The folk process and songwriting

Subject: RE: The folk process and songwriting
From: Bert
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 11:26 PM

Olddude, you say

...whatever the muse that inspires the writer is theirs alone and it won't work for everyone...

I find that the same muse doesn't work for every song. Sometimes I'll steal a tune for a song or other times a tune just comes to me or I'll write a deliberate parody of a well known song, and sometimes I'll just use a simple generic country style tune to start with and it just sticks to the song.

Some songs come easily and others need a lot of thought. It took me a long time to write Size Doesn't Matter because I tried to instill some kind of morality to it and it kept wanting to get really crude.

Some songs have a mind of their own and want to go off in a completely different direction. When I first started writing I just let them go where they wanted, Now I try to control them in the direction I first intended.

Subject: RE: The folk process and songwriting
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 04:14 AM

"Tim Leaning, if you have a disagreement why not spell it out? Isn't this supposed to be
a discussion about the folk process as well as songwriting?"

Why not spell it out?
Because this is a decent thread and and other than stating that I disagree with you I feel no urge to accompany you along that sad old road.

Subject: RE: The folk process and songwriting
From: GUEST,Tom Bliss
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 04:49 AM

Stringsinger, it's not the topic which is confrontational, it was your choice of words which managed (as others have done here before) to imply some dishonesty by songwriters (including me - hence my rebuttal) in calling their work folk.

There is a completely legitimate definition of the word 'folk' which does encapsulate new material as well as old, and if you haven't noticed this by now then I can only suggest you've not been paying attention.

Just because someone refers to a new song as 'folk' does not mean they are claiming it is 'traditional'. If someone does, then I'd be right with you in asking them please not to devalue that word any faster than is strictly necessary - because we don't have any other word yet to describe the old oral process.

For most people - specially those in the USA and British people younger than 60 - the word 'traditional' now means what you choose to call 'folk.' And the word 'folk' means both 'traditional' and material that sounds a bit traditional, or is widely used within the 'folk' world (there are other uses as well). If you don't believe me, look the word 'folk' up in any online dictionary. The meaning has changed over time, and that's just a fact of life.

That said, there is a legitimate debate to be had about how new songs might in time become traditional (if ever), about how long the process may take (if ever), and about what the criteria might be (if any).

I agree it's important always to recognise the crucial difference between older material which was passed around and changed and adapted orally, (though may have come to a majority of people today through books and/or recordings), and newer material of which original recordings have been made. New songs may become much more widely known much more quickly than pre-recording era songs, but the existence of recorded versions will tend to slow down the speed at which they change. That's interesting and a valid area for discussion.

There is a second key point for debate: The way in which the old songs did first become traditional. They were written (or, some claim, emerged fully formed from some community by osmosis) and then picked up and passed around. We don't know how quickly they changed, but it's interesting for us writers to think about this and try to postulate on the process by comparing our own experiences - which is what is happening here.

There is a third point for discussion: Plenty of people will reasonably suggest that some modern songs have, in spite of the existence of original recordings, begun to enter some sort of modern equivalent of the oral tradition. Crucially different, because the world is a totally different place and the old methods have almost entirely die out, but still interesting and worthy of discussion. Examples might be Fiddlers Green and Ride On. Not the same process at that which gave is Lord Bateman or The Seeds of Love, but it's interesting and reasonable to compare and contrast.

The fourth point touches on your suggestion about research: There are plenty of writers working today who are deeply knowledgeable about old traditional songs, about folklore and the other disciplines you named. I'm not one of them but I'm no ignoramus either. These people often borrow modes, styles, phrases even whole lines from old songs when making new material. In my case you might compare the lineage of Rue (previously Oh No My Love Not I) or Gentle Maids Ashore - which is a small evolution within The Handsome Cabin Boy strand that tells a properly-researched true story from that era. Other writers go even further.

Again, its legitimate to discuss the relationship of this type of 'as new' material to the old, not least because we can be fairly sure that's exactly what 'song-menders' have been doing to old or damaged songs for centuries.

All of this is interesting and important. To come over all territorial about 'folk' and dismiss the whole idea of new material relating in any way to the various 'traditional' processes, and in insulting terms, is simply not helpful.

Tom

Sorry Jerry - but these things do need to be said. SS may not be interested in changing his/her attitude, but other more open-minded people reading might find it useful to have a better handle on the issues.

Subject: RE: The folk process and songwriting
From: GUEST,Mr Red
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 07:26 AM

Well - answering the OP.
What I found with trying to write a song that would get folkies guessing about provenance was to do with "my style" and accuracy.

We all use words that we know. People who know, you know your lexicon to some extent. What you really need is to cull your "you" words and try to substitute ones that fit the genre/time/trade/etc.

Then there is accuracy - I once wrote a song about trees and assumed that Ash was a good wood for a longbow. It is but Yew is more likely and more likely to be known to the cognicentii. There is always someone who knows something you don't so listen to the pedant and do the research. Or do the research first. It can be tedious but how badly do you want to get it right?

As for the music - if you play a lot of trad music it will usually come out trad-ish.

One trick that gets the singer/wrongciter purist riled is to take an existing song, write new words then compose a new tune to the words. It will have a lot of the flavour of the original but - hey! Thats what you are aiming for.

I am sure you knew all this already - but it is nice to be reminded &/or have it confirmed.

Subject: RE: The folk process and songwriting
From: GUEST,Tom Bliss
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 08:22 AM

I don't think that method should rile anyone in the singer-songwriter fraternity, Cresby. Pete Coe and I (for two) have been advocating exactly that technique for years! (It's all in my booklet if anyone's interested).

Subject: RE: The folk process and songwriting
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 08:31 AM

Why not start another thread Stringsinger, and stick a link to it here? The stuff you want to talk about is interesting enough, which is why we've had umpteen threads about it in the past - and that's no reason not to have another one, because something fresh and insightful might well turn up. But it'd be good manners to allow this thread to develop along different lines. I rather think that is what other people who have posted here would prefer.

Subject: RE: The folk process and songwriting
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 09:18 AM

Hey, Tom: That was one of the most cogent explanations of what the words "folk" and "traditional folk" mean to just about everyone I know. Your statement respects the value of traditional music, while valuing newer songs written with traditional songs and styles as a key ingredient in their creation.

That's all I'm adding, but you spoke much more eloquently than I could.

Back to the topic at hand. For those who write folk songs (that aren't traditional unless we die and everyone forgets that we wrote them) you've certainly had the experience that after you've written them you realize that you've unconsciously either used a similar melody or words to a traditional song. When we create something it's not out of whole cloth. It flows from the river of influences we all carry within us. Someone who is writing a rock song may discover there's a little Buddy Holly or Def Lepard in a line, but we are more likely to spot a little Doc Boggs or Prince Albert Hunt. I've never tried to write a song that sounds "traditional." If someone thinks it IS a traditional song, as my friend Sally Rogers did with Levi Kelly, I find that humorous as much as flattering. That means that I speak the same language as some of the now-forgotten writers of traditional music because it has become a part of me. I know that is true of many of you. I've never tried to imitate anyone. Imitation is the sincerest form of a lack of self. That ain't me, babe.

Whoops! I think I almost quoted Sonny & Cher! :-)

Jerry

Subject: RE: The folk process and songwriting
From: GUEST,Tom Bliss
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 09:31 AM

Thanks Jerry.

The other point that might be worth mentioning is that in UK copyright civil law, at least, the word 'folk' has no meaning whatsoever. Whereas the word 'trad' does. It's not quite the famous '54' definition, but it does mean 'in the pubic domain.' That's a useful distinction, and one that both writers and singers should note.

When I listen to my old recordings I'm amazed by the amount of change that's taken place in my own interpretation of my own songs over time. And as for the 'subconscious plagiarism' thing - it helps to have an expert musical partner who can identify even a two-note reference. (but we just sang em anyway)!

Subject: RE: The folk process and songwriting
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 10:42 AM

Hey, Tom: One of the awkward side effects of being a high mileage model, like I am, is that I now have songs I wrote almost 50 years ago. I wrote The Drunkard's Last Advice around 1952, and it's one of the songs that I still enjoy singing today. I'm glad I taped some of the old stuff, though. These days, a logical introdcution I could give to a song is "Here's a song I learned from an old recording of me." If I don't tell anyone I wrote it and I never recorded it, maybe it's really a traditional song? :-) Shhhhhhh!!!!! Don't tell anyone I wrote it!

Jerry

And yes, the traditional and folk arguments and perceptions are different on the two sides of the pond. We're young 'uns over here. An antique is anything over 50 years old. I find it weird when I go into a historical society museum and see a cherry pitter in a case. It's just like the one we had when I was a kid.

Folk music is so yesterday.

We's all antiques in here.

Jerry

Subject: RE: The folk process and songwriting
From: Paul Davenport
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 11:43 AM

I'm sure people have encountered the following;
A level Music project - write a string quartet in the style of Haydn.
Now a successful result will be clearly identifiable as classical music. Despite the fact that it is not from the (relatively) short period in history when this style was in vogue. You can also write Baroque music even though it is a long time since the genre 'died' with J.S.Bach. (1750 for musicologists)
Similarly it is entirely acceptable to write a string quartet in the style of Bartok and nobody is going to consider it 'classical'. Surely 'folk' is in a similar tradition to the 'classical' tradition? If you write a song in the style of an early 19th century broadside (taking care in your use of words and phraseology) you are not going to create a 'pop' song or a 'blues'. Why is there such confusion over style and genre?

Subject: RE: The folk process and songwriting
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 04:49 PM

Hmmmm that there bloke from The Who was on the radio recently and he said he was lifting ideas,if not words and tunes from some old composer dude.
You know the one ,he plays guitar.
Enjoyed listening to you music via another thread BTW Mr Rasmussen

Subject: RE: The folk process and songwriting
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 05:38 PM

'in the pubic domain'

Maybe those songs might be the ones to suggest in the other current thread about "Attracting Young Folk to Folk."

Subject: RE: The folk process and songwriting
From: Ian Fyvie
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 10:45 PM

I started writing songs when playing in cover bands. Though we played a few 'own compositions, you knew what would pass as 'pop' for the audiences you were playing for. Quite quickly my efforts were too far out of the envelope for the band to consider appropriate, so the songs stayed in the file, but the file kept growing.

Between bands I discovered folk clubs. Suddenly I'd found other people writing the same sorts of songs as me.

None of the songs I'd written were intended to be 'folk' songs, they came about because I had something to say or as story to tell. Perhaps that's the secret - just write how you feel, and let others decide if your effort are folk, country or anything else.

Ian Fyvie

Subject: RE: The folk process and songwriting
From: Nathan Moore
Date: 02 Dec 09 - 12:25 AM

I agree with you, Ian. It's about the stories, or at least it is to me. I fell in love with "folk music" in the first place because the songs told stories that offered more substance than the music of the Top Ten. I'm not too concerned about whether the songs that have influenced me meet the narrow academic definition of folks songs or whether they are simply played in a traditional musical style. The point is whether the song moves you, makes you think, makes you feel something. It can be an anonymous traditional ballad from Appalachia or a newly-penned song by Guy Clark.

When I write songs with my wife Kate, I try to tell a story about something that I know. I've had no luck writing songs about things that I haven't experienced. I may exaggerate, change things around, but at some level I've experienced what I'm singing about. We also try to fit the lyrics to the mood of the story or to the images that I'm using. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes the tune comes fist. Sometimes I hear something, see something, feel something and it gnaws at me until I write it down. There is no premeditated attempt to write a folk song beyond the fact that I play in an acoustic, traditional style. I'm not going to write a rock song because I don't play rock music.

However, a lot of contemporary folk music is influenced by rock music or other modern styles. There's simply no way for it not to happen. Most younger writers have grown up with an eclectic mix of influences. Many people that I know who call themselves folk song-writers cite influences such as Uncle Tupelo, Billy Bragg, and the Pogues along with Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Hazel Dickens and other folk heroes. They first encountered folk music from this odd angle, and then sought out the original sources, the old recordings, and started exploring the traditions. All of this influences the writing.

Now there are newer songs out there that I have encountered that seem to be "entering the tradition." People sing along, know all the words, and have no idea who wrote it, and frankly don't care. John Prine's "Paradise" is one such song. I have heard more people sing it at picnics, parties, and sing-alongs without having any idea that Prine wrote it. I would love to have a song of mine have the same effect.

Subject: RE: The folk process and songwriting
From: Sailor Ron
Date: 02 Dec 09 - 05:49 AM

As a 'wordsmith', I don't call myself a song writer as I can no more make up a tune than I can fly to the moon on a bicycle, I mainly write lyrics for themed [usually nautical] shows. So if the subject is, say, pirates, I try to write in the 'style' of the age concerned, be it'broadsheet' for events of the 17th-18th C.or 'Victorian' or a more 'free' style for songs dealing with current events.

Subject: RE: The folk process and songwriting
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 02 Dec 09 - 06:23 AM

Some good new posts. They only got to show how foolish it is to characterize all songwriters as writing in one particular way with a common agenda. About the only things in common are the ones that everyone seems to share: write what you feel because you feel like writing, and draw from the well of music you love most.

I liked your typo (I think it was), Nathan. Maybe we should call the songs folks songs. Reminds me of a line in a spoken introduction to Fanning Street by Leadbelly. "They were folks, sure enough."

Good to see you on here, Nathan. I'm not suprised at your comments, knowing your music.

Jerry

Subject: RE: The folk process and songwriting
From: Ian Fyvie
Date: 02 Dec 09 - 08:08 PM

Reading Nathan's post reminded me about this tuesdays singaround where Diane tried out a new song, by John Prine, which she'd just learnt from another club supporter, Fred(a). That surely must be the folk process working as it should.

On the main issue, two approaches are exemplified by Nathan writing because he wants to tell the story first hand, and Ron recreating an era by immersing himself in the the history and the musical styles of that time to create something new but faithful to that point in time.

Both must be excellent ways of enriching our Folk tradition - whether the songs are accepted as Folk immediately, 5 years time or never (would that matter?).

On the term Folk itself, our Club Vice President boldly declares "Folk is wot folk sing" whenever a heated discussion arises. We could of course debate his proposition between songs but by postponing it this way til the next Folk Club party, we get to sing more folk songs on the club night - and that's what its all about!

Ian Fyvie

Subject: What is the best video converter to use?
From: GUEST,snittepheft
Date: 28 Jan 10 - 06:47 PM

Windows Movie Maker doesn't let me put videos from my digi cam because it's in the wrong format so what converter can I use?
I want one that's pretty decent quality, doesn't cost anything, doesn't stick the logo on my videos and it converts all of the video, not just half of it.
I used to have prism something but then my trial run ran out so yeah, I can't use that >.<
And zamzar has a limit of 100MB :l

Help please?

Subject: RE: The folk process and songwriting
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 05:10 AM

Hmmm talk about misguided lol

Subject: RE: The folk process and songwriting
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 05:59 AM

It strikes me that the 'songwriting' part of the title of this thread is a bit misleading.

We're talking mainly about the kind of editing and tweaking and cut-n-pasting that takes place in the folk process. I'd say that's a whole other thing to songwriting. Though in terms of the dialectic between the individual and the collective, it has quite a bit in common with it.

I read Greil Marcus' book "Invisible Republic" last summer, and it's really really good on this kind of discussion. It has some nail-on-the-head observations of the kind of collage aspect of the American folk process.

Basically he reconciles that whole false dichotomy of "individual subjective egotist songwriter" versus "collective objective egoless folk", showing it's dialectical. When a banjo player chooses which particular stock, collective folk-database line he wants to use in singing his song this time, about bats, or dead girls called Polly, or lost sailors called Willy, he is of course making a subjective decision - a 'songwriterly' one, if you will.

Subject: RE: The folk process and songwriting
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 06:14 AM

anyway, much to think about in this thread.

someone mentioned the word "Thee". I always feel a bit ridiculous singing this word. It's not so much that it's ancient and anachronistic (qualities that are sometimes a plus!), it's more there's a ring of pomposity to using it: for me it's almost like a word in a different accent. So I almost always change it to 'you'. Which means, if it's a rhyming word, I then have to find an "oo" rhyme for the next line. And before you know it, you're folk-processing....

Been singing 'The False Bride' around the house, and I always feel a bit ambivalent about the line "Oh, when that I saw my love sat down to meat, I sat myself by her but no thing could eat ". It has a slightly base, grotesque note in today's terms, which can make it sound faintly ridiculous. It is of course, in its historical context, entirely appropriate: eating meat would have been more of a luxury, making loss of appetite more of a big deal
And poetically, too, it's in keeping with the song: it's fitting that the *carnivorousness* of his former love is being emphasized, as if she's eating his heart.

But I'm a vegetarian. Maybe "Piled my plate high with soya-based treats/I sat myself by her but no thing could eat"....

Subject: RE: The folk process and songwriting
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 06:20 AM

lol
Veggie folk process, a whole other thread perhaps?

Subject: RE: The folk process and songwriting
From: BobKnight
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 06:34 AM

"Meat," may not actually refer to meat in this context. When I was younger, it just meant food. A bit like "Hoover," being a generic term for vacum cleaners.

Subject: RE: The folk process and songwriting
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 06:51 AM

yes, no doubt, it can just mean food in general.
also possibly the sense of 'main course', I'd imagine.

I mean, I'm joking, I wouldn't put that 'soya' line in, unless I was really really desperate for a cheap laugh on a particularly disastrous night.

It's more, I suppose, that the 'meat' line can risk rupturing a mood: melancholy and meat aren't conventional bedfellows. Quite a few performers of this song, have a line ending in 'feast', half-rhyming with meat, I notice.

A similar example might be the line "Oh cock oh cock, oh gentle cockerel", in the song 'the grey cock'. I wouldn't think of altering that line either, but you'd have to be pretty naive not to imagine that it might in the wrong circumstances provoke a snigger or two. The sexual implication is a part of the song, but it's tricky to handle: you want it to stay an implication, preserve the spooky, sombre elements of the song, not descend into Carry On-style nob joke humour.

Subject: RE: The folk process and songwriting
From: Mr Red
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 09:58 AM

I once bought a book "How to be a Successfull Songwriter". Not Folk but it had a lot of useful tips.
One was to take a song you like (OK make it a folk song), write new words to it, then write a tune for the words.
What you end-up with is as derivative as your songwriting skills. Or as creative. What will leak through is the genre, a bit of style and the general format.

Now - one of the contributers/interviewees (one per chapter) was Neil Sedaka who just happened to have a TV programme about him recently. What he said was his first few offerings were "pretty awfull": BUT, he added, "the more you do it, the better you become". Also he said after his intial efforts were not up to the standard he demanded of himself (being at Juliard at the time) was that he surveyed every top ten song in the world (pinch of salt implied) and analysed them for common elements. Now so far so Folkie.
What he found was that they predominantly had a Girl's name in them, and were expressing male/female desire. His songs became commercial after that. And his record shows he deviated by following G.B. Shaw's maxim "The Golden Rule is that there are no golden rules".
So the survey has to reflect the genre and the results will throw-up different commonalities but the methodology is sound. It is market research on the "consumer" by one remove - what they like, is what they consume.