
are you suggesting Sharp was wrong,to use accompaniment.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 06:44 AM

For what it's worth, GSS, I, myself, double the melody with keyboards occasionally (and often in practice), but I still stand by what I said above (Date: 19 Aug 09 - 05:10 PM)...and, in agreement with you, I did type "most".

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: treewind
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 06:49 AM

"in fact he wrote piano accompaniments"
No no, don't go there. He wrote piano accompaniments so the songs could be reused in middle class social gatherings where singing was generally expected to be accompanied. I don't think we know if RVW thought piano or other accompaniments were part of folk song in its natural habitat.

Nevertheless, there is no reason why instrumental accompaniment might not have been used in the past, as by the troubadors.

The fact remains that a good yardstick for a folk song is that it stands on its own without needing instrumental arrangement. If it can't survive being passed on as an unaccompanied song it won't live long. Many pop songs fail this test, which in my view distinguishes them from modern folk songs.

Anahata

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: treewind
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 06:50 AM

Sorry I meant Sharp, not RVW...
Anahata

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: s&r
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 06:52 AM

Here we go again on yet another thread WAV with your drivellings. Your puerile analysis of music is about as snesible as your weird views on world dictatorship by WAV.
Only you believes that you're English (except for the Australian continent who must be mightily relieved to be rid of your pontificating) Only you believes that you're a musician, or poet or WHY.
Why thrust your delusions on others who make it apparent repeatedly that they hold no truck for your views.

In sorrow

Stu

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 07:32 AM

And actually WAV you refer to the wrong post of mine.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 07:46 AM

'The fact remains that a good yardstick for a folk song is that it stands on its own without needing instrumental arrangement. If it can't survive being passed on as an unaccompanied song it won't live long. Many pop songs fail this test, which in my view distinguishes them from modern folk songs'

Exactly!

Well said, Treewind.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: theleveller
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 08:07 AM

"The fact remains that a good yardstick for a folk song is that it stands on its own without needing instrumental arrangement. If it can't survive being passed on as an unaccompanied song it won't live long."

Sorry, Treewind, I totally disagree with you there; it would be the same as saying that a folk tune will only survive if it can be hummed without the need for instrumentation - but I suppose it just comes back the old chestnut, 'what is a folk song' and I think we've been there far too often.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 08:12 AM

I'd like to second that (as this is a forum for discussion, Stu!).

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 08:13 AM

Treewind's words, I mean.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: theleveller
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 08:56 AM

OK, WAV, Treewind etc., presupposing that there are such things as 'modern' folk songs, there are several things we need to consider. Firstly, were they written to be accompanied or unaccompanied in the first place? Secondly, what kind of singers will be performing them in the future – from 45 years of going to folk clubs and festivals, I'd say that a greater percentage of singers perform accompanied in some way than otherwise? Thirdly, how will these songs be preserved for posterity? I would suggest not in communities, by oral tradition, but on CDs and recordings. If the latter is true then, in an age where variety is valued above homogeneity, the most versatile songs - those that can be presented in the greatest variety of ways by the greatest number of people and are most open to interpretation – are the ones that are most likely to survive.

But, as I said, it's down to what you regard as a folk song.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: treewind
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 10:37 AM

(1) it would be the same as saying that a folk tune will only survive if it can be hummed without the need for instrumentation
That's not far off true. Singable tunes from composed classical works have made it into the folk musician's repertoire, but you won't find that happening with Webern's String Quartets or Varese's Ionization (a piece written for percussion only...), for example, or even the bits of a Mozart Symphony that aren't specially tuneful.

(2)
Firstly, were they written to be accompanied or unaccompanied in the first place?
That's not my point - which was whether the song stands on its own without accompaniment. If it was "written to be accompanied" there's a chance, but not proof, that it won't become a folk song in the sense of having a life of its own.

Secondly, what kind of singers will be performing them in the future - from 45 years of going to folk clubs and festivals, I'd say that a greater percentage of singers perform accompanied in some way than otherwise?
They may well do, but I submit that songs that can't stand up without the original accompaniement/arrangement aren't the ones that will still be getting sung in 50 years time.

Thirdly, how will these songs be preserved for posterity?
I would suggest not in communities, by oral tradition, but on CDs and recordings.

For pop songs, yes, and they will become museum pieces. If a song can't exist without the recording studio resources that were used to produce it (48 tracks of MIDI sequenced patches, vocal effects, drum fills, girlie choruses etc.) how will it ever get performed? (as opposed to just having recordings reproduced)

In an age where variety is valued above homogeneity, the most versatile songs - those that can be presented in the greatest variety of ways by the greatest number of people and are most open to interpretation - are the ones that are most likely to survive.

Well, I completely agree with you there, but I also think it's the songs whose main strength is in the words and the melody that are most susceptible to such re-arrangement. You can take away the original arrangement, put a completely different one back, and it's still the same song. And of course you can take a song that was collected from an unaccompanied singer in 1906 and add an accompaniment to it and it works - I've been doing exactly that for the last 8 years!

Anahata

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 10:54 AM

English folk songs can work well both accompanied or unaccompanied. In the former case it all depends upon the skill, sensitivity and taste of the accompanist.

In 'recent' historical times such songs seem, generally, to have been sung unaccompanied, for reasons which are unclear (at least to me) but may be related to such factors as rural poverty. What happened in earlier times is anyone's guess - well at least the guesses of those who like to invoke s**ding 'troubadors' at the drop of a hat!

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Wesley S
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 11:24 AM

I'm wondering if it's time to start a seperate sub-group at the Mudcat. We can lump threads into three catagories :

"Music"
"BS"
"What is English Folk Music"

Doesn't anyone get tired of this same old argument?

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Folkiedave
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 11:57 AM

Singable tunes from composed classical works have made it into the folk musician's repertoire
Sheffield City Morris dance to Beethoven's Ode to Joy.

Catch us a Whitby festival. Look for the green trousers.


There's thread drift for you.....

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: theleveller
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 12:10 PM

Treewind, I can't, in all honesty, say that I recognise the scenario that you paint. In the end, any song can be sung unaccompanied and the majority that you'll find people (folk) singing and humming in the street won't be folk songs. Nor do I see much evidence of a continuous oral tradition that will be passing new songs down the generations for some latter day Cecil Sharp to collect in 100 years time. I don't say it doesn't exist at all (I have, on one occasion, had a song that I wrote sung back to me as traditional) but I don't believe it happens as an ongoing process. Most performers learn songs from recordings and/or songbooks and often (unfortunately) try to emulate the style of accompaniment as well as the words and tune. This does not mean that they aren't strong songs that will stand the test of time. In this day and age of mass recording availabke to almost anyone who wishes to use it, copyright, myspace, youtube, and professional folk artists, the word Anon is not one that is generally found with new songs.

Like I said, I don't want to get into the 'what is folk' debate because, in the end, it's what you want it to be, but I do think that many of what are generally classed as pop songs will be around and performed for a damn sight longer than 50 years.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 12:14 PM

I try to get through these once per week, so one thing I'm very sure of is that E. trads and hymns both involve the repetition of a relatively simple tune (the latter being slightly more sophisticated); both have had chords and base notes added to them (by RVW, e.g.) but, as Treewind suggests, logically, the survivors are the pieces with good WORDS and TUNES, that, again logically, can sound great unaccompanied.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 01:53 PM

Oh come off it WAV - among the most popular and distinctive hymn tunse ar ones that are almost always noted for a countermelody - eg Bread of Heaven; and Immortal Father Strong to Save. And at least one for a rhythm - Onward Christian Soldiers (also with a fine countermelody)

There is at least one pop song that is working its way into folk (with variants of the words) principally for its drum beat - Queen's We will rock you.

There are TONS of American folk and adopted songs that are instantly recognisable from a piece of accompaniment or a rhythm: -
Walking Blues
Dust my Broom
Born in Chicago
Long Grey Mare
32/20 blues
Tom Dooley
Born Under a Bad Sign

I'm sure the list is endless

Surely anyone can recognise Famous FLower of Serving Men from its curious shifting rhythm base.

Words adapt by the folk process - take Avram Bailey for example, or the several versions of Sir Patrick Spens - and so do the tunes.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 02:28 PM

Richard: I think you mean "Eternal Father, strong to save", and the rhythm is in the tune - hence quavers, whole notes, etc.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 03:14 PM

Yes, Eternal. Long time since I was in a church. But it is the coutermelody, not the timing that gives the song its flavour.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: s&r
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 06:52 PM

Bass is what you meant above WAV, and for consistency if you talk of quavers you should talk of semibreves (or go the American way and have whole notes and eighth notes.

ANd for what it's worth a discussion forum is a sharing of ideas and knowledge rather than tedious cut and paste from a dubious and unaccredited source.

Stu

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: s&r
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 07:35 PM

On a parallel topic Paul Anka does a wonderful (IMO) job of converting Rock to Jazz/swing in his album 'Rock Swings'

Love 'Teen Spirit'

Stu

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 07:59 AM

"ou just KNEW I would mention the 1954 definition didn't you. It does NOT require a manner of performance. The material is handed down by the oral tradition (that bit needs re-phrasing, to allow for modern methods of transimssion) and is thereby modified. So pickling the style of delivery in aspic is not required."

Chop of the hands of the unbelievers ,but go to London for yer hols to get pissed and laid eh?

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 08:13 AM

How about "base" for notation and "bass" for describing instruments, Stu?...but, yes, your correction is status quo. But, apart from my daily poems on the BS "WalkaboutsVerse Anew" thread, I haven't copy/pasted for quite a while, frankly.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: s&r
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 03:25 PM

No - bass is not something that a musician would use. You might mean root, or fundamental or who knows what.

So you cut and paste every day at least once?

Stu

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: GUEST,Sedayne (Astray) (S O'P)
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 04:05 PM

you seem to have forgotten about English troubadours,who sang traditional material with accompaniment

Forgive the pedantry but - English troubadours?

Otherwise, after a few days away it's nice to see WAV's still playing in his piss-puddle with his plastic boat advising hardened mariners on matters nautical.

Shouldn't that be Folk Nouveau anyway?

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: glueman
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 05:00 PM

I began an unquestioning sort of believer, then became agnostic and now I'm a fully fledged folk atheist. I shall continue to attend services, nod at the right time and enjoy the ambience but the dogma is for those who like dogma - truth is folk is all sound and words.

There is nothing but what you hear.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: s&r
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 06:25 PM

Sorry - 'base' is what my earlier post should have read.

Stu

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 22 Aug 09 - 04:58 AM

"truth is folk is all sound and words." (Glueman)...truth is, rather, if, like me, you appreciate our world being multicultural, you appreciate the DIFFERENCES in musical genres - the repertoires, the styles of performance, etc.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Sian H
Date: 22 Aug 09 - 07:38 AM

Hello. I'm a new (nouvelle) Mudcatter and this is my first comment. I'm wondering where the term 'nouveau folk' first came from. I sing in a 5 piece female acapella folk group. We've been adding our own arrangements, harmonies, tempos and we sometimes change the words ( I know!) but the term we use is 'rattling' the song (because we are called Rattlebag). As this sometimes seems to rattle a few people we think the term is quite appropriate. Isn't nouveau folk a bit of a high-brow, arty and pretentious-moi term?

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: treewind
Date: 22 Aug 09 - 07:54 AM

"Isn't nouveau folk a bit of a high-brow, arty and pretentious-moi term?"

Yes. I thought it was invented by Thomas Stern who started this thread. If you Google for it you find this thread and then a load of fashion stuff, and one rather obscure music link in the first page. That's why I asked whether it was like "nu-folk" (whatever that is, but it's a more popular term)

Never mind, welcome to Mudcat - thanks for de-lurking!

Anahata

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 22 Aug 09 - 08:47 AM

I accept that "doing something with"/"rattling" (SH) the trad songs of an oral tradition is a long tradition in itself - in England, e.g., RVW, Thomas Ravenscroft, and, still further back, art songs. But the diminishing numbers of folkies maintaining the oral tradition itself IS a worry, I feel.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: oldhippie
Date: 22 Aug 09 - 08:50 AM

SianH - Does Rattlebag have a website where we can listen?

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 Aug 09 - 09:32 AM

On the inlay note to a record I made a few years ago, I wrote: "All these songs are traditional; but I suspect that every one will have been more or less consciously modified in the course of making them my own". Surely we all "rattle", neologise, modify, collate versions ...
Don't we? Just as we adapt our living environments to our own tastes.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: treewind
Date: 22 Aug 09 - 09:34 AM

Must be This lot. Sounds nice! (there's one sound clip that I can find)

A.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Sian H
Date: 22 Aug 09 - 09:46 AM

Yes - we are ' this lot'. Our blogspot is http://rattlebag01.blogspot.com or if you google 'Rattlebag folk' it comes up first at the mo. We are planning to get more samples on the site but would love any comments now as it's new.
Yes I have lurked for years Anahata so I feel it's time come out.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Piers Plowman
Date: 24 Aug 09 - 06:39 AM

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Darowyn - PM
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 04:15 AM

"Traditional folk:-
1. Like a scene from a Thomas Hardy novel. Country people in a village pub, accompanied by fiddle, concertina or whatever instruments the village Waits had managed to scrounge. [...]
2. Like a post-war Junior School. [...]

3. Like Peter Pears at The Maltings, or Kathleen Ferrier. [...]

4. Like a fifties Folk Group. [...]

5. Like Bob Dylan and/or Joan Baez. [...]

6. Like the New traditionalists. [...]

There are so many traditions, even in one small country, that either everyone is traditional or, nobody is. How many times does something have to be repeated before it becomes a tradition?"

I liked your list and thought it was very well put. A few items could probably be added for the US, Great Britain and Ireland, but they would have to be for Germany and other German-speaking countries. What "folk" means and how "folksong" or "folk music" ("Volkslied", "Volksmusik") is perceived is somewhat different here. I'm sure it's the same in other countries/cultures. "A wide field" as Mr. Briest would say in Theodor Fontane's _Effi Briest_.

A very small quibble (not that people interested in folk music would ever quibble, of course): My recollection of the passages involving folk music in Thomas Hardy don't involve concertinas. Hardy wrote about the demise of the tradition of playing stringed instruments in church (the Melstock quire) in "Under the Greenwood Tree". Of course, Hardy was a fiddler himself and the son and grandson of string players, as I'm sure many people here know. As both a folk music and a Thomas Hardy anorak, I felt I had to post this. Maybe a harmonica, concertina, accordeon, guitar or other mass-produced instrument occurs in Hardy, but I don't remember any such passages. I haven't read all of his novels or poems, though.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: theleveller
Date: 24 Aug 09 - 07:38 AM

"Maybe a harmonica, concertina, accordeon, guitar or other mass-produced instrument occurs in Hardy, but I don't remember any such passages."

Not that I recall - does the Serpent qualify?

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: theleveller
Date: 24 Aug 09 - 07:40 AM

'Old things pass away, 'tis true; but a serpent was a good old note: a deep rich note was the serpent.' Under the Greenwood Tree.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: s&r
Date: 24 Aug 09 - 07:55 AM

Just read that Thomas Hardy was given an accordion by his father at the age of four.

Stu

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Piers Plowman
Date: 24 Aug 09 - 12:10 PM

I think it's important to distinguish between how the songs were performed when collected and how they were performed when there had been a "living" tradition of singing folksongs (accompanied or unaccompanied) or playing folk tunes (to accompany dancing or for any other purpose). Sometimes I've read about how songs were collected from people who were considered "old-fashioned" for singing the songs and they were no longer performed at weddings, gatherings, etc., and there was no interest in preserving them in their communities. It's typical of collecting that people start taking an interest in a thing when it's already disappearing.

I think it's reasonable to suppose that in most places, folksongs were accompanied, if instruments were present and people knew how to play them. There may well have been exceptions where certain kinds of songs were never accompanied.

I also think the term "folksong" or "folk music" tends to lump too many different kinds of music together and the term "World Music" is even worse in this respect.

I recently bought a copy of Johann Gottfried Herder's
_Stimmen der Voelker in Liedern: Volkslieder_ (_Voices of the Peoples in Songs: Folksongs_) --- a very early collection of folksongs (1778/79). In the introduction, it says that the first volume wasn't popular with the critics, because (to paraphrase) they weren't slick enough. In the second volume, he made more changes to the songs in order to make them fit in with the taste of the time. However, it wasn't popular, either, and the real enthusiasm for folksong in Germany started a generation later with Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arnim's _Des Knaben Wunderhorn_ (_The Boy's Magic Horn_). Funny how little has changed since then.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Piers Plowman
Date: 24 Aug 09 - 12:25 PM

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: theleveller - PM
Date: 24 Aug 09 - 07:38 AM

"Maybe a harmonica, concertina, accordeon, guitar or other mass-produced instrument occurs in Hardy, but I don't remember any such passages."

"Not that I recall - does the Serpent qualify?"

No, I think mass-production of serpents was a no-goer.

I just read (or rather read in) two books, one about accordeons and one about harmonicas. They were more about the historical and sociological aspects and styles of music and didn't contain very detailed information about the construction of the instruments. They were very interesting with respect to the changes in the way music was made by the nearly universal availability of inexpensive instruments, especially the harmonica. I'm sure a similar book could be written about guitars. Of course, a negative aspect (from my point of view) is that the availability of inexpensive, mass-produced instruments "pushed out" traditional instruments.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Darowyn - PM
Date: 20 Aug 09 - 04:15 AM

"There are so many traditions, even in one small country, that either everyone is traditional or, nobody is. How many times does something have to be repeated before it becomes a tradition?"

I think this is one of those questions that don't have an ultimate answer. One has to look at every case and define exactly what one is talking about at any given time. Maybe singing folksongs to the accompaniment of a guitar is a tradition now, but it isn't what I usually mean when I talk about traditional folksongs (but that's just me).

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 24 Aug 09 - 12:38 PM

"I think this is one of those questions that don't have an ultimate answer. One has to look at every case and define exactly what one is talking about at any given time. Maybe singing folksongs to the accompaniment of a guitar is a tradition now, but it isn't what I usually mean when I talk about traditional folksongs (but that's just me)." (PP) I've read a folk-guitar instructional book that noted how the folk songs in it were traditionally sung unaccompanied, before going on to explain how to finger-pick them.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Piers Plowman
Date: 24 Aug 09 - 12:49 PM

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: WalkaboutsVerse - PM
Date: 24 Aug 09 - 12:38 PM

"(PP) I've read a folk-guitar instructional book that noted how the folk songs in it were traditionally sung unaccompanied, before going on to explain how to finger-pick them."

Yeah, that's what people seem to want. I play the guitar and have finger-picked many a folksong in my day, but traditional it ain't.

I think most people just don't care whether it's traditional or not, what the tradition is, who collected it, when, etc., etc. I think it's important, but most audiences wouldn't be entertained by authentic folk music of whatever culture.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 24 Aug 09 - 12:54 PM

PP - There are one or two festival comps here in NE England for accompanied singing (my list is here) but, pleasingly for any tradie, most are still for unaccompanied singing.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Piers Plowman
Date: 24 Aug 09 - 01:04 PM

Sorry, WalkaboutsVerse, I was forgetting things were a bit different in Great Britain with respect to folkmusic, folk revivals, etc. I'm more familiar with the US and Germany, though mostly just what I pick up from the radio, books, the internet, etc. I haven't been to a club or a bar in ages. So, I'm not any kind of expert on the "folk scene". For a long time, I stayed away from bars and restaurants because I had respiratory problems (under control at present) and I couldn't stand the smoke. I'm very glad that they changed the laws about this.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 24 Aug 09 - 01:09 PM

I think that was a good law change, too, here in England, PP; and what I forget to say just above is that a few of the unaccompanied singers in these comps sound great, as did karine Polwart singing a couple of Scots songs unaccompanied upon her recent visit to the Durham Folk Gathering.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: theleveller
Date: 25 Aug 09 - 03:34 AM

What folkies have to accept is that the social conditions that were the birthplace and breeding ground of 'traditional' singing no longer exist. It no longer meets popular tastes in music. There are, therefore, two options fo folk music. It can either be regarded as a museum piece, performed by a rapidly diminishing number of 'curators' to an even faster diminishing audience until, finally, it becomes a dim and distant memory gathering dust in the attic of social history. Or, hopefully, it can be adapted to become a vibrant and enjoyable part of our modern society - perhaps still a minority interest but, nonetheless, a living, evolving thing.

I know which I prefer.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 25 Aug 09 - 03:45 AM

...I wasn't there last year but, at the Morpeth Gatherering trad-singing comps recently, e.g., there have been only a few competitors but almost all the hall's seats were taken.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: theleveller
Date: 25 Aug 09 - 05:04 AM

I think you've reinforced my point, WAV. Compare a half-full hall at Morpeth to the crowd watching Springsteen at Glastonbury.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Mr Happy
Date: 25 Aug 09 - 05:11 AM

Could it include thishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_pop??

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 25 Aug 09 - 05:40 AM

I said "ALMOST ALL the hall's seats were taken", Theleveller, but at least you're a "half-full" and not a half-empty kind of leveller! I saw Springsteen at Glastonbury, via the Beeb - loads of hype and muscle and very little music. The masses need re-educating.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 25 Aug 09 - 05:49 AM

The masses need re-educating.

The only one who needs re-educating around here, WAV - is you.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: theleveller
Date: 25 Aug 09 - 05:51 AM

"The masses need re-educating"

Yes, the whole world's out of step with you, WAV. I thought Springsteen was BRILLIANT.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: s&r
Date: 25 Aug 09 - 06:57 AM

"The masses need re-educating"

There is a strange imagined superiority in this statement. It actually seems to fit better with some sort of meritocracy rather than a socialist democrat..
Marie Antoinette would be proud of you cobber.

Stu

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 25 Aug 09 - 08:20 AM

...you may like to check "An Opium" - 5 up from the bottom of the BS "WalkaboutsVerse Anew" thread.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 25 Aug 09 - 08:48 AM

...you may like to check "An Opium" - 5 up from the bottom of the BS "WalkaboutsVerse Anew" thread.

Which gives us this barely literate piece of rhetoric:

National Lottery passes -
    Slight chances to be richer,
    With lots more than thy neighbour,
    Gained without any labour -
    Keep the system in favour:
An opium of the masses.

WAV - once again you astonish in your inability to understand the workings of humanity - much less yourself, who would hold himself aloof in vane glory as the Best Way Forward.

When did you last do any labour, WAV? You don't seem to be doing too badly on it anyway.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 25 Aug 09 - 08:59 AM

I have a degree in humanities, S., along with 4 technical certificates in manufacturing which (despite daily job-searches), yes, are not currently being used by way of a living.

How about you - was it some kind of pension you said you were on, or are you, too, looking for work?

And, as often, S., you didn't focus on the actual words/argument - just my "inability", etc.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: theleveller
Date: 25 Aug 09 - 09:01 AM

"you may like to check "An Opium" - 5 up from the bottom of the BS "WalkaboutsVerse Anew" thread."

On the other hand, I've already lost the will to live!

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 25 Aug 09 - 09:08 AM

And, as often, S., you didn't focus on the actual words/argument - just my "inability", etc.

There is no argument, WAV - just a banal statement about people taking chances to get more money which you seem to regard as being in some way immoral. What this has got to do with The Boss I don't know, but you obviously feel The Masses have got it very wrong somehow. Nothing could be further from the truth however - people are just getting on with their lives, loves, labours, hopes, fears, and dreams just as they've always done. Shame you can't do likewise really without feeling the need to pontificate on matters which really are none of your concern.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: s&r
Date: 25 Aug 09 - 09:16 AM

Have you any recent qualifications WAV. Perhaps your certification is obsolete.

I didn't follow your reply: I think the phrase is non sequitur and is to do with Logical Fallacies.


This may help your reasoning skills.

Stu

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 25 Aug 09 - 09:52 AM

Yes, fairly recent, Stu - when I arrived in Newcastle in 2001, I knew very little of computers and the web; I now have basic level 1 qualifications in both hardware and software (aimed to help with both manufacturing and my poetry/folk), plus some level 2 Serif desktop publishing, which I used to produce my library books, mentioned here.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Piers Plowman
Date: 25 Aug 09 - 02:33 PM

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: theleveller - PM
Date: 25 Aug 09 - 03:34 AM

"[...] It can either be regarded as a museum piece, performed by a rapidly diminishing number of 'curators' to an even faster diminishing audience until, finally, it becomes a dim and distant memory gathering dust in the attic of social history. Or, hopefully, it can be adapted to become a vibrant and enjoyable part of our modern society - perhaps still a minority interest but, nonetheless, a living, evolving thing."

Yes, but then it becomes a different thing. Not necessarily bad, but no longer the same thing, and probably no longer folk music, at least in my opinion. Why do people knock museums? I love museums. I'm as eclectic as the next guy (depending on whom I'm standing next to), but I think it's important to know what folk music really was, as far as this is possible. Obviously, there isn't even agreement on the definition of folk music and the field is too large for any one person to be well-informed about every aspect of it in even a few cultures. I believe there is a value in exploring folk music in one way or another. Not everybody has to be a great expert on folk music.

I think some kinds of music are called folk music but aren't, and I think that tends to make it harder for people to find out that the real thing even exists. For example, what does "folk rock" have to do with folk music? In my opinion, not very much, at least most of the time.

It doesn't really bother me that folk music doesn't attract huge audiences and make lots of money. If it's changed so that it does, it would stop being folk music. This is what I see happening with so-called "World Music", judging from what I hear on the radio. This is what I mean when I use the terms "ethno-pop" or "ethno-kitsch". For awhile, it seemed like there was a growing interest in musical traditions from other countries and now a lot of what I'm hearing is more of a mish-mash, in my opinion. Not that I'm trying to spoil anything for anyone else, if they like it --- that's what makes ball games.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: s&r
Date: 25 Aug 09 - 03:04 PM

Giving a book to a library makes it a library book?
That's the absolute pinnacle of disingenuity - a new limit even for you

Stu

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: GUEST,aeola
Date: 25 Aug 09 - 03:56 PM

I'm relatively new to 'folk music' that probably makes me nouveau!!However someone mentioned about folk songs passing the test of time :--- does anyone know of any folk songs which haven't passed the test??!!

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 25 Aug 09 - 04:26 PM

I agree Piers, and would add: "World-music stalls and stages should be places where folkies of different nationality present
different unfused music to each other." (here).

Aeola: do you like cryptic crosswords by chance?!

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: theleveller
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 03:32 AM

"I think some kinds of music are called folk music but aren't,"

Whilst I don't disagree with much of what you say, Piers, we're back with the thorny question of 'what is folk music?'. It's one which has caused huge disagreement and which no-one has successfully answered, so I'll withdraw from that debate and hope that everyone will enjoy their version of "folk" and, hopefully, other people's, in whatever way they choose, without being preached at by the likes of WAV.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Marje
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 04:36 AM

Aeola, that's a very interesting point you've raised. There are, of course, thousands of songs that don't survive. Many vanish without leaving a trace, but others can be found in books and manuscripts. Scholars of folk song sometimes trawl the archives for long-forgotten gems; sometimes they find a real jewel of a song that merits being reintroduced to the repertoire, but in other cases there's clearly a reason why the song remained forgotten for so long ...

For example I've got a 1970s book called One Hundred Songs of Toil.
Many of the older songs in it are still regarded as classic, but there are also some modern ones in the collection. Most of these have not survived, as far as I'm aware, although they may have served a specific purpose at one time. At the time of publication, these new songs had not been subjected to the "folk" selection process, and many of them are simply not good enough to stand on their own merits 40 years later.

Marje

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 04:50 AM

"World-music stalls and stages should be places where folkies of different nationality present different unfused music to each other."

There is fused music, there is unfused music; there are ethnomusicological documentary field-recordings and there are revival folk albums; there is World Jazz that draws on all World Music and there those that stick to particular local idioms; there are folk musicians who choose to concentrate on one particular tradition and there are creative musicians drawing on a multiplicity of world-folk influences; there are folk singers who sing without accompaniment and there are folk singers who accompany themselves on musical instruments; there are folk singers who only sing trad. and there are folk singers who are songwriters...

This is only the tip of a vast and wonderful iceberg. People do what they are moved to do out of passion and wonderment and that is a very beautiful thing. It is also the right and purpose of every human being alive on this planet to do exactly what they want to do. Thus the reality is what the reality is. Accept this, WAV - and respect it. If you don't like it, fair enough - please go elsewhere, but DO NOT dare to dictate how it SHOULD BE when you clearly know FUCK ALL about it.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 05:58 AM

If you think someone with a degree in humanities, including distinctions for anthropology, knows "fuck all about it", then you ARE deluding yourself, S. Have you ever considered trying again to get a degree in some DISCIPLINE?

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 06:56 AM

If you think someone with a degree in humanities, including distinctions for anthropology, knows "fuck all about it", then you ARE deluding yourself, S. Have you ever considered trying again to get a degree in some DISCIPLINE?

More personal insults! Is this the only way you can defend your lazy ill-conceived rhetoric? But yes - in your case, obviously it's true that someone with a degree in humanities, including distinctions for anthropology, knows "fuck all about it" because I certainly see no evidence to the contrary. How can someone with distinctions in anthropology write that English Culture is taking a hammering? Nothing could be further from the truth. Never has English Culture been more vibrant & exciting as it is now. Open your heart to the world reality, WAV - it's very beautiful place full of all sorts of people doing all sorts of music.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Piers Plowman
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 06:58 AM

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: theleveller - PM
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 03:32 AM

"Whilst I don't disagree with much of what you say, Piers, we're back with the thorny question of 'what is folk music?'.' [...]"

I wouldn't expect anyone to agree with everything I say, just I don't agree with everything people say here. A lot of what we discuss here is a matter of taste and opinion, anyway.

I think "What is folk?" is another one of those unanswerable questions. A question one might have some chance of answering would be "What was folk music of Lower Bavaria between the years 1820 and 1850". Even then, preferences and opinions would probably play a part in the answer a given person might find to this question. That's part of what makes studying folklore interesting, from my point of view.

What I think is important with respect to folk music and what I play myself are two different kettles of fish. Not being qualified to be a representative of any particular tradition myself and being interested in lots of different kinds of music, I more-or-less automatically mix elements of different styles. Not that I try to do so consciously; I just play the way I play.

Except for the extreme case of the music of a society entirely isolated from other societies for centuries or millenia, there's really no such thing as a "pure" style. There can't be.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Piers Plowman
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 08:28 AM

I wrote:

"I wouldn't expect anyone to agree with everything I say, just I don't agree with everything people say here."

Sorry, I meant "just as I don't agree ...".

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 08:33 AM

I think "What is folk?" is another one of those unanswerable questions.

Never mind what it is, Piers - the jury's still out as to whether or not it actually exists! A bit like God really - all a matter of faith or else delusion, the sand upon which we dare to build our absolutes.

Subject: RE: nouveau 'folk'
From: GUEST,aoela
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 05:21 PM

Getting a degree never made anyone '' clever '' in fact I've met a lot of people with degrees who completely underwhelm me!! There are so many great people out there who don't seem to need to advertise their qualities, but then , perhaps they are the Nouveaux folk??