Let's bury this term
David Nebenzahl
death is that stinker, "world music."
Because being eminently non-descriptive, it seems to me that this term is
USAn-centric as well, "world" meaning "anywhere in the world except here."
Timothy Jaques
Besides, what isn't world music? I haven't heard much moon music or Mars
music recently.
--
-------
Timothy Jaques tja...@netcom.ca
Windsor, Ontario, Canada
http://www.netcore.ca/~furlaw/furlong.htm
"Sometimes a majority simply means that all of the fools are of one mind."
David Nebenzahl wrote in message <3610249F...@microtech.com>...
Joseph C Fineman
>My nomination for the musical classification most worthy of dying an
>ignoble death is that stinker, "world music."
>Because being eminently non-descriptive, it seems to me that this
>term is USAn-centric as well, "world" meaning "anywhere in the world
>except here."
I think what we are up against here is a widespread vulgar belief (I
do not know in just what subcultures, but including, at any rate, U.S.
journalists) that "foreign" is a dirty word. This belief has cause
"international" to be abused in the same way, and even more commonly.
--- Joe Fineman j...@world.std.com
||: Take it easy, but take it. :||
Moireasdac
>Besides, what isn't world music? I haven't heard much moon music or Mars
>music recently
uh Mars the destoryer? ;-)
Kirk
Timothy Jaques
describes songs about turnips and carrots.
Moireasdac
>Let's bury Roots Music while we are at it, no pun intended. Sounds like
>it
>describes songs about turnips and carrots.
Green grows the gardeno?
or songs about a novel by the late Alex Haley....<G>
Kirk
Tom Nelligan
<tja...@netcom.ca> writes:
>
>Let's bury Roots Music while we are at it, no pun intended. Sounds
>like it describes songs about turnips and carrots.
I fully agreed with the original posting on this thread, since "World
Music" has basically come to mean "anything not from the English
language traditions of the United States, Canada, and the British
Isles", and it seems rather elitist to assume that all sorts of
traditional sounds coming from diverse cultures in Africa, Asia, Latin
America, and Eastern Europe should be lumped together under one label.
I figure that if you mean stuff that's not Celtic, British, or Anglo
North American, just say so.
But I really do like the term "roots music" to describe a whole range
of multi-style, multi-linguistic musical forms (North American and
otherwise) derived from various cultural traditions. I like the way it
conveys the concept that the sound has originated somewhere and then
grown.
I suppose the whole idea of pigeonholes is kind of silly, but as one
record label manager once told me, they have to tell the non-specialty
stores where to file the stuff.
--Tom Nelligan
Timothy Jaques
no apparent reason except that they can put a red maple leaf above the CD
bin dividers. But under world music you find everything from calypso to
celtic-techno. It does seems to be where they put compilations like Folk 'n
Hell, when they aren't sure where it should be. Smithsonian Folkways
recordings are almost always found there. Worse is when they have a
"Celtic" section, and it is odd to see who the store staff consider
"celtic". Stan Rogers sometimes gets chucked in there, while the Pogues are
off under Alternative.
Sometimes I think they should just put every CD in the shop in alphabetical
order according to artist.
Roots Music usually isn't just Inuit throat singers or obscure Cape Breton
fiddlers. You get people in there with such a mix of styles on a single CD
you wonder what their ancestry must be, if the music truly reflects their
"roots."
--
-------
Timothy Jaques tja...@netcom.ca
Windsor, Ontario, Canada
http://www.netcore.ca/~furlaw/furlong.htm
"Sometimes a majority simply means that all of the fools are of one mind."
Tom Nelligan wrote in message <6urmcn$5...@dfw-ixnews7.ix.netcom.com>...
Kevin Sheils
>
> And it is useless when trying to find things in the CD shop.
>
Who was it said "I ain't heard no Horsehead Nebula sing."? ;-)
--
Kevin Sheils
http://www.mrscasey.co.uk/ For Sidmouth/Towersey Festivals etc
http://www.btinternet.com/~haleend For Waltham Forest Folk Events
Frank Hamilton
How about if World Music includes the USA? My objection is that it's
a vague term. I prefer Interplanetary Music. Sub-cultures would be
Martian, Venusian and Plutonian forms with appropriate instruments.
Frank
Frank Hamilton
On second thought, I think we should refer to it as music that is
"regionally challenged."
Frank
jer...@delanet.com
ms30...@atl.mindspring.com wrote:
>
>
> How about if World Music includes the USA? My objection is that it's
> a vague term. I prefer Interplanetary Music. Sub-cultures would be
> Martian, Venusian and Plutonian forms with appropriate instruments.
>
> Frank
You forgot the surprising music of Uranus.
Sorry...
The mice in Jeri's apartment.
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Karen Rodgers
>In article <6uu6mg$m4d$1...@camel25.mindspring.com>,
> ms30...@atl.mindspring.com wrote:
>>
>>
>> How about if World Music includes the USA? My objection is that it's
>> a vague term. I prefer Interplanetary Music. Sub-cultures would be
>> Martian, Venusian and Plutonian forms with appropriate instruments.
>>
>> Frank
>
>You forgot the surprising music of Uranus.
This is true, however I've always found the Jovian Moons' music to be very hard
to listen to, stridant stuff.
Karen Rodgers
email address spamblock enabled. Remove "_xz_" to email me.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Windbourne Homepage http://www.windbourne.com/
The Eric Bogle Homepage http://www.windbourne.com/ebogle/
The San Diego Folk Song Society Page http://www.windbourne.com/sdfss/
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Ian Anderson
David Nebenzahl wrote:
> My nomination for the musical classification most worthy of dying an ignoble
> death is that stinker, "world music."
>
> Because being eminently non-descriptive, it seems to me that this term is
> USAn-centric as well, "world" meaning "anywhere in the world except here."
It's just a box in a record shop, guys. Like those other meaningless
classifications "rock", "jazz". "classical" etc. Helps people find records
they want to buy, that's all. No plot . . .
Since it was a marketing device set in motion in London, UK in the mid
'80s, it can hardly be said to be U.S. centric. It excluded less things than
"worldbeat", "tropical", "ethnic" etc, that's all.
We just use it as "Local music, not from here", but "here" can be anywhere.
And certain things - rock, jazz, classical - have well-established local
versions
everywhere, so they're rarely considered world music wherever "here" is.
Simple, really.
--
Ian Anderson
Folk Roots magazine
fro...@froots.demon.co.uk
http://www.froots.demon.co.uk/
remove anti-junkmail .off to reply
claim...@my-dejanews.com
think of. If people would quit buying this homogenized pap and seek out the
real traditional music of the world's cultures......oh well, they probably
wouldn't appreciate it anyway.
Call me negative, if you must.
John Sandin
(to reply by email, remove the "J" in the address below)
In article <361421EC...@froots.off.demon.co.uk>,
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
J Peekstok
Timothy (tja...@netcom.ca) wrote:
>Roots Music usually isn't just Inuit throat singers or obscure Cape Breton
>fiddlers. You get people in there with such a mix of styles on a single
>CD you wonder what their ancestry must be, if the music truly reflects
>their "roots."
I haven't heard any requirement that a musician be from a culture in order to
play the music of that culture, or music derived from the music of that
culture. Why should you assume that "roots" music ought to reflect the
ancestral roots of the performer?
I think the term "roots music" is usually used to just describe the music
itself.
I will say that I also don't like the sound of the term, but I use it sometimes
for lack of anything better and because it is a fairly accurate description of
a broad range of music, and all the music I play fits within that range. I
still put "traditional music" on publicity posters because most people haven't
heard the term "roots music" but have some idea of what I mean when I say
"traditional". This can, of course, cause folks to asume I am a traditionalist,
which I am not. And I just spent three weeks over on rec.music.celtic being
told I shouldn't claim to play traditional music unless I am part of the
culture that created the music and learned to play at my daddy's knee and all
that.
John Peekstok
http://members.aol.com/telynor/
Timothy Jaques
may not be anything wrong with that, but one wonders what the "roots" of the
musicians are if the mixture reflects their own "roots."
The point you raise proves that "roots music" is a silly term. There is no
reason why a Greek could not be a good Irish-style fiddler even if that
style does not reflect his "roots."
-------
Timothy Jaques tja...@netcom.ca
Windsor, Ontario, Canada
http://www.netcore.ca/~furlaw/furlong.htm
"Sometimes a majority simply means that all of the fools are of one mind."
J Peekstok wrote in message
<19981002085343...@ngol05.aol.com>...
J Peekstok
Timothy (tja...@netcom.ca) wrote:
>>>Roots Music usually isn't just Inuit throat singers or obscure Cape
>>>Breton fiddlers. You get people in there with such a mix of styles on a
>>>single CD you wonder what their ancestry must be, if the music truly
>>>reflects their "roots."
John (jpee...@aol.com) wrote:
>>I haven't heard any requirement that a musician be from a culture in
>>order to play the music of that culture, or music derived from the music
>>of that culture. Why should you assume that "roots" music ought to
>>reflect the ancestral roots of the performer?
>>I think the term "roots music" is usually used to just describe the music
>>itself.
Timothy (tja...@netcom.ca) again:
>You obviously didn't read my post. I referred to a mix of styles. There
>may not be anything wrong with that, but one wonders what the "roots" of
>the musicians are if the mixture reflects their own "roots."
You seem to be confusing the term "roots music" with "musician with roots in a
musical culture". Why should the music that a person play have anything to do
with his ancestry? And why should you be surprised if one musician can learn a
variety of musical styles?
>The point you raise proves that "roots music" is a silly term. There is
>no reason why a Greek could not be a good Irish-style fiddler even if that
>style does not reflect his "roots."
I guess I'm not seeing the problem here. One of the advantages of the term
"roots music" is that it takes the whole ancestry/national origin of the
musician out of the equation and just describes the music itself. What
difference does it make if the fiddler is Greek? Why can't we just talk about a
person who plays good Irish-style fiddle?
Another advantage of the term is that you could have a person who plays Greek
style fiddle go and learn Irish style fiddle as well and then come up with some
completely new style that is a combination of the two and it would still be
roots music. And it still wouldn't matter where the fiddler was from.
John Peekstok
http://members.aol.com/telynor/
Ian Anderson
claim...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
> Yep. There's been more crap lumped under "World Music" than any name I can
> think of. If people would quit buying this homogenized pap and seek out the
> real traditional music of the world's cultures......oh well, they probably
> wouldn't appreciate it anyway.
>
> Call me negative, if you must.
>
Hello Mr. Negative. In most of the record stores that I go to, the real
traditional music of the world's cultures is also filed in the boxes called
World Music - exactly where the people looking for your "homogenized pap"
will find it by accident. Surely a Good Thing?
Suggesting that those who stumble on it this way wouldn't appreciate
it isn't negative, it's just elitist. I prefer to think better of people.
ghost
>I will say that I also don't like the sound of the term, but I use it sometimes
>for lack of anything better and because it is a fairly accurate description of
>a broad range of music, and all the music I play fits within that range. I
>still put "traditional music" on publicity posters because most people haven't
>heard the term "roots music" but have some idea of what I mean when I say
>"traditional". This can, of course, cause folks to asume I am a traditionalist,
>which I am not. And I just spent three weeks over on rec.music.celtic being
>told I shouldn't claim to play traditional music unless I am part of the
>culture that created the music and learned to play at my daddy's knee and all
>that.
No, you weren't. You were told that unless you attempt to learn to
play it in the manner of traditional players, you aren't playing
traditional music. Period. And you spent lots of time saying that
the only thing you respected were "note progressions" (although I doubt
you do respect even those). No one said you had to be a member of the
creating culture, but *I* did say you had to be both aware of &
good at learning to replicate music created under the influences of
the creating culture.
Nice to see you admit (over on another group, of course) that you're still
lying through your teeth on your posters. All you have to say, to be
honest, is "influenced by", or "derived from" traditional music, but
you still prefer to lie.
Peter Wilton
>Nice to see you admit (over on another group, of course) that you're still
>lying through your teeth on your posters. All you have to say, to be
>honest, is "influenced by", or "derived from" traditional music, but
>you still prefer to lie.
Sad, sad Joan
--
Peter Wilton
The Gregorian Association Web Page:
http://www.beaufort.demon.co.uk/
Jon-Jon
Matt Griffin wrote:
> In article <6ve9pn$86m$1...@canon.deas.harvard.edu>, j...@deas.harvard.edu (
> > Nice to see you admit (over on another group, of course) that you're still
> > lying through your teeth on your posters. All you have to say, to be
> > honest, is "influenced by", or "derived from" traditional music, but
> > you still prefer to lie.
> Well, y'know, this is the point. I've read a little bit of Native
> American history, and a bit of political thought on the subject as well,
> and what I come away with is that these misinterpretations and
> bastardizations really amount to genocide, because people see or hear
> something that is presented as the real thing, but isn't, and it gets to
> be taken for real. Then when you *do* hear the real thing, you can't
> appreciate it because you compare it unfavorably to the inferior copy
> you've taken to be the real thing. Thus the truth is distorted, real
> culture &/ or history is replaced, and it's just too bad for anyone out
> there who happens to actually belong to that culture-- "You've got it
> wrong, there Mr. Indian, I've seen all the John Wayne movies, I know what
> the west was really like." When you take a bit of someone's culture, and
> reiterate it as your own, you do it from your own viewpoint-- your own set
> of assumptions and your own purposes, which will be at odds with the
> purpose of the actual members of the culture who originated what you've
> taken; it can't be otherwise! Your Greek fiddler does not have the same
> set of values or referrents as an Irish fiddler. He may be able to
> closely imitate the sound of that Irish fiddler, but he'll still be Greek,
> and he'll still have a Greek heart, and representing it as truly Irish
> diminishes the fiddler who is playing Irish music with his Irish heart by
> invalidating his unique experience as an Irishman. By logical extension,
> little distortion added to little distortion, the Chinese fiddler playing
> like the Greek fiddler who's imitating the Irish fiddler, and still
> calling it Irish fiddle music, and so on and so forth, the sense of the
> original is lost. It's that game of telephone, only on a cultural level.
>
> You can only process these things as yourself. That's not bad, and it's
> not to say that a Greek is wrong to play in an Irish fiddle style. He
> just can never truly call himself an Irish fiddle player.
Matt Griffin
<n...@microtech.com> wrote:
> My nomination for the musical classification most worthy of dying an ignoble
> death is that stinker, "world music."
>
> Because being eminently non-descriptive, it seems to me that this term is
> USAn-centric as well, "world" meaning "anywhere in the world except here."
And 'way too many so called "world music" acts are American-made
malappropriations of other cultures' music! Why should I want to listen
to some bar band in "african" drag butcher music they have no true
affinity for or legitimate connection to?
Matt Griffin
<tja...@netcom.ca> wrote:
> Let's bury Roots Music while we are at it, no pun intended. Sounds like it
> describes songs about turnips and carrots.
This I disagree with. It may be somewhat overused, but this term has value.
It's a subjective term. What may be roots music for me may not
necessarily be roots music for you. Hmm... Maybe the capitalised version
could be done away with. Then again, Robert Johnson, Woody Guthrie, Chuck
Berry, Louis Armstrong, and so many others do deserve that appelation with
a capital R. M., don't you think?
Matt Griffin
<tja...@netcom.ca> wrote:
> Roots Music usually isn't just Inuit throat singers or obscure Cape Breton
> fiddlers. You get people in there with such a mix of styles on a single CD
> you wonder what their ancestry must be, if the music truly reflects their
> "roots."
>
> --
Well, I grew up in America with Big Media blaring full blast around me.
My roots start there, and then go generationally backwards. I've taken
the trouble to learn about things like Delta Blues, country singers like
the Carters and Jimmie Rodgers, and to try to understand *their*
connections back to the past and eventually back to Europe and to Africa
and also to Native America, but for me, The Ramones are also valid roots
music-- I can't deny my own environment and experience, although I do tend
to devalue it because it's so ubiquitous. That may be a mistake.
Matt Griffin
jpee...@aol.com (J Peekstok) wrote:
>
> I haven't heard any requirement that a musician be from a culture in order to
> play the music of that culture, or music derived from the music of that
> culture. Why should you assume that "roots" music ought to reflect the
> ancestral roots of the performer?
>
> I think the term "roots music" is usually used to just describe the music
> itself.
Well, here's a bit of hair-splitting for you. If you're playing a peice
of music that belongs to another culture, then you've simply translated it
to your own culture, haven't you? You're not really playing *that*
culture's music, you're making that peice of music part of your own
culture.
Simply playing an old song, or writing in an antiquated style doen't make
something "roots" unless you can place it in a personal and cultural
context.
Matt Griffin
Matt Griffin
> I thought by now we had buried this thread. ;-)
Evidently not yet. ghost tried, but the point she made (however
obnoxiously) was valid enough for me to want to comment on.
PAULSBANJO
>>>>No, you weren't. You were told that unless you attempt to learn to
play it in the manner of traditional players, you aren't playing
traditional music. >>>>
tradition,on whatever music they play. I'm sure that a player from nothern
Ireland, and a player from southern Ireland may pley the same tune differently.
does that mean that only one is playing "celtic" music.
Or another example Leadbelly learning an "Irish" song, singing it in
his own way (giving it a "blues" intonation) and then "the Weavers" turning it
into "Kisses Sweeter then Wine"(I think Pete Seeger told that story of "K. S. t
W.)
Much "Traditional" music has travelled "Cross Culture"
I will say though that I hate to see "Traditional" music abused, as when
Belafonte took Leadbelly's "Bring me a Little Water Sylvie" and made it into a
"Love" song.(the man plowing in the field wants a drink of water - not
sex.)(one of my pet peeves)
Yours Paul
J Peekstok
I wrote:
>>> I will say that I also don't like the sound of the term (Roots Music),
>>> but I use it sometimes for lack of anything better and because it is a
>>> fairly accurate description of a broad range of music, and all the
>>> music I play fits within that range. I still put "traditional music" on
>>> publicity posters because most people haven't heard the term "roots
>>> music" but have some idea of what I mean when I say "traditional". This
>>> not. And I just spent three weeks over on rec.music.celtic being told I
>>> shouldn't claim to play traditional music unless I am part of the
>>> culture that created the music and learned to play at my daddy's knee
>>> and all that.
ghost replied:
>> No, you weren't. You were told that unless you attempt to learn to
>> play it in the manner of traditional players, you aren't playing
>> traditional music.
>> Nice to see you admit (over on another group, of course) that you're
>> still lying through your teeth on your posters. All you have to say, to
>> be honest, is "influenced by", or "derived from" traditional music, but
>> you still prefer to lie.
Since I believe that traditional music remains traditional music even if it is
played on different instruments or with different ornament sets than the
traditionalists would use, I can hardly be said to be lying. You may disagree
with me about the definitions (and I don't feel any particular need to convince
you of my point of view), but calling me a liar supposes that I am purposefully
saying something that I don't think is true. This is not the case.
And Matt Griffin added:
>Well, y'know, this is the point. I've read a little bit of Native
>American history, and a bit of political thought on the subject as well,
>and what I come away with is that these misinterpretations and
>bastardizations really amount to genocide, because people see or hear
>something that is presented as the real thing, but isn't, and it gets to
>be taken for real.
Are you really saying that because I play a Breton tune in a way that is
slightly different than the way it would -usually- get played in Brittany I am
committing genocide? Isn't that a bit of an extreme position? And am I really
misrepresenting myself if I say "Here is a traditional tune from Brittany" and
then play it in my own way?
>Then when you *do* hear the real thing, you can't
>appreciate it because you compare it unfavorably to the inferior copy
>you've taken to be the real thing.
Have you every really seen this happen? The fact is, if someone came up to me
after a performance and said they really liked the Breton tune I played, I
would say "Oh, you should listen to Alan Stivell, Kornog, Strobinell, Carre
Manchot, Pennou Skoulm, Christian Lemaitre, Kouerien, Gwerz, Soig Seberil, An
Triskell, and maybe Den." If this person bothered to seek out any of these
musicians, they would decide for themselves what they liked and didn't like.
While I could take it as a favorable comment on my prowess as a musician and
entertainer that you think anyone who had heard me would then dislike the
"real" thing, I think this is really a pretty far-fetched idea.
>Thus the truth is distorted, real
>culture &/ or history is replaced, and it's just too bad for anyone out
>there who happens to actually belong to that culture-- "You've got it
>wrong, there Mr. Indian, I've seen all the John Wayne movies, I know what
>the west was really like." When you take a bit of someone's culture, and
>reiterate it as your own, you do it from your own viewpoint-- your own set
>of assumptions and your own purposes, which will be at odds with the
>purpose of the actual members of the culture who originated what you've
>taken; it can't be otherwise!
I really don't think I am doing anything as grand as distorting truth and
replacing history. I'm just playing music. And I fail to see how my playing of
a Breton tune would be in any way at odds with a Breton person's playing of the
same tune.
>Your Greek fiddler does not have the same
>set of values or referrents as an Irish fiddler. He may be able to
>closely imitate the sound of that Irish fiddler, but he'll still be Greek,
>and he'll still have a Greek heart, and representing it as truly Irish
>diminishes the fiddler who is playing Irish music with his Irish heart by
>invalidating his unique experience as an Irishman.
Huh? How can one musician be diminished by the playing of another musician? Of
course they will play the tune differently from each other -- any two musicians
will -- but why should you see this as an attack on the Irish musician?
>By logical extension,
>little distortion added to little distortion, the Chinese fiddler playing
>like the Greek fiddler who's imitating the Irish fiddler, and still
>calling it Irish fiddle music, and so on and so forth, the sense of the
>original is lost. It's that game of telephone, only on a cultural level.
If the tune is an Irish tune, it remains an Irish tune, no matter who plays it
or in what style. And how can the original be lost, as long as there are still
Irish fiddlers playing the tune in a "traditional" manner?
>You can only process these things as yourself. That's not bad, and it's
>not to say that a Greek is wrong to play in an Irish fiddle style. He
>just can never truly call himself an Irish fiddle player.
Well, no. Of course not. Why should he? All I've ever said is that he can call
the tune an Irish tune. What would you call it?
And later Matt said:
> Well, here's a bit of hair-splitting for you. If you're playing a peice
> of music that belongs to another culture, then you've simply translated
> it to your own culture, haven't you? You're not really playing *that*
> culture's music, you're making that peice of music part of your own
> culture.
Well, yes. I'd agree with that. But I would still introduce it by saying "here
is a tune from XX culture." Not saying that would do more to invalidate the
origin culture than playing the music and -not- saying where it was from.
John Peekstok
http://members.aol.com/telynor/
Jon-Jon
at it again. Do these standards apply to classical music as well. That would mean
someone could not possibly do Italian Opera justice unless Italian?
Jon-Jon
Matt Griffin wrote:
> In article <19981010175824...@ngol05.aol.com>,
> jpee...@aol.com (J Peekstok) wrote:
>
> Matt Griffin (who is me) wrote:
> >
> > >Well, y'know, this is the point. I've read a little bit of Native
> > >American history, and a bit of political thought on the subject as well,
> > >and what I come away with is that these misinterpretations and
> > >bastardizations really amount to genocide, because people see or hear
> > >something that is presented as the real thing, but isn't, and it gets to
> > >be taken for real.
> >
> > Are you really saying that because I play a Breton tune in a way that is
> > slightly different than the way it would -usually- get played in Brittany I am
> > committing genocide? Isn't that a bit of an extreme position? And am I really
> > misrepresenting myself if I say "Here is a traditional tune from Brittany" and
> > then play it in my own way?
> Yeah, I'm overstating if it's applied to all situations, but in certain
> situations, that sort of misrepresentation definitely is genocide, and is
> recognized by the U. N. as such. read on , I explain what I mean more
> fully...
> > >Then when you *do* hear the real thing, you can't
> > >appreciate it because you compare it unfavorably to the inferior copy
> > >you've taken to be the real thing.
> >
> > Have you every really seen this happen?
> Happens all the time, I've done it myself. If you hear the sketchy
> imitation first, that's what you think it's supposed to sound like.
> Elsewhere in my post I gave an example of this thinking, the John Wayne
> example. You've done to my post what's done to small
> out-of-the-mainstream cultures, you've butchered the context.
> >The fact is, if someone came up to me
> > after a performance and said they really liked the Breton tune I played, I
> > would say "Oh, you should listen to Alan Stivell, Kornog, Strobinell, Carre
> > Manchot, Pennou Skoulm, Christian Lemaitre, Kouerien, Gwerz, Soig Seberil, An
> > Triskell, and maybe Den." If this person bothered to seek out any of these
> > musicians, they would decide for themselves what they liked and didn't like.
> >
> > While I could take it as a favorable comment on my prowess as a musician and
> > entertainer that you think anyone who had heard me would then dislike the
> > "real" thing, I think this is really a pretty far-fetched idea.
> I don't know you as a musician, I don't think I've ever heard you, and
> that's not the point. How many people would recognise the Brothers Grimm
> in original form after seeing Disney's Sleeping Beauty? Be honest-- what
> percentage of people in this society would still prefer Disney if they
> then read the original? Most, I reckon. The $$$ sure says so.
> > >Thus the truth is distorted, real
> > >culture &/ or history is replaced, and it's just too bad for anyone out
> > >there who happens to actually belong to that culture-- "You've got it
> > >wrong, there Mr. Indian, I've seen all the John Wayne movies, I know what
> > >the west was really like." When you take a bit of someone's culture, and
> > >reiterate it as your own, you do it from your own viewpoint-- your own set
> > >of assumptions and your own purposes, which will be at odds with the
> > >purpose of the actual members of the culture who originated what you've
> > >taken; it can't be otherwise!
> >
> > I really don't think I am doing anything as grand as distorting truth and
> > replacing history. I'm just playing music. And I fail to see how my playing of
> > a Breton tune would be in any way at odds with a Breton person's playing
> of the
> > same tune.
> You don't think so but you are. The person who's heard your version of
> that Breton tune but has never heard the original has only your version of
> it as a point of reference, and when he thinks of Breton music, he's going
> to think of you! You're his link to that culture. I'm not saying don't
> play the tune, but I am saying that you must act with respect to the
> culture you're evoking, and you must respect your listener's experience of
> that tune, and thereby the culture it comes from.
> > >Your Greek fiddler does not have the same
> > >set of values or referrents as an Irish fiddler. He may be able to
> > >closely imitate the sound of that Irish fiddler, but he'll still be Greek,
> > >and he'll still have a Greek heart, and representing it as truly Irish
> > >diminishes the fiddler who is playing Irish music with his Irish heart by
> > >invalidating his unique experience as an Irishman.
> >
> > Huh? How can one musician be diminished by the playing of another musician? Of
> > course they will play the tune differently from each other -- any two
> musicians
> > will -- but why should you see this as an attack on the Irish musician?
> I think I've explained why I think so.
> > >By logical extension,
> > >little distortion added to little distortion, the Chinese fiddler playing
> > >like the Greek fiddler who's imitating the Irish fiddler, and still
> > >calling it Irish fiddle music, and so on and so forth, the sense of the
> > >original is lost. It's that game of telephone, only on a cultural level.
> >
> > If the tune is an Irish tune, it remains an Irish tune, no matter who plays it
> > or in what style. And how can the original be lost, as long as there are still
> > Irish fiddlers playing the tune in a "traditional" manner?
> Well, this is the question, isn't it? And it brings us back to genocide.
> It's not an Irish tune if it's changed, it's something else, and if you
> never hear an Irish fiddler, but you hear that altered tune called Irish,
> what are you to do with it? Where do you file it in your head? Ireland
> is a strong country with a strong, hard-won national identity. They're
> pro-active in a fairly serious way about preserving their culture and
> passing it on. Some other cultures don't have the resources to do that.
> So anyone can come along and play some loose approximation of music from a
> particular culture -- oh, heck, let's say Ihanktonwan Lakota (or Yankton
> Sioux, or maybe even just Sioux for you genocidal maniacs), and without a
> better reference, it gets accepted on face value as authentic. There are
> plenty of idiots out there ready to tell Indians that they don't know what
> they're talking about with their own cultures, and some of them make
> policy. It begins with misinformation. And it leads to fancy dancing at
> pow wows, or whatever the local equivalent way to turn something sacred
> (the Lakota grass dance, which is a celebration of the people's connection
> to Mother Earth) into something vulgar (a garish and undignified
> competition), and it ends with a culture's disappearance.
> > And later Matt said:
> >
> > > Well, here's a bit of hair-splitting for you. If you're playing a peice
> > > of music that belongs to another culture, then you've simply translated
> > > it to your own culture, haven't you? You're not really playing *that*
> > > culture's music, you're making that peice of music part of your own
> > > culture.
> >
> > Well, yes. I'd agree with that. But I would still introduce it by saying "here
> > is a tune from XX culture." Not saying that would do more to invalidate the
> > origin culture than playing the music and -not- saying where it was from.
> > John Peekstok
> > http://members.aol.com/telynor/
> Better would be to encourage that audience to seek out knowledge of the
> origin culture or even to try to facilitate their education in some way.
> You say you do that. Cool.
JesiAna
I have been following this thread, and felt compelled to put in my nickel's
worth, if it's even worth that much. I'm neither a performer nor a scholar, but
rather a lover and singer of songs and a student of music and musical
traditions.
I do agree with whomever it was that we all put our own "filter" over whatever
we do, be it a traditional song, a contemporary one, or our own composition. I
know that when I sing songs for my young students, I'm NOT singing them like
the originator(s) of the song. I happen to be an American Jew; does that mean I
can't do an effective rendition of, say, "The Fields of Athenry," a song I
often sing? Does it limit me to singing only Jewish American music? You mean
the only song in my repertoire that is authentic is "Dona Dona?" But I don't
come out of the Yiddish tradition! My mother's family is from France...a
century and a half ago! And they came to California, not the east...so I don't
really come from the Yiddish tradition...oy vey...
Is this sounding a little silly? It's supposed to; my tongue is inserted firmly
in my cheek. I have to admit I am a bit of a traditionalist and prefer to hear
songs sung without too much "twisting and bending." (After hearing several
lovely "straight" versions of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," for
example, I just HATED Roberta Flack's rendition). And I agree that knowing
something about the origin of a song gives a performer (or a listener!) much
more depth. I love to listen to the songs of the old west, the California Gold
Rush, etc., because I have studied those periods. And, incidentally, the Gold
Rush songs are probably a lot closer to "my tradition" than are those wonderful
songs from the Yiddish, since my first ancestor came just after the start of
the Gold Rush, and was merchant to the miners.
But in my opinion, the bottom line is that songs are meant to be sung. It is
good to hear them sung in an authentic, traditional manner; however, if you
study folksongs, you see the same song appearing in different cultural guises
in different versions. This is especially true for those songs that emigrated
to the U.S. and took on American "citizenship," so to speak. Listen to Sam
Hinton's recording, "The Wandering Folksong," and hear what I mean.
Okay, okay...I'm no expert and I've gone on too long, so I'll put a lid on it
now. Just take what I say in good humor. It is well-intentioned, and merely
wants to say that the music lives to be enjoyed by all, whether sung by an
expert or by some amateur in her own backyard.
Jesiana
"If you can walk, you can dance. If you can talk, you can sing."
Matt Griffin
Matt Griffin (who is me) wrote:
>
> >Well, y'know, this is the point. I've read a little bit of Native
> >American history, and a bit of political thought on the subject as well,
> >and what I come away with is that these misinterpretations and
> >bastardizations really amount to genocide, because people see or hear
> >something that is presented as the real thing, but isn't, and it gets to
> >be taken for real.
>
> Are you really saying that because I play a Breton tune in a way that is
> slightly different than the way it would -usually- get played in Brittany I am
> committing genocide? Isn't that a bit of an extreme position? And am I really
> misrepresenting myself if I say "Here is a traditional tune from Brittany" and
> then play it in my own way?
Yeah, I'm overstating if it's applied to all situations, but in certain
situations, that sort of misrepresentation definitely is genocide, and is
recognized by the U. N. as such. read on , I explain what I mean more
fully...
> >Then when you *do* hear the real thing, you can't
> >appreciate it because you compare it unfavorably to the inferior copy
> >you've taken to be the real thing.
>
> Have you every really seen this happen?
Happens all the time, I've done it myself. If you hear the sketchy
imitation first, that's what you think it's supposed to sound like.
Elsewhere in my post I gave an example of this thinking, the John Wayne
example. You've done to my post what's done to small
out-of-the-mainstream cultures, you've butchered the context.
>The fact is, if someone came up to me
> after a performance and said they really liked the Breton tune I played, I
> would say "Oh, you should listen to Alan Stivell, Kornog, Strobinell, Carre
> Manchot, Pennou Skoulm, Christian Lemaitre, Kouerien, Gwerz, Soig Seberil, An
> Triskell, and maybe Den." If this person bothered to seek out any of these
> musicians, they would decide for themselves what they liked and didn't like.
>
> While I could take it as a favorable comment on my prowess as a musician and
> entertainer that you think anyone who had heard me would then dislike the
> "real" thing, I think this is really a pretty far-fetched idea.
I don't know you as a musician, I don't think I've ever heard you, and
that's not the point. How many people would recognise the Brothers Grimm
in original form after seeing Disney's Sleeping Beauty? Be honest-- what
percentage of people in this society would still prefer Disney if they
then read the original? Most, I reckon. The $$$ sure says so.
> >Thus the truth is distorted, real
> >culture &/ or history is replaced, and it's just too bad for anyone out
> >there who happens to actually belong to that culture-- "You've got it
> >wrong, there Mr. Indian, I've seen all the John Wayne movies, I know what
> >the west was really like." When you take a bit of someone's culture, and
> >reiterate it as your own, you do it from your own viewpoint-- your own set
> >of assumptions and your own purposes, which will be at odds with the
> >purpose of the actual members of the culture who originated what you've
> >taken; it can't be otherwise!
>
> I really don't think I am doing anything as grand as distorting truth and
> replacing history. I'm just playing music. And I fail to see how my playing of
> a Breton tune would be in any way at odds with a Breton person's playing
of the
> same tune.
You don't think so but you are. The person who's heard your version of
that Breton tune but has never heard the original has only your version of
it as a point of reference, and when he thinks of Breton music, he's going
to think of you! You're his link to that culture. I'm not saying don't
play the tune, but I am saying that you must act with respect to the
culture you're evoking, and you must respect your listener's experience of
that tune, and thereby the culture it comes from.
> >Your Greek fiddler does not have the same
> >set of values or referrents as an Irish fiddler. He may be able to
> >closely imitate the sound of that Irish fiddler, but he'll still be Greek,
> >and he'll still have a Greek heart, and representing it as truly Irish
> >diminishes the fiddler who is playing Irish music with his Irish heart by
> >invalidating his unique experience as an Irishman.
>
> Huh? How can one musician be diminished by the playing of another musician? Of
> course they will play the tune differently from each other -- any two
musicians
> will -- but why should you see this as an attack on the Irish musician?
I think I've explained why I think so.
> >By logical extension,
> >little distortion added to little distortion, the Chinese fiddler playing
> >like the Greek fiddler who's imitating the Irish fiddler, and still
> >calling it Irish fiddle music, and so on and so forth, the sense of the
> >original is lost. It's that game of telephone, only on a cultural level.
>
> If the tune is an Irish tune, it remains an Irish tune, no matter who plays it
> or in what style. And how can the original be lost, as long as there are still
> Irish fiddlers playing the tune in a "traditional" manner?
Well, this is the question, isn't it? And it brings us back to genocide.
It's not an Irish tune if it's changed, it's something else, and if you
never hear an Irish fiddler, but you hear that altered tune called Irish,
what are you to do with it? Where do you file it in your head? Ireland
is a strong country with a strong, hard-won national identity. They're
pro-active in a fairly serious way about preserving their culture and
passing it on. Some other cultures don't have the resources to do that.
So anyone can come along and play some loose approximation of music from a
particular culture -- oh, heck, let's say Ihanktonwan Lakota (or Yankton
Sioux, or maybe even just Sioux for you genocidal maniacs), and without a
better reference, it gets accepted on face value as authentic. There are
plenty of idiots out there ready to tell Indians that they don't know what
they're talking about with their own cultures, and some of them make
policy. It begins with misinformation. And it leads to fancy dancing at
pow wows, or whatever the local equivalent way to turn something sacred
(the Lakota grass dance, which is a celebration of the people's connection
to Mother Earth) into something vulgar (a garish and undignified
competition), and it ends with a culture's disappearance.
> And later Matt said:
>
> > Well, here's a bit of hair-splitting for you. If you're playing a peice
> > of music that belongs to another culture, then you've simply translated
> > it to your own culture, haven't you? You're not really playing *that*
> > culture's music, you're making that peice of music part of your own
> > culture.
>
> Well, yes. I'd agree with that. But I would still introduce it by saying "here
> is a tune from XX culture." Not saying that would do more to invalidate the
> origin culture than playing the music and -not- saying where it was from.
> John Peekstok
> http://members.aol.com/telynor/
Matt Griffin
about folk music is that it *must* live past it's originators.
This issue is very complex. Is it about presentation? It seems to get
dicey around the professional musician deal. If you're sitting in a lawn
chair in your back yard singing a song, there's really no question about
the context the song exists in -- you're singing something from your true
cultural point of view. If you're on stage somewhere, you're creating
context, presenting yourself consciously to an audience who is most likely
paying to see & hear your vision. You must know something the audience
doesn't, right? "Oh, so that's what Azerbaijani music sounds like..."
The professional musician has a pretty serious responsibility to make it
as true as he or she can...
In article <19981010203304...@ng58.aol.com>, jes...@aol.com
JesiAna
I agree...the performer has a responsibility to honor the tradition of the
music he/she performs. But one can say (as have some pretty notable performers,
including Pete Seeger) that this is a song from such-and-such a culture, and
while the musician can't perform it as it would be by a person of that culture,
he/she nevertheless is moved to perform it. As I say, I sing songs from other
cultures for my students. But I don't expect them to believe that my rendition
is necessarily authentic, and I would try to find a recording more close to the
authentic. For example, I teach a unit on John Henry to my students. I play the
song sung by several performers. I don't know which rendition is "right." They
all offer a performers interpretation, a point of view about John Henry. (I
also read several versions of the "John Henry" legend; which one is the
original? Are any of them? I don't know). I do that with several folk tales and
folksongs throughout the year. It helps to open their minds, realize that there
is not necessarily one "right" version of it.
As for the mention of the "Disney versions" by someone in this thread, I
agree...children are often introduced to fairy tales, folk tales, and
historical tales via Disney fantasies (Pocahontas is one that probably
disturbed me as much as any), and don't realize these stories come from long
before the time of the movies. Once again, as a teacher, I do what I can give a
balance to this. They are usually a distortion of the original. But that
doesn't mean they have no place in the world. They are merely Disney's
interpretation of something handed down through oral tradition. I may not like
them or agree with the treatment of them, but that doesn't mean they have no
merit.
Again, I say that songs are meant to be sung; one would hope they would be sung
with respect to tradition and authenticity, but this isn't always the case.
Once again, I bring up the example of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face."
Roberta Flack bent it pretty far, and it was her version that was the hit,
never mind that I couldn't stand it. So it must have had great merit for some
listeners...
ghost
>If the tune is an Irish tune, it remains an Irish tune, no matter who plays it
>or in what style.
It doesn't "remain an Irish tune", once you've changed everything
about it up to (& often including) the "progression of notes"
(to use your favorite phrase over on rec.music.celtic).
If you've got a musical tradition to place it in, it becomes a Greek tune,
or a Breton tune, or whatever. Even that "progression of notes" often gets
changed just because the original progression of notes doesn't *quite*
fit the style of music that's adopted the tune.
*You*, of course, have no musical tradition to put a tune in.
(I don't buy "Renaissance Faire Dilettante" as a musical cultural tradition.)
ghost
I (j...@deas.harvard.edu) had said, in response to John Peekstok:
> >>>>No, you weren't. You were told that unless you attempt to learn to
> play it in the manner of traditional players, you aren't playing
> traditional music. >>>>
> I hate to disagree with you, BUT, one always puts on their personal
> tradition,on whatever music they play.
The point with Peekstok is that he hasn't *got* a tradition.
I don't believe in the "one-person personal tradition" definition of
"tradition". Peekstok thinks a few Seattle yuppies in his livingroom
constitute a tradition, even though they have no defining style between them
other than "Generic American Renaissance-Faire Dilettante".
As you can see, this is a long-going argument (see rec.music.celtic
for the past few months & rec.music.folk for about the past 8 years).
>I'm sure that a player from nothern Ireland, and a player from
>southern Ireland may pley the same tune differently. does that mean
>that only one is playing "celtic" music.
Nope; means that one is a northern Irish player & one a southern Irish player.
You could find lots of people in their locales who play similar styles,
*&* who share a culture in other ways, too. That's important to flavoring
the music. Lots of people who just pick up on tunes (Peekstok, for
instance) don't know or care where they're coming from).
ghost
>I do agree with whomever it was that we all put our own "filter" over whatever
>we do, be it a traditional song, a contemporary one, or our own composition. I
>know that when I sing songs for my young students, I'm NOT singing them like
>the originator(s) of the song. I happen to be an American Jew; does that mean I
>can't do an effective rendition of, say, "The Fields of Athenry," a song I
>often sing? Does it limit me to singing only Jewish American music? You mean
>the only song in my repertoire that is authentic is "Dona Dona?" But I don't
>come out of the Yiddish tradition! My mother's family is from France...a
>century and a half ago! And they came to California, not the east...so I don't
>really come from the Yiddish tradition...oy vey...
All I'm saying is that you shouldn't misrepresent your singing as being
"traditional Scots singing" (or whatever) & I'll bet you don't.
No-one's asking you to limit your repertoire. But you have to look into
the possibility that the influences, whatever they were, musical & otherwise,
on you as a growing child influenced your interpretations of songs, whatever
tradition the songs originally came from. I know my childhood influences do
influence my interpretations. You can't be expected to know
Yiddish singing traditions if they weren't passed on to you. I know a lot
about Jewish liturgical singing traditions, but nothing (except what I hear,
as an adult, on recordings & at festivals) of Yiddish secular
singing traditions, because all that neat Klezmer music & so forth just
wasn't around me when I was growing up. However, the Klezmer traditions
were very much fed into by the cantorial singing, so there is a meeting point
somewhere.
>Is this sounding a little silly? It's supposed to; my tongue is inserted firmly
>in my cheek. I have to admit I am a bit of a traditionalist and prefer to hear
>songs sung without too much "twisting and bending." (After hearing several
>lovely "straight" versions of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," for
>example, I just HATED Roberta Flack's rendition).
I'm not too crazy about Flack's rendition either, but then I'm not too
crazy about Flack's style in general. Too much cooing for me.
But she covered a contemporary pop song, one written by a man who had a
background in other fields than the trad Scots stuff he's best known for,
& gave it a comtemporary pop treatment coming from a very personalized
version of an African American style. Neither MacColl nor Flack ever claimed
the song or their treatments of it were traditional, in any tradition.
Oh yeah, & I love your signature quote about "if you can talk, you can sing"
which I deleted by mistake here. (See ongoing discussion on
rec.music.celtic with those who claim singing can &/or needs to be taught.)
I'm not so sure,personally, about the "if you can walk you can dance" part,
though.
Matt Griffin
but I do believe it's a tradition.
Why must you be deliberately provocative?
In article <6vqg99$k6h$1...@canon.deas.harvard.edu>, j...@deas.harvard.edu (
ghost ) wrote:
> In article <19981010175824...@ngol05.aol.com>
jpee...@aol.com (J Peekstok) writes:
>
> >If the tune is an Irish tune, it remains an Irish tune, no matter who
plays it
> >or in what style.
>
JudiLem
> Do these standards apply to classical music as well. That would mean
>someone could not possibly do Italian Opera justice unless Italian?
If there is a formal standard--like a score, composer's directions as to tempo
and dynamics, for example, I wouldn't think those standards would apply (to
those who think those standards <should> apply). But there's certainly been
plenty of controversy in classical music circles about the performance of
pre-classical period music--with the result that we now have Early Music
ensembles performing Renaissance and Baroque music on original instruments or
in styles truer to the period.
But--in my view--traditions evolve, cultures evolve, that's the folk
process--and just as I believe the best remedy for untrue or hateful speech is
more speech, I think the best remedy to distortions of <authentic> cultural
phenomena is more access to the originals. And exposure to music etc. in a
more accessible form (like 1850's mountain tunes sung by Joan Baez) leads many
people back to the originals. (My apologies if this is a repetition of what
others have said, but I've dipped into this discussion only intermittently.)
Peter Wilton
>It's a subjective term. What may be roots music for me may not
>necessarily be roots music for you.
Another term just like "folk" in fact!
>Then again, Robert Johnson, Woody Guthrie, Chuck
>Berry, Louis Armstrong, and so many others do deserve that appelation with
>a capital R. M., don't you think?
With so many diverse musical genres (as above) represented under the
umbrella, it's evidently not a term that describes a musical style then?
Peter Wilton
>> Are you really saying that because I play a Breton tune in a way that is
>> slightly different than the way it would -usually- get played in Brittany I am
>> committing genocide? Isn't that a bit of an extreme position? And am I really
>> misrepresenting myself if I say "Here is a traditional tune from Brittany" and
>> then play it in my own way?
>Yeah, I'm overstating if it's applied to all situations, but in certain
>situations, that sort of misrepresentation definitely is genocide, and is
>recognized by the U. N. as such. read on , I explain what I mean more
>fully...
I haven't seen anything which explains how murdering every member of
a race of human beings is equal to misrepresenting a musical tradition (or
a usenet post, for that matter!).
>> >Then when you *do* hear the real thing, you can't
>> >appreciate it because you compare it unfavorably to the inferior copy
>> >you've taken to be the real thing.
>> Have you every really seen this happen?
>Happens all the time, I've done it myself. If you hear the sketchy
>imitation first, that's what you think it's supposed to sound like.
>Elsewhere in my post I gave an example of this thinking, the John Wayne
>example. You've done to my post what's done to small
>out-of-the-mainstream cultures, you've butchered the context.
There's a problem with this whole way of arguing, though. You can have
a "real" performance of a particular musical tradition, but the context will
be "butchered" unless you are a member of the society which produced,
using it in its original way. Does this mean that if the music is brought to
the attention of someone from somewhere else, it is "butchered" because
the "context" is wrong. But what about the processes of constant
adaptation to which most of the folk music we know is constantly
subjected? Traditional ballads, for example, are thought to preserve some
of the "storylines" of much older, tribal material (long "recitative" epics),
but when the tribal lifestyles ended, the material became incorporated into
strophic, metrical ballads, sung by soloists, rather than long epics in group
performance. Are our traditional ballads therefore out-of-context
"butcherings" of material from the Europe of the first millennium? The
audience for the ballads is presumably quite different from the audience
from the preceding epics, therefore the context is different. The tunes
and form of the tales have changed from one context to another -
adapted. An inevitable process, I would have thought. The adaptation
cannot be shown to be inferior or superior to what preceded, just
different.
ghost
> America's musical tradition in the twentieth century may be sketchy,
>but I do believe it's a tradition.
There's more than one kind of uniquely American 20th century music, but
I don't think all the different kinds are yet traditions, & I have
no evidence that Peekstok, who I was talking about, plays any of
those uniquely American 20th century forms of music, any more than he
plays any of the other-ethnic-group forms of traditional music he lays claim to.
> Why must you be deliberately provocative?
I'm not (being deliberately provocative), I'm stating what Peekstok is
(Renaissance Faire Dilettante) based on his own representation of himself
in this & other groups (rec.music.celtic, rec.music.early; lots of
Renaissance Faire Dillettantes in rec.music.early, & its a free usenet,
so far, so both I & you can go read what they say).
I don't think that's a cultural musical tradition, because the practioners
don't play in similar enough styles, & because they don't, except by
coincidence, share a culture in other regards (they don't share a set
of beliefs about how the world works, a geographical region or regions.,
a cuisine or related set of cuisines, a religion or related set of religions,
etc.)
Matt Griffin
<unic...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Looks like the so-called purists ("folk nazis" as Stan Rogers refereed
to them) are
> at it again. Do these standards apply to classical music as well? That
would mean
> someone could not possibly do Italian Opera justice unless Italian!
>
> Jon-Jon
>
Name calling, Jon-Jon?
All I'm talking about is respect. I'm trying to raise the point that
for some cultures, this is a life-or-death matter, especially where
colonialism and forced acculturation come into play.
I play punk rock, country music, and anything else I please. I just
make sure I give credit where credit is due, and never try to present
myself as something I'm not. If I don't feel I have sufficient means to
respect where a song comes from, I tend to stay away from it. For me it's
a matter of integrity.
Classical music is not so ethnically oriented. It's pan-European, and
as Western culture has spread, so has classical music. That's not to
mention how many classical composers pillaged folk music for melodies, and
how little credit was ever given to originators.
Matt Griffin
(JesiAna) wrote:
> I agree...the performer has a responsibility to honor the tradition of the
> music he/she performs. But one can say (as have some pretty notable
performers,
> including Pete Seeger) that this is a song from such-and-such a culture, and
> while the musician can't perform it as it would be by a person of that
culture,
> he/she nevertheless is moved to perform it. As I say, I sing songs from other
> cultures for my students. But I don't expect them to believe that my rendition
> is necessarily authentic, and I would try to find a recording more close
to the
> authentic. For example, I teach a unit on John Henry to my students. I
play the
> song sung by several performers. I don't know which rendition is "right." They
> all offer a performers interpretation, a point of view about John Henry. (I
> also read several versions of the "John Henry" legend; which one is the
> original? Are any of them? I don't know). I do that with several folk
tales and
> folksongs throughout the year. It helps to open their minds, realize
that there
> is not necessarily one "right" version of it.
This is all anyone could ask, and admirably done.
> As for the mention of the "Disney versions" by someone in this thread, I
> agree...children are often introduced to fairy tales, folk tales, and
> historical tales via Disney fantasies (Pocahontas is one that probably
> disturbed me as much as any), and don't realize these stories come from long
> before the time of the movies. Once again, as a teacher, I do what I can
give a
> balance to this. They are usually a distortion of the original. But that
> doesn't mean they have no place in the world. They are merely Disney's
> interpretation of something handed down through oral tradition. I may not like
> them or agree with the treatment of them, but that doesn't mean they have no
> merit.
I'm not saying they have no merit, but sometimes they do more harm than
good. Sometimes a lot more harm.
> Again, I say that songs are meant to be sung; one would hope they would
be sung
> with respect to tradition and authenticity, but this isn't always the case.
> Once again, I bring up the example of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face."
> Roberta Flack bent it pretty far, and it was her version that was the hit,
> never mind that I couldn't stand it. So it must have had great merit for some
> listeners...
>
>
> Jesiana
>
> "If you can walk, you can dance. If you can talk, you can sing."
Interesting that you bring up this example. I heard Scott Alarik, a local
folksinger and deep thinker from around here, perform this song the other
night and he talked about how the "folk process" had worked with this
song. He told the history of the song -- that it was Ewen MacColl's
proposal to Peggy Seeger, that in the first years after it was written, it
was a staple of most folksingers worthy of the name's repertoire, and that
once it became a hit, people virtually stopped performing it in a "folk"
context. It's a beautiful song and I'm so glad to hear it being performed
in that context. Elsewhere in his set, he made the point that "a song is
as young as the last time it was sung." Interesting juxtaposition.
Matt Griffin
In article <FhFwgDAE...@beaufort.demon.co.uk>, Peter Wilton
<pj...@beaufort.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >Then again, Robert Johnson, Woody Guthrie, Chuck
> >Berry, Louis Armstrong, and so many others do deserve that appelation with
> >a capital R. M., don't you think?
>
> With so many diverse musical genres (as above) represented under the
> umbrella, it's evidently not a term that describes a musical style then?
JesiAna
<<Oh yeah, & I love your signature quote about "if you can talk, you can sing"
which I deleted by mistake here. (See ongoing discussion on
rec.music.celtic with those who claim singing can &/or needs to be taught.)
I'm not so sure,personally, about the "if you can walk you can dance" part,
though>>
I'm not so sure about it myself sometimes, being a total klutz...however, I
guess the point is that singing and dancing are kind of "organic," that is,
they are natural human activities...and I resent the hell out of the people who
tell me that if I can't do them at a high, polished level I shouldn't be doing
them at all! That does an injustice to both the person and the art, and has
been the downfall of many an aspiring young student who, when it wasn't
perfect, was judged and found to be lacking, so gave it up altogether. So...I
press on...sing, dance, do what your spirit moves you to do...it is part of
your humanity...
<now climbing down from my soapbox>
JesiAna
<<Interesting that you bring up this example. I heard Scott Alarik, a local
folksinger and deep thinker from around here, perform this song the other
night and he talked about how the "folk process" had worked with this
song. He told the history of the song -- that it was Ewen MacColl's
proposal to Peggy Seeger, that in the first years after it was written, it
was a staple of most folksingers worthy of the name's repertoire, and that
once it became a hit, people virtually stopped performing it in a "folk"
context. It's a beautiful song and I'm so glad to hear it being performed
in that context. Elsewhere in his set, he made the point that "a song is
as young as the last time it was sung." Interesting juxtaposition.>>
I did not know the origin of this song, thank you for posting it. And I am not
surprised that folksingers stopped performing it for awhile, since the popular
context was the one most people knew. And that is the harm in the
popularization and commercialization of folk songs, or folk tales, etc. I agree
with you on that. However, I like to think that there are enough enlightened
people out there who will continue to be authentic and keep the integrity of
the music going.
When I think of popularization and such, I think of the fact that without the
"pop" people, there is much music and literature that would not reach so many
people. Peter, Paul, and Mary, for example, didn't really start out as
folksingers; but they have brought much good folk music to people who went on
to seek more "hard core" folk stuff. They are sort of the "Arthur Fiedler" of
folk. Fiedler and his Pops brought classical music to many, even though he was
not respected as a great musician. To some degree, Luciano Pavarotti and
Placido Domingo have done the same for opera. It isn't necessarily "pure," but
it sparks interest. (And this is in no way to criticize the artistry of Mr.
Pavarotti, or Mr. Domingo, who are both recognized as great tenors, and
deservedly so).
It's a fine line, I guess...do you want to keep the "purity," or do you want to
share it with the many? I don't know the answers, but I sure as hell can raise
a question or two...
Matt Griffin
<pj...@beaufort.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> Matt Griffin <did...@SPAMMENOT.shore.net> writes
> >> Are you really saying that because I play a Breton tune in a way that is
> >> slightly different than the way it would -usually- get played in
Brittany I am
> >> committing genocide? Isn't that a bit of an extreme position? And am
I really
> >> misrepresenting myself if I say "Here is a traditional tune from
Brittany" and
> >> then play it in my own way?
> >Yeah, I'm overstating if it's applied to all situations, but in certain
> >situations, that sort of misrepresentation definitely is genocide, and is
> >recognized by the U. N. as such. read on , I explain what I mean more
> >fully...
>
> I haven't seen anything which explains how murdering every member of
> a race of human beings is equal to misrepresenting a musical tradition (or
> a usenet post, for that matter!).
I have spent a pretty significant amount of time today & yesterday looking
for the book that I got this idea from, but have to this point been
unsuccessful in locating it. It's a book by Ward Churchill who is (or was
at the time) Professor of Native American studies at the University of
Colorado. There's a quote from the General Assembly of the U. N. and it's
used to support his thesis for the book (sorry, can't remember the title)
on the continuing process of colonializing the various indigenous cultures
in this part of the world. The book is about how our culture (the
Euro-American culture) is genociding all the Indian Nations by revising
and regurgitating their culture in a distorted fashion, with the end goal
of entirely eliminating them. I believe that this is occurring. The U.
N. quote is the "legal" definition of genocide, and arises from the
assumption that if the culture is gone, the people have effectively ceased
to exist. I will continue to search for this book, and when I find it, I
will post the quote.
> >> >Then when you *do* hear the real thing, you can't
> >> >appreciate it because you compare it unfavorably to the inferior copy
> >> >you've taken to be the real thing.
> >> Have you every really seen this happen?
> >Happens all the time, I've done it myself. If you hear the sketchy
> >imitation first, that's what you think it's supposed to sound like.
> >Elsewhere in my post I gave an example of this thinking, the John Wayne
> >example. You've done to my post what's done to small
> >out-of-the-mainstream cultures, you've butchered the context.
>
> There's a problem with this whole way of arguing, though. You can have
> a "real" performance of a particular musical tradition, but the context will
> be "butchered" unless you are a member of the society which produced,
> using it in its original way. Does this mean that if the music is brought to
> the attention of someone from somewhere else, it is "butchered" because
> the "context" is wrong. But what about the processes of constant
> adaptation to which most of the folk music we know is constantly
> subjected? Traditional ballads, for example, are thought to preserve some
> of the "storylines" of much older, tribal material (long "recitative" epics),
> but when the tribal lifestyles ended, the material became incorporated into
> strophic, metrical ballads, sung by soloists, rather than long epics in group
> performance. Are our traditional ballads therefore out-of-context
> "butcherings" of material from the Europe of the first millennium? The
> audience for the ballads is presumably quite different from the audience
> from the preceding epics, therefore the context is different. The tunes
> and form of the tales have changed from one context to another -
> adapted. An inevitable process, I would have thought. The adaptation
> cannot be shown to be inferior or superior to what preceded, just
> different.
> --
> Peter Wilton
> The Gregorian Association Web Page:
> http://www.beaufort.demon.co.uk/
Point taken.
The course of history is that things change. Some cultures fade, others
grow stronger, some get virulent and wipe others out, sometimes out of
necessity cultures adapt. My perspective is that it's a shame when things
are lost, and there's much suffering associated with it. If we're aware
of what we're doing, how can we continue to do it? If there's a beautiful
culture out there that's dying through greed or anger or insensitivity,
shouldn't we do something about it? Intellectual detachment is OK if
you're an anthropologist (although most Native Americans will tell you
that "Anthros" are full of hops and never do get it right--there's a
chapter in Ward Churchill's book on anthropologists), but if you're a
participant in history, shouldn't you be guided by your conscience?
I some cases, it's totally fine, I think, to take something from a
particular source and alter it to suit your needs. It's called synthesis
and it's the method of most creativity. But you wouldn't take the last
ebony tree and make a coffee table, would you? and you wouldn't take an
ebony table and cover it with pine veneer, either, right? From a strictly
materialistic pov, it's important to respect and nurture your sources so
they don't dry up. On an aesthetic level, these things have intrinsic
value and should be preserved. From the humanistic standpoint, when
culture is lost, people suffer, no matter what you're trying to replace it
with.
PAULSBANJO
<<<I don't think that's a cultural musical tradition, because the practioners
don't play in similar enough styles, & because they don't, except by
coincidence, share a culture in other regards (they don't share a set
of beliefs about how the world works, a geographical region or regions.,
a cuisine or related set of cuisines, a religion or related set of religions,
etc.)>>>
I'm not sure weather I agree or disagree with you on this. My feelings
are that becaus of mass media, and mass comunications (not to mention mass
transportation), that there is no longer the posibility of an "integral
traditional culture" where any one "standard" tradition" would apply.
I think that the best we can do is to try to learn, understand, and pass
on the "old traditions"
Paul
Joe Kesselman, yclept Keshlam
>But you wouldn't take the last
>ebony tree and make a coffee table, would you?
There's a bit of difference between that and making an "ebonized"
coffee table that is a close replica of an ebony original. I _think_
you're talking about something closer to the latter case.
>and you wouldn't take an
>ebony table and cover it with pine veneer, either, right?
I can manufacture a situation in which that might in fact be
appropriate. Not exactly the same, but: I once spent a day
helping to nail plywood over the floorboards at a historic
site. The historians felt that a few nail holes to anchor the
plywood were less damaging to the historic value of that
floor than continued day-to-day traffic over it would be.
But again, I think the question here is whether that case
really applies, or if we're back in the "here's what it inspired
in me/here's the best replica I can achieve" model.
Preserving history is important. Learning from it and
doing something with what you've learned is important too.
<relurk>
------------------------------------------------------
Joe Kesselman, http://www.lovesong.com/people/keshlam/
Coming November 14th to Walkabout Clearwater: Moxy Fruvous!
http://www.lovesong.com/walkabout/coffeehouse.html
PAULSBANJO
<<<< Peter, Paul, and Mary, for example, didn't really start out as
folksingers;>>>>
I dont know about the other two (peter & paul), but I know Mary was in
the Washington Sq. folk crowd since she was about 16. She also want to "the
Little Red School House",and Elizabeth Irwin H. S. which in my day (I went to
"T L R S H" till I was 9) was wery much into folk music.
Paul
JesiAna
Not arguing the point...but my understanding is that Peter Paul and Mary were
working as studio musicians when they were put together by a producer to
perform folk music, which was popular at the time. Which is not to say they
aren't good musicians, or didn't become good folksingers. I have plenty of
respect for them and for what they do. They brought a lot of good songs to a
lot of folks who might not have sought out Pete Seeger, Leadbelly, Cisco
Houston, or some of the more "hard core" folksingers out there.
J Peekstok
Matt Griffin wrote:
>I some cases, it's totally fine, I think, to take something from a
>particular source and alter it to suit your needs. It's called synthesis
>and it's the method of most creativity. But you wouldn't take the last
>ebony tree and make a coffee table, would you? and you wouldn't take an
>ebony table and cover it with pine veneer, either, right? From a strictly
>materialistic pov, it's important to respect and nurture your sources so
>they don't dry up. On an aesthetic level, these things have intrinsic
>value and should be preserved. From the humanistic standpoint, when
>culture is lost, people suffer, no matter what you're trying to replace it
>with.
Hi Matt,
We seem to be having some trouble finding a common ground on which to
communicate. I think it may be because you seem to be taking each point to its
farthest possible general terms and I tend to discuss specific cases. I'm sorry
I didn't respond to your point about people thinking that all Native Americans
should act like the Indians in a John Wayne movie. I guess I didn't see it as
relevent to a discussion of whether or not I ought to play traditional folk
music from cultures that are in no particular danger of being wiped out and
that have thriving musical traditions. I also don't actually know anyone who
thinks John Wayne movies represent the reality of Native Americans in any way.
Do you?
To get specific to music again, I play mostly music from France, Brittany,
Scotland, Englan, Ireland, and Appalachia. You seem to be saying that if I play
music from those places, I should be careful to do it only in the most
traditional manner I can or risk damaging the culture from which the music
came. My problem with this is that the musicians from those places have already
pushed the envelope on their traditional music so far that I don't think I can
possibly get farther outside the old traditional lines than the current
traditional home-bred musicians.
I guess I'm fated to be a frustrated cultural assasin.
John Peekstok
http://members.aol.com/telynor/
MIKE REGENSTREIF
Peter, Paul and Mary were all individually active on the folk scene
before they came together as a group put together by Albert Grossman.
BTW, Dave Van Ronk turned down an opportunity to be part of the group.
MR
Jeri Corlew
wrote:
>In article <36203B67...@earthlink.net>, Jon-Jon
><unic...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> Looks like the so-called purists ("folk nazis" as Stan Rogers refereed
>to them) are
>> at it again. Do these standards apply to classical music as well? That
>would mean
>> someone could not possibly do Italian Opera justice unless Italian!
>>
>> Jon-Jon
>>
> Name calling, Jon-Jon?
> All I'm talking about is respect. I'm trying to raise the point that
>for some cultures, this is a life-or-death matter, especially where
>colonialism and forced acculturation come into play.
> I play punk rock, country music, and anything else I please. I just
>make sure I give credit where credit is due, and never try to present
>myself as something I'm not. If I don't feel I have sufficient means to
>respect where a song comes from, I tend to stay away from it. For me it's
>a matter of integrity.
> Classical music is not so ethnically oriented. It's pan-European, and
>as Western culture has spread, so has classical music. That's not to
>mention how many classical composers pillaged folk music for melodies, and
>how little credit was ever given to originators.
Perhaps a standard disclaimer should be posted prominently: "The music
performed is *interpreted* by the artist and may not reflect the intentions or
style of the original author."
Don't get me wrong - I think that the historical context of music is important,
but I don't think it must always be performed in an historical way.
Nothing’s a folk song unless it is authorized,
Analyzed closely and pure through and through ,
Archived and numbered and properly canonized.
Anything less will quite simply not do .
Do, do !
Simply won’t do !
Most of your music will simply not do .
Folk songs are judged by our stringent criteria,
Not by the standards of folk such as you .
-- From Song of the Folk Nazi, ©9/3/88 by Bob Kanefsky
--
Jeri Corlew
PAULSBANJO
BTW, Dave Van Ronk turned down an opportunity to be part of the group.
MR
Hi Mike
It's probably a good thing, since, while Dave Van Ronk is great in his
own right, I dont think that he would have been happy doing P. P. & M. type
stuff. Of course P. D. & M. might have taken a compleatly different direction.
Yours Paul
Janet M. Ryan
> Nothing’s a folk song unless it is authorized,
> Analyzed closely and pure through and through ,
> Archived and numbered and properly canonized.
> Anything less will quite simply not do .
> Do, do !
> Simply won’t do !
> Most of your music will simply not do .
> Folk songs are judged by our stringent criteria,
> Not by the standards of folk such as you .
> -- From Song of the Folk Nazi, ©9/3/88 by Bob Kanefsky
>--
>Jeri Corlew
Bless your lil ole heart for this one Jeri!
My tendency is to question whether it is necessary to have "folk" or
"roots" or "world" music criteria at all, whether for academic,
political or music industry marketing purposes.
But OTOH, I also question whether knowing the material well enough to
do it justice, performing it with the respect it deserves (including
parody of said material), and giving credit where it is due (for good
or for ill), is all that is required to perform any kind of music with
integrity.
And just to confuse things even further, I wonder whether there
mightn't be certain types of music where the community the performer
comes from doesn't matter (i.e. popular music, or music formally
taught according to standards of performance that are different from
folk music, like classical music, whether European, Indian, Chinese,
etc.)
But that there might also be instances where the background of the
performer *does* matter to the community whose music it is. In other
words, in many traditional communities, the aesthetics and contexts of
the performance of their music traditions are something they believe
identifies them as a unique community, but also has other contexts
that a person from outside that culture 1) might not know about, &/or;
2) might know about but doesn't care about, &/or; 3) knows about,
tries to incorporate it into their performance and may or may not
suceed at it, just as a native performer would.
And rightly or wrongly (who are we to judge?) isn't it reasonable
that some people within that community might perceive the performance
of the music by people who don't live in that community (especially
when it is done for profit and/or without due recognition of the
source of the music), as being a violation of the boundaries of the
community &/or an exploitation of that community's music
traditions/musicians? And that they need not be dissed, dismissed or
demonized for it?
It seems to me this all boils down to being more a question of who
frames the argument, and which community's values one is seeking to
uphold. Different communities attach different meanings to music that
is "ours" and music that is "theirs" and everyone's music changes,
gets stolen, adapted and assimilated both by themselves and by other
communities all the time. That is nothing new.
But isn't it also possible we won't ever be able to reach a nice,
polite global consensus about these issues because of those
conflicting values? Mightn't our time be better spent trying to
establish a code of ethical behavior for the global music industry,
rather than imposing GATT-like capitalist solutions on those
communities who have a dissenting point of view to the capitalist
rules of business currently regulating the music, whether people want
it to be part and parcel of a global music industry or not?
Janet Ryan
Jon-Jon
Jon-Jon
Jeri Corlew wrote:
Peter Wilton
>If there is a formal standard--like a score, composer's directions as to tempo
>and dynamics, for example, I wouldn't think those standards would apply (to
>those who think those standards <should> apply). But there's certainly been
>plenty of controversy in classical music circles about the performance of
>pre-classical period music--with the result that we now have Early Music
>ensembles performing Renaissance and Baroque music on original instruments or
>in styles truer to the period.
But do we? Richard Taruskin argues that such music of the past which
has continued to performed in later times (e.g. Bach in the 19th century)
has always been adapted to current performance styles. He argues that
this is no less true of 20th century performance of early music, but
suggests that the "clean" and "clinical" removal of 19th century romantic
"varnish" derives from 20th century taste, particularly the doctrines of
people like Stravinsky. In other words, the only difference between us
and earlier adaptors is that we have claimed that we are "restoring"
performance to its "original" state, when we are simply adapting to
modern taste, as always. Presumably this is part of a general tendency in
20th century thinking which also manifests itself in folk circles in the
desire for "authentic" "purity" of (a presumably ossified) performance
tradition.
Peter Wilton
>It's a book by Ward Churchill who is (or was
>at the time) Professor of Native American studies at the University of
>Colorado. There's a quote from the General Assembly of the U. N. and it's
>used to support his thesis for the book (sorry, can't remember the title)
>on the continuing process of colonializing the various indigenous cultures
>in this part of the world. The book is about how our culture (the
>Euro-American culture) is genociding all the Indian Nations by revising
>and regurgitating their culture in a distorted fashion, with the end goal
>of entirely eliminating them.
I hope Ward Churchill is aware that his use of the term "genocide" is
metaphorical, not literal. The term means, literally, *murder* of a race. I
think it's dangerous to use ever more exaggerated terminology to
underline a point of debate, to the extent that the exaggeration becomes
the common currency. It blurs distinctions of meaning so that forceful
language to describe, in this case, actual genocide, e.g. the deportation
and gassing of 6 million Jews, ceases to be available. Murder is murder.
Cultural, military or economic imperialism cultural, military or economic
imperialism - but they are not genocide.
Katherine Kaye
to be loading a lot of extraneous emotion into a small conceptual
container; (2) pursuing someone for 8 years + over usenet groups seems a
little odd, and maybe it's more constructive to be positive onself instead
of negative about someone else - let the guy go to hell in his own
handcart, if he's as wicked as you say he won't need you to push him ;-)
- and (3) funnily enough, the BBC just ran a piece yesterday about Bob
Dylan in Birmingham (UK) in 1966: when he cranked up a 1,000 watt system
in his second set someone from the audience yelled "Judas!" at him, and
Ewan McColl was quoted as having said often, over many years, that Dylan
was neither poet nor original voice nor properly within the folk
tradition, and that he was robbing the folk culture to line his, Dylan's,
own pockets.
The UN's definition of genocide includes absolute cultural obliteration as
one criterion within its terms or reference. If you read the literature of
genocide and historical change, you are unlikely to encounter 'wrong
singing of folksongs' as fulfilling any criteria of cultural obliteration.
Here's an example for you all: last year, it was widely reported that a
woman in one of the Carolinas managed to trace her ancestral village in
one of the West African states because she had been interviewed by an
ethnologist looking for folk songs. She sang a song her mother had taught
her mother, who had learnt it from her mother, and so back several
generations, because it was handed down as containing a secret. It wasn't
a very exact rendition, but the ethnologist brought it back to the
Smithsonian, and the scholars there traced it; there were enough general
similarities to allow them to make more specific linkages. The woman was a
five-day wonder when she went to visit the village from which her mother's
people came.
My point in retailing this story - with apologies for the lack of detail -
is that cultural obliteration is not ever easy to measure; that respect
for someone's culture comes in many forms; and that we none of us are so
perfect that we should be throwing stones at others simply because their
expression of respect isn't an expression we happen to recognise.
My second point is that the UN defintion should be read in full and in
context. If it's OK to be loose and imprecise about the convention maybe
it's ok to be loose and imprecise in our interpretation of music? ;->
cheers
Katherine Kaye
university of Oxford
Janet M. Ryan
>Matt Griffin <did...@SPAMMENOT.shore.net> writes
>>It's a book by Ward Churchill who is (or was
>>at the time) Professor of Native American studies at the University of
>>Colorado. There's a quote from the General Assembly of the U. N. and it's
>>used to support his thesis for the book (sorry, can't remember the title)
>>on the continuing process of colonializing the various indigenous cultures
>>in this part of the world. The book is about how our culture (the
>>Euro-American culture) is genociding all the Indian Nations by revising
>>and regurgitating their culture in a distorted fashion, with the end goal
>>of entirely eliminating them.
>I hope Ward Churchill is aware that his use of the term "genocide" is
>metaphorical, not literal. The term means, literally, *murder* of a race. I
>think it's dangerous to use ever more exaggerated terminology to
>underline a point of debate, to the extent that the exaggeration becomes
>the common currency. It blurs distinctions of meaning so that forceful
>language to describe, in this case, actual genocide, e.g. the deportation
>and gassing of 6 million Jews, ceases to be available. Murder is murder.
>Cultural, military or economic imperialism cultural, military or economic
>imperialism - but they are not genocide.
>--
>Peter Wilton
>The Gregorian Association Web Page:
>http://www.beaufort.demon.co.uk/
I missed Matt's original post on this, so please forgive me if I make
any whopping misjudgements here.
I know of Ward Churchill's work, and while he has done some decent
scholarly work, he is also a known AIM ideologue. Not that that is A
Bad Thing--I've worked with the AIMsters myself over the years. But I
challenge Matt to think a bit more about what Churchill is saying and
how Matt is apparently interpreting Churchill regarding the music.
I would especially draw Matt's attention to the ways contemporary
Native musicians create music, both within and outside their own music
traditions. Musicians like Robbie Robertson, Buffy St. Marie, Floyd
Westerman, John Trudell, Buddy Red Bow, Rita Coolidge, the Thunderbird
Sisters and many others, all actively appropriate and incorporate
non-Native music traditions into their work, and most of them make
very limited use of Native music traditions. There are also instances
of one tribe's music traditions becoming the dominant music traditions
amongst other tribal groups at the expense of their own tribe's music
traditions--the drum music of the Lakota comes to mind.
My point is, you can't make blanket generalizations about music based
upon contemporary political ideologies.
Regarding the use of the term genocide, there is a rush to condemn the
use of this term in circumstances where I believe it is both fitting
and appropriate, which does include the contacts between Europeans and
the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Whether or not one group is
completely successful in wiping out entire cultural groups, or has
limited success matters not IMO. Intent is what matters, and the
ability to demonstrate the intent to commit genocide was not only
acted upon, but was successful in certain, specific ways is what
matters. Any attempts to eliminate a cultural group through murder or
through murderous, intentional neglect matters a great deal, and does
absolutely nothing to devalue other instances of attempted genocide,
like the Nazi holocaust, the Irish and Indian famines of the 19th
century or the African famines followed by brutal tribal warfare of
the 1980s.
Janet Ryan
Matt Griffin
you've had to say.
> Peter Wilton <pj...@beaufort.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >Matt Griffin <did...@SPAMMENOT.shore.net> writes
> >>It's a book by Ward Churchill who is (or was
> >>at the time) Professor of Native American studies at the University of
> >>Colorado. There's a quote from the General Assembly of the U. N. and it's
> >>used to support his thesis for the book (sorry, can't remember the title)
> >>on the continuing process of colonializing the various indigenous cultures
> >>in this part of the world. The book is about how our culture (the
> >>Euro-American culture) is genociding all the Indian Nations by revising
> >>and regurgitating their culture in a distorted fashion, with the end goal
> >>of entirely eliminating them.
>
> >I hope Ward Churchill is aware that his use of the term "genocide" is
> >metaphorical, not literal. The term means, literally, *murder* of a race. I
> >think it's dangerous to use ever more exaggerated terminology to
> >underline a point of debate, to the extent that the exaggeration becomes
> >the common currency. It blurs distinctions of meaning so that forceful
> >language to describe, in this case, actual genocide, e.g. the deportation
> >and gassing of 6 million Jews, ceases to be available. Murder is murder.
> >Cultural, military or economic imperialism cultural, military or economic
> >imperialism - but they are not genocide.
> >--
> >Peter Wilton
> >The Gregorian Association Web Page:
> >http://www.beaufort.demon.co.uk/
>
> I missed Matt's original post on this, so please forgive me if I make
> any whopping misjudgements here.
>
> I know of Ward Churchill's work, and while he has done some decent
> scholarly work, he is also a known AIM ideologue. Not that that is A
> Bad Thing--I've worked with the AIMsters myself over the years. But I
> challenge Matt to think a bit more about what Churchill is saying and
> how Matt is apparently interpreting Churchill regarding the music.
>
> I would especially draw Matt's attention to the ways contemporary
> Native musicians create music, both within and outside their own music
> traditions. Musicians like Robbie Robertson, Buffy St. Marie, Floyd
> Westerman, John Trudell, Buddy Red Bow, Rita Coolidge, the Thunderbird
> Sisters and many others, all actively appropriate and incorporate
> non-Native music traditions into their work, and most of them make
> very limited use of Native music traditions. There are also instances
> of one tribe's music traditions becoming the dominant music traditions
> amongst other tribal groups at the expense of their own tribe's music
> traditions--the drum music of the Lakota comes to mind.
This has been used as an example of the deterioration of indian cultures
by Russell Means in his book "Where White Men Fear to Tread" I referred to
this in an earlier post, probably one you missed, and I infer from other
sources that it's a point of concern for some. while it's certainly the
folk process, and it's fair as a representation of cultural reality,
something, no, a lot of things! have been lost, and *my* culture is
criminally responsible. Much of the art, music, and poetry of the people
you mention is about that loss. Robbie Robertson starts his new CD with a
song called "The Sound Is Fading."
ghost
>But OTOH, I also question whether knowing the material well enough to
>do it justice, performing it with the respect it deserves (including
>parody of said material), and giving credit where it is due (for good
>or for ill), is all that is required to perform any kind of music with
>integrity.
Its the giving credit where it is due & the not-taking of credit
that isn't due that I'm sticking on.
Its John Peekstok's viewpoint (gone into much more detail about on
rec.music.celtic than here) that all that matters is the "progression
of notes"; as long as he's close to that, he thinks he gets to call
himself a performer of "traditional material from culture X"
even though he admits he's *not* performing it traditionally.
He's gone on & on in rec.music.celtic about how he thinks saying
"this piece was inspired by a traditional piece", or saying
*nothing at all*, instead of misleadingly saying
"this is a traditional piece" would confuse his audiences.
One of the things I think is interesting is how this kind of position
(that nothing about a piece of music matters except its "progression
of notes") doesn't even hold up about music that has gone beyond its
original trad origins & might be said by now to "belong to the world";
he'd be hard put to defend something advertised as a blues performance,
for instance, if all he kept from a piece of music was the
"progression of notes" & orchestrated it for harpsichord & recorder.
Even if he kept the blues rhythmic pattern, something not necessarily
implied by "the progression of notes", I don't think audiences would
buy his instrumentation & playing techniques as "blues".
>And just to confuse things even further, I wonder whether there
>mightn't be certain types of music where the community the performer
>comes from doesn't matter (i.e. popular music
That's kind of the thing I'm talking about above; blues & swing & so forth
were better, in my opinion, by their original practitioners, but they've
gone beyond ethnic-origin definitions by now; what they haven't gone
beyond are distinct criteria of rhythm, playing techniques & to a certain
extent instrumentation.
But at any rate, I don't think Celtic or Bulgarian or choose-your-ethnicity
music have at this point come so loose from their original moorings
that they can said to belong to & be fair game for the whole world
of people who only know about them from recordings.
JesiAna
Mike, I bow to your greater knowledge; I know you are very active on the scene
and expect that anything you post is well thought out and probably pretty darn
accurate.
JudiLem
>how our culture (the
>>Euro-American culture) is genociding
Not to mention murdering the English language! To genocide is not a verb, to
office (Kinko's ad) is not a verb. It makes me mad, it offends me, but the
damned language will evolve whether I like it or not. And I don't.
Judi
JudiLem
>tell me that if I can't do them at a high, polished level I shouldn't be
>doing
>them at all!
Or, in the case of folk music, if you DO it at a high, polished level, you
shouldn't be doing it at all. Which is kind of my bias, but at least I
recognize it as a bias.
Judi
J Peekstok
Katherine wrote:
>The UN's definition of genocide includes absolute cultural obliteration as
>one criterion within its terms or reference. If you read the literature of
>genocide and historical change, you are unlikely to encounter 'wrong
>singing of folksongs' as fulfilling any criteria of cultural obliteration.
>My second point is that the UN defintion should be read in full and in
>context. If it's OK to be loose and imprecise about the convention maybe
>it's ok to be loose and imprecise in our interpretation of music? ;->
Here is the problem I have with ghost's attacks on me. She is the only person
who has ever accused me of "wrong singing of folksongs" and she is the only one
who thinks I am imprecise in my interpretaion of music. But since she has
inserted these ideas into the conversation so often, we now have a rational,
intelligent person (who is essentially supporting me) responding to them as if
they were real. I spend a lot of time ignoring ghost's outbursts, as do most
people, but her insults manage to work themselves into the fabric of our
deliberations anyway. And so I feel compelled to defend myself, which I find
distasteful. But there is a real possibility that others might start believing,
however indirectly, some of the things ghost says about me.
For the record:
1) ghost has never heard me play music, either live or recorded. She has
professed a lack of desire to do so.
2) Most people who hear me play music think I am terribly traditional. Maybe
10% of the people who hear me play can tell the difference between what I do
and a completely traditionalist handling of the material. Of those 10%, about
1% care about the differences.
3) We play mostly traditional music from western Europe and Appalachia, using
mostly hurdy gurdy, nyckleharpa, cittern, fiddle, guitar, Celtic harp, and
mountain dulcimer. Really a pretty "traditional" sound. In our least
traditionalist moments, we are a good deal more "traditional" sounding than
lots of other musicians who are generally considered to be playing traditional
music.
4) The whole basis of the current discussion is that I said I think a
traditional melody remains a traditional melody even if it is played by someone
in a non-traditional manner on non-traditional instruments. Ghost doesn't
agree, which is fine with me. I just wish my point of view had as much validity
in her eyes.
John Peekstok
http://members.aol.com/telynor/
ghost
>In other words, the only difference between us
>and earlier adaptors is that we have claimed that we are "restoring"
>performance to its "original" state, when we are simply adapting to
>modern taste, as always.
>Presumably this is part of a general tendency in
>20th century thinking which also manifests itself in folk circles in the
>desire for "authentic" "purity" of (a presumably ossified) performance
>tradition.
BS, & please keep your comments on European classical music, as you have
proved time & again you know nothing about other kinds of music.
"Traditional music" in the context I've been using here refers to music
that is alive & is currently being sung & played by living people
who are part of a tradition that you are not part of. There's no attempt to
"restore" anything going on. And there's no guessing game that needs
to be played as to authenticity, either. The models are right before your
eyes & ears.
Ian Anderson
> I think the term "roots music" is usually used to just describe the music
> itself.
>
> I will say that I also don't like the sound of the term, but I use it sometimes
> for lack of anything better.
At the risk of scraping the bottom of several barrels of worms:
It's this simple. Here in the UK (and always in this magazine for the
last 20 years) we've used the term "roots music" to imply any music
with its roots in a tradition. Wherever it's from, however old or new.
No rules, no judgements, no political agenda.
We tend to often use it to replace "folk" these days because those
damn colonials insist on using "folk" to mean any singer/songwriter
with an acoustic guitar. Since American cultural references automatically
search and replace those of most others these days, we kind of gave up
fighting a losing battle.
Or as somebody famous said, "The trouble with Americans is that they
think they run the world. The problem is that they do . . ." ;-)
--
Ian Anderson
Folk Roots magazine
fro...@froots.demon.co.uk
http://www.froots.demon.co.uk/
remove anti-junkmail .off to reply
ghost
>Here is the problem I have with ghost's attacks on me. She is the only person
>who has ever accused me of "wrong singing of folksongs" and she is the only one
>who thinks I am imprecise in my interpretaion of music. But since she has
>inserted these ideas into the conversation so often, we now have a rational,
>intelligent person (who is essentially supporting me) responding to them as if
>they were real. I spend a lot of time ignoring ghost's outbursts, as do most
>people, but her insults manage to work themselves into the fabric of our
>deliberations anyway. And so I feel compelled to defend myself, which I find
>distasteful. But there is a real possibility that others might start believing,
You can't read. Matt Griffin is talking about "cultural genocide",
but as far as I can see he hasn't accused you of it.
And neither have I. "Cultural genocide" is not anything I've ever
discussed with or about you. What I say you're guilty of is
lying to your audiences about being a performer of traditional material,
when what you've done is cobbled bits & pieces inspired somewhat by
what you've heard of various traditions together with things
of your own devising. You've also claimed (on rec.music.celtic)
that you & your friends playing in your livingroom comprise
a valid cultural musical tradition.
Scot Witt
noun as a verb, with our without a suffix:
gerrymander (actually originally a formal verb since our use derives
directly from a person)
input
idolize
program
English is a living language and evolves- consider Eric Bogle's "Look What
We've Done To The Old Mother Tongue"
If it didn't, we'd still be speaking Aramaic or Middle Englishe
JudiLem wrote in message <19981013232141...@ng65.aol.com>...
>
>
>>how our culture (the
>>>Euro-American culture) is genociding
>
>Not to mention murdering the English language! To genocide is not a verb,
ghost
Expires:
References: <Pine.OSF.3.95.981013...@ermine.ox.ac.uk> <19981014090320...@ngol08.aol.com>
Sender:
Followup-To:
Distribution: world
Organization: Harvard University
Keywords:
From: j...@deas.harvard.edu ( ghost )
In article <19981014090320...@ngol08.aol.com> jpee...@aol.com (J Peekstok) writes:
>4) The whole basis of the current discussion is that I said I think a
>traditional melody remains a traditional melody even if it is played by someone
>in a non-traditional manner on non-traditional instruments. Ghost doesn't
>agree, which is fine with me. I just wish my point of view had as much validity
>in her eyes.
Since most of this recent debate took place on rec.music.celtic,
I'll synopsize:
Peekstok said there that the only thing he considers important in a
traditional piece of music is "the progression of notes" (the melody,
if you like).
I say that a lot of other things matter before you can say you are
playing in a traditional manner, & are a traditional musician,
which was the gist of the whole discussion over there;
the rhythm matters, the tuning system matters,
the ornamentation matters, the singing & playing styles matter,
the instrumentation often matters in that there are some instruments
that just don't make or easily make sounds that fit into a
particular culture's music, the cultural context also matters
in many & often incalculable ways.
I also say that one of the things that different traditions do when they
adopt a melody from another culture is change the melody to better fit
their own patterns, so "the melody", the one traditional aspect
of a piece of music Peekstok recognizes, is anything but sacrosanct.
(If I've left anything out of the synopsis, I'm sorry.)
I suggested that instead of representing himself, as he periodically
does in various newsgroups & advertisements, as a traditional musician
(of about 100 different traditions), he say that what he plays is
derived from or inspired by traditional music. But he obviously doesn't
want to do that because it might make him seem less authentic to his
potential audiences, & well it should; he's *not* authentic.
He claims (over on rec.music.celtic) that none of his audiences
could understand the difference between the phrase
"derived from (or inspired by) tradition" & the word "traditional".
Its just been pointed out (by Ian Anderson) that the term
"roots" music was developed to use for music that was derived from traditional
music even if its strayed a bit away. But Peekstok gets more out of
his advertising if he says "traditional" than if he used a catch-all
phrase like "roots music". (Frankly, by the nature of the real-world
meaning of the word "root" I'd expect "roots music" to be a little rootier
than anything Peekstok is likely to produce, but at least I'd have been
warned of its intended generality by one of the coiners of the term
<Anderson> themselves.)
Joe Kesselman, yclept Keshlam
>Well, English (at least the American dialect) does allow the writer to use a
>noun as a verb, with our without a suffix:
Any verb can be nouned. And you can verb any noun.
If that's done deliberately, fine. But there's usually a better alternative.
(Move to relocate to rec.writing.nitpick?)
Peter Wilton
>It seems to me this all boils down to being more a question of who
>frames the argument, and which community's values one is seeking to
>uphold. Different communities attach different meanings to music that
>is "ours" and music that is "theirs" and everyone's music changes,
>gets stolen, adapted and assimilated both by themselves and by other
>communities all the time. That is nothing new.
>
>But isn't it also possible we won't ever be able to reach a nice,
>polite global consensus about these issues because of those
>conflicting values? Mightn't our time be better spent trying to
>establish a code of ethical behavior for the global music industry,
There's quite an interesting discussion on ethics for ethnomusicologists in
the Norton/Grove Handbook _Ethnomusicology: An Introduction_, ed.
Helen Myers. Amongst the issues discussed, IIRC, are the extent to
which field recordings get used commercially.
Peter Wilton
>through murderous, intentional neglect matters a great deal, and does
>absolutely nothing to devalue other instances of attempted genocide,
>like the Nazi holocaust, the Irish and Indian famines of the 19th
>century or the African famines followed by brutal tribal warfare of
>the 1980s.
Provided that the intention is to murder people in order to wipe out a
culture, that is no exaggeration - that is genocide. Reappropriation and
adaptation of a cultural artefact or two is better described with some
other, more appropriate terminology.
J Peekstok
I wrote:
>>I spend a lot of time ignoring ghost's outbursts, as do most
>>people, but her insults manage to work themselves into the fabric of our
>>deliberations anyway. And so I feel compelled to defend myself, which I
>>find distasteful. But there is a real possibility that others might start
>>believing,
ghost replied:
>You can't read. Matt Griffin is talking about "cultural genocide",
>but as far as I can see he hasn't accused you of it.
>
>And neither have I. "Cultural genocide" is not anything I've ever
>discussed with or about you.
It is interesting that you started your post accusing my of being unable to
read, and then took me to task for ideas that were not in my post anywhere. I
didn't mention genocide and I didn't mention Matt Griffin. Go back and read my
post again very carefully and then ask yourself who it is that can't read.
And please consider the idea that other beliefs you have about me may be based
on similar misconceptions about what I have said.
But in point of fact, Matt Griffin did accuse me genocide. And he did it
precisely because of the problem that I was talking about -- that your insults
get picked up by normal intelligent people as points of discussion. Since the
insults are directed at me, it is hard not to feel like all of the discussion
of those points are in some way directed at me. Consider the following
exchange:
ghost said (snapping at me again):
>> Nice to see you admit (over on another group, of course) that you're
>> still lying through your teeth on your posters. All you have to say, to >>
be honest, is "influenced by", or "derived from" traditional music, but
>> you still prefer to lie.
To which Matt responded:
> Well, y'know, this is the point. I've read a little bit of Native
> American history, and a bit of political thought on the subject as well,
> and what I come away with is that these misinterpretations and
> bastardizations really amount to genocide . . .
Do you see how you introduced the idea that I am misinterpreting and
bastardizing traditional music, and then Matt picked up the idea and took it to
an extreme? Matt was probably speaking in very general terms, but the idea that
"Peekstok misinterprets and bastardizes traditional music" is sudenly part of
the discussion. And since it was Matt that said it, however indirectly, all
those who have learned to ignore what you have to say are being presented with
the idea from another, more reasonable seeming source.
Since you have never heard my music and have proved yourself capable of gross
misinterpretation of my posts, I really wish you would stop flinging insults at
me. You really don't appear to know anything about me, by beliefs, or my music.
John Peekstok
http://members.aol.com/telynor/
ghost
>2) Most people who hear me play music think I am terribly traditional. Maybe
>10% of the people who hear me play can tell the difference between what I do
>and a completely traditionalist handling of the material. Of those 10%, about
>1% care about the differences.
>3) We play mostly traditional music from western Europe and Appalachia, using
>mostly hurdy gurdy, nyckleharpa, cittern, fiddle, guitar, Celtic harp, and
>mountain dulcimer. Really a pretty "traditional" sound. In our least
>traditionalist moments, we are a good deal more "traditional" sounding than
>lots of other musicians who are generally considered to be playing traditional
>music.
I doubt that anything "Appalachian" in your repertoire sounds remotely
like anything any traditional musician from Appalachia would produce,
& my doubts stem not only from your likelihood of playing the music on
"Celtic" harp (I doubt you have the fingernails for the old Celtic harp) &
nyckleharpa. To spell it out: You couldn't get anywhere near the
tuning systems, ornamentation styles, singing voices etc without years
of listening & practise. If I want to hear something truly "ossified",
to use your philosophical-compadre Wilton's term, all I have to do is tune in
livingroom-yuppie-musicians pretending to sound "Appalachian", whereas
the real thing, whether you like it or not (I like it a lot),
jumps right out at you.
You probably have slightly better luck with those very few western-European
forms of music that come most close to "Peekstok's livingroom 'tradition'"
to begin with, but you'll undoubtably be lacking in all kinds of
not-even-so-very-fine points.
What you consistently fail to realize & acknowledge is that someone
steeped in a particular sound from birth has more of a feeling for
"what can get incorporated into this tradition to good effect" than
do you, who met the music yesterday & on a very superficial level, too.
What you also fail to realize & acknowledge is that you, as an outsider,
don't get to be the one who decides that, as you so arrogantly put it
above,
"we are a good deal more 'traditional' sounding than lots of other musicians
who are generally considered to be playing traditional music".
Its the people from all those traditions that you are not &
are not trying to be a part of who get to make the decisions
on who sounds traditional & who doesn't.
You keep trying to write yourself into a group that you cannot be part
of with your current attitude.
Janet M. Ryan
I'm with you all the way on this Peter. I do consider genocide to be
something that can also be committed against the poor, which has been
the case with famines in the past and present. There is very little
music history related to music of famines, but it does exist here &
there. An anthropology prof I worked with here at my university did
an interesting paper on songs about famine from India during the 19th
century famines there. And singer Frank Harte of Dublin has done some
great research on songs of the Irish famines. Its important to
remember, when the term genocide is being bantered about in relation
to the famines in Ireland, that the victims were almost exclusively
Irish speakers on the Western seaboard, and in fact, the famines did
almost completely wipe out their culture. It isn't PC these days in
Britain and Ireland to refer to the Great Famine as genocide, but I
believe it meets all the criteria, including today's definitions used
by the UN.
Some folks may have heard about one of the recent Nobel prize winners
in economics by the name of Amartya Sen from India, who has done
considerable work (duh--obviously if he won the Nobel--I am a bit
thick at times) on poverty and famine. He has also pioneered research
on povery and inequality as it relates to women. If I'm not mistaken,
some of his work has been used in recent scholarship on the Great
Famine of 1845-1850 in Ireland, which is currently being commemorated
at the 150th anniversary. The most recent scholarship on that famine
shows largely the same things that Sen's research has shown--that
there aren't food scarcities in areas where the famines strike, and
that the natural causes of crop failures, etc. that lead to famine are
not the cause of famine, which is easily preventable with reasonable
and timely management. But governments have very little interest in
preventing them because the famine never impacts the ruling elite.
Sen says only democratic governments are endangered in a time of
famine, and not by the suffering of the famine, but the bad publicity
that accompanies millions of human beings starving.
I think you should have heard about him your side the pond Peter--I
believe he was educated at and teaches at Cambridge, but has been
working in the States in recent years. Anyway, with the Nobel winners
in the news, I'm sure something will show up over there in your papers
if it hasn't already.
Janet Ryan
Janet M. Ryan
>Janet M. Ryan <ryan...@tc.umn.edu> writes
>>It seems to me this all boils down to being more a question of who
>>frames the argument, and which community's values one is seeking to
>>uphold. Different communities attach different meanings to music that
>>is "ours" and music that is "theirs" and everyone's music changes,
>>gets stolen, adapted and assimilated both by themselves and by other
>>communities all the time. That is nothing new.
>>
>>But isn't it also possible we won't ever be able to reach a nice,
>>polite global consensus about these issues because of those
>>conflicting values? Mightn't our time be better spent trying to
>>establish a code of ethical behavior for the global music industry,
>There's quite an interesting discussion on ethics for ethnomusicologists in
>the Norton/Grove Handbook _Ethnomusicology: An Introduction_, ed.
>Helen Myers. Amongst the issues discussed, IIRC, are the extent to
>which field recordings get used commercially.
>--
>Peter Wilton
>The Gregorian Association Web Page:
>http://www.beaufort.demon.co.uk/
Thanks for this Peter, I'll look this up. Helen Myers is a good
writer.
Janet Ryan
Nigel Gatherer
> I doubt...
> ...likelihood...
> You probably...
> ...you'll undoubtably be...
In article <vwr1zoa...@mass.eas.harvard.edu>, ghost wrote:
> ...Peekstok is likely to...
This personal attack is beginning to appear pathological. Could ghost be
described as a troll?
--
_ _ _ _
| \| (_)__ _ ___| |
| .` | / _` / -_) | Nigel Gatherer
|_|\_|_\__, \___|_| gath...@argonet.co.uk
|___/
Peter Wilton
>Britain and Ireland to refer to the Great Famine as genocide, but I
>believe it meets all the criteria, including today's definitions used
>by the UN.
That I can believe. It was partly neglect through not wanting to be
bothered. I don't think they'd have got away with it had there existed
news media with pictures; perhaps a few hearts of people with power to
do something might in those circumstances have been changed.
Whatever the motivation, however, there is no doubt as to the result.
Peter Wilton
>Well, English (at least the American dialect) does allow the writer to use a
>noun as a verb, with our without a suffix:
>
>directly from a person)
>input
>idolize
>program
Perhaps the tide of syntactical neglect is so much stronger on the West of
the Atlantic that it's too strong to resist!
Peter Wilton
>This personal attack is beginning to appear pathological. Could ghost be
>described as a troll?
Ghost could be described as a typist at Harvard University called Joan
Frankel who single-handedly destroyed a mailing list...
PAULSBANJO
>>>>I doubt that anything "Appalachian" in your repertoire sounds remotely
like anything any traditional musician from Appalachia would produce,>>
>>>all I have to do is tune in
livingroom-yuppie-musicians pretending to sound "Appalachian", whereas
the real thing, whether you like it or not (I like it a lot),
jumps right out at you.>>>
Hi JMF
I'm gonna try to take the middle ground in this. I appreciat the fact
that you would rather hear people who come from the "Tradition" doing the
"traditional music". So would I, though I find them harder and harder to
find.(I dont have the "where withall" to seek them out)
On the other hand, you say that "only" thoes who grew up in the
"tradition" from birth can do a "good" job "reproducing" the "Traditional
music" and with this I have to dissagree.
I have been singing and playing (singing since I was 6 - playing since I
was 13) and have tried "to be true" to the music that I was interested in, and
while I would not claim to be an apalachian musician, I try to give the music
the "true feeling" that I get from the orrigional, as I hear it. (Which I
believe would be what an"appalachian musician" would do) I do not try to
"reproduce" the music "exactly" mostly because that I find, unfortunatly, is
beyoud my ability- as I am sure it is beyoud the ability of many "traditional
musicians" (Trying to "copy" a musician who has "made it proffesionally" - been
recorded- is not always easy)
I think that most of the argument is with the use of the term
"traditional", which I think, got to be used in place of the term "folk music"
(since the def. of F.M. is -"traditional music of a people") when the term
"folk music" got appropriated by the music industry to push any
singer-songwriter who played an acustic instrement. At least I started using
the term "traditional" then.
I think you and Pleestock are mostly in "despute" over how you each use
this term.
Yours Paul S.
ghost
>Nigel Gatherer <gath...@argonet.co.uk> writes
>>This personal attack is beginning to appear pathological. Could ghost be
>>described as a troll?
Its not personal attack. I'd say Peekstok's putting 4th-hand words into
my mouth that I never said (& that Matt Griffin, who brought the terms
in question up, didn't even say) *is* at the level of pathological attack,
though.
>Ghost could be described as a typist at Harvard University called Joan
>Frankel who single-handedly destroyed a mailing list...
Never "destroyed a mailing list", single-handedly or otherwise, in my
life. Check your facts. Oh, yeah, I forgot; you're an
European classical musicologist.
You don't need facts.
ghost
>Ghost wrote:
>>>>>I doubt that anything "Appalachian" in your repertoire sounds remotely
>like anything any traditional musician from Appalachia would produce,>>
>>>>all I have to do is tune in
>livingroom-yuppie-musicians pretending to sound "Appalachian", whereas
>the real thing, whether you like it or not (I like it a lot),
>jumps right out at you.>>>
> I'm gonna try to take the middle ground in this. I appreciat the fact
>that you would rather hear people who come from the "Tradition" doing the
>"traditional music". So would I, though I find them harder and harder to
>find.(I dont have the "where withall" to seek them out)
> On the other hand, you say that "only" thoes who grew up in the
>"tradition" from birth can do a "good" job "reproducing" the "Traditional
>music" and with this I have to dissagree.
No, I didn't say that. I did & do say that you have to be aware of
& respectful of & if at all possible imitative of the traditional approach
in order to do right by the music, & it certainly helps if you try to
absorb as much of the tradition, both music & culture, as you can.
I also said that its not for people outside a traditional musical culture
to decide what should be considered inside it.
> I have been singing and playing (singing since I was 6 - playing since I
>was 13) and have tried "to be true" to the music that I was interested in, and
>while I would not claim to be an apalachian musician,
That's my point; if you've been at it since you were 6 but know you
are not an Appalachian musician, why is Peekstok claiming to be any
kind of traditional musician when he has given much less devotion
to the music, & doesn't think any aspect designates a tune as traditional
besides "the progression of notes"?
>I try to give the music
>the "true feeling" that I get from the orrigional, as I hear it.
But "feeling", even "true feeling" as felt by you,
is a form of *interpretation* (& interpretation is something anybody can do,
without being a traditional musician), while I'm talking about not
only that but lots of technical details as well.
>(Which I
>believe would be what an"appalachian musician" would do)
No; within a tradition, people are very often given explicit instruction
& help by the people who know how the fingering goes, how the instrument
is supposed to be tuned, etc. I think most (though not all) of the
"I made it all up myself" with regards to fingering, tuning etc group
fall in the revivalist category, not among traditional musicians.
>I do not try to
>"reproduce" the music "exactly" mostly because that I find, unfortunatly, is
>beyoud my ability- as I am sure it is beyoud the ability of many "traditional
>musicians" (Trying to "copy" a musician who has "made it proffesionally" - been
>recorded- is not always easy)
I don't think the problem is with people who are aware of their at least
potential shortcomings, because those people usually don't
advertise themselves as "traditional musicians" when they're not.
And learning from living people is always a better shot at "getting it"
than trying to learn things off of recordings.
> I think that most of the argument is with the use of the term
>"traditional", which I think, got to be used in place of the term "folk music"
>(since the def. of F.M. is -"traditional music of a people") when the term
>"folk music" got appropriated by the music industry to push any
>singer-songwriter who played an acustic instrement. At least I started using
>the term "traditional" then.
> I think you and Pleestock are mostly in "despute" over how you each use
>this term.
No; Peekstok has said time & again that the only thing that matters to
him is what he calls "the progression of notes".
"The music of a particular people/the music of a distinct culture"
is what I would call any particular kind of traditional music.
Daniel R. Reitman
<gath...@argonet.co.uk> wrote:
>This personal attack is beginning to appear pathological. Could ghost be
>described as a troll?
Let's test:
Susan Werner.
Dan, ad nauseam
Hojo2X
differing interpretations of what constitutes traditional music, Ghost wrote:
>(If I've left anything out of the synopsis, I'm sorry.)
Well, one thing, I guess. Why are you telling us all this?
It seems to me that you two have basically irreconcilable positions.
Okay. I can live with that.
Wade Hampton Miller
ghost
>In article <704u4p$fu7$1...@canon.deas.harvard.edu>, ghost wrote:
>
>> I doubt...
>> ...likelihood...
>> You probably...
>> ...you'll undoubtably be...
>
>In article <vwr1zoa...@mass.eas.harvard.edu>, ghost wrote:
>
>> ...Peekstok is likely to...
>This personal attack is beginning to appear pathological. Could ghost be
>described as a troll?
Like I already said, the personal attacker with pathological overtones
is Peekstok; 1st he confabulates something Matt Griffin wanted to discuss
with Matt Griffin accusing Peekstok of it, then he substitutes my name for
Griffin's name, & then, in response to an article by a 3rd person,
he stages a attack on me, with the attack being irrelevant to what the
person (Kathleen somebody?; I can't check from the system I'm writing from),
was discussing. Pretty weird.
Of coures, your taking phrases like "I doubt" & "likelihood" & describing
them as constituting a personal, pathological attack & describing me as
a "troll" also is pretty weird.
Just for the record: A usenet "troll" consists of someone starting discussion
for ulterior motives, such as pretending to be a fan of someone or something
they're really a shill for (i.e., they're trying to sell products &/or to
use what they hope will be the ensuing discussion *of* their subject as
publicity *for* their subject), or such as just intending to get a fight
going so they can sit back & read it & laugh.
I hardly ever *start* discussions of *any* kind, & I only respond to
ongoing discussions that interest me & in which I feel I have something
to say that hasn't been said yet. There's no product involved,
& I'm not known to sit back & laugh.
A lot of what interests me these days is the phenomenon of people who have
little or nothing (usually nothing) to do with any kind of traditional music
trying to cash in on the current craze for various kinds of traditional music.
When these people start threads or respond to threads as though they were
some kind of authority on what is being discussed, I like to point them out for
the liars & shills they are.
Jim Lucas
to") The Language, particularly when meaning is lost. (Pet peeves include
"somewhat unique", "getting orientated", "between ten to twenty",....)
But I've long known that "English is a language in which any noun can be
verbed".
JudiLem <jud...@aol.com> wrote in article
<19981013232141...@ng65.aol.com>...
>
> >how our culture (the
> >>Euro-American culture) is genociding
>
> Not to mention murdering the English language! To genocide is not a
verb, to
> office (Kinko's ad) is not a verb. It makes me mad, it offends me, but
the
> damned language will evolve whether I like it or not. And I don't.
> Judi
Still, I agree that the two examples you mention feel awkward, as would
"interestinger" in place of "more interesting".
/Jim Lucas
ghost
>On Thu, 15 Oct 1998 17:54:54 +0100, Nigel Gatherer
><gath...@argonet.co.uk> wrote:
>>This personal attack is beginning to appear pathological. Could ghost be
>>described as a troll?
>
>Let's test:
>
>Susan Werner.
>
> Dan, ad nauseam
That makes *you* a troll.
Janet M. Ryan
>Wade Hampton Miller
Wade, this newsgroup is rec.music.folk. How come your posts are
always attacks on individuals and never about folk music?
Janet Ryan
Janet M. Ryan
>On Thu, 15 Oct 1998 17:54:54 +0100, Nigel Gatherer
><gath...@argonet.co.uk> wrote:
>>This personal attack is beginning to appear pathological. Could ghost be
>>described as a troll?
>Let's test:
>Susan Werner.
> Dan, ad nauseam
Time to bury this thread, perhaps? Once again, the subject matter of
the thread has gone out the window, the posts are all personal attacks
on individuals, and none of it has a damn thing to do with folk music.
Sigh. Why does every serious discussion of this nature end up like
this on rec.music.folk?
Janet Ryan
Roger Gall
things up as well.
I have not looked in this N/G for while and I am very sad to see that it
has not improved in my absence.
--
Giraffes always play for laughs,
Hyenas do so too.
The Impalas do the la,la,la's,
And Gnu's play the blues.
(Roger Gall 1998)
Sail On:
Hojo2X
>always attacks on individuals and never about folk music?
>
>
Did you get enrolled for another term?
Wade
Joe Kesselman, yclept Keshlam
wrote:
> Wade, this newsgroup is rec.music.folk. How come your posts are
> always attacks on individuals and never about folk music?
I have to step in on Wade's behalf here; the discussion I most
strongly
remember Wade being associated with was the question of whether
Southern musical traditions were being ignored.
But I must admit I often killfile entire threads the moment it gets
into
personalities. I'm surprised I've been paying any attention to this
one.
Jon-Jon
Nigel Gatherer
> Of course, your ...describing me as a "troll"...
I didn't describe you as a troll, it was a genuine question: "Could X be
described as a troll?" I'm fairly new to the usenet, and there are a few
terms that I have come across which I'm unsure of.
> Just for the record: A usenet "troll" consists of...
It's useful for me to read your definition. Thanks.
> I like to point them out for the liars & shills they are...
You appear not only to like it, you revel in it. It seems to me that you
have been extrapolating from a few extracts of postings, in effect adding
two and two together to make five. You don't know the poster, you've never
heard him play, and yet you take enormous effort to expose him as the
charlatan you believe he is. We now know what you think about John
Peekstock, so surely it's not necessary to keep repeating it across two
NGs. We can now make up our own minds.