--------------6F14E36D3E4CB352952EB981 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I want to pose some questions as part of this thread. I responded privately to Estelle's original query with my overall historical view concerning what defines folk music but because I have questions I hope you will all forgive me for not yet presenting my view. My question is directed at anybody who has ever programmed a folk festival or a series of folk music concerts or to anybody that attends both on a regular basis. The questions are as follows: Within the bounds of you own personal definition of what constitutes folk music, have you strayed any significant distance from your own definition for economic or peer pressure reasons? The reason I ask is that it seems that current programmers are stretching the limits like never before in order to attract a wider audience. Is this a good and reasonable practise or does it put folk music, as an art form in danger? I was returning by car from the Edmonton Folk Festival yesterday and heard an interview with the AD of the Regina festival on CBC and she was asked about "Canadian" traditional music and she avoided the question because she knew zero about it. She referred to us "old" folkies as a group that needed to be serviced but that really the young kids needed "young programming" and that was the needed ingrediant in attracting youth to "folk" music. Her attitude shook me a little because I remember being 16 and seeing Mississippi John Hurt and Hobart Smith at Newport and being blown away by the old guys. I guess the real questions being posed is about the pragmatic approach to programming. The Edmonton Folk Festival this year really impressed me because of the core of young performers including Danu, Heartbreak Hill, Scruj MacDuhk, Jernny Lester and others. Noine of them strayed at all from my definition. All are young musicians steeped in folk music and the great number of young people at Edm responded more than well to them. DO we have to program at the lowest common denominator in order to attract a young audience? Should we? Do we need to change or abandon our definitions for pragmattic economic reasons? Are we behind the times? The message I got listening to the Regina interview was that I'm an old fart that needed servicing and that what I considered to be folk music was not relevent to youth. My immediate subjective reaction was anger. It is with second thought that I pose these questions. mitch --------------6F14E36D3E4CB352952EB981 Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I want to pose some questions as part of this thread. I responded privately to Estelle's original query with my overall historical view concerning what defines folk music but because I have questions I hope you will all forgive me for not yet presenting my view. My question is directed at anybody who has ever programmed a folk festival or a series of folk music concerts or to anybody that attends both on a regular basis. The questions are as follows: Within the bounds of you own personal definition of what constitutes folk music, have you strayed any significant distance from your own definition for economic or peer pressure reasons? The reason I ask is that it seems that current programmers are stretching the limits like never before in order to attract a wider audience. Is this a good and reasonable practise or does it put folk music, as an art form in danger?I was returning by car from the Edmonton Folk Festival yesterday and heard an interview with the AD of the Regina festival on CBC and she was asked about "Canadian" traditional music and she avoided the question because she knew zero about it. She referred to us "old" folkies as a group that needed to be serviced but that really the young kids needed "young programming" and that was the needed ingrediant in attracting youth to "folk" music. Her attitude shook me a little because I remember being 16 and seeing Mississippi John Hurt and Hobart Smith at Newport and being blown away by the old guys.
I guess the real questions being posed is about the pragmatic approach to programming. The Edmonton Folk Festival this year really impressed me because of the core of young performers including Danu, Heartbreak Hill, Scruj MacDuhk, Jernny Lester and others. Noine of them strayed at all from my definition. All are young musicians steeped in folk music and the great number of young people at Edm responded more than well to them. DO we have to program at the lowest common denominator in order to attract a young audience? Should we? Do we need to change or abandon our definitions for pragmattic economic reasons? Are we behind the times? The message I got listening to the Regina interview was that I'm an old fart that needed servicing and that what I considered to be folk music was not relevent to youth.
My immediate subjective reaction was anger. It is with second thought that I pose these questions.
mitch