folk music not suitable for the guitar?

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 20 Oct 04 - 04:10 PM

This is true! The traditionalists who don't really play guitars would like to think that mandolins and banjos can only be used in this music.

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 20 Oct 04 - 04:02 PM

That seems like a silly idea nowadays. The guitar has had a place in Folk music for so long. I'm no traditionalist, and I don't play a lot of Trad tunes, but I have used full chords and single or two note chords on my 12-string when it's appropriate for the song.(I actually use them a lot. They sound much better to me.)

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: Snuffy
Date: 20 Oct 04 - 09:23 AM

to persecute and drive out all perceived Americana from the folk clubs.

Not at all - just an attempt to keep parts of our own tradition alive in the face of unremitting "If there's no guitar then it can't be folk" attitudes that seem to pervade many areas of the folk scene:
"... there is no folk song anywhere, any time, which will not benefit from an intelligent guitar accompaniment." being one of the milder expressions of this.

The guitar is a wonderful instrument, and there are many songs that positively need it. But not ALL songs. At our monthly "session" last night there were two guitarists who accompanied themselves extremely effectively when singing and also played chords when the fiddles and boxes led Irish/Scottish/Morris session tunes. And that was fine.

But they did not join in (nor did the fiddles or boxes) when a lady sang an absolutely magical version of Caledonia with a flute doubling the melody and a harp picking out an accompanying counter-melody; and when unaccompanied singers sang the guitarists joined in the chorus with their voices, not their instruments.

All in all an excellent evening, with none of the Procrustean one-size-fits-all approach of "guitar with everything", just people appreciating each others' different approaches and allowing them room to express it.

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Oct 04 - 06:19 AM

"to persecute and drive out all perceived Americana from the folk clubs."

That hasn't actually happened. The thing is, the folk music scene is very local - generalisations like that just don't apply across the board. They might be true in a particular club at a particular time, but go to the next one along and they don't.
....................................

"...doesn't every song have chords" Songs don't have chords as such, but you can always find chords that would suit a song. However these might not be the normal chords, based on the standard major and minor scale. Here is a link through which you can find a few more scales - 2,900 or more of them, in fact.

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 Oct 04 - 05:59 AM

Big Bill and Brownie in DADGAD.....I'm not sure they used Open D even.

The reason people like Davy Graham, and Martin started using DADGAD and why it caught on generally was a belief that English folksong is modal in nature - like bagpipe - they weren't using the same major scale as say jazz and classical musical musicians. This idea you will find propounded in a very readable and very influential book by A.L.(sometimes called Bert) LLoyd called Folk song in England.

This was surmised from listening to the early recordings of folksingers like Lincolnshire's Joseph Taylor who left us classics like Brigg Fair and Creeping Jane. This is shooting from the hip - I may have got odd details wrong.

Anyway although Ewan, and Martin and Bert were (and are sorry Martin!)bloody nice guys with very broad minds musically - these truths about folk music in the 1970's were seized upon by pedants of no creativity at all - to persecute and drive out all perceived Americana from the folk clubs.

This was a bloody pity because by and large what started the folk music boom was singer songwriters like Dylan and Donovan saying to kids - you can get a guitar and write songs that have some relevance to your life. Go on , have a go.

It seems to me you have fallen into the hands of one of these pedants, who has filled your head with tripe. Folk music is not a formula to denounce Robespierre like,up other musicians .

I recommend to you to check out a Lincolnshire folksinger, Martin Simpson, raised just a few a few miles away from where Joseph taylor lived and breathed - singing a Lincolnshire folksong Creeping Jane - using a modal tuning on his geetar.

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: GUEST,mkebenn
Date: 19 Oct 04 - 11:04 PM

splottman, yea, I agree, stop strumming and it 's different. Mike

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 19 Oct 04 - 12:44 PM

Anyone following this thread should also be interested in another long-running discussion just reopened today:

TheGuitar and Irish Traditional Music

There's a nice link somewhere in there to an instructional website for the DADGAD-tuned guitar, how to use it effectively in a "trad" context not originally intended for the guitar.

Incidentally: the term "a capella" is pretty commonly used in the US -- I think that even non-musicians are generally familiar with the term, and don't consider it particularly pedantic or affected. There is a newish fad or trend on US college campuses for "a capella" singing clubs -- choruses of a dozen or members singing close harmonies without accompaniment. Freshmen apparently apply to multiple groups, are invited to join one, and maintain their membership for the rest of their four-year stays -- sorta like singing fraternities.

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: GUEST,folklorist
Date: 19 Oct 04 - 10:54 AM

What got me started on this thread was that before the 60s folk revival, the guitar was not part of the instrumentation of folk music, but because the folk revival grew out of the Skiffle scene, people who drifted into folk music wanted to carry on playing their guitars.

Now this is where I get confused: As folk music was not adaptable to the acoustic guitar, musicians, like Carthy, turned to the blues, especially Big Bill Broonzy and Brownie McGee, for tunings. Why was that - or have I got it completly wrong? For the life of me, if a song has chords, and doesnt every song have chords, then it can be played on guitar, or so I would have thought.

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: GUEST,Joe
Date: 19 Oct 04 - 10:07 AM

In 40 years of living the folk tradition I've heard many an unaccompanied vocalist "kill the song" and despoil the "unadorned jewels of folksong", alongside many "instrumentalists" ("playing" concertinas, banjos, accordians, bodhrans, keyboards, flutes, whistles, fiddles etc etc and yes, of course, guitars).

Sure, any idiot can pick up a guitar and strum a few chords in total disharmony and blissful ignorance, but don't blame the guitar. If you take the trouble to learn to play it, and have the sensitivity and ear to know what fits and what doesn't, and when it can make a positive contribution and when not, then there shouldn't be a problem (apart from, that is, to the mental harm it might do to the folk purists).

Eyes and ears are wonderful instruments, too often under-used. If all folk performers used them to see reaction and hear response (and take appropriate action) then quality would improve.

Unfortunately, too many skip the training and workshop stage far too early. Artisan is not just the name of an excellent "a capella" group!

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Oct 04 - 04:35 AM

"I don't know why "a capella" has suddenly become cool and "unaccompanied" not.

If that's true it'd be an other case of peole adopting an Americanism. But I can't remember actually hearing anyone use the expression in real life (outside a classical context).

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 19 Oct 04 - 04:16 AM

It's happened to me, Kevin! "Now I'm going to ask Steve up to sing some unaccompanied songs, but first just a reminder that the last bus to town leaves in five minutes." Never work with children, animals or people who don't have their own transport.

I don't know why "a capella" has suddenly become cool and "unaccompanied" not. Maybe we should all start saying "music without instruments"?

Steve

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 09:16 PM

"I will sing this song unaccompanied." And everyone got up and walked out.

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: Bernard
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 08:09 PM

Yes, PG, I'd certainly agree it's a phrase used out of its original context... nowt new there, though!

It is listed as being a term in general use in the 20th century as a synonym for the more straightforward term 'unaccompanied', which I prefer - there's no need for the foreign stuff!!

No doubt some pedant will gleefully (hah!) explain the etymology of 'unaccompanied'...!! Okay, I admit it's French in origin ('accompagner')!!

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 07:54 PM

I can already hear in my mind's ear Ricky Skaggs singing "She Moved through the Fair" with crosspicked guitar and mandolin ...

I can't quite hear Robert Johnson's version yet, but I will...

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 07:29 PM

I'm not about to take the time to do a look-up, but I'm pretty sure I've read that the phrase "a capella" origianlly meant "in the style of the chapel," referring to Gregorian Chant and/or monastic-style plainsong.

Not descriptive of all unaccompanied singing, certainly.

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 06:52 PM

I'd love to hear a high-lonesome Appalachian rendering of "She Moved through the Fair". And if there'd been a Robert Johnson version, just imagine what he might have done with it...

That term "a capella" which is apparently used more in the States than here, is quite an interesting one. The term suggests a pure, clear, trained, voice. The word "unaccompanied" doesn't carry that implication, and most of the time I think that's a more appropriate term for people from folk backgrounds. Sometimes rough, sometimes far from rough, but with an edge generally, and rarely with more than basic hints of training, at most, which they've picked up along the way, after they've been singing for some time.

Riding a bicycle is generally seen as an easier way of getting around, once you've learnt how to stay on. But when you're crossing a river on a tightrope, they say, doing it on a bicycle is trickier than doing it on foot. I think there's a parallel between this and singing accompanied. Sometimes it might make life easier - but there are times when it's quite the reverse. And when it's done well enough on those occasions, it can be spectacular.

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: Pete_Standing
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 06:01 PM

<- How highly would one rate a blues shouter or a cowboy singer attempting an a capella rendition of, say, "She Moved Through the Fair"?->

Now some people would accuse Peter Bellamy of doing that!

Going back to what Leadfingers was saying about

<- the steady chords of a basic guitar accompaniment effectively kills the song ->

there are/were some folk rock bands that manage(d) to do that - one in particular applied the "Status Quo" approach, shoehorning 6/8 or notionally 6/8 (damn these trad singers!) unphrased songs into 4/4 head bangers. Until guitar players start experimenting with the style of finger style playing that lends itself to unphrased songs (Carthy, Simpson and Foster being examples), just one simple stroke of the correct chord leaving it to ring over the melody works - a bit like playing sustained chords on a concertina (or similar).

I still maintain that had a plentiful supply of affordable instruments and time to play them had been available to the trad singers, they would not have shirked from using them in their leisure time. Songs of the workplace are a different thing.

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 05:20 PM

OK Mr McGrath, I gladly stand corrected -- your explanation sounds absolutely as reasonable as anything else, if not moreso.

Let me try to weasel, er, I mean modify what I was trying to say before. Maybe a pure, clear, unaffected vocal delivery -- whether a product of academic training or of local tradition and lifetime practice -- is more highly valued for certain categories of song, certainly including many of those customarily sung without instrumental accompaniment.

I won't even attempt to express the converse, except to pose this question: How highly would one rate a blues shouter or a cowboy singer attempting an a capella rendition of, say, "She Moved Through the Fair"?

Am I getting any closer?

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 05:15 PM

all these six string vandals despoiling the unadorned jewels of folksong.....now if you ain't ashamed of yourself for that..

its a wonder yous can live with yourself, you're nothing but beasts!

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 04:25 PM

And has El Ted given up on the 100th post thing ??

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 04:24 PM

One of the problems with putting guitar behind a british traditional - or rather an ENGLISH traditional song is that a lot of 'trad' songs dont have a steady rhythm as they rarely are 'work' songs , so the staedy chords of a basic guitar accompaniment effectively kills the song . here is where your Carthys and simpsons get away with it as they can vary the rhythm to make it all fit .

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 03:02 PM

I'd say it often works precisely the other way PoppaGator - an unaccompanied singer is free to adjust the tune from verse to verse, both timing and notes. It happens instinctively, when you are focusing your attention on the words. A guitar tends to limit that kind of thing, for good or ill.

The idea that each verse must have precisely the same tune is quite out of line with traditional singing in the British Isles (and elsewhere). The old collectors used to complain about this, and the way these country folk couldn't settle to a single tune.

And if, in that thread you mention, "the British/Celtic contingent leaned more towards a preference for trained voices while the Americans were more likely to voice their appreciation for 'ragged but right' interpretive singing," then that certainly wasn't a very representative "British/Celtic contingent". The most admired and respected traditional singers have been completely untrained in a formal sense.

It may be that when you are dealing with revival singers who have grown to assume the tunes don't vary, the process PoppaGator suggests, might come into play - picking some other note from the chord. But the notes that aren't in the chord are ruled out, and often those are the notes that traditionally might have been brought into play.

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 02:41 PM

Well, I suppose we're agreed that no one will be prevented from playing guitar, from singing unaccompanied, or from working out accompaniments on any instrument. But we have been having a most instructive dialog, certainly. I have considered points of view that I had not previously imagined, and trust that I'm not the only one.

Here's a related thought that came to me as a sort of corollary to the main thrust of this discussion:

Within a tradition where a song is defined *strictly* by its melody, the singer is not as free to improvise/interpret/embellish as a singer in another tradition where songs are based upon chord structures upon which melodies are superimposed. In the melody-based tradition, the singer's job -- all he/she *can* do, and the basis upon which the performance is appeciated and judged -- is simply to render the notes of the melody as clearly and purely as possible.

I think this explains why, when we were discussing "voice lessons vs man of the soil," the British/Celtic contingent leaned more towards a preference for trained voices while the Americans were more likely to voice their appreciation for "ragged but right" interpretive singing.

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: treewind
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 12:14 PM

No elitist panels, examinations or certificates required!

I accept that America has a pretty full tradition of songs that were conceived with a guitar in mind, especially anything blues-like, but the guitar came to the British folk scene comparatively recently, even if there were precedents centuries before.

It hasn't done any harm, however, to challenge the belief that some seem to have, that a guitar is the only folk instrument and automatically the best instrument to accompany any song. No one instrument fits that definition, and it's an interesting challenge to make a good song accompaniment on an instrument that doesn't fall in in naturally with the song.

By the way, I was recently reading some of the very early journals of the English Folk Song Society (1905-8, before the 'D' was added to EFDSS) where songs that had been collected were perfomed at society meetings invariably with piano accompaniment. That was so much what they were used to that singing unaccompanied would have seemed strange, even though that was how most of the songs were collected.

Anahata

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: Pete_Standing
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 10:14 AM

If we are to accept that guitarists should either give up or stay in their bedrooms until they have been examined and passed as suitable for accompanying songs, then I can't accept that; that would be true for any instrument. In fact, consider how well most unaccompanied singers deliver, both current (revivalists) and past (traditional). Should they be or have been prevented from singing in case they tarnish the jewel? As Martin Carthy has famously said, "the only way to damage it is not to do it". The beauty of folk music is that it gives people the chance to indulge in their inheritance irrespective of how good they are at it. The important thing is to respect the material, not to leave to those who are considered to be good enough - who would make those decisions anyway? An elitist panel?

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: Snuffy
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 08:48 AM

Murray, I said There are the odd Carthys etc whose virtuosity can enhance such a song.

Make what you will of it

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 04:43 AM

Jess: tyro=beginner

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 07:45 PM

Snuffy, do I take it you have never attended a Martin Simpson concert ?

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 07:26 PM

So, you could say, it was a _step_ to greater understanding?

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: DonMeixner
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 07:04 PM

Well, whatever the final resolution of this topic is, and I hope there is none, the tread certainly got us talking about music again and away from nonsensical trivialities.

Thanks Folklorist.

Don

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: Snuffy
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 06:47 PM

I don't think anyone's saying that NO folk songs should be accompanied by guitars. Much (most?) traditional American music is almost unthinkable without guitar or banjo.

But the British Isles have a different tradition: basically unaccompanied narrative songs. And ANYTHING that distracts from the narrative does a dis-service to the song. There are the odd Carthys etc whose virtuosity can enhance such a song, but in 99.95% of cases addition of chords/accompaniment is about as effective as using decapitation to cure toothache.

If you MUST use a guitar in such circumstances, do not do it lightly: do so only if you are absolutely certain that the violence you are doing to the tradition is an evil outweighed by the putative improvement you claim to bring to an unadorned jewel

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: Don Firth
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 03:10 PM

Point taken, PoppaGator.

In my dissertation above, I was thinking primarily of songs and ballads. I'm afraid blues hadn't occurred to me because I don't do blues. This is not because I don't like blues, but because I'm lousy at it.

As you point out, though, there are pieces that are very much instrument dependent. Something like Libba Cotton's Freight Train is more of an instrumental piece—specifically guitar—than a song. As just a song, it's okay, but it's the guitar work characteristic to it that really makes it work. A simple "bump-chug bump-chug" thumb strum or a classic guitar arrangement simply wouldn't do it. And there are lots of songs like this. With these songs, the guitar is paramount, and it's the song that accompanies it

Don Firth

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 02:31 PM

Methinks the question is a little bit nonsensical. Since the 16th century we have sets for folk songs composed for the lute, predecessor of the guitar. It was an instrument thence as popular as the piano is now. D. Martin Luther used it composing his songs to promote reformation, and he used som folk tunes too.

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: greg stephens
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 02:02 PM

Poppagator is absolutely right in saying that the harmonies are the basic structure of some music. I have vast amounts of versions of tunes from old fiddle sources in England, and the "theme and variations" format is extremely common. And it is quite clear from the structure of the variations that it is the harmonic structure (or bass line) underlying the main theme that is the source of inspiration for the variations, not the melodic content of the main tune. The crucial thing, on this sort of question, is what many have said already. There are lots of kinds of folk music. Some come from a harmonic tradition, some dont. Simple.

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 01:37 PM

I would not be so quick to assert that a song's unaccompanied melody (its "air"?) is always its *foundation.* Depending upon the tradition from which it descends, or upon the individual piece in question, the instrumental part might very well be the more fundamental element of a given piece. Consider, for example, just about any blues number -- e.g., Robert Johnson's "Dust My Broom." And even in cases where no particular intrumental "riff" is truly definitive, there are many cases where a song's basic harmonic structure (the chord progression) is far more elemental, more truly the song's "foundation," than its melody.

There's also the question of the learner/performer's intention; when reinterpreting a *particular version* of a traditional song already well-known in several different guises, one might well start by learning the instrumental part and only later working in the vocal part.

It has been pointed out that different sets of chords can be used for the same melody. Does this mean that a song's harmonic structure is somehow "accidental" whereas its melody is essential? I would say, ceratinly not! A song, in many contexts anyway, is defined both by its melody and its harmony. A single melody played with two different sets of chords can become two different songs -- fundamentally different. (We can assume there'll be different lyrics, too, of course.)

A while back, we had concurrent discussions going on here about Mississippi John Hurt's "Let the Mermaids Flirt with Me" and Singing Brakeman Jimmie Rodgers' "Waiting For a Train," two songs written at about the same time, in the same state, following the same melody. The melody was not brand-new to either artist by any means, but came from some long-ago presumably "traditional" source. One of the songwriters in question is generally acknowledged to be a "folk" artist, while the other is recognized as the "Father of Country Music," and therefore generally classified in a gray area between the "folk" and "commercial country" categories.

"Mermaids" uses a basic three-chord arrangement featuring a fingerpicked melody line. (Pedants can feel free to assign a different chord name for every note added to a chord, but most of us would consider it a 3-chord piece.) "Train," on the other hand, uses a far more complicated chord structure, akin to a trad-jazz tenor banjo part; in fact, it's so complex that the easiest key in which to play it, believe it or not, is F!

I have learned both the above-referenced songs, and in both cases worked out the intrumental part first, or at least at the same time as I practiced the singing. There's no way I would consider the unaccompanied sung melody to be the "foundation" of either one; in fact, on the evidence of the melody alone, they are not two distinct songs at all, just two interchangable sets of verses sung to the same tune!

Of course, the point of view opposite mine, the one I'm arguing against, is undoubtedly correct -- BUT, in another context!

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: GUEST,Peter from Essex
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 06:59 AM

Over the centuries British traditional music has been reinterpreted in the popular styles of the day. The use of a guitar is neither more nor less valid as "folk music" than is Peter Piers singing Britten's arrangement of Foggey Dew or Vaughan William's orchestral arrangements.

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 05:50 AM

Foolestroup, I have managed to find the Guardian article I was thinking of. It is here

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 05:44 AM

Foolestroupe, I don't think world music was a snob term but an invented marketing term devised at least in part to categorise items for sale in music shops. I think if you were to scoure the BBC2 folk and accoustic forum, you would find a post by Ian Anderson on the invention of the term and a meeting which took place where he was one of the ones involved in deciding on the term to use. I also think there was a fairly recent article in the Guardian on it which Ian Anderson was commenting on in the BBC thread.

Sorry my memory seems a bit vague on this but I think you will find I'm right in the general gist.

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 05:24 AM

A lot of what the snobs once called "World Music" has now ended up as "Folk Music"...

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: DonMeixner
Date: 16 Oct 04 - 09:15 PM

Bernard,

Ditto.

Don

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: Bernard
Date: 16 Oct 04 - 06:21 PM

'Traditional' is the word that's causing a lot of the problems here... who can say for certain that the person who originated the song did so unaccompanied? Trying to apply a general rule is just plain daft!!

Even though we may not know the author of a song (or tune), there had to be someone who was the very first to perform it in some form or other!! The term 'Traditional' is applied, in the main, to songs and tunes with no known author, and usually found in many variants. Occasionally the writer is identified when some evidence is found... so does it then cease to be 'traditional'?!

Wandering minstrels are depicted playing lute, harp, or pipe and drum... often they were the newsreaders of their day. Some traditional songs had there origins in these 'news bulletins'.

Folk music is so wide and diverse that it is wrong to say what is right!! Personal preferences must come to bear, and if other people find your preference acceptable (and legal!!!), then it is valid - despite what a so-called 'purist' may have to say on the subject.

Perhaps we should enjoy it rather than dissect it?!

McGrath suggests that other instruments may be better suited to some music. Exactly so! This is the task of the performer - to make best use of the tools available.

I play a variety of instruments, but some songs I prefer to sing without accompaniment... because I like them that way. That is all that matters to me! Not because some misguided pedant says that it must be done that way!!

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Oct 04 - 05:34 PM

When we in the West talk about folk music, obviously we are talking about British/Irish/American folk music.

Absolutely not, or rather, not in any way exclusively. When we use term "folk music" many of us, maybe even most of us (I hope), would be referring to all the variety of traditional and traditional based music around the world, within which the folk music of the British Isles and of North America has an honourable place.

In so far as some particular types of folk music is part of our own tradition, that's likely to be what we play, and to a considerable extent listen to, but that's a different matter.

......................................

The assumption that there is only one appropriate harmonic structure to use with a traditional song is very much open to question. For example, it's perfectly possible to have accompaniments that are non-chordal much of the time or indeed all of the time, even when the guitar is the instrument being used.

Obviously the guitar is a great instrument, flexible, convenient, and capable of enormous variety. But it's only one of many. There is much music where it is probably be the most suitable instrument, but plenty where some other instrument might be better suited.

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 16 Oct 04 - 05:05 PM

no maybe the copper family didn't need a guitar. certainly the some seminal english albums don't have guitar on them - frost & fire for example.

however for the last thirty years or so british and irish artists of great ability have poured all their spituality, intelligence and imagination, into folk music.

maybe the renaissance would have still have happened without the use of canvas for paintings and marble for statues. But one suspects it would have been a poorer thing. If you fail to see the excitement and creativity with which the english have embraced this instrument - obviously something other than excitement and creativity is drawing you to folk music - maybe a desire to be the propietor of a folk museum where the propieties are observed.

football doesn't need its george bests and it peles and rumeningges, but dull would be a ssoul who pass by a sight so touching in its majesty.

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 16 Oct 04 - 04:04 PM

OK, I will try to turn some of the questions and comments round a little.

I watched a wonderful documentary on the Copper family last night. Would thier performances have been enhanced or weakend by the use of a guitar? For my part, I loved them as they were.

As for the finding chords and other comments. As long as the notes exist (ie not geting into wierd quarter notes), I suspect there would be someone around somewhere (I don't mean one player for all songs) who could pull off a reasonable accompanyment for any given song. Whether I'd prefer that to an unaccompanied version or not is an entirely different matter.

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: Folk Form # 1
Date: 16 Oct 04 - 03:33 PM

This was a significant question at the beginning of the folk revival, or so I understand. It is not a relevant question nowadays, because of such excellent guitarists as Gaughan, Carthy, Jansch, Nic Jones, etc. However, it is interesting to know why it was once asked.

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 16 Oct 04 - 03:24 PM

This is absolutely stupid. I can't see why anybody is duscussing this.

Christy Moore,Martin Carthy and Dick Gaughan sing songs over a hundred years old with a guitar. Are we supposed to ignore or discount the work of significant artists like this.

Okay you do it , if you want

Anybody fool can play guitar and many fools do - you say.

Sure enough and any fool can have have an idea. Particularly a daft one like this.

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: Folk Form # 1
Date: 16 Oct 04 - 11:03 AM

John Of Brisbane: "Just as a general observation I'm often amused and sometimes astonished at how British/Irish/American centric we are at this forum. There's a whole 'world' of folk music out there that we rarely acknowledge."

When we in the West talk about folk music, obviously we are talking about British/Irish/American folk music. It is what we like. Other music in the whole wide world sounds quite different. There is no reason why someone who likes British/Irish/American folk music should like music from Bali or Soweto, or that they should like " our" folk music or each others. This seems obvious to me. I don't why you find it astonishing or amusing. The whole concept of world music, as it is strangly called, is slightly patronising. It is shoehorning music into a marketing category that has nothing to do with the music.

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 15 Oct 04 - 08:53 PM

They might, but I'm not convinced so far. They have had broadly similar approaches to harmonisation, I suppose, but Nic for one certainly made a point of learning the songs unaccompanied first (or at least he said he did).

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 15 Oct 04 - 08:31 PM

Malcolm, I would be willing to bet a substantial amount that if Martin Simpson, Steve Tilston and Nic Jones were to be asked individually to provide an accompaniment to any traditional song which hitherto had never been performed with accompaniment, they would each come up with exactly the same chords.

They would of course each have their own interpretation of how the chords were utilised while playing the accompaniment, but the underlying harmonic structure is uniquely implicit in the melody, and would be recognised as such by the true masters.

Lesser beings, I concede, would bicker endlessly about majors and minors and so on and so forth ...

Subject: RE: folk music not suitable for the guitar?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Oct 04 - 08:12 PM

Pedantic drift: Actually I believe in some parts of the world, when they were building a house, they used to start by constructing the roof, and then they would heave it up and put in the supports and walls.