Musical Traditions Magazine, http://mustrad.org.uk

Subject: musical traditions
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 02:08 PM

an internet magazine whose aim is to promote traditonal music from all parts of the world.
Fred Mcormick aka fred amhran, has previously stated that the folk revival is of no interest to him.
I would be interested to hear how musical traditions define traditional music and why the folk revival is dismissed.

---

http://mustrad.org.uk/

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: GUEST,King Zog of Albania
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 02:57 PM

Before casting aspersions why don't you at least check out the site thoroughly, Captain? Should you be capable of doing so then you'll find tyour question easily answered.

However, I suspect you're just a wind-up merchant!

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 03:30 PM

no aspersions are being cast,just a question asked.

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 03:35 PM

Dick,

A woman once asked Thomas "Fats" Waller, the legendary jazz pianist, "Wr. Waller, what is swing?". Waller replied, "Lady, if you gotta ask, you ain't got it."

Dick, you just ain't got it.

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 03:59 PM

Well, give us a link....

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 04:47 PM

Fred Mccormick[ amhran]your resorting to your usual tactics.
i first noticed this when you queried Jim carrolls qualifications as a collector, then during the kennedy thread you were blatantly rude ,then last night you joined in a personal attack on myself and my name ,so that the moderators had to close the thread.
now you wont answer the question, but again come up with a smart alec remark .
you owe me an apology for your puerile behaviour on the dick miles folklore thread.
lastly can you sing and play ,when you can ,[ please give me a list of clubs and festivals you have done] and have played as many festivals and clubs, as i have done, then you can talk about whether I have got it or not . your behaviour reflects poorly on musical traditions.

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 05:29 PM

1, fred mccormick you owe me an apology .
2,Iwould appreciate an answer[ not about swing but a definition of traditional music and a justification of the lack of importance of the folk revival]

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 05:37 PM

What is smart alick about a suggestion that someone asking about an internet publication would do well to provide a link to that publication?

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 05:43 PM

mcgrath;      I was referring to fred mcormick,not richard bridge ,read my post again.

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 06:08 PM

In whuich the lad totally ignored a perfectly reasonable and constructive request from Richard Bridge, only to go on about "I want an apology" and "answer my question".

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: johnadams
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 06:21 PM

Musical Traditions magazine (found at www.mustrad.org) is an excellent site with a solid policy. It is credible enough to have been offered archiving by the British Library.

Its editor, Rod Stradling, has often stated his policy of concentrating on older performers and unbroken traditions from around the world and although I personally think that he misses a few opportunities, he has a stated policy and sticks to it.

If people don't like the policy, they can click their mouse pointer somewhere where they are getting a better deal. No problem.

On the subject of Fred McCormick and performing, I can say that Fred appeared at Ryburn Folk Club some years ago with Sean MacNamara and between them they gave us one of the memorable nights in our history. Never mind the width - feel the quality.

Johnny Adams

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: GUEST,Lowkey
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 11:34 PM

I,m sorry but I must have come into the middle of a thread because I have no idea what is being discussed here. It appears to be a private slanging match.

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 02:11 AM

Jesus, he's at it again.

Birdseye, you seem to spend most of your time either demanding an apology or giving one. Personally, I'm still waiting for one for your accusation of "hiding behind the cloak of anonymity". I too read this thread to see what "musical traditions" was about but don't see any point made for discussion worthy of response.

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 02:16 AM

http://www.mustrad.org.uk/

I have to go out to lecture this morning, but let's all have a look at the mag, here, and consider later...

As far as I recollect Rod and Danny Stradling were friends I never met of my late wife, Jacqui Walker, nee Turner.

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 04:47 AM

Dick,

I really don't think I need to justify MT's policy to you or anybody else, especially in the light of Johnny Adams'comments (see below). Thanks John. I should add though that, as well as being a singer, I am also a songwriter with around 55 compositions to my credit. No, we don't cover them in Musical Traditions.

If you don't like what we do, you can always read Living Tradition instead.

Fred McCormick.


Musical Traditions magazine (found at www.mustrad.org) is an excellent site with a solid policy. It is credible enough to have been offered archiving by the British Library.

Its editor, Rod Stradling, has often stated his policy of concentrating on older performers and unbroken traditions from around the world and although I personally think that he misses a few opportunities, he has a stated policy and sticks to it.

If people don't like the policy, they can click their mouse pointer somewhere where they are getting a better deal. No problem.

On the subject of Fred McCormick and performing, I can say that Fred appeared at Ryburn Folk Club some years ago with Sean MacNamara and between them they gave us one of the memorable nights in our history. Never mind the width - feel the quality.

Johnny Adams

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 05:22 AM

Will you all please stop now?

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 05:35 AM

But the Revival was only a revival to those who'd lost touch with one branch of a wider delta of traditions. To those still in it, it was merely a flowering. To draw a line in the sand in 19whenever is to encourage an ossification which is the very enemy of music. By all means favour older performers and celebrate unbroken traditions - but remember there never was an unbroken tradition yet, anywhere, ever. And there's no rule to say anyone must embrace Revival/post-Revival music either - but MusTrad seem intent on driving a fence across the tradition, and the actually impossibility of this task seems to make them cross at times. This attitude can alienate people and turn folks off the very thing they seek to promote. A more relaxed attitude that occaisionally recognises the way music really passes from person to person, from heart to heart, might be more helpful.

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 05:48 AM

I havent criticised musical traditions as a magazine, I asked three questions, if you dont choose to answer them , Fair enough.
    Fred mccormicks part in a thread mocking my name was puerile, the moderators chose to close the thread, which says it all.

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 06:03 AM

When newspapers get letters written uin green ink that, is always seen as a warning sign. Does a predilection for lower case carries a similar implication on the Internet?

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: Tootler
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 06:40 AM

The thread title is misleading in my view.

It is not about musical traditions at all but about a magazine of that title and seems to be one of far too many slanging matches cum slagging off of something/someone.

Could one of the closnes add the word "magazine" to the thread title so others are not mislead as I was.

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: GUEST,Ex-King Zog of Albania
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 12:40 PM

Captain Birdseye,

If your music's as riveting as your messages then I for one will be certain to catch you the next time I'm in Ballybackofbeyond.

In the interim, at least get your targets right!

Fred McCormick (note that subtle distinction between the two letters 'C', Captain) did not post the FL Dick Miles thread. I did, though Fred contributed to that shortlived thread.

Why was it posted, you might well ask? For one reason only - to wind you up since you seem to be a spring just waiting to uncoil its latest pile of drivel on Mudcat. Why did I do it anonymously? Just to watch Dick's scatterguns blazing wildly.

If you bothered to check the Musical Traditions site thoroughly, then you might have found the answer to your initial question about the site's policies.

Dick, for heaven's sake, get your act together, try a typing tutor, and do something about your seeming knee-jerk need to respond to every Mudcat thread that's going.

'Guest' who does not even deign us with a pseudonym isn't just barking up the wrong tree but seemingly howling at an entire forest.

What on earth does the following mean 'remember there never was an unbroken tradition yet, anywhere, ever'? Try telling that to a fiddler in Donegal and the laughter will be reverberating for weeks later.

Then s/he adds 'MusTrad seem intent on driving a fence across the tradition, and the actually impossibility of this task seems to make them cross at times.' This is sheer nonsense and again reveals ignorance about the policies of Musical Traditions.

Whoops, I've been deposed again.

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 12:56 PM

All traditions are regularly changed (broken - by mustrads terms of reference) by cultural and political influences, such as scottish and english music arriving in donegal. If someone had policed donegal fidil music in the 17th century to ban those influences and keep that tradition 'pure' we wouldn't have those tunes today. If some are ignorant about mustrads policies then perhaps that's due to a slight holier-than-thou attidude which does not encourage one to explore further.

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 02:07 PM

Anyone got popcorn?

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 02:22 PM

I enjoy musical traditions magazine.
and if its their policy not to deal with the Folk revival, fine.
    as far as I am concerned the folk tradition and the folk revival are inseperable. We are all entitled to different opinions.
    king zog it sounds like your stuck up Barking Creek without a paddle, watch out for the men in the white coats.

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 03:11 PM

Well I've dipped into a number of articles over on the site and find them thoroughly interesting - but of course all of the ones I chose to read were about or relevant to English music and song.

Curiously, I think I see a logical snag. The site seems in general to suggest that the tradition is a continuum, and if that is so then those now performing it, whether they are revivalists or have learned from the tradition, are creating the continuation of that continuum.

Never mind the argument above, what do we think (and in this "we" includes the Americans for there is much on the site that appears to be relevant to American sources) of the site? I think it is more than sufficiently important not to be ignored.

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 03:12 PM

But by promoting themselves and this seeming* narrow world view as they do, and thus promoting their value system, they do folk music a disservice. Music must always earn its survival by touching people's hearts, or it deserves to be lost. By making some arbitrary definition of a Tradition (based on the historical accident that these songs/singers happened to be around immediately before and/or during the so-called Revival but were miraculously not tarnished by it), and then appearing - repeat appearing - to elevate this music above people like Dylan and Simon and many many others who are actually a valid part of the flowing rapids that are the real English/Celtic tradition, they are skewing history, and seeming to promote a distorted set of values. It's not really their fault. There are a lot of people who do this in the folk world - who value a work by it's provenance, as if it was an antique, rather than by its soul - which is how other music (traditional or otherwise) is judged by everyone else. It wouldn't matter, but its one of the chief reasons why our national music is derided by the majority of people in this country. And that's a shame, no?

*I'm sure the individuals behind mustrad may well be broad-minded and have wide musical tastes. It's the manifesto - and the way they talk to people as a result of having to defend the indefensible - that's the problem.

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: johnadams
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 03:40 PM

anonymous GUEST
(the one who wrote: "But by promoting themselves and this seeming* narrow world view as they do, and thus promoting their value system, they do folk music a disservice."

Sorry Guest but I'm not sure where on the MT site to find this narrow world view! It's just got a focus - it can't be all things to all folkies!

MT was a paper magazine with a specific interest range. When it could no longer sustain as a paper publication, a load of us contributed £1000 between us to help Rod set it up as an internet mag so we could continue to see the same sort of articles as we had enjoyed in the paper version.

It's a specialist interest publication with a style of its own. It does no more of a disservice to folk music than any other specialist folk mag such as 'Set Turn and Single' or 'Old Time Herald' or whatever.

Johnny Adams

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 05:03 PM

Guest, I too do not recognise your interpretation, and I've just been reading the stuff on the site.

However you slice it, Dylan and Paul Simon are not part of any tradition, even if both "borrowed" liberally from many.

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: GUEST,Grumpy
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 05:45 PM

I looked into this thread expecting to enjoy this topic. How wrong I was. Threads started and conducted in this way are totally banal and quite opposite to the way most Mudcatters use the site.

If you have a personal grievance or 'overdone' personal opinions Captain Birdseye please conduct matters privately. Mudslinging on Mudcat isn't nice! OK so it keeps a thread active but what good does it do to reputations!

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: GUEST,Mr Grumpy
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 05:48 PM

May I say that although I am Mr Grumpy, I am not Grumpy, or rather that although I am I am not the above Guest Grumpy?

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 05:48 PM

"Banal"?

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: GUEST,Grumpy aka sneezy aka dopey
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 05:50 PM

It was me.....not Mr Grumpy...sorry

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: GUEST,Guest,Happy
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 05:54 PM

Let's all just calm down. Grumpy, where did the other five get to?

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: GUEST,Sleepy
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 05:56 PM

They got bored after the reading the first few post and went off to look for Snow White

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 06:00 PM

"Dylan and Paul Simon are not part of any tradition" - of COURSE they are! Where did they get their ideas from? Where does anyone?! Ok they were more influenced by American music and the romantic poets but those are traditions too. You can't take an academic stand (rather than a personal/emotional one, which is a very different matter) to separate a strand of music out (ok) and then treat it as better or somehow more true than others (not ok).

Everthing informs everything else if you let it, and you should, because otherwise music becomes an exercise in cultural eugenics. Every writer and interpreter down the ages, in every culture, will have absorbed ideas from others, intentionally or otherwise, to a greater or lesser extent, and that's healthy, and should be encouraged, and then celebrated when - and only when - it produces work with 'soul' that actually touches people.

This English Tradition that's so holy it needs to be put on a life-support system (and even the dross treated with reverence - for much traditional material is, frankly, pants) was always entwined with other strands, was made from other stands, and became further twisted into that complex skein which people call folk music today by the Revival - and by all that's happened since. And that's a good thing, not a bad thing.

There's nothing wrong with exploring, and preserving (as long as it's not in aspic) and celebrating old music, nothing at all, as long as the above is understood - and the flow of ideas and emotions is allowed to continue naturally and reasonably - or at least that you don't give the world the impression that you believe such a flow to be wrong (which is what I feel mustrad does).

It's not mustrad's editorial policy that I have a problem with. It's the communication style that seems to flow from it as a by-product of the seriousness with which their mission is being persued.

It seems to me from the site's editorials, and from posts here on mudcat that the effort involved in maintaining this party line - which seems at first glance to go against all the above (and therefore against nature) - has made the team negative, and at times defensive/agressive.

I've only had the briefest of contact myself, but I was treated unnecessarily patronisingly. Others appear to have had a rougher time - and that's a shame from an organ which should be at the centre of the English folk world, with doors wide open and big wide smiles.

(I'm not supplying my name firstly because I entered this debate in a red flush in response to an anonimous post, and this has led me to be more forthright than I'd prefer to be seen to be, and secondly, because though I feel strongly about this and believe it to be a debate that should be aired more frequently, I don't want to make enemies of the mustrad team or those who support mustrad in good faith - many of whom are friends).

I shall say no more.

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 06:14 PM

NO. As I said, Dylan and Simon take from but are not part of traditions. It is simply idle to pretend otherwise. Carthy, Young Tradition, Devil's Interval - even possibly Whapweasel - rehearsal and reproduction of tradition, evolution of tradition, not rupture from it.

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 06:53 PM

Typical of you Limeys Rich. That's the sort of garbage that we've come to expect from you lot over there. Bob Dylan and Paul Simon are our tradition every bit as the nonentities the you mentioned -except Carthy-God bless him.

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 07:21 PM

If people draw stuff from a tradition, or from a number of traditions, and the other people draw stuff from them, that's essentially a tradition. That applies to Dylan and Paul Simon in the same way as it does to other singers and musicians.

There's always a balance and a tension between innovating and passing things on, and its a balance and tension both between people and within them.

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: johnadams
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 07:24 PM

GUEST.

I don't disagree with everything in your previous post but you seem to have an unfocused view of 'tradition'. Paul Simon and the Rev. Bob are obviously part of a continuing tradition but they are a different thing from Henry Reed or Lonnie Austin and all those people that Lomax and Alan Jabbour recorded. Crudely put, Bob Dylan is a (brillaint) re-writer of tradition. Martin Carthy is a (brilliant) re-deliverer of tradition, Henry Reed and Pop Maynard ARE the tradition. This may change in years to come - it is, after all, only a perception and subject to shift.

If a bunch of Americans wanted to focus on Henry Reed, Lonnie Austin, Stella and Taylor Kimble, Almeda Riddle, etc. would you describe their focus as 'holy' and the tradition as "needing to be put on a life support system". I hope not.

If a bunch of English want to focus on Pop Maynard, Phoebe Smith etc. etc. then surely that's just as acceptable. OK so you don't like mustrad's communication style. You don't have to engage with it. In the end, it's only enthusiasts being enthusiastic about their passion. It's not going to bring the world grinding to a halt.

Johnny Adams - not afraid to be identified and not looking for enemies, however their opinions may differ from his.

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 11:17 PM

to johnny adams.
I started this thread ,with the intention of discussing amicably, musical traditons magazines editorial policy, re the revival.I find musical tradions magazine, informative, well produced, and a good read.
   TO GUEST GRUMPY; fred mcormick started with[ dick you just aint got it]john adams said [ never mind the width, feel the quality].
well if I aint got it, and dont have the quality, please tell me why I get consistently rebooked at venues. In lancaster maritime festivals case; 13 years running.
next I was attacked by guest king zog[ who admits he started a scurrilous thread about me, which the moderators closed]he admits to wanting to wind me up.[If your musics as riveting as your message] quote ....... that sounds more like a personal attack,than anything to do with the original thread ... surely Grumpy this is not in the spirit of Mudcat.It is others that started and continued the mudslinging, please adress your comments to the appropriate people and please lets have a sensible discussion[instead ofcrap about typing]
I repeat, I Thorougly enjoy reading musical tradiions magazine, even though I have a different opinion about the traditions, relation to the folk revival. Dick Miles

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: GUEST,Another GUEST (honest - well, actually not)
Date: 13 Oct 06 - 04:04 AM

But that's the whole point about tradition - it HAS no focus, or rather you can only focus arbitrarily - with hindsight or some predetermined agenda (as the collectors you mention did), and so give an incomplete view. For an analogy, try putting your video camera on macro and pushing it between the wires in the back of a telephone exchange router.

McGrath and Guest at 06:53 (not me by the way) have it.

The invention of the tape recorder did two things. It changed for ever the way music was transmitted from singer to singer, and it allowed a random snapshot to be taken of 'the tradition' as it happened to be in that period when people felt like doing field recordings - which was no more valid or interesting than it would have been if those recordings had been made two hundred years before, or after, or in a different country. (And similar things happened, for only slightly different reasons, to earlier collectors working with paper and pen).

Many of the songs collected were badly written in the first place, had been mauled in transmission, and were then also wrongly sung for the mic. Very little is actually of real merit as it was collected - which is why Carthy, Coe, Humphreys, Causley, Dylan, Simon et al have to re-write and re-deliver.

They are the heroes of folk music, along with the forgotten people who wrote the collected songs originally - and the people who write entirely new songs in this 'Tradition' today. The skilled writer and the talented revisionist should be celbrated, not the collector or the collected. And people outside the folk enclave (which, sadly means 99% of the people who supposedly own this Tradition) think it's plain bonkers to denigrate the new, purely because it IS new. And that's unhelful to the promotion and survival of folk music.

Of course it's brilliant that these archives exist, and of course they should be made safe, made available and access encouraged. But these collections are just a resource. They contain gems or course - but gems are cheap in all music. Music is always transitory and of the moment. It must be relevent, and interesting, and it must touch the listener's heart - even if IS old - to justify taking up his time.

I don't have to engage with mustrad, so I don't. But others do.

A different attitude would be more helpful all round.

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 Oct 06 - 04:35 AM

I agree.

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: GUEST,Brian Peters
Date: 13 Oct 06 - 05:55 AM

Determinedly anonymous GUEST says:
"Many of the songs collected were badly written in the first place, had been mauled in transmission, and were then also wrongly sung for the mic."

Comparing printed broadsides with songs collected from traditional singers suggests that what you call "mauling", I would call "improvement". And who are you to decide what was "wrongly sung"? Did it not occur to you that traditional singers might have been deliberately reshaping the songs to their own satisfaction? Or do you judge them incapable of that because they were musically untrained?

You're not obliged to enjoy Phil Tanner or Jeannie Robertson or any of the other great singers from tradition, but I suggest that, if you asked your own "heroes of folk music" who THEIR musical heroes are, the English ones at least would be naming precisely the maulers and inaccurate singers you appear to despise.

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Oct 06 - 06:14 AM

Broadsides are a totally different though parallel issue. And I certainly don't despise great singers or great songs - and I never said I did. I absolutely agree that many must have made huge improvements to material that came to them, and that's exactly my point. Those that did are in the same category as the contemporary names I mentioned (and I'd include you there), as re-writers and re-deliverers.

I'm talking about stuff that's revered only because it was collected by one of the Great Collectors. A lot of mediocre material got caught in the net, yet some grant the same value to this (by reason only of it's provenance) as they do to those great singers and songs, thus devaluing both. And they place it above good modern works purely because of its age, not it's quality. That's the rub.

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: GUEST,Brian Peters
Date: 13 Oct 06 - 07:08 AM

Sorry, Guest, if I misunderstood you. Certainly I can make personal judgements about, say, Cecil Sharp's collection, in that there are songs there that I'd want to sing and others that don't interest me at all, although that's a personal judgement and I'd hesitate to call them "mediocre".

Your argument touches on a broader issue. Singers like me who appropriate traditional songs (and the very fact that they're old and don't sound like recently-written songs is a part of their appeal) will always tend to make value judgements about the quality of a given tune or lyric. Enthusiasts for traditional singing - like those involved with producing Musical Traditions - tend to be more interested in the singers than the songs. The modern view (cf. Sharp's) is that a given singer's entire repertoire is worthy of consideration, whether Child Ballad, comic ditty or Victorian tear-jerker. It was no accident that 'Voice of the People' included plenty of detail about the singers but very little discussion of the songs they performed. Taken to extremes, that approach can have more to do with sociology than music, and (my profession being what it is) I take exception to the discernable feeling in some quarters that the old songs should be left to die with the old singers, and that poncey, over-educated revivalists should give up and go home. That said, there's a great deal of extremely good stuff in MT, and (as one turned on to traditional singing the day Roy Harris lent me his Sam Larner LPs) I'm glad that those enthusiasts are willing to share their specialist knowledge with the rest of us.

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: greg stephens
Date: 13 Oct 06 - 01:39 PM

I think MT is great. It may be narrow, but that is why it is great. It may be that the experiments of Benjamin Britten, Martin Carthy, Vaughan Williams, Jim Moray etc etc will be seen in the future to be part of the tradition, or it may be they will be perceived as side shoots that used the tradition, but were not part of the mainstream. Only time will tell. Musical Traditions seems to have gone for a senisble policy of not involving itself in guessing games as to whether Ray Davies or Marin Carthy is the boy to tip for the future; they are leaving that verdict to history, where it belongs. They are concerning themself with what thye perceive as the tradition, and they can back up their tview with some very learned analysis. Fair play to them. If you want a magazine that concentrates more on the current folk revivaal, there are some available, and anybody who doesnt like them can start their own. Rod Stradling runs the magazine that suits him. Well done I say. I can fread about the revival elsewhere.

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: GUEST,The late King Zog of Albania
Date: 13 Oct 06 - 02:08 PM

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: GUEST,The even later King Zog of Albania
Date: 13 Oct 06 - 02:34 PM

Whoops, apocalypse, I reached ahead of myself there.

Since Captain Birdseye began this thread it's time to return to his beloved fishfinger-filled ship.

He wrote:

'I started this thread ,with the intention of discussing amicably, musical traditons magazines editorial policy, re the revival.I find musical tradions magazine, informative, well produced, and a good read.'

Apart from the obvious question regarding Dick Miles's inability to find the caps lock or shift keys and his usual lack of accuracy regarding spelling, punctuation and probably anything else in the known universe, he still hasn't clarified why he asked the question in the first place.

Dick - lesson one.

A - this is a capital letter, normally ascribed to the first letters of titles (such as magazines like Musical Traditions, not 'tradions' or whatever version your half-baked mind evolves).
. - this is a comma and you should use it between pauses in your obviously over-galvanised speech processes.
' - this is an apostrophe - use it to apply ownership or conjoin words such as 'that' and 'is'.

You might also find the hyphen (-) a useful tool in terms of linking words together.

Lesson two

When you're faced by a swimming pool choose the appropriate depth for your swimming abilities.

You wrote:

'fred mcormick started with[ dick you just aint got it]john adams said [ never mind the width, feel the quality].'

I suggest you refer back to the comments made by Fred and John and, via some self-analysis, question whether you are adept enough to comment on either person's contribution or undoubted expertise.

Lesson three

'well if I aint got it, and dont have the quality, please tell me why I get consistently rebooked at venues. In lancaster maritime festivals case; 13 years running.'

Forgive me for asking, but do you get paid for this gig? If you don't, then it's 1-0 to Lancaster.

Lesson four

>next I was attacked by guest king zog[ who admits he started a >scurrilous thread about me, which the moderators closed]he admits to >wanting to wind me up.[If your musics as riveting as your message] >quote ....... that sounds more like a personal attack,than anything >to do with the original thread ...

React to the obvious, not some half-baked cerebral malformation. It was a personal attack. Perhaps you should re-read that message and consider why it was made. Do your fingers walk the keyboard walk before your brain has slipped into gear?

Lesson five

>surely Grumpy this is not in the spirit of Mudcat.It is others that >started and continued the mudslinging, please adress your comments to >the appropriate people and please lets have a sensible >discussion[instead ofcrap about typing]

Don't call me 'Shirley'.

Lesson six

'I repeat'

Don't be repetitive.

Lesson seven

'I Thorougly enjoy reading musical tradiions magazine, even though I 'have a different opinion about the traditions, relation to the folk revival. Dick Miles'

And what 'different opinion' would that be?

Lesson eight

When you're out of your depth, Dick, just doggy-paddle in the shallow end.

There we have it.

Dick, if you still feel able to comment upon anything on the Musical Traditions site or to post new threads on Mudcat, then fire away (but I strongly suspect that your weapon will be loaded with blanks).

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: puck
Date: 13 Oct 06 - 02:42 PM

Having read thru this thread I realize what a waste of time and space it has been.
Just thought I'd add my thrupence worth

P

Subject: RE: musical traditions
From: GUEST,Queen Zog of Albania
Date: 13 Oct 06 - 02:58 PM

Captain Birdseye

Pay no heed to the self opinionated and crass utterances of the pompous King. He deludes himself by calling himself "late" - I wish!
It's usually all over in the time it takes to read one of his posts. And talk about firing blanks!
He compensates for his "little problem," as he likes to call it, by abusing others on Mudcat and belittling their contributions in the form of little lessons. Do yourself a favor by ignoring him and leave his treatment to the medical profession.

Yours Apologetically
Queen Zog