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Someone wrote:
More recognizable, perhaps, is a type of what is generally called rock and roll called [folk rock]? or simply "folk," which included performers such as [Joan Baez]?, Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, [The Mamas and the Papas]?, and many others.
I've tried to clarify this. "Folk rock" is used very specifically and is typically far more recognised by instrumentation than form. Many folk musicians of the 60s (Tom Paxton, Phil Ochs etc) sang new, topical material (which distinguished them from traditional folk musicians) but in the folk idiom (acoustic instruments, traditional arrangements and often traditional melodies.)
Re: the comment about "marketers" in the first paragraph. If language reflects common usage, what is now called "folk music" has as much right to the name as any other form.
Gareth Owen
To the latter: fair enough, but does the first paragraph actually imply otherwise? -- LMS
I like the page in general but wonder if the following is unnecessarily cynical (implying, as it does, a financial rather than artistic incentive to change musical styles):
Ya know, I agree, but I don't know how to change it right off. Anyone else want to give it a stab? -- LMS
The deletions are merely of things that seemed redundant. Additions may solve the problem of tone mentioned above. One bit of the original puzzles me, so I corrected the grammar but left it in--but what does "unrecognizable to its source" actually mean?
I like the new additions--lots of good new information here. I added some more. The problem now is that the article is rambling and disorganized, and I am probably not the best person to organize and clarify it. BTW, using the word "purist," without the quotes, makes it sound as if the authors of the article are not purists, which we don't want to imply. :-) See neutral point of view. -- LMS
Perhaps someone who knows the facts :-) could add in "Skiffle" music, from whence the Beatles sprang, which was evidently a British folk form in the 1950's. Certainly the Beatles stole (er, utilised!) many folk forms in their music. (date of question unknown, but it predates the answer below by months.)
John Lennon, of the Beatles, formed a group called The Quarrymen in 1957. Later, Lonnie Donegan brought skiffle to a wider audience. G4sxe 20:10, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I think we are going to need a List of folk musicians at some point soon. user:sjc
This page is ridiculous. I agree with the POV, but it is still a clear and obvious POV. I'm not sure how to fix it right now, but I will and come back. Tokerboy 09:00 Jan 18, 2003 (UTC)
Article is getting long so I put in section headings; also a little bit on the classical composers who went folksong collecting. Sorry about the clash of prose styles.
I removed the following list of folk styles, because I think it's too highly debatable to include without annotation. Maybe it could be moved to List of genres of folk music or something, but I'm not sure of the value of such a thing given the lack of any terribly agreeable definition of folk music. Tuf-Kat 20:41, Dec 19, 2003 (UTC)
Is there any citation for the remark attributed to Louis Armstrong? I believe I've heard pretty much the same attributed to Bill Broonzy and I bet this obvious joke was made more than once. If it is there as a direct quote, it should be cited, otherwise at least it should be worded as an indirect quote. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:35, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)
Here's a citation for Broonzy saying this: [1], probably from a better source than a generic "quotes" site. And another: Michael Cooney, citing it here, is a pretty solid folk-revival musician himself (although he misspells "Studs Terkel"): [2]. Another site says it's attributed variously to Big Bill Broonzy, Woody Guthrie and Igor Stravinsky. [3]. Someone could probably do a pretty good article on the history of this quotation. I think I'll keep the quote in the article, use a better wording of it than the one there right now, and indicate how unclear it is who said it. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:49, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)
In the section "Variation in folk music" the phrase "Many feel..." begs for some citations. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:05, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)
I feel that the horse passage is really landing us in a muddle--we've got Igor Stravinsky as a popular musician now, which surely isn't right. The passage adds a lot to length, and it's not helping readers to understand folk music. So I excised, hoping not to elicit rage (or reversion)...
I'm intrigued that the saying has been attributed to so many people, and think it might be worth installing elsewhere--say, in the Louis Armstrong article, or in Wikiquote?
On another front, I pondered, and decided that the "Many feel..." passage is utterly POV and should go, too. Opus33 05:42, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
For what it's worth, the removed paragraph (as I had left it, but with one further edit -- I had missed that misplaced word "popular") reads:
Probably doesn't belong in this article, perfectly glad to be rid of it. Wikiquote might be a good place for an extended version of this. Surely not in the Louis Armstrong article: I'd venture that he is one of the least likely of the people to whom it is attributed. My vote would be for Broonzy; Studs Terkel is still alive, so someone just might be able to get confirmation of that from the horse's mouth, so to speak. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:59, Oct 26, 2004 (UTC)
"the Singers' Club and was the first, as well as the most enduring, of what became known as folk clubs" Neither the first (Newcastle's folk club began in 1953) nor the most enduring (it closed its doors in 1991). The Troubabor lives on, as does Edinburgh's Sandy Bell's.
Is Gundula Krause well-enough known to merit mention in this article? I will readily admit to never before having heard of her. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:41, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)
Same question about Márta Sebestyén. I love her work, but is it that influential? -- JButler 22:18, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
Anyone know why in "References", Charles Seeger is a sub-section of Richard Middleton - or is this just a formatting error? -- SGBailey 22:19, 2005 Feb 6 (UTC)
I have redirected traditional music here, and added a paragraph on the term (please clean up the paragraph -- I can't think of a more graceful way to explain it). See talk:traditional music. Tuf-Kat 21:45, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)
Since both ethnic music and traditional music redirect here, this article ought to be written from a culture-neutral point of view. As it is, nearly all the examples are from the American/English/Irish traditions only.
Especially without the list of folk styles (above), the whole article gives the impression that folk music applies to certain cultures only, which is lamentable.
Maybe a "folk music around the world" section would be in order? I'd also love to see "foreign" examples mixed in with the existing ones in the rest of the article also. -- CodeGeneratR 18:57, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Texts not consulted in this article include (to name a few of the most egregious ommissions):
I won't even mention David Evans, Robert Palmer, Bill Ferris, and Jeff Todd Titon. People interested in this topic should consult all of these first. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.250.132.201 ( talk) 15:02, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
The article as it stands is completely unacceptable. For one thing, as pointed out by others, it covers too small a geographical area and narrow time frame. The article "folk music" in the New Harvard Dictionary of Music (1986) by Bruno Nettl ought to be a model for how such an article ought to look. Nettl is the foremost authority in the field. His omission from the references is really telling. Nettl's Harvard Dictionary article is quite long -- 5 double-columned pages of small print -- as befits this complex topic. Also, since he is not American born, he has a broader point of view.
Readers should know that Peter van der Merwe and Dave Harker, who appear to be the principle sources for the present wikipedia article, are controversial figures, who write from outside the mainstream. Though they may be very much worth reading, they should not be read in isolation from more reputable and balanced authorities by anyone who is seeking to inform themselves about what folk music is. Readers of Wikipedia deserve to be told what the objections are to van der Merwe and Harker's points of view. Perhaps there ought to be a separate category about the history of folk music scholarship and the various controversies and questions connected with it. The urban folk revival and folk rock also deserve separate entries. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mballen ( talk • contribs) 16:56, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
Is RiotFolk really of enough significance to merit a mention in a general article about folk music? -- Jmabel | Talk 16:31, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)
See talk:traditional music. I'd appreciate anyone's comments on what to do with that article (as well as trad and roots music, while we're at it). Essentially, I redirected traditional music to folk music some time ago, then took a wikibreak. During the wikibreak, someone made an article on trad, and there was a VfD about it, and it was redirected to traditional music on the basis that some non-folk compositions are credited "trad", and so a redirect to folk music would be inappropriate. I can see the logic here, but I don't know what traditional music could ever be about -- the practice of citing traditional popular songs as "trad"? That seems an absurd subject for an article. The user in question is no longer active, so I'm posting here in the hopes of getting some other opinions. ( Roots music is completely unrelated to the current discussion, but I thought I'd bring it in since it's a related topic and may as well be dealt with at the same time) Tuf-Kat 04:44, September 9, 2005 (UTC)
Recently added paragraph beginning "Yet the ability to sing 'reasonably well' can be defined many different ways… seems to me like pure POV. I won't revert unilaterally, but I'm seeking consensus on that. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:26, September 9, 2005 (UTC)
I think one must be extremely careful in using the term 'tradition' or deeming music/songs to be 'traditional'. Firstly, both imply the fixed and unchanging existence of a concrete 'tradition,' which is quite simply false. Secondly, these debates have been the centre of disucssion by academics, artists and fans for decades and there is as yet one, unified definition of such terms. Some interesting reading could be done of some works by those like Philip Bohlman or Ron Ayerman and Andrew Jamison (amongst a hundered others; especially 'Poplore' by Gene Bluestein) and these would highlight certain aspects regarding this subject. Primarily, i feel such works are quite correct in their identifying no singular 'tradition' of folk music and therefore the impossibility of 'traditional' music. It is true music may belong to a 'tradition,' but only in its borrowing of particular practices or musical elements from the past. Thus, tradition is always the recreation of the past in the present moment, and as such 'tradition' is often created by those with political ideals for political purposes - as was the case with both the British and American folk song revivals. Thus, people like Llyod, MacColl and, Lomax and Seeger in America, were somewhat eager to portray the rural idealism of some imagined past community, in which people all worked together and orally passed on their songs and stories. To an extent this is true and oral transmission is a fundamental part of the folk process, but the singers/performers of these rural communities were not themselves 'traditional' as such, as they were only recreating the past in the present in their own time, which we can see in their appropriation/continuation of Child Ballads and other European ballad-forms in Virginia and Appalachia. However, to portray a unified community and the identity created through this is extremely useful propaganda for left-wing parties in particular who can use and have used the music to firstly, build national pride and secondly, unify large numbers of people under an ideology.
Like i say, many have written entire books on this subject alone and therefore its somewhat difficult to say everything here but, just a few things to consider.
Thanks
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 |
Someone wrote:
More recognizable, perhaps, is a type of what is generally called rock and roll called [folk rock]? or simply "folk," which included performers such as [Joan Baez]?, Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, [The Mamas and the Papas]?, and many others.
I've tried to clarify this. "Folk rock" is used very specifically and is typically far more recognised by instrumentation than form. Many folk musicians of the 60s (Tom Paxton, Phil Ochs etc) sang new, topical material (which distinguished them from traditional folk musicians) but in the folk idiom (acoustic instruments, traditional arrangements and often traditional melodies.)
Re: the comment about "marketers" in the first paragraph. If language reflects common usage, what is now called "folk music" has as much right to the name as any other form.
Gareth Owen
To the latter: fair enough, but does the first paragraph actually imply otherwise? -- LMS
I like the page in general but wonder if the following is unnecessarily cynical (implying, as it does, a financial rather than artistic incentive to change musical styles):
Ya know, I agree, but I don't know how to change it right off. Anyone else want to give it a stab? -- LMS
The deletions are merely of things that seemed redundant. Additions may solve the problem of tone mentioned above. One bit of the original puzzles me, so I corrected the grammar but left it in--but what does "unrecognizable to its source" actually mean?
I like the new additions--lots of good new information here. I added some more. The problem now is that the article is rambling and disorganized, and I am probably not the best person to organize and clarify it. BTW, using the word "purist," without the quotes, makes it sound as if the authors of the article are not purists, which we don't want to imply. :-) See neutral point of view. -- LMS
Perhaps someone who knows the facts :-) could add in "Skiffle" music, from whence the Beatles sprang, which was evidently a British folk form in the 1950's. Certainly the Beatles stole (er, utilised!) many folk forms in their music. (date of question unknown, but it predates the answer below by months.)
John Lennon, of the Beatles, formed a group called The Quarrymen in 1957. Later, Lonnie Donegan brought skiffle to a wider audience. G4sxe 20:10, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I think we are going to need a List of folk musicians at some point soon. user:sjc
This page is ridiculous. I agree with the POV, but it is still a clear and obvious POV. I'm not sure how to fix it right now, but I will and come back. Tokerboy 09:00 Jan 18, 2003 (UTC)
Article is getting long so I put in section headings; also a little bit on the classical composers who went folksong collecting. Sorry about the clash of prose styles.
I removed the following list of folk styles, because I think it's too highly debatable to include without annotation. Maybe it could be moved to List of genres of folk music or something, but I'm not sure of the value of such a thing given the lack of any terribly agreeable definition of folk music. Tuf-Kat 20:41, Dec 19, 2003 (UTC)
Is there any citation for the remark attributed to Louis Armstrong? I believe I've heard pretty much the same attributed to Bill Broonzy and I bet this obvious joke was made more than once. If it is there as a direct quote, it should be cited, otherwise at least it should be worded as an indirect quote. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:35, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)
Here's a citation for Broonzy saying this: [1], probably from a better source than a generic "quotes" site. And another: Michael Cooney, citing it here, is a pretty solid folk-revival musician himself (although he misspells "Studs Terkel"): [2]. Another site says it's attributed variously to Big Bill Broonzy, Woody Guthrie and Igor Stravinsky. [3]. Someone could probably do a pretty good article on the history of this quotation. I think I'll keep the quote in the article, use a better wording of it than the one there right now, and indicate how unclear it is who said it. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:49, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)
In the section "Variation in folk music" the phrase "Many feel..." begs for some citations. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:05, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)
I feel that the horse passage is really landing us in a muddle--we've got Igor Stravinsky as a popular musician now, which surely isn't right. The passage adds a lot to length, and it's not helping readers to understand folk music. So I excised, hoping not to elicit rage (or reversion)...
I'm intrigued that the saying has been attributed to so many people, and think it might be worth installing elsewhere--say, in the Louis Armstrong article, or in Wikiquote?
On another front, I pondered, and decided that the "Many feel..." passage is utterly POV and should go, too. Opus33 05:42, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
For what it's worth, the removed paragraph (as I had left it, but with one further edit -- I had missed that misplaced word "popular") reads:
Probably doesn't belong in this article, perfectly glad to be rid of it. Wikiquote might be a good place for an extended version of this. Surely not in the Louis Armstrong article: I'd venture that he is one of the least likely of the people to whom it is attributed. My vote would be for Broonzy; Studs Terkel is still alive, so someone just might be able to get confirmation of that from the horse's mouth, so to speak. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:59, Oct 26, 2004 (UTC)
"the Singers' Club and was the first, as well as the most enduring, of what became known as folk clubs" Neither the first (Newcastle's folk club began in 1953) nor the most enduring (it closed its doors in 1991). The Troubabor lives on, as does Edinburgh's Sandy Bell's.
Is Gundula Krause well-enough known to merit mention in this article? I will readily admit to never before having heard of her. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:41, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)
Same question about Márta Sebestyén. I love her work, but is it that influential? -- JButler 22:18, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
Anyone know why in "References", Charles Seeger is a sub-section of Richard Middleton - or is this just a formatting error? -- SGBailey 22:19, 2005 Feb 6 (UTC)
I have redirected traditional music here, and added a paragraph on the term (please clean up the paragraph -- I can't think of a more graceful way to explain it). See talk:traditional music. Tuf-Kat 21:45, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)
Since both ethnic music and traditional music redirect here, this article ought to be written from a culture-neutral point of view. As it is, nearly all the examples are from the American/English/Irish traditions only.
Especially without the list of folk styles (above), the whole article gives the impression that folk music applies to certain cultures only, which is lamentable.
Maybe a "folk music around the world" section would be in order? I'd also love to see "foreign" examples mixed in with the existing ones in the rest of the article also. -- CodeGeneratR 18:57, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Texts not consulted in this article include (to name a few of the most egregious ommissions):
I won't even mention David Evans, Robert Palmer, Bill Ferris, and Jeff Todd Titon. People interested in this topic should consult all of these first. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.250.132.201 ( talk) 15:02, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
The article as it stands is completely unacceptable. For one thing, as pointed out by others, it covers too small a geographical area and narrow time frame. The article "folk music" in the New Harvard Dictionary of Music (1986) by Bruno Nettl ought to be a model for how such an article ought to look. Nettl is the foremost authority in the field. His omission from the references is really telling. Nettl's Harvard Dictionary article is quite long -- 5 double-columned pages of small print -- as befits this complex topic. Also, since he is not American born, he has a broader point of view.
Readers should know that Peter van der Merwe and Dave Harker, who appear to be the principle sources for the present wikipedia article, are controversial figures, who write from outside the mainstream. Though they may be very much worth reading, they should not be read in isolation from more reputable and balanced authorities by anyone who is seeking to inform themselves about what folk music is. Readers of Wikipedia deserve to be told what the objections are to van der Merwe and Harker's points of view. Perhaps there ought to be a separate category about the history of folk music scholarship and the various controversies and questions connected with it. The urban folk revival and folk rock also deserve separate entries. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mballen ( talk • contribs) 16:56, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
Is RiotFolk really of enough significance to merit a mention in a general article about folk music? -- Jmabel | Talk 16:31, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)
See talk:traditional music. I'd appreciate anyone's comments on what to do with that article (as well as trad and roots music, while we're at it). Essentially, I redirected traditional music to folk music some time ago, then took a wikibreak. During the wikibreak, someone made an article on trad, and there was a VfD about it, and it was redirected to traditional music on the basis that some non-folk compositions are credited "trad", and so a redirect to folk music would be inappropriate. I can see the logic here, but I don't know what traditional music could ever be about -- the practice of citing traditional popular songs as "trad"? That seems an absurd subject for an article. The user in question is no longer active, so I'm posting here in the hopes of getting some other opinions. ( Roots music is completely unrelated to the current discussion, but I thought I'd bring it in since it's a related topic and may as well be dealt with at the same time) Tuf-Kat 04:44, September 9, 2005 (UTC)
Recently added paragraph beginning "Yet the ability to sing 'reasonably well' can be defined many different ways… seems to me like pure POV. I won't revert unilaterally, but I'm seeking consensus on that. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:26, September 9, 2005 (UTC)
I think one must be extremely careful in using the term 'tradition' or deeming music/songs to be 'traditional'. Firstly, both imply the fixed and unchanging existence of a concrete 'tradition,' which is quite simply false. Secondly, these debates have been the centre of disucssion by academics, artists and fans for decades and there is as yet one, unified definition of such terms. Some interesting reading could be done of some works by those like Philip Bohlman or Ron Ayerman and Andrew Jamison (amongst a hundered others; especially 'Poplore' by Gene Bluestein) and these would highlight certain aspects regarding this subject. Primarily, i feel such works are quite correct in their identifying no singular 'tradition' of folk music and therefore the impossibility of 'traditional' music. It is true music may belong to a 'tradition,' but only in its borrowing of particular practices or musical elements from the past. Thus, tradition is always the recreation of the past in the present moment, and as such 'tradition' is often created by those with political ideals for political purposes - as was the case with both the British and American folk song revivals. Thus, people like Llyod, MacColl and, Lomax and Seeger in America, were somewhat eager to portray the rural idealism of some imagined past community, in which people all worked together and orally passed on their songs and stories. To an extent this is true and oral transmission is a fundamental part of the folk process, but the singers/performers of these rural communities were not themselves 'traditional' as such, as they were only recreating the past in the present in their own time, which we can see in their appropriation/continuation of Child Ballads and other European ballad-forms in Virginia and Appalachia. However, to portray a unified community and the identity created through this is extremely useful propaganda for left-wing parties in particular who can use and have used the music to firstly, build national pride and secondly, unify large numbers of people under an ideology.
Like i say, many have written entire books on this subject alone and therefore its somewhat difficult to say everything here but, just a few things to consider.
Thanks