true style

Subject: RE: true style
From: Will Fly
Date: 16 Jun 10 - 10:43 AM

Don't believe what you've read, Rob - "Vindaloo" was originally a folk song heard by English troops being sung by an Indian mercenary soldier at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. The soldier's command of English wasn't very good and he misheard Waterloo as Vindaloo - it's a common mistake. When the Napoleonic Wars were over, he stayed with his English comrades and opened a curry house in Nine Elms. His descendants taught the song to Fat Les.

I'll get me shako...

Subject: RE: true style
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 16 Jun 10 - 10:38 AM

DeG: I guess that makes Fat Les' "Vindaloo" a folk song then :-)

Subject: RE: true style
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 16 Jun 10 - 10:28 AM

What was he talking about when he said 'true style'? Perhaps he meant something like 'actual category.' If so, then it's a pretty obvious statement.

For example, the true style of a slow air is different from the true style of a satirical music-hall song, and both styles are the result of long periods of group effort.

Subject: RE: true style
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 15 Jun 10 - 10:43 AM

I think, in this context, the 'style' refered to is indeed a result of a large group. The folk 'style' does, or should, come from the masses and could well be one of the main differentiatong factors that we argue about so often here. It could well be that the answer to our perennial 'what is folk' question lies neither in the 1954 nor the 'not a horse' definition but in this one.

If a lot of people listen to it - It is probably pop.

If it cannot be repeated by anyone without musical training - It is probably classical

If people in pubs, on football terraces and in the streets have heard it and can repeat it in a way that makes it common to the masses - It is folk.

There, see, we have solved a lifelong problem:-)

DeG

Subject: RE: true style
From: The Sandman
Date: 15 Jun 10 - 10:29 AM

Bert,the statement had the endorsement of Maud Karpeles, that does not mean I agree with her, but it does show how attitudes have changed. leveller, yes, you those are good points.
however, I dont feel that William Morris[from that same era]would have agreed with Parry.

Subject: RE: true style
From: Bert
Date: 15 Jun 10 - 09:25 AM

It's a load of old codswallop. It's that kind of thinking that has produced hundreds of Dylan singalikes and white guys trying to sing the blues.

Subject: RE: true style
From: theleveller
Date: 15 Jun 10 - 08:52 AM

I think when that was said there was a far greater tendency for the 'upper class' to regard the 'working class' as a homogenous group resource rather than individuals who actually could each have aspirations, feelings and desires. Note the use of "their native taste" not "our native taste". This was especially evident during WWl when they became cannon-fodder to be used up by the generals.

As the Labour Party and the unions fought for workers' rights, this gradually (very gradually) changed until the sixties when, with considerable disposable income, they became an important market in the consumer society.

Subject: RE: true style
From: Will Fly
Date: 15 Jun 10 - 07:54 AM

I'd agree, to a certain extent - but you can't deny the huge influence of individuals in arts such as music whose style has left indelible traces. Whether this or any other style is "true" or "pure" is open to question.

Subject: true style
From: The Sandman
Date: 15 Jun 10 - 07:48 AM

"True style comes,not from the individual but from the products of the crowds of fellow workers who sift and try and try again till they have found the thing that suits their native taste, and the purest product of such effort is folk song."
Sir Hubert Parry in his inaugaral adress to the Folk Song society in 1899.
111 years later, I wondered how mudcatters might view this statement?