Folk Music.

Well, folk music seems to be a big part of my life nowadays. Whether it's sea-shanties, Irish tune sessions in a Welsh pub, Breton dancing in Brittany, or just singing to myself as I wander about the place, there's always some going on. It wasn't always that way, though - like everyone else, my musical tastes have changed and re-routed themselves a lot over the years.

If you'd asked me what folk music was as a teenager, i'd probably have sneered something along the lines of "What, Irish music? Or Enya or something?". It's probably fair to say that I'd not heard much folk music, or indeed paid any attention to any, until I was doing my National Diploma in Blacksmithing and Metalwork at Hereford college. There's a certain over-romanticism that goes with being a blacksmith, and plenty of the people at college were at least slightly into it, or so I later discovered.

I was on my work experience, as i'm sure i've mentioned in the past, at Bronllys Forge, the establishment of Dave Perks and his wife Dee. There, I encountered one Molly Budd, who has also been mentioned before. Like all blacksmiths, or in her case ex-blacksmiths, she is now sick to death of the song, but one evening, sat around the kitchen table, she sang "The Blacksmith", a song collected in Weobley around the turn of last century, and made popular by Planxty (and later Andy Irvine), Anne Briggs, and others. I had a moistness in my eyes as she sang, and not just because I was already somewhat smitten by this girl. Anyway, a long story being shortened, I grew interested in this kind of music, and began to sing whatever I could find, whether gleaned from "The Best of the Dubliners" tapes, or the singing of one of our college tutors, Steve Mitchell (who has a fine repertoire of English folk songs, although copious amounts of ale tends to increase the chance of hearing one).

Like many wannabe folk musicians, at some point I acquired a tin whistle. Squeaking my way through Irish tunes, and the odd melody to a song i'd picked out, I'm sure all and sundry were at one time annoyed by the screeching sounds. I still toot on it a bit, and the tunes have got better. So, the singing and the tooting carried on, idly, until such time as I moved to Cornwall.

The trouble with surrounding yourself with talented musicians is, you want to join in! Unfortunately, the talent doesn't rub off as much as you might like. All the same...

Since then, i've sung in a sea shanty band, learned to play the mandola (it's a work in progress), busked in a good double-handful of towns around Britain, and attended sessions and open mic nights. I never imagined this would be the case, even when I was singing in the workshop at college.

Sometimes I wonder "Well, what is Folk Music?", and the question seems to be a perennial favourite amongst armchair philosophers. According to a popular encyclopedia, there's a fairly easy-to-recognise list of atrtributes that folk music tends to have. On the other hand, there are always confusions - some people say "folk music" and really mean "traditional music", and then things get a bit complicated. I sometimes, probably in error, answer the question "What's that music you're singing?" with "Oh, it's a traditional Irish song" or whatever. Of course, the song may well be traditional, but the chords i'm playing on my tenor mandola certainly aren't the intended accompaniment. As R.V. Willams records, there was once a Suffolk farm labourer, who remarked "I used to be reckoned quite the good singer, until these here tunes came in" - which underlines the point - "folk" singing doesn't have accompaniment, whether on guitar, piano, or tennis racket banjo.

Of course, this is nonsense. Singing a cappella is a wonderful thing, and I daresay that some songs sound better that way - I sing a couple that way out of preference, setting aside my trusty mandola, even when busking. But, insisting that something has to be a certain way is missing the point somewhat. If you want to stick your finger in your ear and your thumb in your belt loop to sing "The Parting Glass", fine. If you want to play power chords on an electric guitar, with a four-piece band, and sing the same song - good luck to you.
One of my musical idols, Andy Irvine, has occasionally been asked if he's a "folk musician" or a "traditional musician". On one occasion, he answered that he was a singer-songwriter, as, although much of the music he plays with can be considered "folk music", and has played and arranged a number of traditional tunes, when all's said and done, he both sings, and writes songs. It seemed like a fair description, but it dismisses the notion of folk music somewhat.

A friend of mine, Luke Drinkwater, once joked about folk musicians not being "proper", and said that "Well, you wouldn't trust a "folk surgeon" to do surgery, so why trust a "folk musician" to make music?" or something along those lines. It highlights the point that there's a distinction between people that feel the need to pigeonhole themselves, I guess. Mind you, i'm not sure i'd trust a Jazz surgeon, either...

And so we come to "Dan's Theory" (Not to be confused with "Dance Theory"): Folk music is just music. All music could be considered folk music, for, as Louis Armstrong once said "All music is folk music, I ain't never heard no horse sing a song”. I agree, to a certain extent. Folk music is certainly music made by people, although you could argue it's usually made by "real" people, and not media corporation types. I guess it's all a question of flavour. I'd tentatively suggest that a group of people singing Christmas carols, Thin Lizzy playing "Whisky in the Jar", Greek bouzouki-playing rembetes, and me sat on the roadside singing "Bonny Woodhall" are all just as folk-music-ish as each other...

Not really sure where i'm going with this....

That's all for now.