folk song art song

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 19 Jun 21 - 04:59 AM

like I said, Dick, analysis can be quite interesting, so thanks for that- well done re the busking & you're right, that is the real world with market forces at play- you're an entrepreneur and we sisagreed about that word before but it is NOT an insult! -pubs are certainly not the best place for folk music but as well as Bantry market, it's where the folk are, like it or not.
I'd be pretty sure it was NEVER in the pubs at all in Ireland until the postwar flood of Irish workers to London. Their tradition was based in the kitchen, but bedsit kitchens didn't allow for that, of course- read Reg Hall's classic thesis on the Irish in London! And the pattern set in England drifted back to Ireland & became the norm.

In my time in west Cork 'traditional' type pubs I found that Gershwin's 'Summertime' was probably the most popular song from anyone asked to sing- is that still true?

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Jun 21 - 07:06 AM

Not in my experience.
my most lucrative busking experience generally was killarney race course, but that was the 1990s

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 19 Jun 21 - 04:35 PM

I'm afraid you've kicked me off this conversation, Sandman: your constant picking of fights with all and sundry is very unsavoury, so, like others before me, I'm outa here!

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 20 Jun 21 - 05:22 AM

One of the most enjoyable few minutes I ever enjoyed in a folk club was at the Empress of Russia, in Islington, in the late 70s with Flowers and Frolics. No hangups with this crowd! Nick Havell, the trombonist, and an opera buff, stood up and sang a stirring version of 'La Donna e mobile.
Backed by the band -melodeon, anglo concertiona, banjo, drums & then at the end, Nick sat down and joined in with the trombone for the last run-through.
I don't know if it was folk music or opera, but it was bloody good fun!

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Jun 21 - 07:37 AM

Until now I've been merely reading this thread. Tattie Bogle, I think it's a shame you're butting out. Your sentiments on this are exactly mine. Two things I've said many times before: first, if the way a song or tune is performed in a way you disapprove of, you don't have to listen. Second, and connected, a good, strong tradition in any walk of life, whether classical, folk, dance, theatre or anything else, need never feel threatened by adventurous types who like to experiment or do different things around the edges.

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 Jun 21 - 07:58 AM

i have no problem with experimentation[ i was one of the first people to use clarinet with concertina, over 40 year ago.
I happen to like classical music and also jazz.
But this thread was about folk music and art music,.
So Steve, do you agree that there are differences in classicl music violin styles and Irish tradtional music fiddle styles?
and that classical violinists like Yehudi Menuhin realised that their stylistic clssical violin style was not stylistisically apt for ITM.
Classical violinists have generally very good technique but the bowing styles of ITM ARE QUITE DIFFERENT.
The same applies to singing of classical opera and tradtional songs, none of this takes away from having fun , it is about trying to do a good a job as possible, since when has trying to do a good performance mean that it can not at the same time be fun.

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: GUEST,Derrick
Date: 20 Jun 21 - 12:20 PM

Dick,music is like food in many ways "one mans meat is another man's poison" at the end of the day enjoy what you like and avoid what you don't like. You have made your views very clear repeatedly,your continual beating of your favorite drum is getting at little tedious.

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: GUEST,Jiggers
Date: 20 Jun 21 - 02:12 PM

Why does this thread even exist ? I have learnt nothing. With whom is who arguing ? I have a feeling this was all discussed quite a few years back and led nowhere that time too

Sandman
"your friend might get enjoyment but there are undoubtedly people who stay away because of her and she annoys people with her pig horn, so is she more important than other people"

its a pibgorn, which just means 'hornpipe' in Welsh

I dont think anyone stays away, everyone tends to tolerate other peoples weaknesses to encourage more people to take part. The so called 'experts' just organise separate sessions for themselves if needed, at home or at unadvertised venues, but it reduces them to a much narrower social circle.

Plus all the people in the session get to make fun of my friend and her pibgorn and she just laughs - she rarely plays it, I think she just likes showing it off as it was custom made for her - they are not readily available, so you have to find someone to make them Usually there are enough musicians in the sessions so that she does not ruin anything with her tin whistle either.

Maybe Sandman likes the attention or is bored/lonely. I will not look at this thread anymore, it is a waste of my time, and just raises my ire.

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Jun 21 - 03:08 PM

I don't play the fiddle and know nothing about bowing styles, but I do know that classical violins and folk fiddles are virtually the same thing. We had a fellow join our session who is both an award-winning music teacher and a superb classical violinist. He had severe difficulty in chiming with the rest of us. He was used to learning and playing music from the written note. The concept of chucking in your own ornamentation and variation on the fly didn't sit well with him for a long time, and learning by ear from other session musicians was well outside his comfort zone (he loved it all and rose to the challenge admirably, over time). I think that classically-trained musicians do have the inner resources to adapt to the far more informal ways of folk music, as long as they do what we should all be doing - loving and listening hard to the mores of folk music traditional playing. The one extra thing needed is the motivation.

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 Jun 21 - 04:40 PM

I think that classically-trained musicians do have the inner resources to adapt to the far more informal ways of folk music, as long as they do what we should all be doing - loving and listening hard to the mores of folk music traditional playing. The one extra thing needed is the motivation.
I agree,
    that has been one of my points right from the beginning. if i were to try and play Jazz, not only would i have to learn to improvise well, but i would need to listen and listen to styles and absorb, for example jazz singing is differnt stylistically from unaccompanied traditional uk or irish styles, and different again from opera.

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: Jack Campin
Date: 20 Jun 21 - 05:34 PM

Aggressively dissing the music somebody else appreciates never does anything to get them to like the stuff you do. It's more likely to tell them you're an idiot whose tastes should be ignored.

Probably every single recording Peter Pears made has outsold everything Dick Miles has produced in his entire career. Who's going to be persuaded that all those fans are deluded?

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Jun 21 - 05:59 PM

I've always regarded the folk-song efforts of Peter Pears, Robert Tear, Kathleen Ferrier et al to be absolutely valid. But you absolutely don't have to like them. As for me, I've always appreciated the work of Vaughan Williams in incorporating folk music into his classical style. I find him to be reverential and respectful, as well as imaginative. But that's just me. No-one forces anyone else to listen...

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 20 Jun 21 - 06:09 PM

"but I do know that classical violins and folk fiddles are virtually the same thing" (Steve)...as said just above, the violin is the Italian fiddle; there are many other fiddles in many other lands, such as the erhu fiddle in China, the Mongolian horse-hair fiddle, Sweden's nyckelharpa, etc.

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Jun 21 - 03:48 AM

However Peter Pears was technically a good singer ,a good technician[ WHICH I STATED PREVIOUSLY]
. if i wished to learn blues harmopnica i would listen to Sonny Boy Williamson, Sonny Terry, Little Walter, i would listen and try to absorb their styles, that is showing respect to the genre and roots of the music, my points were Peter Pears has clearly made no attempt to listen to styles of tradtional singers., even though he has is a singer with a good technique.
Yehudi Menhuin a very good classical violinist, however he could not get the hang of ITM.... BECAUSE OF THE BOWING DIFFERENCES, given time to absorb the styles and through listening to the music and because he was a good technician he would have probably been successful, heat least had the humility to accept that
Peter Pears appears to have thought folk music should be sung like classical music,
Neither have i criticised Vaughan Williams arrangements.

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Jun 21 - 04:21 AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gHTw9XjKMc
Jack, since when is popularity any guide as to artistic merit.that was Peter Pears, Here is Cliff Richard singing the water is wide, is his version any better because he has sold more
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0cPOOibDEg

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Jun 21 - 04:59 AM

HERE IS JAMES TAYLOR
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opfEk_Yoksk

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 21 Jun 21 - 05:05 AM

So Peter Pears outsold Dick Miles? The 'Sun' is the best selling newspaper in Britain- come on, that's daft argument!

A regular visitor to the Marsden Inn folk club in the 60s was one Sean Maguire- hugely admired by many folk musicians and a brilliant technician, but I always thought he was an awful player with a total lack of feeling and was a real show-off. I'd go for Bobby Casey or Danny Meehan anytime!
Talking to Ally Bain at a festival around then, the subject came up & I told him I preferred Max Jaffa**- Ally was totally shocked, and disagreed entirely. Haven't seen him for years, but maybe he now knows what I meant?

** for younger readers, he was a prominent parlour/classical violinist f the time, and I didn't like him either

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Jun 21 - 06:23 AM

The Marquis of Douglas, a young man, after being engaged for marriage

with the daughter of one Widow Jack, a taverner at Perth, was wedded at Aba House to Lady Barbara Erskine, daughter of the Earl of Mar.—Lam.

This was an unfortunate marriage for the lady. The marquis, a man of profligate conduct, was subsequently led by his factor, Lowrie of Blackwood (said to have been a rejected suitor of the lady), to suspect his marchioness of infidelity, and they were consequently separated, after she had born him one child. The sorrows of the Marchioness of Douglas were described in a popular ballad of the day, some verses of which constitute the favourite song of Waly, waly!

just a little background info, the woman in this song was not the deceiver as Peter Pears says but the victim.
I like the James Taylor version best of the three clips, but each to their own

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Jun 21 - 06:50 AM

I agree with you Jim, about Bobby Casey Danny Meehan and Sean Maguire

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 21 Jun 21 - 12:05 PM

"Peter Pears appears to have thought folk music should be sung like classical music" (Sandman) - that's folk song to art song which, as above (Date: 17 Jun 21 - 06:19 PM), some just competed with during the Song Prize Final of Cardiff Singer of the World (BBC4) last week.

I wouldn't like to hear folk songs sung and accompanied that way at a folk club or festival but, in their place, quite like such art songs sometimes.

Others in that Cardiff Singer comp sang lieder (often German poetry set to classical music) which seems to have become even more popular since, sadly, Germans turned away from their folk music after it was appropriated by Nazis...two wrongs don't make a right, of course.

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 23 Jun 21 - 04:52 AM

That has to be the first time in some fifty years that I have seen the words terrible and Sean Maguire in the same sentence. The nearest I came to it previously was in a conversation with Nic Jones who, while agreeing his talent, bemoaned that he didn't display any definitive style.
During the seventies Maguire (and Josie Keegan, appeared many times in the North East in the company of the recently deceased Joe Burke so I doubt that he would compromise his talent and reputation by appearing alongside such a terrible player.
The lack of feeling certainly didn't translate itself across to the crowds who packed these North East venues whenever he played there; unless they were all Sun readers too.

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 23 Jun 21 - 05:21 AM

Dave- maybe we can put our varying views on this musician down to taste, and I've never been convinced by arguments best summarised as 'well everyone else liked it', but I'll try & clarify my views.

It's hard to justify a feeling but his virtuosity was to me anathema to the whole ethos of folk music. Partly because he obviously had a high opinion of himself- I heard him murdering his party piece, the 'Mason's Apron' with increasing speed, wildly inappropriate variations, purely for the adulation of his admirers, who seemed to put virtuosity above all else?
I heard him once and it was enough for me. During a lot of the 70s, I was in London, listening to the Irish in Holloway, Fulham & other places, and it was a pleasure to hear the understated, self-effacing and community-based music of Bobby Casey, Jimmy Power, Liam Farrell & Raymond Roland, so maybe we have different ideas of what the music is about?
   I have no wish to turn this into an argument about Sean Maguire, nor have I any idea why great musicians liked to play with him (JohnDoonan was a great admirer) maybe he was a technical challenge?

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: The Sandman
Date: 26 Jun 21 - 01:51 AM

Technique should only be a tool.
Good musicians use technique to show emotion and expession in all genres "of music
"The nearest I came to it previously was in a conversation with Nic Jones who, while agreeing his talent, bemoaned that he didn't display any definitive style."
nic jones was spot on with his remark.

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: The Sandman
Date: 26 Jun 21 - 02:11 AM

I played with the New Mexborough English Concertina Quartet, the music was brass band style music and we included arrangements of tradtional tunes one such was called Beauties of Irelan.,
the music arranged for four concertinas[two trebles baritone and bass, it was still recgonisable as dance music, but it relied on harmony rather than single line ornamentation to provide musical interest.i suppose it was an example of something that could be categorised as both folk and art music, however i would not have expected it if we had turned up at an ITM session to have been tolerated on a regular basis, for one thing the music did not have the ethos of inclusivity that most ITM sessions have, it was four guys playing musical arrangements o n concertinas

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Jun 21 - 05:31 AM

In my opinion, arrangements of traditional Irish music belong in concerts and on recordings. In sessions they would produce the very opposite of the spontaneity that's at the heart and soul of session-playing.

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: The Sandman
Date: 26 Jun 21 - 01:17 PM

yes, that was my point

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 26 Jun 21 - 05:15 PM

"for four concertinas[two trebles baritone and bass" (Sandman)...I've learnt something there - I only knew of Anglo, English and Duet (I've been lucky enough to hear all three at folk clubs and love the homely tones - especially the English concertina).

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: The Sandman
Date: 27 Jun 21 - 03:53 AM

no, they are not differnt systems, they were all english baritone is lower, an octave. bass are single action,plays only oone direction

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 27 Jun 21 - 04:08 AM

is there any reason for the bass being single action? Would doubling the number of reeds make it that much harder to play?

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: The Sandman
Date: 27 Jun 21 - 04:40 AM

i am not sure
it could be size of the instrument large reeds need a bigger frame, spo yes it might be harder because of the size and weight.

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 27 Jun 21 - 05:06 AM

Myself, and I think most, try to sing one line of verse on one breath so, I guess, for accompaniment, the baritone would be extended with each breath, yes..?

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 27 Jun 21 - 05:08 AM

...bass, I mean, sorry.

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: The Sandman
Date: 27 Jun 21 - 05:24 AM

bass normally plays just bass line, the air button has to be used to get bellows in to suitable place[ in other words not so far out you cannot play a note]

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: Long Firm Freddie
Date: 27 Jun 21 - 11:54 AM

For those who haven't already had the immense pleasure of experiencing the New Mexborough Concertina Quartet, here's a link: New Mexborough

I've slightly amended the blurb:

"...with Dick Miles and the New Mexborough English Concertina quartet performing Dick's self-penned Mexborough Memories - a ballad about the Mexborough English Prize Concertina Band from Yorkshire - the film moves to the Suffolk workshop of Steve Dickinson, who makes concertinas under the Wheatstone & Co. brand.

Construction methods including hand-sawn patterning and reed placement are shown, before Dickinson explains the operation of this unique instrument and its use to perform brass band and parlour music. The segment concludes with a parlour performance by the New Mexborough English Concertina Quartet."

LFF

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 27 Jun 21 - 12:58 PM

Enjoyed that, thanks - the tones I like come partly due to each reed being within a closed chamber.

Subject: RE: folk song art song
From: The Sandman
Date: 27 Jun 21 - 05:52 PM

what a way to misspend my youth