Snippet of conversation just had by my wife in her hairdressers (rather caricatured by me for effect; apparently she was a perfectly decent girl...). It sometimes annoys me, the degree to which the media ignores this music - but maybe we should just be thankful that it does...
Saturday girl (about 16): ...then I want to go on to College.
My wife: Where would you like to go?
SG: Well my Mum's family is Irish so if I went to Ireland I could stay with my relatives and not pay tuition fees.
MW: Where would you go?
SG: Well I thought about Trinity College, Dublin...
MW: What would you study?
SG: I want to do Music Journalism.
MW: Oh - what do you play?
SG: Oh no I don't *do* music. All them notes do me 'ead in. I gave it up in year 9.
MW: But I thought you would be writing about music.
SG: Oh NO - it's not about music - it's about the lives of the *artistes*...
MW: Well I think Ireland would be great if you don't read notes. Think about all that traditional music...
SG: Wot's that then??
Why does real music of the people and by the people get ignored?
The corporations don't want kids to play music, they want them to buy, buy, buy it. She want's to be a tabloid writer who will help the corporations sell Lady GaGa to the masses. Modern media has taught her to be a consumer. All she know's is how to eat and feed consumption.
I'm sure she's a pefectly nice girl, she's just been brainwashed.
As we slide down the slope to become a third world nation - because thats what globalisaton means, the musical heritage of every nation on earth will become at best polluted and at worst be lost altogether.
On the bright side, nobody in the dummed down society we are heading for will know enough to care.
There's nothing like a few tunes to make you feel better. Globalisation? Recession?Depression?Fake Media Hype?
Time for a few tunes, this could be our last day!
Yes, it's come to this:- people actually pay good money to have bits of their body fiddled around with by sixteen-year-old girls.
Actually I'd better rephrase that...
Ostensibly intelligent people have allowed themselves to become so manipulated by the press and associated media that they feel it necessary to fork out huge sums of money in order to conform to someone else's idea of how we should look.
Has it really come to this - I'm afraid that nothing has changed over the past forty years. I put it down to musical starvation.
Memories of London from the Seventies
"You still playing the "wotsa name" You know the Orish fing (they then demonstrate what they mean by moving their hands in and out as in the action of opening and closing an accordion)
Question at a gig to my Guitarist/Vocalist mate..."Can you play any English music"
Me....."Of course we can...we then play and sing Sweet Thames Flow Softly by Ewan McColl. The song mentions Woolwich Pier/London Yard/Blackwall Point/Isle of Dogs/Putney Bridge/Nine Elms Reach'London Bridge/Hampton Court/Wapping.(for those who don't know they are all places around the Thames River.
Punter looks at us in horror....."Naw...I mean English music, like wotsa name singing ...Sweet Caroline.
Me, with tongue in cheek...." Sweet Caroline.....No, but I could have a go at Sweet Rosie O'Grady.
Punter..."Did Neil Diamond record that then?
Me......I believe he did it on an early Omadon Label
Punter is amazed at my knowledge and offers to buy us a drink. I quit when I'm ahead.
Yet, there are still a few young people out there who give a damn about real music. If I may use myself as an example; I am a 21 year old lad from the states. I have been living in Dublin, Ireland for 3 1/2 years now persuing a degree in trad music at DIT. Now, some people will look at that and think 'why would someone study the music it is not about academia?' Well, being the type of person I am I couldn't devote four years of my life doing anything but what I love. So that is what I decided to do; I changed my whole life and left behind everybody and everything I knew to devote my life to the music.
So, yes most people in the world don't have a clue about this music but there are still people willing to devote themselves to it. Willing to put in hours of time playing, listening, and sessioning because they have a passion for it and for really no other reason.
Last time I made such an enquiry was about some super-cool jazz they were playing in a branch of Habitat. After going to enquire, the assistant told me it was just part of a generic 'shop background music' CD sent out by a company that specialised in such things. Nothing whatsoever to identify it...
I'm obviously not getting something here. What's wrong with Saturday Girl's take on things? She's not into trad - so what? The vast majority of people are not into trad, including the vast majority of people in Ireland, most of whom hate the stuff.
I just can't see anyting wrong with her attitude. She just wants to pursue a career in somehing she's interested in. Which is not trad.
Oh, and what exactly is "music of the people"? I would have said that, nowadays, it *is* Lady GaGa etc
"What's wrong with Saturday Girl's take on things?" Well, it's just a bit naive.
1. She says she wants to be a professional journalist who writes about music and musicians.
2. She wants to live in Ireland and attend university there.
3. It appears that she knows absolutely nothing about the music of the country in which she plans to study music.
So, I think this aspiring journalist has a lot to learn about the world of music, before she starts explaining it to other people.
I remember a similar moment. A young lady who typically dressed mostly in spandex and fake leopardskin said she was hoping for a career in international diplomacy.
This is not to say that either/both couldn't achieve their goals--it's just sometimes kids say the darndest things.
Jeez you guys. Everybody knows you can't make any money being a musician. Give the girl a little credit. She just wants a future and a fun college experience on her way to it.
When something is done with the intenion of it being only to make money, it is an endeavor devoid of spirit and soul that will bring hardship and misery no matter how much money is attained.
The endeavor that is embarked upon with loveingkindness and compassion as its intention will bring far more wealth in many more ways than money alone.
Sad as it is and as much as we need it to survive for now, money always corrupts everything.
Boatpiper - what makes you think she doesn't approach journalism in a spirit of lovingkindness and compassion? She sounds like she really wants to write about the musicians she cares about, and she wants to go to Trinity to do it - fair enough. She doesn't care about trad music, but that's pretty much normal, isn't it?
Now, I should point out that I write documentation of computer systems for money, and only for money, and I don't see a lot of hardship or misery coming out of it. In fact, since I started working as a technical writer, I've been spending my time with interesting people who I actually like, addressing interesting challenges. If this is corrupted and soul-less, I'll take a second helping, please.
Sharing time with interesting people who you like is a loving and compassionate endeavor Jon.
You will find in the long run that a pursuit of money for the sake of money is truely soulless.
If you had been doing it with only the money in mind, you would not have connected with your new found friends that your endeavor led you too.
To answer your question about the girl, she says, it's not about the music, its about studying the lives of the artists. How can she be honestly interested in the artists without being interested in their art? Their art is what makes an artist who they are.
A music journalist who says its not about the music, it's about the life of the artist is only interested in one thing, that's gossip.
If you say so. I seem to recall sending in a resume with the thought of "great, this will be a way to make some money so I can pay my rent and kep my instruments dry". Lucky me, it turned out not to suck, but the point of the endeavor was (and remains) the paycheck. If the paycheck ceased, compassion wouldn't have a hope of getting me out of bed to go down there and write. And if the people sucked, I would probably carry on writing for them as long as the pay was better than the other offers.
I'm just saying, sometimes you enter into a thing with money as the object, and things other than hardship and misery come of it. Sometimes not, it's true, but your dogma is stated a little more strongly than I'm comfortable with.
And since when was being concerned with a person over their product not exemplary of compassion?
ObTrad: I wonder if the Bothy Band was assembled with the intention of making a profitable venture?
Naw I'm just playing, whatever's clever. Some chickey wants to go to college to write gossip columns about musicians? Whatever. I'm too old for this whole bile and rage thing. I'm going to go hide with the old men in the back of the pub and grumble.
When a person has nothing but money as a motivation for doing something, they become a workaholic. They neglect important things like family and friends. They don't have time to converse with interesting people who they like unless it means profit. They become obsessed with money. That doesn't sound like you Jon.
I think money is not your only motivation for doing what you do. You seem deeper than that.
If the Bothy Band was only assembled for making only money, then I'd say it missed the mark. They made more good music than they did good money.
When I spoke with Paddy Keenan, He was playing music because he loves to. He sure aint making 100's of millions doing it that's for sure.
Different people have different priorities. I'm not prepared to say mine are better than anybody else's. Some people's priorities are in making money. Takes all sorts.
I wasn't actually criticising Saturday Girl herself very much - she's only taking the world as she finds it - like all young people,we did the same once upon a time. What seems sadder to me is what others have done to the world she is finding.
The real problem is fact that celebrity lives are more important than the 'music' they supposedly make and the fact that even a reputable university is apparently prepared to offer such cynical, Mickey-Mouse courses that will do more to perpetuate her ignorance than the opposite. (I admit I haven't checked that TC actually does offer it - but you can bet *somewhere* does...)
It's the product of the money and the media speaking louder than the music, and in many genres, we've got to the point where the music almost doesn't count at all - just a vehicle for the celeb. Let's hope it never makes big inroads into trad.
Saturday Girl's only crime is to continue in her ignorance - but the icing on the cake is that she hopes to do so in Ireland of all places - exactly where she could have escaped most easily from her personal musical dilemma, has she been prepared to 'know differerently' Her unwillingness to do so is the real triumph of dumbing down.
>>I'm not prepared to say mine are better than anybody else's. Some people's priorities are in making money. Takes all sorts.
I could agree with that, EB, if that was as far as it went. Problem is, those whose pritority is making money seem to think they have sole right to the way things are run, and that it is fair game to sweep anything and everything before them in their pursuit of a fast buck.
Saturday Girl isn't to blame - the music 'industry' and the media at large, are. Now apparently with the collusion of Academia. The barbarians now really are at the gates
The people who "seem to think they have the sole right to the way things are run", whatever that means, think that way because the reason they are making such large amounts of money is because they *are* appealing to the greatest number of people. If you believe in democracy, this is it in action.
Trad is the preserve of hopeless romantics. Resources 'deserve' to be apportioned to it only in proportion to how important it is to whatever particular proportion of the population as a whole that it appeals to. This figure is tiny. I'm happy to be amongst the hopeless romantics in this. But that's what we are.
And don't let's kid ourseles into thinking that trad is 'the music of Ireland'. That would be U2. And, to a lesser extent, Jedward and their like. And many, many other 'pop stars' way before you ever get as far as trad. The first sign of that is going to be The Corrs, Enya and Daniel O'Donnell. Not necessarily in that order.
... and just to add: Saturday Girl seems to me like more of a realist and to have greater knowledge of the world we live in than several of the posters here.
'Sole right to the way things are run' means the perceived 'right' to enter any arena and commercialise it for their own ends. It's the Middle Men who make the killing, not the artists and not the consumers, who are increasingly being ripped off - just look at ticket prices for all sorts of things.
That may be due to meeting a democratic demand, but the (close to) monopoly situations that often emerge sure as hell ain't democratic. It's the M&S white knickers argument. And what's more, in order to make their killing, the middle men often trivialise to the point of extinction whatever it is that they are leaching on, in order to maximise their lowest-common-denominator market. What would happen to trad if the Charts marketing brigade got their hands on it?
I'm no dreamer. Neither am I nostalgic - trad music is just as relevant today as ever it was, not because of some willowy dream of recreating the past. In fact it's *more* relevant in a situation where ever more of life is being bastardised in the pursuit of money. In a truly democratic situation, diversity would prosper, not uniformity - it's the *lack* of democracy in mass-market commercialism that I find objectionable.
The fact that more people aren't into genuine forms of music (and I don't only mean trad here) as opposed to mass-produced 'entertainment' is partly down to any 'special interest' being by definition a minority activity, but more down to the fact that thanks to the celeb-pushers, they don't get a look in. That's not democratic - it's thought control. Commecialism in its place if you must - but please keep it out of things where it will only do harm.
I think what I found most objectionable in the original story was the decription of the course as MUSIC Journalism - when it clearly has nothing to do with music. If they were describing it as celebrity journalism then I wouldn't have a problem,at least it would be honest - it's both deception and pollution to claim that celebrity prattle (which may well be commercial) and music (which is primarily artistic/creative) are one and the same thing, let alone subordinating the music to the prattle.
I strongly dislike the way in which several of my hobbies are being invaded by off-the-shelf sellers, which is only having the effect of killing off the grass-roots skill involved in people pursuing them on a DIY basis.
'Obliquity' and 'Affluenza' are two books well worth reading on the negative effects of money-for-money's-sake motivation.
Well, Ian, we share a common passion for this music. Probably even for what we perceive as the 'values' it represents, but we differ markedly in our opinions on the world.
I think trad music is almost completely irrelevant in today's world. It's a minority interest at best, and that is everywhere, even in Ireland. And I don't think pop music is any less 'real' than any other kind of music, however it's marketed. But you can be sure that, if it had any bearing on people's lives and interests, trad music would also be marketed and would make loads of money for its participants. It doesn't because hardly anybody is interested in it.
I wouldn't ever say that pop music was any less in any sense than trad. I can't stand the nasty, plastic, pulpy stuff personally. But then, I'm in a tiny minority. So to me it smacks of arrogance to claim, as I think you imply, Ian, that the only reason why so many people like pop (or whatever else anyone wants to call it) is because they're force-fed it, and that that makes it somehow lesser, and even less important, as music. I actually don't care how they're fed it - they like it, they want it, and that's fine.
I also don't get this bit about commercialism 'doing harm'. According to who? What harm? Or is it just harm to the things that you like, and hang the rest?
That self-same 16-year-old has probably never seen the night sky, tasted real food, created something from raw materials, sat at an open fire, slept in a wood, killed and cooked an animal, caught a fish, heard silence or gone exploring. Commercialism has put paid to all those things and a lot more besides. I feel sorry for her really, but if she's happy then maybe I shouldn't. I doubt very much, though if she is happy.
I think we are more likely to be happy if we have some sensation of autonomy in our lives. I don't believe in the Orson Welles view of humanity. Commericalism removes control of one's life, and even one's thought processes - if you don't believe that, you should talk to some of even my older my students... Apart from anything else, it is a great promoter of inequality in this world.
As Gam says, it is replacing 'real' life with a synthetic, two-dimensional copy, and I find it very hard to accept that that doesn't matter.
I also believe that things like music have inherent value, inasmuch as they bring a lot of joy, and they help to nurture communities - but that is reduced if they are only experienced passively. Commercialism has every interest in making people as passive and uninformed as possible. If people have genuine choice and still choose pop music, then I can't complain - but when your average HMV devotes 95% and growing to one genre of music, then where is the real choice? It's certainly not an informed one.
That's one of the reasons minority things like trad matter far more than they seem - they are a small part of perpetuating human diversity and self-determination. We may be a minority - but then real life is made up of overlapping minorities - not great homogenous, unquestioning masses.
I read somewhere that the mark of a civilised society is in the way it treats its minorities.
Hopefully the misguided soul in the hairdressers will recount her thoughts on music at her interview.(If she gets that far).
It really is sad that half of teenagers seriously think they can become "famous" by just getting on tv or by miming on video.
(and the other half think they are going to be a "famous" footballer).
Of course, neither of the above takes any practise or skill.
Commercialism and mass marketing are totally destructive to life as we know it. With it comes job outsourcing, massive debt, inferior products that don't last at cheap prices. Then you have the sweatshop labor tactics. Tug of war between sellers using consumers as the fraying rope. All this to make the rich richer and the duped poor. The list of destructive things commercialism and mass marketing brings is endless.
It's the root reason we have financial turmoil across the globe. From it sprouts ruthless financial markets where stockbrokers, bankers and insurance companies suck the lifeblood out of everything.
It's all sell sell sell buy buy buy until the unwary have been duped into debt. Then comes poverty while the head money grubbers run with sacks of gold as everyone else starves to death. Anybody who says commercialism and mass marketing are a good thing are the ones making a profit and they'll do anything they can to keep the duped on their hook.
Where we have to be careful is that some of this modern "plastic" music sticks. When it doe this, it pollutes the trad scene. I've seen this happen many times over.
There are "speciality" acts on the English folk circuit that play their own particular "niche" thing, Music Hall stuff, 1940's film themes, Their own material, Blues, Jaz, "world music". When you do find stuff from the tradition being performed, it invariably has a contemporary slant to it, complete with real electric instuments and drum kits. How long before we get Beatles tribute bands on the folk circuit I wonder?
Where is the problem with this? I hear you ask - simple, there is no longer enough of the good stuff about to make it worth buying a ticket. English trad music has been marginalised even within its own arena's.
This can, and probably will, happen to "our" music, I believe the writing is already on the wall.
Oooooh! A discussion on the session that I actually feel strongly about
I think the reason trad music is not popular is solely down to the marketing and choices of the music industry. And for good reason: it's complicated (both in the abstract and in the concrete fact that it lacks percussion and bass - and lyrics), it's scratchy, it's about mostly ego-less musicians, it's about everyone having a opportunity to participate in an artistic endeavour - these are all things that would make *making money* off of it extremely hard. However, this is one of the cases where money doesn't measure the value of something. We're not seeing democracy in action, we're seeing marketing to the people in action.
Now... the illusion created by lady Gaga et al. is a very skilled one. The music is intricate and the image is obviously what people want (or think they want). I can understand that it has value to some people, but I think this value is only such because it is marketed and sold as being valuable.
I would agree with those who think that trad music is very relevant - In globalised/melting pot culture, people need to know where they come from or where they associate themselves with. This is evidenced by many americans being able to tell you (and identifying with) their 2,3 or 4 generation heritage. Many 1st, 2nd and 3rd gen immigrants to europe listen to music of their culture - north african, indian, middle eastern.
I think trad music holds the profound message that it's a good thing to have different cultures and that people can still get along by learning about each other, rather than assuming we are all the same.
It also is one of the rare contexts where we are all "Artists" and which refuses to accept that if you are not a "musician", you shouldn't make music.
This thread had me thinking about interviews I have read with different players, from Planxty or the Bothy Band, when they were much younger. This one is Paddy Keenan;
"During this time, Keenan didn't play his pipes, even trying at one point to sell them at a pawn shop, but had no takers' uilleann pipes were simply Not Cool in late 60's London. Even now Keenan sounds incredulous when he recalls, "I went as low as two bob. I couldn't believe my ears when he turned me down." (They were Crowley pipes with a custom Rowsome chanter, and the Crowley part of the set had been owned by the Honorable Garret Browne of the Guinness family.) Keenan walked out of the pawn shop and made to throw his pipes into a trash bin. A friend stopped him and told him he'd keep the pipes for him.
Keenan even turned down an opportunity to meet with the Beatles in their search for exotic new instrumental sounds. Hippying around London, playing the pipes just seemed very "square." "
My plan is to be the change I want to see. I won't shop at Wally World ever again PERIOD. Yes I'm sad to say that I've shopped there in the past.
I've not watched tv in 25 years. I hadn't even heard of lady GaGa until about 6 months ago. Sheltered yes, I like it that way.
Playing Trad is a great skill that brings fullness of life without giving blood to some executive in a suit. Same as baking things, brewing beer, growing things, building things gathering wild food and a host of other skills that have been forgotten since consumerism took over.
Always seek new skills. Freedom is knowing how to produce everything your own skills will allow. Look for others who do the same on a local level and together provide for each other within our means. We can't control the executives in suits but we can control our own behavior and stop purchasing the rubbish they fling.
Try to buy as many locally produced items as we can. Small sustainable local trade is the way to escape from the global financial elephant that will stomp on us.
Of course it means going without some of the things I may think I need, but, as I really think about these things, I usually find that I don't need them anyhow.
My sons highschool has a course where they build computers from scratch right in the classroom and their most of their system was built by students.
It is possible to escape the elephant.
Living at or below our means, WoW, now there's a concept. Some would call that UnAmerican, I call it wise living. I urge you to do the same.
Please pardon my interruption. When I read the OP yesterday I wanted to find what is the curriculum for Music Journalism at Trinity College, Dublin.
Unfortunately I am unable to find specific information online. Is anyone familiar with the courses at Trinity College? Thanks in advance. http://www.tcd.ie/courses/undergraduate/subjectarea/
>>English trad music has been marginalised even within its own arena's.
This can, and probably will, happen to "our" music, I believe the writing is already on the wall.
Ormepipes, I am completely with you on that. The worst culprit is the Cambridge Festival which departs further from its supposed remit each year - presumably to pull in ever more punters and keep the sponsors happy.
Likewise some of the top musicians - I am old enough to remember Capercaillie when they first started up - and look what happened. Much though I love her music, I fear that Julie Fowlis is headed down the same track, if her latest album is anything to go by. And again, my local club can no longer afford to hire some of the bands it did a few years ago - too expensive now that they have commercial deals and agents to support. I can sympathise with pro musicians wanting a decent living, but that seems to involve selling yourself to the marketing departments of major corporations, whose motivation is not often artistic...
Tirno, you hit the nail om the head about why this music is ignored - in its fundamentals, it stands diametrically opposite to anything that is easily commercialised - and long may it stay that way. It is too demanding on the listener, and too participatitive by its nature - i.e. too democratic. All the things that marketeers *don't* want. It's also not very easy to manufacture the cult of celebrity when the performers are your next-door neighbours and not very easy to disguise inadequate musicianship when the audience is sitting in the next chair.
Trad music is, IMHO, a small part of the counter-movement that stands for 'honest' sustainable, human-scale living. I love the stuff first simpy for the music itself, but also because of the value system that seems to go with it. It is part of giving people control of their own lives - EB you are right that many reject such offers, but then, real food can be indigestible if you are only ever used to eating processed pulp.
Thanks, MacCruiskeen. I did see the one for Independent Colleges. DIT seems to have something in a graduate programmes. The only thing I could find for Trinity College were recommendations for "combined arts" but no actual degree in journalism, of any sort.
Perhaps Saturday girl hasn't firmed up her education plans?
How many of you lot had well-thought-out, realistic plans for what you were going to do with your life at 16? I didn't have a bloody clue! Even if she does go on to university, she won't be putting in the application forms for another year or so at least. I applaud the Saturday girl for having the gumption to go out and get a job and be doing something useful with herself; she's unlikely to end up on Saturday morning telly interviewing the stars, but she's shown good signs of taking initiative and making something positive out of her life.
Well I'd have given quite a lot to be Paddy Keenan or Kevin Burke when I was 16 - but that didn't get me much further than strange looks from my mates and a very average degree...
< I'm sure she's a perfectly nice girl, she's just been brainwashed. >
Sadly I think that is kinda True ! - These Day's...
But if she only writing about the musician's here, and not there music as such, She would be better a Large Comedy -- lol.
jim,,,
MW: Well I think Ireland would be great if you don't read notes. Think about all that traditional music...
SG: Wot's that then??
I suppose we are the experts, and yet we frequently disagree about what it is. Maybe we should'nt be too surprised at a 16 year old not knowing either.
We know what it is, we just argue about the definition. She knows what it is, too, I think, but she doesn't care much about the definition (or about the music)
"Since traditional musicians call the music traditional music, we might as well call it that too."
Wonder where the author learnt his/her writing style? Being a fan of deadpan, myself.
LOL - you have all clearly forgotten what it was like to be 16. Some of you have apparently gone from birth straight into middle-aged musical wisdom, bypassing all the stupid sh!te we said and did and listened to at 16. Too funny. Kids these days? We should be saying kids every day going back to the dawn of man.
Ian, it is far from over. It hasn't come to that yet because, she is only 16, her ideas of what to do with her life, are simply notions, that are likely shaped on how she thinks she appears to her friends, and likely to change just like the weather. She sounds like she might not be headed for University at all, with ambitions such as that, she'll prbably just be doing hair, right there in her home town!
Kids in her generation will have to work very hard just to get by, with the current economic situation.
I would keep 16 year old whims in perspective on this one.
Steamie - there's also no need to play music, but some choose to do it. I don't eat a lot of animal myself, but others choose to do that, and if they're going to do that, it seems that they should see what's involved in their choice.
Too many meat eaters, it seems, think that their food is delivered from heaven on styrofoam trays, wrapped in plastic.
I'm with gam on this one, at least in part. I think it's a little more complicated than "commercialism killed the good life". Industrial production and widespread distribution of stuff like food and medicine enables population growth, which demands further efficiencies in order that all the people live in the style to which they have become accustomed (fed, clothed, relatively free of parasites and disease, routinely surviving into their 70s, 80s, and 90s - the stuff we all enjoy and take for granted, unless and until some calamity strikes). These efficiencies enable further population growth, and on we go. It's a struggle of the market versus Malthus, and the market has had a good long run. When that turns around, life becomes unpleasant for all. While the market is a cruel master, I think you'd find Malthus a much harsher one, even if the survivors of the die-off would have clearer skies and more opportunities to kill and cook their meat in their short lives.
Remember that all of the implements that make the outdoor life pleasant - tents and sleeping bags, synthetic outerwear to keep you dry and synthetic underwear to "wick away moisture" and nifty camp stoves and slick hiking packs and fancy rifles and bows with which to fell your deer and all the rest of that - are all products of a market, which sees you as a consumer.
Here's a challenge.
Find wild food and clean water without entering a store.
Make your own socks and shoes.
Make your own shirt and coat.
Make your own trousers.
Make your own tools.
Build your own shelter.
Make fire without matches or lighter.
Attempt to survive for one year in this manner.
At one time this is what people had to do in order to survive.
Now very few if any could even consider it.
Most will laugh at the thought.
SB - I wasn't really commenting on the whims of a 16 year old, so much as the system that has created her outlook. It saddens me that something as inherently humane as music should be reduced to nothing more than a 'product' for the glorification of inane 'celebs' in the pursuit of cash, and that so many people seem to have 'bought' it.
By the way, that is nothing specific to trad alone. As a student, I shared a band with a guy who was an excellent guitarist - had been a country-rock pro, playing support to people like Emmylou Harris - but he just could not get his head round my view that music is (or at least can/should be) a form of culture or art and not just a cash-cow. We eventually fell out over it, especially after he realised there was no money in playing trad.
It saddens me further that Academia, which ought to be athe last bastion of impartial enquiry, is increasingly being directed to collude with vested commercial interests. After culture and academia have bee bought, what is left to be the impartial repository of our culture?
Jon, your point seems good to me - it's too easy to take pot-shots at the benefits that organised industry has brought. FWIW, my home is a shrine to modernism, which was an ethic dedicated to bringing the products of the machine age to the masses, like no other. As I said, I'm no romantic - but as I read somewhere recently, after 200 plus years of industrial society, we are arguably only just being to learn how to tame its wilder side-effects - and the lessons have all been learned the hard way.
I find it interesting that despite the above, interest in the hand-made, the original and the 'authentic' (be it food, life-experiences or music) has never died; may even never have been higher. I hope that isn't just escapism - we just need to learn which things can be usefully industrialised - and which can't. Trad sits perfectly well with modernism in my book, in the same way that baroque and early music does...
I hope someone found the Paddy Keenan interview which I quoted above. Here is a review of a relaunch album; http://www.irishmusicreview.com/paddyk2.htm
You know ... musical journalism?
Now Zina fits the profile of what a music journalist should be. She is very knowledgable about music and a good player as well.
Maybe Saturday girl should do an apprenticeship with Zina.
A result of the over-professionalisation of such positions? I wonder who would prove to be the best opera critic: someone who had taken the necessary journalistic degree course or someone who had not, but had seen a hell of a lot of operas?
Having done music criticism without any formal training in journalism, I can tell you that understanding music will get you through a lot, but there were many situations where I got the sense that I was reinventing a wheel, journalistically speaking, and that some study of journalism would have been useful to me if I were pursuing that line more seriously.
In my view, a review should do several things, one of which is to evaluate the performance in terms that people familiar with the genre would use, and on the bases that the audience would use. In order to do this, you have to have a reasonably deep understanding of the genre. Lacking that, you might have a reviewer complaining about the frequent resort to virtuoso vocal performances to cover up the opera's thin plot.
Has it really come to this?
Has it really come to this?
Snippet of conversation just had by my wife in her hairdressers (rather caricatured by me for effect; apparently she was a perfectly decent girl...). It sometimes annoys me, the degree to which the media ignores this music - but maybe we should just be thankful that it does...
Saturday girl (about 16): ...then I want to go on to College.
My wife: Where would you like to go?
SG: Well my Mum's family is Irish so if I went to Ireland I could stay with my relatives and not pay tuition fees.
MW: Where would you go?
SG: Well I thought about Trinity College, Dublin...
MW: What would you study?
SG: I want to do Music Journalism.
MW: Oh - what do you play?
SG: Oh no I don't *do* music. All them notes do me 'ead in. I gave it up in year 9.
MW: But I thought you would be writing about music.
SG: Oh NO - it's not about music - it's about the lives of the *artistes*...
MW: Well I think Ireland would be great if you don't read notes. Think about all that traditional music...
SG: Wot's that then??
# Posted on December 4th 2010 by ian stock
Re: Has it really come to this?
Wow! She wouldn't want to count too much on those free fees. The next budget might see the end of them...
# Posted on December 4th 2010 by RonanOD
Re: Has it really come to this?
dnpmpl
# Posted on December 4th 2010 by Oeidipus
Re: Has it really come to this?
wsa Essex girl
# Posted on December 4th 2010 by Oeidipus
Re: Has it really come to this?
Editorial: Expectation Changes Everything
Toner Quinn
http://journalofmusic.com/article/1181
# Posted on December 4th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Has it really come to this?
Why does real music of the people and by the people get ignored?
The corporations don't want kids to play music, they want them to buy, buy, buy it. She want's to be a tabloid writer who will help the corporations sell Lady GaGa to the masses. Modern media has taught her to be a consumer. All she know's is how to eat and feed consumption.
I'm sure she's a pefectly nice girl, she's just been brainwashed.
# Posted on December 4th 2010 by Gone to work
Re: Has it really come to this?
Has it really come to this?
Its been that way for 30 years to my knowledge.
As we slide down the slope to become a third world nation - because thats what globalisaton means, the musical heritage of every nation on earth will become at best polluted and at worst be lost altogether.
On the bright side, nobody in the dummed down society we are heading for will know enough to care.
At least I won't be around to see it.
# Posted on December 4th 2010 by ormepipes
Re: Has it really come to this?
There's nothing like a few tunes to make you feel better. Globalisation? Recession?Depression?Fake Media Hype?
Time for a few tunes, this could be our last day!
# Posted on December 4th 2010 by Gone to work
Re: Has it really come to this?
Yes, it's come to this:- people actually pay good money to have bits of their body fiddled around with by sixteen-year-old girls.
Actually I'd better rephrase that...
Ostensibly intelligent people have allowed themselves to become so manipulated by the press and associated media that they feel it necessary to fork out huge sums of money in order to conform to someone else's idea of how we should look.
# Posted on December 4th 2010 by gam
Re: Has it really come to this?
Has it really come to this - I'm afraid that nothing has changed over the past forty years. I put it down to musical starvation.
Memories of London from the Seventies
"You still playing the "wotsa name" You know the Orish fing (they then demonstrate what they mean by moving their hands in and out as in the action of opening and closing an accordion)
Question at a gig to my Guitarist/Vocalist mate..."Can you play any English music"
Me....."Of course we can...we then play and sing Sweet Thames Flow Softly by Ewan McColl. The song mentions Woolwich Pier/London Yard/Blackwall Point/Isle of Dogs/Putney Bridge/Nine Elms Reach'London Bridge/Hampton Court/Wapping.(for those who don't know they are all places around the Thames River.
Punter looks at us in horror....."Naw...I mean English music, like wotsa name singing ...Sweet Caroline.
Me, with tongue in cheek...." Sweet Caroline.....No, but I could have a go at Sweet Rosie O'Grady.
Punter..."Did Neil Diamond record that then?
Me......I believe he did it on an early Omadon Label
Punter is amazed at my knowledge and offers to buy us a drink. I quit when I'm ahead.
# Posted on December 4th 2010 by Free Reed
Re: Has it really come to this?
Terrible isn't it?
Yet, there are still a few young people out there who give a damn about real music. If I may use myself as an example; I am a 21 year old lad from the states. I have been living in Dublin, Ireland for 3 1/2 years now persuing a degree in trad music at DIT. Now, some people will look at that and think 'why would someone study the music it is not about academia?' Well, being the type of person I am I couldn't devote four years of my life doing anything but what I love. So that is what I decided to do; I changed my whole life and left behind everybody and everything I knew to devote my life to the music.
So, yes most people in the world don't have a clue about this music but there are still people willing to devote themselves to it. Willing to put in hours of time playing, listening, and sessioning because they have a passion for it and for really no other reason.
# Posted on December 4th 2010 by Why Bother?
Re: Has it really come to this?
Me upon entering newly-opened Irish-theme pub (Scruffy Murphy's) about fifteen years ago and hearing the pipes: 'Is that Davy Spillane?'
Barmaid with Irish accent (This was in Reading, South England) 'I wouldn't know, I'm not into that diddley stuff.'
Me: 'I don't suppose there's any way of finding out?'
Barmaid, 'Nah... all the music's in a computer in the cellar. It's just on random like.'
I've never been back.
# Posted on December 4th 2010 by gam
Re: Has it really come to this?
As long as they stay off my lawn. I mean, whaddya gonna do? Kids today.
# Posted on December 4th 2010 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Has it really come to this?
>>all the music's in a computer in the cellar.
Last time I made such an enquiry was about some super-cool jazz they were playing in a branch of Habitat. After going to enquire, the assistant told me it was just part of a generic 'shop background music' CD sent out by a company that specialised in such things. Nothing whatsoever to identify it...
# Posted on December 4th 2010 by ian stock
Re: Has it really come to this?
Shazam!
No really, Saturday girl would have found the tune with a bit of software.
http://www.shazam.com/music/web/pages/about.html
# Posted on December 4th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Has it really come to this?
Bye Bye Birdie - What's the Matter With Kids Today
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wCXr_6wgns
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Has it really come to this?
I'm obviously not getting something here. What's wrong with Saturday Girl's take on things? She's not into trad - so what? The vast majority of people are not into trad, including the vast majority of people in Ireland, most of whom hate the stuff.
I just can't see anyting wrong with her attitude. She just wants to pursue a career in somehing she's interested in. Which is not trad.
Oh, and what exactly is "music of the people"? I would have said that, nowadays, it *is* Lady GaGa etc
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by ethical blend
Re: Has it really come to this?
"What's wrong with Saturday Girl's take on things?" Well, it's just a bit naive.
1. She says she wants to be a professional journalist who writes about music and musicians.
2. She wants to live in Ireland and attend university there.
3. It appears that she knows absolutely nothing about the music of the country in which she plans to study music.
So, I think this aspiring journalist has a lot to learn about the world of music, before she starts explaining it to other people.
I remember a similar moment. A young lady who typically dressed mostly in spandex and fake leopardskin said she was hoping for a career in international diplomacy.
This is not to say that either/both couldn't achieve their goals--it's just sometimes kids say the darndest things.
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by John Galt
Re: Has it really come to this?
Jeez you guys. Everybody knows you can't make any money being a musician. Give the girl a little credit. She just wants a future and a fun college experience on her way to it.
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by sbhikes
Re: Has it really come to this?
When something is done with the intenion of it being only to make money, it is an endeavor devoid of spirit and soul that will bring hardship and misery no matter how much money is attained.
The endeavor that is embarked upon with loveingkindness and compassion as its intention will bring far more wealth in many more ways than money alone.
Sad as it is and as much as we need it to survive for now, money always corrupts everything.
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by Gone to work
Re: Has it really come to this?
Boatpiper - what makes you think she doesn't approach journalism in a spirit of lovingkindness and compassion? She sounds like she really wants to write about the musicians she cares about, and she wants to go to Trinity to do it - fair enough. She doesn't care about trad music, but that's pretty much normal, isn't it?
Now, I should point out that I write documentation of computer systems for money, and only for money, and I don't see a lot of hardship or misery coming out of it. In fact, since I started working as a technical writer, I've been spending my time with interesting people who I actually like, addressing interesting challenges. If this is corrupted and soul-less, I'll take a second helping, please.
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Has it really come to this?
Sharing time with interesting people who you like is a loving and compassionate endeavor Jon.
You will find in the long run that a pursuit of money for the sake of money is truely soulless.
If you had been doing it with only the money in mind, you would not have connected with your new found friends that your endeavor led you too.
To answer your question about the girl, she says, it's not about the music, its about studying the lives of the artists. How can she be honestly interested in the artists without being interested in their art? Their art is what makes an artist who they are.
A music journalist who says its not about the music, it's about the life of the artist is only interested in one thing, that's gossip.
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by Gone to work
Re: Has it really come to this?
If you say so. I seem to recall sending in a resume with the thought of "great, this will be a way to make some money so I can pay my rent and kep my instruments dry". Lucky me, it turned out not to suck, but the point of the endeavor was (and remains) the paycheck. If the paycheck ceased, compassion wouldn't have a hope of getting me out of bed to go down there and write. And if the people sucked, I would probably carry on writing for them as long as the pay was better than the other offers.
I'm just saying, sometimes you enter into a thing with money as the object, and things other than hardship and misery come of it. Sometimes not, it's true, but your dogma is stated a little more strongly than I'm comfortable with.
And since when was being concerned with a person over their product not exemplary of compassion?
ObTrad: I wonder if the Bothy Band was assembled with the intention of making a profitable venture?
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Has it really come to this?
Lovingkindness and compassion? Have I inadvertently stumbled onto thebodhisattva.org by mistake? Ahimsa and ITM? What thread am I on?
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Has it really come to this?
Naw I'm just playing, whatever's clever. Some chickey wants to go to college to write gossip columns about musicians? Whatever. I'm too old for this whole bile and rage thing. I'm going to go hide with the old men in the back of the pub and grumble.
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Has it really come to this?
When a person has nothing but money as a motivation for doing something, they become a workaholic. They neglect important things like family and friends. They don't have time to converse with interesting people who they like unless it means profit. They become obsessed with money. That doesn't sound like you Jon.
I think money is not your only motivation for doing what you do. You seem deeper than that.
If the Bothy Band was only assembled for making only money, then I'd say it missed the mark. They made more good music than they did good money.
When I spoke with Paddy Keenan, He was playing music because he loves to. He sure aint making 100's of millions doing it that's for sure.
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by Gone to work
Re: Has it really come to this?
Different people have different priorities. I'm not prepared to say mine are better than anybody else's. Some people's priorities are in making money. Takes all sorts.
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by ethical blend
Re: Has it really come to this?
I wasn't actually criticising Saturday Girl herself very much - she's only taking the world as she finds it - like all young people,we did the same once upon a time. What seems sadder to me is what others have done to the world she is finding.
The real problem is fact that celebrity lives are more important than the 'music' they supposedly make and the fact that even a reputable university is apparently prepared to offer such cynical, Mickey-Mouse courses that will do more to perpetuate her ignorance than the opposite. (I admit I haven't checked that TC actually does offer it - but you can bet *somewhere* does...)
It's the product of the money and the media speaking louder than the music, and in many genres, we've got to the point where the music almost doesn't count at all - just a vehicle for the celeb. Let's hope it never makes big inroads into trad.
Saturday Girl's only crime is to continue in her ignorance - but the icing on the cake is that she hopes to do so in Ireland of all places - exactly where she could have escaped most easily from her personal musical dilemma, has she been prepared to 'know differerently' Her unwillingness to do so is the real triumph of dumbing down.
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by ian stock
Re: Has it really come to this?
>>I'm not prepared to say mine are better than anybody else's. Some people's priorities are in making money. Takes all sorts.
I could agree with that, EB, if that was as far as it went. Problem is, those whose pritority is making money seem to think they have sole right to the way things are run, and that it is fair game to sweep anything and everything before them in their pursuit of a fast buck.
Saturday Girl isn't to blame - the music 'industry' and the media at large, are. Now apparently with the collusion of Academia. The barbarians now really are at the gates
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by ian stock
Re: Has it really come to this?
The people who "seem to think they have the sole right to the way things are run", whatever that means, think that way because the reason they are making such large amounts of money is because they *are* appealing to the greatest number of people. If you believe in democracy, this is it in action.
Trad is the preserve of hopeless romantics. Resources 'deserve' to be apportioned to it only in proportion to how important it is to whatever particular proportion of the population as a whole that it appeals to. This figure is tiny. I'm happy to be amongst the hopeless romantics in this. But that's what we are.
And don't let's kid ourseles into thinking that trad is 'the music of Ireland'. That would be U2. And, to a lesser extent, Jedward and their like. And many, many other 'pop stars' way before you ever get as far as trad. The first sign of that is going to be The Corrs, Enya and Daniel O'Donnell. Not necessarily in that order.
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by ethical blend
Re: Has it really come to this?
... and just to add: Saturday Girl seems to me like more of a realist and to have greater knowledge of the world we live in than several of the posters here.
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by ethical blend
Re: Has it really come to this?
'Sole right to the way things are run' means the perceived 'right' to enter any arena and commercialise it for their own ends. It's the Middle Men who make the killing, not the artists and not the consumers, who are increasingly being ripped off - just look at ticket prices for all sorts of things.
That may be due to meeting a democratic demand, but the (close to) monopoly situations that often emerge sure as hell ain't democratic. It's the M&S white knickers argument. And what's more, in order to make their killing, the middle men often trivialise to the point of extinction whatever it is that they are leaching on, in order to maximise their lowest-common-denominator market. What would happen to trad if the Charts marketing brigade got their hands on it?
I'm no dreamer. Neither am I nostalgic - trad music is just as relevant today as ever it was, not because of some willowy dream of recreating the past. In fact it's *more* relevant in a situation where ever more of life is being bastardised in the pursuit of money. In a truly democratic situation, diversity would prosper, not uniformity - it's the *lack* of democracy in mass-market commercialism that I find objectionable.
The fact that more people aren't into genuine forms of music (and I don't only mean trad here) as opposed to mass-produced 'entertainment' is partly down to any 'special interest' being by definition a minority activity, but more down to the fact that thanks to the celeb-pushers, they don't get a look in. That's not democratic - it's thought control. Commecialism in its place if you must - but please keep it out of things where it will only do harm.
I think what I found most objectionable in the original story was the decription of the course as MUSIC Journalism - when it clearly has nothing to do with music. If they were describing it as celebrity journalism then I wouldn't have a problem,at least it would be honest - it's both deception and pollution to claim that celebrity prattle (which may well be commercial) and music (which is primarily artistic/creative) are one and the same thing, let alone subordinating the music to the prattle.
I strongly dislike the way in which several of my hobbies are being invaded by off-the-shelf sellers, which is only having the effect of killing off the grass-roots skill involved in people pursuing them on a DIY basis.
'Obliquity' and 'Affluenza' are two books well worth reading on the negative effects of money-for-money's-sake motivation.
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by ian stock
Re: Has it really come to this?
Well, Ian, we share a common passion for this music. Probably even for what we perceive as the 'values' it represents, but we differ markedly in our opinions on the world.
]
I think trad music is almost completely irrelevant in today's world. It's a minority interest at best, and that is everywhere, even in Ireland. And I don't think pop music is any less 'real' than any other kind of music, however it's marketed. But you can be sure that, if it had any bearing on people's lives and interests, trad music would also be marketed and would make loads of money for its participants. It doesn't because hardly anybody is interested in it.
I wouldn't ever say that pop music was any less in any sense than trad. I can't stand the nasty, plastic, pulpy stuff personally. But then, I'm in a tiny minority. So to me it smacks of arrogance to claim, as I think you imply, Ian, that the only reason why so many people like pop (or whatever else anyone wants to call it) is because they're force-fed it, and that that makes it somehow lesser, and even less important, as music. I actually don't care how they're fed it - they like it, they want it, and that's fine.
I also don't get this bit about commercialism 'doing harm'. According to who? What harm? Or is it just harm to the things that you like, and hang the rest?
[Of course, I may think differently tomorrow.
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by ethical blend
Re: Has it really come to this?
That self-same 16-year-old has probably never seen the night sky, tasted real food, created something from raw materials, sat at an open fire, slept in a wood, killed and cooked an animal, caught a fish, heard silence or gone exploring. Commercialism has put paid to all those things and a lot more besides. I feel sorry for her really, but if she's happy then maybe I shouldn't. I doubt very much, though if she is happy.
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by gam
Re: Has it really come to this?
Well, are any of us?
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by ethical blend
Re: Has it really come to this?
I think we are more likely to be happy if we have some sensation of autonomy in our lives. I don't believe in the Orson Welles view of humanity. Commericalism removes control of one's life, and even one's thought processes - if you don't believe that, you should talk to some of even my older my students... Apart from anything else, it is a great promoter of inequality in this world.
As Gam says, it is replacing 'real' life with a synthetic, two-dimensional copy, and I find it very hard to accept that that doesn't matter.
I also believe that things like music have inherent value, inasmuch as they bring a lot of joy, and they help to nurture communities - but that is reduced if they are only experienced passively. Commercialism has every interest in making people as passive and uninformed as possible. If people have genuine choice and still choose pop music, then I can't complain - but when your average HMV devotes 95% and growing to one genre of music, then where is the real choice? It's certainly not an informed one.
That's one of the reasons minority things like trad matter far more than they seem - they are a small part of perpetuating human diversity and self-determination. We may be a minority - but then real life is made up of overlapping minorities - not great homogenous, unquestioning masses.
I read somewhere that the mark of a civilised society is in the way it treats its minorities.
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by ian stock
Re: Has it really come to this?
eb -- yes, me.
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by gam
Re: Has it really come to this?
... and probably Saturday Girl, if you asked her ...
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by ethical blend
Re: Has it really come to this?
Hopefully the misguided soul in the hairdressers will recount her thoughts on music at her interview.(If she gets that far).
It really is sad that half of teenagers seriously think they can become "famous" by just getting on tv or by miming on video.
(and the other half think they are going to be a "famous" footballer).
Of course, neither of the above takes any practise or skill.
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by geoffwright
Re: Has it really come to this?
Commercialism and mass marketing are totally destructive to life as we know it. With it comes job outsourcing, massive debt, inferior products that don't last at cheap prices. Then you have the sweatshop labor tactics. Tug of war between sellers using consumers as the fraying rope. All this to make the rich richer and the duped poor. The list of destructive things commercialism and mass marketing brings is endless.
It's the root reason we have financial turmoil across the globe. From it sprouts ruthless financial markets where stockbrokers, bankers and insurance companies suck the lifeblood out of everything.
It's all sell sell sell buy buy buy until the unwary have been duped into debt. Then comes poverty while the head money grubbers run with sacks of gold as everyone else starves to death. Anybody who says commercialism and mass marketing are a good thing are the ones making a profit and they'll do anything they can to keep the duped on their hook.
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by Gone to work
Re: Has it really come to this?
Where we have to be careful is that some of this modern "plastic" music sticks. When it doe this, it pollutes the trad scene. I've seen this happen many times over.
There are "speciality" acts on the English folk circuit that play their own particular "niche" thing, Music Hall stuff, 1940's film themes, Their own material, Blues, Jaz, "world music". When you do find stuff from the tradition being performed, it invariably has a contemporary slant to it, complete with real electric instuments and drum kits. How long before we get Beatles tribute bands on the folk circuit I wonder?
Where is the problem with this? I hear you ask - simple, there is no longer enough of the good stuff about to make it worth buying a ticket. English trad music has been marginalised even within its own arena's.
This can, and probably will, happen to "our" music, I believe the writing is already on the wall.
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by ormepipes
Re: Has it really come to this?
Oooooh! A discussion on the session that I actually feel strongly about
I think the reason trad music is not popular is solely down to the marketing and choices of the music industry. And for good reason: it's complicated (both in the abstract and in the concrete fact that it lacks percussion and bass - and lyrics), it's scratchy, it's about mostly ego-less musicians, it's about everyone having a opportunity to participate in an artistic endeavour - these are all things that would make *making money* off of it extremely hard. However, this is one of the cases where money doesn't measure the value of something. We're not seeing democracy in action, we're seeing marketing to the people in action.
Now... the illusion created by lady Gaga et al. is a very skilled one. The music is intricate and the image is obviously what people want (or think they want). I can understand that it has value to some people, but I think this value is only such because it is marketed and sold as being valuable.
I would agree with those who think that trad music is very relevant - In globalised/melting pot culture, people need to know where they come from or where they associate themselves with. This is evidenced by many americans being able to tell you (and identifying with) their 2,3 or 4 generation heritage. Many 1st, 2nd and 3rd gen immigrants to europe listen to music of their culture - north african, indian, middle eastern.
I think trad music holds the profound message that it's a good thing to have different cultures and that people can still get along by learning about each other, rather than assuming we are all the same.
It also is one of the rare contexts where we are all "Artists" and which refuses to accept that if you are not a "musician", you shouldn't make music.
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by Tirno
Re: Has it really come to this?
There are two sides to every story - http://us.penguingroup.com/static/html/blogs/end-publishing.
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by MacCruiskeen
Re: Has it really come to this?
That is really good MacCruiskeen.
Folks,if you click on it make sure you watch the whole thing.
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by Gone to work
Re: Has it really come to this?
This thread had me thinking about interviews I have read with different players, from Planxty or the Bothy Band, when they were much younger. This one is Paddy Keenan;
"During this time, Keenan didn't play his pipes, even trying at one point to sell them at a pawn shop, but had no takers' uilleann pipes were simply Not Cool in late 60's London. Even now Keenan sounds incredulous when he recalls, "I went as low as two bob. I couldn't believe my ears when he turned me down." (They were Crowley pipes with a custom Rowsome chanter, and the Crowley part of the set had been owned by the Honorable Garret Browne of the Guinness family.) Keenan walked out of the pawn shop and made to throw his pipes into a trash bin. A friend stopped him and told him he'd keep the pipes for him.
Keenan even turned down an opportunity to meet with the Beatles in their search for exotic new instrumental sounds. Hippying around London, playing the pipes just seemed very "square." "
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Has it really come to this?
My plan is to be the change I want to see. I won't shop at Wally World ever again PERIOD. Yes I'm sad to say that I've shopped there in the past.
I've not watched tv in 25 years. I hadn't even heard of lady GaGa until about 6 months ago. Sheltered yes, I like it that way.
Playing Trad is a great skill that brings fullness of life without giving blood to some executive in a suit. Same as baking things, brewing beer, growing things, building things gathering wild food and a host of other skills that have been forgotten since consumerism took over.
Always seek new skills. Freedom is knowing how to produce everything your own skills will allow. Look for others who do the same on a local level and together provide for each other within our means. We can't control the executives in suits but we can control our own behavior and stop purchasing the rubbish they fling.
Try to buy as many locally produced items as we can. Small sustainable local trade is the way to escape from the global financial elephant that will stomp on us.
Of course it means going without some of the things I may think I need, but, as I really think about these things, I usually find that I don't need them anyhow.
My sons highschool has a course where they build computers from scratch right in the classroom and their most of their system was built by students.
It is possible to escape the elephant.
Living at or below our means, WoW, now there's a concept. Some would call that UnAmerican, I call it wise living. I urge you to do the same.
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by Gone to work
Re: Has it really come to this?
"while the head money grubbers run with sacks of gold"
Would those be the gold sacks men?
(sorry)
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Has it really come to this?
Yeah Jon, The take the gold Enron guys too!
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by Gone to work
Music Journalism courses?
Please pardon my interruption. When I read the OP yesterday I wanted to find what is the curriculum for Music Journalism at Trinity College, Dublin.
Unfortunately I am unable to find specific information online. Is anyone familiar with the courses at Trinity College? Thanks in advance.
http://www.tcd.ie/courses/undergraduate/subjectarea/
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Has it really come to this?
>>English trad music has been marginalised even within its own arena's.
This can, and probably will, happen to "our" music, I believe the writing is already on the wall.
Ormepipes, I am completely with you on that. The worst culprit is the Cambridge Festival which departs further from its supposed remit each year - presumably to pull in ever more punters and keep the sponsors happy.
Likewise some of the top musicians - I am old enough to remember Capercaillie when they first started up - and look what happened. Much though I love her music, I fear that Julie Fowlis is headed down the same track, if her latest album is anything to go by. And again, my local club can no longer afford to hire some of the bands it did a few years ago - too expensive now that they have commercial deals and agents to support. I can sympathise with pro musicians wanting a decent living, but that seems to involve selling yourself to the marketing departments of major corporations, whose motivation is not often artistic...
Tirno, you hit the nail om the head about why this music is ignored - in its fundamentals, it stands diametrically opposite to anything that is easily commercialised - and long may it stay that way. It is too demanding on the listener, and too participatitive by its nature - i.e. too democratic. All the things that marketeers *don't* want. It's also not very easy to manufacture the cult of celebrity when the performers are your next-door neighbours and not very easy to disguise inadequate musicianship when the audience is sitting in the next chair.
Trad music is, IMHO, a small part of the counter-movement that stands for 'honest' sustainable, human-scale living. I love the stuff first simpy for the music itself, but also because of the value system that seems to go with it. It is part of giving people control of their own lives - EB you are right that many reject such offers, but then, real food can be indigestible if you are only ever used to eating processed pulp.
If you don't believe that mass commercialism damages people (including their own personal happiness) then read this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Affluenza-Oliver-James/dp/0091900115/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1291575662&sr=8-1
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by ian stock
Re: Has it really come to this?
There is no Music Journalism course at Trinity. The only one offered in Ireland seems to be this - http://www.independentcolleges.ie/faculty-of-journalism/diploma-in-music-journalism.
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by MacCruiskeen
Re: Has it really come to this?
Thanks, MacCruiskeen. I did see the one for Independent Colleges. DIT seems to have something in a graduate programmes. The only thing I could find for Trinity College were recommendations for "combined arts" but no actual degree in journalism, of any sort.
Perhaps Saturday girl hasn't firmed up her education plans?
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Has it really come to this?
>>There is no Music Journalism course at Trinity.
So Saturday Girl was probably talking rubbish in the first place, then. She will probably go far...
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by ian stock
Re: Has it really come to this?
>>The only one offered in Ireland seems to be this
Awarding body: The Institute of Commercial Management
So nothing to do with music or musicians at all, then.
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by ian stock
Re: Has it really come to this?
How many of you lot had well-thought-out, realistic plans for what you were going to do with your life at 16? I didn't have a bloody clue! Even if she does go on to university, she won't be putting in the application forms for another year or so at least. I applaud the Saturday girl for having the gumption to go out and get a job and be doing something useful with herself; she's unlikely to end up on Saturday morning telly interviewing the stars, but she's shown good signs of taking initiative and making something positive out of her life.
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by Red Menace
Re: Has it really come to this?
Hah. I'm still trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up. I retired three years ago.
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by gam
Re: Has it really come to this?
Realistic plans at 16? Chuckle chuckle. Now that's funny!
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by Gone to work
Re: Has it really come to this?
Well I'd have given quite a lot to be Paddy Keenan or Kevin Burke when I was 16 - but that didn't get me much further than strange looks from my mates and a very average degree...
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by ian stock
Re: Has it really come to this?
< I'm sure she's a perfectly nice girl, she's just been brainwashed. >
Sadly I think that is kinda True ! - These Day's...
But if she only writing about the musician's here, and not there music as such, She would be better a Large Comedy -- lol.
jim,,,
# Posted on December 5th 2010 by FIDDLE4
Re: Has it really come to this?
Thinking about it......................
MW: Well I think Ireland would be great if you don't read notes. Think about all that traditional music...
SG: Wot's that then??
I suppose we are the experts, and yet we frequently disagree about what it is. Maybe we should'nt be too surprised at a 16 year old not knowing either.
# Posted on December 6th 2010 by ormepipes
Re: Has it really come to this?
We know what it is, we just argue about the definition. She knows what it is, too, I think, but she doesn't care much about the definition (or about the music)
# Posted on December 6th 2010 by Jon Kiparsky
I googled <what is traditional music?>
http://www.irelandseye.com/aarticles/culture/music/traditional/whatis.shtm
# Posted on December 6th 2010 by Ben Steen
...
"Since traditional musicians call the music traditional music, we might as well call it that too."
Wonder where the author learnt his/her writing style? Being a fan of deadpan, myself.
# Posted on December 6th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Has it really come to this?
LoL - Ben,,
The author's style is getting a bit -- '' Like mine '' =
More symbol's that word's --
jim,,,
: )
# Posted on December 6th 2010 by FIDDLE4
Re: Has it really come to this?
"sat at an open fire, slept in a wood, killed and cooked an animal....." gam.
I should certainly hope she hasn't killed and cooked any animals.
# Posted on December 6th 2010 by Steamwilkes
Re: Has it really come to this?
Er ... why?
# Posted on December 6th 2010 by ethical blend
Re: Has it really come to this?
Because there's no need to kill and cook animals
# Posted on December 6th 2010 by Steamwilkes
Re: Has it really come to this?
But they're delicious. Yum!
# Posted on December 6th 2010 by ethical blend
Re: Has it really come to this?
LOL - you have all clearly forgotten what it was like to be 16. Some of you have apparently gone from birth straight into middle-aged musical wisdom, bypassing all the stupid sh!te we said and did and listened to at 16. Too funny. Kids these days? We should be saying kids every day going back to the dawn of man.
# Posted on December 6th 2010 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Has it really come to this?
Ian, it is far from over. It hasn't come to that yet because, she is only 16, her ideas of what to do with her life, are simply notions, that are likely shaped on how she thinks she appears to her friends, and likely to change just like the weather. She sounds like she might not be headed for University at all, with ambitions such as that, she'll prbably just be doing hair, right there in her home town!
Kids in her generation will have to work very hard just to get by, with the current economic situation.
I would keep 16 year old whims in perspective on this one.
# Posted on December 6th 2010 by SandyBottoms
Re: Has it really come to this?
Steamie - there's also no need to play music, but some choose to do it. I don't eat a lot of animal myself, but others choose to do that, and if they're going to do that, it seems that they should see what's involved in their choice.
Too many meat eaters, it seems, think that their food is delivered from heaven on styrofoam trays, wrapped in plastic.
I'm with gam on this one, at least in part. I think it's a little more complicated than "commercialism killed the good life". Industrial production and widespread distribution of stuff like food and medicine enables population growth, which demands further efficiencies in order that all the people live in the style to which they have become accustomed (fed, clothed, relatively free of parasites and disease, routinely surviving into their 70s, 80s, and 90s - the stuff we all enjoy and take for granted, unless and until some calamity strikes). These efficiencies enable further population growth, and on we go. It's a struggle of the market versus Malthus, and the market has had a good long run. When that turns around, life becomes unpleasant for all. While the market is a cruel master, I think you'd find Malthus a much harsher one, even if the survivors of the die-off would have clearer skies and more opportunities to kill and cook their meat in their short lives.
Remember that all of the implements that make the outdoor life pleasant - tents and sleeping bags, synthetic outerwear to keep you dry and synthetic underwear to "wick away moisture" and nifty camp stoves and slick hiking packs and fancy rifles and bows with which to fell your deer and all the rest of that - are all products of a market, which sees you as a consumer.
There's a bit of cheer for your Monday morning!
# Posted on December 6th 2010 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Has it really come to this?
Here's a challenge.
Find wild food and clean water without entering a store.
Make your own socks and shoes.
Make your own shirt and coat.
Make your own trousers.
Make your own tools.
Build your own shelter.
Make fire without matches or lighter.
Attempt to survive for one year in this manner.
At one time this is what people had to do in order to survive.
Now very few if any could even consider it.
Most will laugh at the thought.
# Posted on December 6th 2010 by Gone to work
Re: Has it really come to this?
SB - I wasn't really commenting on the whims of a 16 year old, so much as the system that has created her outlook. It saddens me that something as inherently humane as music should be reduced to nothing more than a 'product' for the glorification of inane 'celebs' in the pursuit of cash, and that so many people seem to have 'bought' it.
By the way, that is nothing specific to trad alone. As a student, I shared a band with a guy who was an excellent guitarist - had been a country-rock pro, playing support to people like Emmylou Harris - but he just could not get his head round my view that music is (or at least can/should be) a form of culture or art and not just a cash-cow. We eventually fell out over it, especially after he realised there was no money in playing trad.
It saddens me further that Academia, which ought to be athe last bastion of impartial enquiry, is increasingly being directed to collude with vested commercial interests. After culture and academia have bee bought, what is left to be the impartial repository of our culture?
Jon, your point seems good to me - it's too easy to take pot-shots at the benefits that organised industry has brought. FWIW, my home is a shrine to modernism, which was an ethic dedicated to bringing the products of the machine age to the masses, like no other. As I said, I'm no romantic - but as I read somewhere recently, after 200 plus years of industrial society, we are arguably only just being to learn how to tame its wilder side-effects - and the lessons have all been learned the hard way.
I find it interesting that despite the above, interest in the hand-made, the original and the 'authentic' (be it food, life-experiences or music) has never died; may even never have been higher. I hope that isn't just escapism - we just need to learn which things can be usefully industrialised - and which can't. Trad sits perfectly well with modernism in my book, in the same way that baroque and early music does...
Ian
# Posted on December 6th 2010 by ian stock
Re: Has it really come to this?
I hope someone found the Paddy Keenan interview which I quoted above. Here is a review of a relaunch album;
http://www.irishmusicreview.com/paddyk2.htm
You know ... musical journalism?
# Posted on December 6th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Has it really come to this?
The Pipers Review had a good interview of Paddy done by Zina Lee about 8 or 9 years ago. I'll see if I can track it down.
# Posted on December 6th 2010 by Gone to work
Re: Has it really come to this?
I was quoting Zina Lee. ;)
# Posted on December 6th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Has it really come to this?
Now Zina fits the profile of what a music journalist should be. She is very knowledgable about music and a good player as well.
Maybe Saturday girl should do an apprenticeship with Zina.
# Posted on December 6th 2010 by Gone to work
Re: Has it really come to this?
Isn't that the whole problem with this supposed course? Music journalists surely need to know their music, not just the lead player's bra size...
# Posted on December 6th 2010 by ian stock
Re: Has it really come to this?
Yeah, one would hope that writers have some sort of familiarity with their topic. Perhaps even an interest in it, if that's not too much to ask.
# Posted on December 6th 2010 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Has it really come to this?
A result of the over-professionalisation of such positions? I wonder who would prove to be the best opera critic: someone who had taken the necessary journalistic degree course or someone who had not, but had seen a hell of a lot of operas?
# Posted on December 6th 2010 by ian stock
Re: Has it really come to this?
Having done music criticism without any formal training in journalism, I can tell you that understanding music will get you through a lot, but there were many situations where I got the sense that I was reinventing a wheel, journalistically speaking, and that some study of journalism would have been useful to me if I were pursuing that line more seriously.
In my view, a review should do several things, one of which is to evaluate the performance in terms that people familiar with the genre would use, and on the bases that the audience would use. In order to do this, you have to have a reasonably deep understanding of the genre. Lacking that, you might have a reviewer complaining about the frequent resort to virtuoso vocal performances to cover up the opera's thin plot.
# Posted on December 6th 2010 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Has it really come to this?
I had a practical plan for my life at 16. I was going to be an astronaut...
# Posted on December 7th 2010 by AlBrown
Re: Has it really come to this?
Mine was to become a prosecuting attorney. Seriously.
And then it all went wrong.
# Posted on December 7th 2010 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Has it really come to this?
"the frequent resort to virtuoso vocal performances to cover up the opera's thin plot. "
That's it! That's what annoys me about opera!
Here you go Al:
http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/3818
# Posted on December 7th 2010 by Bren