Will trad music die when we do?

Subject: Folklore: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 14 Mar 11 - 08:08 PM

I expect the first reactions to the thread title will be scintillating. After that, perhaps we could address the issue.

When we drop dead, and fewer and fewer people are attracted to traditional music, what then will become of the music?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 14 Mar 11 - 08:12 PM

I am NOT a traditional-music singer. Have neither the memory nor the skill. But it is a music I listen to interspersed with rock, blues, modern folk, bluegrass, country, singer-songwriter stuff (I've heard it before), classical, jazz, etc. So, this is a serious question.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Will trad music die when we do?
From: terrier
Date: 14 Mar 11 - 08:16 PM

Are fewer and fewer people being attracted to traditional music ?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Will trad music die when we do?
From: michaelr
Date: 14 Mar 11 - 08:36 PM

There are indications that the opposite is the case.

All that dies when we do will be us.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 14 Mar 11 - 09:09 PM

Thank you both. That is exactly the information I seek. If a premiss/premis/premiss (I got it right. No red line. (Good idea for a song. (In the words of the Governor of California, I'll be back))) and sincere thanks to both of you.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 14 Mar 11 - 09:15 PM

I suppose, 999, that purists would say that you and I are not traditional singers, but I think it's true that we sing more-or-less in the traditional style - and that we know a fair amount about traditional songs. I guess I'd say maybe only twenty percent of the songs I sing are truly traditional. I do think that folk music will "die back" when those of us from the "folk scare" pass on. Our children and our children's children don't show a whole lot of interest in folk music.

HOWEVER, I predict that another "folk scare" will come, when the time is right. This music is too good to be lost forever.

-Joe-


P.S. I dropped the "folklore" tag from this thread. We use "folklore" for folklore stuff that is not music but is indirectly connected to music and that should be in the music section of the Forum. But this is certainly directly connected to music.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 14 Mar 11 - 09:29 PM

Thanks, Joe. I did't understand which category to choose on that page (where is Oscar Wilde when ya really need him?). Do I not choose a category?

---

Our blank category is "general music." -Joe-

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 14 Mar 11 - 09:41 PM

I think you're right. A while back I did a song that went

I guess it's time for her to cross my mind again
She's dressed in midnight, and that's all

I was playing to mostly folks my age and the only person in the audience who smiled was a young bearded man.

Yes to the traditional links we have. You more than I, but that's not to say less revered.

Ya listen to "The Goodnight-Loving Trail", and it's a meeting of history, melody, lyric and genius. Older songs--the one's even YOU would call older (I think I may have a few years on you) have a way of enrapturing the mind. I worry that might all go away.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Jeri
Date: 14 Mar 11 - 09:50 PM

Yes you do not. Folklore definitions, per Merriam-Webster:

1: traditional customs, tales, sayings, dances, or art forms preserved among a people
2: a branch of knowledge that deals with folklore
3: an often unsupported notion, story, or saying that is widely circulated

Anyway...

I think the way the world works now, and has worked for a while, not many people in English speaking countries gets folk music in traditional ways. This IS a change, but centuries from now, the experts will probably see the people of this time passed music by way of books and recordings.

There is a lot of sneering about the whole "horses" don't sing quote, and some folks have that cute little "horse alert", but when you get down to it, the quote is accurate. What the guards of the tradition want is to separate what has gone before from what happens now. The old songs will be part of what gets passed on to future generations, but so will a lot of pop stuff that folkies may not care for. After all, this traditional music we love was the pop music of its day. In any case, it doesn't matter if people don't like something. It's easy to add music to the collective consciousness, to remember it, and impossible to make other people forget music.

I keep hearing an ad for a TV show - "Army Wives". The song is "Bright Morning Stars". If people can find it and it's good, it will get passed on.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Jeri
Date: 14 Mar 11 - 09:53 PM

Sorry--too slow for my pedanticism to make sense. Why does my spell-checker not like "pedanticism"?

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Mar 11 - 10:05 PM

A lot of 'traditional music' came from when there was a lot less canned, commercial music... thus, what was done then was a bit different from the sort of things done with some hope of selling it.
But stuff like "The Goodnight-Loving Trail" just 'feels' like some of the older music, so gradually the definition of trad gets expanded, and there will ALWAYS be those who delight in discovering the gems of yesteryear, and there are so many recordings & books available that nothing much will be 'lost'... the landscape will be different, but always interesting.

...and *I* ain't gonna die off real soon...

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Jeri
Date: 14 Mar 11 - 10:09 PM

Speaking of the "gems of yesteryear", I think 999 is roughly 11 months older than Joe.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Mar 11 - 10:13 PM

Poster is 999
So, he's a young yet distinguished man, then?

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Mar 11 - 10:17 PM

Yeah, trad is history... Unfortunately, there ain't no pun intended... Kids ain't playin' it...

B~

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 14 Mar 11 - 10:26 PM

My sons are both musicians (age 30-something), and they know a lot about a wide variety of styles of music. They may know traditional blues better than I do. When it comes to folk music, I think they consider Woody Guthrie trad....

I think I do, too, even if Woody doesn't fit the 1954 definition. Woody is certainly part of MY tradition, and theirs.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Jeri
Date: 14 Mar 11 - 10:31 PM

Bobert, I don't think you've heard ALL kids. I know a bunch who DO play/sing traditional music. Nobody's likely to have a hit record with it, though.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 14 Mar 11 - 10:55 PM

My daughter (well both actually} have been my #1 "we like you dad" supporters in regard to everything, but mostly the music.

One likes rap type stuff with some rock, and the other cries at the beauty of melodies from the tradition.

I suppose I'm on some strange journey wherein the quest is an answer to, "What is it about that that I like so much?"

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 14 Mar 11 - 11:29 PM

Isn't the word 'pedantry'.

Anyway, whats it got to do with your feet?

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 12:10 AM

Poster appears to be Nancy King, who indeed has two thirty-something sons who sing traditional music. -Joe Offer-
Well, both of my sons sing traditional and trad-style music. There are undoubtedly fewer young people involved in folk music now than there were a few decades ago when WE were young, but there are some out there, and I'll bet the genre won't die out completely.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 12:16 AM

I have eleven toes. I counted: ten, nine, eight, seven, six plus five is eleven.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 12:54 AM

Sorry Guest if you think I was addressing you. That was for Al; he's an old friend. Heckuva song writer and singer, too, btw.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Bob Landry
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 01:20 AM

Saturday evening, I went to a kitchen party near Edmonton, Alberta. The participants included a 70+ish piano-accordian player, a nearly 64-year-old-guitar strummer/howler (me), a 20-something-year-old fiddle player, two 20-something-year-old ukulele players (school teachers) and three other 40-50ish-year olds on the guitar, banjo, bodhran, harmonica and African drum. We played a wide variety of music non-stop for over four hours. At 1:30 am, when I set off on the hour-long drive home, they were still going strong. When traditional/folk music was played (including strathspeys), all who could follow joined in enthusiastically, including the young-uns. Based on what I hear from the young people I know around here, folk/trad music will survive, perhaps not exactly in the same form we know it, but it will survive as it has survived through the generations that came before us. Every time I play or speak about traditional music to younger people, the ones who know music (those who are mesmerised by what the suits tell them is the flavour of the minute don't get it), I come away filled with hope for the future of trad/folk music.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: meself
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 01:22 AM

I was at an event here in Calgary the other night at which there were about 70 or 80 kids aged perhaps 8 to 16 playing fiddle - and playing well. And square dancing. And: having all kinds of fun. (There were a bunch of us old coots, too).

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 01:51 AM

My two pennorth.
As long as human beings exist on this planet, we will always make music, have traditions, hand down songs and tunes to the next generation, etc etc.
Music will die out when human beings die out....(and the way we are going, that might be sooner than we think!) Until then, enjoy the music that you play/sing.
Reality check here.
Dinosaurs...2 million plus years. Look what happened to them. Had obviously never heard a Child ballad!

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: michaelr
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 01:51 AM

The music is alive and well, with lots of youngsters joining in. Percentages may be higher in Britain and ireland, but even in the US the scene is healthy. I point to groups like Carolina Chocolate drops.

The surest way to kill of traditional music is to stick it in a museum.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 03:42 AM

". . . Had obviously never heard a Child ballad!"




Well, not all of it!

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 04:30 AM

"Are fewer and fewer people being attracted to traditional music ?"
Not in Ireland they're not. On Thursday (St Patrick's Day) there will be over 60 local youngster, mostly still at school, playing traditional music in the local parade in this one-street town on the west coast, most to a good standard and some to an exeptionally high one.
We won't be here - we're on our way to the Inishowen Singing Festival, where we expect to hear a number of the excellent young Sean Nós style singers who have fairly recently appeard on the scene. We will break our journey for a couple of nights at Carrick on Shannon in Roscommon, where we have just learned there is to be a three-day traditional music event planned to celebrate St Pat's.
All this has been made possible by the hard work of people who were sensible enough (twenty odd year ago) to realise that if you took your eye off the ball, the music would disappear with our generation. They also realised that, whatever you did with the music and however you played it, if you lost sight of it's roots and its significance, you would be contibuting to its disapperence. Not saying that you have to play it the way it's always been played, just that you recognise it for what it really is so that future generations are given the same choices we were to take it in any direction they wished, and to return back to base when and if they wish to do so.
"The surest way to kill of traditional music is to stick it in a museum."
And the surest way to make sure that it will die with us is not to preserve it and not to allow future generations to listen to Jeannie Robertson and Seamus Ennis and Joe Heaney and Sam Larner and Texas Gladden... an all those wonderful old singers and musicians who have contributed to our pleasure and knowledge.
Ireland's present success was established on the foundations of having two world-class 'museums' - the Irish Traditional Music Archive and that of the Folklore Society of Ireland at UCD - both still persuading Irish youth how enjoyable and how important Irish traditional music is (interesting to see how many fine young musicians have volunteered to help out at ITMA - in their holidays and full time.
Won't be here for much more of this discussion - will be tucked in a bar somewhere up north enjoying a Guinness and listening to beautiful singing and music, probably in the company of youngsters to young to be on the premises!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Will Fly
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 04:57 AM

It's worth pausing and reflecting on what the folk music scene was like when we were young - in my case, well over 40 years ago (in the UK).

At the first club I ever went to - the "Lancaster Folk Stir" - around 1964, I was probably the youngest person there. The club was a sort of descendant of what had been the local folk dance society, and was run by a very middle class middle-aged lady called Gladys Parkinson and her equally middle-class, middle-aged friends. And very pleasant and welcoming people they were - even if they, perhaps, weren't too sure about the Bob Dylan imitators who started to come along to the club.

I wonder how they would have replied to the question "Will trad music die when we do?" at that point in time? I don't think they would have been able to answer it - and I don't think we can either. I see a mixture of ages at the sessions and singarounds I go to - from people in their 20s and 30s to old buggers like me, the latter-day Mrs. Parkinson...

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 05:19 AM

On the trad side of things there are buckets full of young people playing the music in the UK - either as professional performers or just whooping it up at festivals and sessions.

On the broader side of things, if a band like Mumford and Sons and artists like Laura Marling can be doing so well, there's plenty of hope for music made on acoustic instruments. They may not be my cup of tea, but plenty of people like 'em, buy their records and go to their gigs. Even if only a small percentage of these choose to dig deeper, as it were, that's pretty heartening.

Mine was the generation that abandoned folk music - me included. But that was 30-odd years ago and we've got over it.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Tim Chesterton
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 05:35 AM

I get involved in the open stage scene here in Edmonton, and in the folk clubs and a local songwriter circle, and everywhere I go, I sing traditional songs too, and lot of my friends seem to enjoy it when I do. A couple of weeks ago, just on a whim, I sent an email out asking if anyone would like to get together for a Saturday afternoon so I could teach them some traditional songs. Fifteen people have signed up, only one of whom has any previous knowledge of traditional songs. The youngest in the group is eighteen, the oldest in his early sixties.

I think if we don't want traditional music to die, it's up to us to make sure it doesn't.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 05:40 AM

I think the salient point that everyone's missing is the fact that we'll be dead.

1) with any luck, you'll be at rest with the dust of your ancestors.

2) Or you could be up on a cloud wearing a nightie and trying to remember if Bonnie Shaljean ever told you how to play C, F and G7

3) You could be in the other place with Margaret Thatcher or one of her cohorts shoving a red hot poker up your roozle (as she did to so many in life).

Either way.....music, scmhmusic....

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Will Fly
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 05:48 AM

Speak for yourself, Whittle. I, for one, certainly don't intend to die. I may fade slightly, with the years, but death is not on the agenda.

Speak to me in, say, 2091 to check on progress...

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 06:05 AM

With the rise of digitized recording thousands of hours of old songs and tunes some recorded at the turn of the 19/20C will survive and be available for anybody who wants to go and look & listen.

Millions of hours of songs and tunes are available from the last 50 years and they will remain a source and an inspiration for anybody who wants to sing and play.

Rock music has a habit of returning to the blues for inspiration and popular music in the UK and Ireland can do the same with old songs and tunes.

The context is crucial. Old songs survived because they were mostly good and worked in small acoustic places. Social dance and its tunes survived for the same reason. Most people don't want to go to a folk song club every week as many of us did in the 60/70s, Matty Groves can only die so many times a year for most of us.

L in C#

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 06:21 AM

I don't think tunes are in any danger of dying, there are tons of young people playing in sessions and bands. Tunes are still being passed down between generations in informal social gatherings.

Trad songs may be a bit more precarious. It's all well and good saying they were the songs of the people, but the very act of collecting, preserving and even performing the songs seems to have become an intellectual pursuit. I'd go further and say that some (not all) of the current young performers of trad songs on the UK folk scene are a bit too precious about it. Yes, some younger traditional singers sing from the heart with real love for the songs, but others perform as though they are practitioners of an obscure art form which must be revered.
I have a feeling that, in the UK at least, trad songs will survive in PhD theses rather than in people hearts, but young people are contributing to that situation as much as older ones.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 06:22 AM

"I don't think they would have been able to answer it"
I think we can - barring the total anihilation of civilsation, it will survive in one form or another on the shelves of libraries, archives - and even museums. The question, the answer of which is entirely in our hands, is 'will it survive as a performing art?' - the jury's still very much out on that one.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 06:26 AM

Well, all music is traditional, so as long as there's human beings there'll be traditional music. On another level Traditional Folk Music is already dead anyway, and it's The Folk Revival you have to worry about, or not, because it's doing just fine by my reckoning despite the generation gap.

When I die then that'll the end of everything as far as I'm concerned, but right now there'll be a kid being born who might pick up a fiddle in a few years time and come 2032* will be wowing audiences at Sidmouth with his or her unique handling of The Tradition, but who knows the myriad of musical developments & inspirations that will have become part of that Tradition in the next twenty-one years? I just hope I'm still around to find out really, aged 70... Folk, Hip Hop, Jazz, Pop, Classical; you bet it's going to be sublime.

However, if the question here is really Will people stop doing what the Spinners did in 1964 after the current Folk generation who think that that equates with Traditional Music have all died then the answer has to be Yes. Thank God. Whip Jamboree and all.

*2032 is also the year of the predicated Great Enlightment of Humanity consequent upon the manifestation of the Planet Gong. I think that's going to effect things greatly too, and it won't surprise me in the slightest if the 94-year-old Daevid Allen is still on hand to preside over the festivities with his glissando guitar...

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 06:40 AM

It's a question I sometimes ask myself when I go to the theatre and to jazz gigs, it seems it is we "Grey Panthers" or "Baby Boomers" who are keeping live music & performance alive. At blues gigs, though, I'm pleased to see more young people coming, both players and audience. I still see young folkies coming to open mics so I guess it isn't all bad news.

RtS
Old Fart

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 06:44 AM

...and if you are in that category- there's another open mic at Jagz, Ascot Uk tomorrow night. See www.jagz.co.uk for details.

RtS
I'll be the old bloke propping up the bar

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 07:05 AM

It's a question I sometimes ask myself when I go to the theatre and to jazz gigs, it seems it is we "Grey Panthers" or "Baby Boomers" who are keeping live music & performance alive. At blues gigs, though, I'm pleased to see more young people coming, both players and audience. I still see young folkies coming to open mics so I guess it isn't all bad news.

I'm part of the folk revival 'lost generation' and when I first got into the music at the end of the 70s my like-minded friends and I were quite often the youngest people in the audience or performing. That situation carried on until about ten or so years ago, but now there's a whole wave of people younger than me coming out to all manner of folk/trad gigs and sessions and morris and ceilidhs.

The really encouraging thing is that (as far as I can see anyway, I'm too busy enjoying the music to be going round checking dates of birth)
there *continues* to be an influx of young enthusiasts - what, for the sake of a ridiculously broad-brush generalisation, you might call the Spiers & Boden generation, are moving on through, and there's a whole new tranche coming in behind them. So like S Astray I'm very confident that something instantly recognisable as my kind of music will still be there all the time I need it and well beyond.

But then I went to a couple of South Manchester folk *clubs* recently to cheer on a friend - and (apart from the friend herself, who was the booked act and is younger than me) I was right back in being the youngest person in the room ....

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Mick Woods
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 07:09 AM

Traditional? Thats an oxymoron in England as regards music. It seems to be load of obscure historical songs/tunes played by an ageing minority who like to pour scorn other types of popular folk music. There is no tradition amongst the main population.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 07:17 AM

Just to prove I'm senile, the Open Mic at Jagz is tonight>/i> (Tuesday,) of course, and every Tuesday. Other talented young things on other evenings such as Tarkus the Henge (don't ask) on Wednesday. I'll also be in Reading on Thursday for Paul Lamb and the Kingsnakes.

RtS

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Folkiedave
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 07:18 AM

Perhaps this might give a clue

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Desi C
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 07:22 AM

Well, I guess it's largely up to the Musicians themselves. IT's certainly not in decline, a survey by the E.F.S.D.S last year showed Folk Music clubs are enjoying a revival on a par with the 60's Folk revival, and some very good young musicians are coming through. My club gave a Showcase to a 14 yr old girl 2 weeks ago and do look out for her, Lydia Jones, could be very big
So I don't see it dying out in the near future, unlike Pop music which has been in decline for a good decade

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Folkiedave
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 07:22 AM

Let me try that again.

thread.cfm?threadid=74401&messages=2

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 07:23 AM

Great young singers like Elizabeth LaPrelle give me hope. Indeed I consider that the light has been passed and is shining brighly.

Now, whether LaPrelle's rock-bottom traditional singing style and songs can be considered traditional in terms of passing from one generation to another, I wouldn't presume to say. Obviously she is learned in the real stuff, but she has studied it academically and benefited from electronic recording as well. Does that make her non-traditional? Does it matter, as long as she does what she does so well?

But in my opinion, at least in a few places, the real songs, sung the real way, are in good young hands. And I'm hard to please.

Bob

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,LDT
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 07:23 AM

I have to say I do enjoy the fact that despite being 25, I'm the youngest in the room most of the time.
And I do have eclectic tastes (in folk music like I had in pop) which includes trad stuff, 70's revival stuff (dance bands mainly-not fond of the pop-y singer-songwriter with a guitar stuff). Listening to bands like Bellowhead/Spiers & Boden are what have made me want to take up an instrument.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Tally Ho Man
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 07:30 AM

My daughter and her partner, both early 20s, are playing traditional music in Glasgow as are many like them all over Britain. They're not professional musicians and there are many young people doing the same, just for fun! I wonder if people in their 50s thought traditional music would die out 34 years ago when I was that age? I'm very optimistic about the future for traditional music, if it's fun then it will carry on!

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Nick
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 08:03 AM

It's very hard to uninvent things so very unlikely that things disappear.

A bit like other sorts of music. Blues and Jazz are also things that go round in cycles of popularity. When I started listening to music outside of the top 10 in the latter 60's there was a blues revival going on and there have been two (perhaps three) since. Jazz still perplexes the same number of people as it did back then and I'm never sure whether it is in good shape or not - every Sunday lunchtime there was more jazz in pubs than there seems to be these days. There was a lot of folk influences around at that time too and I'm sure there will be in the future.

When I bought my first John Mayall album (Crusade) it opened up doors to more than Mayall and the guitarists.
When I saw and bought Pentangle albums there was a lot of trad folk referenced there as there was with Judy Collins, Fairport, Roy Harper and lots of other people I listened to.

My wife sings and really likes jazz/standards from the 20s-50s which predate us.

So much these days is preserved and available that never was so it makes it even more likely tht it will survive.

Back to working whether I can get away with a couple of jazz chords on Danny Boy for St Patricks night... (and I think I can!)

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 08:28 AM

unlike Pop music which has been in decline for a good decade

Stick to your own, eh? Either that or listen to 1Xtra on a Saturday night from Trevor Nelson onwards and then tell me that's music in decline! I think not, and I also think it telling that there's invariably some olf Folky on Mudcat muttering on about rap music being vastly inferior to the sort of MOR easy-listening pop-shlock being served up on Folk on 2.

*

I see now musicians of all ages doing great music regardless; I also see a lot of respect across the board, with fans of hip-hop also buying Bellowhead albums. Hopefully Folk of the future will be an aspect of an increasingly diverse Popular Music as it once was when Traffic, Jethro Tull (up to & including Thick as a Brick) & Led Zeppelin etc. were openly celebrating their Folk Inspirations, just as Peter Bellamy was openly celebrating his Popular Music heritage too. I see The Unthanks have covered my favourite King Crimson song on their latest album. For those unfamiliar with the majesty of the original:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dWT2dKw4fk

Time was when a Folk act covered a non-folk song it started appearing in The Tradition - like the way Music for a Found Harmonium became a traditional tune not long after Patrick Street covered it. Might we look forward to hearing young floor singers singing Starless?

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 12:46 PM

I certainly thank those of you who have posted. I am very happy this has not descended to a 'what is _________' thread.

I'm in a small town in Quebec. Two thirds of the population speaks French as a first language and most of the other third speaks English. The musical hub for folky type music is a cafe that has an open mic followed by a main guest on Friday nights. No music is refused, but the main acts are from the folk tradition. I am not exactly sure what that means, but think Celtic/blues/song writer/bluegrass/jazz/light rock/world/roots/gospel and even C and W, a music that is big amongst many in the French population.

There are more than a few young people who perform from time to time. Some have recently discovered Dylan (et.al.) and some others are presenting their own material. Well, I expect that with the experience of the people on this thread, most of us know what a mixed blessing that can be. But this is FRIDAY nights, and the kids are banging away on their guitars (mostly) and learning how to use mics, stop shaking from nerves and speak with audiences. The audience average age is about mid forties. AND, the audience is mixed English/French, and some nights French/English.

This vibrant 'scene' was the brain child of Mudcat's Beer and his partner in crime, Danny. There is seldom a sparse night, and all monies are by donation. The 'baskets' are usually pretty good, and the audiences also.

I initially made a false assumption which was quickly pointed out. Perhaps the music--live music--isn't gonna die when we do. Cool.

ADDA Music (ADrien and DAnny) raises money through donations from both musicians and 'listeners' to ensure that kids in the Chateauguay Valley who are stopped from taking guitar/piano/voice lessons due to financial restrictions get the opportunity to take lessons anyway. They have done a great community service, and it doesn't stop there. Kids--when I was a kid I spent most of my time trying to prevent my mother and grandparents from finding out what I was up to--are learning also that just maybe the older musicians and audience members may have something they could use, and so that aspect of a social barrier has been breaking down after a year and a bit of the cafe's operation. There are other more obvious benefits: if yer playing on stage yer not hot wiring a car or getting hammered and causing trouble (and that goes for the youngsters, too).

I thank those of you who have shared the experience where you live. Today, I'm a happy camper. And as Mark Ross is so fond of quoting, "Take it easy, but take it!"

Bruce

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Chontae Liatroma
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 01:14 PM

For Jim Carroll's information Carrick-on-Shannon is in County Leitrim, though its railway station is in County Roscommon!

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: michaelr
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 01:36 PM

"The surest way to kill off traditional music is to stick it in a museum."

And the surest way to make sure that it will die with us is not to preserve it and not to allow future generations to listen to Jeannie Robertson and Seamus Ennis and Joe Heaney and Sam Larner and Texas Gladden... an all those wonderful old singers and musicians who have contributed to our pleasure and knowledge.
Ireland's present success was established on the foundations of having two world-class 'museums' - the Irish Traditional Music Archive and that of the Folklore Society of Ireland at UCD - both still persuading Irish youth how enjoyable and how important Irish traditional music is (interesting to see how many fine young musicians have volunteered to help out at ITMA - in their holidays and full time. (Jim Carroll)

When I made the above statement I did not intend to disparage the worthy institutions such as ITMA that do such valuable work. My comment was directed not so much at physical museums as at attempts by the 1954 crowd and others to draw a line in the sand of time as to what music is worthy or not of being called traditional.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 01:40 PM

I think we're all on the same page about that, Michael. What's the scene like where you are?

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: maeve
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 01:59 PM

I'd have given a lot as a child and young adult to have had the support described by 999 regarding the mission of ADDA. I'm still looking for such meaningful support for musicians such as myself.

Guest, 999- In well over 30 years of teaching, public storytelling and singing, and work as a Children's Librarian I sang, played instruments, hired musicians, helped teach and sponsored contra dances, and enjoyed childrens' musical explorations. I never had a single child indicate anything less than enthusiasm for the traditional, international, and original music they encountered through those opportunities. Teens and pre-teens who learned traditional and folk songs when they were infants in my preschool storytimes still know the songs we sang together, and are singing them as family songs, according to their parents.

Be Ye of Good Cheer!
Maeve

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: michaelr
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 02:00 PM

I'm in Sonoma County, an hour north of San Francisco. Here we have had quite a little American folk revival over the past few years, with young bands like Old Jawbone and The Whiskey Thieves playing both trad and original music in styles ranging from straight bluegrass to goth and gospel Americana, with a strong blues influence as well. There's even a festival called Hootenanny, now in its third year.

There are also numerous other groups playing swing jazz, cowboy swing, bluegrass, klezmer and French music (both trad and bal musette) in this area.

My band just came back from playing the Sonora Celtic Faire, where there were ten bands covering the spectrum of "Celtic" (yes, I know) music, from trad Irish and Scottish to Australian didgeridoo-trance to metal/rock. Plenty of youngsters in the audience, as well.

So no worries, eh?

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 02:03 PM

You pose an interesting question Bruce. Any consensus on the thread seems to say to me that traditions live on but traditions change. If you were to ask for a definition of "traditional music" you could start a Mudcat argument lasting forever and some threads have already done that. I consider myself to be a traditional singer, at least at times, but most of my tradition is relatively recent stuff written during the past 100 years. When I was a young gaffer the pop charts were alive with Elvis and Brenda, both from traditional country roots, but musically much more modern. Compared to the pop charts of today they are considered "country" and their music was to me much more traditional than what is called country today. The more things change the more they stay the same.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 02:30 PM

Good thoughts Maeve, Sandy and Michael.

Michael, I hope to meet you in October or November. Have a good friend in Livermore and we passed thru Sonoma County on the way to the redwoods and the coast somewhat north of Point Arena Cove. Beautiful part of the world you're in.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: michaelr
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 02:35 PM

I'd love to meet you when you're in the area, Bruce. On an unrelated topic - the new Mudcat CD set - I've been wanting to PM you but it appears you're no longer a member. How can I contact you?

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Dan H
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 03:11 PM

As a 21 year old traditional musician, who regularily jams and performs with an ever-growing handful of twenty-something traditinal musicians I can pretty comfortably say that traditional folk music is not dying out. In fact I would say we're probably in the beginning of another folk-music rennaisence. I can remember a few years back being the only person my age into this sort of music and jamming pub sessions with irish and scottish ex-pats old enough to be my grandparents. It might be the university town I've moved to since, but now I'm starting to find it hard to find a banjo player whos over 30.

For most of the sit-down traditional concerts I play the audience is usually all twenty-somethings and my string-band regularily host university-aged dance parties that always see a good crowd come out. Also the comhaltas branch in town here has monthly set dances which are always well attended by young folk. So I don't think there is any lack of young folkies. They're just not coming out to the old-timer's jams or concerts, but thats another matter entirely.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 03:51 PM

I don't know... I mean Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds did the Murder Ballads as kind of a lark and yet some of the songs are absolutely wonderful and based on trad songs.

Bruce Springsteen produced an album of American folk not too long ago.    Johnny Depp and a load of Hollywood types released an good album of sea shanties.

I see generations in future happening onto these recordings and digging deeper for sources as they have been doing for yonks. Classical composers did it, Blues musicians did and still do it, Rock, Country, New Age, etc.

Someone will always go back to recordings of source singers. Some will render those songs just as they learned from the source recordings, some will modify them.

I have been looking at tune sessions on youtube and they are packed with young people. I look up blues guitar, mandolin, whistle and lap dulcimer tutorials some of which are taught by young musicians.

I think it's wonderful. I don't see the demise of trad music at all.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 04:47 PM

I mean Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds did the Murder Ballads as kind of a lark and yet some of the songs are absolutely wonderful and based on trad songs

I once did Stagger Lee off that record in a certain folk club and was asked to leave in no uncertain terms. Lovely record though, likewise the one they did after that with the McGarrigle's in the band though out copy has yet to surface after the move three years ago, likewise our Moondog CDs...

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 05:01 PM

Just read this thread and you could substitute 'will the baby boomer folk revival die when we do?' and be truer to the question. Trad music will never die because it's inscribed in too many different forms and media to be lost.

In all likelihood it will come into and go out of fashion. Repeatedly.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 05:26 PM

I haven't done this in awhile, but I think it needs ONE more attempt to clarify words.

"Traditional" used to mean specifically ...'that music handed down from the era(s) before recordings and commercial promotions, largely thru oral means, and which survived because people saved the good and allowed the bad to sink into relative obscurity'....or some such basic definition.
   Now, if one begins to use phrases like "Well, all music is traditional,..., the very word begins to lose clarity. It NEEDS to have a reasonably precise and useful referent. Using 'trad' as a sweeping definition for '..all the stuff that we remember and sing & play because we are not horses' just dilutes the meaning and makes it harder TO refer to the old, seminal roots OF what we do today.

It is not about good or bad... or about whether writing NEW songs is acceptable....of course writing new songs is good, important, valuable and often of a quality (like Utah Phillips or Eric Bogle...etc...) that it will BE part of 'trad' in a hundred years. IF a song is so well-liked that it is shared and incorporated until one has to look up in Google to even find the author or origin, then 'trad' has expanded...but beware of calling 20 year old stuff 'trad', **just** because it was part of your early memories....etc.

Ok... lecture over for a couple of years... carry on.

(Oh...and by the way... Elizabeth LaPrelle and her mother, Sandy, sing for fun many, many songs that are far from "...rock bottom traditional...", but they KNOW the difference and will tailor a performance suitably.)

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 06:41 PM

the very word begins to lose clarity. It NEEDS to have a reasonably precise and useful referent

Okay, but what are we left with? Especially when the ICTM states its aims and objectives as it does.

Thing is Folk Music comes into existence only if we're prepared to make the definition less precise - how else do we cover all the possible bases of vernacular / popular music as disparate as the vocal polyphony of Albania to the comedy stylings of Bernard Wrigley to Peter Bellamy's settings of the poems of Rudyard Kipling - all of which might be packaged as Folk? At the same time living musical traditions as diverse as Heavy Metal, Hip Hop, Drum & Bass, Classical, and (yes) Folk are operating with a vigour well within the remit of The 1954 Definition.

There are a myriad musics we can call Traditional, and even argue that the very term Traditional Music is an oxymoron simply because music is Traditional by its very nature. Popular / Folk musics are traditional in the same sense as any other music, the difference is simply one of style / genre on one hand, and academic assumption on the other, and then there's a huge matter of ideological faith which is very much a matter of individual belief.

Getting back to the point, I think if every Folkie on the planet was wiped out by some catacylsmic natural disaster then the future of the music might be a bit wobbly, but whilst at 49 I'm still amongst the youngest in the various Folk Clubs I attend, I also find myself amongst the oldest in other thriving folk projects & events I'm presently part of. It's taken a while but it's happening and it's broadening and it's producing great & diverse Folk Music which is all that really matters.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 07:39 PM

"Okay, but what are we left with? Especially when the ICTM states its aims and objectives as it does."

well, I barely know OF the ICTM... to me, THEY are not 'traditional'... ;>)

"...how else do we cover all the possible bases of vernacular / popular music ...?"

Well, our local folk DJ, Mary Cliff, refers to the music she plays as "Traditional music...and music 'in the traditions'"...to make clear that much is derivative.

and I just can't agree with "Folk Music comes into existence only if we're prepared to make the definition less precise.." Why? Because 'folk' was once 'almost' synonymous with 'trad' to refer to the older music being discovered and refreshed in the 50s-70s. The thing was, 'folk' was too handy a word, and when people like the Kingston Trio ..etc... started popularizing it and others began writing new songs with acoustic instruments and vaguely similar themes, they found it easier to call themselves 'folksingers' ..doing 'hootenannies' than to call themselves 'singer-songwriters with folk roots'...which doesn't fit on an album or poster very well. And record stores didn't want to create LOTS of extra bins to show all the new categories....so, the word(s) were diluted. Everyone thought they knew what they meant...but those...like poor old ME...who really enjoyed the 'older' stuff more.... got fooled by many concert & LP cover and bought into stuff that was only 20-40% what we wanted.
What to do? Nothing much... you can't legislate the words people use... I just had to look harder, read longer and ask more questions to avoid pop-'folkish' music that I didn't care for. Some of it was ok, but..... ummmm....

   Just because 87.943% of everyone uses the diluted words it doesn't change the fact that there ARE differences that often need to be clarified. Classical music has pretty clear labels for lots of categories...chamber music, baroque...etc... I am greedy.... I want something similar. I am not holding my breath....

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Big Mick
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 07:43 PM

To answer the initial question; no. Why? Because it is traditional. That means it has passed beyond pop culture. It has been catalogued, recorded, folk processed, and evolved. It will continue to spawn those that are interested in preserving it, and those that are inspired by it to write new stuff in the vein of the old. It's timeless lessons on life and living, how they are as relevant today as they were back when, will continue to inspire us to action and toward a more perfect understanding of the human condition. So it will not die for one very simple reason. It cannot as long as humans continue the quest. But if the reactors blow up, it may die, because so will we...... but I digress.

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Big Mick
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 07:45 PM

And Bill D, my beloved friend, go change your shorts. Those must have shrunk you old crank!!! sez Mick with tongue planted firmly in cheek, and ducking behind the closest piece of furniture to avoid being hit by a thrown piece of oak....

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 07:55 PM

I suspect that in the circle of life youngsters will at some point in the future rebel against the man, and the machine, and singing the old songs will become cool and radical again.

Dunno about beards though.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,18 year old traditional music enthusiast
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 08:00 PM

I'm 18 and in high school, and I am totally into the classical music of all cultures. I do listen to rock, hip hop, and everything else as well, but my favorite music is classical cultural music. In fact i found this site/forum/thread because i was searching for information on building an electronic bagpipe. I think that as long as people are learning to play instruments, there will be a love and a need to go to its roots!!!

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Big Mick
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 08:02 PM

.... from the mouth of the young comes the wisdom of the ages. Thanks for posting, young friend. And stick around. You never know when a very large old Irish singer might need the words to a hip hop song......

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 08:02 PM

I agree, but using terms like Traditional and Folk isn't going to help your cause. Sometimes it comes down to very specific definitions, like paticular songs and singers, regions, traditions, artists and albums, periods, all of which are mutable for sure. In this thing called Folk, that mutability is often resisted, even though the snap-shot we have of The Tradition at the overall point of its collection indicates a vast & mutable beast in which songs may assume innumerable variations even to the point of certain variants being the product of one particular performance. If, on the other hand, all it comes down to wanting things to stay the same then there's scope for that in the Revival too I reckon!

If someone asks me What is Folk? then I'll point them to the million categories of music covered by the term and let them figure it out for themselves. Likewise Rock, Pop, Jazz and Classical. But let's hope Traditional means something more than simply being Old Fashioned, eh? All music has Roots; wouldn't be music without them. It's a language, it's how it works.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 08:08 PM

Cross posted over a few there. Electonic bagpipes, eh? There was a chap in Edinburgh many years ago standing on Chambers Street at four Am one festival morning as we staggered in the direction of Morningside - he played me a pibroch on his electronic bagpipes on the steps of the museum and it was the most perfect music in the world... When was that? 1988? 1991?

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Big Mick
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 08:21 PM

There is now an midi Uilleann Pipe. It has an amazing sound, and you can get all the embellishments and incidentals on it. I love it and wish I could get my hands on one for performingjust because you would no longer have to worry about humidity, temp, reed affect,etc. But I still prefer strapping into a full trad set.

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 08:26 PM

Didn't know that elec bagpipes existed. Just googled them. Cool.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 10:38 PM

I asked Chongo about this. He said it's his understanding that everything will die when he does.

Chongo: "When I check out, it's all over, little buddy. Finito. Kaput. End of story. 'And that was all she wrote.' "

"There's a word for that sort of attitute," I said to him.

"Indispensible?" he replied...

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 04:49 AM

One night at The Beech Karina played a brilliant traditional tune on an App on here phone. The App turned the phone into Ocarina.

I am not sure that the "First Revival" was a reivival at all. Song collectors found mostly old people who lived mostly in the countryside and collected some, just some, of their songs. Some of these songs were published in hardback books and many more were put into private collections. Some recitals were given of songs in arrangements for piano and sung by people with trained voices.

The real revival started in the 1950s with MacColl, Seeger, Lomax, Seeger, Beehan, Fisher and hundreds of others. This led to the folk clubs, festivals, singers and folk groups and recordings of the 60s and 70s.

This was a genuine revival of old songs because thousands and thousands of people sang thousands and thousands of old songs. Singers of 'traditional' songs were discovered, recorded and enjoyed by new generations of us.

Just like the source singers at the turn of the century they sang anything they fancied - music hall songs, hymns, songs from the radio and songs that clearly went a long time back. And that's what has been going on since our revival started in the 1950s.

Almost none of us are part of rural communities with a deap tradition of singing old songs. But I am part of a virtual community that has been singing within a tradition that is around 60 years old and uses songs that are up to 300 (?) years old. It is a living tradition and songs are often passed on orally.

I am not sure how much this matters. But we do have access to a fantastic collection of songs and tunes that work well in small acoustic spaces and I think we will continue to sing the songs and play the tunes. Some people will write songs and some will be taken up and survive - the living tradition?

We have a number of 'folk' events in Chorlton. One is Chorlton Folk Club where you can hear 20 + singers every Thursday and many sing there own songs. Their is an Irish tunes Session in The Beech every Monday. We hold a Singaround of mostly but not exclusively traditional songs on 1st & 3rd Wednesdays and a mostly English Beginners Tunes session on 2nd & 4th Wednesdays.

Each of these events could be called a folk club, each is very well attended. I think people understand how they are different and they pick the ones they like.

I think singing old songs in small acoustic spaces will continue because it's a good experience just as social/country dancing is.

Cheers

L in C#

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 05:05 AM

That's sounds about right; we all exists inside of each others heads anyway and when one person dies then with them dies an entire universe & versions of ourselves and those around us we can barely comprehend. Subjectivity is all there is really, unity in diversity. But when I die then my version of things ends right there - all that's left is a loads of books, records and instruments that'll be of no further use to anyone. Fodder for the funeral pyre....

We each of us curate our own museum though; times I think all this decluttering is GOOD idea though - put your treasures in heaven, or in an ipod - and if I could get it down to ONE instrument and be fully portable despite my nomadic inclinations; and all these books, and all that vinyl...   Talk about Folklore; which always suffers because of the objective assumption, but Trad or Revival it invarioably comes down to the individuals who do it. Like that picture Jim showed me from when the Padstow May thing was just one man being looked at askance by the other villagers.

One person; that's all it takes...

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 05:40 AM

Cross-post there with Les, who is one person who has made so much happen that wouldn't have happened otherwise... human history was ever thus!

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 06:11 AM

You are very kind Sean but the sings and the tunes draw people together - I just spotted the Snug of The Beech and sent out invitations! heers

Cheers
L in C#

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 07:09 AM

Those opportunities need a catalyst though, and a benign sort of leadership to not only get it going, but focus the vision. I always carp on about my anarchist ideals, but good singarounds start with good leaders, of which Chorlton is a classic example. I can think of a few more (and will name Ian McCulloch of Durham and Ron Baxter of Fleetwood) but I'm now more of a sesh man really, either that or gigs and fields. Maybe this belongs in a different thread? Either way, we hope to get back to Chorlton one of these days...

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 09:05 AM

We await your, and Rachel's, return with anarchistic anticipation

L in C#

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 12:09 PM

When I am dead, think only this of me
Think of this and talk it over
There is still a corner of English pub
Where they all sing The Wild Rover

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 01:44 PM

It's been just over a century since people began learning songs from recordings, not only through "live" experiences of hearing music. We who are alive today have very little in common with earlier practitioners of "traditional" music, and everything in common with the players and listeners of the future.

No music will "die" that doesn't deserve to. Certainly, some individual songs that we know today will be forgotten, but not all of them. Also, in the future just as in the present, there will surely be "cult followings" of certain traditions and styles that may not be widely supported by the population at large but which are loved by a select few.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 02:27 PM

Well said Ms/Mr PoppaGator. You have said so much so well and in so few words!

L in C#
Just off to further a Cult -The Singaround at The Beech

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 16 Mar 11 - 08:54 PM

It was my hope that the music of Tiny Tim had died with him, but like a dreadful ghost from the past Tiptoe Through the Tulips comes back to haunt my memory. If that still survives surely anything better can live on as well! Achey Breaky Heart will probably not survive Cyrus though.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 04:04 AM

I bet someone will start a thread: Songs that should die asap.

I may regret writing that

L in C#

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: DrugCrazed
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 04:54 AM

Part of the reason I'm going to folk clubs is that I'm not sure that there are any others in our generation who are.

I'm aware this might be a falsehood.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: DrugCrazed
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 05:12 AM

It was my hope that the music of Tiny Tim had died with him, but like a dreadful ghost from the past Tiptoe Through the Tulips comes back to haunt my memory.

Amusingly, I'm playing Livin' In The Sunlight tonight at an open mic.

Back to the topic: If folk dies, then life will be terrible. I'm learning songs and learning the stories, which are more interesting that the songs sometimes.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 05:42 AM

We who are alive today have very little in common with earlier practitioners of "traditional" music, and everything in common with the players and listeners of the future.

I'm not sure if that's true, in fact I'm sure it isn't. The one thing we do have in common is being alive & being human - and all that entails. Maybe people of the past were less hung up on the past than we are - in the medieval period even depictions of Biblical scenes were done so in contemporary dress, so much so that our idea of Biblical Cotume is coloured by depictions in medieval art. If people did that today there'd be an outcry!

Who taught us to look back? Maybe it was the Victorians with their psuedo Gothic and Arts & Crafts, maybe it was earlier. Maybe we've always looked back - myths, dreamings, folk tales, song lines, and just our day to day memories of those we've lost. It's a human thing, just these days our historical methods are in line with available technology.

The 1954 Definition doesn't say anything about Style or Genre; maybe that was a given in the ranks of the old IFMC, who are now the ICTM whose remit on Traditional Music is very broad. The important thing here is that wherever there are human beings, there is music, and all music is traditional. So when we die (i.e humanity) there will be no more music...

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 06:08 AM

The first 'guests' I saw at a folk club were Hilary and I think Joan. The Jug of Punch, Princess Hotel, Ellesmere Port, 1964. I had seen loads of rock bands in Ellesmere Port Civic Hall, including the Beatles, October '62 and I had been to The Cavern loads of times. But the experience of sitting about two yards from two young women who simply opened their mouths and sang interesting songs with great tunes was literally life changing.

The experience of being in small rooms and listening to people sing with out amplification is very special and I think that links us all to the people who kept songs alive for hundreds of years in small rooms across mostly rural England.

We do it because it feels good, the songs and tunes work in this situation and I think it will survive.

L in C#
And I also like enjoy load bangy music but that is a bit different

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 06:34 AM

I had seen loads of rock bands in Ellesmere Port Civic Hall, including the Beatles, October '62

Your memory is playing tricks, Les. The only time that the Beatles played that venue was January 14th 1963.

I'll get my anorak.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 06:34 AM

Much the same for me really; I was escaping the effects of amplified music on my adolescent ear drums, and one day wandered into a local pub and sat and watched this elegant beautiful guest singing unaccompanied with an audience of about five or six. I even bought her record - Airs and Graces. Loved The Plains of Waterloo, hated The Band Played Waltzing Matilta; still do! Or was it that lovely couple from the Albion Country Band with the melodeon, concertina, oboe & hammer dulcimer who sang like angels from whom I bought the wonderful (and wonderfully titled) Among the Many Attractions at the Show will be a Really High Class Band? I love that album even now; the definitive Folk Album!

Thing is though, this sort of small intimate performance was hardly new to me; I used to go to poetry readings at Modern Tower in Newcastle in the days you could see Ivor Culter and Phyllis April King performing to an audience of fifteen. I used to go and see free improvisation too - people as amazing as Derek Bailey & Lol Coxhill all playing in tiny rooms to tiny audiences. Intimate as you could wish really.

In Folk Clubs the vibe was different though, an underlying righteous hostility that people still pick up on from time to time. I keep saying we need to drive a wedge between The Tradition of English Speaking Folk Song as an international treasure of the English Speaking World, and the Folk Revival, the surly attitudes of which very often just puts people off. Put me off a lot back then I must say, and I still encounter a lot of that today actually.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 06:35 AM

If you can keep your tradition
When all around are losing theirs
You can keep it in the freezer
It might go off, in Tupperware.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 06:47 AM

(Oops - pressed the wrong button there - so continuing from previous post...)

...and I still encounter a lot of that today actually. It's like the sexism of the church getting hung up on women priests - you get these self-styled Traddy Purists who really know SFA, and yet still carp on about The Tradition as if it was written in stone. Guardians? I think not somehow. The best of it was always just the music without the cause really, political or otherwise. Seeing Peter Bellamy was like being in the presence of an angel, but hearing my favourite ballad singer Ewan McColl singing his self-penned tripe about South Africa and the Miner's Strike was just depressing, all the more so for the intimacy really. Well, you couldn't very well walk out, could you?

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Jon Dudley
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 07:07 AM

Quote from Suibhne Astray - 'Like that picture Jim showed me from when the Padstow May thing was just one man being looked at askance by the other villagers.'

I agree with much of what you say but any pictures I've ever seen of the Mayday celebrations in Padstow, taken throughout the the last 80 years or so have never seemed to indicate any lack of enthusiasm or participation by the local inhabitants. Of course numbers have been swollen by hoards of spectators in recent years and it wasn't always that way. I'm just interested to know if there was a pivotal moment when the whole thing was in danger of vanishing as is maybe suggested by this photograph...or was it a 'freak' shot of a lone dancer taken away from the action? I suppose I should ask Doc Rowe, but maybe you know the answer.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 08:23 AM

According to Jim Caroll the Lone Reveller at Padstow picture represents its lowest ebb before its consequent revival. In any case the earliest reference we have for Padstow is 1803 - see Hutton, Stations of the Sun, pages 81-82, in which he tells of Folkloric Interferance and assumptions on the part of Paganised Folklorists under the thrall of The Golden Bough.

I would think all Folklore is Revived to a greater extent - at least post-Revival in terms of its definition and perception - the Bampton Morros traditionincluded. The revival is a reality, an itegral aspect of Folk Music and Folkloric usage - at least the sort of selective Folklore that is of interest to Folkies and modified accordingly. The Wicker Man is predicated on discredited Folk-Paganism, but it still endures as part of the overall aesthetic no matter how misguided that may be. Or is it natural to assume a man dressed as a stylised horse is doing something that simply has to be carrying on a Pre-Christian tradition however so innocently?

In any case, I can't find the picture (which was part of wider evidence for the Padstow Decline). Maybe Jim can supply another?

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 08:42 AM

I think it was Julian ............ from Colne Royal Morrismen that pointed out that collapse and revival were one of the most important features of Morris dancing.

I await with eager anticipation the next revival of the incomparable Gorton Morrismen:

Here

L in C

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,dunelmian1943 aka Ian McCulloch
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 10:33 AM

Gratified to read of the appreciation of my years of benign effort from Suibhne Astray (16th March).Durham City Folk Club has existed since 1969 and has survived many transformations. Seems to me that a folk club must be a democracy and be part of the pub in which it exists. Democracy should mean that even after those who "run" folk clubs hand over their leadership, there is a continuation otherwise I would be appalled. Being part of the pub means that strangers will pop in occasionally and friendliness is essential and singers should have a few songs which such people will recognise and, even feel(ocasionally) like offering a song which, even if it's only the first verse of the Wild Rover, should be appreciated otherwise there would be no chance of a return visit.As far as young people are concerned, they do exist and often appreciate a good song but they must be cherished like young plants. It is obvious isn't it but it doesn't always happen!

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 10:40 AM

Ian,

That is a remarkable statement. Beautiful.

Bruce

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 11:08 AM

My sincere thanks to all of you for your insights, observations prompted by years of experience. Also, please accept more thanks for keeping the thread on task.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 11:49 AM

Bruce
Thank you. I am now 67 and still look forward to each Thursday night when I meet my friends at DCFC, have a beer or three, sing old songs and enjoy the singing of others. We don't have a singaround each week, tonight is partly a salute to St Patrick's day and once a month we have a spot of 20 to 30 minutes by a friend on a subject of his or her choice. Neither of these ventures were mine.
QED
Ian

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 12:05 PM

Most welcome, Ian.

Your eloquent post brought into focus for me that I feel the same way. Just couldn't put it in words that made sense. I'm 63. Thank you, again.

Bruce

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Dan Schatz
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 12:57 PM

I'll admit to skimming this thread, so please accept my apologies if I cover ground that has already been covered.

Short answer. No.

Long answer. Yes. And long live traditional music.

Folklore is at heart a social product - that is what makes what we do different from pop or classical music. While we might perform it on a stage from time to time, it really belongs at the sing-arounds, in the pubs, and in the home. And on the picket lines. (Has anyone else noticed that folks suddenly want to hear union songs? Yay!)

You can make a case that shape note songs aren't traditional, because they're written down in choral arrangements - but it's hard to make a case that shape note _singing_ isn't traditional.

But the tradition does change. I hope that the old ballads that I love will never go away, and that the musical styles I love will never go away, but I have to admit that the tradition can and will change, if it is to survive.

Someone recently commented to me that the autoharp isn't really a folk traditional instrument because it has only been around for 110 years. But in that time, it worked its way into oral tradition so it is a folk instrument. Guitars are a recent innovation in much Anglo-American folk music, and I'm not complaining. How old is Travis picking? Does that make it any less traditional?

There is a wonderful poem by Carl Sandburg about language that encapsulates how I feel about tradition:

    LANGUAGES

    There are no handles upon a language
    Whereby men take hold of it
    And mark it with signs for its remembrance.
    It is a river, this language,
    Once in a thousand years
    Breaking a new course
    Changing its way to the ocean.
    It is mountain effluvia
    Moving to valleys
    And from nation to nation
    Crossing borders and mixing.
    Languages die like rivers.
    Words wrapped round your tongue today
    And broken to shape of thought
    Between your teeth and lips speaking
    Now and today
    Shall be faded hieroglyphics
    Ten thousand years from now.
    Sing--and singing--remember
    Your song dies and changes
    And is not here to-morrow
    Any more than the wind
    Blowing ten thousand years ago.

I say these things not to get into a debate about what constitutes folk music or traditional music (please no!) but rather to provide a modicum of encouragement. As long as parents sing to their babies, traditional music lives. As long as pimply college kids get out their guitars, whether it's for the joy of singing or for, shall we say, romantic purposes, traditional music lives.

And if we keep singing the songs that we love, be they recent or a thousand years old, they might just stay in or become part of the tradition. It merely requires that we sing with each other and to each other rather than at each other, because that's what folk music is.

And that's why I love it.

Dan

PS: I don't plan on dying anytime soon!

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 01:59 PM

Folklore is at heart a social product - that is what makes what we do different from pop or classical music.

Nice post - but I'd argue all music just as social as any other and can't be differentiated in such a way. I might point to Karoake nights, or Choral Societies or local orchestras and bands at weddings. All music involves community! It's all covered by the 1954 Definition which, as I say, doesn't mention Genre...

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Sieffe
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 05:50 PM

Down here in little old New Zealand we have young (under 20!) people performing trad stuff and wowing the audience . . fiddles, dulcimers and all! Hope it progresses to a mainstream audience . .

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 09:29 PM

When we are dead ≠ fewer and fewer people are attracted to traditional music.

As Jim says, the tradition is alive and well, at least here in Ireland, though it's absorbing new and varied elements, which means it does grow and change. But the whole reason this happens is because the kids - or enough of them to sustain life - pick it up and run with it. I know this isn't the only place where that's true.

I grew up in 50's California, and the music that influenced me was mostly what I heard on the radio and my parents' records. But I responded most strongly to the folky material and always followed - and later played - it. Certain things just lead you. This is part of human nature and I don't think it's going to change.

There are loads of "folk songs" (and tunes too) that were written by someone consciously working in a traditional style, which then actually become so by dint of the fact that they get sung and heard and re-sung and take on a life of their own. I don't even see any real distinction between the two. How often has something by Ewan MacColl or Woody Guthrie been introduced as "an old sailor/cowboy/whatever song"? That's the first step in the immortality process. It's what keeps our culture alive and relevant, and these songs will continue to speak to people down through the generations. As some of them have already done, for centuries. They sing the universal truths and there will always be ears to pick them up and voices to carry them on along the next stretch of the road.

There's no logical reason why, given my background and influences, I should love and "know" traditional and trad-style songs above the rest, but I do. I started out listening to The Kingston Trio and plastic shamrock-&-leprechaun paddywhackery (because that's all there was where I grew up) but something drew me, until one day I found myself playing the real thing in the real place.



---

AL - When they assign you your cloud & nightie: For a C chord, the root note is on a red string; for an F chord it's on a black string. Then you're outta luck cuz the G7's based on a white string and there are are 5 of those. (Clue: it's the one next to the F...)

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 09:43 PM

Does anybody remember the ending of Charlotte's Web? Where in the ensuing years after Charlotte dies, there are always zillions of new little baby spiders, and eventually they fly off in the wind... but:

There were always two or three who stayed around and kept Wilbur company and talked to him, so he was never alone. Even if most drifted away, enough always remained behind to keep Charlotte's spirit alive. That's the sort of thing I mean.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 10:12 PM

DanH: So I don't think there is any lack of young folkies. They're just not coming out to the old-timer's jams or concerts, but thats another matter entirely.

Spot on! I've mentioned several times here that locally there are 2 entirely separate "folky scenes"...one where the youngsters hang out, and one where the oldsters play and sing, and there's very little interaction (though I'm trying to encourage it). go to some of the "oldster" sessions and you'd be convinced that folk'll die out in 20-25 years, but the kids are there... just in different pubs and venues!

I was at an open mic session away from home this week...my "Banks of the Sweet Primroses" went down very well with the mainly under 35 audience (as did my version of Pink Floyd's "Grantchester Meadows", but hey, that's another tale...more of them actually recognised "Banks" than recognised "GM"!). And there were half a dozen under 30s there performing mainly either trad songs or their own compositions "in a folky style"...but not the mawkish self-referential stuff of so much modern "commercial folk". I actually asked for the source of one song that sounded *very* trad to me, to be told the performer had written it a couple of years ago.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 10:52 PM

Bonnie, you have written something I am gonna save. As a btw, I finally met a for-real in-person harp player. Irish background gal. Had the opportunity to ask some things that had always puzzled me about harps and I now understand why you think they make such a beautiful sound. I was blown away by the skill she exhibited and the verve with which she carried it off. Beautiful.

I personally think there's a place for that instrument in rock n roll. I think the 'tension' that could be created by the genres is worth looking at.

##############################################################



In a pique of morbid despair I started this thread. Years ago I felt a kind of dread that we--all of us--were going to lose our music. The radios and tv's' were horrible, and I quit music completely--mostly to hide away from what I felt. I'm not proud of that, 'cause my mama didn't raise no quitters'.

Lately, I see there is hope and promise--lots of it--thanks to you folks.

This is definitely a Kodak moment for me.

Thank you all so much.

BM


PS   This laptop is for some reason questioning my spelling by putting some red lines under wrods :see, did it again!: Good thing it does that, becuz I just misspelled definately. I'm gonna stop looking at red lines.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: J-boy
Date: 18 Mar 11 - 01:54 AM

All music will die when we do.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 18 Mar 11 - 01:59 AM

No way man. This is the computer age. We take a copy with us. Believe that.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: J-boy
Date: 18 Mar 11 - 02:30 AM

In that case could you download me into Winona Ryder's body please?

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: michaelr
Date: 18 Mar 11 - 03:34 AM

Lovely post, Bonnie.

Cheer up, Bruce. There is hope yet. Maybe you will even get back out there? It can't but enrich the world.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 Mar 11 - 03:49 AM

You're right, 999. I have it on the Highest Authority that you can take your MP3s with you to the hereafter. You'll have to leave the vinyl and CDs behind, however.
I know these things because I have a Bachelor's Degree in Theology. That also qualifies me to sell insurance and work as a Government Investigator (I chose the latter, but it was a Hobson's choice)....

-Joebro-

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 18 Mar 11 - 04:33 AM

My Uncle Hobson whom for years I'd wished was my Uncle Haliburton? Forsooth!

But thank you.

Michael, it just don't matter anymore. The coming thing--guess--give up?

The Busboys.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 18 Mar 11 - 05:21 AM

If Heaven there is, it will be Vinyl only. Racks of it for a glorious eternity!

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 18 Mar 11 - 05:23 AM

I would be your groupie, Al
If you were not a marsupial
You could join our tradition too
If you weren't a kangaroo.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 18 Mar 11 - 05:40 AM

If Heaven there be, we won't need recordings - we'll be able to hear everything played and sung by the greats themselves. All the way back to the minstrels of the original Troubadours.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 18 Mar 11 - 06:30 AM

All the way back to the minstrels of the original Troubadours.

What about before that though? I'm hoping to hear the music of the music of the Ancient Egyptian Sun Priests and the Beaker People and Bogomils as well as the diverse sounds going down at the court of Alfonso El Sabio. In heaven I'd hope to hear the first music that ever stirred in the hearts of humanity hundreds of thousands of years before the Troubadours.

Talking of Troubadours though have a look at THIS - 7.19 in you get RENE ZOSSO singing Farai Un Vers by Guillem de Peitieu. How's that for heaven?

Seriously though - for those of us without religion heaven is vinyl. If ever you're near Carlisle be sure to check out the antiquarian & classical CD shop near the cathedral. The vaults are stuffed with old vinyl - mostly classical - with the old safe room (complete with old safe) devoted to Early Music - endless David Munrow boxsets! Overpriced maybe, but a vaunted heaven all the same.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 18 Mar 11 - 06:37 AM

' In heaven I'd hope to hear the first music that ever stirred in the hearts of humanity hundreds of thousands of years before the Troubadours.'

Speaking as a kangaroo, I have trouble even getting a floorspot. For some of us, the struggle goes on......

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 18 Mar 11 - 08:12 AM

Do they even have kangaroos in heaven? I'm told of a feral wallaby population in the UK - escapees from private collections going walkabout in the Yorkshire Dales. The only 'roos on the Fylde live on the Wallaby Walk in Blackpool Zoo; word is they get out to the various local Folk Clubs during the week and maybe get the occasional floorspot too, but never a booking...

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 18 Mar 11 - 12:55 PM

There was quite a flock? herd? pride? of feral wallabies for many years around The Roaches in Staffordshire, though not heard of them inthe Dales.

I've seen some in the past at The Roaches while climbing and I believe a dead one was found about 3-4 years ago, but I don't think there's been a confirmed sighting of a live one for a few years now.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 19 Mar 11 - 04:56 AM

Oddly enough, the collective noun for Wallabies is Mob, same as for Kangaroos. I say oddly because I've never felt in anything other than charmed by their collectivity, and the word Mob is anything but charming!

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Aan Whittle
Date: 19 Mar 11 - 06:20 AM

Yes if we kangaroos called melodeon players a mob, they'd be acting all upset. Why are you picking on us, just cos we haven't got a pouch and can't box with our feet?

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 19 Mar 11 - 06:40 AM

And the prevailing folklore is still that Kangaroo means I Don't Know in some Aboriginal tongue, assuming there's more than one. I think melodeon means the same thing actually, though guitar is related to Jehovah in some way - the Holy Unspeakable name of which guitar is an occult and codified approximation like something out of a Dan Brown novel. Is it only fiddle that works as a noun and a verb? For sure the associations of a non-musical fiddler aren't in any way positive...

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 19 Mar 11 - 06:58 AM

You are purposely confusing the issue. As Richard Bridge has pointed out (on numerous occasions) Kangaroos (and most other families and species born outside Rottingdean) are not allowed to be folksingers by the 1954 definition.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 19 Mar 11 - 02:20 PM

Some years ago I was drinking outside a pub on the Staffordshire moorlands and a chap at the next table said 'there's that wallaby with the wooden leg'. I waited for the punchline to the joke but turned to see a marsupial with an artificial limb on the opposite bank.

Apparently there was a road accident and the leg was replaced. The critter appeared perfectly mobile so far as I could tell.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: PHJim
Date: 19 Mar 11 - 02:41 PM

I have jumped to the bottom of this long thread and, much to my surprise, the discussion seems to have gone from the death of traditional music to a discourse on marsupials. When this happens, is the proper etiquette to post about the original topic, or to continue the new thread?

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 19 Mar 11 - 03:16 PM

Either, would be my guess - just write whatever's on your mind to say!

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: saulgoldie
Date: 19 Mar 11 - 03:18 PM

I don't know if this is bad manners, but...before I noticed this thread, I started my own thread that is sort of parallel:

thread.cfm?threadid=136485&messages=1

Saul

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 19 Mar 11 - 03:42 PM

arrrrrgh! Little matey! If 'ee be keepin' a weather eye open for a seafarin' kangaroo with one leg - ee's been sold some very bad acid indeed!

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 19 Mar 11 - 03:48 PM

As Louis Armstrond said: All music music is folk music, I sure ain't heard no kangaroo sing a song. This opens the door to all sorts of Kangaroo Definers - and other Marsupials too of course, but saving the occasional cross-bread Kangorphant, the Kangaroo is the biggest and occupy a special place in Northumbrian folklore on account of their historic relationship with Saint Cuthbert during the time of his hermetic retreat on Inner Farne which was hitherto inhabit by hideous Goat Demons. Sadlt, the indigenous Northumbrian White Kangaroos is now long extinct, though a stuffed one used to reside in the old Handcock Museum in Newcastle before its recent makeover, and they still feature from time to time in the annals of Cryptozoology where the occaisional sighting is reported usually in the vicinity of Chillingham Castle on December 24th.

Boomers, sir? How many did you say? Six, eh? Snow white as well! I bet they were, sir. Now just blow into this bag if you will.

A Wallaby with a wooden leg. The perfect end to a perfect day!

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: widowmaker
Date: 21 Mar 11 - 12:44 PM

No it is a living, breathing thing and as long as we have air to breathe it will continue. It is all around us the noise of Traffic, The songs of Birds, the laughter of children this is FOLK MUSIC. By the way Bonnie one of my fav nights in folk music was listening to you and Packie at Te Topic in Bradford, Happy Days. Regards.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 21 Mar 11 - 01:21 PM

Ah, cheers! The Topic was always one of our favourite gigs (nice Indian or Chinese restaurant not too far away, I seem to recall). I'll pass on your kind words to Packie when I next speak to him on the phone (we live at opposite ends of Ireland these days...)

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 21 Mar 11 - 07:32 PM

Looking at some of the findings of the Horizon Research Foundation, the OPs proposition seems unlikely:
Old Folkies Never Die

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Rob Davis
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 02:06 AM

The traditional song "The Old Sow" is where the misheard lyric "Idley Dan" and "Susannah the Bollicle Man" occur. I have a recording of this on tape and can mp3 it for interested parties.

Rob Davis
Telford, Shropshire UK
http://www.robdavis.webhop.org

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: DMcG
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 04:25 AM

I don't think it will die with us. Given the wide variety of types of music that survives (gregorian chant, medaeval madrigals, barbshop quartets, west gallery, ...) it would be odd of trad disappeared. Certinaly, it will go in and out of fashion, but that's something else.

And there's another factor that is, I suspect, underrated. Last week I was was in an ersatz 'pub' along with a whole bunch of people (perhaps 100) of various ages and backgrounds. They were not drawn together by a love of music, or any such. Yet, when the pub produced a pianist and started on the stuff like 'Down at the old Bull and Bush, Tipperary' and so on, almost everyone joined in with gusto. I stress here that this is not exactly my music of choice, and that it is not what the OP meant by trad (I assume). Yet there was something important happening that was truly 'folkish' in my book: a group of very ordinary people getting together and singing just for the fun of it. No higher purpose, as a church might have. No idea that 'we are a choir'. No competitiveness. Just singing for the sheer enjoyment of it.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Janet Stevenson (troll alert contact max)
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 04:29 AM

Traditional music will never die. It is more popular than ever here in Kent.

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=richard+hoff+bridge#page=0

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 04:29 AM

Interesting post, Rob. I love this song very dearly & sing it myself regularly, but only ever to pigs and kangaroos... Here it is sang by Albert Richardson - the one & only:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0XlfNsb6gc

*

Following on from Glueman's Wooden Legged Wallaby, is the story of the Pig with the Wooden Leg which has been a party piece of mine for some years.

And though Folk might pass away without a whisper, such things are sure to live on eternally.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Janet Stevenson (troll alert contact max)
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 04:31 AM

Excellent video Suibhne Astray, thank you.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Musket
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 04:40 AM

I suppose it will never die, especially as many very talented musicians have ensured recordings of traditional music have a future.

Future?

Yep.

One the performer's royalties are no longer there, there is a huge wealth of traditional (non copyrighted) music waiting to replace classical music as the choice for lifts, call centre waiting tunes and shopping centre cafes.

The young turks that some many treat with disdain are doing a hell of a lot more than most in ensuring a future, even if it may be an irritating one.....

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: JHW
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 05:33 AM

I have had it said to me already
"No point in going to folk clubs; all the old singers are dead."

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: stallion
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 05:42 AM

I have just eleminated five paragraphs of rant.
Is the music going to die out with our generation?
Not so long as people gather together and play and sing music for the fun of it.

Youngsters of today just want to make loads of money and be on the telly, the music is just a vehicle and they are all churning out the same old garbage and thinking they have tallent. The punters are just as bad, putting with having their ears blasted out when all you can hear is boom boom boom and white noise.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,livelylass
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 06:14 AM

"The young turks that some many treat with disdain are doing a hell of a lot more than most in ensuring a future, even if it may be an irritating one....."

I don't know about the 'young turks' of Britfolk (all half dozen of them.) This new revival seems kinda lame to me. There's more interesting innovation to be found by rummaging around in the archives of the 6o's revival I reckon.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 06:21 AM

I think that there are periodically waves of revival of interest in traditional music styles...usually when people begin reacting against the vapidity of the pop music scene (and culture) of their own time and start looking back in history for something more "honest" (as they would see it).

It happened in the 1950s and early 1960s. So why wouldn't it happen again at some point?

Therefore, I very much doubt that traditional music is going to die out along with our generation.

I will always be preserved in various small enclaves, go into periods where it is less recognized by the cultural mainstream, and then a new wave of interest will probably rise again at some point, maybe when one would least expect it.

I plan to reincarnate when that happens. ;-)

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Silas
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 07:21 AM

No. It didn't die with Bert LLoyd, or Cyril Tawny or Fred Jordan or Scan Tester or Peter Bellamy or even Mike Waterson. There is not just 'our generation' there are loads of 'kids' interested in it and performing at leat as well, if not better than many 'old timers'. It is here to stay and it gets better and better.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: GUEST,Desi C
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 07:59 AM

A fairly recent survey by the Trad Arts Team in B'ham sponsored by the NFSDS shows that over the past 3 years interest including attendances in Folk/trad music has risen to it's highest level since the 60's Folk revival and is still growing. This question was asked in the mid 80's in the negative but here we are over 25 years later with trad music stronger than ever. will it survive us? Yes good music always will

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: JohnH
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 08:13 AM

@Livelylass. Your right again!

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Musket
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 08:28 AM

Livelylass is right. or at least in proving my point on a couple of related threads doing the rounds.

Yes, there was a huge "movement" and many of the folk compilations on iTunes are from the late '60s and '70s, but this is as much to do with copyright and price as the quality of the music.

The essence of folk as a musical term, be it ballad style, cadences, incorporation of English speaking musical styles or whatever, is running a thread in the so called mainstream that some write off as being irrelevant. Irrelevant? really?

Men in sandals and women in ethnic skirts may not have much of a future, but the music they help to keep alive is live and kicking. really kicking. Flick to Sky Arts or BBC 4 and you see Seth Lakeman, Kate Rusby, Imagined Village, Richard Thompson Band... The old and the new, introducing the folk tradition to new audiences. Granted, not audiences that whinge about the quality of beer, any political view other than theirs, how hard it is to be a reed cutter in Norfolk or (at least once a night) a song about being an American caught up in Vietnam... (The nearest I do is sing Elton John's Daniel so no better myself I might add.)

But taking trad music (as I believe the thread is about) and doing what people have been doing for hundreds of years, adapting it to today.

(A classic example was yesterday on BBC Radio3, playing music used in BBC programs over the years. They played the theme from Blue Peter, hornpipe called Barnacle Bill, as many will know. What many may not know is that prior to Ralph Vaughan Williams getting his hands on it, all known references to the tune were" Bollocky Bill." A bit too much perhaps for Valerie Singleton and a much younger me....) Hence trad does not die, it evolves, t'was ever thus.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Andrez
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 08:34 AM

I'll drink to that Guest DesiC !!!!!!!!!!

Cheers,

Andrez

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 04:10 PM

While it's nice to have fans, do I want Ms Stevenson?

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 04:12 PM

PS - am I a traddie? I believe we should know what "folk" is and I believe it's important folk songs are still sung and played: if we don't know where we came from we do not know who we are.

But my closing song today was "White Rabbit". As traditional as Jefferson Airplane.

Subject: RE: Will trad music die when we do?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 04:49 PM

A propos (or not) I perceive that the Kaiser Chiefs' backdrop at Glastonbury today says "The future is medieval".

Verb. sap.