Do purists really exist?

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 01 Jul 11 - 05:07 AM

I can't flatter myself that I'm capable of reproducing those sounds,

Music is never a matter of reproduction, and always one of interpretation. Even the recreation of classic arrangements exist in the area of specific hommage, but one thing cannot possibly be another, not yet carry the same weight or significance, no matter how exacting. Elvis Impersonators take note. This Stars in Your Eyes approach to folk, however, is not uncommon, nor yet is it entirely without value, for tonight, Matthew, I'm going to be Shirley Collins singing Glenlogie...

*

Another aspect of Purism is Folk Faith and Folk Belief. In another thread we are being invited to believe that following his untimely death in 1695, certain aspects of the music of Henry Purcell were Folk Processed. The term exists as a Folk / Mudcat Truism - an article of a particular faith that underwrites the Reliosity of Folk, much as a Roman Catholic accepts the reality Transubstantiation. But to the inquisitive outsider both Transubstantiation and the Folk Process must (after long years of careful deliberation, about 35 in all) amount to what the Good Doctor would call ineffable twaddle*. Indeed, the very belief in Folk as being distinct in essence from any other type of music - popular or otherwise - is a very particular Purism which only confirms that religiosity. Likewise a wafer is only ever a wafer, and crap red wine is only ever crap red wine...   

And Folk is only ever a particular style of music - any one of dozens of idiomatic genres which have become the aesthetic signifiers of The Colonial Revival these past 60 years or so. There is nothing pure about any of it, and none of it operates in a way that is any different from other type of music. And yet the religiosity of Folkies persists, ad infinitum, and for any number of reasons...

Folk says: Give me your tired, your Pure, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door

The Folkie says: But I, being Pure, have only my dreams. I have spread my dreams under your feet; tread softly, because you tread on my dreams..

S O'P (with a wink and a smile after drinking more beer last night** than was strictly necessary...)

* Watson that is, upon reading Holmes' article on the science of deduction in A Study in Scarlet; the irony being that Holmes proceeds to trounce him thoroughly. Myself, I still await a satisfactory explanation of The Folk Process that isn't agenda driven fiction, then I will consider myself well & truly trounced.

** The Golden Dream - A Celebration of Fleetwood's 175th Anniversary in words, pictures and folk music although, tellingly perhaps, our esteemed compere introduced it is The Golden Dawn... Anyway, we were packing them in to the ball-room of the North Euston - and we're doing it again tonight. Fylde Goers might look forward to the show on the Sunday...

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Goose Gander
Date: 01 Jul 11 - 12:21 AM

But seriously, for a 'purist' to exist, then pure forms must exist. They do not, no more than Plato's Republic exists in any form beyond the written word. I suppose what some folks call a purist is someone who prefers older forms of any given art form. Which might make me a purist, except I play old ballads on a ukulele, not exactly traditional. I go to the older recordings for material, but I can't flatter myself that I'm capable of reproducing those sounds, so I do it my own way. So I'm a pure bastardizer, or maybe I've just had too much beer.

Good night, folks.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Goose Gander
Date: 01 Jul 11 - 12:13 AM

Richard Bridge suffers from irony deficiency.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 30 Jun 11 - 06:48 PM

Oh FFS GG, get real, no it isn't.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: glueman
Date: 30 Jun 11 - 05:21 PM

There are a number of relic hominids on this forum alone.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Goose Gander
Date: 30 Jun 11 - 11:38 AM

Next you'll tell me that Yeti doesn't exist.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: glueman
Date: 30 Jun 11 - 09:22 AM

A strawman is any caricature of a position that's too close to the actually position for comfort.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 30 Jun 11 - 08:58 AM

I must admit it's not only English Folk Purists who object to my use of the Turkish Black Sea Fiddle (Karadeniz Kemence) to accompany Traditional English Songs - certain of the comments on my YouTube film of Long Lankin come from Turkish people, which I find a good deal easier to take somehow...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVzsWVuDMm0

Hey - almost 11,000 hits on there! Not bad - in 4 years!

Anyway Read the comments though - I leave them all on - the good and the bad. I'm Sabrina Eden too by the way...

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Goose Gander
Date: 30 Jun 11 - 01:03 AM

Based upon some of the posts above, I would say that a purist is a species of Abominable Strawman designated to Native Folk Contexts in the British Isles.

I'm a trap purist; I only use snap traps baited with peanut butter.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Jim Knowledge
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 03:32 PM

I beg your pardon, I `it the wrong button.

I said, "Says `oo?"
`e said, "That Cecil Sharp, that`s `oo."
I said, "You must `ave good `earing. `es been dead for years!!"

Whaddam I Like??

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Jim Knowledge
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 03:27 PM

I `ad one of them purists in my cab the other day; beard, pipe, leather covered tankard and a well thumbed folder.
We were doing a gig that night at the "`arrow Inn" and I was just going over the words of "`enry, My Son".
`e said, "`ere Jim, you`ve got loads of words wrong there."
I said, "Says `oo?"
`e Sa

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 01:56 PM

[Insert Knight] wooed the brown girl but [insert lady] had the land. 40 minutes and 129 verses later all 3 and the unborn child were dead.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: The Sandman
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 01:40 PM

why not matty groves, but better still thomas the rhymer

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Musket
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 01:25 PM

I must admit, a singer who spends a bit of time telling us about the provenance of a song gets my vote, and then I also see how you might enjoy a singer just getting on with it. If you are in a club that is stuffed to the rafters with regular folk type dudes, they may not need reminding of the background to Sir Patrick Spens / Spense / Spence. But conversely, never assume your audience.   I reckon you are describing enjoying it as entertainment and that, as leveller attests, will never do...

In a similar manner, your take on classical recitals. There are some types of music that a person may enjoy listening to but not perhaps performing and vice versa. I have always said that jazz is not really a spectator sport, and when I played violin classically as a youth, I loved the string quartet I was part of for a short time, but found the college orchestra a chore rather than a pleasure. (Just had a thought, imagine somebody spending time introducing Wagner's Ring Cycle????)

I'm out tonight in a local club. Just for the hell of it, I will find a song about, love, a song about death and a song about shagging. If there isn't time for three, I'll just trot out Matty Groves anyway...

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 09:12 AM

Ah, but the art of trying to entertain is to play to the crowd. So the accusation that I may do what I like and if you don't like it stuff you, is not a description I would be comfortable with.

When I go a classical recital I see an ensemble playing music and I'm in the audience listening intently. When I've done such recitals myself, it's pure heaven. Naturally, I expect the same decorum at a folk club - ideally I'd like to see performers dispense with the chat altogether, saving a brief mutter regarding provenance, where applicable, but even then you could dispense with too much detail. Usually you have to wade through so much comedic 'audience engagement' before e'er a song is sung - and some performers will happily preface a 3 minute song with twenty minutes of jokes. Not my idea of fun at all. Shut up and just sing, if you see what I mean. Stagecraft is forgetting there's an aufience there and singing as naturally as you would in the bath.

I once saw Robin Williamson do an unbroken set of 50 minutes segueing from one song to the next without stopping the once. Amazingly, his guitar stayed in tune throughout... Spell binding!

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 08:53 AM

Folk might be about life, death and shagging - unlike rock 'n' roll (and Jazz) which is life, death and shagging. Folkies are just too polite, though one of the Colpitts Regulars (and a very fine singer of aforementioned Harry Robertson songs & photographer par excellance) used to publicly tell everyone of our mutual acquaintance that he hated me. Why he hated me I never found out. He would be very obvious about handing everyone personal invites to his parties - and be just as obvious about not giving me one. Weird. As an under-graduate Rachel was a particular favourite of his and we still have one of his signed posters on the wall. Indeed, we were even considering paying him good money to use one of his photographs for the cover of our forthcoming album, but then we found a better image - more suitable anyway, not better, because his photographs of non-human subjects are about as perfect as you can get. I tell you, not much shit goes down in Folk Clubs, but when it does it's of a very fine quality! He wasn't a Purist though, far from it; a master of traditional song, he was also uber-ambassador for one of the North-East's numerous song-writing talents whose songs he'd sing to perfection along with the Harry Robertsons and all manner of other stuff. Strange times. Maybe I should write a song about him?

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: glueman
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 07:54 AM

It'll never catch on.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: theleveller
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 07:47 AM

Blimey, folk music as entertainment? That's a new one. I thought it was a matter of life and death (and shagging).

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Steamin fluids etc
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 07:05 AM

Ah, but the art of trying to entertain is to play to the crowd. So the accusation that I may do what I like and if you don't like it stuff you, is not a description I would be comfortable with.

As you ask, respecting others' views is part of the tapestry so a club that is known for liking traditional rather than "contemporary" isn't going to get somebody like me singing a song I wrote last week just to wind them up. Or I take it you feel I might? That's what I mean by you looking for monsters under the bed.

Consistency and logic are difficult to articulate when the issue is how they are perceived.

Mind you, you are right to question one thing, even if you are questioning your perception rather than something I or others wrote. I am not pissed off at purists, I am pissed off at hearing purism as a putdown to people who don't exhibit their view of what "folk" is. Even somebody with your rudimentary grasp (as you portray it, I'm not insulting for the sake of it) should be able to spot the difference. The problem here is that if you care about an aspect of what we call folk, you feel others are calling you purist as an insult. Methinks we are talking two different uses of the word purist here. But we know that, some people, me included, just like to argue the toss.

I still say folk cannot be defined because any definition I have ever looked at doesn't include an aspect that is covered by another definition. I stand my my point.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: theleveller
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 06:20 AM

Bloody 'ell, I've got people agreeing with me – must be losing my touch!

But seriously (folks) - I think the comments above underline why people get so heated in discussions like these – it's the intense personal relationship that we have with "our" music, whether we're listening or performing, defending or condemning it. You can't define that relationship, classify it or put in any box that didn't have a very curious shape (and even then you'd never get the lid on). It just IS (isn't it?).

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: glueman
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 06:05 AM

A purist is anyone who sets out to annoy someone. A traditionalist is someone who does it accidentally. A folkie is someone who doesn't notice.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 05:52 AM

Related, almost. Rachel did this guitar thing the other day that reminded me of Tony (TS) McPhee, so I played her Earth Shanty on You Tube and she had to switch it off because I was blubbing like a baby! That's heart, soul, sentiment, landscape and just plain beautiful too... Even the 2 minute mellotron intro!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymbzfOOx8AA

I hope The Unthanks will have it as their by-now obligatory Prog Cover on the next album, then people will start singing it in Folk Clubs, as someone did recently with Sea Song, having never even heard of Robert Wyatt, let alone the mastery of Rock Bottom or the version from the 1974 TRDL concert, which is also something I can't listen to for cracking up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66obirsT8hI

Christ, Dave Stewart's solo is just so - er - pure! Ah, sweet nostalgia... but you can't write Folk Songs about Prog Rock organ solos - or can you? Only write about that which moves you... like Sid (?) from Wigan who sings this amazing thing which he introduces as not a rock 'n' roll song, but a folk song about rock 'n' roll...

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 05:47 AM

I'm not looking for monsters under the bed. I'm wondering if they are there and if they are the type of monster named.

Feel as pissed of as you have a right to be - but if you are saying that you are pissed off at purists, then say what a purist is - or is it just someone, anyone, who pisses you off?

Have you a "right" to do what you do? Why? If you go to a club or singaround don't you find out what is locally acceptable before you strut? Why should you be entitled to offend (if you do)?

Why do you say that "folk" cannot be defined? Is it merely that you don't like the best working definition we have got?

If you'd say something internally consistent or logical it might be easier to find some sympathy for you. Right now it looks like "I'll do what I like, and if you don't like that then you are wrong and so stuff you". About what I'd have expected I suppose.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie or Fluids or whatever
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 05:37 AM

Leveller makes a few good points and I wouldn't wish to disagree, the personal connection thing is what makes a song a folk song. Whether it be a traditional dirge about carrying a ruddy coffin over the North York Moors, Vin Garbutt singing about operating a lathe or a punk band writing a song asking what else there is to live for other than getting your tits off on cheap available drugs. They are all folk songs.

I do like leveller's emphasis on your connection.

My connection with what I think of when people say folk is my experience of the folk scene, same as many others have said. I could also talk of my connections with Rock & pop, having been a musician in that arena and how many songs keep the old nostalgia going. (A pop song from the '70s might relate to an old girlfriend, a rock song might remind me of a great time at a festival, or hearing a bloke I don't know sing a sing at a folk club might take me back to another place I connect that song to.)

That said, I have never written songs about the industry my community was associated with and I worked in. No reason one way or the other, just haven't. By some definitions here, that makes me a consumer not a feature of folk? Reading some of the above, you would have thought so.

For me, the thrust of this thread was perfectly displayed by M'Unlearned Friend four or so posts up. He said that Jim Carroll has every right to be "we" and I therefore don't belong. Mind you, being somebody who has had a smattering of legal training, he slips in the "Irish" bit in order to be technically if not morally right. Funny, I never said otherwise, and Jim's knowledge and expertise is far more than just Irish, (I'd be offended by his comments too if I were you Jim, as you like to sound offended.)

I pointed out that a few users of carbon fibre guitars have had a few snide comments, although Bridge's use of the words envy and lust are new ones to me. One person who said my new guitar doesn't fit in folk clubs had a Fylde, now that I can lust over but cannot justify the cost.

Thanks for sitting there proving my point with just about every post you put M'Unlearned Friend. Just keep looking for the monsters under the bed if I were you. I for one don't need a dictionary or other definition to be pissed off when some precious sod tests my performance against their idea of what it should be. Many have such thoughts in their head I suppose, and the nicer people keep them there. I learn from constructive criticism of my performance, but never from criticisms of my right to do what I do. I use my inbuilt clapometer for that, thank you very much. And I clap vigorously when I pop down to a singaround type club and hear people using the event to sing publicly, which is fun in itself, regardless of whether you have read the 1954 definition of something that cannot be defined.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Banjiman
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 05:28 AM

OK, I see where your heart and soul is. I was worried you'd lost it for a minute!

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 05:10 AM

which immediately made me think of early English translations of the Bible - though not, perhaps, the Psalms.

Whilst I'm a King James man in general, give me Common Prayer for the Psalms every time! In fact, Purcell's setting of the first verse of Psalm 102 is probably the most devasting 2+ minutes (depending on the choir) of music ever written.

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

Just as well he didn't set the rest of it, I doubt I could have coped.

where's your heart and soul man???

I agree with everything the leveller says here; I'd even bring in Kipling's landscapes and continuities - especially The Puck Songs (Puck's Song itself being one of the most definitive celebrations of the human landscape there is), likewise The Land, of course). But sentiment ain't heart nor is it soul, and so much of what I hear these days is mired in a bathos I find quite - inhuman! In Traditional Songs we might weep at the intimate human truths which have a more common resonance - both heart and soul - which is much of the appeal I reckon. Stuff like An Bunnan Bui (not strictly speaking traditional but in Paddy Tunney's translation it takes wings) is hard to sing for the tears.

Funny though - between maybe 1988 and 1996* we had one of the finest singers clubs in the country at The Colpitts in Durham. Not 100% Traditional - regular songs included Andy Barne's The Last of the Great Whales and Harry Robertson's Ballina Whalers. The first is regular folky fair that doesn't move me in the slightest - nice to sing and harmonise on, but even as a lifelong member of Greenpeace I'm indifferent to the emotion of the thing. The second one, however, just tears my heart out. How's that work? Maybe it was just the musical power of the chorus, or the resolute humanity of the thing, but much as I'm gravely concerned about the wales of the world, whenever I hear Last of the Great Wales all I think of is that old cartoon about the opera singing wale (actually, that's quite moving too, used to freak me out as a kid - just watched it now on YouTube & it still does!). But those Weep-All-Ye Folk Songs (The Band Played Waltzing Matilda etc.) leave me cold & they always have; way too obvious; whereas The Plains of Waterloo is a different matter, or Hamish Henderson's Banks of Sicily both of which I had to stop singing because I could never get through them without cracking up.

* 1996 is when Rachel left university to do her nurse training in Lancaster; it was never the same after that somehow. We were back in 2000, but largely absent for five years owing to me giving up smoking (the associations of Sam Smith's OB, Folk Songs and Golden Virginia were too strong) so sadly missed out on The Boden Years. It's always been a good club though, attracting great singers, but at The Colpitts we were all crammed in this tiny old room so the sound was just - transcendant! And there was a cameraderie back then I've never really found in a folk club since... Sniff, sniff... Maybe I should write a song about it?

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 04:14 AM

Surely so few claim to be purists while so many claim to be offended by them, so those claiming to be offended should either provide a definition (or use the existing dictionary definitions and show their applicability).

And indeed those who choose to challenge definitions of "folk" as for example sentimental should show where the sentiment lies in the challenged definition.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: theleveller
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 03:55 AM

...an afterthought: when you say "to me it's a part of something that I remain very wary of, however so seductive (at times) I might find it..." I would agree - you've only to read Machen's The Great God Pan or The Hill of Dreams to see where that can lead. LOL!

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Banjiman
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 03:51 AM

theleveller,

I really wish there was a "like" button on Mudcat. I agree strongly with your middle paragraph.

Suibhne ..... where's your heart and soul man???

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: theleveller
Date: 29 Jun 11 - 03:41 AM

"I guess the first stage of the Folk Process is the removal of both the sentiment and the angenda that might have inspired them in the first place; to remove the individual from the equation and give them a more common heart."

Suibhne, that's a fascinating insight and, as such, I would agree that I come to my music from the opposite end of the spectrum - connection rather than a detachment which immediately made me think of early English translations of the Bible - though not, perhaps, the Psalms. By connection I mean a personal connection with the landscape, the people, the legends and the events of the area where I live and where my family comes from, and a sense of continuity which this brings. Without getting too new-agey, it's what, from my earliest childhood, has produced a visceral excitement that can be intense when I stand in ancient sites, old buildings, woods and even places like abandoned factories, railway sidings and canals; places that have seen profound human interaction that is, to me. actually palpable.

This is the connection that, I think, E M Forster was invoking at the start of Howards End when he says, "Only connect the prose and the passion..." and there is a long literary precedent here, running from Beowulf through Piers Plowman and Willam of Palerne, to Blake and on to Heaney and Hughes. OK, folk it ain't in the purest sense but it is embedded in the human condition and folk memory. Which brings us back to the subject of "purism" - anyone claiming to be a purist must first explain their own definition of what is "pure". It's a fascinating debate but one which, I think, will always be cyclical.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 28 Jun 11 - 04:18 PM

Well, I'd in many cases be tempted to call people doing some things "pretentious", but that's different. It's a criticism widely found in rock as well. I would not criticise (as I have seen) a singer of Indian folk songs who used her I-phone to generate the rather typical drones - it's not a pretension merely a sensible convenience (although a bit quiet beside the traditional drums).

And there are differences between people who have changed words (or tunes or timings) and those who have erred - classic examples being mondegreens which are mistakes (and will get perpetuated if not corrected).

But I really don't think I have seen or heard much of people saying things are "Wrong". I knew one woman who used to tell people how to play the timing of rigs and jeels, but since a stopped clock was in time more often than she people just used to laugh at her. She also used to say that a certain Irish tune was "supposed" to be played in such and such a key, but again people ignored her - not least because she frequently confused the starting note of a melody for its key and did not understand the difference between the start note of a mode and the key of a mode. But she is I think the only person I have ever heard repeatedly tell people they were "wrong".

Ironically there is a right and wrong in much contemporary music, because we still have the original versions and the most popular interpretations to guide us.

However the difference between folk music or song is not one of style, and is not subjective. The best working definition we have is the 1954 definition, and it fits with other concepts of folk arts and folklore so I must disagree with those who say that the concept of "folk music" is a romantic construct. It seems to be well understood in many non-English cultures (including for this purpose Irish Scottish and Welsh as "non-English) so I fail to see why it arouses such hostility in England and the USA.

But having said that, the statement "That is not folk" (whether right or wrong) is not a statement about quality, and it seems to me that it is horse definitioners who take it as such.

I stand where I did. I have not seen a prevalence of this "purism".   I don't like Americana and country and so on, but that is a different question. I don't much like most Irish music either now although once I much admired the Chieftains and saw them several times in big venues, but it's nothing to do with "purism". It's to do with what I do and don't like.

Reverting to Mr Fluids - sorry, but Jim is long since a part (and a pretty expert part but the expertise is not the point) of the Irish folk thing - you ain't (AFAIK). That makes his usage of "our" correct. And the only view I've ever heard about Rainsong carbon fibre (or graphite) guitars, or the top line Ovations with whatever backs and carbon fibre fronts is envy and lust! Yes, I have heard "It's lovely but I'd rather play a guitar" - but that's just a defence mechanism, little different from banjo or bodhran jokes.

It still seems to me that the threat of purism is if not wholly imagined at least seriously exaggerated. If the concept is absolute it has not yet been defined. By the definitions cited the question is what is "excessive" - and we are going round and round the question without getting any closer to an answer, although some who apparently dislike the concept of folk music are doing, it seems, their level best the generate heat rather than light.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: John P
Date: 28 Jun 11 - 03:34 PM

In my mind, there are purists who know what a folk song is, how it was originally done, what the context is, etc. And that's what they like. I love 'em, as long as they don't try to tell others how to play music.

Then there are purists who want to tell you all about it if you are doing it "wrong". Maybe purist isn't the right word for that. Perhaps we need a qualifier, like purist asshole.

So -- I'm a purist in that I want to hear traditional folk music if that's what I've been led to expect. I know the difference, and expect people who claim to be playing it to know the difference as well. I'm not a purist in that I don't care if my trad music is played on 400 year old instruments or electric guitars or whatever, as long as the musicians are any good and believe in what they're playing. Again, I know the difference between historical performance and living tradition and like both.

What I want to know is why are 'non-purists' so sensitive about the possibility of being criticised by 'purists'?

I once played a Bulgarian padushka at the end of the first set. As usual, several members of the audience came up during the break to talk about the music and look at the odd instruments. I was in the middle of a very nice chat with a fellow when a loud and irritated-sounding voice cut in to say, "I hope you don't go around telling people you play Balkan music. That's not how they do it!"

I don't know if sensitive is the right word. Pissed off covers it better.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 28 Jun 11 - 12:54 PM

I must be going round the bend (again.)

I am not sure I or anybody in broad agreement with any stance I put have taunted anybody for their taste in music. If I have told people what they should be listening to, then be buggered if I can find it, (or write it for that matter.)

Jim, you are sounding like an MP who "fights" the closure of his local hospital on the understanding it isn't closing in the first place and he then claims credit for the fact.

Or keeping it to the thread;

1. The thrust of my argument has been live and let live. Hence describing what I see as purists, who certainly don't live and let live. Stop saying I ignored your plea for live and let live. You are confusing it with encouraging debate, (the idea of threads in Mudcat apparently.)

2. I did say dusty archives, but you were the one quoting me out of context. Are you SURE you aren't a politician?

3. My songs and music? Not doing too bad actually. I get a stiffy when I hear others recording and playing them as always, and enough are published that after I am long gone, somebody could still come across them, both in dusty archives or on albums available on err... iTunes as well as CD (even a bit of vinyl here and there, just to show my age...) I don't call them folk, I just note they are played in folk clubs.

4. Dozy bugger, it isn't that I cannot scratch up a decent definition, its my personal view that a definition cannot be scratched up, as the word means it is definitive, and the whole folk ethos is subjective in the first place.

5. I note you put "And if YOU want to debate the various merits of OUR music..." Ah, sat in the bus peering out eh? It isn't your music any more than it is mine mate, despite your archives. I know that is hard to take on board, but by defining something, you infer it has a form and how can it when it means different things to different people?

6. If ever I did wish to snide at other peoples' music, I most certainly wouldn't try to learn about it beforehand. That would spoil the fun and miss the point. Luckily, I for one never would, and I'm not sure I have read of anybody else doing that on this thread. if they are, then they are purists and Hallelujah! between us we will have defined the buggers! Thanks for your help Jim.

Other bits, he says, reading up... Oh yes, M'Unlearned Friend. "I don't think people do do that, do they? Surely this is something that people make up as an accusation against differing views." Not sure what you are saying there and I really would love to give you the benefit of the doubt for once, however.. If it hadn't happened a few times, I wouldn't have put it. Many people on Mudcat have related instances of being made as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit because there was something "unpure" about what they sang.   

Everybody else; So sorry, but you know sometimes it is cathartic to tell the emperor he has no clothes. In order to do so, it is necessary to become a boring idiot yourself, and I apologise. But when it comes to getting low, I'm a lifelong volunteer. Pricking the bubble of pomposity is a wonderful hobby, just turns respectable people off, hence hiding behind this absurd monicker.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 28 Jun 11 - 12:38 PM

I don't think people do do that, do they? Surely this is something that people make up as an accusation against differing views.

As I said earlier, the few times I've encountered self-confessed Purists it was to tell me 1) I was in causing offence by using an electronic Shruti Box, 2) contravening some holy law using a Turkish fiddle for accompanying traditional English folk songs and 3) that I was by using self-looped phrases and drones on a Kaossilator I might as well be using a backing tape. In all three cases they called themselves Purist, and in all three cases they were fecking idiots.

Mercifully such incidences are rare!

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Jun 11 - 11:54 AM

"Yes, but not through dusty archives in buildings",
"(quoting you rather than me)"
Whoops, must be someone else posting under your name; come across that a lot lately.
I think you'll find that archives have changed a lot since the days of the quill pen - at least the ones holding our stuff have.
We archive our material to make it as accessible as we can to anybody interested, for present and future use - any alternatives to offer?
We've issued half a dozen albums of it, and have around the same number of radio programmes of it under our belt; lost count of the talks we've given using our singers and storytellers as examples - festivals, clubs, libraries, schools and colleges - all given a chance to hear English, Irish, Scots, Travellers, fishermen...... singing and talking about their soongs and lives.
How about your songs/music?
Again I remind you, as you seem to have skated over the fact; it is you and your friends here who have chosen to throw your schoolyard taunts at our varying tastes in music - not the other way round, as you have claimed; a sure sign of insecurity I've always found; you seem to have chosen to ignore the "live and let live" request.
Not bad for a bunch who have not been able to scratch up a decent definition or descriptin of folk music between you -
If you want to debate the various merits of our music, bring it on, but please try t raise the level above the misrepresention and name-calling you lowered the discussion to so far.
And if you feel the need to snide at other people's music and tell them what they should be listening to, please try to learn a little about it beforehand.
Jim Carroll
.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 28 Jun 11 - 11:46 AM

"when somebody tells me I am singing something wrong and it shouldn't be like that" - I don't think people do do that, do they? Surely this is something that people make up as an accusation against differing views.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 28 Jun 11 - 11:07 AM

Pop music is a shortening of popular music. if 51% of the public listened to folk music more than any other type, would we have to start calling it pop music? That's the logical conclusion of some of the posts up there...

Prof Child famously called his collection Popular Ballads; it's exactly the same usage that's in Popular=Pop Music. I have books on Popular Art that some would now call Folk Art. Popular as in People not Popular as in Numbers. Pop and Folk - the words are synonymous, yet Folk is driven by a wonky agenda by which some might say otherwise, which is a bit of a shame really but each to their own.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 28 Jun 11 - 11:00 AM

Wow Jim, what a bundle of laughs it must be discussing precious subjects with you. Touchy touchy..

I do respect if not always agree with what you write here in Mudcat so I will seek to clarify and unfortunately disagree yet again.

Dusty archives is a good use of words there Jim, (quoting you rather than me) I reckon the image is a fitting one for recording heritage. There is a huge difference between collecting knowledge on an abstract subject and using that to tell everybody else what it is they enjoy. Sadly, you have form in that regard. You say the vast majority of people do not listen to folk music. Might be true, might not be. A few million listened to Bellowhead on Jools Holland at the New Year and over the next few days, their Hedonism album sold hundreds of thousands of copies. err.. downloads of it did anyway, on iTunes, the media you say has no input to folk. Tell you what, you keep telling us what folk is and most others will enjoy it for what it is, abstract entertainment.

Abstract because all songs are about a subject but you don't have to empathise with the subject to enjoy it. Elton John says the song of his that he is requested to sing most is Daniel. Wonder how many of those know it is about a Vietnam vet who is blinded? When "I don't like Mondays" was in the charts, did it sell because of the tragic story it related, or we were just waiting for Boomtown Rats to release a follow up to "Mary of the Fourth Form" so we could buy it?

Sir Thomas Beecham summed it up far better than I ever could. "The English don't understand music, but they love the noise it makes."

Quite.

I will listen all night to somebody expressing history and context to songs and tunes, I sit there happy as Larry listening to their knowledge. But when somebody tells me I am singing something wrong and it shouldn't be like that, I see a halo over their head with purist written on it. (Ok, the halo says "tedious fucker" but I digress.) There are four people I know of including myself taking carbon fibre guitars to clubs. Chatting, it seems we have all been told the concept doesn't fit in or whatever inane waffle some people come out with. I suppose the next time I want to make a good impression, I should have a thatched roof fitted to my jag before sticking it in the pub car park.

Final thought. There have been a few references to dictionary meanings etc in this thread. Pop music is a shortening of popular music. if 51% of the public listened to folk music more than any other type, would we have to start calling it pop music? That's the logical conclusion of some of the posts up there...

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 28 Jun 11 - 10:46 AM

That's lovely to hear, the leveller - moving too, but my own Folkie concerns aren't with the past at all; at least not that sort of past. I like things of the past, things with provenance and continuity, but I wouldn't actually write of it unless by way of literature or history. In fact - one of the things I love about Traditional Song is their complete lack of any agenda other than their immediate textual jouissance. Like Seinfeld, they aren't about anything - there's no message, no sentiment, much less any nostalgia. Rather they are vivid, immediate, contemporary - and as such their potency remains, by ad large, inimitable. Unlike modern Folk Songs, they don't tell, rather they show; they don't preach, they just are. I guess the first stage of the Folk Process is the removal of both the sentiment and the angenda that might have inspired them in the first place; to remove the individual from the equaion and give them a more common heart. From our perspective, of course such songs are old, even other-worldly, and like other old things they engender a certain urge, a familiar purpose, but personally I wouldn't like to get too close to saying what that was. To some it remains the very essence of Folk, to me it's a part of something that I remain very wary of, however so seductive (at times) I might find it...

*

As a non-Purist Traddy, I seldom write anything in the name of Folk, but occasionally one slips through the net, like the day a couple of years back when my wife and I were watching the North American Tree Porcupines in Blackpool Zoo, all of them looking out very intently to some distant horizon which made us ponder - what are they looking at? We already had the basic outline of the music, so all that remained were the words, which I came up with the following day. It's a song that came out of a personal understanding of certain Traditional Idioms, one that doesn't reference the past per se, yet sings of a common sort of longing I suppose! Just posted an early demo up on Soundcloud, so ignore the strange sounds at the beginning & have a listen HERE.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: theleveller
Date: 28 Jun 11 - 09:53 AM

"I've heard few* new Folk Songs that capture The Spirit of the Old Songs because the living idiom has been lost to us"

My experience has been rather different to yours. I think the thread linking us to the past still exists, but often at a very local (or even family) level and that new songs are emerging from this but they probably won't be heard outside this small niche, nor do they tend to exist in isolation, more as part of memories that are passed on.

I agree with Art Thieme that context is paramount. If you've the patience to bear with me, I'll give you an example which I've quoted before. I used to know an old Yorkshire Wolds farmer who would sometimes come to the first folk club I went to and, as well as telling us about how farming used to be, he loved to sing a version of "We're All Jolly Fellows Who Follow the Plough" that I've never heard since. Incidentally, The Watersons happened to be at the club one evening and were fascinated by the song and asked him to sing it several times (I don't know if they ever performed it themselves). I later asked my grandfather (who had been a ploughboy in the Wolds at the age of 12) if he knew the song and he said he did recall it.

Anyway, years later I wrote a song based on what the old farmer had said about the change from heavy horses to tractors and it starts with a verse of the 'Jolly Fellows' song. This has now been passed on to my folkie-inclined daughter together with the story. Whether it will go any further I don't know. As an aside, we once sang the song in a pub, appropriately called The Chestnut Horse, which happened to be in the very village where my grandfather had gone to school. After we'd finished, a massive, weather-beaten old chap turned round and, with tears in his eyes, said that the song exactly captured his memories of losing the heavy horses on his father's farm, and he asked us to give him a copy of the words.

I think this is a good example of a new song having a resonance and preserving a memory that goes back much further. It's not an isolated example; I know a number of local singer/songwriters who are doing a similar thing with their songs and that's what I would call new folk songs. Maybe one day a collector will chance to hear one of these songs and preserve it – but I doubt it because I suspect the collectors are themselves a dying breed.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 28 Jun 11 - 07:17 AM

Before the days of The Internet when I lived miles in the countryside and spent my leisure time in my study surrounded by old books of tuneless ballads, I would frequently sing them to my own tunes, many of which I still might use. In fact, I might still do this - like The Wife of Usher's Well which I sing to a tune I made up myself, or rather chanelled, subconsciously, mediumistically, which fell under my fingers when free-styling it on the fiddle.

I think The Tradition here is one of Freestyling tunes to old texts in modal idioms which are themselves both ancient and traditional. This depends on how we see the Tradition Idiom operating in terms of genre - I hear many fine new session tunes in English, Irish, Northumbrian, Scots & French trad. idioms, but I've heard few* new Folk Songs that capture The Spirit of the Old Songs because the living idiom has been lost to us. The musical idioms are maybe still there though - I was brought up with Scots and Northumbrian traditional folk music; I'm not saying I'm a master - far from it (though I know a few) but I will say it's in my blood, which is why I do it & love it.

S O'P

* New Folk Songs in the Traditional Idiom that is; Peter Bellamy had a knack of this craft, and others might occasionally hint at it, but what are the efforts of a few grizzled enthusiasts to what was once as much a living musical tradition as Hip-Hop and Dub Step are today?

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: theleveller
Date: 28 Jun 11 - 06:22 AM

Paul, point well made in your usual diplomatic style. Personally, I have no problem with setting a poem to a particular tune, no matter how many times it has been done in the past. Same things goes for using a traditional tune for a new song - how many thousands of times has that been done? If you don't happen to like it, don't listen - and let those who do enjoy it. After all, it's only your opinion.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Jun 11 - 06:11 AM

all the old usual clichés Willie - filing cabinets, dusty archives, purism, forcing it on others.....
Wonder when expressing preferences became "forcing it on others".
It is you and your like who has set out to give offence by attaching nasty little labels - is that not "forcing it on others".
Maybe we should tell the kids over here to try the UK model - that seems to be packing them in, doesn't it?
"what the vast majority of people listen to"
Certainly not folk music - defined or undefined.
"it was a compliment." and no - it wasn't a compliment, certainly when you set it next to "dusty archives".
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Banjiman
Date: 28 Jun 11 - 05:16 AM

Tattie Bogle said:

"I was recently, indirectly, maybe, accused of being a purist because I happened to like the tune to which a certain song had been set, two and a half centuries ago. The accuser had found the lyric in a book of poems and set their own tune to the same lyrics, not knowing that it already was a well-known SONG; not an unpleasant tune by any means but had failed to use this wonderful tool of the internet to find out it if there was already a tune to the same lyric (it could have been found in less than 2 minutes!). Having listened to both versions, I would still unfailingly go with the original as being he better tune: but does this make me a purist, just because I prefer the earlier tune? REALLY?"

I don't think anyone did accuse you of being a "purist". What I saw was an apology and an explanation from the person who set the song to a new tune. Very much a live and let live philosophy and a slight embarrassment that her messing with the tradition upset anyone enough to warrant a discussion on an internet forum!

Paul Arrowsmith

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 28 Jun 11 - 05:07 AM

Surely what you say Sweeney tends to indicate your conjuration of what you see as purism - as I hinted above.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 28 Jun 11 - 05:05 AM

You know Jim, I didn't mean it as a denigration, just as a catch all for the mechanics of what is behind the music, and those who work diligently for it. Bugger me mate, it was a compliment.

However, you did rise to the bait so here goes. You say you are also a singer and audience. Quite. So are 99% of the people here. You spice up your posts with pointing out why you are an authority, with lovely anecdotes, reasoned arguments and always concerning your "filing cabinet" usefulness.

Library of Congress? British Library? Yes, quite true, but back in reality, your scenario assumes folk would carry on. Yes, but not through dusty archives in buildings, but through the medium that 75% (according to PRS) of people use, commercial catalogues such as iTunes, Amazon etc.

The pit to piss in decides what the vast majority of people listen to, so purism such as that comment is denial of the finest form. Don't forget, whilst discussing purism, the idea of I like what I like doesn't enter into it. The complaint seems to be those forcing it on others. Apple Inc. are better qualified at that than you and I. And that is sad.

Turning to dictionaries doesn't help either. if there were one dictionary in one language I might be drawn into such a debate, but they are subjective too. As I have said in these threads for a few years now. Think about folk, think what it is and whatever you decide, that is what it is.

For you anyway.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 28 Jun 11 - 05:02 AM

Suggest you take a look round the shelves of the British Library, Lib. of Cong. et al.

Doesn't that confirm that Folk is (partly) the reserve of Academia - a study of a music rather than a music in itself? This stands in stark contrast to the source of the thing, much less to the feral nature of music as a whole. I suppose Folkies can think of themselves as Purists because of the way this stuff was skimmed and selected and hermetically sealed therafter - entirely removed from its initial context. The taxidermical approach to zoolology is all very well, but tells us nothing of animal behaviours, calls and rituals; much less their tracks in mud and snow. Indeed, it depends on killing them first in order to ensdur their survival - albeit stuffed in a glass case, far removed from their natural habitat.

I'm not wanting a fight here, much less agree with your rather irksome foe, just trying to put some flesh on the bones of the Folk Beast so we might understand IT as a living entity, and not just as a bunch of myths and shibboleths about The Tradition, The Folk Process and the 1954 Definition. Methinks a wee measure of objectivity goes a long way...

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Jun 11 - 04:39 AM

"and his long association with the filing cabinet side of folk prompts him to have such views."
Nice bit of denigration of my position and experience Willie.
And the forty odd years association as audience, singer, organiser ... counts for nothing I suppose - ah well.
itunes - doesn't beat researched and verified information, background information, especially when 'folk' has become a convenient catchall for anything you have no other designation for - sort of like "misc."
A pit to hiss in, little more.
Suggest you take a look round the shelves of the British Library, Lib. of Cong. et al.
Didn't understand the folk for the masses/cw ref. - the situation here is indicative that all musics can exist side by side without schoolyard name-calling, sadly lacking here with displays of intolerance such as this, I'm afraid.
Perhaps we should tell the kids not to bother - waddya think?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 28 Jun 11 - 04:33 AM

Can folk possibly be pure? Can any music be totally pure? Can anything be pure? The whole concept of Purity is complete anathema to the mongrel nature of all things, on all levels.

We may speak of The Pure Drop or of Pure Nard but very few things depend on purity for their quality; even a fine single malt with have been conditioned in a brandy barrel. No indeed, the Purists of this world are those with a deeper agenda of personal inecurity they extend to their politics, music, religion, cuisine etc. Blinkered, and entirely mistaken, one would think...

For whilst many the mountain stream runs sparking and pure from the bubbling source, they all end up in the same heaving ocean eventually.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 28 Jun 11 - 04:12 AM

If anyone would care to look back at the dictionary definitions above only one appears potentially relevant, and because it requires two value judgments, one as to what purity is and the other as to what is excessive, the question of whether there are purists cannot objectively be resolved. I know there are some who assert that the issue of whether something is "folk" or not can be determined by the 1954 definition and indeed I am close to that position although I can see some parts of the definition that might be put in more certain and more modern terms. There may be others who assert that something can only be "folk" if it is done as it used to be done - and I do not agree with them, and indeed I don't think I've ever met any.

But horse definitioners seem to mistake those positions for the assertion that something is ipso facto bad if it is not folk. That, I think, is never in fact asserted.