The Study of Folk Music
Today, the term “folk” has been replaced by “vernacular” and “roots”, but the essential intent of the music has changed little. With its emphasis on the music of the everyday, the concept of folk music is a constantly recurring theme in Western and World Music. Whether performed in the context of early sixties protest in the US and Canada, or in the suites of the French Baroque composers, it represents an Other that is simultaneously familiar and distant. It shares the same ground as Popular Music in its claim as the music of the Everyman. Unlike pop music, it is often overlaid with nostalgia for a social milieu that is located in a mythical past free of cynicism and irony. It also values alleged markers of authenticity and DIY (do it yourself), especially with its emphasis on acoustic production values. Folk Music can often be identified in music cultures around the world. Its appeal is usually found in its alleged simplicity, acting in contrast to the structural complexity of Art Music. However, its approachability belies a complex social and historical geography that can shed important light on music’s role as a constant and reliable companion.
This course will examine the different attitudes toward Folk Music in various academic contexts, followed by the most common experience of folk music as a component of the turbulent youth culture of the sixties. Then we will travel back in time to follow the threads of historical folk music scholarship, pausing to admire the giants of folk music collectors, Cecil Sharp and Alan Lomax. Canadian folk music and its important collectors will also occupy our time before we finally arrive at the contemporary scene’s diversified Folk Music Festivals. There will be frequent excursions into the Canadian musical landscape, with special attention given to Canadian songcatchers. An important component of the ongoing discussions of Canadian folk music will be the exploration of the usual discussion of the traditional music of Canada with the modern-day reality of multicultural diversity.
Textbook
Cohen, Ronald D. Folk Music: The Basics
Lecture Schedule and Readings
Week 1 Intangible Cultural Heritage
Smith, Laurajane and Natsuko Akagawa, editors (2009) Intangible Heritage (Key Issues in Cultural Heritage
Thornbury, Barbara (1997) The Folk Performing Arts: Traditional Culture in Contemporary Japan
Siporin, Steve (1992) American Folk Masters: The National Heritage Fellows
Week 2 Folk Music and Art Music
Gelbart, Matthew (2007) The Invention of “Folk Music” and “Art Music”: Emerging Categories from Ossian to Wagner
Hughes, Meirion and Robert Stradling (1993) “Crusading for a national music,” in The English Musical Renaissance, 1840-1940; Constructing a National Music
Week 3 Folk Music and World Music
Bohlman, Philip (1988) The Study of Folk Music in the Modern World
Babaricki, Carol (1991) “Tribal Music in the Study of Great and Little Traditions of Indian Music,” in Comparative Musicology and the Anthropology of Music, edited by Bruno Nettl and Philip Bohlman
Hart, Mickey (2003) Songcatchers: In Search of the World’s Music
Week 4 Folk Music and Politics
Epstein, Lawrence (2010) Political Folk Music in America from Its Origins to Bob Dylan
Reuss, Richard and Joanne (2000) American Folk Music and Left-Wing Politics, 1927-1957
Lankford, Ronald D. Jr. (2002) Folk Music U.S.A.: The Changing Voice of Protest
Week 5 Folk Music as Popular Music
Cantwell, Robert (1997) When We Were Good: The Folk Revival
Mitchell, Gillian (2007) The North American Folk Music Revival: Nation and Identity in the United States and Canada, 1945-1980
Brocken, Michael (2003) The British Folk Revival, 1944-2002
Cristal, Gary A History of Folk Music in Canada
http://folkmusichistory.com/about.shtml
Week 6 Revivalism
Handler, Richard and Jocelyn Linnekin (1984) “Tradition: Genuine or Spurious,” in The Journal of American Folklore, volume 97, Number 385 (Jul-Sep, 1984) pp. 273-90.
Atkinson, David (2004) “Revival: Genuine or Spurious?” in Folk Song: Tradition, Revival, and Re-creation, edited by Ian Russell and David Atkinson
Rosenberg, Neil (`(1993) Transforming Tradition: Folk Music Revivals Examined
Peterson, Richard A., (1999) Creating Country Music: Fabricating Authenticity
Week 7 Ballads and Broadsides
Atkinson, David (2002) The English Traditional Ballad: Theory, Method, and Practice
Palmer, Roy (1974) A Touch of the Times: Songs of Social Change 1770-1914
Week 8 Seasonal and Social Songs
Gammon, Vic (2008) Desire, Drink and Death in English Folk and Vernacular Song, 1600-1900
Loydd, Albert (1967) “The Songs of Ceremony and Occasion,” and “The Industrial Songs” in Folk Song in England
Thompson, Flora (1939) “At the ‘Wagon and Horses’,” in Lark Rise to Candleford, pp. 64-75
Week 9 Instrumental Music
Cowdrey, James R. (1984) “A fresh look at the concept of Tune Family,” in Ethnomusicology, volume 28, number 3 (Sep. 1984), pp. 495-504
Campbell, Katherine (2008) “The Itinerant Fiddler in Imagination and Reality,” in the Fiddle in Scottish Culture: Aspects of the Tradition, pp. 1-14
Week 10 Cecil Sharp
Gold, John R. and George Revill (2006) “Gathering the voices of the people? Cecil Sharp, cultural hybridity, and the folk music of Appalachia,” in GeoJournal, Volume 65, Numbers 1-2 / February, 2006, pp. 55-66
Porter, James (1991) “Muddying the Crystal Springs: From Idealism and Realism to Marxism in the Study of English and American Folk Song,” in Comparative Musicology and Anthropology of Music, pp. 113-30
Week 11 Alan Lomax
Cohen, Ronald, editor (2005) Alan Lomax: Selected Writings, 1934-1997
Szwed, John (2010) The Man Who Recorded the World: A Biography of Alan Lomax
Week 12 Canadian Songcatchers
Jessup, Lynda, Andrew Nurse and Gordon Smith (2008) Around and About with Marius Barbeau: Modelling Twentieth-Century Culture
McKay, Ian (1994) The Quest of the Folk: Antimodernism and Cultural Selection in Twentieth-Century Nova Scotia
Week 13 Folk Music Festivals
Cohen, Ronald D. (2008) A History of Folk Music Festivals in the United States: Feasts of Musical Celebration
Cantwell, Robert (1993) Ethnomimesis: Folklore and the Representation of Culture