So what is *Traditional* Folk Music?

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 12 Nov 06 - 06:44 PM

I just thought I would toss the following quote into the ring. It comes from Gramsci.

""That which distinguishes folksong in the framework of a nation and its culture is neither the artistic fact nor the historic origin; it is a separate and distinct way of conceiving life and the world, as opposed to that of 'official' society."

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Nov 06 - 06:29 PM

FOLKIE DAVE ,you hopefully understood the essence of my thread
.Do I really have to rephrase my thread to put if a punter turned up before the year 2000 expecting to hear Gordon Hall,. aaaargh.

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Nov 06 - 06:17 PM

Walter was singing about songs that ended on the draw on the ten keuy single row accordion,as being old. songs that were either in the dorian mode or ending on the dominant chord.
Of course songs that were in the mixolydian mode, flat7 [ equally old] he couldnt have played on his box , So walters analysis is incorrect,.
And I love her, written by lennon and macartney, is also in the Dorian mode , not old but old sounding, BUT still not traditional or old. Walter WAS a fine singer but was out of his depth on determining what was old.

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Nov 06 - 05:17 PM

I am working on recordings Pat and I did of Walter Pardon, the last of the big-repertoire English traditional singers.
I though you might be interested on the different types of song in his repertoire. Walter had a fair number of non-traditional songs in his repertoire but he had no problem identifying them.

J C   If you had the choice Walter… if somebody said to you one night they were going to ask you to sing say half-a-dozen or a dozen songs even, of all your songs, what would be the choice, can you think offhand what you would choose to sing?

W P The Pretty Ploughboy would be one, that's one; Rambling Blade would be another one, The Rambling Blade would be two, Van Dieman's Land three, Let The Wind Blow High or Low, that'd be four, Broomfield Hill, that's five, Trees The Do Grow High, six, that'd be six.

J C Do you think that when you started singing in the clubs and festivals, do you think you think you are singing any different than you were singing when you were younger?

W P Dash, yes, I think so.

J C Do you know in what way?

W P Oh, I don't know, put more expression in probably, I think so. Well, but you see, you take these, what we call the old type… the old folk song, they're not like the music hall song, are they, or a stage song, there's a lot of difference in them. I mean a lot of these… some … it all depend what and how you're singing. Some of them go to nice lively, quick tunes, and others are… you don't do Van Dieman's Land… If there's a sad old song you don't go through that very quick. Like Up to the Rigs is the opposite way about.
I mean, we must put expression in, you can't sing them all alike. Well most of the stage songs you could, if you understand what I mean. According to what the song is you put the expression in or that's not worth hearing, well that's what I think anyhow.   And as I never did sing them, you see, there was no expression I could put in.

J C Alright; take another song; take something like Marble Arch and Maid of Australia, both of which are fairly amusing, anyway, would you see any difference in them?

W P Well yes, because there's a difference in the types of the music, that's another point.
You can tell Van Dieman's Land is fairly old by the sound, the music, and Irish Molly and Marble Arch is shortened up, they shortened them in the Victorian times. And so they did more so in the Edwardian times. Some songs then, you'd hardly start before you'd finish, you see, you'd only a four line verse, two verses and a four line chorus and that'd finish. You'd get that done in half a minute, and the music wasn't as good. Yeah, the style has altered. You can nearly tell by the old Broomfield Hill, that's an old tune; The Trees They Do Grow High, you can tell, and Generals All.
Nine times out of ten I can get an old fashioned ten keyed accordion, German tuned, you can nearly tell an old… what is an old song. Of course that doesn't matter what modern songs there is, the bellows always close when that finish, like that. And you go right back to the beginning of the nineteenth and eighteenth they finish this way, pulled out, look. You take notice how Generals All finish, that got an old style of finishing, so have The Trees They Do Grow High, so have The Gallant Sea Fight, in other words, A Ship To Old England Came, that is the title, The Gallant Sea Fight. You can tell they're old, the way they how they… That drawn out note at finish.   You just study and see what they are., how they work., you'll find that's where the difference is.
And as that got further along; that's where I slipped up with Black Eyed Susan; I thought that was probably William the Fourth by the music, but that go back about to 1730, that one do.
Well a lot of them you'll find, what date back years and years, there's a difference in the style of writing the music as that progressed along, that kept altering a lot. Like up into Victorian times, you've got Old Brown's daughter, you see, that come into Victorian times; well that style started altering, they started shortening the songs up, everything shortened up, faster and quicker, and the more new they get, the more faster they get, the styles alter, I think you'll find if you check on that, that's right.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Nov 06 - 05:06 PM

Cap'n,
It's not my definition - but it appears to be the only official one we have. As I have said, I think it merits examination and probably alteration, but I don't think it can be ignored, simply because it's the one that identified the music we signed up for forty years ago.
Any alteration needs to be mutually agreed on otherwise we stop communicating.
If you want to make a case for jazz, fine; I was going to The cavern in Liverpool in the early sixties to listen to "traditional jazz", but even in those days jazz had divided itself up into 'traditional', 'modern', 'big band' and other branches to identify the different categories.
I think I wrote earlier that "human beings put labels on things so they know what tin to open".
The labels are not a value judgement but a form of agreement that we are all talking about the same thing. I believe that thousands of people, myself included, walked away from the folk clubs because the labeling system broke down and we no longer knew what we were going to hear when we attended one.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 12 Nov 06 - 03:33 PM

I would really be surprised to turn up and hear Gordon Hall, he died January 24th 2000.

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Nov 06 - 12:55 PM

jim ,your criteria would allow jazz to be called traditonal music, while I have no objection ,most jazzers might be slightly confused if they turned up expecting to hear jazz , AND turned up to find that they were listening to Gordon Hall, or Martin Carthy.
ALTERNATIVELY someone expecting to see liam o flynn, might be confused if they found that humphrey lyttleton was their guest.

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Nov 06 - 12:39 PM

Thank you
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: GUEST,JT
Date: 12 Nov 06 - 11:16 AM

Jim
Forgotten about it already. Anybody with a brain can see that you're sincere and passionate about the music and the song. Keep doing what you're doing, it's great.

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Nov 06 - 04:51 AM

Guest
I apologise for my somewhat ill-tempered outburst.
It really does come from many years of having been told that thinking too much about music spoils its pleasure. I don't say that was what you were getting at, but that's how I took it.
Nobody on this thread is trying to organise anything - for themselves or anybody else, we are merely responding to a question by expressing opinions.
Sorry again if I took your point wrongly.
Jim Carroll
PS It certainly was not the researchers and academics who spawned the folk industry; I'm afraid that one was down entirely to musicians who wished to make a living out of the music and didn't much care how it was represented - not all musicians, but enough to inflict a great deal of damage from which traditional music has never recovered.

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Nov 06 - 03:37 PM

yes, while much of what they have written is good ,they both overwrote.

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: Peace
Date: 11 Nov 06 - 03:02 PM

In the time this thread has been going, Woody Guthrie as well as Malvina Reynolds would have written thirty songs each. Of course, they wouldn't have been traditional.

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Nov 06 - 02:57 PM

condecending   -    prisoner coming down

condescending   - how it should be spelt

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Nov 06 - 01:59 PM

Jim

I think that I prefer the knee-jerk reaction to the condecending and sarcastic one that followed.
I've no objection to you or anybody else thinking about the music you are involved in, it's just that after reading the thread I've got this image of a dog chasing its tail.
Contrary to your assumption that I disaprove of courses at Newcastle or anywhere else, I think that they are all excellent but I have an inbuilt suspicion of anyone who feels that they were put on this earth to organise everyone else according to what they see as the definitive way.
To me those who, as you put it, "got off their bums and wrote about it and collected it and annotated it etc.." preserved it,yes, but the downside was that they were also responsible for spawning the folk industry and making a living out of something that was freely given.
I don't recall referring to anyone as "pathetic" or a "saddo" and object to the inference in your rather unpleasant posting. Nor did I demean or belittle anyones'pleasure in research or knowledge.You really should refrain from making such inferences, It doesn't do you any favours.

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Nov 06 - 12:45 PM

Guest JT.
Sorry for the knee-jerk reaction; I really shouldn't do that.
I must also apologise for complicating things for you – I was just thinking how pleasant this thread has been just because it wasn't complicated by big words or convoluted ideas – not a sign of an incremental repetition anywhere so far - there you go; I had forgotten that there are people around to whom all ideas are complicated.
I wonder why you should object to some of us thinking about the music they are involved in - particularly as many of us are singers and musicians - or have been in the past. I assume from the tone of your posting that you also disapprove of Newcastle or Elphinstone or Limerick or Sheffield or Galway or any other faculty where they waste their time thinking about and discussing music and song as well as playing it.
Of course, the fatal flaw of your argument is that if it wasn't people who were not content with just playing and singing, but who got up off their bums and wrote about it and collected it and annotated it and transcribed it and published it and released it for others to listen to – people like Captain O'Neill, Sharp, Child, Bronson, Henderson, Breathnach and all those other saddos, you wouldn't have any music to play or songs to sing in the first place.
Tell you what; I won't object to your playing your tunes without thinking if you don't object to my wasting my time researching.
Some of us pathetic individuals actually get pleasure from knowledge
All the best
Jim Carroll
PS, Sorry Greg, I wasn't commenting on Newcastle - I have a couple of friends who teach there and have a reasonable idea what they do - more power to their elbows.

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: greg stephens
Date: 11 Nov 06 - 11:06 AM

Jim: the Necastle degree course strives to organise as well as to understand. Some would prefer it to stick to the latter, but at the moment it very definitely does both.

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Nov 06 - 10:17 AM

Not organise, understand,
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: GUEST,JT
Date: 11 Nov 06 - 08:11 AM

The Newcastle folk degree course must be a godsend to the main protagonists here. Judging by the content of the thread you'd need a degree to fathom it all out. The fact that the issue has become so academic is meaningless to the majority of people who play and listen to the music - they know what they like and enjoy it regardless of its pedigree. In the great scheme of things it doesn't really matter. Something is always lost when someone gets a hold of what you like and decides it's their mission in life to organise it.

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Nov 06 - 05:07 AM

Soldier Boy,
Nice one - but...............
By its very nature there are no correct, original or definitive versions of traditional folk music; as Anahata and others pointed out (seems like a thousand years ago), it's not how the songs riginated but what happened to them as they were passed from singer to singer which makes them traditional or folk (I'm still comfortable - and getting more comfortable with both terms). My experience with traditional singers points to the fact that every singer who has sung for us regards his or her own songs (or those songs learned from family members) as correct. All you can ask is that people give you typical examples of what they regard as typical traditional songs AND STATE WHY, otherwise you will end up with a folk 'Desert Island Discs' with everybody giving you their favourite song, which is not what you are asking.
For what they are worth, here are two of mine. I hope you don't mind that I have included notes I have written on both of them for various projects- I'm afraid they are rather lengthy:
1. Barbara Allen
Probably the most widespread of all the ballads, this is known throughout the English-speaking world. Samuel Pepys, in his diary entry for 2nd January 1666 wrote,
"In perfect pleasure I was to hear her" (Mrs Knipp, an actress) "sing, and especially her little Scotch song of Barbary Allen".
Oliver Goldsmith heard it sung by a dairymaid, Peggy Golden, at Lissoy, near Ballymahon, Co. Westmeath, and wrote in 1765,
"The music of the finest singer is dissonance to what I felt when an old dairymaid sung me into tears with "Johnny Armstrong's Last Goodnight" or "The Cruelty Of Barbara Allen".
It first appeared in print in Allan Ramsay's Tea-Table Miscellany and has continued to make an appearance in folk song collections since. In William Stenhouse's notes to the variant in The Scots Musical Museum, he wrote;                 
"It has been a favourite ballad at every country fire-side in Scotland, time out of memory………
A learned correspondent informs me that he remembers having heard the ballad frequently sung in Dumfriesshire, where, it was said, the catastrophe took place…"   
Bronson gives around two hundred versions, and ethnomusicologist Charles Seeger edited an LP record containing thirty American recordings.
The enduring popularity of the ballad among country singers and a revealing insight into how it was viewed by them, was amply illustrated in an interview with American traditional singer Jean Ritchie who spoke about her work collecting folk songs in Ireland, Scotland and England in the early nineteen fifties.
She says;
"I used the song Barbara Allen as a collecting tool because everybody knew it. When I would ask people to sing me some of their old songs they would sometimes sing "Does Your Mother Come From Ireland", or something about shamrocks.   But if I asked if they knew "Barbara Allen", immediately they knew exactly what kind of song I was talking about and they would bring out beautiful old things that matched mine; and were variants of the songs that I knew in Kentucky.   It was like coming home".

2   Van Dieman's Land                                
"Apart from the songs produced directly by the enclosures in England, a side effect of the appropriation of common land provided one of the largest and most poignant bodies of songs in the British and Irish repertoires repertoire, the poaching songs. Deprived of the right to legally catch game on the old commons, the poor resorted to taking it illegally.   Many of them continued, as they had always done, to go out at night setting traps to snare rabbits and pheasants. The landowners retaliated by employing keepers to protect what they considered their inalienable right to their newly-acquired property. They also resorted to setting mantraps, large, viciously toothed, spring-loaded devices capable of breaking a man's leg and tearing off chunks of flesh. Also in common use were spring-guns; booby trapped shotguns capable of firing four inch bolts, usually into the poachers legs. The response of the poachers was to go out armed and in larger numbers. This escalation led to a period of English rural history known as "The Poaching Wars".   It worked like this. Men who had previously gone out poaching singly resorted to teaming up with others to offer resistance to the gamekeepers employed by the landowner. The landowner would, in his turn, employ more keepers and so ad infnitum. One song from the eastern county of Lincolnshire, entitled "The Rufford Park Poachers" tells of a pitched battle between forty poachers and a similar number of keepers. On being apprehended the poachers would be tried by magistrates who were themselves local landowners who would, as was to be expected, show little mercy. First offenders would usually be heavily fined, but the most common punishment for a repeating offender was transportation to the penal settlements in Australia, usually for long periods.             The songs created on this subject cover the whole gamut of attitudes and emotions: despair, anger, defiance, repentance even a boisterous humour.                        Poaching songs were to be found in abundance throughout Britain and Ireland, but to my mind the best of them is the one popularly found in the Eastern part of England in East Anglia.   Entitled simply "Van Dieman's Land", it deals with an event said to have taken place in Warwickshire on Squire Dunhill's (sometimes Donniell's or Daniel's) Estate. In my opinion it is a perfect example of a narrative English traditional song, and what makes it so good is its matter-of-fact presentation of the events. It tells how a young man who goes poaching is taken by the keepers, tried at Warwick Assizes, and sentenced to be transported for fourteen years. He is placed on board ship, endures a six month voyage, lands in Australia, is taken ashore yoked together with other convicts, auctioned to the highest bidder like livestock, and finally settles down to his fate.
Whether the events described can be pinned down to one particular occurrence is debatable, but they are so typical of what was happening all over rural England that the song passed into numerous versions with different names and locations. This version was sung to us by the late Walter Pardon, a carpenter who came from a farming background in a small village in North Norfolk. He described it as "a long old song, but then", as he said, "it was a long old journey", which, for me, is an example of a singers relating perfectly to his song".
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Nov 06 - 04:23 AM

This is precisely what I have been trying to do, but have been repeatedly hampered.,With balderdash about procedure.
if you interviewed the English public you would get this answer THE Wild Rover. Morris Dancing. so Folkie Daves definition is kyboshed by the usage argument .
If you went to LOIUSANA The general publics answer would probably be cajun or zydeco.If you asked an aboriginal it would probably be tunes on the Didgeridoo,If you asked Chris Roche it would be shanties[ SUNG IN UNISON].If you went to mexico it would be tex mex. SoThere are some starters.

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: Soldier boy
Date: 10 Nov 06 - 08:49 PM

OK people, there is much talk about what is traditional and what is not traditional that has been posted,but very few examples of what is actually regarded as genuine "Traditional" Folk Music has been proffered.
Untill we compare notes and agree on what is Traditional folk music and songs how can we come to any agreement?

Too many people who are the core contributors on this thread seem to hide behind the parapet and suddenly become shy about openly saying what they believe to be 'examples' of the correct/original/definitive versions of traditional folk music.

Unless you say what you believe to be firm and indisputable examples of traditional folk music how can the rest of us possibly make any informed opinions?

Unless you do this we will remain confused but interested.

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Nov 06 - 04:02 PM

Sorry folk - this is, as far as I know, the only agreed defintition arrived at by a working group of researchers (International Folk Music Council), and while we may disagree with it, I don't think we can ignore it.
While I believe this definition to be less than perfect, it has been the accepted one for over half a century and is, I believe, an excellent starting point.
Rather than go off half-cocked, with everybody starting from scratch and making it up as they go along, (including the Humpty Dumpty contingent) would it not be better to work on what we have and come to some sort of a conclusion on what has gone before.
Let's face it; those of us involved in this debate are a tiny minority within a minority subject and all we can possibly achieve is some sort of an agreement between ourselves, or at the very least, to agree to differ. This way we will continue to communicate, but only with each other.
Jim Carroll
PS Alternatively, we could take the definition from the Funk And Wagnall Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend as our starting point - that only runs to seventeen double columned pages!

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 10 Nov 06 - 02:20 PM

Captain Birdseye,

Sorry for the mumbo jumbo.

Just trying to be helpful.

Honest

Russ (Permanent and properly chastised GUEST)

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 10 Nov 06 - 02:12 PM

Jim,

I am reluctant to debate with you because we agree about so much.

But some broadside ballads are sung as they were published 150 years ago and remain unchanged. Likewise some songs which have been composed have hardly changed either and yet would be recognisably folk songs. Some of Ewan's songs have come back unchanged having passed through the communal experience.

It may be that some of these composed songs (Fiddler's Green being a good example) have not been around enough to be "changed" by communal experience, but I would suggest it has been sung thousands of times and have not changed one iota. It isn't traditional I agree - but where else could you put it other than in folk song?

Finally other sorts of music don't seem to have this problem. Having been beating myself over the head with this question since I can remember - I decided to go along with them!!

Best regards,

Dave

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Nov 06 - 01:29 PM

very good Jim, One problem, Jazz fits these three criteria.
to guest russ.
I have no intention of replying to this sort of Mumbo Jumbo.

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Nov 06 - 01:17 PM

Folk Music Definition
Folk music is the product of a musical tradition that has been evolved through the process of oral transmission. The factors that shape the tradition are: (i) continuity which links the present with the past; (ii) variation which springs from the creative impulse of the individual or the group; and (iii) selection by the community, which determines the form or forms in which the music survives.
The term can be applied to music that has been evolved from rudimentary beginnings by a community uninfluenced by popular and art music and it can likewise be applied to music which has originated with an individual composer and has subsequently been absorbed into the unwritten living tradition of a community.
The term does not cover composed popular music that has been taken over ready-made by a community and remains unchanged, for it is the re-fashioning and re-creation of the music by the community that gives it its folk character.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 10 Nov 06 - 12:55 PM

Captain Birdseye,

You still don't get it.

So....

How about adding the Beatles' "Rubber Soul" album to your list.

Reluctant to do so?

Thought so.

Explain why this item does not belong on the list.

Your explanation will be the BEGINNING of a process which might eventually result in YOUR definition of traditional music.

Russ (Permanent GUEST and definitional discussion expert)

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Nov 06 - 12:34 PM

folkie Dave why do you ask me.somewhere near Plockton hopefully, your more of an expert than me, with all your book reading.
I am just a singer.

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: Scrump
Date: 10 Nov 06 - 11:33 AM

The attempt to define what is traditional by simply extending the list of inclusions is doomed to failure because it can never be completed. I think another approach is needed.

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 10 Nov 06 - 11:32 AM

Well I consider myself to be a retired Morris dancer - but we didn't do any "traditional" dances. We did a tradition called "Med up" which is short for "Med up Bi ussens".

Now since Morris dancing is traditional - where does that leave us?

All this week there has been a programme on BBC Radio 4 about how traditional music in the highlands of Scotland has been developing. These are mainly young people who are respecters but more importantly developers of the tradition. Chris Stout, Julie Fowlis et al. and the people from the National Centre for Excellence in Traditonal Music at Plockton.

Where do they fit in Dick?

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Nov 06 - 11:30 AM

However providing lists, gets us further, than some of the codswallop, and inability to define, found earlier in this thread.
I would like to add the penguin book of english folksongs, please feel free to shoot holes in this if you so wish.

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 10 Nov 06 - 09:31 AM

Scrump,

The problem with attempts to define 'traditional' by providing a list of what is encompasses
IS THAT
a list is NOT a definition.

Russ (Permanent and Persistent GUEST)

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: Scrump
Date: 10 Nov 06 - 08:55 AM

The problem with attempts to define 'traditional' by providing a list of what it encompasses is that the list is unlikely to be complete.

For example there may be (perhaps smaller or lesser known) collections other than those in the Captain's list, which might well have an equally good claim to be 'traditional', but are excluded simply because no-one thought to add them to the list. I'm not saying I know of any, but there's no reason why they shouldn't exist.

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Nov 06 - 08:50 AM

no one, has objected, so far to shanties,aboriginal songs, some of the child ballads, the collections of kidson, sharp, and baring gould, as all being traditonal folk music, can I dare to add Morris dancing,English, Scottish, Irish ceilidh dancing.

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 10 Nov 06 - 08:32 AM

Yes, I am a procedural pedant.

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 10 Nov 06 - 08:31 AM

Captain Birdseye

You're still doing this wrong.

The thread will go nowhere until you offer us a definition of traditional music for us to shoot holes in.

A simple list of examples is not the proper target for hole-shooting.
A definition is.

If you simply offer examples without a defintion, the "discussion" gets nowhere.
You say X is traditional.
I say it isn't.
You say, "is too."
Is say, "Is not."
etc.

If you give us a definition, we'll gladly shoot holes in it by offering counter-examples.

More fun that way.

PS, the GUEST post of Nov 06 - 03:54 PM is mine. Forgot to sign it.

Russ (Permanent GUEST, but not just GUEST)

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: Scrump
Date: 10 Nov 06 - 08:07 AM

"Pratty" is E Lancs as well as W Yorks pronunciation of "Pretty", so you could argue that whether the title of the Holmfirth Anthem is "Pretty Flowers" or "Pratty Flowers" is academic, since anyone singing it in the correct accent will pronounce it "Pratty" anyway.

It raises again the question as to whether people should attempt to sing songs in a local accent/dialect unless they were born into it, which was discussed in another thread not long ago.

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Nov 06 - 08:05 AM

no one has dared to say, apart from myself what songs or music they consider are trad,.
This thread will go nowhere, until ,people are positive,. Folkie dave shoots holes in some of the child ballads, UNTIL other contributors, give us some examples, of what songs THEYconsider traditional, NOone is answering the question,.
so what about foOtball songs.

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 10 Nov 06 - 07:56 AM

The Sheffield Carols (as they are popularly known) date back a long time before the so-called folk revival and are not part of it. I say so-called because like a lot of traditional singing they never went away, and whilst they now have a new lease of life they have not been "revived" as such. I am indeed a newcomer to folk music having only been listening to it since 1960.

Billy Mills - a long-time singer at Dungworth who died aged well past 80, and who most people would recognise as a traditional singer, used to sing "Christmas Tree". The words he sang were in part a mish-mash of misheard lyrics - but Bill sang it that way consistently all the years I knew him.

Were those the wrong words? And whose words were the right words? The one in the printed version? How do you know their version is "right" and the song Billy sang is "wrong"?

Holmfirth Anthem is sung in different ways in a lot of the pubs in the Sheffield area, come and tell some of them they are getting it wrong Dick.

I suspect the answer will be short.

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Nov 06 - 07:03 AM

since the Watersons recorded it in 1964, and Folkie dave is clearly part of the folk revival, I am not surprised he sings it the way he does.
Patrick Kelly [ West clare fiddle player remarked]that the worst thing that happened to clare fiddle playing was the advent of Micheal Colemans recordings on 78rpm.everyone emulated Sligo style and Coleman.Itseems like the same thing may have happened with THE Holmfirth Anthem.,and the Watersons.

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: greg stephens
Date: 10 Nov 06 - 06:10 AM

Jim Carroll: You enquired about Mike Waterson and Christy Moore. In Christy Moore's song book, he mentions that he learned Pontchartrain form Mike Waterson.

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Nov 06 - 03:50 AM

Sorry
Meant to write Matthew - can't get Percy French's bloody song out of my head!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Nov 06 - 03:39 AM

True for you Michael: it's called 'the tradition' or 'the folk process' - and it's what makes traditional song so interestingly diverse.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: Matthew Edwards
Date: 09 Nov 06 - 04:24 PM

I think that anybody who relies on folksong or any form of popular music for geographical accuracy deserves to be cast into one of the many deepest pots of Clyde water, and then buried with all the others in St Mary's Churchyard. As far as Sam Henry's informant Paddy M'Closkey was concerned when he learned the song from Frank M'Allister around 1905, the lines referred to a plurality of lakes of Pontchartrain. Frank M'Allister had been a woodsman in America so that would surely have been good enough for Paddy M'Closkey unless he had an atlas handy to stop Frank in mid-song to tell him he had his facts all wrong.

What on earth should we then do with the 'Royal Comrade/Willie Leonard' song? Its scene is variously located at the Lakes of Coolfin, Lough Inshallin, Lake Cold Flynn and at many more lakes unknown either to orthography or geography. Should singers have to introduce their songs with satellite navigational instructions?

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Nov 06 - 03:54 PM

Captain Birdseye

You're going it backwards.

First you give YOUR definition of "traditional music",
Then you give your examples.

You don't just cite your examples and expect your readers to guess from them what you mean by "traditional music."

In a discussion like this the definition is NOT optional but the examples are.

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 09 Nov 06 - 03:09 PM

Well I live in Yorkshire about 8 miles from Holmfirth and I will be singing it every Sunday at from November 19th the Royal Hotel at Dungworth as I have done for the past 35 years and we sing "Swain" as well. The idea that it should be "dear" rather than "swain" simply to rhyme is strange since none of the other verses have such a rhyme.

Second verse is "adore" and "dear", third verse is "lambs" and "grow".

It is sung - as many songs are - in different ways by different people. You are extremely lucky in knowing which is the "correct version" - I wish I was so sure. If by traditional we accept that songs are moulded and changed then how can there be a "correct version"?

And since you are fond of saying Child's ballads are traditional then he has numerous versions of many songs. How do you decide which is the correct version?

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Nov 06 - 02:31 PM

Cap'n
Is that true about Mike Waterson; if so, how do you know?
It certainly is Paddy McClusky's version.
Not contradicting you - just interested.
Jim Carroll
PS
Snuffy,
Child took virtually all his ballads from printed sources - Harry Cox got many of his the same way - doesn't mean they're not traditional in origin.

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Nov 06 - 12:47 PM

Pratie not pretty ,land not lambs.two errors possibly three.

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Nov 06 - 12:37 PM

FOLKIE DAVE,
shepherd dear, not shepherd swain. it rhymes with clear. .My information was given to me by Mick Haywood, A YORKSHIREMAN, who did a fair amount of collecting himself.,and told me that was the way the song was sung in Holmfirth.   the Watersons recorded it in 1964, for some INEXPLICABLE reason using swain.Confirmed by link above.

Subject: RE: So what is 'TRADITIONAL' Folk Music ?
From: Soldier boy
Date: 09 Nov 06 - 12:29 PM

That's brilliant Scrump. I enjoyed reading that (once I'd got me yorkshire dialect hat on!)