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Author Topic: What is folk music?  (Read 13510 times)

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Anahata

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Re: What is folk music?
« Reply #60 on: February 17, 2012, 09:33:50 PM »

'Folk music is music transmuted and transmogrified by the people'  
...
It's more a state of mind than a strict definition  ;D

I like both of these. The first because it describes folk as a process - a verb rather than an adjective, something people do with music, not a type of music (especially in terms of origin) - the second because it echoes Andy's statement that you can't define it.
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Re: What is folk music?
« Reply #61 on: February 18, 2012, 12:17:16 AM »

I do enjoy reading threads such as this.  There was a time that I limited my concept of folk music to traditional vs. contemporary.  Other forms of music were outside the realm of folk.  A few days ago, when this thread started, I chanced upon a more inclusive idea.  I now think that folk music is about communication through music.  Somewhere on youtube one can see a performance of Beowulf with one individual speaking middle English with lyre accompaniment. This is the transmission of a story.  Many folk songs are stories with adventure, or moral warnings, or perhaps celebrations.  The list goes on.  Many of these songs are with us today and are being sung in revivals.  Many still contain lessons for the listener.  For some listeners certain songs are not relevant.  I might not understand a poaching song.  Someone else might not be moved by a cowboy song.  Anyhow, many of the trad songs we enjoy still communicate with us. 
Every song is at some point contemporary and those that resonate will probably be sung years from now.  Many of the contemporary songs I would probably dismiss as being "pop" and not about anything.  But, still there is communication going on at some level.  I must say that I thought of Twisted Sisters lyrics differently after hearing Martin Carthy sing "were not going to take it..."  I'm rambling now.  Some folk music does not have words.  Those dance tunes that we live and love to play are communicating with our feet.  All this music we love binds us with our friends and community through shared experience and enjoyment.  Jazz and classical also communicate with the listener, although outside those pieces that are popular, it is perhaps communicating with a more abstract part of our brains.   I have often felt that a folk musician can play any type of music and still consider him or herself as a folk musician.  Paid or not the folk musician is transmitting the song or tune for their community of friends and listeners.  Eric in Montana.

I like that. When I do the next instalment I might paraphrase that if you don't mind :P
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Eric Barker

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Re: What is folk music?
« Reply #62 on: February 18, 2012, 04:51:35 AM »

Hi Ukebert,

You may use the ramblings if you desire.  Thank you.  Now I wish I had been more careful about placing some commas to clarify the thoughts.  The communication idea has come about from my recent work as a sub. teacher in Montana middle schools.  I've noticed that the kids really respond if I play a tune on my Kantele or on a Melodeon.  I have used the Kantele in place of the clock to improve math scores on timed exams.  Sometimes a melodeon tune helps students recall their grandparents playing a similar instrument.  Once, at a wedding, we managed to get some oldtimers to dance and they told us that they had not jigged like that since the 1940's.  Music is meaningful to so many people and we are lucky to be able to share our songs and tunes with anyone who will listen.  I enjoy your writings and I wish you success in music and in school.  Eric
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Howard Jones

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Re: What is folk music?
« Reply #63 on: February 18, 2012, 10:42:02 AM »

Hence as soon as someone heard Tom Jones and sang 'Delilah' , it became folk music.

I don't think it's that simple.  Just because a song enters the public consciousness and becomes widely known doesn't make if "folk music".  The National Anthem isn't folk music.  'Jerusalem' isn't folk music.

I doubt whether anyone singing, or listening to, 'Delilah' is unaware of the Tom Jones version.  It would only become 'folk music' if that connection with the original were to be lost, so that people learning the song anew were taking it from the singer they heard it from, without that reference back to an original definitive version.

It has been possible for that to happen with some modern compositions in the folk idiom, because the original versions weren't sufficiently widely circulated to provide that benchmark.  I've heard countless versions of 'Fiddlers Green' but never, to my knowledge, John Connolly's original.  I'd heard many versions of 'Dirty Old Town' before I heard Ewan McColl sing it.  Those songs circulated on their own merits, as it were, rather than being taken from the composers' original versions.

There was a time when any popular song could become a folk song, by being passed from one singer to another.  Ever since the advent of recorded music, it has been possible to refer back to the original source, and possible to say that there is a 'correct' version of the lyrics or tune.  I think it will be very difficult in the future for popular songs to turn into folk songs.

This is of course taking a rather academic view of what is folk music.  An alternative view is that it is simply a genre, defined (albeit rather vaguely) by certain styles of performance.  The view that folk music is anything that 'the folk' plays may have a certain simplicity about it but doesn't really tell us anything, so I find it unhelpful.

The real problem is that there are so many alternative ways of interpreting the term 'folk music', and everyone is convinced that their's is right and everyone else's wrong :)

Theo

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Re: What is folk music?
« Reply #64 on: February 18, 2012, 11:15:55 AM »


The view that folk music is
[insert preferred definition here]
Quote
may have a certain simplicity about it but doesn't really tell us anything, so I find it unhelpful.


You run up against the same difficulty trying to define any musical genre.

For me it music boils down to this:    there are two types of music, the kind I like, and the kind I've not yet learned to like  ;)
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Re: What is folk music?
« Reply #65 on: February 18, 2012, 11:33:50 AM »

With respect, Theo, I think you've slightly misrepresented what I was trying to say with the quote you took.  I was criticising the view that whatever the 'folk' plays is 'folk music', because it's simply too all-encompassing to be of any use.  It often seems to be used by people wishing to perform their own brand of sub-pop in folk clubs, usually (one suspects) because they can't get to perform it anywhere else.

It's difficult to define musical genres in words, but I think I recognise 'folk' when I hear it.  Where I do have difficulty is with modern material which neither reflects traditional lyrical or musical structures nor is performed in a recognisably 'folk' style - by what criteria is that considered 'folk'? 

Ultimately, however, as you point out the real distinction is what I like and what I don't like.  However I find that I'm more likely to find what I like under the label 'folk music', although I admit there's quite a lot there I don't like too.

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Re: What is folk music?
« Reply #66 on: February 18, 2012, 11:41:30 AM »

Sorry Howard, I didn't mean to misrepresent you,  just trying to lead on from what you were saying to suggest that any definition is likely to fall down in some way.

I do agree with you that labels like 'folk' are helpful in finding music that one likes, but there is always going to be overlap between labels.
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Re: What is folk music?
« Reply #67 on: February 18, 2012, 12:04:40 PM »

I thought somebody was pulling my leg recently when they were talking about "Nu Folk", "Acid Folk" and "Wyrd Folk".

But it seems they weren't.  :o
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Re: What is folk music?
« Reply #68 on: February 18, 2012, 04:02:21 PM »

Sometimes I find that interpretation of a piece is an aid to "folkifying" the song or tune. I really like the Oysterband's version of Love Vigilantes by New Order.  The feel of the piece is more anti-war than the musical prettiness of the original.  For years I tried to find a way to interpret the song so it would be true to me.  I finally succeeded on the ukulele of all things buy at least I found my way to the song. I have played that song (as a folk song) to people who have not heard the original or the Oysterband's version. Of course, I give credit to the songwriters so people can look for the original if they choose. Will the song stand the test of time?  I would guess not due to the story being a bit abstract as compared to Arther McBride. Can I share the folkifyed, acoustic version on stage, at a house party, or around a campfire?  Yes.     Eric in Montana
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Re: What is folk music?
« Reply #69 on: February 18, 2012, 06:45:42 PM »

'Folk music is music transmuted and transmogrified by the people' 
I think all music is folk music but where there's room for improve ( for better or worse ) that makes it more folk like.
As opposed to classical where you play the music as written (I think). Why else would they need the sheet music in front of them? (:)
 but I have no musical training so what do I know.
Michael
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Re: What is folk music?
« Reply #70 on: February 19, 2012, 12:10:33 PM »

A listener to my one man box and song session last Wednesday commented that the pubs around his home near Burnley no longer had local singers or players just turning up for a session. He did not give the label Folk Music to this way of entertainment, to him it was just a social part of the pub scene. And he missed it. Made me think a bit more about what I am doing. I play for the  fun and now realise that I am part of keeping a tradition alive.
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Re: What is folk music?
« Reply #71 on: February 20, 2012, 05:14:55 PM »

Bob Pegg, in his book Folk, quotes the following definition of folk music promulgated by the International Folk Music Council in 1954:

"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 individual or the group; (iii) selection by the community, which determines the form or forms in which the music survives."

While no definition can be all-encompassing, I think the IFMC made a pretty good stab at defining the indefinable. Recognizing some of the limitations of its own definition, the IFMC added the following codicils:

"(i) 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 living tradition of a community.
(ii) 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."

With its emphasis on "the re-fashioning and re-creation of the music by the community", this, in my opinion, gets somewhere near the essence of what sets folk music apart from other kinds of music. Others, of course, may disagree, but what do they know?  >:E
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Re: What is folk music?
« Reply #72 on: February 20, 2012, 05:43:13 PM »

That rules out "Streets of London" then, apart for the punk version by the Anti-Nowhere League....... >:E

Plus Dylans' "The times they are a changing...."
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Re: What is folk music?
« Reply #73 on: February 20, 2012, 05:55:25 PM »

Whatever. Some people say it isn't folk music unless you wrote it yourself...
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Re: What is folk music?
« Reply #74 on: February 20, 2012, 07:24:56 PM »

Which rules out the old fiddler I listened to on Foula (outer Shetland) in 1971. His playing for the celidh consisted of a number of tunes, but the one he kept going longest was Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer.
So he was clearly a folk musician, and it didn't really matter what you thought of his material as long as you danced to it. I think the participation bit is quite important (dancing, singing, singing choruses, or playing, but what is in my view crucial is that however it might get played, it isn't folk music unless you can play it properly without electricity (even if most people don't or won't).
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Re: What is folk music?
« Reply #75 on: February 20, 2012, 07:56:28 PM »

The question that Bob never really answered is what then is the status of "recovered" music (for want of a better description)?  The tunes in the Village Music Project have mainly died, the fact that they are being played now is because they were written down, the continuity is not there.

You could almost make a better case that Streets of London or Times they are A'Changing are more in the oral tradition, because although we have access to the composer's music I suspect that the vast majority of us who play the songs have learnt them from other people.  It can also be quite salutary to go back and listen to the original version and compare it to the version you sing.  (:)

Steve
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Re: What is folk music?
« Reply #76 on: February 20, 2012, 08:45:22 PM »

We did "Times" at our session on Friday. With (wait there for it!) Uillean Pipes, guitar, melodeons, fiddles, Piano Accordion, mouth-organ and possibly one or two instruments I missed. There was also a bodhran. All from memory, so it must have been folk.  ::)
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Re: What is folk music?
« Reply #77 on: February 21, 2012, 08:31:28 AM »

The question that Bob never really answered is what then is the status of "recovered" music (for want of a better description)?  The tunes in the Village Music Project have mainly died, the fact that they are being played now is because they were written down, the continuity is not there.

Writing and reading printed (or handwritten) music was always an important part of the mechanism of dissemination when those tunes were first played. It's a myth that village musicians were all musically illiterate - obviously some of them will have learned by ear but there were many who had a musical training, in military bands or though the Church for example.

The important with the revived VMP manuscripts is what happens next. Those tunes are being played and learnt by musicians at sessions, included in the repertoire of working ceilidh bands and played for people to dance to. There's plenty of continuity now, and I'd say those tunes are very much alive.

The 19th century musician might have had his tunes in a fiddler's tune book in his pocket; Paul Burgess has his all in a smartphone where they can be recalled instantly on to the screen. Different technology, exactly the same idea.
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Re: What is folk music?
« Reply #78 on: February 21, 2012, 10:05:41 AM »

The question that Bob never really answered is what then is the status of "recovered" music (for want of a better description)?  The tunes in the Village Music Project have mainly died, the fact that they are being played now is because they were written down, the continuity is not there.

Writing and reading printed (or handwritten) music was always an important part of the mechanism of dissemination when those tunes were first played. It's a myth that village musicians were all musically illiterate - obviously some of them will have learned by ear but there were many who had a musical training, in military bands or though the Church for example.

The important with the revived VMP manuscripts is what happens next. Those tunes are being played and learnt by musicians at sessions, included in the repertoire of working ceilidh bands and played for people to dance to. There's plenty of continuity now, and I'd say those tunes are very much alive.

The 19th century musician might have had his tunes in a fiddler's tune book in his pocket; Paul Burgess has his all in a smartphone where they can be recalled instantly on to the screen. Different technology, exactly the same idea.


Don't disagree with you, what I'm pointing out is the flaw in the definition.

Steve
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Anahata

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Re: What is folk music?
« Reply #79 on: February 21, 2012, 10:26:54 AM »

Don't disagree with you, what I'm pointing out is the flaw in the definition.

Steve

Point taken. You'd have to stretch "oral transmission" to include written and printed too. This is as true of songs as it is of dance music - a huge amount of trad song material was printed as broadsides. The tunes were sometimes specified as "to the tune of <something well known>" but in many cases seem to have been mostly made up by the singers. Certainly the research Mary's recently been doing on songs collected in Cambridgeshire finds new tunes (or variants on existing tunes) to go with words that you can already find in the broadside collection on the Bodleian Library web site or elsewhere.

You also have to bend the 1954 definition's idea of continuity and allow gaps, but if the material is picked up and comes back into regular circulation (not just as museum exhibits and pinned butterflies) that's OK.
« Last Edit: February 22, 2012, 07:45:51 AM by Anahata »
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