tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post3157911591237792604..comments2024-03-17T11:05:22.464+00:00Comments on The Life And Opinions of Andrew Rilstone: ReviewUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-52970152928520797462012-03-14T12:24:36.705+00:002012-03-14T12:24:36.705+00:00Oh my word, what a lot of unsatisfactory definitio...Oh my word, what a lot of unsatisfactory definitions. Some of them seem to be complete non-starters: for example, the one about open tunings would rule out anything sung unaccompanied (not to mention more than half of what's played on guitars).<br /><br />I thought this was the most promising attempt: <i>For something to really be folk music, as opposed to performance art which some professional musician has given that label, it needs to be circulating without an author "out there" in the musical culture.</i> As I read that, my immediate thought was that if you'd only strike the "without an author clause", the Beatles songs are now the archetypal folk music under this definition. Then sure enough, you used the example of <i>Yesterday</i> a few paragraphs later.<br /><br />As it happens, I sang <i>Yesterday</i> at the folk club the last-but-one time I was there. I sang it in part because I've learned from experience that Beatles songs always go down very well: everyone knows them, everyone sings a long, everyone has a good time. I'm not sure where I am going with this observation, but I thought I'd throw it out there anyway.<br /><br />In a similar vein, I was very moved by this <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSF89swJ9IU" rel="nofollow">Arlo Guthrie video</a>, which a commenter pointed out when I was discussing What Is Folk Music <a href="http://reprog.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/top-albums-of-2011-the-final-results/#comment-8322" rel="nofollow">over on my own blog</a>. (Conclusion: I don't know. Neither does anyone else, apparently.)<br /><br />The closest I came to defining what <i>I</i> mean by folk music is "Reasonably sparse singer-and-a-guitar songs, cleverly written to be <i>about</i> something". But that definition is not warranted as appropriate for anyone else.Mike Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06039663158335543317noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-32545579346739523232012-03-07T14:47:49.774+00:002012-03-07T14:47:49.774+00:00What matters is the idea.
I read the implicit arg...<i>What matters is the idea.</i><br /><br />I read the implicit argument as "folk is not a kind of music but a way of relating to music", which may be the same as your reading? Or a little more relativist than you'd prefer?<br /><br /><br /><i>Didn't the Opies find that, when they asked children to sing them songs, they literally didn't understand what they were being asked for?</i><br /><br />I remember a talk by someone from the Opie Collection a couple of years ago. They played us a recording made by Iona Opie of a little girl "singing a song" that was a performance of something she'd seen on television as an example of the kind of material that, as folklorists, the Opies didn't consider worthy of notice. So I can imagine a scene along the lines of: "Sing a song for us." [sings advertising jingle] "No, one of your own songs." [blank look] "Something you sing with your friends." [Sings "morning has broken".] "No, something you sing in the playground" [Giggles. Sings advertising jingle with words changed to be about poo.] (etc)<br /><br />On the other hand, if I think back I'm not sure I would have considered the songs from singing games as something distinct from the games themselves - or, really, have made the distinction between a "singing game" and any other kind of game with prescribed words or rhymes. <br /><br /><br /><i>it isn't even clear what the different kinds of music which call themselves Celtic have to do with each other</i><br /><br />Once, in a gift shop in Orkney, I had the disturbing experience of hearing a cover of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkNSyUPGAqo" rel="nofollow">Navigator</a> that involved tinkly harp music and an ethereal Scottish voice.Sam Dodsworthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01534273379447820097noreply@blogger.com