Traditional singer definition

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 23 Aug 10 - 09:22 AM

Absolutley love The Wilsons but 5(?) man sining in roaring harmonies? Which tradition is that then?

L in C#

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 Aug 10 - 09:18 AM

yes here are some examples, Ewan macColl, Isobel Sutherland, Ron Taylor,SheilaPark, Watersons, WilsonFamily[individually and collectively]and others

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 23 Aug 10 - 08:55 AM

examples of vauable traditional singing styles can also be heard when listening to some revival singers.

Is that really true, Dick? There are any amount of revival Conceits and Affectations which may be sourced accordingly - which is to say I hear lots of great singers in The Revival but their traditional singing styles can only ever be a matter of C&A, and hardly valuable with respect of The Tradition, unless of course it engenders a prospective urge in the listener - as happened to me recently when in listening to The Young Tradition I was moved to listen to The Copper Family.

That said, I can, and will, listen to any singer in a folk club or festival context; I especially love sessions and singarounds where the songs are so much more important than the singers. In this I respect all Revival Singers who are Created Equal with Respect of the Tradition. We have been thus called, and I will listen even to the most humble of them feeling that in this we at least approach the humanity which gave rise to The Tradition in the first place. But ours is a lesser world operating at some considerable remove from that which hath inspired us, and the more we seek it, so the further away it gets.

So - Revival Conventions, whilst being traditional in and of themselves, are not The Tradition - rather part & parcel of the religiosity attending The Revival as a whole, which is why, no doubt, JC in his guise Defender of the Faith publicly denounces my own efforts in this respect as heresy. Me, I would never stoop so low as to assume there was ever a right way of doing anything other than the one that works for you in the hope that if there's one thing Revival Singers do have in common with our Traditional Idols, it is a willingness to be exactly what we are, warts and all.

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 Aug 10 - 08:06 AM

Howard, examples of vauable traditional singing styles can also be heard when listening to some revival singers.
Jim, your collection "around the hills of clare"contained some singers collected by you who wrote their own songs or learned other contemporary songs[ i cant find the cd right now] but I doubt if you described them as traditional singers?
Jim you are an exception ,most collectors collect songs from traditional singers,they do not collect singers of contemporary[late20th or21st century written] or self penned songs.

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Howard Jones
Date: 23 Aug 10 - 07:55 AM

If someone is singing their songs in a "traditional" context ie within their own community rather than the folk scene, then they can probably be considered a "traditional" singer. If they learned most of their songs from print rather than oral transmission that may devalue them to a collector as a source of material but not necessarily as an example of traditional singing style, which may be equally valuable.

The early collectors are now criticised for selectively collecting only the songs which fitted their ideas of what a folk song should be and ignoring popular songs in the singers' repertoires. It is a bit unfair to criticise later collectors for being less subjective and selective. Whether the songs are "dross" is a moot point, but it does help to put the folk songs and the nature of the tradition into context to understand the place they took in the whole of a singer's repertoire. I've never heard anyone on the revival justify singing 1930s songs on the grounds that they were part of some traditional singer's repertoire, although they may sometimes be sung for their own sake, without being claimed as folk songs.

Jim, perhaps I am guilty of repeating an urban legend regarding Shoals of Herring. My point still stands - there is no reason why a copyrighted song should not enter the tradition, although it is more difficult these days for variations to arise because of the availability of recorded versions (on the other hand these may perpetuate errors - how many people now sing "Fire Marengo" as "screw the cart and screw him down" instead of "screw the cotton" as a result of Bellowhead's version?)

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 Aug 10 - 07:33 AM

Jim,
Peter Kennedy in a discussion with Mike Yates dismissed Bob Blake,the reason, he had suspicion that he had not learned his songs orally, but from books.
mike yates collected songs from Bob Blake, thinking he was a traditional singer[IMO that is one who learned his songs orally from his local community/or family]
would Yates have collected the songs[INTHE FIRST PLACE] if he had known Blake was not a traditional singer?I DOUBT IT.
" We certainly never recorded a singer who didn't learn some of his or her songs from a 'ballad"That is a red herring.
do you agree that collectors, yourself included do not collect songs from revivalists, but collect songs from those people who have learned their songs orally from their family or local community such as Walter Pardon, that is how they define a traditional singer, it is not relevant that some of those songs were originally learned from song sheets , yet those such as Bob Blake who learned songs from books orsongsheets in the twentieth century were dismissed by Kennedy, and I suspect would never have been collected in the first place if Yates had known Blake was not a traditional singer.

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: GUEST,Woodsie
Date: 23 Aug 10 - 07:18 AM

Thanks Jim.

I remember (mis)hearing "Shores Of Erin" performed on a TV show when I was young early sixties I think! I'm glad I wasn't the only one!

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Aug 10 - 06:51 AM

Cap'n
Collectors collect for a whole host of reasons and for a whole spectrum of material.
Many do it for unfamiliar songs or versions, others to put recordings of field singers out on albums - which have been an inspiration to people like me for near half a century, as a singer and a researcher.
It has certainly never has been an aim - or not for a long time, to collect in order to find the best singing - most of our traditional singers when they were recorded (certainly in England) were past their prime, many of them hadn't sung for decades and were dragging their songs out of a long unused memory store.
We were recording mainly to gain as much information as we could of an all but disappered song tradition before it went altogether.
You will never in a million years get something like that from a revival singer, no matter how good he or she is.
Sitting in a folk club with a tape recorder isn't 'collecting' - it's sitting in a folk club with a tape recorder
"oral transmission only"
I don't know of a collector who uses this as a yardstick.
As Steve Gardham points out, many of our songs were passed to the singer via broadsides and owe their currency to this.
Here in Ireland the 'ballad' trade, the selling of songsheets at fairs and markets, which lasted to the mid fifties, was possibly the major single influence on the Irish song tradition.
We certainly never recorded a singer who didn't learn some of his or her songs from a 'ballad'.
The oral tradition was certainly a vital element in the transmission of songs, but it wasn't an exclusive factor.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 Aug 10 - 06:26 AM

collectors seem to think that the difference between Traditional singers and singers of traditional songs is of importance when it comes to making a valuation of what is worth collecting.
however for those people who are interested in music and performance,what is important is the abilty to bring traditional songs to life.the fact that someone learned a song a particular way is no guarantee that they can do the song justice, they may be tone deaf but because they learned the song orally their version must be collected, how ridiculous.
however,most of the traditional singers I have heard have performed their songs well.
the other problem I have with collectors using the yardstick[oral transmission only ] is that much dross such as carolina moon and 1930s popular music becomes acceptable, regardless of merit of song
personally I reckon Cecil Sharp had his guidelines about right, my only criticism of Sharp would be his lack of enthusiasm for industrial folk songs.

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Aug 10 - 06:11 AM

"The famous example is Ewan McColl's "Shoals of Herring"
Moot point Howard; Shoals of Herring appeared on the Irish scene some time after the Irish song tradition, certainly the English language one, had shuffled off this mortal coil.
The reported hearing of 'Shores of Erin' came from American scholar Horace Beck, reported in his 'Folklore and the Sea' and it was never established whether or not it is based on his hearing (or mishearing) of the song sung by a bunch of folkies who got it from a Dubliner's album. It certainly never underwent too many changes which, I believe qualify it as being traditional; not did it take root to any depth here in Ireland outside the ballad scene (Ireland's folk revival).
There is more of a case to be made for MacColl's 'Freeborn Man' which possibly would have entered the Travellers' tradition, had it survived beyond the mid seventies; but even that only appeared as mangled fragments, again, apparently from misheard Dubliner's renditions.
The groups themselves had a hand in making some, (often ludicrous) changes to the texts of songs - beatiful example with The Johnsons' 'version' of Tunnel Tigers
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Leadfingers
Date: 23 Aug 10 - 06:08 AM

100

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Leadfingers
Date: 23 Aug 10 - 06:07 AM

Another thread to steer well clear of ! EXCEPOT of course for

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Howard Jones
Date: 23 Aug 10 - 05:26 AM

There is no reason why a word cannot have different meanings in different contexts. It is absolutely fine for "traditional" to mean one thing in the world of classical music, another in jazz, and another in folk - indeed, you would expect it to. As long as you use the terms correctly in the appropriate context, there should be no misunderstanding.

The problem we seem to have in the folk world is that we don't seem to be able to agree what it means. Everyone has their own interpretation, and seems determined to stick to it no matter what anyone else says. Perhaps I'm as guilty of this as anyone else, although I like to think that my interpretation has a logic to it and makes a distinction which is relevant and significant.

Traditional songs aren't necessarily out of copyright. The famous example is Ewan McColl's "Shoals of Herring" which was apparently found circulating in the tradition as "Shores of Erin".

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Aug 10 - 05:25 AM

PS
"To me? it means a song or tune with no copyright to bother about....."
Make up your mind Willie - five minutes ago it meant a song without a known author.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Aug 10 - 04:25 AM

"I am about to write a song. How do I "get it into the tradition?"
You don't Willie - it's very much a case of "Don't ring us - we'll ring you".
There is no guaranteed way of getting a song into the tradition; it has to be relevant enough for a community to take it up, re-work it, adapt it to suit themselves (200 plus versions of Barbara Allen), until you are pretty much written out of the equasion - that's how it works, or worked, when we had a living song tradition. We have become passive recipients rather than active participants of our culture nowadays - it all comes packaged, labelled and marketed and placed on a shelf until the manufacturers decide it's more profiitable to replace it with something more modern and sellable, then it is put in a cupboard where it remains until some enterprising advertising organisation decides it's exactly what they need to sell a new brand of suppositories.
The question is, why should you WANT to write a 'traditional song'?
Traditional (folk) songs are in the public domain and belong to us all. I've yet to meet a songwriter who is prepared to withdraw his name and all claim of financial reward to his brainchild - would you be preapared to let us have your song for nowt?
"sorry Jim. "
Don't apologise Willie - we all make mistakes.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 23 Aug 10 - 04:05 AM

Glad to see Jim Carroll on form again. My bollocks are generalised I suppose. I would hate to think they were my own....

Jim's assertion that songs that have "gone into the tradition" are therefore traditional songs intrigues me the most.

I am about to write a song. How do I "get it into the tradition?" Is there a form to fill out? I already know it doesn't have to be a particularly good song. After all, when Jim wrote "generalised bollocks" I thought he was referring to the genre, till I realised he meant me. Hey ho.

No, the problem is.... (The problem is Ray Padgett started this as a bit of fun and the gentlemen of the committee have waded in..)   

Sorry, where was I? Yes, the problem is... We are bandying with words that have loose meanings and therefore are subjective. Subject to what we perceive them as. That isn't a musical explanation, it is a language one. It fits though.

I started out as a teenager as a classical violinist. I played in youth orchestras and studied music. Now... the crusty but well meaning teacher found out I was playing traditional music as well, and genuinely thought that was a specific term meaning Russian folk tunes as collected and orchestrated by the likes of Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky etc.

You see, in his musical world, of which he was by any standard learned, that is what it meant.

To my youngest son, in his rock band, it means Dad's weird friends with beards, 15 year old cars and inability to mention beer without a diatribe on the best "real ales."

To me? it means a song or tune with no copyright to bother about.....

And you know what?   Whatever it means to Jim Carroll, it is as true as any of the above. But not more so... sorry Jim.

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 23 Aug 10 - 12:17 AM

"I don't 'need' a definition for potatoes, but I'd be pissed off if the man behind the counter sent me home with bananas"

Absolutely. I am put in mind of one of formative influences responsible for my intense taxonomical bent ~ a silly riddle an uncle used to ask us children 75 years ago ~~


"What's the difference between an apple and an elephant?"

"Don't know..."

"Well then, I wouldn't send you to get a pound of apples; you might come back with a pound of elephants."


While simultaneously amused and puzzled [I was only 3!] by the concept of 'a pound of elephants', I dimly recognised even then that there was more to this bit of ésprit than might appear on the surface.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Howard Jones
Date: 22 Aug 10 - 06:21 PM

Well yes. The reason most of us like folk music is because we like the sound it makes, not because it is "traditional". However if people are interested enough to participate in a discussion forum, and in particular to join a discussion on this topic, I find it a little surprising that some of them don't seem to be particularly interested in one of the things which characterises the music.

You don't have to be interested to enjoy it of course, but it helps.

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Aug 10 - 06:18 PM

"That's just for us nerds!"
Not really Steve; I don't 'need' a definition for potatoes, but I'd be pissed off if the man behind the counter sent me home with bananas - which is more or less why I stopped going to folk clubs.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 22 Aug 10 - 05:35 PM

I strongly suspect that the people making serious contributions here are very close in their definitions of 'traditional singer' as is the OP. The fact that these definitions don't occur as such in dictionaries shouldn't matter to us.

I agree fully with your 7.44 posting, Howard. I'm sorry it depresses you that most people interested in folk music don't need hard and fast definitions. It's their prerogative. Just showing interest doesn't mean you have to analyse and define everything. That's just for us nerds!

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Howard Jones
Date: 22 Aug 10 - 04:11 PM

Lighter, I'm afraid I don't understand the points you are making. "Casey Jones" and the music of 12th century aborigines may have nothing in common musically. That doesn't mean it is pointless to describe the performers as traditional musicians.

It is quite possible to look at a culture and identify whether a folk tradition exists - it is an observable phenomenon. It is true that a folk tradition may overlap with professional "high art" to a greater extent in some cultures than in our own, which may blur the boundaries.

Whether every piece of music performed within that tradition is necessarily "folk music" is another matter - in a culture which is exposed to other "professional" music then it is likely that these will be performed alongside true folk songs. Over time they may mutate into folk songs.

Surely it's possible to look at a singer, whether they're from Norfolk, from the Appalachians, or from Timbuktu, and decide whether or not they are part of an ongoing folk tradition in terms of their own culture. You wouldn't necessarily expect their music to sound similar, or even be mutually understandable.

Whether or not someone is a traditional singer will depend on the cultural environment in which they learned their craft. In that they are similar, even if the songs they perform are not.

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Aug 10 - 03:04 PM

"I disagree with the frustrated proclamations of Jim Carroll."
Wonder which proclamations in particular - certainly don't accept your "I say I am therefore I am"; life ain't like that, as much as we'd like it to be.
"Traditional means we don't know who wrote it "
Generalised bollocks - a number of songs of known authorship have gone into the tradition, and plenty of anonymous songs that aren't traditional.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 22 Aug 10 - 02:41 PM

This is all about perception.

Therefore, I agree with the "idiocy" of Arthuristis.

I disagree with the frustrated proclamations of Jim Carroll.

You are what you are, and what you are is what you are perceived as. If I put my finger in my ear in the upstairs room of a pub with candles on the table, I am perhaps a traditional singer. If I put my finger in my ear on a train, I am possibly clearing my ears out before putting iPod buds in them.

More to the point, if I sing of events before media got beyond paper, I'm possibly singing a traditional song. If it is of events say last year, it is not a traditional song BUT what do they have in common?

Well..

They can be in the same key.
Same time signature.
Same tune even.
Index finger firmly planted.
Beard in place.
sandals (optional as I for one don't wear them.)
yep, the pub looks the same.
Candles on the table.

So what is the difference?

Oh yes.

Traditional means we don't know who wrote it whereas with a little effort, we can all find out who wrote a song about an event last year.

Next...

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Aug 10 - 10:02 AM

Howard, I agree completely about terms of art. But in the case of modern societies the ad-hoc categories of "folk" and "traditional" were partly theoretical and conjectural to begin with.

Allow me to get extra boring. (Those not interested should flick on their favorite mp3 instead.)

Everyone agrees that the songs of, say, western Australian peoples of the twelfth century were "folk." But whether those songs and, say, "Casey Jones" belong in the same category seems dubious to me. If the "Iliad" had a tune, was it a folk song? It depends on what you mean by "folk song": Homer and his predecessors seem to have been practiced professionals doing what very few people could do.

My point is that some technical terms are muddier and less useful than others. What to do is to avoid going round and round about irresolvable definitions and to state instead just what one is talking about.

If I refer to "Casey Jones" as a folk song, aboriginal songs will be mostly irrelevant. I'd better stipulate what I mean when talking about either and hope that my listeners will not jump up and cry, "But that's not what *I* mean by 'folk song'!"

(By the way, did/do all aboriginal songs circulate quite anonymously? Would it change the nature of the exceptions if they didn't? Why should it matter anyway if the name of the "composer" is forgotten? Just some cantankerous theoretical questions.)

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Howard Jones
Date: 22 Aug 10 - 07:44 AM

Lighter, any activity, professional, sporting or cultural, needs its specialist language to cover matters and nuances that aren't of interest to the wider world, but which are meaningful to those involved. That is the proper meaning, and proper use, of jargon.

For most people, the distinction between different types of folk singer, or types of folk music, is of no importance and they don't need a vocabulary to make that distinction. For those who are interested in folk music these distinctions are (or should be) meaningful and a specialist vocabulary is needed to express them.

I'm not sure which I find the more depressing, the inability to decide and agree on appropriate language to convey these distinctions, or that so many people with an interest in folk music apparently have no interest in making them.

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Aug 10 - 05:22 AM

"So would a singer from the travelling community be considered traditional? "
David - don't understand the question
Travellers continued to have a living song tradition right into the mid 1970s and kept alive many songs - particularly ballads - long after the settled communities had abandoned them - in the case of ballads, sometimes centuries longer.
More than any other tradition, theirs was an almost totally an oral one.
Why shouldn't they be considered traditional?
Or are you aiming your question at Arthur itus's idiocy?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Lighter
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 06:34 PM

Thanks, Steve. So there's no mistake, I'll confess that my own understanding of relativity is fairly rudimentary. Like Scotty needs it when Captain Kirk says, "Scotty, warp speed!"

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: GUEST,David Wylde
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 05:48 PM

So would a singer from the travelling community be considered traditional?

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 05:20 PM

I'm presuming these comments are tongue in cheek, Arthur.
I can't think of a single 32-verse song that is utterly boring. I can think of many recently composed songs that are.

When you can give us a 32-verse song, or even a title of one, that is utterly boring I might just concede, but all the ones I have heard are full of murders, rape, supernatural happenings, love intrigues, battles, shipwrecks etc. Whatever they are I don't think they could be described as 'boring'!

I'd bet more people conjure up pictures of Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger and their modern equivalents than your little outdated list.

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Arthur_itus
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 04:12 PM

A traditional Singer

Somebody that drinks real Ale
Somebody that has a beard (male or female)
Somebody that holds their hand to their ear
Somebody that sings a 32 verse song that is utterly boring

The sort of person mentioned above, that none folkies conjure up in their minds when you mention the words FOLK MUSIC

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 04:07 PM

"Even the songs of my own family going back 2 generations I learnt after becoming aware of the folk scene and after recording them."
Pretty much the same as MacColl - who never claimed to be a traditional singer either.
Jiom Carroll

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: GUEST,Steve Gardham
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 04:00 PM

I am in complete agreement with Lighter. And, Jim, Ray was correct. I would never call myself a traditional singer. Even the songs of my own family going back 2 generations I learnt after becoming aware of the folk scene and after recording them.

Thanks for your contribution, Jonathan.
SteveG

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Lighter
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 01:46 PM

Eggheads like us may value the distinction between an interpreter and a traditional singer, but no one else does. That's not to say the distinction is pointless or valueless, merely that most people will continue to use the words "folk" and "traditional" in ways we find irritating and inaccurate.

Nothing can be done about that except to appreciate that differences in interpretation will never be resolved to everyone's satisfaction.

Like relativity, the subtle concepts behind "folk" and "traditional" are only vaguely meaningful to people without a fairly specialized academic background.

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Stringsinger
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 12:18 PM

Traditional singers are part of a process called anthropology. They are culture-based.
There are legitimate interpreters of this kind of singing regardless of where it comes from in the world. They are not necessarily members of the culture from which their songs emanate. The trouble with labeling is that contents inside the bottle may or may not reflect its true nature.

I think a problem arises when those who love folk music want to feel as though they are a part of the process when they sing and play these songs. Many will defend their "position" in the folk scheme of things.

The importance of preserving musical traditions and honoring them keeps musical imperialism by the music industry and popularizers from denying their value.

It's OK to feel a part of "the folk process" but it's not OK to dismiss the traditional performer who is culture-based and of interest to musicologists as characterized as being not important.

A true interest in folk music has to be equated with a willingness to accept that there are traditional performers who reflect the culture from which they emanate. A lot can be learned and enjoyed from relinquishing the denial that there is a folk tradition(s) in music.

At the same time, I believe that the interpreter of folk song be respected for their respective talents as well. Though when we speak of folk song, there is a well that we go to for inspiration and this is not the "revivalist" singer but someone who has grown up with a specific culture and has a depth of insight into it by virtue that they "are" that musical culture.

Folklorists and musicologists recognize the important heritage of culture-based traditional folk music. In some instances in is an endangered species but on the other side, it is still being done under the radar of the media, music biz, show biz etc.

The whole revival in England now serves as a problem in that there is arbitrary categories that may or may not be definitive in a scholarly sense. The argument on what is trad or not is usually based on individual opinions or preferences rather than musicological studies, anthropology or folklorist disciplines. I've been around the folk music scene for as long as anyone on this list. I've sung all kinds of songs but I know the difference between my reinterpretations of folk songs and the real traditional singers who come from their respective traditional sub-cultures.

Rock and Roll, Hip Hop, Singer/Songwriter and other categories are music business designations for recording bins and consumer demographics. When the disguise themselves as traditional folk music, they do a disservice to those who may not find voices in the entertainment business but say a lot of valuable things about their culture and nationality that won't be found elsewhere.

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Lighter
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 11:03 AM

There are certain concepts that simply do not lend themselves to hard and fast definition. As I've indirectly suggested in the past, "folk music" is one of them. What we mean by "music" is sufficiently clear. What we mean by "folk" (even more than "traditional") is problematic, partly because the writers who bestowed the "folk" label in the Romantic era were not trying to be "scientific." Nor were the singers of the revival or the industry execs who exploited the label in 1960s. All three groups would undoubtedly agree that "Barbara Allen" and "Shady Grove" were "folk songs," but there would be many cases where no agreement was possible. The same goes, I'd say, for labels like "traditional singer."

"Folk" and "folk music" are, I believe, of greatest value as heuristic categories. In other words, what they denote is of less importance than the connections they suggest and what they lead us to investigate. We can think much more profitably about "Barbara Allen" than about the theoretical details of "folk music" or "traditional singing" in the abstract.

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: MikeL2
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 08:24 AM

hi Jim

Yes I remember Stanley Unwin.

Mind you I didn't always understand him or his humour.

It was a sort of mangled tangled English.

Makes me feel very old !!!

cheers

MikeL2

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 04:25 AM

See what I meen about the need for sub-titles
Thanks for the example SO'P
(Am I the only one old enough to remember Stanley Unwin?)
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 03:27 AM

Traditional Jazz is more by way of Traditional Fish & Chips, surely? Whereas a Traditional Folk Song / Singer is the pure drop - thus manifesting Tradition as Vernacular Creative Genius as oppose to some wayward reactionary nostalgic shit; God knows we get enough of that in the folk world as it is!

Otherwise... We always watch our Studio Ghibli films in Japanese with the subtitles on; other recent International Cinema in Chez Sedayne of late - a box set of Werner Herzog / Klaus Kinski movies (Aguirre is sublime; the remake of Nosferatu sub-Hammer horor schlock) and another of Takeshi Kitano films, including the brilliant Zatoichi. As with real folk, and real jazz (just ordered Don Cherry's Orient / Blue Lake set) such films are an affirmation of hope in a world at times devoid of same. And when things get too bad, I reach for my Larry David DVDs...

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 02:45 AM

Sorry if I have misunderstood you Steve - shouldn't post while I'm trying to do something else. I've been told often enough that men aren't any good at multi-tasking.
I confess a feeling of deep frustration with threads like these; they appear to be an indication that, like another love of mine, international cinema, we are in the position where we can't exist without sub-titles.
Thanks for the heads-up Ray
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: r.padgett
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 01:51 AM

Jim, from the above I can assure you that Steve Gardham does not consider himself a "traditional singer" ~ that is assuming I have read this correctly

Cheers

Ray

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 06:04 PM

"in the terms accepted by us......"
It depends who you mean by us, surely Steve - I've probably been around the scene as long as you and I neither accept you as a traditional singer, nor do I claim the title for myself - it simply doesn't fit in with anything I have ever understood about the term.
MacColl used to come in for no end of abuse for claiming his parents to be traditional singers (I happen to believe from discussions with their contemporaries in Salford that they both sang traditional songs).
So it seems that say twenty years ago you wouldn't have been considered a traditional singer and would have been considered a bit of a nutter had you gone round describing yourself as one. When and how did you decide you were one and why is it important to you?
"That shouldn't really cause many problems."
As somebody who has spent a great deal of time trying to understand the tradition, how it worked, what its function was... etc it does cause problems; it muddies the water. It really isn't like describing yourself as 'The Great Marvello' - it carries a great number of issues along with it, none of which you seem to possess if your only claim to the title is that you've been a folkie for as long as I have.
I'm sure you realise that research require a bit more precision than that if it is going to achieve anything?
For me, you and I will never be anything more than singers of traditional songs, just as your traditional jazz singer will never be anything more than a singer of traditional jazz - unless he or she is part of the long process that brought us our traditional jazz or folk songs.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 05:19 PM

Jim et al,
Those of us who have been heavily steeped in 'traditional' music or 'folk' music for many decades have a fairly loose agreement on what for us they consist of. That shouldn't really cause many problems.
The person who described me as a 'traditional singer' I will not embarrass by naming. She has been a highly respected member of the folk scene for several years although her involvement appears to have been mainly in contemporary song, so her loose usage of terminology I think is excusable.
However, I doubt very much if anyone who hasn't been on the folk scene for very long, or any of the 'real folk' have any idea at all what a 'traditional singer' is, in the terms accepted by us.

Jim,
You seem to claim your dictionary tells you what a traditional singer is. Is a traditional jazz singer also a traditonal singer?

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 04:05 PM

"Bit of thread drift but I really couldn't let that one pass."
Can't disagree with you in general terms L - but I think that we have to have a quorum for a word to be added to our vocabulary and not what tends to happen in these discussions - "Now let's see what the old E.B says - nope - that one doesn't suit, so I'll make up my own".
That's when we start conversing with talking horses and not to each other.
The language we use must carry with it a degree of consensus, otherwise everything we read and write would have to carry its own glossary
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 03:22 PM

OK Howard, got your point. So, a 'traditional singer' is one who learned most of his songs from within a living oral community of singers?

That seems like a definition that I can deal with. That "living oral community of singers" could have gathered songs from all kinds of sources as you do yourself?

Les

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Howard Jones
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 03:03 PM

Les, you keep trying to define something different from what we're discussing. I'm not talking about defining the genre, I'm trying to make a distinction between traditional or source singers and ones from the revival.

Yes, traditional singers learned songs from many sources, from oral tradition, from books, from broadsides. According to one story, Fred Jordan learned a song from a Martin Carthy album. That doesn't make him any less of a traditional singer, because the context, the environment in which he learned to sing and picked up most of his songs, was the tradition.

The context in which I learned to sing and picked up most of my songs was a different and somewhat artificial one, that of the folk club. That's what makes me and, I would guess, you different from singers like Fred, even when we're singing the same songs.

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: theleveller
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 02:24 PM

"If, as Steve Gardham claims, "words mean different things to different people" we may as well all throw our dictionaries on the back of the fire and cease all attempts to communicate.
"

Bit of thread drift but I really couldn't let that one pass. Having earned my living for over 40 years as a writer I have to disagree. Anyway, to clarify the issue I rang an old family friends, Professor Tony Cowie, who was previously Head of English at Leeds University and is an internatiobnally-renowned lexicographer who is still compiling dictionaries at the age of 80. What I got was a half-hour lecture on etymology but the gist was that words are constantly undergoing an equivalent of the folk process. Meanings change, words drop out of common use and others come in - which is why we're not still using dear old Dr Johnson's tome and my friend Tony is still working.

He gave me several instances but it will serve here to quite the word "queer"and consider the changes it has undergone ibn living memory.

Anyway, have to rush now - off to Northumberland for a fortnight. Have fun.

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 02:21 PM

Hi Jim,

"Les - a rather arbitrary and superficial analysis of what we understand by and know of traditional music"

It's not an analysis - I don't have enough knowledge and understanding to attempt that. I am simply trying to show why a definition is not really possible.

I have complete respect for the evidence and the argument that you (Howard) and Jim put and I enjoy singing and hearing old songs.

"If they learned their music from within the tradition then they're "traditional", whether or not they were ever collected."

I recognise the importance of this sentence, but some of these songers also learned songs from printed sources and from the Music Halls - and nothing wrong with that.

I guess the problem lies with the word "definition". If a definition is to be of much value it needs to mean the same to most people and I don't see how such a wide collection of music and its social context can be defined, described maybe but not really defined.

Cheers

Les

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: r.padgett
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 02:15 PM

Aside from the current question I do feel, as a song collector, that it is extremely important that traditional and other songs "of worth" are picked up and sung by the current generation of younger singers

We have here on mudcat and other websites like the one being added to at www.yorkshirefolksong.net some examples of songs which discerning young singers may find useful

I do find a lot of singer songwriters doing their own stuff without recourse to existing material a bit baffling!

Further discussion afore I head for Whitby ff!

Ray

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Howard Jones
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 01:35 PM

Les, even if what you say about collectors was the whole truth, it's got nothing to do with defining "traditional singers". If they learned their music from within the tradition then they're "traditional", whether or not they were ever collected.

The tradition didn't die out with the generation Cecil Sharp collected from, it continues to this day, albeit in a much reduced and localised form. Some great singers and musicians were with us until recently, and others are still with us. Younger generations are carrying it on - Bob Cann's grandson Mark Bazely and Jack Rice's grandson Jason Rice, for example, and at ECMW this year Reg Reader's grandson was there, playing dulcimer in the same style. There were also young dancers there carrying on the traveller stepdancing tradition.

If you can't see a distinction between 'them' and 'us', that's fine. But some of as can see one, and think it's important.

Subject: RE: Traditional singer definition
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 01:03 PM

Les - a rather arbitrary and superficial analysis of what we understand by and know of traditional music.
Much of what you describe certainly did take place; on the other hand, much has been done since the early days to take up the slack and repair many of the holes in our knowledge. Even what we have put together over the last half century has allowed us to arrive at some sort of reliable estimation of what constitutes traditional song and music.
One thing as certain as Margaret Thatcher ain't going to win no more elections is that we have a body of song which stands apart from all other forms and which once fulfilled a unique function in communities throughout the world apart from that of composed music from outside those communities. Add to this the "I know it when I hear it" observation and you've got your definition. We chose long ago to describe that definition as 'traditional' and that is the label we're stuck with until someone comes up with a better one.
Language isn't by any means a comprehensive communicating tool, but without it we might as well be grunting at trees.
Jim Carroll