Folk music students graduate

Subject: Folk music students graduate
From: nutty
Date: 06 Jul 05 - 02:55 PM

The first students to be enrolled in Newcastle Universities Degree course in Folk Music have graduated. See Link

CLICK HERE

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: *Laura*
Date: 06 Jul 05 - 03:22 PM

hmm - but if they've graduated does that mean someone has specified a right and wrong about the music?

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: GUEST,Eric
Date: 06 Jul 05 - 03:31 PM

Congrats to them all. Some of them have been involved in the Caedmon Folk teaching for Folkworks and I found them great - keen and talented. I am not sure about the right and wrong issues but you can teach music as an academic subject.

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 06 Jul 05 - 03:40 PM

But can they answer the question "What is folk?"

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: Peace
Date: 06 Jul 05 - 03:52 PM

Someone at a university lecture once asked Edward Teller (midwife of the hydrogen bomb) if he believed in God. Teller replied, "Yes." The student proceeded to say, "OK, if there's a God, then what was He doing before he created the universe?" Teller paused for a few seconds and said, "He was dreaming up Hell for people who ask that question."

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: GUEST,Sidewinder.
Date: 06 Jul 05 - 04:34 PM

I wonder what Woody Guthrie et al would make of the fact that people actually study a music in a classroom that they crafted from hobo like existences. Travelling from the Dustbowl to Greenwich Village etc. and reflecting in song the plight of the hardworking folk they encountered.In my opinion this qualification (LOL) ranks along side studying David Beckham in a classroom (which I believe you can do now) you may find out about the trials and tribulations but you ain't never gonna play for England.The moral is; follow in their footsteps, by all means.But, at some point forge ahead with your own path and use what you've learned wisely a la Mr. Zimmerman.

Regards.

Sidewinder.

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 06 Jul 05 - 05:06 PM

this qualification (LOL)

Sidewinder might care to take a look at the curriculum for the Newcastle degree before making such dismissive and ill-informed comments:

http://www.ncl.ac.uk/sacs/undergrad/music/degrees/w340curriculum.htm

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Jul 05 - 05:54 PM

I sometimes wonder how long it will be before some arts quango will specify that funding can only go to events using "qualified" folk artists.

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: Linda Kelly
Date: 06 Jul 05 - 05:57 PM

can't we just congratulate them?- well done, especially Ian stephenson and Sophie Ball-way to go guys!

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: M.Ted
Date: 06 Jul 05 - 07:46 PM

I think that, after reading the description that you linked to, Countess, Sidewinder would be even more dubious--

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: John Routledge
Date: 06 Jul 05 - 07:51 PM

All the undergraduates that I have heard performing have been very impressive.

The singers show an incredible vocal maturity and in ten years time who knows.

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 06 Jul 05 - 08:07 PM

The Newcastle course treats British traditional music as a form of music to be respected and valued, and the teachers are people whom we on the British side of the pond, know, respect and value. Eg Alistair Anderson, Sandra Kerr, Katherine Tickell, Graham Pirt.

It also treats English music and song as worthy of respect, which is pretty unusual over here.

The students whom I've heard perform are great. Laura, you could catch some of them at Sidmouth, where they are running song and instrumental workshops for 7-16 year olds.

Kitty

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 06 Jul 05 - 08:12 PM

Re:The Newcastle course treats British traditional music...

Where is/in the FOLK in/is that?

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 06 Jul 05 - 08:22 PM

Well, the field recordings on Voice of the People, for a start. Which I've listened to. How about you, Gargoyle?

Kitty

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Jul 05 - 08:26 PM

Doubtful, Herga.

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: Sttaw Legend
Date: 07 Jul 05 - 04:20 AM

The band Crosscurrent are graduates of this degree course, they are excellent musicians, if you get chance go and see them.
Good luck and congratulations to them all - Crosscurrent

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: treewind
Date: 07 Jul 05 - 04:44 AM

What Kitty said.

A few years ago Mary and I went to a Balkanfolk seminar in Bulgaria, during which we got (amongst other things) beginners lessons on traditional Bulgaian instruments: gaida, kaval, tambura, tapan. It turned out that our teachers were professors of music from universities and national music academies. We were impressed at how their traditional music and dance was taken seriously at least as a subject of academic study. Of course you were still more likely to get a conversation out of the archetypal "man in a pub" about football than about traditional music, but at least it had some respectability and was considered a fit sunject for serious study.

The course at Newcastle is in its infancy. Speaking to some of the students has revealed some room for improvement in the details of the course. There have been communication problems between the folk performers running the course and the academics running the university, but the recent appointment of Vic Gammon to head the course should help enormously to bridge the gap as he understands the academic and folk worlds and speaks both languages.

There's some great performers coming out too - but that almost doesn't matter. It the fact they they are doing it at all that matters, and helps to raise the public consciousness about it.

Anahata

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: GUEST,Ghettoblaster
Date: 07 Jul 05 - 08:11 AM

IMHO the emphasis on forms of music is far too eclectic. Other parts of Europe deal with their traditions. What we need most is to discover preserve respect and evolve our own. The study of invasive weeds in our garden should be only for contrast.

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: GUEST,Grab
Date: 07 Jul 05 - 08:18 AM

Sidewinder, should we also abandon universities/colleges teaching classical music? After all, Paganini and Bach never went to college to learn how to play...

Graham.

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: s&r
Date: 07 Jul 05 - 08:29 AM

We know some of the students. They were in most cases if not all high grade singers/instrumentalists in the folk arena(festivals clubs etc)before they went to university. They chose to study their craft using excellent role models and a first rate support organisation (Folkworks).

They could have studied other subjects elsewhere: what a waste that would have been. Well done to all the organisers for having the courage and vision to recognise that our traditions are worthy of high level study.

Stu

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: Folkiedave
Date: 07 Jul 05 - 12:36 PM

So let me get this right in my own mind.

A University puts on a course for traditional music and the result of the course after four years of intensive performance-based study is a group of highly talented, mostly young, folk musicians who play and respect the traditional music of these islands.

Those who have seen them perform agree they are highly talented and have benefited from their studies over the past few years. The course has highly respected tutors and a very highly respected academic leader who is also a performer. Some of the students have already begun to make their mark in the world of traditional music.

And people want to look for faults in this?

And as for the definition of "folk music" that someone asked for - define "pop" music, or "classical" music first.

Best regards,

Dave Eyre

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: shepherdlass
Date: 07 Jul 05 - 01:48 PM

Quite agree with Folkiedave. We also have to remember that these students aren't just there to learn the music: they need the wherewithal to build a career and for some that will mean they have a qualification that allows them to teach in fallow periods when performing doesn't pay the mortgage (just like classical and jazz/popular music graduates). Good thing - surely this ensures we have the tools with which to continue and extend the tradition?   

Congrats to the graduates.

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: Bloke in the Corner
Date: 07 Jul 05 - 03:27 PM

More power to their collective elbows and to those running the course. Keeping the traditional music of these isles alive must be helped tremendously by turning out a regular stream of high quality practitioners of the art, encouraging others in clubs, pubs & sessions. I know one or two of the students. They were experts when they began; let them become masters so they can teach, encourage and be an example to other YOUNG people. We need old people playing, but when was the last time you saw a lot of young musicians at a session? (Except the BIG Barrow session, of course.)
If I have any misgivings, it centres on how these graduates will make a living by anything else than teaching music. Not that teaching is bad, far from it - but they'll never prosper by performing. Or will they?....

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: alanabit
Date: 07 Jul 05 - 03:36 PM

Let's just wait and see. I am delighted to see an attempt to give some academic rigour ti the preservation of folk music. It is not the only thing which is necessary, but it could be a very important contribution. At least some young people are converning themselves with the issues surrounding the tradition of folk music - however you describe or define it. Good luck to all of them. I am glad they are out there.

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: GUEST,cardboard cutout
Date: 07 Jul 05 - 03:37 PM

"when was the last time you saw a lot of young musicians at a session?" For me, it was the last time I went to a festival, "Bloke in the corner". (Maybe you just go the the wrong, (or at least, different) sessions.........

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: Marje
Date: 07 Jul 05 - 04:11 PM

I think it's excellent news. One of the graduates is a young(ish) friend whom I encouraged to apply for the course. I sent him some details from the Internet, and next thing I knew he'd given up his job and was setting off to travel hundreds of miles from home to do this (he was already a very accomplished and enthusiastic musician). He e-mailed recently to say he's got an upper second, and I'm so proud and pleased for him.

We're always complaining that the media, the public, etc in England don't take our music seriously, but how can they if we don't even encourage folk musicians themselves to take it seriously? From now on, each summer will see a new cohort of proficient and enthusiastic new musicians - teachers, performers, recording artists, session players and singers - and I think it will be a great shot in the arm for folk music in this country.

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 07 Jul 05 - 04:12 PM

Sounds terribly fun and who knows, might help get us out of the fakelore 'I learned this off of a Fairport/Steeleye/Albion record' mentality that's a downside of the revival.

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 07 Jul 05 - 04:28 PM

Jim Causley, Emily Portman and Lauren McCormick have contributed to Martyn Wyndham Read's Songlinks 2....

Kitty

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: alanabit
Date: 07 Jul 05 - 04:30 PM

I don't know about it being fake to hand on music that way, La Scaramouche. To hand on music, you use the tools, which are available to you at the time. Isn't it just as fake to pretend that you really did learn a tune from somewhere else, when you actually heard it on a record? As folk music is a minority interest, I believe the best chance now of preserving it is by using any technology available.

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: M.Ted
Date: 07 Jul 05 - 04:35 PM

From a certain point of view, it is a highly objectionable enterprise--folk music is, if not exactly created by "the people", at least chosen, shaped, molded and used by them, for their own amusement--the university trained musician is not a folk musician--he/she is a product of a system that decides what is and isn't appropriate music, and how it is to be played.

One fear is that the trained and polished university musicians will their "business education" will have a competitive advantage over the real folk musicians, and will replace them. Another is that a unversity committee will decide what music will and will not folk music.

Both of these concerns are legitimate. I was once involved in the Balkan music scene(such as it is) and had a friend was an excellent gadulka player--well regarded in both the US and Bulgaria--every few years, he would go to Bulgaria to study, and would return playing in yet another style, advocates of the old style having lost influence in the academic sphere--

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: alanabit
Date: 07 Jul 05 - 05:54 PM

It is only one point of view, though, M.Ted, however valid. The academic institutions are there to collect and share knowledge. I am just glad that folk music is being seriously studied, collected, evaluated and recorded. Of course, this does not make the students - or their lecturers right. I do think it is one way to preserve and nurture it though. I think that folk music is most in danger from neglect and indifference. Even if we disagree with every conclusion which the academic institutions reach, we can still be happy that the subject is being kept alive.

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: M.Ted
Date: 07 Jul 05 - 07:29 PM

The other view would be that it is not being kept alive at all, that it has been captured, chloroformed, and preserved in formaldahyde--then dissected, mounted and put on display.

All by qualified, certified, and degreed "experts", who plunder and exploit for their own academic and personal profit.

I don't necessarily agree with this point of view, but I understand why people feel that way--there are a lot of unintended consequences when universities, with all their power and resources, bring them to bear on small, frail, and usually anachronistic folk and ethnic communities--

A small example would be when folklorists become interested in a particular kind of regional ethnic music, record, publicize, and promote the local performers to folk festivals, causing the best musicians to leave the community--

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: Peace
Date: 07 Jul 05 - 07:56 PM

Any 'field' is worthy of study. Certainly the world of 'folk music' qualifies. The grads are fortunate to have had the chance to do that kind of degree. Arts with a twist. Congratulations to all of you.

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: alanabit
Date: 08 Jul 05 - 03:06 AM

It could happen that the academic world would exploit areas of folk music. I don't see much evidence of it though. Bearing in mind the very little of what I know about these graduates (gleaned from here mainly), it does not look as if we have much to worry about.
Where people want to preserve and nurture folk music, there is always going to be more influence in some hands than others. Total concensus on what folk music should mean is nigh on impossible (as we know very well from Mudcat).
I have often raised the view that there is hardly any real folk music alive in either my native country(the UK or in my adopted one (Germany). Still, we now have the Mudcat and some academic interest in a subject dear to our hearts. Let's welcome it onto the field.

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 08 Jul 05 - 03:40 AM

I ment fakelore because they had certain ways of looking at the songs which has contributed no end to fakelore because too often people don't bother to look beyond them.
For the record I do enjoy listening to stuff from those three bands.

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: M.Ted
Date: 08 Jul 05 - 09:58 AM

I am not worried about these young people, and I wish them the best. It is always heartening to see young people who are serious about learning and performing good music--

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: AggieD
Date: 08 Jul 05 - 10:50 AM

Congratulations to them I say, & aren't some of us just a little jealous that they actually had that opportunity to study & immerse themselves in the music & learn to play/sing from some of our very skilled musicians & singers. I also heard those young people at Sidmouth last year & was very impressed but their skill.

IMHO any way we have of encouraging young people into preserving traditional music should be encouraged.

If they take their skills out & teach, then more power to them, teaching folk music in schools etc. will hopefully encourage more young people to enjoy traditional music, & will give them something other than classical to try if they go on to become students of the art.

With regard to style of performance, even classical music styles change & evolve. After all folk music changes constantly, & each person singing a song or playing a piece of music will interpret it in their own way, look at how many different songs come out of the same source. I really don't think that anyone can say, no matter how much they are immersed in any type of music, what is the definitive of the correct way to play folk music, & I am sure these young people will continue to develop in their own way.

Angela

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Jul 05 - 11:24 AM

Congratulations to the Newcastle graduates!

I suspect that if the anti-intellectual, anti-analytical faction ever get their way, folk clubs (if they exist at all) will become merely another outlet for punk garage hip hop - or whatever the latest fad in 'post-music noise' happens to be.

DB

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: GUEST,Sidewinder.
Date: 09 Jul 05 - 04:22 AM

Some interesting points raised overall. I am not totally against Uni Folkies but I am definitely more in favour of searching out performers and pilfering what you can from them to advance your own style. The people I admire most never had a conventional music lesson in their lives but they did absorb the cultural and social scenes of their times and went on to galvanise them in euphoric musical styles admired the world over.As for Paganini and Bach and, if I may be so bold, Mozart and Sibelius; what we admire most about their music cannot be force fed to us in a classroom. It is food for the soul my friend and far more complex than merely following the dots.Well done all you graduates I applaud your efforts. But remember you ain't no Robert Johnson or Woody Guthrie and never will be despite what your diploma says.Back on the dirt track I looked out across the Delta and knew my crossroads was there waiting for me because I chose the hard road to travel.

Regards.

Sidewinder.

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: greg stephens
Date: 09 Jul 05 - 09:47 AM

I think it is very legitimate to look closely at all courses for folk music. I think the fundamental analytic question should be "who is doing the teaching?". Are the students being exposed to traditional folk music, or are they merely being exposed to revivalist performers who have chosen, for various reasons, to perform material of folk origin? In other world, are the teachers being drawn from the"folk scene": if the answer is "yes", then the course is too narrow...not wworthless, but definitely too narrowly focussed.
   I don't know the answers to this qestion, I havent been to look at what is going on in Newcastle. I applaud its existence, of course folk music should be studied. But I would be profoundly suspicious of what was going on if it became evident, for example, that teachers at festivals were to become largely drawn from a steadily growing pool of folk graduates. That would be a total betrayal of the whole concept of folk music.

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: Frankham
Date: 09 Jul 05 - 12:21 PM

A university is a source of unified collected information. It's what you do with that information that counts. To have it made available is to my knowledge a gift to those who are interested in folk music.

I will say this in my experience. Folk music has become a kind of show business where self-styled pundits decide what is legitimate and audiences determine what they think is folk music and support the artists that fit into their classification.

The Woody Guthrie that I knew was open to a variety of different kind of musics if it didn't rely on commercialization to make it happen. In short, if it just wasn't a cash crop. He identified any music that he thought was sincere and from the heart.

There is no reason why this kind of approach can't be taken in the context of a learning center (centre) and the people who have been motivated to explore information regarding folk music in my opinion offer more than those who try to emulate life-styles for which they didn't come by naturally.

As an educator for most of my life (co-founder of the Old Town School of Folk Music) I believe that any center (centre) of learning is to be supported enthusiastically by anyone who cares about the subject of folk music.

Another tremendous advantage of a university of this nature is that it applies a realistic attitude and training for people trying to make it in the music field, something that most music academies associated with universities seem to lack. I like their approach to contemporary and commercial music. Why not have a place whereby this kind of expression can be elevated through informed students?

Way to go! I congratulate the university and the grad students!

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: shepherdlass
Date: 09 Jul 05 - 01:20 PM

And it's not as if musicians in the tradition didn't receive tuition. Sidewinder, I know you're talking about people who never had a CONVENTIONAL music lesson in their lives, but that doesn't mean they didn't have any kind of tuition, it was probably just unofficial and spontaneous. Then there were the budding players who went to the village's best player to get some lessons before developing their own style.

When the informal systems (of passing on tunes at farmhouse get-togethers; and skills via the local experts) recede, then it's surely good to have a new system in place. We'd be naiive to think that the old players just sprang from the earth untutored and unlettered (isn't this just the assumption that one C J Sharp is always criticized for?).

We can't be force-fed an appreciation of any form of music in a classroom, but if we love the music already, the classroom's one hell of a good shortcut to get the necessary skills to take that music forward. What you do with those skills afterwards is the important bit ... Good luck to the new graduates

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 09 Jul 05 - 01:47 PM

Walter Pardon's uncles made sure he learnt the songs properly.

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: GUEST,Sidewinder.
Date: 10 Jul 05 - 02:02 AM

Greg highlights a valid point as anyone with a love of music would understand.Another relevant example would be The Beatles (untutored self developed group) turned away and left to peter out in Liverpool and The Graduate Band given complete assistance and empowerment to influence a generation with conformist recognised standardised pop music.Paul McCartney was once asked why he never learned to read music and he replied "when you have clear boundaries of what you can and cannot do in music you lose the edge of experimentation".My view is yes it is nice to give praise and recognition to anyone who achieves something but let's not go over the top.I am sure there are Buskers throughout this country who could inspire and enthrall and enchant us all with just one song -could they have learned to do that in a classroom? I think not.Yes you can be taught to recognise the late greats and why they were such influencial talents. But let's face it you can go to the local library and do that in days rather than months or years. You can be taught to emulate their art but it will never be anything more than a tribute and these days they are ten a penny.I am open to any rationale that proves the opposite of the points I have raised and look forward to reading them soon. Finally I would add ; after completing this course if you have any intelligence whatsoever you will realise the quest is only really just beginning for you and in the words of William Blake "when the doors of perception are cleansed you will see things as they truly are".

Regards.

Sidewinder.

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: Marje
Date: 10 Jul 05 - 08:08 AM

That last point of yours, Sidewinder, says it all. One great thing about a good education is that it makes you aware of how little you really know and how much there will always be to learn. If this course has done its job, the new graduates will have this awareness and bring it to their music for the rest of their lives. This contrasts, to my mind, with the tired old self-taught players and floor-singers (we all know who they are) who just trot out the same half-dozen tunes or songs every time, because that's all they know or want to be bothered learning.

In the past, if you wanted to learn plumbing or cooking or bridge-building, you worked alongside someone who had this skill and learnt it from them. Traditional musicians, too, have always learnt things from each other and passed on their methods as well as their material. I don't believe the "greats" of the past just plucked their music out of the air - they listened and learned and talked about it and shared ideas, and adapted material they learned from others before going on to create something new and individual.

Nowadays there's a much more structured approach to learning, and I don't see why traditional music shouldn't tap in to this. I don't see that learning one's craft (playing, singing, or writing songs or music) and understanding wider aspects of it should become invalid just because some people choose to do this full-time for several years - they still carry on learning from each other as well as from their tutors, and taking part in musical activities in the community, as they all did before they enrolled for the course.

I'm sure lots of us have attended a workshop in singing or playing at some festival or similar event, and come away inspired and excited because we've learnt something we would probably never have discovered for ourselves. (The tired old performers I mentioned above are not seen at such events, they can't be bothered). To decide to develop one's skills and knowledge in this way all the time for several years takes a lot of determination and hard work, but that's what these graduates have been doing. Good luck to them.

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: GUEST,Peter from Essex
Date: 10 Jul 05 - 06:06 PM

A number of legitimate concerns have been raised in this thread. A don't think these apply at the moment considering both the individuals in the initial batch of graduates and the numbers concerned. When we have had another 5 or 10 years worth of graduates we will see.

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: greg stephens
Date: 11 Jul 05 - 10:19 AM

The only direct contact I have had with this course has been students getting in touch asking for info/advice or whatever. The kind of questions, and how they have been asked, has certainly made me feel the course seems to be a great idea. But as to what has been done with answers I have sent...I haven't a clue. We certainly need to wait for a while, and see what the graduates get up to, before leaping to judgement.
Perhaps they should advertise themselves as BA(Newcastle Folk) on their promo material, to facilitate this tracking process!

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Jul 05 - 06:07 PM

Its not so much what the graduates themselves get up to as finding in 5 years time that a folk "qualification" is necessary for funding or schools work.

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: rhyzla
Date: 12 Jul 05 - 09:56 AM

One of the graduates is a personal friend, and I had the chance to see him and 2 others grads in a band called 'Roll a Penny' over the weekend. (They did a short tour in the midlands - Tamworth, Lichfield and Ashby)

They have developed immense musical ability and created sublime arrangements of traditional and original material.

They are, however, very aware that they will be operating in a competetive environment and will have the same problems as anyone else in getting good paid gigs.

Whether they become succesful professional musicians will depend on their own will-power - just like anyone else. What the course has given them is insight, confidence, experience and most importantly - contacts within the industry.

Good luck to all of them - they will need it the same as everyone else!

Barry

Subject: RE: Folk music students graduate
From: GUEST,Sam Pirt
Date: 12 Jul 05 - 04:47 PM

WELL DONE ALL!!!!!

I KNOW you have all worked so hard, everyone of you deserve it.

Cheers, Sam