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[Cooper]

I copied this from another thread, since that thread was about something else.

It is something i hae been walking around with for a while, but that i havent found any real articles about. It is very often that when i hear a tune that i havent heard before i can tell within a few seconds from which (European/Folk) tradition it comes (when applicable). Like,..it is very easy to distinguish French from Scandinavian or from England/Scotland/etc. isles. I have been trying to find out what are the elements that give away such heritance, but i haven't been able to pinpoint anything. The same goes for songs, regardless of the language they are sung in.

Ofcourse i am not saying 100%, and there are all sorts of mixes possible (Shetlands?), but there is certainly a difference.

And yes, ofcourse lots of music comes from influences from other countries. (I am from Holland, THE country for seatravel and contact/business with other cultures. There are some songs that can be called truly Dutch, but tunes...hardly any,..they are all found earlier in neighbouring countries.)

Like,...i play quite a few (if not mostly) tunes of my own. If i had to place them in a tradition, this would undoubtedly NOT be in an English tradition. If the Dutch tradition is to play tunes from somewhere else, you could call it Dutch, but it has most similarities to the French trad.

Among my favourite English tunes are:
Flatworld
Go Mauve
Jump at the Sun

Probably not the place for that discussion,...but these three tunes,...despite being composed by Englishmen i wouldnt call them English. Or am i misguided, or do i have too narrow a view of "English"?

I am reluctant to put words into your mouth, Cooper, but you seem to be implying that a tune can only be regarded as 'English' if it conforms to some sort of stereotype of what an English tune is or should be. Leaving unopened the can of worms of what would constitute an 'English' tune, I would contend that throughout history music in most countries has been shaped, in part at least, by influences from outside that country. That is one of the main reasons why music evolves over time and is surely to be encouraged. Therefore, even when a tune shows some foreign influences, that does not disqualify it from being an English tune if it was written by an English musician, unless, of course, that musician makes an explicit claim to have written it in a non-English style.

Anyone can call it anything they like if up to me :-) But i am trying to say something like: i hear more similarities between Go Mauve and the French tradition then between Go Mauve and the English tradition. same goes for Flatworld.

I am particularly surprised that you regard Jump at the Sun as non-English given that it was written in the late 1960s when John Kirkpatrick, surely one of the most consistent promoters of English tunes, was just starting out on his career and had probably had little contact with continental music. I seem to remember him saying that he wrote it as a way of exploring the potential of the instrument, not as some kind of homage to a non-English genre about which I would not like to speculate.[/color]

Yeah jump at the sun i was unsure to add to the small list. Perhaps that one could fit in both continental ad English trad. (Or it was a trendsetter in several scenes)

W

[Jack Campin]

There are some songs that can be called truly Dutch, but tunes...hardly any

Really?  What's all this then?

http://www.simonplantinga.nl/oude-en-nieuwe-hollantse-boerenlieties-en-contredansen/

(I've had the book for 30 years, and have played my through a lot of it on recorders.  I've never personally met a Dutch folkie who's even heard of it).

These people are terrific:

http://www.folkcorn.nl/

[Bob Ellis]

I wouldn't disagree with you that Flatworld shows French influences, which is hardly surprising when one considers how deeply Andy Cutting has immersed himself in French music over the years. However, I don't think that makes it a French tune. In my view, it is an English tune with French influences.

I am from the Yorkshire Dales and I have been undertaking a research project about Dales traditional dance music for our local museum. One tune from that project that illustrates my point is The Dales Waltz, a tune by a traditional Dales musician called Harry Cockerill, whom I was privileged to meet a few times before his death. The Dales Waltz is a four part tune and the first two parts display the distinctive repetitive arpeggios that are so characteristic of Alpine waltzes. The third and fourth parts are more typical of what one might expect from a waltz in this part of England. Harry never travelled abroad, not even during the war because he was in a reserved occupation. He may have heard somebody playing an alpine waltz, perhaps on the radio, but he had no direct contact with Alpine music. In my view, the tune should be classed as English, or more precisely as a Yorkshire Dales tune. To class it as Alpine would make no sense, despite its structural similarity to that type of music, because Harry Cockerill was not an Alpine musician.

It is difficult and probably unnecessary to make hard and fast rules that will apply in all circumstances, but I would tend to regard a tune written within living memory (as opposed to a traditional tune) as belonging to the tradition in which its author plays or played. If it also displays traits of a foreign tradition, well that is part of the folk process that has been shaping our musical traditions for centuries.

[Anahata]

If it's dance music, or sounds like it, there's often a clue, because dances are much more identifiably national.
Go Mauve has the feel of a French-style scottish (schottische). Not only the rhythm, but the limited range making it a plausible pipe tune.
Flatworld, if you view it as a waltz, is even more obviously French in style, because of the speed at which it is typically played: the French dance waltzes faster than we do. Also the harmonic progressions are more reminiscent of French chromatic accordion style.

But they were written by English people.

This thread demonstrates the strange human preoccupation with classifying things. In the real world there are always borderline cases.

But I agree with Bob: if you must decide, authorship or origin are probably the best criterion.

[Graham Spencer]

Aren't tunes a bit like music itself? There's only two kinds, the ones you like and the ones you don't........

[Theo]

GPS - couldn't agree more.

Best answer I know to this sort of question about a tune  is Alistair Anderson's: " it depends who has been looking after it"
Btw the Vickers Collection aka Great Northern Tune Book from the latter part if the 18th century and Supposedly a Northern English collection has tunes from all over the place - Ireland, Scottland, France, Scandinavia as well as those thought to be home grown.

[TomB-R]

A lot of this music is Franglonavian a place only discovered by, mainly English, musicians in the last 20 years or so. 

[Theo]

A lot of this music is Franglonavian a place only discovered by, mainly English, musicians in the last 20 years or so. 

Not really true, see my post about the Vickers collection from 1770

[Graham Spencer]

Best answer I know to this sort of question about a tune  is Alistair Anderson's: " it depends who has been looking after it"

I like that!  I'm reminded of a festival many, many years ago in Germany, when the group I was with found ourselves in a bar (surely not!) with a Dutch band, and we got to tune-swapping. They said, "We'll play you a traditional Dutch tune; you'll soon pick it up". They did, and we did - it was "Soldiers Joy".........

Graham

[Bob Ellis]

Btw the Vickers Collection aka Great Northern Tune Book from the latter part if the 18th century and Supposedly a Northern English collection has tunes from all over the place - Ireland, Scottland, France, Scandinavia as well as those thought to be home grown.

Another good example of this is the William Calvert collection which dates from 1805-1812. After months of research, I have recently (within the last week!) identified that William Calvert was an innkeeper at Harmby, a village near Leyburn in lower Wensleydale. His collection, like that of Vickers, includes tunes from all over the place. I can imagine drovers, badgers, tinkers and other travellers calling in at Calvert's inn or staying overnight and playing a few tunes in the evening along with Calvert, who was a fiddle player. Calvert would have noted down in his book tunes that he had heard that most certainly did not originate in the Dales.

Some tunes were local in origin, but others were clearly Scottish, Irish or from other parts of England and a handful came from abroad. Many had nautical titles, despite Harmby being about as far from the sea as you can get in northern England. The point of all this is to say that these tunes became part of Wensleydale folk culture due, at least in part, to their incorporation into the repertoire of William Calvert. No doubt variations crept in over time, so, is it legitimate to regard them as 'Dales tunes' even though their origin may have been in Scotland, Ireland, Russia or elsewhere? I would say that it is, but others might disagree.

[Thrupenny Bit]

Interesting thread.
I totally agree with GPS, tunes I either like or dislike, and my original ideas of what to play are changing.
I started playing tunes that I originally heard from bands like Old Swan, one of only two main bands around when I first started out. They drew mainly from the Cotswold and Southern English players, with the old East Anglian traditional players also influencing them, so have always considered myself an English player.
I now discover tunes I like and now play from France, USA, Estonia, Belgium and recently love some Norwegian tunes.
I think the tunes I've selected and want to learn all broadly have a similar sound and structure, and the French tunes especially, which can have a unique sound don't sound especially French to me.

What I'm currently surprised at is the Norwegian tunes I've been listening to and greatly enjoying sound very like other English, ( possibly Shetland? ) tunes and feel surprisingly at home with me. There's been other threads about them so don't want to drift, but I'm sure once I've got a couple off pat and play at my local session others will be surprised at their non-English origin.
Q
ps..... whatever tunes I play, they seem to always have my local accent!

[Cooper]

There are some songs that can be called truly Dutch, but tunes...hardly any

Really?  What's all this then?

http://www.simonplantinga.nl/oude-en-nieuwe-hollantse-boerenlieties-en-contredansen/

(I've had the book for 30 years, and have played my through a lot of it on recorders.  I've never personally met a Dutch folkie who's even heard of it).

These people are terrific:

http://www.folkcorn.nl/

I play a lot from that book actually (i play in an "old music group" as well, with my pipes and flutes), but i don't find a distinguished Dutch style from there. Many if not most of the tunes found in there are found in most of western europe (such as playfords etc.). Influences here are clearly from overseas (England, Ireland etc) and also some with influences from the south (France), but hardly an influences from Germany (not that strange, the book being from Amsterdam). Many have given examples already... but here is another. In the Dutch folkloric dance-scene there is a tune and dance called the horlepiep. That's the people who do everything not as a living tradition, but to be a museum, sort of, the dances are danced as a show, not as a social event. They want to get everyting right. And then they play this tune as say,...stereotype of Dutch music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9e-lfPNYw8  I think you all know it...

 Folkcorn is very nice indeed (the son of the main couple in there was in my class in highschool), and like i said, there ARE some songs that can be called Dutch,...but tunes,...

Dutch folk musicians (fungus, wolverlei) from the 70ties were very clearly listening more to Brittish music than to French music, even when they were playing tunes/songs found here in Holland.


Don't understand me wrong, i don't intend to set rules or boundaries for music, and good music is good music wherever it is from. I just want to describe, not prescribe.

In Dutch we can talk about "idioom". Do you talk in English about the "idiom" one is playing in? I mean more "idiom" than tunes per se.

 It is just that i am wondering why i can hear where a trad tune is from just after a few seconds. And i dont get it right 100% of the time, not all tunes are so straightforward, some are influenced by different styles, some are so individual that it is hardly possible to place it in an style etc,... but for a large majority of tunes/songs it IS possible to hear where it is from, just from the melody (and harmony?). And i wonder why that is...

If you listen to,..say Luka Bloom and compare it to Gabriel Yacoub. Dont mind the language, it is almost instantly clear what tradition they come from.

Another thing: and this is more about idiom than melody; If you listen to Guy Roelofs (a Dutch musician), even when he plays tune/song that is from the continent (say Dutch or French), you can still hear that his first real love was Irish music.


Is it chordprogessions (i see a lot more III's in French music then in English? Is it the frequency of large intervals (or which intervals) are used most? Is it the frequency of the old modi, or which modi are used a lot? The rithms used are very clear, dances give a good clue often.

I think idiom involves choice of melody, choice of chordprogressions, choice of variations, choice of ornamentations, choice of rithms.

I haven't been very thorough in my explnation perhaps, but i think you get the drift. I once had a mail-conversation with the only University-professor who knows a bit about traditions and music (Grijp, from the Meertens institute), but he couldnt shine more light on the subject,...but he was interested in putting me on a masters-paper on it,...heh,...
W

[Bob Ellis]

What I'm currently surprised at is the Norwegian tunes I've been listening to and greatly enjoying sound very like other English, ( possibly Shetland? ) tunes and feel surprisingly at home with me.

The similarity you notice between Shetland and Norwegian tunes might have something to do with the Shetland Isles having been a province of Norway until they were annexed by Scotland in 1472. Naturally, the cultural links between Norway and the Shetlands lasted much longer than the 15th century and elements of them can still be seen today.

[Cooper]

Some tunes were local in origin, but others were clearly Scottish, Irish or from other parts of England and a handful came from abroad. ... No doubt variations crept in over time, so, is it legitimate to regard them as 'Dales tunes' even though their origin may have been in Scotland, Ireland, Russia or elsewhere? I would say that it is, but others might disagree.[/color]

Yeah, well....this is ofcourse just a matter of definition. I wouldnt call them "dales tunes", but hey,..don't care much. What DOES interest me is that you as well can pinpoint tunes as "clearly Scottish, Irish etc". Regardless of whether you can find that specific tune back in sources there, it can have just a specific "this is Irish music"-feel. I am interested in what gives a tune that specific "insert land"-ish feel.

W

[ChrisP]

Suitable place for a plug, I think. http://folkopedia.efdss.org/wiki/List_of_historical_tunebooks,_some_of_which_are_available_on_the_internet
While compiling the list I have had to impose limits on its focus. The idea that all tunes from wherever are equally nickable is incontestably true. Nevertheless I had to come up with a few wise words to excuse the English bias. Thanks Jack, I have added the book you cited, and now that the core is built I will add others that seem to cast light on the subject.

Within Britain and Ireland cultural boundaries have never been the same thing as our present 'national' borders. Overlain onto that, or even part of it, have been a series of fashionable enthusiasms for rural pastimes, which sometimes appear more novel, even desirably savage, the further from London they claim (not always justly) as their origin.

This list presently concerns itself with the effect of this on English popular dance music, which even from the earliest times can be seen to reflect reality by including influential music from elsewhere - branles, passepieds etc.

Parallel lists, not identical but equally leaky, could be made for 'Elsewhere'.

[Thrupenny Bit]

Thanks Bob, didn't know the details about Shetland, but knew they had ties both sides of the North Sea.
I think  movement of people whether sailors or itinerant travellers selling their wares had a big impact in spreading ideas. Everybody likes a new tune!
Perhaps those areas with a more formal way of learning establishes a more uniform style?
I'm thinking in England we have had the Northumbrian Pipe Society with their more formal way of learning pipes produces tunes that even I can tell their origin. 
Chris Ryall of this parish frequently regales us with stories from his  weekend or week long workshops in France, and in a recent thread talks about the formal method of teaching melodeon in France. I suspect this reinforces the uniformity of playing there. Some tunes I straight away know they are French.
Here with a less formal or 'teach yourself' method then we are less able to tell if a tune played is from the North of England/Scotland/Ireland or somewhere down south.
Maybe formal teaching has an influence?
Q

[TomB-R]

A lot of this music is Franglonavian a place only discovered by, mainly English, musicians in the last 20 years or so. 

Not really true, see my post about the Vickers collection from 1770

Was Andy Cutting alive then? 

[Jack Campin]

This is the most remarkable link from Shetland music to somewhere else I know of.  A dance from the Csango Hungarian-speaking minority of eastern Romania:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIAEh8biXC4 (tune clearly audible, dance steps shown well)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTcSMBNlp2I (dance is more like it, tune lost in the screams)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oQyLqRT2oQ (that one probably has me in it, somewhere in the gloom)

and a Shetland reel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJTr64e-Mu4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PEYGdXvjmU&feature=player_detailpage#t=161

They are essentially the same tune.

Somewhere recently I came across a study of the Csangos' DNA.  This is a political hot potato, with both Hungarian and Romanian nationalists wanting to lay claim to them.  Turns out they aren't very closely related to either the Magyars or the Romanians, but do share specific DNA sequences with other peoples related to the Huns and Alans.  And that includes the Scandinavians, Shetlanders specifically included.  Historically, what could have happened is that Scandinavians who had migrated to the area of the present-day Ukrainian steppe got swept up in the Hun invasion, and the Huns were a real-life Borg - they assimilated everybody in their path.  The Csangos were left behind in Hungary after the Hun empire collapsed, then got swept into Transylvania and eastwards when the Magyars invaded 300 years later.

It doesn't seem all that likely that such a modern-sounding tune could predate the Hun invasion of Europe but it's a neat coincidence.

[Anahata]

I'm reminded of a festival many, many years ago in Germany, when the group I was with found ourselves in a bar (surely not!) with a Dutch band, and we got to tune-swapping. They said, "We'll play you a traditional Dutch tune; you'll soon pick it up". They did, and we did - it was "Soldiers Joy".........

Graham

Someone else told me an identical story - except he'd met native musicians in Estonia 

[Andrew Wigglesworth]

The big thing left out of the conversation so far is ... dancing. So many of these tunes are dance tunes and it's so often the differences in the dance traditions that are an integral part of those tunes that dictate differences.