writer's house journal: Dougie McLean

[melannen]

dreamsquirrel asked me to go with him to the Dougie McLean concert in Takoma tonight, and I condescended to acquiese. McLean is a Scottish folk musician-- guitar and singing, mostly. dreamsquirrel is really, really into folk music Me, I have no musical taste whatsoever. None. I like verything from hobbit hip-hop to baroque piano. And I do enjoy going to folk concerts. It's the *culture* I could do without.

Just once, I'd like to go to a folk concert and hear actual folksongs. Okay, be fair-- Tinsmith and a couple of others have played occasional songs out of the Childe Ballads, but even then they're alwasy set to music of own composition. In other words, they're not *living* folksongs, still alive in tune & words among ordinary people. And there *are* such songs, *still*.

You can say they have to be recomposed because folksongs are participatory, not performative, by nature, & don't directly translate to the stage-- but McLean used *that* excuse for songs of his own composition, requiring the audience t osing along with the choruses.

Not that I didn't enjoy it-- I love singing when I'm in a largo enough group to be sure my voice will be drowned out-- but the value of traditional music is in the *tradition*. These songs have been perfected by natural selection, survival of the fittest, punctuated equilibrium, and while they may not be perfect, tehy are, like all living things, beautiful and infinite in meaning...

Comments

[aelkiss.livejournal.com]

but even then they're alwasy set to music of own composition.

Untrue. I'd say that it's really more the exception than the rule - they usually fiddle around with the tune a little bit, and to be fair Steeleye Span does tend to make up their own tunes, but Tinsmith does use a lot of traditional tunes - most of the jigs and reels and banjo stuff is all pretty traditional, and (as one example) the tune they use for Mrs. McGrath is the same that I heard in an Edinburgh pub (though Tinsmith fiddles with the rhythm a bit)

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Not fair arguing about misconceptions I hade a year ago!

I was, quite possibly, basing that generalization largely on Steeleye Span. But I also had the vague idea that a lot of the traditional songs used don't *have* a traditional tune preserved with them. And then I really have little knowledge of this at all.