Degree in folk music

Subject: Degree in folk music
From: Michael in Swansea
Date: 20 Nov 00 - 08:31 AM

What do you make of this from last Saturday's Daily Telegraph teenagers section? (Okay, it's been quite a while since I was a teenager).

"Famous fiddle and pipe players will be hired to teach England's first degree in folk music when it is launched at Newcastle University next year. Students will study traditional music from around Britain and receive intensive instrumental tuition"

Mike

Subject: RE: Degree in folk music
From: Allan C.
Date: 20 Nov 00 - 08:53 AM

Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.

Just a guess.

Kidding, actually.

I am hoping this is for real. I think it is high time for such a thing. Some few enlightened colleges in the USA offer quite a variety of courses in folk stuff; but I am not aware of the availability of any degree programs.

Subject: RE: Degree in folk music
From: Michael in Swansea
Date: 20 Nov 00 - 09:02 AM

Those who can do....etc
Why didn't I think of that?*GRIN*

Mike

Subject: RE: Degree in folk music
From: catspaw49
Date: 20 Nov 00 - 09:12 AM

....And those who can't teach become administrators.

Just a joke gang. The old teaching line Allan used is often true, but there ARE some outstanding teachers out there who are also tops in their chosen field. Teaching is an art within itself and although the "science" of teaching is taught in 1000's of colleges, most people never truly develop the art. Perhaps its a certain type of "gift," but I have also found that those who teach a specialty which they worked in, such as vocational teachers, are often "gifted" more than others. This makes me think that perhaps the "gift" is the experience and passion and joy they received through the doing and are now passing on that passion for life to their students.

Just a thought.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Degree in folk music
From: IanS
Date: 20 Nov 00 - 10:16 AM

Personally I am a little unsure on the merits of such a course for traditional musicians in the present UK higher education system. Does this mean that the students from this course will graduate onto the UK job market with the usual several thousand pound student debt and just the ability to play the fiddle or pipes (albeit very well)? Only yesterday I was reading about the record number of graduates now being forced into previously non-graduate clerical jobs because of the number of media studies type graduates now on the market. There are many examples of players such as Eileen Ivers (mathematics graduate) and Charlie Lennon (physics gradute) who are amongst the highest regarded players who have achieved success without a higher education music course and with the security of a profession behind them.

Ian S

Subject: RE: Degree in folk music
From: okthen
Date: 20 Nov 00 - 10:34 AM

The late Royston Wood (Young Tradition) did a 3 year course in teaching (I believe it was in folk music) at St. Osyth training college Essex UK. 600 female students 5 male. He did the full 3 years.

Same college in'66 had a folk club, and I took Barry Dransfield to a gig there, 6 ladies in the entire audience, one of whom was knitting. The organiser asked if he would mind accepting œ15 instead of his normal œ5 fee as they were trying to use up the grant money, so as to get the same amount the next year.......he accepted

cheers

bill

Subject: RE: Degree in folk music
From: nutty
Date: 20 Nov 00 - 11:22 AM

I believe that the Music Degree course at Wakefield UK has allowed its students to study Folk Music for some time

Subject: RE: Degree in folk music
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 20 Nov 00 - 11:34 AM

Run Toto run, don't let the academicians get you!!!

I learned the hard way NEVER to study in an academic setting anything that I truly cared about. Academe isn't about passion, it is about things academic.

Here in the US, it seems to me that the one thing which music programs in the schools do best is kill any interest in music that the students bring with them. All the "folkie" musicians I know are such in spite of, not because of their experiences with school music programs. All of them would be at a loss to find any connection between what they are now doing musically and anything they experienced in school.

Subject: RE: Degree in folk music
From: GUEST,Matt
Date: 20 Nov 00 - 11:45 AM

Russ, more than half the stuff I love, I learned in college only a few years back. I will NEVER regret it. Maybe your teachers were like drill instrucxtors BACK IN THE DAY but it's a lot different now.

Subject: RE: Degree in folk music
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 20 Nov 00 - 01:21 PM

Matt, you got it backwards. You are talking learning then loving. I too, first learned about certain stuff in college that I came to love. I am talking about loving then learning. You go into a course, already having developed a love of the topic on your own. That, in my experience, is a recipe for disappointment.

By the way, how far back do you think I go?

Subject: RE: Degree in folk music
From: Bagpuss
Date: 20 Nov 00 - 01:49 PM

I've known about this for some time. I think it's a Folkworks initiative, and that the tutors are mainly people involved in that organisation. I think its a good thing - its a shame that when you study music at degree level, it pretty much has to be classical or nothing. I believe that this course will have entry requirements similar to other music degree courses, but that other experience in folk music will be taken into account.

Bagpuss

Subject: RE: Degree in folk music
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 20 Nov 00 - 01:53 PM

When I was, through bad judgment, a student at the College of Education (I thought I wanted to be an art teacher) at the University of Minnesota, in the late 40s, the saying among the students was:

"Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach, Those who can't teach, teach teachers!"

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Degree in folk music
From: nutty
Date: 20 Nov 00 - 05:40 PM

I can take that further Dave

I was taught

He who can...does He who can't...teaches He who can't teach.....teaches teachers He who can't teach teachers....does educational research

Subject: RE: Degree in folk music
From: Alice
Date: 20 Nov 00 - 08:02 PM

Joe Heaney taught sean nós singing at the University of Washington. You can read about it here: Joe Heaney - click here I wish that I could have studied with him there.

Subject: RE: Degree in folk music
From: Iarf
Date: 20 Nov 00 - 09:03 PM

Ockthen....Barry Dransfield from "Robin and Barry Dransfield". Where is (are) he (they) now?. I remember their version of "Just as the Tide was Flowing".... Mind you I was only two at the time.... Iarf ...(with an age problem).

Subject: RE: Degree in folk music
From: John Routledge
Date: 20 Nov 00 - 09:36 PM

The Degree Course was initiated in response to representations/pressure from Folkworks as indicated by Bagpuss.

If any course involving serious study can allow the "student" to retain their love and enjoyment of folk music this should be it. G.Broon

Subject: RE: Degree in folk music
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 20 Nov 00 - 11:01 PM

To be fair to the teachers, it is also true that many who "can do" do not understand what they do sufficiently well to be able to teach anybody else how to do it; teaching, like most skills, generally has to be learnt.  It has been possible to take higher degrees in folkmusic-related subjects for some time, but this does seem to be the first B.A. level course on offer in England (Scotland and Ireland are a different matter), though a similar course has been planned for some time at Barnsley College; regrettably, we don't yet have the muscle with the Arts Council and other grant-awarding bodies here in Yorkshire that Folkworks have so assiduously cultivated a little further north.

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Degree in folk music
From: Hotspur
Date: 20 Nov 00 - 11:36 PM

Allan C, Not true! Carnegie-Mellon University, in Pittsburgh, offers a B.A. in Bagpiping. Honest!

Subject: RE: Degree in folk music
From: Lena
Date: 21 Nov 00 - 03:40 AM

Already active in other countries.

Subject: RE: Degree in folk music
From: Michael in Swansea
Date: 21 Nov 00 - 04:11 AM

Thanks to everyone for their views. Yesterday afternoon, out of curiosity, I e-mailed Newcastle Uni for details. No reply as yet, but then again it's only 10 past 9

Mike

Subject: RE: Degree in folk music
From: GeorgeH
Date: 21 Nov 00 - 06:57 AM

Bagpus has it right . . It's a wonderful development, long overdue (there are already similar courses in Scotland). It's the sort of thing which could miss the point entirely, but the Folkworks involvement should ensure that doesn't happen.

To ask whether you need to take a degree course to be a part of Folk Music is to approach things arse-about-face; the question is whether the traditional music of England (and elsewhere) is worthy of degree-level study - which of course (IMO) it is. And so much better that such study should incorporate performance; I find the too-frequent separation of "folk study" from the music/performance they're supposed to be studying somewhat depressing.

G.

Subject: RE: Degree in folk music
From: selby
Date: 21 Nov 00 - 09:24 AM

Long overdue and to everyone that enrols success.It is in my opinion worth pointing out that just because you do a degree in any subject means that you follow that subject to the end. A degree proves you have the ability to study, collect & collate information.I work in the UK power industry and at one time we had a planing engineer who had a degree in french not a degree in planing. Keith

Subject: RE: Degree in folk music
From: GUEST,J.Custer McCarthy
Date: 21 Nov 00 - 12:10 PM

I once attended college, as a psych major...and spent my non-musical life working in engineering. The best thing I learned in college was to be a perpetual student. I am still learning, especially my first love, music. But besides studying a subject that you love, what can you do with a degree in folk music?? College is so expensive, and an education should not be frivolous. I took some courses in theory, and it helped a lot. Maybe arranging, I don't know. Although having a sheepskin might indicate 'sticking to the end', there is no end to the subject of folk music. Or any other style of music. Thank God for that, too. I may be getting old(er), but my interest is still young! :)

Subject: RE: Degree in folk music
From:
Date: 22 Nov 00 - 08:34 AM

Here's the Folkworks announcemnt on their website

http://www.folkworks.co.uk/

DEGREE COURSE IN FOLK AND TRADITIONAL MUSIC

Folkworks and Newcastle University Music Department have developed a new course to meet the multi-faceted needs of students with an interest in folk and traditional music. The course will have a strong emphasis on performance with regular one to one teaching on main and second instrument and ensemble classes. However the course is structured to provide a range of additional skills and background knowledge and to challenge students to think about the music and its context in the past, present and future with modules on arranging composing and improvising, historical and social background, world music, music business and new technology. A wide range of optional modules ensures that students can tailor the course to suit their individual needs. The course last four years and leads to a Bachelor of Music degree with an optional exit point after two years when you can be awarded a diploma.

The UCAS code is W310 and you can obtain UCAS application forms from UCAS PO BOX 67, Rosehill, New Barn Hill, Cheltenham GL52 3LA. For further information contact Folkworks or the Music Department, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU 0191 222 6736; [e-mail] or visit the University web site: www.ncl.ac.uk.

Malcolm Smith. 

Subject: RE: Degree in folk music
From: Bagpuss
Date: 22 Nov 00 - 10:21 AM

What use is a degree in folk music?

What use is a degree in English Literature, the Classics etc?...

Bagpuss

Subject: RE: Degree in folk music
From: IanS
Date: 22 Nov 00 - 11:02 AM

It all sounds like far too much fun and not enough hard work to me :)

Being a 4 year course does that mean they spend a year out playing round the folk clubs and sessions ?

Ian S (a jealous electronics graduate).