Is traditional song finished?

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 25 Feb 10 - 04:13 PM

All songs are folk! or did I get it wrong again?

Well, I've heard heavy metal songs re-imagined as folk songs, and I've heard traditional folk songs sung by heavy metal bands - most famously Led Zeppelin's cover of Child #95, which is nice, but not a patch on Motorhead's cover of Dido, Bendigo...

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: GUEST,cboody
Date: 25 Feb 10 - 04:15 PM

Seems to me that nobody defined traditional song, so lots of effort has been spent on arguing "around" the issue. Does it have to be sung in the original setting (whatever that means) to be traditional? Does it need to be sung in some "traditional" manner (whatever that means)? Is folks song, as Anna Russell once defined it "the uncouth vocal utterance of the people? Is traditional song to be defined as associated with the British Isles and the import of that tradition into America? All of these issues were discussed somehow, but with little attempt to find a common starting point from which discussion could proceed.

All that said: All one needs to do is consider a couple of Bill Staines songs "All God's Critters" and "River" to know that the tradition of creating music that can enter the main stream of music transmitted orally (or aurally if you prefer) today just as Stephen Foster songs entered that tradition in the past.

As to the other question of whether COLLECTION of traditional song is finished. I doubt it.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: glueman
Date: 25 Feb 10 - 04:43 PM

Crow Sister seems exceptionally shrewd for someone who hasn't been at the game long. I agree with almost everything you've said sis', but a number of points in particular. On future gazing who can say what will be viewed as traditional in a hundred years time, I wouldn't be surprised to see the current repertoir still in existence, hermetically sealed from incursions, the music a century older and sung by small groups of re-enactors with similarly bellicose views.

I also sense the revivalists will die off in the next fifteen years and the revival with it. We'll all mourn the passing of that peculiarly grumpy, well-meaning, innocent, misguided group of baby boomers and their broadsides about broadsides but will be able to console ourselves - if we haven't been gathered to Arthur's bosom with them - that their passing has bugger all to do with the history of folk music one way or another, save for a few who sang it particularly well.

I'll certainly mourn their wilful misinterpretation of any comment which questions the authenticity of the revival and the lengthy counterblasts which accompany it.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Bert
Date: 25 Feb 10 - 04:44 PM

cboody, yes they did.

Here it is again: "What we speak of as 'traditional' is just a vignette of what collectors thought was 'traditional' when they were on the rampage"

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Paul Reade
Date: 25 Feb 10 - 05:08 PM

When I started this thread, my thoughts were that any songs written now would not pass into the tradition. I was always of the opinion that a traditional song was one that had been passed around for so long that no-one could remember who wrote it. I agreed with "Jorrox": "It's unlikely that there will be any unattributable songs for future generations, as a result of technology ... just about everyone can record and distribute their own songs, the authorship should hardly ever be in doubt.

Now I'm not so sure. There are songs around now that a lot of people think are traditional, like Keith Marsden's "Bring us a Barrel", and who knows what will happen to the records of authorship in the future? A couple of generations from now there may be another "folk revival" and someone will find this long-lost "traditional" song and unless they have the time and patience to ferret around among old archives, even non-dusty electronic ones, they will never know that it was written by a bank manager from Bradford.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Feb 10 - 05:26 PM

"Well, I've heard heavy metal songs re-imagined as folk songs, "
I'll take it from your evasively obscure answer that I didn't get it wrong - so you have your response.
"And what vested interest might that be?"
Fitting your particularly square peg into a round hole - no symbolism intended!
"You mean they don't?"
Not if they try to pass off your rag-bag as folk, they don't.
T.J.
"I disagree that we have no more to discover."
Don't think anybody is trying to say that; rather, that traditional song has ceased to exist as a living form, just as nobody wrote Shakespeare plays after he died - nothing to say that they can't continue to be performed and enjoyed.
There is loads more to discover - we know next to nothing of what the traditional singers thought of their art - because, in the main they were never considered worth asking - hence the mess.
"Seems to me that nobody defined traditional song,"
Yes they have - it just doesn't suit some people.
"Does it need to be sung in some "traditional" manner...."
No - style or setting has nothing to do with it's 'folkness'.
It needs to have undergone a process which makes it folk - been through that thousands of times.
"As to the other question of whether COLLECTION of traditional song is finished. I doubt it."
Would love to agree, but not in our experience. Doesn't mean we've got nothing new to hand. Following the Greig Duncan Folk Song Collection relatively recently publised we have yet to see the J.M. Carpenter collection, arguably the largest single collection of traditional ballads ever gathered.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Folknacious
Date: 25 Feb 10 - 05:34 PM

Points arising:

There are living traditions in all countries in the world, not just in Britain, Ireland and the USA.

Folk clubs (and similar) in Britain, Ireland and the USA aren't the official guardians of all things traditional.

The last thing that's likely to become a traditional song in Britain, Ireland and the USA is something concocted in a fake "traditional" style, to be sung by folkies at folkies - a minuscule minority.

So: is traditional song finished? No. Betcha.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Feb 10 - 05:37 PM

Betcha."
How much?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 25 Feb 10 - 05:51 PM

The last thing that's likely to become a traditional song in Britain, Ireland and the USA is something concocted in a fake "traditional" style, to be sung by folkies at folkies - a minuscule minority.

It might not seem very likely on the face of it, but "Flower of Scotland" fits exactly that description.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: TheSnail
Date: 25 Feb 10 - 06:13 PM

Jim Carroll

what's a poor girl expected to do in those circumstances?

Well, she could stop believing that the wise words of Sweeny are in any way a representation of what is really happening in UK folk clubs. After all, the image he presents of the club he no longer goes to is contested by another regular. She could stop taking that as proof that that all UK folk clubs are in terminal decline.

I know from personal experience that the number and quality of the clubs have declined radically over the last twenty-odd years

No, JIm, you don't. You know from personal experience that folk clubs declined in the eighties. On your own admission, you have little direct experience of what is happening now.

I do believe there are remedies to improve things, if not to put them back to where they were - it's happened here in Ireland.

Please! Tell us more. In the UK we are up against a government that seems to be determined to stamp out all forms of small scale community music.

I said earlier that I believe clubs that call themselves 'folk' take on a responsibility for the music they claim to present.

As I have said before, language is what people speak not what a committee, however erudite, decides. I rather suspect that the "Anyone who sings with an acoustic guitar" definition of "folk" originated in America.

Just before we left London we 'pigged out' on folk clubs, visiting as many of them as we could because we realised we wouldn't get the opportunity here.
We were in a West London club one night were the performances were diabolical and the songs were - indifferent

So what were the others like? Why do you always concentrate on the bad experiences but ignore the good?

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 25 Feb 10 - 06:52 PM

Nice one, Richard Mellish! A beacon shining out above the petty bickering!

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Feb 10 - 07:50 PM

"Why do you always concentrate on the bad experiences but ignore the good? "
Because these are the ones that do the damage, and appear to be in the majority - certainly they are the ones argued for on this forum when it comes to applying standards and adopting a policy. I used it to illustrate the damage that can be caused in driving potential supporters away, nothing more.
The others we visited - poor to middling, as have been the ones we have visited since.
"language is what people speak not what a committee, however erudite,"
Don't quite understand this. If you are refering to a definition - it is immaterial who arrives at it; if it is generally accepted and works in practice, as it has done in our experience, it is good enough until a better one is arrived at.
I don't believe the clubs are in terminal decline, otherwise I wouldn't waste time discussing them - I believe them to be in a poor state - yes, from personal experience right up to 1998, when we left the UK while we were still attending them regularly. Nothing you have offered has come near to persuading me otherwise, nor has very much on this forum, from the horses mouths.
Please don't start sounding like our mutual friend.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 05:13 AM

I'll take it from your evasively obscure answer that I didn't get it wrong - so you have your response.

In answer to "Does it need to be sung in some "traditional" manner...." you say No - style or setting has nothing to do with it's 'folkness'. We'll take the Folk Process as read when it comes to Heavy Metal covers of traditional songs, otherwise Heavy Metal is a traditional music. I love going into the Liverpool & Manchester music shops of weekend and listening to kids thrashing out power-chords with great gusto and no little skill, acquiring their chops as part of a venerable idiom that has endured down the ages - certainly from before their time anyway. Don't get too hung up on the songs - the idiom is the key to traditional process; the conventions by which such things are composed and absorbed into the community which in no way contradicts the tenets of the 1954 Definition which, as I've said elsewhere, still has a lot to tell us about the nature of music as a whole.

Fitting your particularly square peg into a round hole - no symbolism intended!

My interest in folk is founded purely on a lifelong love of traditional English-speaking folk song, but even in the most traditional of folk clubs we do not experience the glories of traditional song, rather a distant echo of them - we engage in a seance, becoming mediums to a potency that might still invigorate. In this sense you are right - I am a square-peg lover of Traditional Song who has been vainly trying to fit in with round-hole general Folkery. I do not decry it (as you do) even though I've tried & failed in my appreciation of it. It's fun on a good night with lots of beer & fags, but no one can smoke any more & I'm not allowed more than a pint or two - and, sadly, I can't take Round Hole Folk entirely sober. Otherwise, life really is too short.   

Not if they try to pass off your rag-bag as folk, they don't.

This is the nature of Round Hole Folk though, old man; it begins with the likes of Ewan MacColl trying to write traditional-sounding songs & encouraging others to do likewise. To round-hole folkies this is all very well - it thrives & people have a lot of fun doing it. In this sense Folk Music is simply amateur music, variously skilled, open to all to do pretty much what they want. It is what a few people do after a long working day, to gather with a few pints and sing a few songs, acoustically, informally, by way of catharsis and recreation.

Square-Peg O'Piobaireachd

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 05:41 AM

Harry Cox and Heavy Metal - you couldn't make it up!!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: glueman
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 05:45 AM

An unwillingness to debate the folk revival honestly and openly is one of the reasons it'll die out with the baby boomers. Smoke and mirrors don't cross generations.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: theleveller
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 06:15 AM

You say potatoes, I say potatoes
You say tomatoes, I say tomatoes
Let's call the whole thing off.

Should be a folk song!

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 06:26 AM

Afterthought:
"the likes of Ewan MacColl trying to write traditional-sounding songs"
MacColl did not encourage others to do so - not in my hearing anyway. He suggested using the 'forms' of folk song to compose new ones, the use of speech patterns, their narrative nature, the way they lent themselves to vernacular speech and accent... and all the other things that make folk song unique; use of style was optional,
Doesn't mean to say he didn't use style - his 'Fields of Viet-Nam' was based on Robert Cinnamond's terraced style of singing 'Napopleon Bonepart' - extremely effective IMO. Similarly, his 'Joy of Living' based on a Sicilian folk song - one of his best.
"An unwillingness to debate the folk revival honestly and openly is one of the reasons it'll die out"
I totally agree with Glueman - where's me pills.....?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 06:27 AM

And whilst we're on with definitions:

reactionary -
adj.
Characterized by reaction, especially opposition to progress or liberalism; extremely conservative.
n. pl. reactionaries -
An opponent of progress or liberalism; an extreme conservative.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: MikeL2
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 07:06 AM

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll - PM
Date: 25 Feb 10 - 05:37 PM

<" So: is traditional song finished? No. Betcha. ">

Jim you will never live long enough to collect your bet.....they will still be trying to decide what is folk music.

Cheers

MikeL2

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 08:24 AM

they will still be trying to decide what is folk music.

I think that was decided when the first folk played their first music. The present problem seems to be how to reconcile the inner ironies of a Folk Revival with a) the songs it claims to be reviving and b) the overall context of traditional music as a whole. The ICTM have given us an indication of the way forward in their inclusive remit (which even Jim hasn't said anything about) whilst the rest is just a matter of the Folky Faithful singing about how good the old one was, which is fair enough.

Somewhere above (or below, depending how you're viewing this thread) someone said how Round Hole Folk is essentially an American import, which is obviously the case. One wonders what proportion of the 2nd Generation Revival over the last 50 years has been about E. Trads; even JC digs Dylan, which I never have, although I adored his Theme Time Radio Hour show. So maybe it's Dylan who's the key to Round Hole Folk and the anything-goes-as-long-as-it's-played-on-an-acoustic-(round hole?)-guitar approach that is pretty much the norm in the English clubs these days?

I must admit, this was never an issue in the North-East where guitar-free singarounds are pretty much the norm. At our regular old club in Durham it was all unaccompanied traditional singing, with but few exceptions & if instrument there was it generally me with a Black Sea fiddle or a Hungarian zither. Here in the North West however you can't get moved for the guitar cases piling up round the door. I am not anti-guitar, not on the whole anyway, but I don't think it's in any way appropriate to accompany E. Trads with the chordal modulations that are only the musical orthodoxy of an American inspired revival. Such things are anathema to the vibrant core of Traditional Song, and ultimately, I fear, a debasement of its essence. But that's Round Hole Folk for you, which isn't Trad.

I know I might be sounding like WAV here, but this is one of the things I've been dealing with as a Square Peg Folkie all my life. Guitar wielding Round Hole Folkies have questioned (seriously) my use of Indian Harmoniums, Black Sea Fiddles, Welsh Crwths, North African Frame Drums, Vietnamese Jew's Harps, Hungarian Citeras and Electronic Shruti Boxes to accompany venerable E. Trads as being somehow non-traditional - and it's not the one time that my Square Peg Traddie approach has been called eccentric. Recently a Round Hole at a folk club with a PA system said my use of an electronic shruti box would be bound to offend purists. I could go on; in the end I give up, pretty much.

The Round Hole Orthodoxy has not only established itself within a generation, but justified its attitudes in terms of that orthodoxy which is, after all, just a back-water of popular music defined by the grave limits of its musical vision and imagination. Thus Folk Music might be just as well defined as easy listening MOR pop music strummed out on acoustic guitars by an ever ageing baby-boomer demographic who've been singing the same-old same-old since the fifties & sixties. Here in the senile dotage of The Revival, this is more evident than ever.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 08:43 AM

"even JC digs Dylan,"
Unless you're taklking about yer man - where on earth did you get this one - can you not get anythingh right?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: glueman
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 08:51 AM

"can you not get anythingh right?"

I should resist but I can't.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 09:30 AM

"Folkies have questioned (seriously) my use of Indian Harmoniums, Black Sea Fiddles, Welsh Crwths, North African Frame Drums, Vietnamese Jew's Harps, Hungarian Citeras and Electronic Shruti Boxes to accompany venerable E. Trads as being somehow non-traditional"

None of the above collection of exotica is any less authentic than the guitar as an accompaniment to traditional English song, of course. Even the concertina and melodeon have the slenderest of claims to authenticity in this context. What you are encountering there is simply the widespread suspicion of the unfamiliar.

"Thus Folk Music might be just as well defined as easy listening MOR pop music strummed out on acoustic guitars by an ever ageing baby-boomer demographic who've been singing the same-old same-old since the fifties & sixties."

Wasn't it precisely to escape that kind of stuff that some folk venues started billing themselves as 'traditional folk'? Thus opening themselves up to the usual accusations of purism and Folk Policing?

I see a lot of folk venues - clubs, festivals etc. - on my travels, and, although I can remember some gruesome examples of that stereotype, it's not very common. I gravitated towards the folk scene because (at its best) it was the opposite of MOR.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: MikeL2
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 09:34 AM

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Suibhne O'Piobaireachd - PM
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 08:24 AM

hi S'OP

Thanks for your illuminating (as always ) reply.

What worries me is that I have been playing and listening to *folk music ( along with many other genres) for nearly 50 years.

I don't know whether I have been a round hole or square hole folk singer for all this time !!! Do I need to go and see my doctor???

cheers

MikeL2

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: glueman
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 09:36 AM

Round hole folk is what happens when practicality meets aspiration. Acoustic western guitars are affordable and available, their use is in keeping with the ambitions of an accessible 'people's music'. In the same way the Telecaster is a non-domestic icon of a different english music, its application as authentic as the concertina.

I've no idea what this 'form' JC refers to is. Do you mean pastiche, like the new Beetle or Mini taking its styling cues from the original but easier to handle in the modern world? If you mean a sound, as opposed to a history, it would be hard to argue with you. I'd suggest most folkies dig the sound and lyrics and the academia is just extra allure. You can and do get non-trad folk and most people don't get their knickers twisted about it.
I like my tradition on traditional instruments but recognise it's no more than a personal preference, it isn't folkier than round hole.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 09:46 AM

I don't know whether I have been a round hole or square hole folk singer for all this time !!!

Neither did I until Jim's post of 25 Feb 10 - 05:26 PM.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 10:10 AM

"Acoustic western guitars are affordable and available, their use is in keeping with the ambitions of an accessible 'people's music'."

The unaccompanied human voice is also pretty affordable and available. It just depends what kind of noise you like.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: MikeL2
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 10:30 AM

ho S'OP

<"I don't know whether I have been a round hole or square hole folk singer for all this time !!!

Neither did I until Jim's post of 25 Feb 10 - 05:26 PM. ">

Ha Ha..

MikeL2

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 10:37 AM

BP - "The unaccompanied human voice is also pretty affordable and available. It just depends what kind of noise you like."

It's interesting to note how the unaccompanied voice is more likely to quieten a pub that an accompanied one. I wonder why? It's as though people are caught unawares by an unaccompanied voice, as it's not the normal thing to do anymore. I find that something of a pity as in theory anyone whatever their educational background or musical skills can learn to sing these old songs. They belong to everyone not merely because they comprise a part of our common cultural heritage, but by virtue of being (theoretically) accessable to anyone who can so much as hold a tune.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Bert
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 11:39 AM

...round hole or square hole folk singer...

Don't forget about the f hole fiddle players.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Goose Gander
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 02:08 PM

"My interest in folk is founded purely on a lifelong love of traditional English-speaking folk song . . ."

I really should have learned by now to stay out of these discussions, but I'm not a good learner, apparently.

So . . . my question for SO'P:

If - as you have consistently argued - all music is folk music, given the proper context; and all music is traditional because all music is based upon traditions, then . . . how can anyone be certain what you could possibly mean when you speak of "traditional English-speaking folk song"? You essentially have argued that these words mean nothing, and now you want them to mean something(?) . . .

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 06:24 PM

CS challenged my saying
> I would expect repertoires in a hundred years time to include some of the recent songs along with some of those that are already old now.

I did say "some". If we (enthusiasts) today can sing and enjoy songs that came into existence in a very different world a century or three ago, why shouldn't similar enthusiasts another century in the future similarly sing and enjoy some of those same songs and some that are being made now? (Oops, sorry about all that alliteration.) Few if any of us are ploughboys, milkmaids, jolly tars, coal miners, lords or ladies. But we enjoy the songs about those people.

A lot of traditional songs are certainly not finished yet. They are well alive, being sung and being learnt by new singers. If they have been transported from their old homes (such as cottages, village pubs, behind the plough or before the mast) to new homes in folk clubs or on concert platforms, that's no worse than the earlier journeys which many of them made from the nobility to the peasantry, from the broadside presses of the big cities to the countryside, or from the land to the sea.

We sing them now because they continue to have a value for us, despite all the changes in the world around them, so I believe at least some of them will survive further changes in the future.

Richard

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 07:09 PM

Goose Gander, with respect, your question to Mr O'Piobaireachd is one step removed from "Tell me, when did you stop beating your wife?"

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 07:50 PM

SO'P
So far you have blustered and filibustered your way through every discussion you have been involved in. You don't argue, you DECLARE; then you attempt to piss on the work that has been done over the last 150+ years. You've sneered and snided at the work of others without addressing it in any way (I repeat the invitation I made earlier which you ignored - I'm more than happy to gather all your snide comments together and put them up here). I asked you whether you had listened to our recordings - your response - you've heard the few tracks we put on Voice of The People. I suppose I must be grateful that you have based your dismissive snideswipes on 25 minutes worth of 30 odd years of work we have done - all the interviews with Walter Pardon, Tom Lenihan, Mary Delaney.... everybody we have discussed the music with and asked their opinion on - their opinions on the music that they gave us, all binned by you - for what? The shit idea that what they gave us is no different to T Rex, or Daniel O'Donnell, or Robbie Williams, or Frank Sinatra or Luciano Pavarotti....
Bollocks.
You can't tell the difference between folk and the pop pap that has been fed to us (at a price, of course); I'll tell you the difference. The music you appear to prefer was made, packaged and sold to us. We had no part in its making; it is a commodity, and not too long in the future it will be scrapped and we will be given something else to listen to; and so ad infinitum. WE HAD NO PART IN ITS MAKING. IT WILL NEVER BE OURS, THE ONLY CLAIM WE HAVE ON IT IS THE ONE WE PURCHASED, THE RIGHT TO LISTEN TO IT.
Folk music is ours, it is 'The Music of The People'; made by them/us to express our/their lives and experiences, then passed on to others who re-made it so it became theirs. It is our culture, our history, our experiences, our emotions..... made by working people: mill workers, miners, seamen, farm workers..... 'ordinary people' if there is such a thing.
If you can show that your rag-bag wish list in any way corresponds with any of this, you might have an argument; so far you have given nothing but bullshit and doublespeak verbiage; you have worked to the old building trade truism that it is far easier to pull down something that somebody else has built rather than create something yourself.
Glueman
You don't understand the difference between form and style? I explained it in my posting (far more simply than most of the convoluted postings of your obscurantist mentor); if you can't follow it, invest in a dictionary.
If the best you can do is point out the keyboard problems I'm having - I'd forget it if I were you - it reduces you even more.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Goose Gander
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 07:51 PM

Not even close, SC. I'm merely paraphrasing his own arguments, and I'm asking how we can know for sure what he means when he uses terms that he himself has expanded to the point of meaninglessness.

But SO'P can speak for himself.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: GUEST,Angus & Julia
Date: 26 Feb 10 - 09:10 PM

I'm studying traditional folk music for my HSC viva voce, and am arguing that technology has destroyed the true concept. Traditional music was music orally transmitted that reflected the cultures of its origins. it was not notated and was simply the rearranging of past folksongs to fit a communities current context. in essence, the same song could be heard in various towns, but all have a unique sound due to the traditional and cultural implications. the introduction of technology meant that music was mass produced and easily accessible to everyone. it was recorded, therfore not orally transmitted, and it was heard by everybody, therefore sounded the same no matter where you went. traditional music was defined as unique and nationalistic, but because of technology that nationalism has been removed from music. I still think we have lots of great 'folk' scenes and artists now, but from now on I consider them to be contemporary folk.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: glueman
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 03:17 AM

Jim, you brought up the legitimacy of form rather than history as a guide to what is traditional in your MacColl argument. Please try and keep up.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 03:52 AM

how can anyone be certain what you could possibly mean when you speak of "traditional English-speaking folk song"? You essentially have argued that these words mean nothing, and now you want them to mean something(?) . . .

These words certainly mean something, more by way of adjectives given that most musical genres & idioms have names used by the practitioners thereof. It's a problem for sure, but what did the Traditional Singers call their songs? Jim has said some singers he collected from called them The Old Songs, which echoes Bob Copper's wonderful poem of that name (set by Peter Bellamy), but as he said earlier we know next to nothing of what the traditional singers thought of their art - because, in the main they were never considered worth asking - hence the mess. Whilst I don't dispute that Folk and Traditional have pragmatically come to act as genre nouns, covering a multitude of possible musical idioms which otherwise don't have names, I do dispute that those idioms are more folk / trad than any other idiom when those terms are used as adjectives rather than simply nouns.

So - when I say Tradition English Folk Song (extending this to English-Speaking to clarify that I'm not just talking about England, given that the Tradition is as much Scottish, Irish, Welsh, American and Australian as it is English) I'm using the words for sake of pragmatic convenience, rather than as adjectives by way of defining the nature of the music. Elsewhere I've suggested the word Popular (as used by Child to describe his Ballads) might also be appropriate, but that's not without its (obvious) problems too. I don't think there is anything demonstrably different about the Old English-Speaking Popular Songs (OESPS anyone??) - nothing that qualifies them as being more folk according to the tenets of the 1954 definition anyway - which is not about genre, & in any case doesn't tell us much about the nature of the songs themselves but rather postulates on provenance, much as the ETH faithful do regarding Crop Circles.

Consequently Folk is a problem word, it's an extraneous concept that has increasingly lost its currency. Over the years the magazine Folk Roots relegated it to a lower-case f, and back in 1980 the International Folk Music Council changed their name to The International Council for Traditional Music with an inclusive remit of folk, popular, classical & urban musics. Whilst I'm unclear as to what the ITCM mean by folk in that context (noun or adjective) perhaps it is through deference to the pragmatics of common usage that the meaning of the word at last defined. In which case that's both Jim and I pipped for sure...

Hope this helps.

Square-Peggin' Awl.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 04:00 AM

Jim I usually agree with a reasonable amount of what you post. But you post above about the differences between "commercial" music and "folk" music is bizarre. I'll explain when I have more time later. However, it make a hell of a lot of unevidenced assumptions about who makes popular music and why.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 04:24 AM

Surely I did post a link to the Mirriam-Webster definition of "traditional" somewhere back in the mists of time. I was pointing out that it is not synonymous with the 1954 definition.

The 1954 definition deals with "composed music" by denying that its adoption unchanged makes it "folk". Conversely its adoption and change may make it folk, since the requirement of anonymity for "folk" is a "conclusion" by Sharp, that is to say is chicken not egg.

Agnes and Julia may care to reflect on the process of adoption, and teh meaning of the expression "community" for the purposes of the 1954 definition.

However, the 1954 definition is of "folk" not of "tradition" so the idea that songs may continue to become traditional without meeting the 1954 definition would seem to be a foregone conclusion.




CS, you miss something about the use of instruments. Not one person in a thousand has your ability to stay in tune in unaccompanied singing. For most it is far easier to stay in tune (ish) with an instrument for reference.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 04:31 AM

WE HAD NO PART IN ITS MAKING. IT WILL NEVER BE OURS, THE ONLY CLAIM WE HAVE ON IT IS THE ONE WE PURCHASED, THE RIGHT TO LISTEN TO IT.

Is that the Voice of the People series you're on about there, old man? In which case I think I might just agree with you. Certainly that's how I feel sometimes about The Old Traditional Songs with respect of the hash The Revival singers made of them, but that's just a matter of personal taste. Otherwise, what's so very different about buying a Phil Tanner CD from one by Frank Sinatra? Both contain recordings of beautiful singers whose music resonated at the very heart of their community & the traditions thereof and yet, because of their individual uniqueness, they were well respected for their evident gifts. A legacy which lives on even today.

made by working people: mill workers, miners, seamen, farm workers..... 'ordinary people' if there is such a thing.

I think once again we're back to E.P.Thomson's gulf of class condescension - whereby the working-class are romanticised in terms of their quaint collectivity rather than allowed to speak, think, live, breathe & create as individuals. This is the central myth that is the very wellspring of the bourgeois Folk concept: that by their faceless collectivity the working-class are in some way ordinary. I don't believe there has ever been such a thing as an ordinary person (certainly not working-class anyway) and if there was, they certainly didn't make these songs, much less sing the bloody things.

If you can show that your rag-bag wish list in any way corresponds with any of this, you might have an argument;

I've shown it again & again, old man - you choose to either ignore what I'm saying or else throw your toys around. In the end it all comes back to the essential humanity of all music, which the 1954 Definition tells us about, likewise The Horse Definition. Anything else is just idiomatic variance to be mulled over by the astute ears of the ethnomusicologists.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 05:36 AM

Somewhere back there I said my wife and I were going to the The Bad Lieutenants. The band is actually called Bad Lieutenant - a popular music group in the Manchester Tradition featuring two legendary working-class musicians whose influence on traditional popular music idioms over the last 31 years is beyond calculation.

Check 'em out: http://www.myspace.com/badlieutenantmusic

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 05:55 AM

"Not one person in a thousand has your ability to stay in tune in unaccompanied singing"

First that's a large compliment, but second I don't believe it to be true by a long straw. If I find I get a funny interval in a melody which throws out my expectations and buggers me up, I just keep practising it. Repeat repeat repeat that phrase until it stays in place. I'm sure that's no more difficult than learning a chord on a guitar?

Just to be clear, I'm not making any kind of value judgement here about people's preference to use instruments (I sing without, mainly because I can't play anything and never learned music. So traditional songs liberated me musically). It's just that our modern musical expectations tend to automatically preclude singing without some form of accompaniment.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 06:04 AM

"Otherwise, what's so very different about buying a Phil Tanner CD from one by Frank Sinatra?"
Our recording of Mary Delaney' 'What Will We do' has been taken up and recorded by at least a half a dozen singers. Try doing it with 'My Way' and telling PRS that it's a folk song and therefore in Public Domain. I'm referring to the songs , not the recordings (the profits for ours were donated to The Irish Traditional Music Archive with the agreement of the singers btw).
".....and if there was, they certainly didn't make these songs, much less sing the bloody things."
Now there's a statement to mull over, bothy songs not sung by bothy workers, sailor's songs not sung by sailors....? Tell the Elliots that miners songs were not sung by miners - or better still, that miners are not workers.
"Anything else is just idiomatic variance to be mulled over by the astute ears of the ethnomusicologists."
As I said, everything Walter Pardon, Tom Lenihan, Mary Delaney... had to say about their songs - binned.
All you've shown over and over again is your ignorance and indifference.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 06:26 AM

Traditional music was music orally transmitted that reflected the cultures of its origins. it was not notated and was simply the rearranging of past folksongs to fit a communities current context. in essence, the same song could be heard in various towns, but all have a unique sound due to the traditional and cultural implications. the introduction of technology meant that music was mass produced and easily accessible to everyone. it was recorded, therfore not orally transmitted, and it was heard by everybody, therefore sounded the same no matter where you went. traditional music was defined as unique and nationalistic, but because of technology that nationalism has been removed from music.

If you think Hungarians are listening to Seth Lakeman you need to get out more.

Or for that matter if you think the Scots are.

The recording industry has been the biggest boost to nationalism in music that it's ever had.

One interesting recent development has been the way media like YouTube and Facebook have supported the development of diaspora national cultures - the BBC did an interesting programme about the Pontic Greek culture a few weeks ago, with people of Pontic decent all over the world making new contacts with those remaining in north-east Turkey.


S O'P:
old man... old man... old man... old man...

Kindly desist from being a patronizing shit.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 06:30 AM

Now there's a statement to mull over, bothy songs not sung by bothy workers, sailor's songs not sung by sailors....? Tell the Elliots that miners songs were not sung by miners - or better still, that miners are not workers.

I'm losing patience here, old man - if you actually bothered to read what I say instead of just knee-jerking against it we might get somewhere. So yes - of course - bothy songs sung by bothy workers, sailor's songs sung by sailors, and mining songs sung by miners - but no such thing as an Ordinary Working-Class Person. That said, much has been put into the mouths of the miners by the agenda-obsessed fakelorists of The Revival. I've talked with many old Durham miners - including singers who sang in the clubs, pubs, chapels & canteens - who'd never heard a so-called Folk Song in their lives.

As for the rest, read what I've said.

Off out for the day, back tomorrow.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 06:36 AM

S O'P:
old man... old man... old man... old man...

Kindly desist from being a patronizing shit.

I use the term old man out of deep respect and sincere deference. The term comes from the film For a Few Dollars More - it's what the Clint Eastwood character calls The Colonel (Lee Van Cleef). Go watch it & figure. Whilst I might not always agree with Jim, I regard him as a foremost authority on the subject of traditional song and his work in this field is in every way exemplary. Thus do I call him old man.

No doubt I'll be trounced for saying this, but that's the truth of it.

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 07:43 AM

"but no such thing as an Ordinary Working-Class Person."
As I suggested in the first place.
You went on to say (and I reproduce again directly from your posting) "and if there was, they certainly didn't make these songs, much less sing the bloody things"
You now compound this by claiming that "much has been put into the mouths of the miners by the agenda-obsessed fakelorists of The Revival", also directly reproduced from your posting
PROVE IT.
You are a pratt - and a supercilious one - old man.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 07:59 AM

RichardM: "If we (enthusiasts) today can sing and enjoy songs that came into existence in a very different world a century or three ago, why shouldn't similar enthusiasts another century in the future similarly sing and enjoy some of those same songs and some that are being made now?"

Sure. But I still find it innapropriate to conflate the body of material archived from the old oral tradition, with modern songs of the revival which have been inspired by them. Any amount of types of modern songs could pass into what might come to constitute 'traditional songs' in the future, not merely modern revival songs that have been intentionally composed in the 'folk idiom'. As I said elsewhere, my money would be on popular material by bands like The Beatles or Abba. Though I think that revival songs will end up being recognised as a body of material in their own right, whether such songs eventually become considered to be 'traditional' in the same sense as songs from the old oral tradition are, TBH I've absolutely no clue! You may be correct, only time will tell.

"(Oops, sorry about all that alliteration.)"

Now try and say that ten times really fast.. ;-)

Subject: RE: Is traditional song finished?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 27 Feb 10 - 08:37 AM

I'd like to add that I DO sing some modern songs! I'm not utterly exclusive in what interests me, I just like to be clear on the distinction between the old songs and the new.

I feel that not to be clear on such matters, is somewhat dismissive of the very heritage that inspired the revival in the first place.