Do purists really exist?

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 05:57 AM

Substitute Irish dance tunes for songs above to get to where I prefer (I do other things too) to be.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 06:15 AM

"It seems to me that "The Purists" are the ones who want to stop it. You are not allowed to call it Folk Music if it doesn't fit into their definition."

Weird, isn't it? The people who don't want Folk Music in folk clubs (the 'non-purists') are always stating that the people who like Folk Music, and have the temerity to think that it is the primary reason for the existence of folk clubs (the 'purists'), are stopping the 'non-purists' from doing this and not allowing them to do/think/say the other.

In fact there is no coercion involved - how can a 'purist'like me STOP anyone from doing or saying anything?

But what I can do is to DISAGREE with the 'non-purist' position and I have a perfect right to do so!

As I asked a few posts ago - why are 'non-purists' so sensitive about this issue?

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 06:20 AM

At a time when I did not have an accoustic guitar, I played an electric - a Les Paul Junior I might add, at what was Sutton Folk club back in the 1990s. Some holier than thou prick announced after playing that "we know what an accoustic guitar is here don't we". I managed to stop myself from hitting him.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 06:23 AM

Good! Violence is strictly forbidden at the Sutton Folk Club. ;-D Had you struck him, you might have been banned for life.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 06:41 AM

'Purists' do exist. Someone who prefers to see batsmen score with strokes from the coaching manual (rather than the reverse sweep), who doesn't approve of Shakespeare in modern dress, or insists on hearing classical music played by a small orchestra of period instruments, might be so described. In our world there are folk song enthusiasts who prefer to hear their ballads sung by an unaccompanied voice, and Irish music fans who can't bear guitar accompaniments - and of course they're entitled to those preferences. It gets stickier when we begin announcing that our own personal preference is the 'right way to do it' (elevating personal taste to the status of High Principle is a not uncommon human failing), but 'authenticity' is an elusive beast, and the 'Folk Purist' who goes around ticking people off for performing in an inauthentic manner is a far rarer species than some 'modernisers' here would have us believe.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 07:05 AM

Purist as a term tends to be derogatory.

It's ALWAYS derogatory, and gets used by embittered failures who want to look for a conspiracy to explain why nobody's interested in their music. The reasoning is the same as "Pakis are taking our jobs" and "the Yids control the media".

Trying to identify who is really a purist is like trying to prick witches or list the Elders of Zion.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 07:12 AM

But it's fun, which should be the main criteria for making music!!

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 07:43 AM

I would have though a Les Paul would make a far better instrument for accompanying Folk Songs than an acoustic guitar. I often use my wife's Daisy Rock Purple Heart which has a similiar feel to my old CSL Les Paul copy (1976?), which I never used for folk. Hooked up through various sustain, distortions and echoes you can create a fine wash of melodic drones over which any ballad is just pefecto! Using the Daevid Allen / Gong glissando techique (originated by Syd Barrett) it's even better. Thing us, I know if I did this in even the most liberal of Designated Folk Contexts I'd be looked at askance and whispered at behind by back. These days more for daring to sing Ballads and Traditional Songs than my choice of accompaniment, alas...

Regarding Brian's post - I have no understanding or love of cricket, and only an A-level residue of Shakespeare, but when it comes to Period Instrument Classical / Early Music I listen to little else around the house. I do accept, however, that Purcell can sound nice on modern instruments and the Naxos CDs of Albinoni Oboe Concerti are divine. I'm a big fan of Sarah Francis too, who used a modern instrument on her superlative renderings of Baroque sonatas, though to hear (say) Paul Goodwin covering the same material on his period oboe is utterly stunning.

As Crowley said after a visit to his local Folk Club: Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: The Sandman
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 08:23 AM

musical boundaries do exist, jazz is defined by improvisation, that is a pretty elastic boundary, but it does not include this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_PoPY-mDpA
likewise this is folk music.http://www.youtube.com/user/dickmilesmusic#p/u/12/YytajAIlJ2w as is thishttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-GN-BP_Qlk

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Folknacious
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 08:52 AM

It gets stickier when we begin announcing that our own personal preference is the 'right way to do it' . . . the 'Folk Purist' who goes around ticking people off for performing in an inauthentic manner is a far rarer species than some 'modernisers' here would have us believe.

Yes, that all has the ring of truth. So for "purist" you could perhaps substitute something more precise, like "egotist bigot". Referring back to my original query, though, I can't see many journalists adopting "the egotist bigots will probably hate it" as a cliche. So "purist" has become a default catch-all for lazy hacks then?

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Folknacious
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 08:55 AM

musical boundaries do exist

Far more in calculated revivals, academic circles and outsider-adoption than in actual unmolested living traditions, I suspect.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Silas
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 09:18 AM

"I would have though a Les Paul would make a far better instrument for accompanying Folk Songs than an acoustic guitar."

Well, two things here - firstly, you are going to need somewhere to plug it in! Jim Morays first ever Bromyard Festival Gig found him in a room without a single power point - not a lot of use to a musician who is renowned for some hi-tec effects! Secondly, many folk guitarists use a percussive style for some of their accompaniment, not altogether easy on an electric guitar. Thirdly, I hate electric guitars, which is all the reason I need of course.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: The Sandman
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 09:19 AM

do all the suspecting you want, however it is a fact, granted some music crosses over boundaries, but boundaries do exist.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 09:38 AM

"[The term purist is] ALWAYS derogatory, and gets used by embittered failures who want to look for a conspiracy to explain why nobody's interested in their music."

I suspect there's some truth in this. I've lost count of the number of times that a lad with a guitar, or group of lads with guitars, have turned up at my local folk club or singaround and sung a floor spot, or taken a turn, and then disappear, never to be seen again (often directly after they've done their bit). They are usually treated politely and their performances met with the usual ripple of applause (I've never known any fiendish purists to be mean to them). Usually they sing self-penned compositions that have little to do with Folk Music ("We do acoustic stuff - that's folk music, innit?"). I think that we never see them again because they're not greeted with the wild adulation that they think that they deserve and no-one rushes to offer them lucrative gigs.

Then again perhaps we don't see them again because Bert has chosen that night to mumble, moan and groan his way through a 20 verse ballad that he 'learned' (i.e. copied down the words in an exercise book) from a June Tabor CD.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 09:40 AM

"So "purist" has become a default catch-all for lazy hacks then?"

Lazy hacks are some of the worst offenders in bandying 'purist' about, particularly the writers of promo puffs desperate to convince us that their act is new and exciting, and constitutes a sorely-needed antidote to all that dreadful old-fashioned stuff that went before. I am just now reviewing a CD of Zydeco music in which the blurb talks about the artist "dragging [Zydeco] by the scruff of the neck into the 21st century". Another classic cliche, of course, but Zydeco?? A music that's embraced change so enthusiastically over many decades? The joke in this case is that "dragging it into the 21st century" apparently involves smearing it all over with 1970s Chris Spedding-style electric guitar licks.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Bert
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 12:47 PM

..Then again perhaps we don't see them again because Bert has chosen that night to mumble, moan and groan his way through a 20 verse ballad that he 'learned' (i.e. copied down the words in an exercise book) from a June Tabor CD...

LOL Shimrod. OK hands up Mudcatters! Who has ever heard Bert sing a ballad. Except maybe The Ballad of Bethnal Green. Or for that matter mumble, moan or groan a song.

The purists who try to stop people are like that Guy at The Philadelphia Folk Song gang who told me that I sang "The Barley Mow" wrong. I guess the ignorant fellow had never heard that there is more that one traditional version of that song. And I learned that song years before anyone had heard of June Tabor.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 12:47 PM

Chris Spedding was a very fine guitarist.

But surely it is pretty rare for "purists" to try to stop people doing impure things in folk clubs or singarounds - whether the impure things are arrangements of folk songs, folk songs done so that they do not sound like folk songs, or things that are supposed to sound a bit like folk songs, or blues or ragtime (much of which does fit the definition of folks song) or country or new country or country and western (which mostly don't).

However, even if "Gallows Pole" is a folk song, singing it does not make Mr Page (another excellent guitarist) a folksinger, although it might make him a folksong singer. Contrariwise the Led Zep reggae satire "D'yer Make 'er" while sort of reggae style proved beyond doubt that they could not play reggae worth a damn!

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 01:04 PM

Secondly, many folk guitarists use a percussive style for some of their accompaniment, not altogether easy on an electric guitar.

Exactly, which is why I prefer the electric guitar played as pure noise in the manner I described earlier. The Folk Revival has its own Conventions, which is only natural but none of them relate to The Tradition per se. In Folk Clubs I mostly use fiddle / kemence and electro shruti box these days; if we've got an amp around I'll augment the drone with a few random modal-loops on the Kaossilator (like THIS - Childe Owlett, which I learned by osmosis from a session we did with Sally Bee).

*

Purism seems to afflict those who have been drawn into the Religiosity of Folk; those who are looking for rules, relulations, meaning and belonging. Maybe they're religious too, unable to cope with the beauteous randomness and perfect common chaos of reality.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 01:05 PM

"Chris Spedding was a very fine guitarist."

Indeed. I was a big fan. Just trying to give you a flavour of the recording in question.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 01:13 PM

I would be happier if I knew what a "purist" was in the present context although I fear any reply might be circular.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 01:21 PM

I would be happier if I knew what a "purist" was in the present context

In my experience Purist is a) something people of little knowledge call themselves b) something people of maybe less knowledge call me. The truly learned wouldn't stoop so low.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 01:26 PM

Sorry, Bert! I was, of course, referring to a fictional 'Bert' wot I just made up ...

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Bert
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 01:30 PM

It was funny though.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 01:36 PM

Do people apply the same kind of criteria when it comes to food?

For example, would it be unreasonable to expect that the menu in an Indian restaurant should prfereably not be dominated by dishes such as shepherds pie or chicken chow mein? Even if these are dishes you might very much enjoy.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: The Sandman
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 02:07 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrwfuveekG0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrwfuveekG0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFpqDo-vNN0the second version clearly learned from christy moore, it makes the same mistakes in the lyrics, which means it doesnt make sense.
I am a purist when it comes to story songs making sense.
this is the version that makes sense
To work his twa best horses,
Cart or harrow or plough,
Or anything aboot fairm work
I very well could do.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 02:07 PM

Ah, but what IS chicken Chow Mein?

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 02:08 PM

I suspect that the "purist" bugaboo first appeared defensively and self-righteously in the liner notes accompanying self-described "folk" groups of ca1960 who were clearly "pop" (or at least "semi-pop") groups.

If they were responding to anything but their own consciences, it may have been to perfectly appropriate criticism by academics that their lyrics, arrangements, and performances seriously misrepresented tradition even while their publicists proclaimed to the masses that they were delivering "the real McCoy."

I can think of a few names but won't mention any.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 02:40 PM

"Do people apply the same kind of criteria when it comes to food?"
Do you mean if they go into a shop and ask for potatoes, do they go out happy if they are handed bananas and are told it's ok as long as you "enjoy" them - I don't know many.
Nice analogy with the "Indian restuarant".
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 04:00 PM

OED

(1) one who aims at affects or insists upon scrupulous or excessive purity, esp in language or style: a stickler for purity or correctness.

(2) one who maintained that the new Testament was written in pure Greek.

An illustration from Hazlitt's lectures in 1820. Italians who scrupled to use any word or phrase not to be found in Cicero.


In many cases this cannot apply to a folk singer or folksong singer since we know that the ipsissima verba or "ORIGINAL TEXT" is not to be found.

It would seem to be the case that many including me who arrange the style of folk songs are also not purists.

I wonder indeed who is.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: goatfell
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 04:26 PM

yes because most of them come on to this site

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 04:44 PM

Somewhere, maybe at 76 The Larches in Penge, Mr Wilson is following his recipe book to the letter in the sincere belief he is making Genuine Chinese Cuisine, whilst next door at number 74, freegan Dan is freestyling with a bunch of vegetables he's rescued from the bins of the local green grocer. Mr Wilson is a Purist Food Pedant who produces turgid mush resulting from his obsessions with being Authentic; Dan just loves good food, each dish is as unique as it is exhilerating, and he's never looked at a recipe book in his life, he's just eaten with his friends, living, loving and learning by way of everyday pragmatics.

Of course when we go to a Chinese Restaurant we're dealing with a living tradition of cultural cuisine on a very different level to the effirts of Mr Wilson. That said, at my favourite Chinese Restaurant and Buffet (China Pa-Pa in Preston where we treat ourselves once every three months) you will find all sorts of Western and Oriental cuisene catering for all tastes. They even have fried fish and near perfect chips! Such are the pragmatics of life in a multi-cultural society.

One wonders how much of this echoes the Folk Cuisine of Chinese kitchens, the things people are eating on a day to day basis; we often prowl the markets of our multi-cultural England; we love the Polish shops, the Chinese supermarkets etc. which all contribute to a greater cultural context. Essential attributes of England, which comes down to the individuals involved and forever on the move. It's a wonderful world, with no room for the pedantic purist.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 04:47 PM

That depends, dear Sweeney, on who the alleged purists are, and what they do and say. Adding pedantry to the list of charges (or accolades) illuminates not a whit.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 05:37 PM

Indeed ~~ am I a 'pedantic purist', I wonder? I have been accused of 'purism' in my days of writing a regular Folk Review column in which I would occasionally lament the fact that not that much folk music [by any reasonable definition] was to be heard in quite a few 'folk' clubs; and, as I have related before, a friend posted on another forum that I frequent, "MtheGM, your pedantry is legendary".   

But, now, do these two separate and discrete observations make me a 'pedantic purist'?

It would not be seemly for an alleged purist, and an alleged pedant, like me to answer, I suspect...

~M~

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 06:00 PM

And then he pulls others up for grammar...

I'm not sure the chinese, indian or potato shop comparison helps here.

You know what you want and whilst delighted if it is slightly different, a chow mein is something you know even if the word is apparently just Cantonese for scraps.

Folk means something different to me, you, M'Unlearned friend, (not fair really, I am finding his medication is working as I keep ruddy well agreeing with some of what he says, only some mind...) and our take, based on mainly nostalgia shapes what we like. Now.. Like many "movements" it is evolving and some may not like that. Fine, but it doesn't mean you are right and others are wrong.

Jimmy Page is indeed a fine guitarist and when Led Zeppelin were playing traditional song it would not be easy to say they weren't a folk act during that song, especially if Sandy Denny was up there with them. If D'yerMake 'er sounds like reggae then they may not have been Bob Marley but playing reggae beats makes it as much a reggae song as a rock song. After all, they are all ways to describe a musical set of sounds designed to appeal to a certain audience.

One way to bugger up this discussion is to see how iTunes guesses genre.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 06:16 PM

Dear Fluids, if you don't wince at LZ's attempt at reggae then you have no ears. I DJ'd reggae for some years. Apart from that, keep taking the tablets, you may be finding some of them beneficial.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 06:48 PM

I reiterate: it's not just the one time I have been derided as a Purist, though never, God forbid, as a Pedant.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,livelylass
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 06:48 PM

"Like many "movements" it is evolving"

It is? Me, I'd say it isn't - possibly because the 'young turks' or 'heretics' (aka nicely established thirty somethings with equally nice young families) are too busy making nice music that appeals to a demographic which is virtually twice their age to worry about *seriously* jangling the nerves of hard-core traddies.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Jun 11 - 08:44 PM

"*seriously* jangling the nerves of hard-core traddies."
A slight practical problem with all this.
I'm a Brit who, after attending, singing at and helping organise folk clubs in Manchester and London as far back as the early 60s and who started recording traditional singers in Britain and Ireland nearly 40 years ago, finally moving to the West Coast of Ireland about thirteen years ago.
Around the time my wife and I started, apart from a handful of elderly singers and musicians, the music was very much on the wane - musicians who turned up at bars with their instruments were shown the door, the media took the piss and described traditional music as "diddly di" and airspace was virtually non existant..... it was about to die out with the older generation.
A handful of stalwarts got together and decided to put it on the map - not the erzatz navel-gazing, guitar-scratching bollocks you will find in many folk clubs in the UK, but the real thing.
The Irish Traditional Music Archive was set up in Dublin, giving Ireland the two finest traditional music centres in Europe.
Here in the West locals started a week-long traditional music school dedicated to recently deceased piper, Willie Clancy; not long after that other locations in Ireland began to hold song and music weekends dedicated to singers and musicians who had passed on.... the situation was turned around completely.
Youngsters flocked to traditional music, sitting at the feet of the old-timers who passed on the skills, tunes, understanding and love of traditional music to youngsters who were anxious to listen and learn.
Last St Patrick's day in this rather remote one-street town in the arsehole of nowhere we had over 100 young people, from primary school age up to late teens on the local parade playing traditional music on fiddles, pipes, concertinas, flutes (not a bodhran in sight tbtg!!). We have produced 3 TG4 (an Irish language television station award) 'Musician of the Year' winners. Now we have the grandchildren of the old generation of musicians we were recording back in the early 70s playing the music, some to world class standard.
In the academic field, up to the recent financial crash art organisatons were throwing government money at us; applying for a grant was pushing on an open door - we received a award a couple of years ago to transcribe the Irish Traveller song tunes we had collected in London. Local traditional music centres have begun to spring up; by the end of the year we will have established one here on the West coast with a huge archive, a library, a teaching facility, regular albums of local music, and a building in the town to house it.
We can turn the radio and television on most nights of the week and get programmes dedicated to traditional music and song: art programmes, discussions, live sessions and archival material, local nd national.
Traditional music has been guaranteed a lease of life here for at least another two generations, not by slavishly emulationg the pop scene to the extent that one has become indistinguishable from the other, nor by wingeing that "we don't know what folk music is so we'll play what we fancy and call it folk", but by making the older styles and materials relevant to modern life - plenty of room for experimentation, but not at the expense of the traditional stuff.
When I read my way through smug and uninformed threads like this, and when I remember all the clubs in the UK where, with about a dozen other folkies, I've sat though some tone-deaf prat trying, and often failing, to tune his guitar, and finally not bothering because it was "near enough folk folk music", then intoning (and probably forgetting) some self-penned piece which may have meant something to him but..... I wonder if I've missed something - is the folk scene so great in Britain that you can all afford to sit back and snide at those who take their music seriously, and enjoy it all the more for having done so?
My memories of what the British scene was like and the picture I get of what I'm likely to find in all but a few dedicated clubs, and compare it to any one of the 4/5 high standard sessions I can go along to every week in this town inclines me to say "You show me yours and I'll show you mine".
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 01:14 AM

Maybe they're religious too, unable to cope with the beauteous randomness and perfect common chaos of reality.

Not sure why you need to have to drag religion in to this but that aside,

I can't think of anywhere I've been more than once that is like that. Participants tend to sit in the same places. Regulars generally know what is "in keeping" and what isn't for the event. In a session, if someone starts a tune, others will take this as a cue to join in. A "random chaotic" happening of someone striking up a tune when another one was playing would (unless the "culprit hadn't heard it) be considered rudeness. No one is likely to repeat a song or tune that has already been done, etc.

Of course there may be no written rules but rather than random chaos, I would suggest there is a fair degree of social interaction and understanding,

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 01:52 AM

I'm a "purist" and I don't care....


Telecaster... Class A Valve Amp.. Greenback Speakers.. Treble booster.. Germanium Fuzz Box.. Slap Back Echo

trad folk song.. go man go..!!!!

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: theleveller
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 03:25 AM

""I think you'll find that should Spens, by the way"
Purist!
Jim Carroll "


LOL!

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 03:32 AM

Bugger purism!

M'Unlearned Friend used to DJ reggae???

Nurse!   I need more medication, this is getting surreal!

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 03:52 AM

"I want folk clubs to thrive, and a full club of the same people who were there thirty years ago isn't thriving, it is perpetuating, and that has a shelf life"...

I doubt this has anything to do with "purism" versus "top quality light entertainment" or whatever the simplistic reading of a somewhat more complex and three dimensional (thank god!) real world is on this, the latest version of an ancient thread topic. I suspect that it has more to do with a popular 1960s/1970s hobby remaining the preserve, largely, of the faithful remnants its original generations of hobbyists (cf other popular pastimes of the seventies that are now seen as a bit quaint and odd). Young people, whoever they are, do their own thing - just like you lot probably did yours.

Nice to see the ever popular folk devil/bogeyman, the singing social worker, rear his maligned head a couple of times in this thread as an example of all that's wrong with folk clubs. Using that honourable profession in such a way is almost becoming, y'know, a tradition.

PS - Shimmy - I think you're overthinking the issue of the youngsters who turn up once at the singaround and never come back. It's almost certainly a case of "Shit! Wrong sort of event for me!" rather than a fit of pique about lack of interest. In fact, not coming back is actually very respectful....

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: theleveller
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 04:20 AM

Folk music is like Oscar Wilde's comment on the truth - rarely pure and never simple. And all the better for that!

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 04:28 AM

"Dan just loves good food, each dish is as unique as it is exhilerating, and he's never looked at a recipe book in his life, he's just eaten with his friends, living, loving and learning by way of everyday pragmatics."

"Everyday pragmatics" may work in some situations - like cooking, for example, but I know that it doesn't work in others. In my previous life I was responsible for devising and writing test methods which were then used by the whole company - both at home and abroad. I based these methods on the laws of experimental design and statistics and each one was thoroughly checked out before I published it. Unfortunately, I had one colleague who believed in "everyday pragmatics" and used to write his own test methods - which he never bothered to check out and which gave wrong and misleading answers. This caused absolute havoc - until he was eventually fired.

In the course of my life I have encountered many people who think that their 'creativity' and 'natural superiority' entitles them to ignore precedent and to make it up as they go along. Sadly very few of them really have what it takes to completely ignore the work and thought of those that came before them. Truly creative people are well aware of precedent, for example even the mighty Isaac Newton "stood on the shoulders of giants"!

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 04:47 AM

I hear what you are saying spleen cringe, it is a hobby and as such, people have expectations over it. I do think that as such it is a fair debating aspect of "purist" all the same.

Ah but... social workers... Now then, there's a tale. I started at a club in the late '70s and like many miners in the folk scene then, I was bemused by people from other professions singing about how hard I worked. Flattered really, as I thought I was a lazy bugger at best of times.

Social workers have always been well represented in the folk world hence being used as a metaphor for "most people." No, the bad bit about such stereotyping is the ridiculous comments I have had to put up with on these pages by people who, once you volunteer the fact (in context to a debate) that you may be, as in my case, a businessman, comfortable from a financial view and not wanting a workers' revolution, you get told you have no place in the folk world.

Now THAT is purism. Of the most odious variety.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 04:59 AM

Adding pedantry to the list of charges (or accolades) illuminates not a whit.

Purism is a Pedantry; and like Pedantry it doesn't apprecaiate the way these things work. Purism might only thrive in a guarded situation of contrivance which much of The Folk Revival embodies by way of genuine passion (of course) but as the saying goes - the more you know, the more you don't know. Thus, Purism becomes unfounded reactionary claptrap that flies in the face of the nature of the thing itself, much less its broader cultural context.

When I was questioned for playing a Turkish Fiddle on an English Folk Song by a Guitarist, I could see the Holy Spirit blazing in his eyes; and he was a booked guest at a festival!

As for Religion - a Religious believer is a Purist Pedant who feels they are right and others are wrong. I meet Folkies who only ever listen to Folk, though few of them are self-confessed Purists. The Purists of my experience appear to be of the opinion that Folk is a Morally Superior Musical Philosophy. They are the Baptised but the woefully under-read. But whilst out & out purists are rare, that Ritual Religiosity isn't at all uncommon in Folk - nor is it to be (overly) scoffed at.

There are, and always have been, great things afoot in Folk, but it still feels pretty Cultish - be it in terms of its Doctrines, Orthoxies, Rites, Rituals, Heresies (I'm being careful not to use the word Traditions here) and the near deification of its celebrities. Mostly though, I suppose it's the curious absense from The Real World that makes Folk a religion; or Academic Theology; a world within a world with a very specific appeal. I must confess, that's why it appeals to me - at least the Folk Part of me...

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 05:09 AM

Yep. The pub (known as "Arry's" it's real name was the Blue - er something) shut long since, but when I used to DJ there (and I DID have the biggest subs in town, and, as tradition required a monstrous valve amp with rows of glowing bottles) it was almost all skin'ed until about closing time and then the West Indian seamen off the ships that tied up in Rochester used to start drifting in and the ladies of the night. There was another DJ up the other end of town (Graham) who had bigger audiences than me but I had the hardest skins and a bigger proportion of West Indians which gave me good bragging rights: a matter of some value when I was a hippy working in a reggae club!


I'm not a manual worker (or farm labourer) either, and I don't seek to exclude all bar those from folk clubs or folk music but I know where the music's roots are and I know right from wrong.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Bert
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 06:11 AM

...then intoning...some self-penned piece which may have meant something to him but..... I wonder if I've missed something...

Yup you sure did. You missed the fact that when most of us started, we couldn't sing worth a damn.

You missed the fact that most of the singers who were collected a hundred or so years ago started like that.

You missed the fact that all traditional songs were once self penned pieces.

You missed the fact that if we don't listen to new self penned pieces then the tradition will certainly die.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Colin Randall
Date: 27 Jun 11 - 06:26 AM

... this thread hasn't done badly for a question that prompted Good Soldier Schweik
to ask a fair while back: "Who cares apart from Folknacious?"