Who is a Traditional Musician?

Subject: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: GUEST,Les B.
Date: 11 Sep 02 - 12:10 PM

Having just read the thread on "Traditional Musician and Tuning," which was quite informative, I found myself wondering who can rightfully claim to be a "Traditional Musician"?

I would think that most of us would be seen as "revivalists," although I don't particularly care for all that name seems to imply. I've been playing folk, old-timey, and bluegrass since the 1960's but don't consider myself a "Traditional" player. Most of my tunes and songs I've learned from records, or from other people who in turn learned from records or books or radio broadcasts.

Hopefully this won't turn into a "What is Folk Music" discussion. What are your thoughts ?

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: jimmyt
Date: 11 Sep 02 - 12:28 PM

Les, I share your thoughts on exactly what a "traditional" musician is. I don't, however, see exactly what the negative implications are with "revivalist" I admire players like you that play a cross-section of music, and I don't see a darn thing wrong with playing music that others have performed before, be it in the 50's 60's or whenever. Good music should be appreciated if it is performed well and with feeling. Did you ever get tired of listening to a whole evening of "singer-songwriter" stuff that was all new? I think sometimes the listener needs to have a sort of "auditory home base" where the familiar stuff gives us a baseline. I know I'm rambling...probably because my meds are out of balance!

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: C-flat
Date: 11 Sep 02 - 12:41 PM

I really don't know what a "traditional musician" is. I've been playing "old songs" for thirty years and even the new ones that I learned then are "old" now!
The only factor that led me to learn, listen to, or buy any music was whether I liked it or could play it.
I quite often learned to play things I didn't like because there was something of educational merit but, once cracked, I moved on.
I know there are some strong "traditionalists" on this site but I've never really understood the criteria that a song must meet before it's considered appropriate.
Is there a specific date, before which, a song is considered "traditional"?
Will future generations therefore regard Eminems' music as "traditional"?
I'm sure there are modern writers of "traditional" music whose work is every bit as valid as a good song that has been passed down through generations and for me, the emphasis should rest solely on the word "good".
But here we're getting into personal taste.

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 11 Sep 02 - 12:43 PM

I play a lot of traditional music, despite being one of them danged Singer/songwriters. Even if I played all traditional music, I wouldn't consider myself a traditional musician. Not even sure what people mean by that... probably people who didn't grow up in the tradition who play traditional music. It don't really matter much to me. Just like Jimmy asked why people don't play 60's folk music. I don't think there is any "60's folk music." I think he meant, folk music that became popular in the 60's. Are we playing 2,000 Aught folk music right now? The term traditional music means something to me, but not traditional musicians, unless we're looking at the last of old-timers(rapidly approaching being one myself.) But heck, even Uncle Dave Macon and Charlie Poole and Doc Watson all played popular songs they heard growing up. And they learned stuff from records, too.

I found the traditional musicians thread like reading about Martian musicians. Not being an instrumentalist or playing in a string band, the thoughts in that thread would never occur to me. If I'm not playing in concert pitch, it's because I rarely play with another musician, so if in repeated tuning, I wander up a half step, so what? Even when I played regularly with another musician, we just tuned to each other, and would have thought the idea of an electronic tuner, or even a pitch pipe was bizarre. Mostly, I just play the stuff. Let others worry about how to categorize things. :-)

Jerry

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: GUEST,Les B.
Date: 11 Sep 02 - 12:47 PM

To me "revivalist" sounds like we're intentionally trying to bring back something that is dying -- but I'd rather sing those old songs anyway, they appeal to me more than modern pop culture tunes - (although they have their place, too). I don't feel like I'm reviving anything, just carrying it forward.

And yes, I dislike a whole evening of new singer-songwriter songs. I feel when performing that one has to include something familiar about every third song, or even more often if playing for an older crowd.

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: Declan
Date: 11 Sep 02 - 12:52 PM

To me the only meaningful definition of a traditional musician is someone who plays traditional music, and that means music which is rooted in the traditions of a particular area. There is plenty of good music that is being written today in the traditional idiom which I think is validly called traditional music. I don't think the tune or the song itself has to be passed down through generations to become traditional, it has more to do with the style and feel of the thing which is in keeping with the tradition.

I know there are people who will have other definitions of this, but to the extent that there's any need to define this or to categorise music into boxes, this definition works for me. If someone asks me is something is traditional or not, my answer would usually be, who cares? Its much more a question of whether you like it or not.

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 11 Sep 02 - 01:00 PM

I'm fond of quoting Burl Ives on this subject.

He said something like: "People call me a folk singer. I'm not. I sing songs I like. It just happens that most of the songs I like are folk songs."

That says it all, to me.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: Don Firth
Date: 11 Sep 02 - 02:33 PM

Dave, I was tuning up to write another of my four page screeds on this subject, then I saw your post just above. Your quote of Burl Ives says exactly what I was going to say, but he managed to say it precisely and succinctly. Beautiful! Saved me a lot of typing.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: The Shambles
Date: 11 Sep 02 - 03:11 PM

They are many people who refer to real traditional musicians.

Are there any musicians who consider themselves to be real traditional musicians? I have never found one who does, so maybe no one is?

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: GUEST,Peter From Essex
Date: 11 Sep 02 - 03:15 PM

The discussion seems to be confusing traditional musicans and traditional music. (Plus the usual confusion between "musician" and "singer")

In my view it has to be somebody who has learned their musical skill because music is a part of their commumity rather than making a concious decision to become a folk musician.

There are still English travellers such as the Orchards who are genuinely "traditional" performers and some quite young "old timers" around like Mark Bazely.

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: The Shambles
Date: 11 Sep 02 - 03:33 PM

There are still English travellers such as the Orchards who are genuinely "traditional" performers and some quite young "old timers" around like Mark Bazely.

I would suggest the test is whether these people mentioned would consider themselves to be real traditional musicians or would if asked, refer to others they considered to be real traditional musicians.

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 11 Sep 02 - 03:39 PM

Peter - but the Orchards, and Mark Bazely, Jason Rice and Rob Murch aren't just traditional - they're brilliant!

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 11 Sep 02 - 03:43 PM

And Shambles, Mark Bazely might mention his grandfather, Bob Cann

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 11 Sep 02 - 03:57 PM

I agree with the Burl Ives quote, above. I like playing "traditional songs and tunes." But I don't fit the classic "traditional" definition.

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Sep 02 - 04:06 PM

I prefer to see people as "in the tradition" rather than "traditional". A living tradition changes, but continues. It's not a closed storeroom with a lock on the door.

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: Les B
Date: 11 Sep 02 - 04:31 PM

Peter from Essex: That's an interesting split between "musician" and "singer" - in my community most singers also play an instrument to accompany themselves - guitar, banjo, mandolin,autoharp or sometimes fiddle - so there's not as much of a division.

I have also been pondering lately just how this kind of music is used in our community. Over the past 25 years here I've seen it work in reverse of what you suggest: people decided to learn an instrument, and songs, and started getting together to play in each other's homes. When we got too many people, and got better, we started jamming every week in various bars. From there we started getting hired to play for wedding receptions, street dances, political rallys, contra-dances, etc. I don't know if we're "traditional" or not. (But a lot of us are getting older!!)

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 11 Sep 02 - 05:29 PM

Les B: You're right... about every singer I know plays an instrument, except Roy Harris... But, I'd hesitate to say that Roy isn't a musician. There are certainly far more folkies who play an instrument who don't sing. I think we're talking more about musicians, some of whom accompany themselves, some who are accompanied, and some who accompany. Musicians every one.

More definitions... don't you just love Mudcat?

Jerry

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: smallpiper
Date: 11 Sep 02 - 06:32 PM

Ther has been a tradition in my family of playing music going back for generations I know that my great, great, great, great, great grandfather was a muso. Does that make me a traditional musician? My nephew, in australia, is he a traditional musician - he writes and performs classical music?

Who knows, I tend to think in terms of a living tradition and anyone who plays music "in the tradition" (whatever that means) is a traditional musician.

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Sep 02 - 07:02 PM

"In my community most singers also play an instrument to accompany themselves" and "about every singer I know plays an instrument" - but does that really mean that people who might like to sing, but who don't play an instrument don't feel that they are entitled to do so?

If I think about singarounds I've been in recently, most of the people there probably don't play an instrument.

And the other side of that is, just because people can play an instrument, does that mean that they always feel they need to use it. In another thread Dave Bryant (who is no mean guitar player, and a powerful singer) said how he often prefers to put down the instrument and sing unaccompanied.

Maybe this is a transatlantic difference. Except I know that Pete Seeger was always happy to sing without an instrument when he felt the song worked better that way.

This is thread drift I suppose. But the ability to see singing a song as something you do as part of your life, and not necessarily as any kind of performance is maybe one of the key elements in what can be called the "traditional" approach to the songs. Maybe when we sing in the car as we're travelling along we are in fact very much in the tradition, even irrespective of whatever we might actually be singing.

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: Les B
Date: 11 Sep 02 - 07:24 PM

McGrath of Harlow: Of course someone who wants to sing alone is allowed, it's just not that they're very common here (American northwest). About the only person I know who does so is Alice (a long-time Mudcatter).

Truth be told, most singer/musicians I know are a bit fearful of stepping out from behind an instrument and singing "naked" in public. I suspect it's the cultural difference.

The other interesting idea is about "performance". I suspect we all are attracted to music to get our strokes. I'd much rather play with, and for, other people then sit alone and pick and sing. Heck, I remember way back when I started trying to play a guitar in the late 50's. It was to impress a certain girl, who also played guitar. Of course there are other reasons, but approval of your peers is still pretty high on the list.

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Sep 02 - 08:05 PM

But how do you know the people who can't play instruments don't have songs inside them? Most people don't actually ppay instruments. That's sort of rhetorical, because it's not a question expecting an answer.

"Allowed" - I suppose I was using that in an odd sense. Not meaning that people have to get someone's permission to do something, but rather that it's possible for a culture to put certain activities out of reach. "It's not done" as my mother might have said, though not of singing.

I don't actually think this is a particularly American thing. Historically song collectors in America found no shortage of people who were happy to sing unacompanied. I think it's more a modern thing, and as normally happens, America tends to be a few years down the road.

In this case I think it's a bad road, if it dries up the voices of people who aren't into playing instruments, or might sing better without them sometimes. And I think in the English-speaking countries of Europe folk people at any rate have probably been travelling down it in the opposite direction over the past few years.

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 11 Sep 02 - 08:23 PM

'allowed'. did you mean 'aloud'?

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 11 Sep 02 - 08:50 PM

but seriously folks, i was out tonight fistly playing dance tunes-jigs,reels,polkas,marches for the 'coltsfoot cloggies' in wrexham [north wales], then later on playing similar+country+blues+'folk'+pop+bluegarss+accompanying self & others songs in broadbased singeraround sesion.

everyone i played with was a 'traditional'performer because they/we/i were carrying on the trdition of sinning, playing,entertaing each other together in a wonderful comeallye in the pub[don't have to be in a pub]to do it ]

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: kendall
Date: 11 Sep 02 - 08:56 PM

Sandy, where are you?

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: RichM
Date: 11 Sep 02 - 08:58 PM

now there's a tradition that's ancient, and will be with us always: sinning!
(with apologies to Mr Happy for the play on words)

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 11 Sep 02 - 09:30 PM

i'm up for a sin-round. where's it at?

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: Nerd
Date: 12 Sep 02 - 01:30 AM

But how do you play jigs and reels "fistly"? You must be a bodhran player...

seriously, to get back to the question before "would so and so consider himself a traditional musician?" Well, no, but that's because the term was applied from the outside. Most people who have been considered "traditional" singers were pretty well aware that they preferred old songs to newer ones, but they didn't call those old songs "traditional" for the most part. So it's a question of terminology. Likewise (and correct me if I'm wrong here), I don't think Scan Tester would say he played "traditional" music, because that category was mostly used by a social group he was not a part of. This doesn't mean the category is necessarily invalid, but it does prove the importance of remembering what kind of category it is.

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: The Shambles
Date: 12 Sep 02 - 03:04 AM

This doesn't mean the category is necessarily invalid, but it does prove the importance of remembering what kind of category it is.

One applied from the outside and in ignorance is, I would suggest an invalid one and more importantly a unhelpful one.

My local Licensing Manager has visited an unpaid participatory session and in their ignorance has placed it in the category of public entertainment and the customers n the category of performers.

The point is that this person placing me in this category is never going to convince me that under those circumstances I am a performer.

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: Bert
Date: 12 Sep 02 - 03:39 AM

All of us Les, all of us. If you sing a song that you learned from someone else then you are a traditional musician.

Music and songs are never created in a vacuum. The only way a song can be written is for the writer to create it from his own experiences. And everyone's experience is drawn from the society (or tradition) in which they live.

Even the most avant garde musicians have to conform in some way to tradition or what they are writing isn't music.

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: GUEST,Kingknut
Date: 12 Sep 02 - 03:48 AM

Knut from Norway. I think this tread started with the question Who is a Traditional Musician? Up here in the north we concider a traditional norwegian musican or singer a person that perform tunes from a certain area, tunes they have learnt from older musician og singers from the same area. People that preserve the musical inheritance, not by going to any sort of musical school, but by listening and learning from generation to generation. You can also hear it when a norwegian fiddler introduce a tune he's gonna play. Then he usually says he's gonna play or sing a tune after a certain long gone fiddler or folksinger. That means he's gonna play or sing it the way he,or mayby even his father or grandfather learnt it from that old fiddler or singer. That's what I would call a Traditional Musician.

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: GUEST,Les B.
Date: 12 Sep 02 - 12:00 PM

I guess when I started this thread I intentionally asked a question open to more than one interpretation - "who" in the broad sense of all musicians in the world (Doc Watson, Taj Mahal, Eminem), and "who," as in you Mudcatters out there, would care to characterize themselves as "Traditional". All the answers generally seem to point out that we'll gladly label someone else traditional, but are not so sure about ourselves. Interesting.

Kingknut: You're lucky to live in a community with that kind of tradition. Here the best one can hope for is to have someone say (semi tongue-in-cheek), after you've finished a tune, "Sounded just like the record!"

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 12 Sep 02 - 12:22 PM

Doesn't it also have to do with being broke, but keeping on doing music anyhow?

~Susan

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: C-flat
Date: 12 Sep 02 - 12:26 PM

In that case Susan, I'm as taditional as they come!:~)
C-flat

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: curmudgeon
Date: 12 Sep 02 - 01:17 PM

This thread has got me to thinking a lot about who I am musically. I'm not yet completely certain

I have always been drawn to folk music. I learned Clementine (see thread of this name) at an early age because it was a "cowboy" song and I was really into cowboys. I also was drawn to the Robin Hood and Arthurian tales, but then had no musical sources to draw on.

And I, along with most of you folks on Mudcat, grew up with a lot of trad material; fairy tales and nursery rhymes are all pieces that nobody ever wrote.

I used to refer to myself as a singer of folk songs, but for many years now I have had to add the word "traditional" so as to differentiate myself from the singer-songwriter set.

Although I play concertina and guitar, I consider myself to be a singer first and foremost; I had a lot of songs in my head long beforrre I ever picked up a guitar.

Most of the folks in our weekly session both sing and play an instrument, some only play, some only sing. While most of the music we make is traditional English, Scottish, Irish and American, we have been known to do bluegrass, C&W, old timey, and a lot of contemporary songs written in a traditional style. But mainly, we have a lot of fun -- Tom

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: The Shambles
Date: 12 Sep 02 - 01:28 PM

As some people still seem to insist that the word traditional somehow equates with the word old, I would suggest that many of us could be described as traditional musicians. Although we may not be too willing to describe ourselves as this......*smiles*

I think the key is how we describe ourselves. And as Les says, many here are not too happy to describe themselves as the 'real thing' but would be happy to describe others as this elusive traditional musician.

I could and have been described as an Irish musician. I may play (some) Irish tunes, I am not Irish and have never visited Ireland but the category may suit the person describing me so.

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 12 Sep 02 - 03:37 PM

I'm here, Kendall, but not willing to go to the mat defending what I realize is now considered an archaic definition. I'm an old geezer who prefers to retain a somwhat classic interpretation of the term, namely, that a traditional musician is a person (singer or instrumentalist or both) who has learned his/her repertoire from family and neighbors who form the community from which the person comes. This may include a more or less isolated community or an occupational group, say, with a vernacular language familiar to its members, such as miner or logger terminology, etc., or the Gullah dialect of the Georgia Sea Islands. The music is generally learned for personal pleasure, not for professional performance, although professional appearances may occur later, either locally or, perhaps, for an even wider audience, should the chance arise. I think of Frank Proffitt doing programs for the University of Chicago, Indiana University, and the Newport Festival, but he always performed the music of his own community, much of it learned from his own family members. That was his tradition, and he was fully aware of it and proud of it, as well he should have been. The same can be said of Bessie Jones whose performances at Newport and Fox Hollow were so exciting.

We, who have come to learn and love the songs and tunes gathered from such "traditional" musicians, may build our repertoires from a wide variety of regional traditions, not just the one in which we were reared. We are what Richard Dyer-Bennet always carefully termed "singers of traditional folk songs," professional or amateur, and even when our chosen material is predominantly traditional, we are not truly traditional musicians. We should reserve that term for the regional, and usually non-professional artists from whom our material has been learned.

Archaic? Perhaps. But when Joe College sings "Hang Down Your Head, Tom Dooley," he does not instantly become a "traditional musician," although the song he is singing may be traditional. If you wish to stretch the definition to include him, then the term becomes essentially meaningless, or so it seems to me.

Sandy

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: Nerd
Date: 12 Sep 02 - 04:28 PM

One applied from the outside and in ignorance is, I would suggest an invalid one and more importantly a unhelpful one.

But categories imposed from without DO have value, sometimes. I don't know why The Shambles added "and in ignorance" to my "applied from the outside." I wasn't talking about "categories applied from the outside and in ignorance," but categories applied from the outside for legitimate analytical and descriptive purposes. To wit, the fast food industry may not recognize the category of "fast food," preferring to think of themselves as "good food, served quickly," but we still can usefully apply the category of fast food. The genres of Cowboy Poetry and African-American Poetic Storytelling may have different names for their traditions, but we can create the category of "verse recitation" to include both of these extremely similar art forms. Similarly, musical traditions may not have names for individual genres, but it can be useful to create those categories, as long as you keep in mind that they are your categories, not theirs.

I would essentially agree with Sandy. The category of "traditional musician," even though it wouldn't have occurred to many "traditional musicians," is still helpful to differentiate Frank Profitt from the Kingston Trio. Even if Frank P thought he was just teaching songs to Frank Warner, and that therefore he and Frank W were both just singers, it doesn't mean there is no value in differentiating the two--Frank P as a traditional singer and Frank W as something else--in certain circumstances.

The whole category of "folk music" was by nature an externally-imposed category. Until very recently, nobody would have called themselves a folksinger or folk musician. BUT, many of us are aware that we like folksingers, and can usefully apply this category to people who would not have used it themselves. If Sandy says to me that Jeannie Robertson is an excellent folksinger, I know what he means to convey even if Jeannie wouldn't have used the term. I can therefore take his recommendation to listen to her recordings, proving that the category is not "unhelpful." It helps me and Sandy communicate, and while Jeannie was alive it would have helped her sell records, too.

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: GUEST,Les B.
Date: 12 Sep 02 - 06:33 PM

Sandy - I like your definition, and especially Richard Dyer-Bennet's - "singer of traditional songs" . Also, I see myself as a "prolongist," rather than a "revivalist"!

It just seems that in this day and age, with people moving around so much, it is hard to find a traditional community. In a song-circle I attend here every week, of 8 to 10 people, only about two of us are native born Montanans, and I moved around a bit in my early days.

Last weekend, however, I discovered that I may be from more of a "community" than I realized.. I went to a bluegrass/old-time jam session down in Wyoming, about 350 miles from here. The mandolin players got into playing some fairly standard fiddle tunes. I drug my fiddle out and started in on a couple I thought were also pretty well-known. Blank stares -- they hadn't heard of either the titles, or the tunes. (And my fiddling is OK - in tune & in time) It made me realize that the tunes I've learned from fiddlers here, are not what they play the next state over.

Of course there's a difference between what fiddle tunes bluegrassers know, and the old time fiddle repertoire, but I really thought I was in the overlapping portion!?!

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: The Shambles
Date: 12 Sep 02 - 07:06 PM

But categories imposed from without DO have value, sometimes. I don't know why The Shambles added "and in ignorance" to my "applied from the outside." I wasn't talking about "categories applied from the outside and in ignorance," but categories applied from the outside for legitimate analytical and descriptive purposes.

I do take your point but most musicians are placed in categories, by people with little understanding of the subtle nature of such things. Journalists are possibly the worst example of the ignorance I referred to in placing categories from the outside, and responsible for most of our problems, which is why I introduced the word. I also used the example of UK council officers.

Archaic? Perhaps. But when Joe College sings "Hang Down Your Head, Tom Dooley," he does not instantly become a "traditional musician," although the song he is singing may be traditional. If you wish to stretch the definition to include him, then the term becomes essentially meaningless, or so it seems to me.

Even if categories are applied from the outside for legitimate analytical and descriptive purposes, from a position of some considerable knowledge, like Sandy above, they are essentially meaningless and will always be a matter of personal opinion.

Especially if Joe College, whatever we think of him, should consider himself to be the 'real thing' and stretch the term to cover himself. As well he may do.

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: The Shambles
Date: 12 Sep 02 - 07:21 PM

Sandy would you consider an originator (or a changer) of songs, like Woody Guthrie a traditional musician? Many of his contemporaries may well have done back then and he sort of fits into your category. Would he have ever considered himself to be one?

I feel that, as with all categories, they do tend to fall down on the borderline cases.

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 12 Sep 02 - 08:29 PM

So, when did traditional music stop being created? What was the last traditional song? There are very few communities that are stable enough to sustain a tradition any more, and if they do, they're much more likely to carry on a song like Country Roads than Omie Wise. I mean, Toots and the Maytals do a dandy version of Country Roads, transforming the location to Jamaica. Does this mean that all the traditional music has already been "written?" How can any songs become "traditional" if they have to reflect a local community and have been learned and sung for pleasure instead of for (extremely limited) commercial gain? I find it hard to believe that traditional music ceased to be created with the advent of the radio (or CDs, if you want to make it more recent.) I think that traditional music grows out of a tradition. A one sentence definition that works for me. And I think that songs that are currently being written that grow out of a respect and knowledge of traditional music can themselves become "traditional songs." :-)

Jerry

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 12 Sep 02 - 08:54 PM

They can; but it takes time. Nobody has ever written a traditional song, but many have written songs which have become traditional. A singer of traditional songs is not a traditional singer unless he or she belongs to an identifiable tradition. Definitions may change as time goes on, but we probably haven't reached that point yet. Sandy Paton, who knows more about all this than any of the rest of us who have posted to this thread, can be relied upon.

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 12 Sep 02 - 09:01 PM

the 'mudcat tradition!'hooray!huzzah!hip-hip! it's dating gfrom 1996/7?- must be traditional by now!!

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: Nerd
Date: 12 Sep 02 - 11:37 PM

Shambles says:

Even if categories are applied from the outside for legitimate analytical and descriptive purposes, from a position of some considerable knowledge, like Sandy above, they are essentially meaningless and will always be a matter of personal opinion.

But Shambles,

ALL categories are "essentially meaningless and a matter of personal opinion." The hallmark of symbols (eg most words) as a form of communication is that they bear no natural relationship to the thing they refer to; they are at some point, by someone, arbitrarily assigned. Then, if they are to be widely used, a group of people must come to a consensus about their meaning. So if Sandy and Malcolm and I have a rough consensus, then we can use the category of "traditional musician" to communicate. That's all such categorical words are for, communicating.

Look, it's not going to change Frank P or Frank W's singing one bit no matter what I call them, so in that sense you're right. The words are useless! But if Sandy and I want to have a conversation, they sure come in handy!

BTW, Don't be too hard on individual journalists. I do understand where you're coming from there, but it's not always clear what journalists think, or even what they originally wrote, from what comes out in print! Mainstream journalists usually have to address a wide audience and therefore can't be subtle because the management feels that 95% of their readers don't care about the subtleties. I have been a journalist in mainstream outlets, but now write only for specialty folk publications, because I had my subtleties of meaning "dumbed down" by newspapers and popular magazines one too many times for comfort. Since I don't do it for my daily bread, it was no longer worth it to me to have stupid things attributed to me for the paltry money they offered!

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: JedMarum
Date: 13 Sep 02 - 12:50 AM

I sing a lot of traditional songs and wouldn't consider calling myself a traditional musician. I sing songs I love. period. many of 'em are traditional. many's the time when I sing 'em I realize to myself; there's a damn good reason this song is traditional ... it's been a great song for a hundred years! It has appeal to me, to my audience and hundreds of audiences over many many years. So I sing it. Not because its traditional - but maybe the reason it's traditional is the reason I sing it.

Does that make sense?

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: JedMarum
Date: 13 Sep 02 - 01:04 AM

I also sing a lot songs I learned from my family's tradition ... ie more then a generation back ... songs my grandparents and great grandparents sang ... my father sang them, and I learned them and sing them ...

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 13 Sep 02 - 02:37 AM

It makes a lot of sense, Jed. They're not necessarily good because they're old. As someone once observed, they're old (and still being sung) because they're good. I recall a well-intentioned bumper sticker created by an enthusiast in Hartford. It read: "Sing a Traditional Song." Pete Seeger saw it and suggested it might be better to say: "Sing a GOOD Song."

Jerry, as you know, I think many of your original songs can happily stand next to the good traditional ones from which you draw your inspiration, but a song doesn't become "traditional" until it has gone through the process of oral or aural transmission. After all, what does the term mean? A new song may well be very "folk-like," if you will, but until it has been polished by passing through the oral/aural process, it can hardly be referred to as "traditional."

Woody Guthrie is a real challenge to the academic who wishes to categorize everything and everybody. I worked in the wheat fields of Kansas in the mid-1940s with a number of migrant farm workers. They sang songs from popular C&W performers, older traditional songs, and whatever else happened to appeal to them. If they'd ever heard one of Guthrie's songs, they probably would have liked it and learned it, but Woody may have been singing on a merchant vessel at that time, or on the radio on Los Angeles. My point is that the harvest hands didn't give a damn for categories. Only those who make a disciplined study of popular culture find a need for such things. Guthrie was an innovator and a compulsive songmaker. He borrowed melodies from the Carter Family and other, perhaps less well-known, musicians, and fashioned new words to address issues that concerned him or simply to entertain. In the early 1960s I recorded an old gentleman in East Tennessee who sang many old ballads and songs, but also made up original songs about local events. These were usually set to traditional melodies. He sang a dandy, home-made, satirical song about conditions in a lumber camp where he had worked some sixty years before I met him. The tune was that often known as "Hard Times in Durant Jail," or "Hard Times in Colman's Mines." He assured me that the tune was his own and that he didn't know any other song using it. Clearly, his borrowing of the tune was unconscious. Woody's borrowings may have been more deliberate. Like others whose roots were nourished in traditional surroundings, he felt free to use a tune for a new statement, as when "John Hardy" was transformed into "Tom Joad." To my way of thinking, that demonstrates Woody's genuine folk background. He was doing, consciously or otherwise, just what old Abe Trivett did when he poked fun at the lousy food and fierce bedbugs in Rupert's Lumber Camps. Later, of course, when money becomes a factor in the equation, "ownership" of a tune can become a matter of some importance. Among the non-professional folk musicians, no one thought about that sort of thing. Oh, one singer might say, "Yeah, I know that one, but that's Charlie's song," speaking of another local musician. This happened in the Miramichi Festival in New Brunswick. James Brown would never sing his own fine version of "Hind Horn" at the festival because that particular ballad was considered to be another singer's special performance piece but it was not a question of "ownership" in the sense of holding a commercial copyright to the material.

Speaking of categories: Sara Cleveland, the remarkable traditional singer from the upper Hudson Valley, would sing a rare classic ballad learned from her mother, then a soaringly beautiful traditional lyric, also part of her family's song tradition, and then ask if I'd like to hear "Only a Violet" or "Nettie's Visit to Grandma." To Sara, they were all just songs she loved. The classifications can be handy tools for the study of the material, but they are important only to the student, not to the informant.

So, friends, our tempest swirls vigorously in our teapot. Sing 'em if you love 'em, new or old. In time, the new ones may become traditional, helped on in the process by your contribution to their longevity. They'll change along the way; rough edges will be smoothed out, awkward phrases may be revised for the better or omitted altogether, new verses may appear, created by unknown contributors, and the result may be that several versions will survive, subtly different or dramatically so. That's what happens in the tradition. But remember: the song's the thing! The rest is purely academic.

Sandy

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 13 Sep 02 - 04:48 AM

Hi, Sandy: No disagreement with what you have to say. If anyone writes a song that passes into the tradition, they're not likely to ever know it because they'll be long since dead. You believe that a traditional musician is a person who has learned his/her repertoire from family and neighbors who form the community from which the person comes. By that definition, I figure that the last traditional musician will die within the next twenty years. Certainly, none of us old young 'uns like me would ever fit that definition, and as "traditional" is just a category, I think that's right. I would never consider any songs I've written "traditional" and I seriously doubt that any of them will ever become "traditional." With society so transient now, that whole family/community foundation is scattered all over the country. Just because a song continues to be sung for a hundred years doesn't make it a "traditional" song. There are popular songs from the turn of the last century that are still being sung.

Anyway, Sandy, my revered friend, there aren't going to be any Sandy Patons going in to the hills to record the next generation's Frank Profitt. There aren't going to be any more Frank Profitts, by your definition.... that learned their songs from family and friends in a localized community (unless you revise your definition of "community" to include Mudcat and the whole folk community.) Eventually part of the definition of a traditional musician will be that they're dead... :-)

I write all this out of a great love for traditional music, and I think that you and I are in complete agreement on what a traditional song is. I also believe that there are some great songs that have been written in recent years by writers like Bill Staines that will stand the test of time. Would you consider a Bill Staines song "traditional" if they're still singing it a hundred years from now? I don't think so... Do the lyrics have to be changed in order for it to become "traditional?" But then, I'm wandering off thread.... Fun to talk about it, though.

I send all my love to you and Caroline.

And what are we doing up at these God-awful hours?

Jerry

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: The Shambles
Date: 13 Sep 02 - 06:28 AM

Woody Guthrie is a real challenge to the academic who wishes to categorize everything and everybody.

Nuff said.........

We do seem to straying into songs so. To me songs are a bit like houses. Peoples needs and tastes in houses are different.

Some will move in to a house, just how it is, some will knock them around a bit first and some folk need to build from scratch. We can all agree perhaps that they are houses, and important to us.

It is the same, I would suggest with songs.

Subject: RE: Who is a Traditional Musician?
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 13 Sep 02 - 01:39 PM

Very nice, Shambles. Pete Seeger once described a good melody as a tree, capable of being used for a lot of different products. Woody knew that. Pete used Jim Waters' melody for his setting of the Turkish poet's song of the Hiroshima child (can't think of the title right now), not realizing that the tune was recently created and under copyright. He was quick to attribute the tune to Waters when he learned of its source.

Jerry: I do believe, actually, that a song ought to be altered by the process before it should be considered traditional. Bruno Nettl, outstanding academician, wrote that a true "folksong" is always in a state of flux, changing to some degree as it passes from person to person and from community to community. He was referring to the process that creates a traditional song. Some of your songs may well become part of an oral tradition, as have some of Utah Phillips' and Ewan MacColl's, among others. Let's consider your own "Handful of Songs." I thought I had learned it properly from you, without changes. When I taught it to Rick Fielding, I realized that he had made a few very minor changes from what I had sung for him. The same thing is happening to Bob Zentz's fine ecumenical hymn "When All Thy Names are One." People are altering the original, deliberately or accidentally, as the song passes through the continuing process.

Yes, I do think the process continues. I even coined the phrase "Continuing Tradition" to describe what we enthusiasts are doing, often inadvertently, as we learn and share songs with others like us. Remember, Gavin Greig entitled his turn of the century collection "Last Leaves of Aberdeenshire Ballads," thinking the oral tradition was moribund. Hamish Henderson, in his decades of work with the School of Scottish Studies recorded over a thousand hours of traditional ballads and songs from the region. And he did it half a century after Greig bemoaned the loss.

Damn! I've got to get to the post office and bank, and I don't think I've made my point at all well. I'll have to check the thread again later tonight.

Sandy