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Classic folk music
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: Jim Carroll Date: 12 Jan 11 - 07:57 AM "Just wondering how the Bellowhead approach will be thought of in ten or twenty years." Like Steeleye, and Pentangle, and The Watersons, and Woodstock, and The Beatles, and and and .... they will be a distant memory (fond or otherwise) of those who were there. Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: theleveller Date: 12 Jan 11 - 07:53 AM "Just wondering how the Bellowhead approach will be thought of in ten or twenty years. " I don't think it's meant to have a long life. It's "of its time" and something even more exciting will, hopefully, take its place. Only in this way can folk music stay relevant and contemporary. |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray Date: 12 Jan 11 - 07:51 AM But they were originally built as saddle tanks so by analagy which is the traditional and which is the revival? Saddle tank into pannier tank is Traditional (Folk) Process - the train is mutable in its natural habitat; it knows no sense of significance beyond what it is and is, therefore, entirely innocent of its own authenticity. I would argue that even a revived stream locomotive is tainted by indulgent nostalgia as it no longer functions as part of the system it was created for. Thus, it enters a second-life realm akin to the Folk Revival and populated by a similar class of Enthusiast. There is great worth in this, just as long as we don't fool ourselves into thinking its the real thing. As a kid I used to skive school to watch the old saddle-tank engines of the Backworth Colliery system on their daily rounds, often being invited to ride on the footplate through the winter fields of a long lost childhood paradise. Some of these old saddle tanks are still extant, lovingly restored by passionate enthusiasts, but like a Revived Folk Song, they are no longer part of the long vanished tradition they were created for. For sure we might still enjoy them, but that enjoyment is Revival, most assuredly not Traditional. |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: Old Vermin Date: 12 Jan 11 - 07:28 AM Just wondering how the Bellowhead approach will be thought of in ten or twenty years. |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler Date: 12 Jan 11 - 07:23 AM "Maybe one railway modeller can copy his scratchbuilt 00-scale Swindon 1076 class pannier tank engine from that built by another another" But they were originally built as saddle tanks so by analagy which is the traditional and which is the revival? (Were these the "Buffalos", don't have a reference book to hand). |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: Howard Jones Date: 12 Jan 11 - 07:12 AM Greg, at a broad level you're right of course. Nevertheless I cannot help but feel that there's a difference in approach between the composers and folk performers. Which is not to say that one side is any more respectful of the tradition than the other, simply that they are trying to do different things with the music. Which is why, to answer the OP, the composers' works aren't generally performed at folk clubs or festivals. The differences in performance styles are I think due to the different cultures and attitudes of the classical and folk worlds. There is nothing to prevent Bellowhead from publishing their arrangements and from someone else forming a similar ensemble and performing them - it's just that such behaviour isn't expected (or respected) in the folk world. There are certainly enough examples of people seeking tablature for Nic Jones' or Martin Carthy's guitar arrangements to show that it nevertheless goes on. |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: treewind Date: 12 Jan 11 - 07:11 AM "the source of the song is its Traditional Wellspring, the nature of which is very different from that which we find midst the various orthodoxies of The Revival, however so sanctified (and sanitised) they may be." I disagree, not because I think that revival singers are raising what they do on a pedestal by calling it traditional, so much as because "the tradition" is a meaningless expression that attempts to describe a very nebulous, uncoordinated, diverse and changing assortment of activity by all sorts of people spread over a long and ill-defined period of time. One of the worst "orthodoxies of the revival" is trying to put "the tradition" into a museum case and define it, especially as something that happened in the past in a uniform and consistent way. |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: treewind Date: 12 Jan 11 - 06:23 AM "It came as some surprise therefore, to be presented with a budget recording of the same piece by the same orchestra, but with another conductor. I really didn't get it. The music felt so alien to me as to constitute an entirely different experience." There is an amazing amount of scope for different interpretations of course. Even different recordings of Stravinsky conducting his own music are dramatically different, showing that there isn't a single correct interpretation. Nevertheless classically trained musicians have a hard time if asked to play something different from the actual notes put in front of them. You are right about Handel's "ad lib" too - but trained musicians have to learn how to 'ad lib' and it's quite a foreign skill to many of them. In Handel's time and earlier, things were indeed much more like modern folk, jazz and pop music in some ways - the "figured bass" was the baroque equivalent of a guitar chord chart in that it showed you where the harmony was going while leaving the instrumentation and actual notes up to the musicians. |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: greg stephens Date: 12 Jan 11 - 05:29 AM I really can't see any significant difference in intent or approach between Vaughan Williams and Bellowhead or Martin Carthy for that matter. All people who had a fanatical interest in the products of the folk tradition, who learnt the material and then reinterpreted it in the context of their own culture, obviously radically different from the world where the material sprung up. Whether they reinterpreted it in a flexible or rigid manner reflects the society and mentality of the interpreter, but it's not a fundamental difference.Certainly not enough of a difference to say something like "Vaughan Williams isn't folk, Bellowhead is". Of course, this discussion is a rehash of all old discussions. Naturally, it's a folk forum. |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: Paul Davenport Date: 12 Jan 11 - 05:12 AM Treewind writes; ' To me the big and much clearer difference is that with RVW, the composer sets in stone every note that is to be played, and the orchestra plays no part in that creative process. Many different orchestras will play Vaughan Williams' work, using the same instruments playing the same notes.' Actually, I thought this for a long time until, back in the early 1980s I worked on 'Le Sacre du Printemps' by Stravinsky. I used a recorded version by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Seiji Ozawa. As the choreographer I listened attentively to the piece and counted every beat. It came as some surprise therefore, to be presented with a budget recording of the same piece by the same orchestra, but with another conductor. I really didn't get it. The music felt so alien to me as to constitute an entirely different experience. As a Head of Music in secondary education I found myself time and again having to re-assess what I thought music was about. I remain puzzled. This is considered by the establishment to be a 'finished' art form. It is absolutely not. Oh, yes, for interest I would refer folks to the work of Handel, note the disturbingly large occurrence of the term 'ad lib' in instructions to singers in his oratorios. By no means set in stone. A very 'traditional' composer I would suggest. |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: Jim Carroll Date: 12 Jan 11 - 05:06 AM "The Tradition and The Revival are two very different things......." Seconded - thirded - tenthed...!! Probably the most concise and articulate summing up I've ever read of the difference between the tradition and the revival Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray Date: 12 Jan 11 - 04:38 AM The Tradition and The Revival are two very different things and one would have thought most here would be a) aware of that and b) happy with the distinction. To propose that the processes of The Tradition are being somehow perpetuated through The Revival is a supreme arrogance on the part of those Revival Singers who have assumed what they're engaged in is any more than hobbyist recreation operating at some considerable remove from the cultural circumstance in which the Traditional Songs were created in the first place. Whilst (in practise) I'm not averse to such tampering, to do so in the name of The Tradition is both fatuous and plain misguided, likewise the assumption that by some twisted alchemy a revival singer can become a source singer. Maybe one railway modeller can copy his scratchbuilt 00-scale Swindon 1076 class pannier tank engine from that built by another another, but the source is surely the real train that inspired such enthusiastic modelling in the first place? I have learnt songs from other revival singers - even from records of revival singers - but the source of the song is its Traditional Wellspring, the nature of which is very different from that which we find midst the various orthodoxies of The Revival, however so sanctified (and sanitised) they may be. The Source Singer therefore is the Traditional Singer from whom that song was collected. Many revival singers and performers I regard as true masters of their art, but that art is born of Revival and not Tradition, the respective realities of which are very different. It would be a shame if people lost sight of this - even whilst making their own variations & arrangements of Traditional material, or by making songs in a Traditional Idiom. Do what thy wilt by all means - but be sure what you're doing is in no way Folklore, but Pure Revival. |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: theleveller Date: 12 Jan 11 - 03:48 AM I think the answer's ovious - ever tried getting a full orchestra together when you want to play a tune or lugging a Steinway down to your local folk club? |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: Jim Carroll Date: 12 Jan 11 - 03:30 AM "Why do we accept Bellowhead and not Vaughn Williams?" Assuming that we do, of course - some of us don't. Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: treewind Date: 11 Jan 11 - 06:59 PM "when a source singer dies, does a revivalist singer with a similar repertoire then become a source singer to replace him/her?" You don't have to wait for people to die - it's happening faster than that - and the terms "source singer" and "revivalist" are very dated and don't have to be rigorously applied each time a song is transmitted from one singer to another. I've seen it happpen, in fact I've been indirectly involved. A song is put together by a "revival" singer from collected sources, recorded and sung live and that becomes the "source" for someone else to rewrite their own take on the song, and then someone else does their version of that song. Those so-called "source" singers - where did they get their songs from? Some may have been passed on through the family, but a lot came from the radio, the music hall and the stage. They wouldn't have called themselves source singers, though they knew some songs were older than others. And as Steve Tilston never tires of telling us, ALL of those songs were once written by someone! |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: Tootler Date: 11 Jan 11 - 06:01 PM Possibly because those who insist on such distinctions don't have one or at least not a satisfactory one. I always feel that the term "revival singer" carries a slightly pejorative tone. |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: Seamus Kennedy Date: 11 Jan 11 - 05:38 PM I've asked this question before on several threads when the subject of 'source' and 'revivalist' came up, and never received a satisfactory answer: when a source singer dies, does a revivalist singer with a similar repertoire then become a source singer to replace him/her? I'm serious. |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: Howard Jones Date: 11 Jan 11 - 05:37 PM I suppose the idea I am trying to get across is that for a folk musician the song remains central, no matter how complex or off-the-wall the arrangement, whereas for the composer it is generally just a starting point. As always, there will be exceptions on both sides. Of course there were composers from the classical camp who most definitely did arrange folk songs - Sharp and Britten, for example. The reason they are not heard much (in the folk world at least) is partly instrumentation but also fashion - they just sound very dated and out-of-style compared with the direction folk music has gone in the years since. But the same could be said for the guitar-and-voice arrangements of folk singers from the 50s and 60s. |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: maeve Date: 11 Jan 11 - 05:36 PM Um...that would be "Mo" the Caller. :)
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: Joe Offer Date: 11 Jan 11 - 03:33 PM Ho the caller - Please send me an e-mail. I tried to contact you, but the e-mail address on your registration doesn't work. Thanks. -Joe Offer- joe@mudcat.org |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: treewind Date: 11 Jan 11 - 03:32 PM I'm not sure that the "arrangements" vs. "composition" argument is very strong. To some extent RVW made an arrangement, and Bellowhead are composing stuff around traditional material. To me the big and much clearer difference is that with RVW, the composer sets in stone every note that is to be played, and the orchestra plays no part in that creative process. Many different orchestras will play Vaughan Williams' work, using the same instruments playing the same notes. On the other hand, Bellowhead's arrangement is for Bellowhead alone to play, and if another band want to do a version of the same song, they will most likely have different instruments and make a quite different version of it. In other words, in folk music the performers have huge creative freedom over the details of the music, whereas in classical music they do not. That's the point LTS was making about her choirs, and also one of the reasons why I like doing folk music (and I've played in orchestras, string quartets etc. as well so I know what that's like) Anahata |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: Howard Jones Date: 11 Jan 11 - 03:07 PM Why do we accept Bellowhead and not Vaughn Williams? For me, the difference is one of intention. It seems to me that Bellowhead's arrangements are intended to adorn the song and present it in a particular way, whereas RVW and other composers use the song as a framework upon which to create an entirely new piece of art. Bellowhead's versions, no matter how complex or outrageous, remain arrangements. The composers' works are new compositions, entire in themselves - whilst they make use of folk melodies, these are for inspiration, to be built upon to create something larger. |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: GUEST,Shimrod Date: 11 Jan 11 - 12:54 PM "But maybe we've had other threads on 'what is folk?'" Understatement of the millenium!!! |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: Paul Davenport Date: 11 Jan 11 - 12:22 PM Meanwhile, back on the thread. 'Vaughan Williams' Variations of Dives and Lazarus is a very different animal to Martin Simpson singing Dives and Lazarus. ' Of course it is, but then Bellowhead's rendition of 'Whiskey Johnny' on the telly the other week is just as far removed from a sea shanty as the two examples above. If I read 'Neophyte's ' original question right, the question is why we accept one and not the other. (Perhaps he/she would like to come back in and correct me or otherwise?) Fact is, we folkies do tend to accept all sorts of interpretations on folk themes, some more way out than others, but we don't extend the same tolerance to 'classical' music using the same thematic material. I know we can like this or that piece but overall we do make a much bigger seperation between that musical world and ours than we do with any other. A friend of mine once said. "Of course Walter (Bulwer) had a classical training…we don't know who did it to him but…' says it all. |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: Jim Carroll Date: 11 Jan 11 - 11:20 AM "Sorry Jim, I don't have an adequate term for the people I mean." Then we may as well dispense with all argument and hurl 'finger-in-ear' or 'folkie opportunist', - or 'snigger-snogwriter' at each other. If such creatures as 'folk police' actually exist, I would have thought they were the ones who attempt to circumvent real discussion by attaching meaningless and often extremely insulting labels (I would nominate 'folk fascist' for an Oscar). "....and for the second time on a thread I find myself in agreement with Jim! Unprecedented!" Watch it Steve - people will say we're in love!! Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: Paul Davenport Date: 11 Jan 11 - 10:35 AM folk police' Is it not possible to conduct these discussions without infantile name-calling Paul - shame on you! Jim Carroll' Sorry Jim, I don't have an adequate term for the people I mean. That is those who, 'know what they like' but who don't actually know anything at all about traditional music. The sort of people who say, and here I quote; "I have no intention of learning to read music because it will spoil the purity of my singing." or "That's not a traditional ballad, it's less than a hundred years old". I could go on. Please feel free to provide a more grown up term for me to use. Paul |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: Manitas_at_home Date: 11 Jan 11 - 09:44 AM Ron - oddly enough, one of our tenors is called Ron Davis, but I digress - Linden Lea works because before RVW wrote the tune everyone knows for the poem by William Barnes. If it had a tune before, it wasn't noted anywhere that I've been able to find. It's the only tune I know that will also fit the words of 'Jerusalem', which also started out as a poem, rather than a hymn. As for John Rutter - I loathe and detest his work, both secular and sacred so any assessment of his folk song arrangements is going to be flawed for me. Now if Howard Goodall were to start looking at the folk genre for inspiration, I would be an avid listener. You will get the same argument whether it's classical composer arranging sea shanties or a folk band doing a Queens of the Stone Age number... sometimes it works but mostly it doesn't. That doesn't mean to say it shouldn't be tried. AFter all, one should try everything once except incest and folk dancing. LTS (still can't be arsed to log out) |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: Rob Naylor Date: 11 Jan 11 - 09:26 AM I agree, Steve, the discussion of classical arrangements based on folk melodies v folk melodies played or sung in a looser "folky" tradition is interesting...but the way it's veering into another dreary "what is folk?" thread is not at all interesting. Looking back at the first couple of dozen posts, it seems that the OP has real trouble in understanding the point made by The Leveller (and several others, ie: The difference between classic folk music (ie folk standards) and classical folk music is that the latter is an exercise in composition and arrangement using folk themes or tunes and is usually performed by orchestral musicians. So, for instance, Vaughan Williams' Variations of Dives and Lazarus is a very different animal to Martin Simpson singing Dives and Lazarus. The only connection is the basic tune. Both good - just different. Yes, a fair number of young folk musicians coming through now are "classically trained" and are very competent, but they've chosen to take their development in a looser direction than playing in an orchestra, so for me it's perfectly easy to understand why they don't get together en-mass to perform classical arrangements based on folk tunes. |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: Steve Gardham Date: 11 Jan 11 - 09:15 AM I'm enjoying the thread but it's veering dangerously close to the same old weary arguments. ....and for the second time on a thread I find myself in agreement with Jim! Unprecedented! |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: Ron Davies Date: 11 Jan 11 - 08:38 AM I would agree with those who feel classical arrangements of folk songs often lose a lot. When listening to such an arrangement, it's a question of whether you enjoy the style of the arranger, rather than whether you like the original folk song--since there will be far more of the arranger's flavor than of the original song. Like some other posters, I also have a foot in both camps. And I'd have to say I far prefer the original songs by and large. Though I really do enjoy the Vaughn Williams folk song suite--for orchestra or band. And some others of his settings. Especially what appears to be the standard arrangement of "On Linden Lea"--though the dialect is of course missing in the version I have bought. Vaughn Williams appears to have been the most successful composer in giving folk songs another life--but maybe that's just since I like his style in general. My large choral group recently did a CD of Grainger arrangements. I'd have to say the only arrangement I thought was successful was the "Air from County Derry." Perhaps it helped that it was wordless--the chorus just an instrument. But Grainger had some truly wacky ideas, to my mind. |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: GUEST,LDT Date: 11 Jan 11 - 08:30 AM Nearest I've got to a classical concert was proms in the park...but I only went because bellowhead were playing that year. Was quite disappointed the classical lot didn't want to jump up n down (I got some odd looks from those nearby). For me I like the 'interactive' aspect of 'folk' music. |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: Jim Carroll Date: 11 Jan 11 - 08:11 AM "Does that make me a traditional singer?" I don't think it does - what you are describing is repetition, not tradition. To pharaphrase Bert Lloyd's statement in 'Folk Song in England' if what you describe makes you a traditional singer, then we will have to find a new term to describe Sam Larner, Walter Pardon and Harry Cox, because their place in the tradition is, without doubt, very different from yours. "The irony here is that any Traditional Song is no longer Traditional when it is sung in the name of The Tradition" So the fact that many of the traditional singers we have met and recorded have described their songs as traditional, then means their songs are no longer traditional? Hmmmm! Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler Date: 11 Jan 11 - 07:29 AM Folk tunes have been used to create Classical style pieces and classical pieces have been used to create Progressive Rock (Keith Emerson does it all the time) so a folk tune could end up anywhere! The act of setting down the tune in dots that are then slavishly adhered to is what ruins it for me. If you read Yehudi Menuin's autobiography you will find that he admitted to finding improvisation very difficult. I am convinced that there is a learned skill in playing by ear that is distinct form the abillity to play from music, however good the musician is technically. This was always apparent at concertina weekends where as a finishing session we would all play together. There were those whom I know to be excellent dot players who could not play simple folk tunes as they did not have the dots in front of them. Over the years they got better at it, presumably realissing that they needed to develop the skill and attempting to do so. |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: theleveller Date: 11 Jan 11 - 06:59 AM "It's a different sort of reality though." Hmmm....I think we're getting into the metaphysics of folk here. |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: GUEST Date: 11 Jan 11 - 06:50 AM Help. The above post was me, it has logged me out, won't let me log in, won't recognise my password or email address. It had a go-slow when I was trying to post that, too. Mo the caller |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: GUEST Date: 11 Jan 11 - 06:34 AM Guest asked "I go on a regular basis, generally at a particular time of the year - but sometimes not, and sing what most people would regard as traditional songs - in the company of others - learnt orally and have done so now for the past 35 years or so. Does that make me a traditional singer?" I wonder whether the context of his/her singing makes a difference to whether you call it traditional? E.g. carols in a Yorkshire pub football songs on the terraces back of the bus songs festival singaround songs. But maybe we've had other threads on 'what is folk?' |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray Date: 11 Jan 11 - 06:27 AM To my mind a traditional song, no matter how, where or by whom it is performed is real - certainly for the performer. It's a different sort of reality though. The irony here is that any Traditional Song is no longer Traditional when it is sung in the name of The Tradition - or of Folk. I dare say to the trained ethnomusicologist there will be a Traditional Level to Revival Performance, but your average Folknik will be as innocent of that as the fish is of the water through which it swims. In short - the Folklore of Folk isn't quite what Folkniks think it is. |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: Jim Carroll Date: 11 Jan 11 - 06:20 AM 'folk police' Is it not possible to conduct these discussions without infantile name-calling Paul - shame on you! Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: johnadams Date: 11 Jan 11 - 05:31 AM Absolutely. And surely, in a living tradition (if that's what we call what we do), the latest style of presentation is the only real thing. |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: theleveller Date: 11 Jan 11 - 05:14 AM At what point in the life and transition of a traditional song is it the "real thing"? Does time then stand still at that point and the song is allowed to develop no further? To my mind a traditional song, no matter how, where or by whom it is performed is real - certainly for the performer. |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: Paul Davenport Date: 11 Jan 11 - 05:08 AM Guest writes; 'Does that make me a traditional singer?' That's a fair question Guest. In my world the answer is Yes. That's because I tend towards the viewpoint of Ethnomusicology whereas the 'folk police' would say, No, you're a revivalist singer. Nobody has satisfactorily explained this distinction to me so I stand by my initial response. There is a further problem here and that is the context of your singing. In my world you just described a 'traditional' context whereas a folk club would be a revival context. In my own family it was frowned on to sing other family members songs so 'oral transmission' was minimal unless the singer taught the song to you. This too is a traditional context but its not accepted by many folkies. I'm just working on a manuscript collection in which a particular singer was taught a song by her father by the means of a written text. There was no attempt at oral transmission and yet she is one of Vaughan-Williams' informants. Go figure. |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: GUEST Date: 11 Jan 11 - 04:58 AM Well there are two of you using the phrase "real thing". Surely you need to tell me what the "real thing" is? I go on a regular basis, generally at a particular time of the year - but sometimes not, and sing what most people would regard as traditional songs - in the company of others - learnt orally and have done so now for the past 35 years or so. Does that make me a traditional singer? |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: Howard Jones Date: 10 Jan 11 - 05:44 PM Which was what I tried to convey with the second part of my sentence. Whilst it is true that most performers on the folk scene are some distance from the "real thing", it seems to me that most of them are trying to find new and different ways of interpreting the material, which respects the underlying tradition even if it diverges from it. The classical composers on the other hand are using folk themes to create something entirely new within their own genre - a very different approach. |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: Paul Davenport Date: 10 Jan 11 - 05:23 PM Howard wrote; 'I would expect to hear something closer to the real thing' Really? I'm not sure that very much of what we folkies listen to is very close to the 'real' thing Howard. There's a huge tendency to process the material so that it sounds like something 'more modern' or 'up to date'. As an artist specialising in a relatively obscure singing tradition I can safely assume that the vast majority of folk clubs and festivals are not interested in booking me. That's not to say that I can't appreciate modern music using 'folk themes', I like Gloristrokes and am a great fan of the Demon Barber Roadshow, both whom are great acts but about as far from 'the real thing' as one can get. |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: Howard Jones Date: 10 Jan 11 - 02:34 PM Old Vermin, I agree entirely. I wasn't suggesting that folk audiences have lower expectations and values than classical audiences (or vice versa), simply that they depend on, as you say, who and what they're going to hear. I would be very happy to hear RVW, Butterworth or Grainger as part of a classical concert. However if I went to a folk event I would expect to hear something closer to the real thing - or if not, at least something arranged with more regard to the tradition from which it came, rather than according to the rules of classical music. |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: Old Vermin Date: 10 Jan 11 - 09:02 AM Howard Jones Folk audiences and classical audiences have very different expectations and values Just trying to remember the last classical concert I attended. Too long ago? No, on the South Bank, smaller hall, all the Brandenburg concertos in one day. I'm fairly sure that my expectations if not necessarily values vary depending on who and what I'm going to hear. |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: johnadams Date: 10 Jan 11 - 08:58 AM Here's a link to the preview/download page for the Bert Lloyd radio documentary referred to above by Jim Carroll. Sadly, it's not one of the better recordings in the archive having suffered some tape degradation in the years before it was digitised. Maybe you've got a better copy Jim? It's a 110mB file - a one hour programme. The Folk Music Virtuoso |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: theleveller Date: 10 Jan 11 - 08:33 AM The difference between classic folk music (ie folk standards) and classical folk music is that the latter is an exercise in composition and arrangement using folk themes or tunes and is usually performed by orchestral musicians. So, for instance, Vaughan Williams' Variations of Dives and Lazarus is a very different animal to Martin Simpson singing Dives and Lazarus. The only connection is the basic tune. Both good - just different. |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: Howard Jones Date: 10 Jan 11 - 08:04 AM "I was merely trying to ascertain why these works by these fine composers lacked performance time when clearly there are so many musicians in folk music capable of playing them" The short answer is that these pieces are not folk, so you won't find them performed in a folk environment. You will find them played in a different environment and to a very different audience. Folk audiences and classical audiences have very different expectations and values. |
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Subject: RE: Classic folk music From: TheSnail Date: 10 Jan 11 - 08:03 AM treewind That's an interesting observation and also the gateway to a can of worms. There's a discussion that comes up from time to time, where one side says that folk performers should be competent or nobody will come (and especially pay) to listen to them, and laments the poor standard of floor singers in folk clubs. The other side says that folk music is the music of the people and should be inclusive and welcoming and anyone should be allowed to have a go. I'm probably going to regret giving this particular can of worms a nudge but I have to protest the implication that encouraging people to have a go inevitably leads to poor standards. In my experience, people who want to perform want to perform well. Some of them may fall short of their ambitions but most do well enough and some excel. |
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