Traditions they are a'changing

Given the background of folk music, it's hardly surprising that it has its fair share of purists. A music steeped in cultural tradition is bound to attract those who believe old ways are best. At the same time many people who make music are by nature improvisers, always on the lookout for new ways of expressing musical ideas.

We need both. Purists can be annoyingly pedantic at times, and sometimes get hung up on points which really don't matter. But without them we could too easily lose our knowledge of old musical traditions, as well as the delight of hearing them authentically performed.

Experimenters can be horribly tasteless, introducing new treatments of traditional material just for the sake of change and sometimes producing sounds which have neither the soul of the original nor any fresh inspiration in the new. But without them folk music would stagnate, lose its vitality and become a lifeless museum archive.

Extremists in both camps are never likely to see eye to eye, of course, and because they are extremists they tend to be quite off-beam at times. Like the melodeon players who insist that theirs is the only 'proper' instrument for accompanying English morris dancing, and look rather disapprovingly at anyone who ventures forth with a flute or banjo.

It escapes them that morris dancing has existed for over 500 years but the melodeon is still only in its second century, whereas simple flutes and banjos were in common use throughout morris's half-millennium and would certainly have been used where these instruments happened to be in the village. Funny how being pedantic about what's traditional is often based on basic errors or false assumptions.

On the other side, modernists argue that if only the old-timers of yesteryear had had access to bass guitars and synthesisers they would happily have used them. Perhaps - but judging by what they did with their traditional instruments, they would probably have used the high-tech stuff quite tastefully. Funny how use of modern instruments today often seems to encourage appallingly crass playing. A case of power corrupting, perhaps.

But despite these niggles about the excesses of some traditionalists and some modernists, let's be thankful that they both seem to be thriving. And some of the most exciting developments occur when they actually come together. Some of the jazz/folk fusions are producing innovative, exciting music. In the south of England there's a project to combine traditional folk music with contemporary dance.

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