Re: More to folk than "(wo)man-with-guitar" ???

Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2003 20:56:35 +0000 (UTC)
Newsgroups: uk.music.folk
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AndyF wrote:
I've recently discovered the wonderful polyphonic choral
> tradition of Georgia (in the former USSR).
The comparison would be with something like Welsh choral singing - the
traditions of many eastern European countries represented national (or
suppressed regional) identities over a long period, and they've reached
the status of being cultivated and formalised - even if there's still
huge scope for expressing individual group interretation.
I'm not entirely sure if I class Welsh choral as 'folk' though it is
certainly 'traditional'. Nor would I class a Scottish fiddle orchestra
as 'folk'. But the same people singing in a small group, or two or three
fiddles playing together, I might.
The person-with-guitar thing has nothing to do with folk music, except
where it does - lots of Spanish music, Mexican music, US western trail
and cowboy songs etc genuinely use the guitar as a folk instrument
(something the player carried, though not a musician, as part of
everyday baggage). But you can of course perform folk songs (or songs
which started life as folk songs) with a guitar.
Maybe 'national' or 'regional' music would be a better concept than
'folk' which is a meaningless word in the end. England seems a bit shy
when it comes to admitting to, or performing, an identifiable national
music, or some kinds of regional music. Such stuff certainly exists, any
secondhand bookshop will turn up loads of local songs and lyrics in most
towns (if very little printed music).
The big question is why is England (and not so much Scotland, Ireland or
Wales) so very shy of being English? Is there a 'traditional songs of
Hertfordshire' platform the same way there one for Northumbria or
Aberdeenshire or County Clare? Or do you have to get 70 miles or so
clear of London before such things appear?
DK