RE: Examples of good folk music (Full Version)

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Anders Eliasson -> RE: Examples of good folk music (Oct. 1 2012 8:59:36)

quote:

Muddy Waters, guitar and vocal, Little Walter harmonica, Willie Dixon, bass. All were born and raised in the Mississippi/Lousiana delta area, and moved to Chicago as adults.


Its a bit the story of Andalucian flamenco. They all moved to Madrid in the 50th and 60th and it changed flamenco....
Thats a reason why I posted Tio Borrico, because he did NOT move to Madrid. He stayed in Jerez. Another reason is that he´s one of my absolute favorites.

BTW, that Muddy Waters clip is really good. Realy swampy. I used to play the drum kit decades ago and a blues drummer told me that the right blues sound of the snare drum would be the sound you get if you use a wet newspaper instead of a drumstick. [:D]




Anders Eliasson -> RE: Examples of good folk music (Oct. 1 2012 9:01:11)

quote:


Good question, I assumed it was a string, but looking at the video again it looks if he's playing Air-Violin


My thoughts were that he had unwinded the string and was dragging of the windings. But thats an expensive trick. One standard, steel second string costs 12 euros.




estebanana -> RE: Examples of good folk music (Oct. 1 2012 21:30:48)

He pulled a single strand of horse hair out of the bow and twisted it over the string and pulled on it. If I remember correctly.




Richard Jernigan -> RE: Examples of good folk music (Oct. 1 2012 23:54:43)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Anders Eliasson

BTW, that Muddy Waters clip is really good. Realy swampy. I used to play the drum kit decades ago and a blues drummer told me that the right blues sound of the snare drum would be the sound you get if you use a wet newspaper instead of a drumstick. [:D]


A couple of phrases for those who may be unfamiliar with Mississippi Delta English:

"Behind the Sun" refers to a store in the French Quarter of New Orleans, whose sign was a painting of the sun. It sold voodoo articles. As in many Latin American cities, most signs in the French Quarter used to be distinctive objects, so you didn't need to be able to read the local language to find a place.

"Mojo hand": the preserved paw of a monkey, imbued with magical powers by a voodoo priest or priestess.

On a different version, the last line is "Going to fix my woman so she can't have no other man." --by the power of the mojo hand.

RNJ




estebanana -> RE: Examples of good folk music (Oct. 2 2012 1:11:18)

Richard got his mojo workin.




Richard Jernigan -> RE: Examples of good folk music (Oct. 2 2012 2:15:46)

quote:

ORIGINAL: estebanana

Richard got his mojo workin.


Richard now lookin for his CDs of the old time Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan, but he ain't found 'em yet. Their story is another version of folk music taken to the big city. The mariachi style supposedly developed in western Mexico during the mid-19th century. It was originally string band music with violins, harp, guitar, guitarron and vihuela.

The Mexican vihuela is not the renaissance/baroque six-course instrument of the Spanish upper class. It is a four-course rhythm instrument, playing a role more like that of the guitarra española of the European Renaissance and Baroque eras.

The guitarron is the big guitar shaped bass that one still sees in mariachi bands.

The mariachi style was regional folklore until Lazaro Cardenas became President of Mexico in 1938. Wanting to add a populist touch to his inaugaration, Cardenas brought the Vargas to the capital to play.

About this time the Vargas added a trumpet player, then a second trumpet, producing the trumpet duet sound that is now one of the leading characteristics of the genre.

Mariachi has become thoroughly commercialized, led by the commercialization of the Vargas as the official band of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, which ruled Mexico with an iron hand for 70-odd years. Like flamenco's retention of the compas, mariachi has retained the characteristic meter of the son jaliscense.

Despite all the commercialization, you can still hear some pretty tasty stuff if you hang out in the bigger bars at the Plaza Garibaldi in Mexico City at night.

Don't go by yourself. If you don't speak Spanish or if you look like a newbie tourist, take a couple of experienced Mexico City buddies. Don't wander off into the surrounding neighborhood, don't get sh1tfaced drunk, and do be highly skeptical of the recreational opportunities you may be offered by casual acquaintances.

Leave before closing time, because you don't want to get swept into one of the black paddy wagons outside each of the main bars along with those who are reluctant to go home peacefully. Besides that the cabs whizzing by on the Eje Central Lazaro Cardenas (renamed from San Juan de Letran) wont stop for the packs of drunks lining the sidewalks after closing time.

But the beer, the mescal, the music and the antojitos are great. And I have violated every one of the principles enumerated above, and lived to tell the tale--but just barely, in a couple of cases.

For example, there was the time that Pat and I, in a state of alcohol induced optimism, decided to con the con man....

RNJ




Anders Eliasson -> RE: Examples of good folk music (Oct. 2 2012 8:29:43)

And now something completely diferent. Bulgarian clarinet.



And together with something that might be called a zurna. I love the way he makes a drone for the clarinet at the end.



And a more modern party version... In more accessible rythms.




NormanKliman -> RE: Examples of good folk music (Oct. 2 2012 9:31:42)

Nice thread, Anders. I've got a good video to share but will have to look for it. In the meantime, here are a few things and some comments.

quote:

I simply cant see why its not folk music....


For me, the difference is that not many people in town could/can sing what Borrico does in the video. I'm not referring to the way he sings but the styles bulería por soleá and soleá. The vast majority of people, even in Jerez, can't even come close to remembering all the words and singing them in compás. There's a quote attributed to Diego El Perote: "El fandango de Palanca, que lo cantaban luego hasta las mujeres friyendo huevos" (The fandango of Palanca was even sung by housewives while they fried eggs). Although his comment was meant as praise, I think it can be applied to the case of "folk vs. flamenco." Some sevillanas and other cantes (Probe Miguel, Enciéndeme la luz, some villancicos) could be considered folk music but the rest is too sophisticated, IMO.

quote:

Its a bit the story of Andalucian flamenco. They all moved to Madrid in the 50th and 60th and it changed flamenco....


Long before that, too. Chacón, Mojama, Cepero and others went from Jerez to Madrid (as did the guitarist Juan Gandulla "Habichuela" from Cádiz), and Torre, El Gloria, María La Moreno and others went from Jerez to Seville. Going back even further, they say that El Planeta and El Fillo moved around like that, too.

Bulgarian clarinet!!! That first video is amazing. Is it part of a film or something?

Shaun: Bukka White was great. His "Fixin' to Die Blues" is one of my all-time favorites.

I read that he hated the name "Bukka" because his name was actually "Booker" and, apparently, somebody at the record company misunderstood him because of his accent.

Stephen: I don't know if this actually has anything to do with Pygmy culture, but it sounds to me like a fast guajiras rhythm in this track of Sally Nyolo:


quote:

"mi Pago" is Argentinian dialect for "my village".


Richard: In Jerez, it means "neighborhood," much like "barrio" is used elsewhere.

quote:

Muddy Waters, guitar and vocal, Little Walter harmonica, Willie Dixon, bass. All were born and raised in the Mississippi/Lousiana delta area, and moved to Chicago as adults.


Oh man, that's one of my favorite Muddy Waters recordings, along with "Still a fool."

Great one to play very loud when drinking alone at night, heh. In these two tracks and a few others, it sounds to me like the same musicians, but I haven't found a source of reliable and accurate information on Muddy's recordings.

quote:

For example, there was the time that Pat and I, in a state of alcohol induced optimism, decided to con the con man....


Now that's what I call creating expectation. I'd love to hear the rest!




Anders Eliasson -> RE: Examples of good folk music (Oct. 2 2012 13:04:40)

quote:


quote:

I simply cant see why its not folk music....



For me, the difference is that not many people in town could/can sing what Borrico does in the video. I'm not referring to the way he sings but the styles bulería por soleá and soleá. The vast majority of people, even in Jerez, can't even come close to remembering all the words and singing them in compás.


Norman,
Thats not a good explanation. Its more a picture of the problems that flamenco IMHO are having. The quality if you leave out the few well known ones, is low and it doesnt seem to get better. On the contrary.

Very few irishmen or woman can play the fiddle like Kevin Burke does, but a lot gets close. But it doesnt make it more folky. Its just an example of a more culture thats much more alive.

Your videos I´ll listen to later. looks interesting. The Clarinet video, I dont know. Its just something I found on youtube and which I liked. I´ve always like Bulgarian clarinet music.




NormanKliman -> RE: Examples of good folk music (Oct. 2 2012 17:39:59)

quote:

Its more a picture of the problems that flamenco IMHO are having. The quality if you leave out the few well known ones, is low and it doesnt seem to get better.

I'm saying that flamenco has probably never been so popular that most people in a given town could sing or play por soleá, siguiriya, malagueña, etc. But then again, the same could probably be said about most of the music posted in this thread. The Bulgarian clarinet video, for example. It looks like the people are poor and live in the country, so we say that it's folk music, but I doubt that many (or any) of the others could play like that. In the end, "folk music" is just an expression, but IMO it means something that most people in a community can do. I'm sure we agree, though, that Borrico sang his people's music.




kozz -> RE: Examples of good folk music (Oct. 2 2012 18:41:03)

quote:

My thoughts were that he had unwinded the string and was dragging of the windings. But thats an expensive trick. One standard, steel second string costs 12 euros.

The best 12 euros spent, should be standard on every violin! [;)]




Richard Jernigan -> RE: Examples of good folk music (Oct. 2 2012 20:35:52)

My father's younger brother was a world class pigeon shooter, as well as big game hunter in Africa. When I was 16 in 1954, I went with him to Cuba on a pigeon shooting expedition.

Tame pigeons are raised and selected for their strong and rapid flying. The pigeon thrower is a professional. He pulls a feather or bends one to make the bird fly erratically, and launches it. The shooter shoots it with his fancy shotgun, or misses. Noticeable sums of money are bet.

We met Cuban millionaires, a drunken Hemingway and some decidedly shady Americans. My uncle cleaned up, as usual. I broke even against the other teenagers.

I think my uncle was a little disappointed in my fascination with the rumberos. These people hung out at the beach, with no visible means of support, drank rum, played drums and chanted in the Afro-Cuban folk tradition. They had a reputation as violent gangsters. I was hypnotized by the drumming.

Here's the great conga drummer Mongo Santamaria cleverly illustrating how the sophisticated Latin Jazz of the 1970s is built on folk roots.

The first instrument heard is the chequere, a palm leaf with notches cut into the central stem. When a stick is rubbed along the notches, the leaf amplifies the vibrations. The drumming and chants are a very skillful take on the rumbero tradition.



RNJ




estebanana -> RE: Examples of good folk music (Oct. 2 2012 20:42:18)

Afro blue too. I saw Santamaria... nice story Mistah Mojo

... connecting that to what Norman posted, that singing style is West African, the one that sounds like guajiras. I think it is in sixes with accents on 3 and 6..but it does connect to Mongo Santamaria because much of the "compas" in Cuban music is directly from Central Africa and then hybridized with whatever else was lurking in Cuba.

So the Ida e Vuetla cantes are highly influenced by African drumming via the Rumberos Richard was talking about. Yoruba culture is one of the main lines of influence, and that is also where the Voodoo and divination ceremonies come from which are again passed through the blues lyrics Richard mentioned. Behind the sun, house of the rising sun ect. ...all symbology that is Yoruba in origin coming out of the divination ceremonies.

To talk about blues this way always unnerves me because it kind of makes you into a 'blues flamencologo', that is I feel sort of white and square for breaking it down. But it does pay off to reach deeper into Africa to see where the blues come from. Those blues melodic lines, rhythms and harmonic sense are deeply rooted in Yoruba culture. There are all kinds of fascinating super impositions of Yoruba philosophy, art and aesthetics in blues and eventually jazz. Also several set parts the performance practices in blues come from Yoruba ceremonies.

If you are interested in this stuff and how African music becomes blues and Yoruba culture becomes New Orleans culture, Haitian culture etc. the place to start is Robert Farris Thompson's "Flash of the Spirit". Oddly enough there is a good connection within his exploration of African music to flamenco.

http://www.africanart.org/programs/106/robert_farris_thompson_eshu_in_the_americas_copresented_with_mocada




kozz -> RE: Examples of good folk music (Oct. 2 2012 20:55:03)

quote:

The first instrument heard is the chequere, a palm leaf with notches cut into the central stem. When a stick is rubbed along the notches, the leaf amplifies the vibrations. The drumming and chants are a very skillful take on the rumbero tradition.


This is fantastic Richard!
If you like this, than the Nu Yorica compilations are something for you! Experiments in Latin music 1970-1977.

A few years ago I made some instruments from calabases, mostly shakers and a few stringed ones, gave them all away to friends as an extra birthday present.
Eventually gave up because I have no room to dry apart from my balcony.




Sorry for the OT.

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Anders Eliasson -> RE: Examples of good folk music (Oct. 2 2012 21:39:11)

quote:

In the end, "folk music" is just an expression, but IMO it means something that most people in a community can do.


No, no, no. Thats way to cheap. Most of the music posted here are not in a category like that and most of it would be called folk music. Folk music can be equally complicated and difficult as other kinds of music.

This example is in Ireland considered to be folk music. And how many Irish do you think can play like that? Or just play the uileann pipes



Or this, which is a bit special, but still considered to be trad. folkmusic in Sweden. IMHO, its as elaborated and well performed as anything. I´ve played a good deal of Swedish folk and its an extremely rich culture and this example is just plain trad Polska. They may use Bach´s name, but there´s nothing in the music thats not trad folk.





estebanana -> RE: Examples of good folk music (Oct. 2 2012 21:49:12)

I'm getting to the point where the argument of what is and is not folk music is numbing. I don't care if you call it ethnic music, folk music, bathroom music, classic nose fluting....it seems silly to classify it now that we're looking at all this interesting material.

More "folk" music?







Anders Eliasson -> RE: Examples of good folk music (Oct. 2 2012 21:55:47)

Somehow I agree, but its interesting how much paranoia that persons on this forum gets if you call flamenco folk music.

I can understand the spanish flamencos, because spanish folklore was heavily used by Generalisimo Franco to create a very Spanish identity.




estebanana -> RE: Examples of good folk music (Oct. 2 2012 22:07:22)

If I were Spanish person or Spanish intellectual I would want to strip out the folkloric **** used to promote Spain and "spanishness" because it misrepresents Spain both in complexity and how modern Spain is. It would be like what somtimes happens when I travel to other places and I tell people I am from California, they start try it to talk surfer jive talk to me. I think that is stupid. California folk surfer culture, how cute...same for Spaniards I doubt they like the like the branding of folky invented or contrived Spanishness.

I also generally object to Folk music as a label because it seems to imply a simplicity or primitiveness in what are usually complex musical ideas. In the US the label Folk Music was used to sell repackaged rehashed forms of popular music. I connect it with commercialization an packaging more than authenticity. For those reason I dislike the term and find it hard to honestly define. I'm thinking now after this thread I would like to explode the non reasonable term.

When it coes to flamenco I especially dislike the term folk music. I can't think of Fernanda de Utrera as a folksy artist nor Antonio Mairena. So I don't think the term is accurate starting with those two artists if no much, much earlier.

If you want to say a unflamencoized country song from like Serranas is folky that is something else, but as soon as it gets sung por siguiriyas by a major figura, it's not folky. Maybe I'm just ****ed up.

numb numb numb..ha ha ha But Im not paranoid, I'm just pigheaded, big difference.

[:D]




Richard Jernigan -> RE: Examples of good folk music (Oct. 2 2012 22:17:04)

quote:

ORIGINAL: estebanana
To talk about blues this way always unnerves me because it kind of makes you into a 'blues flamencologo', that is I feel sort of white and square for breaking it down.


I never played blues, but I had friends who did. Through them I got to talk to Mance Lipscomb, Lightnin' Hopkins, Mississippi John Hurt and some others of the "folk blues" type a few times when they played in Austin. What little knowledge I gained on the subject was through them. I have read a little, but mainly stuff written from the "white people" perspective.

My uncle was really dubious about me buying the rumberos a bottle of rum and hanging with them while they tried to teach me a little of the "clave", the rumbero equivalent of compás.

The experience inspired me to try out with a professional mambo band when I got back to where I lived in Washington DC. I got hired because my classical training taught me to read, and to play the high notes. My teacher, first trumpet in the National Symphony was horrified when he heard about it through the grapevine, and it scared the p1ss out of my parents because of the heroin epidemic, but they let me do it.

I first heard Balinese gamelan when I was in high school, on recordings made by the Canadian composer Colin McPhee while he lived in Bali. I was fortunate enough to learn a little more from a young man who was in the gamelan of Bangli, the capital of one of the seven rajas who ruled Bali before the Dutch showed up. He was my cab driver for a couple of trips. On about the third trip I brought a guitar. He asked me to play. I did, and he invited me to a few gamelan rehearsals. I am still comprehensively ignorant of the vast lore of the gamelan, but I got a better feel for how it's put together from the rehearsals.

I've been an extremely lucky guy in more ways than one. I've had great teachers, in both music and science, wonderful mentors, and a lot of great experiences. The spirit of adventure was inculcated early on. When you're a kid, you think your life is like everyone else's. It ain't necessarily so.

That's my Mom and Dad and my big brother. I'm the little kid who always looked into the camera when I was supposed to be looking somewhere else.



The last plane my Dad was checked out and qualified in was the F-105, when he was 54 years old.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_F-105_Thunderchief

RNJ

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Richard Jernigan -> RE: Examples of good folk music (Oct. 2 2012 23:43:15)

quote:

ORIGINAL: estebanana

In the US the label Folk Music was used to sell repackaged rehashed forms of popular music.

[:D]


My impression is that the term was popularized by people like Pete Seager, who was a left wing intellectual and musician. There was a big surge in socialist and communist thought and activity in the USA during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Capitalism was obviously broken.

Seager and others used music to promote left wing politics. The music ranged from authentic blues by Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter, and songs by Elizabeth Cotten, the Seagers' African American maid, through anomalies like Leadbelly's "Washington is a Bourgeois Town" to Woody Guthrie, a left wing troubador, to the Seager's own songs.

But the "Folk Music" mix also contained genuine folk music like country blues and the Scotch-Irish songs of the Appalachians. The popularity of these was, in my opinion, due to a reaction against the utter drivel being pumped out by the pop music "industry".

"When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore!" Yecchh!!

The "folk" genre took root among young people in the late 1950s as an adjunct of the "Beat" movement, along with pipe smoking, beards, sandals and the coffee houses where the music was played and sung.
Big stars like Joan Baez and Bob Dylan got their start in "Beat" coffee houses like Gerde's Folk City in Greenwich Village.

The music caught on and was transformed with the anti-Vietnam War monement. With such a large audience, the big record companies smelled money blowing in the wind, and the commercialization swung into overdrive.

Irony of ironies, capitalists made big bucks selling anti-capitalist songs.

RNJ




estebanana -> RE: Examples of good folk music (Oct. 2 2012 23:56:28)

quote:

But the "Folk Music" mix also contained genuine folk music like country blues and the Scotch-Irish songs of the Appalachians. The popularity of these was, in my opinion, due to a reaction against the utter drivel being pumped out by the pop music "industry".


So it was the Grunge Music of the 1950's [:D][:D][:D]

Yeah after your short history of commercial folk, I see no reason to say anything is folk any longer. I am cynical, but I think this is a post folk world. Maybe 'roots music' or 'original sources' would be closer to what people are trying to get. To me the label folk music just means some kind of stuff that is packaged to seem raw and rootsy, but is just more crap as a reaction to some other crap that is probably crappier.




Richard Jernigan -> RE: Examples of good folk music (Oct. 3 2012 0:07:28)

Having written the brief historical impression, I've finally figured out what American folk music means to me. In the 1950s the country blues and Appalachian Scotch-Irish song and fiddle tune traditions were still alive.

Each of these contained a large number of effectively anonymous pieces. A number of artists produced their own versions. There were highly skilled amateurs, and semi-pros who made a little money performing, but probably not enough to live on.

I'd call that "folk".

The fiddle tune tradition lives on. Every year there are fiddling contests throughout Texas and the south based on the old tunes. The contestants are all amateurs. Newer, commercial pieces like "The Orange Blossom Special" and so on, have been incorporated, since their musical language is derived from the Scotch-Irish tradition.

I don't know anyone involved in this, but I do have some good friends who are accomplished amateur bluegrass players. I think the fiddling, like bluegrass, is handed down by apprenticeship and "hanging out" at festivals, barbecues and house parties.

A tradition that has died out completely, as far as I know, was called a "sing" or a "singing" in rural Texas. My grandfather was an accomplished amateur singer. At a large Christmas time gathering in Southeast Texas, when i was 12 or 13 years old, he was prevailed upon to lead a singing. Members of his generation commented that it had been many, many years since there had been one. It was the first I heard of it.

Much of the music was 18th- and 19th-century protestant hymns. These aren't anonymous. They are printed in hymnals with their composers' names. But all the older generation knew all the songs, four or five verses, and they all knew their parts, soprano, alto, tenor or bass. The hymns were accompanied by florid piano improvisations by several of the women alternating.

But what struck me were the anonymous Scotch-Irish ballads, sung a capella. A soloist would strike up "Barbara Allen", "The Silver Dagger", "Earl Brand", "The Three Ravens" or the like, and the old people would join in on the refrain in four part harmony. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

RNJ




BarkellWH -> RE: Examples of good folk music (Oct. 3 2012 1:16:03)

I agree with you, Stephen. The term "folk music" can mean anything anyone wants it to mean. When it reaches that stage, it has no meaning at all. The original Scots-Irish music of the Appalachians, represented by such songs as "The Long Black Veil" and "Silver Dagger," as well as others, set the stage. Later, groups such as the Carter Family, particularly A.P. Carter and Mother Maybelle, sang and played guitar in a simple but beautiful manner. I especially like "Lover's Return," by A.P. Carter, later reprised by the trio of Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris, and Dolly Parton; Jimmie Rogers sang and played simple acoustic guitar in the 1920s and 1930s, with songs such as "Waiting for a Train." Many of these pieces found voice again in the 1960s "folk" boom--The Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Donovan, etc. Smooth stuff. Nevetheless, hard to tell "folk" from just plain popular music with the "folks."

Cheers,

Bill




Richard Jernigan -> RE: Examples of good folk music (Oct. 3 2012 1:42:45)

Bill, you don't have to say "Scots-Irish" to be polite. My relatives proudly call themselves "Scotch-Irish".[:D]

In Texas south of San Antonio and all along the border, about 90% of people speak Spanish at home. Their ancestors lived there before the gringos (English speaking Americans) showed up. There's a whole other trove of folk music there: corrido, ranchera, norteña, cumbia, polca mexicana....the latest I'm aware of are the narcocorridos, ballads in traditional form about the drug gangs. They celebrate the violent shootouts, the bloody revenge for betrayal, the crafty stratagems against the gringos. Of course the sane citizens who are the great majority of Mexican Americans are pained and scandalized. And so it goes...

RNJ




Anders Eliasson -> RE: Examples of good folk music (Oct. 3 2012 7:53:32)

quote:

Yeah after your short history of commercial folk, I see no reason to say anything is folk any longer. I am cynical, but I think this is a post folk world.


Well, you are definately not having any kind of respect towards those of us playing and liking what we consider to be folk music. I´m proud of playing folk music and I find that cynical intellectuals like you know very little about what it is .

I can accept the use of the word POST. Also when you say postfolk. BUT only if we use it in all other postconcepts. Then I can see the idea.
IMHO, we are then living in a postdemocratic world governed by postpoliticians and listening to postflamenco (postrock, postfolk, postjazz etc.) and filling our lives with postquality consumerism and postinformation.
The labels dont work anymore, what we called something is disappearing. Its only about money and greed.

Thats maybe why some of us, look for some qualities that can be found in what you call roots music. Maybe, one day, I will even try to change my lifestyle and "go backwards".




Ruphus -> RE: Examples of good folk music (Oct. 3 2012 10:26:56)

I find this thread very interesting and informative about folk / folklore.

And as politics are no discrete subject, but all that you live and breath, it seems only consequential that there comes up a conncetion in the end between the topic and cultural status quo.

I fully agree with Anders´ last comment.

We live in a societal post common denominator era where yet most basic standards of providing mutuality are lost or set aside on all societal levels ( from the individual up to societal statutes and representatives).

Gentlemen agreement, soundness and responsibility for the most are being adhered to by a diminshing number of individual relicts. With ethical standards eroding globally, and now the first generation already being raised by parentship that has little to no clue of above standards and values.
Ethical and empathical reaction now often being simulated for audience by mimicing from soap opera alike storyboards, again written by authors who copy from foregone novells and film productions.
( Above mentioned such an early example with Bob Dylan who mimiced the rebell whilst actually having no authentic clue of what he was poeming / being a conservative mindset who held weapon industry shares already at the peak of his popularity during the youth movement of his time. - And who later on, as a long established pop star openly spurned the progressive nimbus with disgust.)
Whereas authentic feel and balance of mutuality are extincting with the last of community "dinosaurs".

We are in the post era of emotional intelligence, in a renaissance of pharaohnic regency in plutocracy.

From there I suppose the remark on post flamenco and post folk / folklore to be reflecting an actual situation, indeed.

Ruphus




Anders Eliasson -> RE: Examples of good folk music (Oct. 3 2012 13:02:01)

Another example that shows that the idea that folkmusic is something most in a community can play is a wrong idea:
In Scandinavia, it was normal that one in the village was payed to play for dance. Simply because they wanted someone who played well. He was not payed for a job or a dance. But was given things during the year, so that he could concentrate more on playing and so he was obliged to play for dance. This tradition has disappeared, but both Denmark and Sweden and I think the othe Scandinavian countrys now have one or more rigsspillemänd. Thats a fiddler payed by the state, who´s work is to play and investigate folk music.




estebanana -> RE: Examples of good folk music (Oct. 3 2012 18:16:18)

quote:

Well, you are definately not having any kind of respect towards those of us playing and liking what we consider to be folk music. I´m proud of playing folk music and I find that cynical intellectuals like you know very little about what it is .


That's really funny, and basically untrue.

I'm kind of getting tired of the near ad hom attacks on my tastes and choices of words and length of my posts from both you and Andy. I'm not going to fire back, just tired of it.

In 1995 I took a long trip across America on the Greyhound bus line. AKA as "The Hellhound". The reason I choose to ride the bus across my country is because there are these intellectual snobs on the coasts that call the interior states of our country "the fly over states" meaning they consider nothing worthy in those states because they are full of rednecks and hayseeds. Those are the intellctuals you must be talking about.

I choose to take the bus through the 'fly over states' because I wanted to know what was going on in my country. My ultimate destination was the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. and my purpose was to research American aviation history and the history of wooden ship making and the folk dulcimer collection at the Smithsonian.

The aircraft I was interested in was the Northrup flying wing, a prop driven precursor to the stealth aircraft later developed by Northrup in the 1970's. That is another story. The ship building history I wanted to learn about was how wooden half-hull models of sailing ships were created so that those who build the sailing vessels could loft the geometry to plank the hulls. The reason I was interested in the final subject, the dulcimer, is that it was a music that was by and large disappearing in its old forms and the modern versions of dulcimers being played have been distilled into two basic forms; hour glass shaped and boat shaped.

So my intention in my research at the Smithsonian and the LOC was to find out what other traditional body shapes the dulcimer had by region and family. What I discovered through the catalog of dulcimers in the Smithsonian collection was that there were dozens and dozens of body shapes, stringing variations, regional variations including double "courting dulcimers" meant to be played by couples.

So I deeply resent any off base judgement of my musical opinions or instrument making knowledge based on how deep I've delved into my subjects for my own self interest and learning. If I wanted to waste my life in academia I could go to Stanford University about 50 miles south of here and get doctorate degree in musicology, but what would I do then? I'd rather cross the country on a bus and get off at every bus stop and look at the drunks, whores and street people on every corner. Wander into a town museum and look at the local history and research my countries fly overstates.




Anders Eliasson -> RE: Examples of good folk music (Oct. 4 2012 9:02:20)

Dont get angry, and I´m pretty sure that I´ve never questioned your instrument making skills. And I dont think I´ve ever had any reason to do so.

What I was arguing, is that if you start saying that there´s nothing called folk music, then its the same as saying that there are no other kind of music. Its all just mixed together. Its a totally postcategorizing period of music. postfolk, postflamenco, postjazz, postclassical, postwhatever.

Is that what you´re trying to say? To me it doesnt make sense.

And if you write something about dulcimers in the luthiery section. I will be very happy to read it. Your strength is that you have a lot of knowledge about a lot of different instruments.




Anders Eliasson -> RE: Examples of good folk music (Oct. 5 2012 8:18:00)

So in order to get back on topic and a praise to Stephen, here´s a sweet dulcimer piece. I like the sound of the instrument.





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