Folklore: What Is Folk?

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: The Sandman
Date: 06 Dec 06 - 05:00 AM

m ted, sorry but if I go into a greengrocers and ask for potatoes ,Iexpect to get potatoes not tomatoes.
If I go to an evening of jazz I expect just that, not an evening of classical Music.
If i go to a folk club I have a fairly good idea of what to expect, PARTICUARLY IF THE ORGANISER CLARIFIES FURTHER eg contemporary singer with guitar etc.,personally I prefer Home made music   to the term Folk,    but we all know what folk music is APPROXIMATELY [even if its hard to define]FROM BLUES TO SEAN NOS it is quite a broad church.

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 06 Dec 06 - 02:33 PM

'GUEST Frank Hamilton'
Do you describe Bob Dylan as 'Bob Dylan (AKA Robert Zimmerman'? Just wondering ...

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: Declan
Date: 06 Dec 06 - 04:38 PM

I'm re-entering a debate I told myself I wouldn't ever do again, but for what its worth my opinion is roughly as follows.

Labels are useful to point you at things you are likely to find interesting. For example if I go into a record shop with a Folk Music section, I expect I'll be more interested in what I find there than the stuff in the hip-hop section. Whether this is true or not depends on how knowledgable/diligent the shop staff are in filing their content. The same goes in choosing festivals. Once I go to the appropriate section I will make my choices based on what I find there and will not agonise over whether or not it meets someones definition of what is 'folk' or 'traditional'.

The term traditional has a specific meaning in copyright law which is useful in resolving legal disputes, but to me has no other meaning in classification of music.

In formal academic study people tend to define the meaning of the terms they use in the context of what they are writing. These will vary from time to time and from place to place. Given the 'revival' happened 30-40 years ago in the countries that needed a revival, the term revivalist is losing/has lost its meaning. The work of the early revivalists has passed through a couple of generations at this stage and probably merits classification as traditional as much as much of the music that was classified as trad by the early revivalists.

If a source singer who wrote/learned a song in the thirties was trad to someone in the 50s, surely a song from the 50s is trad to someone born in the nineties and singing/playing in the naughties.

To me the importance is whether the song is rooted in a style or tradition which can be described as folk or traditional. It may be of interest to academics to split hairs between calling something tradional or 'in' or 'of' the tradition, but I couldn't be bothered.

What matters to me is whether the tradition is in a healthy state and where I come from I am delighted to say this is the case. There are more young musicains in Ireland playing music in traditional styles (and many of them are more aware of this than people of earlier generations) than there were at the height of the so called revival.

To me the important thing is that the body of music (or song) is traditional rather than a particular tune or song. I love tradtional Irish music (and music from many other traditions considered folk or not). If the tune is a quality one in the tradition it doesn't matter to me whether it is a week old or hundreds of years - although I am delighted that some songs and tunes from those days have survived.

I'm off now to play some music, in a variety of styles, at my local session. And no one will care much what the source of the music is - as was very much the case when the original collectors went out collecting the songs/tunes.

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Dec 06 - 06:39 PM

ah, Captain Birdseye! A man with discernment! *smile* It IS a 'broad church', but there is much that does NOT belong in the pews.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

" Once I go to the appropriate section I will make my choices based on what I find there and will not agonise over whether or not it meets someones definition of what is 'folk' or 'traditional'."

This is reasonable unless the section is large and the store has vague ideas of categories, making the process of choosing tedious.

"... surely a song from the 50s is trad to someone born in the nineties and singing/playing in the naughties."

A dangerous distinction....Simply being a bit 'older' is not enough to
qualify something as truly 'trad'. There are a number of reasons to reserve some label for those 'older' songs or tunes which go back, (in style, subject matter, mode of presentation, mode of transmission...etc.) to the era before serious recording and 'commercial' music. It has nothing to do with 'good', and it is possible to play both 'trad' and 'sort of related to and derived from trad' in the same evening....but IF I wish to go to a concert and/or buy a CD of older stuff with a certain feel, it is helpful to have a label that assures me that's what I will get. Gradually subsuming more & more under 'folk' and 'trad' also gradually dilutes the categories until they lose most of their meaning.

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: GUEST,cecil. j . sharpe
Date: 07 Dec 06 - 03:27 PM

Oh shut up !!

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: GUEST,Frank Hamilton
Date: 07 Dec 06 - 04:29 PM

Is Bob Dylan folk music? In one way yes. People are familiar with his work which is based as was Woody Guthrie on a body of traditional work. So this fits the theory of songs being changed to fit different times.

Does his songs resonate with a large population who likes to sing his songs? Sure.

Bob has done his homework in that he knows who the trad singers are who have influenced him.

He is also a popular music singer and does this take him out of the trad folk category?
Don't think so. A lot of early country folk musicians such as the Carter Family sold lots of recordings in their time.

So we have to expand the definition of folk music as again the prism.

This doesn't mean we have to exclude the traditional field recorded singers or players.

What this all means is that we have to open our ears and minds to include the idea that anything that appeals to a large population might be a form of folk music if it is accessible in terms of being able to be reproduced by easilly by real people.

In this way rock might well be folk. If enough kids can sit down and make music in different settings with the same songs that are recognizable and easilly played...well it's the "people's music".

We have to get used to the idea that not all folk music is really good. Some of it is doggerel...bowlderized to such a degree that it has become incomprehensible over time. Some of it may require too many footnotes to communicate.

One of the hallmarks is that it may not be confined to one way of doing it. Lyrics and tunes can grow, change through time by a communal process. This is one definition of folk which again is a way of looking at it.

It might defy copyright laws if it is to survive as folk over a long period of time.

It's the old "blind men and the elephant" game. It depends on which part of the anatomy we are "looking" at.

Dylan would have to be placed alongside of Woody since both derived their songwriting from traditional sources as did A.P. Carter or Leadbelly. Are they folk singers? Why not?

That said, many art and pop singers are out of the loop. They may have imitators but they are too sophisticated or highly specialized to be accessible to everyone who wants to perform their songs.

Folk=people. Songs that everyone can somehow participate in their recreation.
I think the part of folk music that I believe defines it is its accessibility.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: GUEST,Cecil.J.Sharpe
Date: 07 Dec 06 - 05:31 PM

I'm buggered if I know, or care for that matter music is music man!!!! 'When it hits you feel no pain' Bob Marley, folk singer

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Dec 06 - 05:51 PM

why, Cecil! And I have always held you in the highest esteem! *grin*

"music is music".....indeed! So if I advertise a concert saying there going to be "music", you'll be right over?

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 07 Dec 06 - 07:51 PM

Captain Birdseye, if you have to ask whether something is a potato or not--well, you deserve whatever the fellow gives you;-)

At any rate, I like what Frank Hamilton has to say--I am very interested in the things that are derived from tradtional/folkloric sources-

I also make careful note of this comment "I'm off now to play some music, in a variety of styles, at my local session. And no one will care much what the source of the music is"-as it seems to be true that those who are part of a living tradition define the tradition as something that exists in the present--even though they may be aware of it's past, and also of what is and isn't part of the tradition--

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: Tim theTwangler
Date: 07 Dec 06 - 10:40 PM

Jeez how many more times will there be enough bored and sufficiently anal catters to go through all this again.
Folk music is what I say it is you are all wrong and so am I.
The constant navel gazing about it is a waste of energy just go somewhere and do it.
If we all spent as much time writing and performing and listening to the stuff as we do discusing what it is we might have some decent music on the radios and Tv,s of the world instead of the stuff that gets out there because there is a dollar to be made by some person who neither write perfoms listens or cares what folk music is.
Next topic
WHich is the best guitar to buy?
I allready own......Blah blah blah!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 23 Jan 23 - 11:08 AM

BBC Radio 4 news has a go at defining folk.
;)
One of the comments was
"you can stick 'Folk' on the end of any genre and you've got something completely new and exciting,,,"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001h3yy

> skip to about 38:40

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Jan 23 - 12:27 PM

so if i record John Cage 4'33 and call it folk, it is something completely new and exciting,
well of course every perfomance of anything is new, whether it is exciting is in the ears of the beholder and a subjective decision.
"you can stick 'Folk' on the end of any genre and you've got something completely new and exciting,,,"
pseudo-intellectual. pompous TWADDLE.

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 23 Jan 23 - 05:29 PM

All 'genres' are artificial constructs, convenience labels, that overlap with many other genres. All that is useful is a list of characteristics some of which for 'Folk' are admirably listed here, and on other threads. Trying to set hard and fast boundaries is pointless for this very reason.

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 23 Jan 23 - 07:01 PM

Here's to subjectivity! You might not know what it is, but are pretty sure what it isn't! Works for me, and several generations of singers.
Just remind me. When does night become day?

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: r.padgett
Date: 24 Jan 23 - 02:57 AM

Ah but is folk music in particular song and music for the singers (of), the audience, the academics or the pub landlords to sell beer and promoters to profit

Whoa

Ray

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 25 Jan 23 - 08:40 PM

A few hours after day becomes night.....

I think it avoids a lot of verbal bloodletting by saying to each individual: it is up to you what you think folk is, as it is up to me what I think it is.

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: GUEST,Dan Themsan
Date: 26 Jan 23 - 03:40 AM

When does night become day?
At Dawn Today in the UK it was 7 48.

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: r.padgett
Date: 26 Jan 23 - 04:02 AM

What is folk (music and song) such a difficult question to define!

Is it Country or is Country music a close brother/sister?

Is folk Rock based on folk music/song?

What is contemporary folk song, that is songs for example written in the traditional folk style and copyrighted so that performance fees can be made to the composer ~ is this "folk"?

I ask only and make no decisions

Ray

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 26 Jan 23 - 04:33 AM

It's always a tough one. When Granny's Attic sing "Does your mother know?", is that folk? When Ed Sheeran sings "The parting glass", is that folk? There used to be those who insisted that it had to be a traditional song, sung by a traditional singer. Fortunately we now seem to have a much broader church. While I do not believe that "anything goes", I am glad to see that mainstream performers, writers and media are seeing that folk music is indeed for the masses and not for an exclusive group of enthusiasts

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: GUEST,Dan Themsan
Date: 26 Jan 23 - 05:01 AM

" There used to be those who insisted that it had to be a traditional song, sung by a traditional singer". quote.
Can you give examples.
I do not care who it is for, I like performing certain material.

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 26 Jan 23 - 05:33 AM

I am not searching through years of Mudcat posts, Dan, but I can assure you that even on here there were comments like pop singers can never sing a folk song and popular music should never be sung in folk clubs. I am also assured that there were folk clubs where the rules were explicit about what could and could not be performed. Although, to be honest, I never cwme across one. May have been before my gime

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 26 Jan 23 - 07:12 AM

When does night become day?
At Dawn Today in the UK it was 7 48.
Who told you that?
Did you believe them? It might have been 7.50 down the road and 7.48 up in the next county.

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: GUEST,Dan Themsan
Date: 26 Jan 23 - 08:22 AM

" There used to be those who insisted that it had to be a traditional song, sung by a traditional singer".." Dave the Gnome
I have never come across a club that insisted that it had to be a traditional song, sung by a traditional singer, you have made that up.
          There were a few clubs that insisted that it was traditional music only, they generally called themselves Traditional clubs, the policy was clear, Those clubs never excluded Revival singers from singing traditional songs and there was plenty of choice of other clubs with different polcies
The Singers club had a different policy again, but it was clear.
No one was obliged or forced to go to any of those clubs., there were blues clubs where blues was the order of the day
There is a club in Croydon which is a folk and blues club, and a different club called Croydon Folk Club, are you against a club that specialises in Blues? or is your dislike of policy or rules applicable to trad music clubs?

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 26 Jan 23 - 08:32 AM

> When does night become day?

My inner pedant insists: Depends how far West you are (one degree of longitude Westwards is four minutes later), and how far North (sign and magnitude are season-dependent). (See also the Wikipedia page on the Equation of Time, if you're that bored, for how noon wanders about during the year.)

Meanwhile, back at the Subject line, a judge once (approximately) said: I can't define pornography, but I know it when I see it. I think the same holds with folk music; hence the persistence and vituperation of the arguments.

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Jan 23 - 08:36 AM

Nick Dow, night did become day, Dawn occurred. the timing varies but it happened.
Anyone that says that it did not happen is deluded.
Beethoven is considered a Classical composer, you agree?
Earl Scruggs is classified a Bluegrass Banjo player.
A. L. Lloyd or Bert Lloyd, was an English folk singer and collector of folk songs, and as such was a key figure in the British folk revival of the 1950s and 1960s.

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 26 Jan 23 - 09:59 AM

I don't dislike anything, Dan. And if you read my post more carefully you will see I did not say that any clubs insisted on traditional songs sung by traditional sings. I said that there were those who did and I apologise for not making it clear that I meant in discussions such as this. My reference to clubs was entirely separate and you have confirmed that some did have their own rules. Thank you.

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Jan 23 - 10:14 AM

"Beethoven is considered a Classical composer, you agree?"

Er, I don't entirely...

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Jan 23 - 11:19 AM

HA HA, YOU ARE RIGHT b

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Jan 23 - 12:18 PM

Do speak up...

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 26 Jan 23 - 12:19 PM

Right well, that's obviously hit home then. You can't educate a cabbage.

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: GUEST,Jim Knowledge
Date: 26 Jan 23 - 12:39 PM

I `ad that Jan `adlow from the BBC in my cab once. The Radio Times reported she `ad been earmarked to produce a series of programmes about traditional songs and music, their origins and background and she was looking to interview as many people in `er opinion `oo could provide some kosha info.
I said, " Morning Jan. Broadcasting `ouse again?"
She said, "Yes please Jim. Oh, by the way Jim you and you`re lot `ave been doing trad songs for years. `av` you ever come across situations where certain songs `ave been the cause of a Bull and Cow?"
I said, "Well yeah. I remember some punters decided to do a club in "The Chequers" pub near Uckfield. They settled on "`ands Cross Traditional Music Club", very original. It was also decided, in order to maintain their trad. ideas, that potential singers material would be put before the committee to ensure it met their requirements."
She said, "That sounds novel. `ow many people fitted the bill?"
I said, "None, it folded after a couple of weeks!!"


Whaddam I Like??

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Jan 23 - 12:46 PM

so if i record John Cage 4'33 and call it folk, it is something completely new and exciting..."

Well if you record it and take 4'34 over it, you CAN call it folk, because it'll have been through the folk process!

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: GUEST,Dan Themsan
Date: 26 Jan 23 - 12:47 PM

How would you describe Beethoven, as a Bluegrass musician?

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Jan 23 - 01:09 PM

Beethoven was the bridge between the classical and romantic eras in music.

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 26 Jan 23 - 01:21 PM

So was he classantic or romical?

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Jan 23 - 01:29 PM

He's my hero, and that's good enough for me! His bust lives in our living room and I ruffle his hair every time I pass him.

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 26 Jan 23 - 01:38 PM

It's better than his hair living in your living room and ruffling his bust!

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: Rigby
Date: 26 Jan 23 - 02:29 PM

So are Beethoven's arrangements of Scottish folk songs folk?

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Jan 23 - 03:15 PM

And what about Benjamin Britten's folk song arrangements (as sung by Kathleen Ferrier, for example)? Surely every folk singer "arranges" his or her songs according to their predilections? I'm not bothered but I'm just sayin'...

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 26 Jan 23 - 03:44 PM

Oy...

Speaker+Listener+Subject = (sub)genre. Nobody speaks for both sides of the convo (obviously) and the music just plain does not care. Labels are worse than useless if you're not even in the right book, much less on the same page.

If just one person in the audience knows the true copyright history of a song and everybody else is ignorant of same... you'll get two genre for one performance of one song by one artist.

Walk in to any library on the Dewey system and you'll find Beethoven shelved under Classical. Same for a brick & mortar record store. Romantic won't have a bin unless it's a specialty shop.

Silly thing is, I dont know anybody that actually uses the labels for themselves. 99.9% of the folks I know file their own collections all jumbled together and shelved by media, then alpha-by-artist.

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Jan 23 - 05:48 PM

"Walk in to any library on the Dewey system and you'll find Beethoven shelved under Classical."

Well that's right. You'd also find Palestrina, Gesualdo, plainchant and Hildegard of Bingen, as well as Michael Tippett, Britten and even Gershwin under the same category. Maybe even Harrison Birtwistle. When I did a course on plant taxonomy at university we were taught that classification was there to serve several purposes, and the same body of plants could be categorised in a variety of different ways according to to the user's need. No one system of classifying music can be set in stone as the be-all and end-all. There's a limit as to how much you can atomise the classification of music genres before you make your system useless to library users. On the other hand, a scholarly analysis of the last thousand years of "classical music" will break it up into much smaller categories, a classification system which, among other things, helps to elucidate the evolution of music down the centuries. When I walk into the library I want big categories to direct me quickly to the right ballpark of bookshelves. After that, even alphabetical might cut it...

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 27 Jan 23 - 01:11 PM

On the other hand, a scholarly analysis of the last thousand years of...

Yup: A tomato is a fruit or a veggie depending on the speaker & subject. If it's an instructor saying [X] is or ain't [Y]… it is, or it ain't. End of discussion for the them chasing a sheepskin.

Regency dance tunes that doubled as capstan songs were both “work” and “pop” before either genre label or school of academics was in existence. Any speaker/scholar is/was free to:
a) Retroactively assign the entire millennium to a late 19th century (sub)genre.
b) Process instrumentals as stone silence.
c) Create an entirely new 20th century (sub)genre for the thousand year gaps of their own creation.

Any listener will have no idea what the labels actually mean until they've heard the speaker out. There are no assurances all or none of it will apply to the next speaker.

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Jan 23 - 05:18 PM

Well, Phil, that was as clear as mud...

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: Mo the caller
Date: 27 Jan 23 - 06:12 PM

Our choir sometimes uses the brown book published by OUP of folk song settings. Can't say that that really feels like Folk (not 'folk the way I like it' at any rate)

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: Mo the caller
Date: 27 Jan 23 - 06:14 PM

reading back up the thread to 2005, the student who asked us to do their homework for them got rather more than they bargained for.

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Jan 23 - 06:23 PM

She was a poet, called Hazel Bolton, sadly she is not with us any longer

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 27 Jan 23 - 08:27 PM

Steve: Surely you've read about...
The 15-16th century Howe! Hissa! (Shanty) and Sea Shanties from 'The Complaynt' (1549)?
The Royal Navy fife and fiddle capstan songs sailors worked 'in silence' to?
The 'proto'-shanty?
Tomatoes?

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Jan 23 - 12:35 PM

I have no problem with a Blues club calling itself a Blues club.
I have a choice I go or I go somewhere else.
I have no problem with a club calling itself an Acoustic Music Club or a Fiddle and Accordion club or a Singer Songwriters club, they have rules and people know what to expect.

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: GUEST,Roderick A Warner
Date: 28 Jan 23 - 01:09 PM

Creative musicians in my experience don’t tend to waste their energy on labels and artificial barriers, rules and the restrictions of others… thankfully…

Subject: RE: Folklore: What Is Folk?
From: GUEST,Dan Themsan
Date: 28 Jan 23 - 01:29 PM

Creative musicians in the Folk world do not put as much or hardly any energy into improvisation, compared to Jazz Musicians, Songwriters put their energy in to writing songs not improvisation, you are talking Boloney
audiences do want to know what they are going to get, they do not expect to go to a Folk Club and have a whole evening of Rock and Roll and they are the ones who pay the piper..
On the positive side Folk Clubs provide the opportunity for home made music.