Talk:Folk music/Archive 2

An example of a folk ballad
I removed a link to a sound file, which is a recording of one version of folk song "Barbara Allen". Folk music around the world is very differnt, it would be anglocentric and biased to offer only a sample of English folk music in the article (that should be) about all folk music. This is an English language Wikipedia, not bound to any country. If we offered an extensive amount of folk music samples, this page would get immense. So let's offer nothing here, and instead put them in the articles about specific music styles, OK? -Hapsiainen 15:11, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I've reverted. No offense, but that's the stupidest reasoning I've ever heard. If you thing it's anglo-centric (a debatable point in-and-of-itself), then by all means feel free to find other song files (with acceptable copyright status), upload them, and add them to this page. Your claim of "Anglo-centricism" does not justify making the article less informative. →Raul654 15:54, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
 * You don't seem to understand my reasoning at all. I wrote that there should be no example song or sound files in this article. They should be in specific articles, like in Australian folk music, Moroccan folk music etc instead. I know that "Barbara Allen" is known in several English-speaking countries, but there is still bias. The song isn't known worldwide. Oh, and you can't ask someone to not take an offence, when you describe someone's thoughts very stupid. -Hapsiainen 18:45, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
 * "I wrote that there should be no example song or sound files in this article. " - this is just flatly wrong. *OF COURSE* our article on folk music should have folk music! Wikipedia is supposed to be informative -- our article on folk music *should* have nice media examples. Making people jump through hoops to find useful content is a BAD way of writing articles. It is *not* biased to only one have song in here, if that's the extent of what we have available, your contention not withstanding. →Raul654 20:34, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Should an article about music have some music, too? It would be silly. Content is only useful in the right context. In this context, the file gives too narrow view on the folk music. I'm waiting for other people's comments on this because this isn't a never visited page. -Hapsiainen 21:40, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
 * "Should an article about music have some music" - yes, it should! Music should contain a samplying of differnet kinds of music found in the world, just like History of music does. In the case of this article, if the file gives too narrow a view on music, then add more! Fix the article by making it more informative, not less. →Raul654 21:56, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I looked at the History of Music article, and I changed my mind a bit. The files are there in the right context, in the sections about certain music styles. (I talked about articles before that.) But this article isn't divided by music styles, this tries to say something about them in general. The Music article is similar. You can't express anything general by some music samples. -Hapsiainen 00:45, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I think the sample is a plus. I'd love to get half a dozen other samples which together would give some indication of how broad a category folk music is, but certainly a sample of one of the most durable folk songs in the English language is appropriate to an article on folk music written in any language. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:06, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree. It's a good inclusion, though ideally there would be a number of diverse samples (there are a few dotted about the wiki here and there), each of which would be used to specifically illustrate something relevant, but including the sample is useful in and of itself.  Also, "Barbara Allen" is, as Jmabel noted, one of the most famous and widespread folk songs of any part of the world, so it's a very defendable inclusion. Tuf-Kat 04:34, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Roots redirect
I'm surprised that Roots redirects me here - artists performing "Roots" music often don't consider themselves to be Folk artists, though they can see the (musical) link Gwaka Lumpa 17:34, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


 * If you think there is a separate topic there, you can turn a redirect into an article in its own right. Certainly a link to this article would belong somewhere in that one, though. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:34, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Merge with Folkies
Per discussion at Articles for deletion/Folkies, it was decided to merge Folkies into this article. Enjoy.  howch e  ng   {chat} 00:14, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I have Folk Music as a hobby on my user page and I am a Folkie, so I agree. G4sxe 18:19, 10 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Merged. Well, as best I could! SilkTork 22:16, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

folk music footer
i created Template:Contemporary folk music-footer last night but didn't add it to any pages as i then thought it would probably be better to move it to Template:Folk music-footer and expand it to link to other styles of folk music. thoughts on what else should be added? --MilkMiruku 18:41, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Room for Breton Folk music
As this article is written in English, the place of Breton Folk music is very poor here, why so? There is much to say, even if we want to speak only of the influence of artists as Alan Stivell in the English speaking world.

User:E1 14:05, 6 April 2006

Natural Selection
From "Variation in Folk Music": "A perfect process of natural selection would not have permitted these incoherent versions to survive." This line should be deleted, as it shows a poor grasp (or simply non-understanding) of the theory of natural selection (especially Dawkin's concept of Memes) and is simply put not true. Ebolart 16:44, 13 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Apparently removed. When you find statements made without citation, and that don't appear to be true, feel free to cut them yourself (with a clear edit summary, and it remains good to also mention it on the talk page). - Jmabel | Talk 01:43, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Loss of musical ability related to copyright expansion?
I have noticed that as a nation industrializes, and folk music is replaced with popular music, the scope and duration of copyright tend to increase at the same time. Could fear of being caught performing popular music in public without a license, along with the strongly disputed affordability of public karaoke licenses from BMI and the like, be part of the reason why people lose musical skill? --Damian Yerrick (☎) 23:01, 20 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Unlikely on all fronts. Presumably, the reduction of lessons in school compared to mid-20th-century has had a detrimental effect on American musicianship, especially on the instruments not much used in contemporary popular music, but it's not like there is an enormous fall-off to be accounted for. - Jmabel | Talk 01:45, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Cindy
Why should Cindy remain? It's because this article is long on opinion and short on fact. In Neutral_point_of_view, there is the example of an article on Hitler:
 * You won't even need to say he was evil. That's why the article on Hitler does not start with "Hitler was a bad man" — we don't need to, his deeds convict him a thousand times over. We just list the facts of the Holocaust dispassionately, and the voices of the dead cry out afresh in a way that makes name-calling both pointless and unnecessary. Please do the same: list Saddam's crimes, and cite your sources.

Cindy dispassionate listing of variant lyrics lets readers see for themselves how folk music morphs, as each singer changes existing verses to suit himself, and creates entirely new verses. Isn't that preferable to pseudo-experts pontificating from on high?

And as far as being a "near-stub", of the twelve articles remaining in that list, six are shorter than [Cindy] and six are longer. ClairSamoht 07:27, 9 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Most of the length of the "Cindy" article is quotation of lyrics. Why single out this one song? If it is there to illustrate a particular point, linking it as a see also fails to do that; discussing it as an example might. There is no apparent reason to link to an article about "Cindy" than to an article about any of a hundred other songs. - Jmabel | Talk 04:54, 12 August 2006 (UTC)


 * This article starts out saying "Folk music, in the original sense of the term, is music by and of the common people", but then it completely ignores that in the rest of the article. The references are all from people who analyse folk music, who study folk music, who categorize folk music - but the common people don't do that. They play folk music and they sing folk music and they dance to folk music. In that regard, this article has NO valid references, just false authorities.
 * Are there a hundred folk songs that have articles in Wikipedia? If this is the only article that shows how folks songs morph, that strikes me a good reason to link to it. ClairSamoht 05:25, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
 * There are far more than a hundred individual folk songs that have articles in Wikipedia; sticking only to English-language songs, there are more than one hundred articles on the Child Ballads; some are stubs, but several show the evolution of a folk song. One that leaps to mind is "The Unquiet Grave", which I think goes on a bit long with minor variations. Even many of the stubs link to multiple variants. "Wildwood Flower" is another article that shows a very interesting case of the folk process, albeit on a song not of folk origins. - Jmabel | Talk 04:42, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Jody Calls
This is an excellent article which has provided an immense amount of knowledge to myself. however, I must take exception to one passage. Let me provide the quote fom your article:

"Other sorts of folk songs are less exalted ...In the armed forces, a lively tradition of jody calls are sung while soldiers are on the march."

As an ex-soldier of the Australian army, I will take exception to that remark. The only army in the world to use "jody calls" is the American - let me be more precise - the only armed forces to use "jody calls" in the world are the American armed forces.

Much to the merriment and cynical comment of myself and my fellow diggers when we first encountered an exhibition thereof.

The German army sings marching songs and then shuts up. The English army has a sergeant calling the step "Left. Left. Left, Right, Left" and then the sergeant eventually shuts up. The Australian army justs shuts up

The reasons I take exception to your passage are twofold:

1. "In the armed forces" - what and whose armed forces? There a few more armed forces in the world than the american forces. I would appreciate your being more precise. Maybe using this term would be more correct "In the armed forces of the United States of America,..." as this solves the concommitant problems of "whose armed forces" and "which part of America", a rather large land mass situated somewhat to the west of Europe and occupied by more than one sovereign state.

2. The underlying assumption in the article that only the United States of America need be considered is unthinkingly arrogant - a problem I have with many, if not most, of the entries in the Wikipedia. There are other countries in the world, all with their own culture and traditions. The best example of this unthinking arrogance is probably the address of the wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org. Had the wiki been initiated in Australia the address would be http://en.wikipedia.org.au, or in New Zealand, http://en.wikipedia.org.nz or in Germany http://en.wikipedia.org.de.

The arrogance in the wiki entries lies along these lines - general discussion of subject as applicable to USA, then sub-sections of the discussion applicable to other countries. Why is the USA treated as special or different to the rest of the world?

I must apologise for the vehemence of my remarks. As I said earlier - the article is excellent and has taught me much. Unfortunately, I arced up over the mention of the army. My apologies.

John McLaren203.164.193.195 13:40, 23 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I appreciate your comment. Next time for this sort of thing you could edit the page and fix it yourself (I've fixed it, hopefully satisfactorily, for now). However, obviously one person cannot deal with the entire problem of American bias on Wikipedia. There is a WikiProject Countering systemic bias which tries to deal with these issues. There are Wikipedias in other languages as well, [de.wikipedia.org] is a very large wiki, and probably has a German systemic bias. The English Wikipedia has an American bias, because mostly Americans edit it, and it shows. We are working on it, but it's still a problem. You can help, just by fixing little things like that only Americans use jody calls. Thanks, Mak (talk)  14:50, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

GA Re-Review and In-line citations
Members of the WikiProject Good articles are in the process of doing a re-review of current Good Article listings to ensure compliance with the standards of the Good Article Criteria. (Discussion of the changes and re-review can be found here). A significant change to the GA criteria is the mandatory use of some sort of in-line citation (In accordance to WP:CITE) to be used in order for an article to pass the verification and reference criteria. Currently this article does not include in-line citations. It is recommended that the article's editors take a look at the inclusion of in-line citations as well as how the article stacks up against the rest of the Good Article criteria. GA reviewers will give you at least a week's time from the date of this notice to work on the in-line citations before doing a full re-review and deciding if the article still merits being considered a Good Article or would need to be de-listed. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us on the Good Article project talk page or you may contact me personally. On behalf of the Good Articles Project, I want to thank you for all the time and effort that you have put into working on this article and improving the overall quality of the Wikipedia project. Agne 03:28, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Nut Hill Productions
I cut the following (somewhat poorly formatted) external link, because it seems premature


 * []over 150 hours of exclusive interviews with some of American Folk Music's most important and influential performers, educators, and experts.

I see no indication that those "150 hours of exclusive interviews" are anywhere on their site. If I'm missing something, please elucidate. - Jmabel | Talk 07:02, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment in article from anon
no real change: I just love the wording. it captures the essence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.210.18.253 (talk • contribs) 06:17, December 3, 2006

Original research
This article needs a lot of more of references its looks like Orginal Research at the moment (Gnevin 00:41, 2 January 2007 (UTC))
 * I've had to add the undefined to nearly every line here .This article need major work . The whole decline section looks made up (Gnevin 16:50, 21 January 2007 (UTC))

Good article Review of GA status
This article is being reviewed at WP:GA/R for possible delisting of its Good article status. Teemu08 23:23, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Delisted GA
Since it's been technically warned for about 5 months and its still quite un-good, I think that was more than a fair amount of time to expect changes, and i've delisted this article. Homestarmy 17:25, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

i love folk music but where exactly did it originate —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 90.240.114.89 (talk • contribs).


 * It depends on what folk music. There are folk musics in pretty much every culture. - Jmabel | Talk 17:25, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Long
This article is extremely long and dense. I would take inspiration from printed encyclopedias in editing this down to a size that makes it usable. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Random task (talk • contribs).

Major changes to World, Folk, Roots, and Traditional music pages
Hi all. I think the pages for World music, Roots music, Folk music, and Traditional music need some changes. I've documented the ideas at WikiProject World music/Definitions; if you could all respond on the talk page, that would be great!

-- TimNelson 04:57, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Yuck.
This article is just a mess. &mdash; Gaff ταλκ 08:43, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

"the only singers to recieve an Order Of Canada"
It says in the article "Simultaneous to the American folk movement was the Canadian folk movement, exemplified by artists Gordon Lightfoot, Leonard Cohen, and Joni Mitchell, all three of whom would become the only singers to receive an Order of Canada, and all of whom would achieve varying degrees of lasting international success."

I thought K.D Lang (also a singer) has got an Order Of Canada? There may be others too?

Beckyramone 17:56, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

East Europe and Balkans
The East Europe and Balkans part is pure nonsence. Music of Southeastern Europe says: ''The music of the Slavic countries of southeastern Europe is quite significantly different to that the music of Eastern Europe, which includes the Slavic states of the former USSR. The latter was much more influenced by the common eastern Slavic culture, notably by Kievan Rus and more recently the USSR.'' What the Music of Bosnia and Herzegovina or Music of Montenegro or Music of Republic of Macedonia, which btw are not mentioned in the subsection at all, have incommon with the music of Belarus or Ukraine?! This is nonsence. The Balkan sound is dystinctive, its a story of its own. Dzole 12:36, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

and the United Nation's webpage: Composition of macro geographical (continental) regions, geographical sub-regions, and selected economic and other groupings count most of the Balkan countries as belonging to South Europe or Southeastern Europe. Dzole 12:39, 29 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Balkans and East Europe::

I think groups like Mazowsza or Ślansk from Poland need to be mentioned as notable examples of "State-approved" folklore, using clothes, songs and dances from folklore but with classical singing styles. I think it is also important to mention the "post-folklore" movement which seeks to return to more "authentic" forms. Also... isn't Bulgaria in the Balkans? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.13.39.98 (talk) 21:29, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Enrico Caruso
There are two links to Enrico Caruso sound files. I will delete them unless somebody comes up with good reasons for keeping them in this article. Ogg (talk) 14:31, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Nobody has spoken up in favour of them so I have deleted the two Caruso sound files. Ogg (talk) 11:58, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Volk
The translation Volk (meaning people or nation) is incorrect. The word Volk simply means many. It was originally used in an agglutinative form to discribe a large number of individuals which are connected through a collective criteria. It's like saying volk of wikipedians instead of lots of wikipedians or volk of writers instead of lots of writers. The meaning is different to people or nation.--90.187.143.116 (talk) 22:06, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Others
Shouldn't Peter Paul and Mary and many others have more complete writeups? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.226.95.7 (talk) 06:30, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
 * They have articles. What else are you suggesting? - Jmabel | Talk 21:06, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Mass popularity came with electric folk?
"Folk didn’t hit any kind of mass popularity until the electric folk movement of Fairport Convention, The Byrds and Steeleye Span took old songs and mixed their tunes with rock."

This doesn't make sense. Firstly, if it is only referring to UK groups, why are the Byrds mentioned? If it is referring to the US and the UK, it contradicts info earlier in the article about the emerging popularity of folk groups in the US, and anyway in the early sixties Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and others on the American folk scene were immensely popular, not to mention Simon and Garfunkel, etc. Also, the Byrds became famous through their Dylan covers.

This paragraph should be re-written in the folk-rock context or removed.

Hohenloh (talk) 15:09, 11 July 2008 (UTC)


 * It should not be classed as Folk Rock, no band or performer from the US had any connection to Electric Folk, which is also known as British "Folk Rock" as stated in the "Folk rock" article, also, "Rock Folk" is a more apt description than "Electric Folk"  650 Norton (1951) (talk) 19:18, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

To be able to make sense the statement would need to have had the terms "mass", "popularity", "electric", "old", and "rock" defined. The statement itself fails to do so. Hyacinth (talk) 22:06, 11 July 2008 (UTC)


 * It is inaccurate to assert that "Folk didn’t hit any kind of mass popularity until the electric folk movement of Fairport Convention, The Byrds and Steeleye Span took old songs and mixed their tunes with rock."


 * In 1950, The Weavers' version of "Good Night Irene" was a huge number one hit, nationwide (its earnings permitted the founding of Folkways Records), as was Burl Ives' "On Top of Old Smoky" (1952). In the late 1950s, The Kingston Trio had something like five Billboard hits simultaneously, an unprecedented achievement which may still be unequaled. Other best-selling folk records were recorded by Josh White, whose "One Meat Ball" was covered by the Andrews Sisters, among many many others; Maxine Waters' jazzed up version of "Loch Lomond," and Jo Stafford's c.1950 hit "Black is the Color"; to name just a few. Harry Belafonte also had many folk and calypso hits in the 1950s. I won't even mention "16 Tons," "The Battle of New Orleans" (a 1959 smash) and other "country" songs that span both folk and "pop"; or Lonnie Donnegan's skiffle versions of "Rock Island Line" and other Leadbelly staples; or "Wimoweh]." a hit for the Weavers (1952), the Kingston Trio (1959, and made into a new hit by The Tokens in 1961 as "The Lion Sleeps Tonight)." 71.183.184.4 (talk) 00:45, 13 July 2008 (UTC)7/12/08

Reworded to be specific to UK. - Jmabel | Talk 21:44, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I made a further clarification to this. Donovan Leitch (sp?) had a number of hits in the UK before "electric folk" came on the scene and he was considered a "folk" artist. There may have been others. Was Nick Drake considered a folkie?Hohenloh (talk) 13:36, 3 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I suppose Donovan early on was perceived in the same category as Dylan, and that was considered "folk". Drake is really hard to classify. Clearly, strongly influenced by the guitar style that developed in the late 1950s and 1960s in the UK as people began to try to work out how to play British folk music on a guitar. But his lyrics are almost uniformly inward-focused. Admittedly, many folk-influenced singer-songwriters eventually went to a similar place. I doubt there is anything that we could say quickly about Drake that would illuminate the topic of folk music, though I'd certainly expect to mention folk influences in discussing Drake. Anyway, was Drake ever really commercially successful in his own lifetime? - Jmabel | Talk 17:15, 3 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Solo performer with guitar, rather than the large band or string orchestra accompaniment with a conductor or band leader (that was obligatory in early twentieth century studio-recorded pop music), is considered "folk" because it represents a reversion to a very traditional kind of European singing (in the old days it would have been a minstrel or other soloist with with lute).  Anthropologists call this phenomenon of older ways resurfacing "cultural continuity." It's not surprising that in the 1950s British people turned to American folk to rediscover and revivify their own traditions -- since the American tradition incorporated older British (and Irish) traditions. Of course, by this definition Elvis is folk -- but he had an orchestra, too, often, no?24.105.152.153 (talk)  —Preceding undated comment was added at 17:48, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Seth Lakeman link--advertizing?
That link looks like it shouldn't belong here.Hohenloh (talk) 15:58, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I think it looks like spam too. I've removed it. -MrFizyx (talk) 17:02, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

The blending of folk and popular genres
The section on the blending of folk and popular genres seems a bit over-focused on the U.S. and Western Europe and on recent times. The 19th century Mexican song "Cielito Lindo" presents an earlier example of a song of known authorship (and operatic influence) that passed into the folk culture. Come to think of it, "Greensleeves" is a far earlier example, and I bet there are many other examples from Tudor England. Further, while it's not an area where I have any particular expertise, I'm sure one could find a lot of examples from Africa, and much of the history of blues seems to me to ride the line between a folk and a popular form: the popular side is presumably obvious, but think of the endlessly recycled melodies and chord progressions with only minor variations, and the constant borrowing of lyrical phrases ("Woke up one morning", "Some folks say the [fill-the-blank] blues ain't bad", etc) and even entire verses.

Nothing citable here offhand (other than "Cielito Lindo" and "Greensleeves") but I think this suggests a direction someone might want to take some of this article. - Jmabel | Talk 16:49, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Conflation
"Thus, in the 1960s such singers as Baez, Dylan, Phil Ochs, and Tom Paxton, followed in Guthrie's footsteps and to begin writing "protest music" and topical songs, particularly against the Vietnam War…"

Dylan's protest period was pretty much over before the Vietnam War really figured in the American consciousness. He wrote some excellent anti-war songs, but I cannot think of any specific to the Vietnam War. Baez sang a lot of songs about the war, but did she write any? I can think of only one Paxton song about the war ("Talking Vietnam Pot Luck Blues"). Ochs did write more about Vietnam; at least "Talking Vietnam Blues", "White Boots Marching in a Yellow Land" and - sort of about the war - "Draft Dodger Rag" and "I Ain't Marching Anymore". Still, all of these wrote and sang more about anti-war and anti-militarism in general than about Vietnam (Dylan's "Masters of War" is a towering example) and all but Paxton wrote or sang a lot of songs related to the African-American civil rights struggle (Paxton probably wrote at least one song in that vein, but nothing leaps to mind). Especially for Dylan, civil rights would stand out over the Vietnam War as a topic.

None of this is to say that there weren't a lot of American folk or folkie songs about the Vietnam War, but other than Ochs these are not the main individuals who wrote them. Malvina Reynolds wrote a bunch, and Pete Seeger wrote several (notably "The Big Muddy" and "Last Train to Nuremberg"). - Jmabel | Talk 21:05, 1 August 2008 (UTC)