Folk a form of musical poetry?
Mrs. Bogus (Faux) Ersatz
that no other genre of music can quite compare too? Is this a fair
analysis of poetry and of folk music?
carver
Richard L. Hess
distinction that good poems don't necessarily make good songs, but
good songs are generally good poems. She drew the distinction between
poems and song lyrics and did not consider them the same.
That technicality aside, I love what most of this music is saying and
how it's saying it. Great images.
Cheers,
Richard
Richard L. Hess rlh...@mindspring.com
Glendale, CA USA http://rlhess.home.mindspring.com/
Web page for folk and church music, photography, and satellite navigation
LanceU1943
fact that poetry set to music must have a disciplined structure that will fit
into the form demanded by the music. Poetry has a shape and a form to be sure,
but that does not necessarily comply with the structure of a song, although Bob
Dylan forced changes in his musical revolution where the length of the song
changed dramatically from past practices. Still, I believe that good lyrics can
be read outside the musical form and can stand alone. Well thought out, and
thought provoking.
Janet M. Ryan
>I've always thought of folk music as a form of musical poetry in a way
>that no other genre of music can quite compare too? Is this a fair
>analysis of poetry and of folk music?
>carver
In the Irish and Scots Gaelic folk song traditions, the poetry and the
song are viewed as the same form of artistic expression. The
relationship of the poetry to the music in lyric song has always been
one of the defining characteristics of Irish and Scots Gaelic songs,
and to a lesser extent, in narrative songs in the English language
ballad tradition, which didn't adhere to as strict poetic formulas as
did lyric song.
Nowadays, songwriters and singers have little to no knowledge of the
literary history of the folk song in the European and American folk
song traditions. Most singers (and, I'd add, instrumentalists) today
don't know a thing about poetry, they have no ear for the rhythm of
the words, the meter of the line, or the rhyming patterns that either
work or don't work in trying to fit lyrics with a tune. So we often
get this awful sounding stuff that really grates when you hear it,
because it sounds so unnatural--both to a poet and to a singer who
looks for the "poem in the song" as many of the older traditional
singers do.
There is a thread in rec.music.celtic right now about the song "Raglan
Road," which is a poem by Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh, set to music.
One poster pointed out that the majority of singers will sing a
particular line "unnaturally" to make it fit the way it is normally
written on the page. This is something a good traditional singer
would *never* do--it would destroy the rhythm of the entire verse, and
possibly the whole song. You hear singer-songwriters trying to force
these unnatural fits of word to tune all the time, and I've never been
able to figure out why. I always write my poetry "by ear"--i.e. I
always recite the poem out loud--it has to sing, and it has to sing in
a natural sounding way, or it doesn't work for me. One would think
that otherwise gifted musicians would be able to hear the music
patterns in words and lines...
In Irish language songs for instance, trying to sort out the
differences between poetry sung as syllabic verse from amhran can take
some doing, particularly when one is not fluent in the language, or
accustomed to hearing the metres and rhyming patterns which, to modern
native English speakers' ears, sounds very strange. Those formulaic
structures of Gaelic folk song are one of the unique characteristics
of the genre, which has highly developed, complex literary influences
from the bardic tradition The Irish folk traditions employ quite
intricate use of the lyric's metre and rhyming patterns, and also
invokes Irish myth and folklore in the lyric by reference and motif.
It is quite sophisticated in this regard, which does make it stand out
from other culture's folk song traditions where the literary
influences aren't as strong, or so intimately and intricately woven
into the songs.
The breadth and depth of knowledge our ancestors had about the
structures of both poetry and music came from their having been
immersed in both, of course. With Irish traditional singers and poets,
this was done orally and aurally, usually without benefit of knowing
how to read and write, and of course, was done by memorization.
And these were not the bardic poets, attached to the aristocracy.
These were folk poets who were aware of and had a good deal of
knowledge about the aristocratic written Irish literary traditions
nonetheless. It would also be true for English language ballad
singers and composers, which also uses poetic formulas and
the traditional formulas associated with narrative storytelling.
Hence the difference between a narrative song and a lyric song--those
are literary distinctions to some, I suppose, but I don't know that
our forebearers made such distinctions between the literary and the
musical. It was all poetry to them.
Which, to my mind at least, begs the question: what's our excuse for
*not* knowing the first thing about the poem in the song, when we are
supposedly the most highly educated people who have ever lived, and
are supposedly living in this great "age of information"? How can it
be we are more ignorant than our supposedly "illiterate" ancestors,
yet are not even aware of our ignorance?
Listening to what so-called "singer-songwriters" come up with is just
so...wanting in this regard. There is so little poetic artistry in
their songs, so little "knowing" of the literary poetic arts and
traditions related to their craft, such as the techniques used to
write free verse, for instance. Contemporary singer-songwriters,
Irish or otherwise, would do much better listening less to Dylan and
Ginsburg and the poets that "speak" to them, and spend more time
reading poems out loud by poets like Whitman, whose poems sing for
themselves!
But because they don't, hearing their music just doesn't strike the
deeper chords emotionally that hearing many of the older songs do, at
least to my ear and soul. And I think that may be at least part of
the reason why so many people nowadays are looking to music rooted in
older traditions. Even if the contemporary native musicians are no
longer as adept as their forebearers were at creating new songs
according to the old formulas, they are at least familiar enough with
how the music *should* sound, and so are able to perform the old songs
well enough to be able to strike those chords our psyche and spirit
needs to hear.
Whether the song itself was crafted well according to the culturally
specific aesthetics of the community to which it belonged, i.e.
whether the rhythm and metre of both the tune and the words fit
together in a way that both singer and audience could hear and
recognize as being skillfully and artfully combined *was* the art form
of the folk song for the Gaels. I'm not familiar enough with other
folk song traditions to say if the same was true in other cultures,
but I'm guessing it must have been true also for some other music
traditions from Europe anyway. And of course, formulaic chant set to
some form of musical accompaniment seems to be pretty universal.
For me, its those poetic contexts that allows the singer to "hit" or
"strike" the chord that evokes the powerful emotion, which then
triggers some "universal" understanding on the part of the listener of
what it is the artist (either the composer or the singer, or both) is
trying to communicate through the poem or song. This was something
that our ancestors, both the poets and songmakers as well as their
audiences, were acutely aware of. The poems they wrote to be used as
song lyrics were written usually with specific tunes in mind, and of
course, when done with skill and artistry, they became the best, most
memorable songs. The words themselves had to be meaningful to a broad
audience, but just as important was the skillful use of technique in
putting the words with the proper metre and rhyming patterns to a tune
that allowed for something damn close to a perfect fit. And its those
culturally specific patterns, for me anyway, that resound and resonate
most profoundly, that are the most stunning and touching to
hear--strange as they might sound to my ear, they sound comfortingly
familiar to my soul. That's it's power to soothe and heal.
But those aren't the songs being composed nowadays. Contemporary
singer-songwriters just plain don't seem to know a thing about poetry,
at least to judge by their songs. I think people mistakenly think
that because Dylan and Ginsberg were contemporaries, and hung together
for awhile, that Dylan's songwriting is "poetic" as if poetry could be
mysteriously absorbed by osmosis from the Beat poets or something.
That's just not the case. What little Dylan did pick up in terms of
his songwriting likely was a result of his relationship with the
Clancy Brothers, from whom he picked up some knowledge of the ballad
tradition. He was a folk dilettante, as are most contemporary
singer-songwriters, really. Most have no connections whatsoever to
traditional folk music traditions, nor do they come from those folk
music communities. Most have no knowledge or understanding of the
aesthetic in which a traditional folk singer was expected to compose
and perform songs.
Even Woody Guthrie's songs don't fit the traditional standard formulas
of his Oklahoma roots *or* the urban folksong movement from which many
of his supporters came (who would have recently migrated to the city
either from a rural base in the US or Europe, or from an urban setting
in Europe, which had a strong urban folksong community). Ellen
Stekert says about Woody "He was and still is, touted as a great
artist by his city friends, but, as the latest book of his work shows
most tragically, he was not a "poet," and in his more lucid moments
realized he did not even know what a poet was." (Ellen was referring
to Woody's book "Born to Win.")
Those distinctions about poetic ability *are* made aesthetically by
musicians and audiences who's roots are in a folk song tradition which
uses poetic formulas for the composition of song lyrics and matches
them to a tune. So is the singer's ability to perform the song
satisfactorily in terms of making the words fit the tune--that is one
of the most important aesthetic values which is used to distinguish a
"fair" singer from a "good" singer and then again, from the "great"
singer.
But that is probably a whole lot more than people here want to know
about poetry and folk song! I always get carried away when this
subject comes up, and I just keep going, people's eyes glaze over,
minds wander afar...
Nice to see someone actually asking about it though. Can't even
remember the last time the subject came up in the newsgroups.
Janet Ryan
Mrs. Bogus (Faux) Ersatz
wrote:
>But that is probably a whole lot more than people here want to know
>about poetry and folk song! I always get carried away when this
>subject comes up, and I just keep going, people's eyes glaze over,
>minds wander afar...
NO, not one one anyway. You do have an incredible knowledge of the
subject.
>Nice to see someone actually asking about it though. Can't even
>remember the last time the subject came up in the newsgroups.
>
>Janet Ryan
>
And its nice to know that one isn't a lone voice crying in the
wilderness. Often, when there is not response to the cries in the
night, one gets to get the feeling he is all alone. Thanks for the
validation.
You do display incredible lucidity on this subject. Ignore the glazed
eyes. They simply can't see the truth you've come to know.
CC
Larry Flanigan
>
> I've always thought of folk music as a form of musical poetry in a way
> that no other genre of music can quite compare too? Is this a fair
> analysis of poetry and of folk music?
of poetic journalism as well. They can have an assortment of structures,
but it's all poetry to me. Larry***
Joseph Kesselman, yclept Keshlam
In its favor, folk _tends_ to put more emphasis on the meaning of the
words and hence _tends_ to encourage more carefully crafted lyrics than
some forms. That's one reason I like folk; my preference on lyrics is
either that they should repay studying every word, or they should be
completely absent and the voice, if present, be used solely as an
instrument.
On the other hand, there are certainly songs in almost any genre whose
words are just as well chosen. And there are plenty of underimpressive
folksongs. So I don't think we can claim a unique position -- just that
we may, ON AVERAGE, try harder.
------------------------------------------------------
Joe Kesselman, http://www.lovesong.com/people/keshlam/
March 13th at Walkabout Clearwater: TOM CHAPIN!
http://www.lovesong.com/walkabout/coffeehouse.html
Tony Fisk
Janet M. Ryan wrote in message <7d5s83$gfu$1...@news1.tc.umn.edu>...
Good grief - you must have a pretty nifty modem to see peoples' eyes glazing
over !
Janet M. Ryan
>I think we're just slightly biased...
Yes, everyone is. Your bias isn't clear to me though. ;-) Throughout
your post you say "folk" without telling us what you mean by "folk."
That's painting with an awfully large brush. Do you mean songs
written in the English language? Do you mean ballads? Do you mean
the Anglo American song tradition? The English language urban
political song tradition in the U.S. as opposed to the English
language urban political song tradition in South Africa? Psalm
singing in the Hebrides in Gaelic or the shape note tradition in the
black American gospel tradition in English? What about songs that
are composed and sung in very particular regional dialects, using very
specific vernacular language? It isn't easy to distinguish all this
really, to even be consciously aware of what it is we ourselves are
presuming when we say the word "folk" is it?
I was trying to be very specific in my previous post, addressing the
question posed by the original poster by using the example of a poetic
language used to compose in a particular genre commonly referred to as
"folk" music, to make some points about what many people today
consider to be "musical poetry" in "folk" music. I'm not sure if your
post is suggesting I was guilty of errors in fact or not, or if you
just felt disagreeable with what I was presenting as fact. But I do
sense some dissatisfaction on your part about what I posted which you
didn't state clearly, but perhaps are suggesting?
As I said in my previous post, there is a distinct difference between
a narrative song, which historically was the most common song type
used in the English language in the Anglo folk song tradition, and
lyric song, which is historically the most common song type used in
Gaelic folk song tradition. It isn't a superficial difference in the
least, and in fact, reflects profound differences in the ways language
orders a cultural group's world, and determines how the individual
relates to that world. It is most definitely *not* all the same
poetry.
>In its favor, folk _tends_ to put more emphasis on the meaning of the
>words and hence _tends_ to encourage more carefully crafted lyrics than
>some forms. That's one reason I like folk; my preference on lyrics is
>either that they should repay studying every word, or they should be
>completely absent and the voice, if present, be used solely as an
>instrument.
Actually, I wouldn't agree that "folk" (I'm not clear how you are
defining it here, but am guessing) puts more emphasis on carefully
crafted lyrics today than any other popular music genres--that was the
gist of what I was saying in my previous post, but I think bears
repeating. The examples I gave were to illustrate the differences
between historic composition of folk songs and contemporary
composition of songs we define as folk, which now uses a whole new
poetic grammar at the very least. Some would argue the Anglo and
Anglo American historic ballad traditions were composed not only with
a different set of grammatical and thematic rules, but were an
entirely different musical language completely from what we define as
a folk song composition in the Anglo or Anglo American
singer-songwriter traditions today. That's not to say one is always
better than the other, though I do think one sounds more like poetry
than the other to me.
I'd say there are some excellent songwriters in contemporary pop
genres for instance who are every bit as careful as contemporary
so-called "folk" singer-songwriters. In fact, I'd put them on a
pretty equal par. And to even make more enemies here--I'd also say
that by the sheer number of pop songs being composed in comparison to
the songs composed by the largely acoustic singer-songwriters, there
are many more well crafted and satisfying pop songs being written
today than there are so-called "folk" songs. Which was also the gist
of my previous post.
While I was lamenting (just a bit!) a lack of knowledge about the
poetic arts among contemporary songwriters, I didn't mean to come off
sounding as though all contemporary songs are bad songs. The very
strict formulas used for lyric song amongst the Gaels were also quite
restrictive, and I myself wouldn't want to be limited to such
restrictive metres, rhyming patterns, etc. in my own writing to be
sure. There is no turning back after free verse!
The point I had hoped to make is that the creature we call a folk
lyric nowadays is not the same creature as it once was, whether in
English or another language. I was also trying to point out that our
ignorance of that fact, along with widespread ignorance of what is and
isn't a traditional orally composed folk song is rooted in our
illiteracy regarding the oral traditions, and the preference, or bias,
we have towards formulas, themes and modalities rooted in the
anglocentric written traditions of our era. And it is that ignorance,
rooted in our anglocentric biases, which informs and feeds the popular
mythology surrounding the contemporary "folk" singer-songwriter genre
in the English language, the urban political folksong movement in the
U.S. historically as well as today, that sort of thing.
People are mistaken if they believe the repertoire of certain artists
like Woody Guthrie epitomize a specific oral song tradition from the
past, when in fact, they don't. He was one of many people, like Pete
Seeger, Guy Carawan, Aunt Molly Jackson and others who, in the 30s and
40s, brought folksongs to the forefront in the cities, and transmitted
songs from the oral tradition through political groups and
organizations. But many of the singers involved in that movement,
even when they sang traditional songs or newly composed songs in their
own tradition's style, were often not bearers of the living oral song
traditions from the communities where the traditions came from, asome
of which were dying out at that time.
Add to that the fact that the urban political folksong movement of the
1930s conflated poverty with art, and tried to impose their political
views--that folksong was the art of the working class and the poor--on
the oral folk music traditions from which they drew material, didn't
accurately reflect the reality of the living oral song traditions of
their time. Their political moralizing and bowdlerizing of songs was
no different than the sexual moralizing that was behind the
bowdlerization of songs to reflect the sexual morality of the
collectors of folk songs from the oral traditions when being
translated into a written vernacular.
It was a great time in American music though, and I love a lot of
those political songs that were adapted from the older oral
traditions. I'm also not saying there weren't any singers from the
living traditions involved in the political folksong movement, but too
often the most celebrated ones--those who are now the household names
amongst folk music afficionados--weren't representative of the living
oral tradition in cities or in the rural areas where the living
tradition still existed at the time.
Our biases today were born out of that confusion in the 1930s and
1940s urban political folksong movement, and the popular mythology
surrounding our view of folk music today reflects those naive
prejudices and biases.
>On the other hand, there are certainly songs in almost any genre whose
>words are just as well chosen. And there are plenty of underimpressive
>folksongs. So I don't think we can claim a unique position -- just that
>we may, ON AVERAGE, try harder.
Well now, I wasn't speaking of a way of composing that reflects a
tendency to well chosen words. I was speaking of very specific
historic oral formulas used in composition of what we call folk songs,
which involved much more than just choosing words, or turning a poetic
phrase.
Its like the curator of the School of Scottish Studies' Scots Gaelic
song collection, Morag MacLeod, says about the contemporary musicians
who are composing in Gaelic today--some of their songs have what she
calls "poetic thought." And she says it is refreshing to hear their
(contemporary artists like Runrig) new compositions, some of which
have passed into the tradition already, and don't make use of the
traditional formulas used historically in composition, like setting
lyrics to already well known tunes.
In other words, while she recognizes there are still good, satisfying
songs being composed in Gaelic, she also recognizes that only a
handful of these composers are capable of becoming great,
extraordinary poets as some of their forebearers were, because they
simply don't have the language skills to do it--the language itself is
deteriorating to the point where the current generation doesn't have
the depth of knowledge of the language--and the poetic language, which
is largely metaphorical, is slipping further and further into
obscurity with each generation. The artists themselves acknowledge
this--they are acutely and self consciously aware of it. But they
also have a lot of self-confidence because their first musical
language was the musical language of their forebearers. They are as
deeply rooted in their Gaaelic language song traditions as you are in
the English language if it is your mother tongue. Otherwise they
wouldn't be capable of composing well crafted, satisfying new songs in
Gaelic with contemporary formulas!
What I feel is sad though is when, as Morag MacLeod says, "The worst
ignorance is that of not recognising your own ignorance, and there is
an arrogance in people who think they can pick up the nuances of this
ancient language and its culture when they have heard of it for the
first time only recently...It takes a long, long time to learn about a
different musical tradition." Ellen Stekert was essentially saying
the same thing when she wrote about Woody Guthrie and the U.S.
politcal folksong movement of the 1930s and 1940s--which I mentioned
in my other post. That isn't to say Woody didn't write some great
songs, that he wasn't an incredibly powerful performer and charismatic
man. Or that his heart being in the politics contaminated him in any
way. That isn't what I was saying.
I was saying that Woody didn't compose and sing in the traditional
oral song medium of his roots. But there is no law that says he
*should* have. A lot of native Gaelic singers don't compose and
perform in the song traditions of their ancestors either.
But what is a bit arrogant and disingenuous is to promote one's self
and one's music as if it *was* from the song traditions of your
ancestors, and present your own music as "the real thing" to audiences
who can't tell the difference, when in fact it is not. The most
current musicological research suggests that sort of dispossession by
non-natives *does* have a negative impact on the oral cultures from
which these traditions come, and in some cases, affects whether the
music tradition being appropriated survives or dies out.
I'm not saying necessarily that is what the political folksingers of
that era were doing consciously, it may have been unconscious. I
don't know. But I do know that many of them did it, just as many
people are still doing it today. Ani di Franco's attempts to give
herself a folk pedigree by recording with Utah Phillips comes to mind.
There is a very specific poetic language used in traditional song that
simply is not present in contemporary songs, irregardless of the
language spoken. I wasn't trying to pass judgment as to whether it
was a good or bad thing--just recognizing it as the reality of where
we're at today. But it *was* there historically, and that was the
point of my post. Not to be a pedant, and demand that everyone learn
the historic grammar of song composition and use them in their songs.
However, I do maintain that if songwriters nowadays knew as much about
poetic language and its construction as some of our forebearers did,
they'd most definitely be better songwriters, irregardless of the
genre they compose their songs in. I do view it as sort of a
songwriting illiteracy that has resulted from the deterioration of our
use of poetic language in our daily lives. I mean, c'mon--how many
musicians nowadays can even tell the difference between a ballad and a
lyric song? Or explain the difference between the two and what makes
one a ballad, and the other a lyric song? Not a whole lot.
The same is true for contemporary poets, but to a lesser extent--its
not as easy to fool an audience on paper. However, even those
distinctions are blurring now that spoken word, performance art, etc.
is becoming popular amongst poets who want a poetry career that
mirrors the life of a rock star. Which is fine--some great stuff is
coming out of that movement too. But what they're composing ain't
setsinas and sonnets! But it is out of these movements that sometimes
new genres are born--great genres, wonderful art. We wouldn't be
blessed with Edward Brathwaite's transformation into Kamau Brathwaite,
and the transformation of his poetic voice and of the poetic genres
from which both came if it weren't for what we call the "folk"
process, which really isn't limited to "folk" music at all.
As you said, there are plenty of unimpressive songs out there--those
were the ones I was making reference to when I said they can grate on
the nerves when the words are forced upon the music in unnatural,
clumsy sounding ways. A bad song is a bad song, irregardless of the
era it is composed in, or the language the lyrics might happen to be
in.
But let's not kid ourselves here--the poetic formula used to compose a
rap song is *very* specific. The rules of lyric composition are not
the same as those for composing a ballad. Contemporary
singer-songwriters also follow linguistic rules for the compositions
of their songs, which are much less strict than the linguistic rules
used to compose songs in the oral song traditions 100 years ago.
While many of us might not be consciously aware of the rules of
composition in the genres we work in, it doesn't mean they don't
exist, or that we don't unconcsiously obey them when we compose.
Janet Ryan
Janet M. Ryan
>On Mon, 22 Mar 1999 12:55:53 GMT, ryan...@tc.umn.edu (Janet M. Ryan)
>wrote:
>>But that is probably a whole lot more than people here want to know
>>about poetry and folk song! I always get carried away when this
>>subject comes up, and I just keep going, people's eyes glaze over,
>>minds wander afar...
>NO, not one one anyway. You do have an incredible knowledge of the
>subject.
>>Nice to see someone actually asking about it though. Can't even
>>remember the last time the subject came up in the newsgroups.
>>
>>Janet Ryan
>>
>And its nice to know that one isn't a lone voice crying in the
>wilderness. Often, when there is not response to the cries in the
>night, one gets to get the feeling he is all alone. Thanks for the
>validation.
>You do display incredible lucidity on this subject. Ignore the glazed
>eyes. They simply can't see the truth you've come to know.
>CC
T'anks! I *do* try to be lucid and erudite, but I'm afraid I've
still not mastered the art of doing it in a pithy, concise manner,
hence all those glazed, cross-eyes..
Janet Ryan
Lucy Kemnitzer
Hess) wrote:
>I had this discussion with a singer-songwriter friend and she drew the
>distinction that good poems don't necessarily make good songs, but
>good songs are generally good poems.
Like:
Whack-fol-a-diddly-o
Whack-fol-a-daddy
Right?
Lucy Kemnitzer
Mrs. Bogus (Faux) Ersatz
When I originally posed the question, I of course was speaking of
"folk" as all of us true believers are able to understand. Sorry
about the rest of you on the planet ;^)
:^)
carver
Joseph Kesselman, yclept Keshlam
> Yes, everyone is. Your bias isn't clear to me though. ;-) Throughout
> your post you say "folk" without telling us what you mean by "folk."
> That's painting with an awfully large brush.
I'm afraid I'm not all that interested in the "what is folk" question --
I'm of the "I know it when I hear it, and for pratical purposes so do
most other folks" school. But I accept your correction: I did indeed
mean folk _song_ specifically; there's certainly a huge amount of
instrumental folk music.
Further, deponent saith not.
Faux Ersatz (now liberated)
somewhat overenthusiastic in my opinion, but thats ok, we love ya
Janet. Lets keep this thing going.
carver
On Tue, 23 Mar 1999 16:00:26 -0000, "Tony Fisk" <Tony...@tesco.net>
wrote:
>
>Janet M. Ryan wrote in message <7d5s83$gfu$1...@news1.tc.umn.edu>...