0 comment Thursday, November 27, 2014 | admin
...just smash your piano, and invoke the glory-beaming banjo! - Mark Twain
On the other hand, Twain also said "A gentleman is a man who can play the banjo, but doesn't."
Still, I am a partisan of banjo music; readers of this blog will know that I love old-time string-band music and its offspring, bluegrass.
So, over at Winston Smith's Blog, I was delighted to see that he has a post on building a fretless mountain banjo.
Now, I am not looking to build a banjo but I love to read about how craftsmen build these things. Back in simpler times when music was something that was often homemade, not something you bought in a store and consumed passively, people knew how to make instruments with which they made their music. It is good to know that it is not a forgotten art everywhere.
I think of the humble "banjer" as a quintessentially American instrument, and Winston Smith has some thoughts about its origin:
There's a myth that the banjo (the "gourd banjar") is a Negro invention, and it came to America with Negro slaves. The implication us that our beautiful Appalachian and Bluegrass music is the child of Africa. B******T! In the first place, instruments like the banjo - strings over a stretched hide - have been in China, non-Negroid Egypt, the Caucasus, Near Asia, and many other places for thousands of years. Negro Africans may have developed such an instrument (highly improbable), but they didn't "invent" it. In the second place, the banjo existed in regions of Appalachia long before our excellent mountain kin folk had ever laid eyes on a Negro. Thirdly, if Negros invented it, then why did they abandon it?''
Those are questions I've wondered about, and posed to other people as well, so it's good to see that I am not the only one asking.
Some people have asked me why it even matters to me who 'invented' the banjo. It matters to me not only because I love the banjo, but because I think the truth matters. In recent years, as I've written so often about on this blog, we've been subjected to an all-out campaign to rewrite history and to take credit away from our people, assigning it, rightly or wrongly, to others. Why? To build others' fragile self-esteem? To diminish our own confidence and pride in our people? To make the gullible think that America was always a multicultural society and a melting pot in which we are only one minor ingredient? I think it's all of the above, and if there are any other possible reasons I am open to considering them.
This source is typical in crediting Africans with influencing Appalachian music and with introducing the banjo -- and the writers get extra PC points for tying the instrument to Islamic origins as well:
ONE of the greatest influences on Appalachian music, as well as many popular American music styles, was that of the African-American. The slaves brought a distinct tradition of group singing of community songs of work and worship, usually lined out by one person with a call and response action from a group. A joyous celebration of life and free sexuality was coupled with improvisation as lyrics were constantly updated and changed to keep up the groups' interest. The percussion of the African music began to change the rhythms of Appalachian singing and dancing. The introduction of the banjo to the Southern Mountains after the Civil War in the 1860s further hastened this process. Originally from Arabia, and brought to western Africa by the spread of Islam, the banjo then ended up in America. Mostly denigrated as a 'slave instrument' until the popularity of the Minstrel Show, starting in the 1840s, the banjo syncopation or 'bom-diddle-diddy' produced a different clog-dance and song rhythm by the turn of the century.
[...]
The instrumental tradition of the Appalachians started as anglo-celtic dance tunes and eventually was reshaped by local needs, African rhythms, and changes in instrumentation.''
Winston Smith mentions that the banjo is associated with the old minstrel show tradition, and yet blacks, since the 1960s era, have disclaimed this tradition as being an offensive racial stereotype. I've also heard that such entertainment was something that many blacks feel their ancestors were ''forced'' to do by Massa, and that it was demeaning to them. I have noticed that there are very, very few blacks who play the banjo today. If it was 'their' instrument originally, it seems they've abandoned it.
It does seem, too, that there are no home-grown analogues to the banjo in Africa, no apparent antecedent that I'm familiar with, and I do know a little about world music. There are, however, many related instruments in the Western tradition, making it much more plausible that the banjo was a European-derived instrument, probably being developed to its present form in our country, among our people.
I think it's important for us to take credit for our own traditions. The politically corrected cultural history has just about taken away every American folk tradition from us and credited it to blacks -- traditions such as buck-dancing, flatfoot dancing, and later traditions such as rock 'n roll music.
Anyone who is familiar with the dance traditions of the British Isles recognizes that buck dancing and flatfoot dancing, as well as clogging and 'square dancing' are derived from traditions that came with our early English and Scots settlers.
If we're to believe the popular historians of today, we have no culture of our own; blacks had to teach us everything when they came here from Africa. And this idea fits with the current demeaning stereotype of Whites as being mere blank slates with no innate character or culture to speak of. This is particularly said, maliciously, about White Americans. So it's important for us to confidently claim our own traditions back again, and to refuse to let ourselves be stripped of our traditions, however humble they may be. They are part of us.
Read the rest of Winston Smith's post at the link.
On the other hand, Twain also said "A gentleman is a man who can play the banjo, but doesn't."
Still, I am a partisan of banjo music; readers of this blog will know that I love old-time string-band music and its offspring, bluegrass.
So, over at Winston Smith's Blog, I was delighted to see that he has a post on building a fretless mountain banjo.
Now, I am not looking to build a banjo but I love to read about how craftsmen build these things. Back in simpler times when music was something that was often homemade, not something you bought in a store and consumed passively, people knew how to make instruments with which they made their music. It is good to know that it is not a forgotten art everywhere.
I think of the humble "banjer" as a quintessentially American instrument, and Winston Smith has some thoughts about its origin:
There's a myth that the banjo (the "gourd banjar") is a Negro invention, and it came to America with Negro slaves. The implication us that our beautiful Appalachian and Bluegrass music is the child of Africa. B******T! In the first place, instruments like the banjo - strings over a stretched hide - have been in China, non-Negroid Egypt, the Caucasus, Near Asia, and many other places for thousands of years. Negro Africans may have developed such an instrument (highly improbable), but they didn't "invent" it. In the second place, the banjo existed in regions of Appalachia long before our excellent mountain kin folk had ever laid eyes on a Negro. Thirdly, if Negros invented it, then why did they abandon it?''
Those are questions I've wondered about, and posed to other people as well, so it's good to see that I am not the only one asking.
Some people have asked me why it even matters to me who 'invented' the banjo. It matters to me not only because I love the banjo, but because I think the truth matters. In recent years, as I've written so often about on this blog, we've been subjected to an all-out campaign to rewrite history and to take credit away from our people, assigning it, rightly or wrongly, to others. Why? To build others' fragile self-esteem? To diminish our own confidence and pride in our people? To make the gullible think that America was always a multicultural society and a melting pot in which we are only one minor ingredient? I think it's all of the above, and if there are any other possible reasons I am open to considering them.
This source is typical in crediting Africans with influencing Appalachian music and with introducing the banjo -- and the writers get extra PC points for tying the instrument to Islamic origins as well:
ONE of the greatest influences on Appalachian music, as well as many popular American music styles, was that of the African-American. The slaves brought a distinct tradition of group singing of community songs of work and worship, usually lined out by one person with a call and response action from a group. A joyous celebration of life and free sexuality was coupled with improvisation as lyrics were constantly updated and changed to keep up the groups' interest. The percussion of the African music began to change the rhythms of Appalachian singing and dancing. The introduction of the banjo to the Southern Mountains after the Civil War in the 1860s further hastened this process. Originally from Arabia, and brought to western Africa by the spread of Islam, the banjo then ended up in America. Mostly denigrated as a 'slave instrument' until the popularity of the Minstrel Show, starting in the 1840s, the banjo syncopation or 'bom-diddle-diddy' produced a different clog-dance and song rhythm by the turn of the century.
[...]
The instrumental tradition of the Appalachians started as anglo-celtic dance tunes and eventually was reshaped by local needs, African rhythms, and changes in instrumentation.''
Winston Smith mentions that the banjo is associated with the old minstrel show tradition, and yet blacks, since the 1960s era, have disclaimed this tradition as being an offensive racial stereotype. I've also heard that such entertainment was something that many blacks feel their ancestors were ''forced'' to do by Massa, and that it was demeaning to them. I have noticed that there are very, very few blacks who play the banjo today. If it was 'their' instrument originally, it seems they've abandoned it.
It does seem, too, that there are no home-grown analogues to the banjo in Africa, no apparent antecedent that I'm familiar with, and I do know a little about world music. There are, however, many related instruments in the Western tradition, making it much more plausible that the banjo was a European-derived instrument, probably being developed to its present form in our country, among our people.
I think it's important for us to take credit for our own traditions. The politically corrected cultural history has just about taken away every American folk tradition from us and credited it to blacks -- traditions such as buck-dancing, flatfoot dancing, and later traditions such as rock 'n roll music.
Anyone who is familiar with the dance traditions of the British Isles recognizes that buck dancing and flatfoot dancing, as well as clogging and 'square dancing' are derived from traditions that came with our early English and Scots settlers.
If we're to believe the popular historians of today, we have no culture of our own; blacks had to teach us everything when they came here from Africa. And this idea fits with the current demeaning stereotype of Whites as being mere blank slates with no innate character or culture to speak of. This is particularly said, maliciously, about White Americans. So it's important for us to confidently claim our own traditions back again, and to refuse to let ourselves be stripped of our traditions, however humble they may be. They are part of us.
Read the rest of Winston Smith's post at the link.
Labels: American Culture, American Heritage, Folk Arts, Folkways, Political Correctness, Traditional Music
0 comment Wednesday, November 19, 2014 | admin
Here's a wonderful example of Appalachian flat-footing, performed by American Nic Gareiss and fiddler Anna Lindblad.
The performance was in Limerick, Ireland, and the audience seems very appreciative. I love these trans-Atlantic exchanges; we do have a common heritage, though we have diverged.
I love Appalachian flat-footing and buck-dancing. It's another of those dwindling folk traditions that is being displaced by mass popular culture. But the fact that there are young folks learning these things is a cause for hope.
Enjoy.
Labels: Dance, Folkways, Old-Time Music, South, Southern Culture, Traditions
0 comment Sunday, September 28, 2014 | admin
I came across this discussion at a traditional music forum which is frequented by many people from the UK.
English culture -- what is it?
If you read through the thread, (scrolll down the linked page), you will find many exasperating responses which illustrate vividly how far the leftist/globalist/multicult agenda has penetrated into people's thoughts and feelings about their own country and heritage. It ain't pretty.
I have to say, sadly, that if you posed a similar question among a group of American 'folkie' or trad music types, that the responses would be just as dismal. Still, I suppose there is a case to be made, however weak and politically correct, that America has no native culture, but is merely a patchwork of various immigrant cultures. I disagree vehemently, of course, but still there's no denying that for the last 150+ years, America has absorbed a lot of immigrants from various places, and that some melding of cultures has occurred. But the UK, or Great Britain to use an older name, has not been a magnet for exotic immigrants until the latter half of the 20th century. I am aware that various smaller waves of immigrants have come to England, but their effect on the overall way of life there was negligible, unlike the present wave of Third World interlopers.
The media, the government, and the educational establishment in the UK are much more dominated by hard-core leftists and multiculturalists than even our institutions, and they seem to have accomplished their aim of mostly obliterating the sense of a national identity and culture.
The original poster on the thread simply asked a question, and was greeted with an incredibly hostile and venomous group of responses. What a plague on Western society leftism and ''liberalism'' are. They have truly left our Western countries sick unto death with their pernicious and malevolent ideas, and we have to work to find an anti-venom for this societal toxin or it will be the end of us.
A sampling of the comments, for those who don't want to wade through a very long and obnoxious thread:
If you want to "know" about "English" Culture I suggest you join the BNP...
****
What might be marvellous is England as the first culture free nation. Done with our reformation, civil wars, slavery, industrial revolution, class division we free ourseles [sic] of the burden of culture for a voyage of new discovery without a backward glance.
Heady stuff that.
*******
"My prob with the whole kulture game is it assumes there are shared resonances which elicit a unified response"
I'd disagree with that. I think we should celebrate the diversity and eclectic nature of our culture and fight against the uniformity that is creeping in - especialy [sic] the Americanisation and the threat to our wonderful family high street shops and small food-producers posed by the big supermarkets and ludicrous EU regulations.''
A question: why is everybody ready to see the threat from ''Americanisation'' and the EU (which is indeed a threat) but unable to see the threat posed by mass immigration and cultural Marxism? They have been schooled to believe that 'fascism and racism' are the only threats.
Back to the comments - beginning with a post by what seems to be a third-world immigrant:
Is it only English people who can comment on what English Culture is? I should think that, for people living in a sizeable proportion of the globe, "English Culture" is a mess of lies with which Public Schoolboy colonizers tried to replace numerous indigenous cultures.
[posted by a 'Guest with no English connexion']
Followed by a raving multicultist:
"Okay, let's put this in some sort or rational context. There is a vast difference in being interested in one's heritage and wanting to select through rose-tinted spectacles a romantic image of a Merrie Englande. The critical word here is 'select'!
I repeat my first post. In answer to the question the simplest and most accurate response is DIVERSE. In other words every bit of England (and everywhere else) has its own culture that is unique to that area, and the influences on those cultures are manifold and frequently not English in origin. For god's sake let's celebrate the diversity!
And a programmed lefty:
''The BNP are such a load of congenital idiots they can't even get the flag right. If it's British it should be the Union Flag and not the English Flag.
The whole lot are complete arseholes and - yes - I want my flag back please, and I want it to be looked on as a proud symbol for ALL who live in England.
Next, a dedicated multiculturalist:
"English culture as opposed to what other culture?
Do you mean something intrinsically English that doesn't occur anywhere else? You won't find anything, neither will you in any other culture.''
The original poster makes a valiant effort to counter the responses she gets, which are mostly hostile to her personally and to her question. And as you can see, the BNP are special targets of opprobrium. The leftists have done a bang-up job of marginalizing and (to use an obnoxious leftist word) 'demonizing" the BNP, and any kind of national feeling at all.
Sadly, though, she yields to the race-baiting and protests more than once that she is ''not a racist'' and that she, too, loves diversity. Bad mistake. Never give in to their game and never give any credibility to their name-calling and their 'racism' nonsense. That's letting them define the terms and create the rules of the game. They must be somehow put on the defensive. But why are we on our side so lost when it comes to doing this? Too often even the more politically incorrect at some point give in to PC and begin to protest that they are not ''racist'' or ''haters.'' Or worse, they start sniping at others farther to the right as a way of showing that they are not ''fascists'' or ''racists." This needs to stop.
There are a couple of common-sense responses that at least defend the existence of an 'English culture' which is identifiable. One such post seems to come from an American:
I think there is a definitive English folk music culture. I think this maybe the point of this
discussion. Certainly you could define the North Country Border rural music as "English" or areas such as Cornwall. There is an English ballad singing style. A.L. Lloyd or Ewan McColl has popularized it. Louis Killen as well. There seems to be a fiddling style that's unique to England.
I think Elizabethan Pro-Musica defines a tradition of Campion and Dowland which is
definitively English.
There is a Cockney music culture which as analogous to the city music halls of early America such as early Broadway or Second Avenue.
As in any country, there are regional styles that are a composite of the overall "culture".
As an outsider, I find that an English culture tends to be more subdued than the American one which is more bombastic like the German culture. These are gross generalizations, of course.
In the personalities on the stage, eccentricities of comics such as Monty Python,
the Goon Show, Spike Milligan, and even America's Danny Kaye seem to define a different emphasis on humor which tend toward the oddness of the characters. I think that English humor is different than in America which has more of a wise-cracking approach. The English appreciate the role of the clown in comedy. It's no accident that Stan Laurel and Charlie Chaplin instituted a brand of humor that is uniquely English in my opinion. I find the English Brit-coms equally reflective of British humor unlike the stuff from Stateside.
Ralph Vaughan Williams could not have originated in America, I believe. His music has
a distinctly English character as does Percy Grainger.
The tunes of Henry the Eighth typify an English musical approach. "Pastime with Good Company" could not have been written anywhere in the world except England.
Then there's the poets.
I think a strong case can be made for English culture citing these examples for a start.''
To me this is beyond obvious, and it is almost spooky how the British posters are so angry and aggressive in denying their own culture exists.
This behavior is groupthink at its most blatant, and is evidence of brainwashing. It really goes against all common-sense expectations for people to respond with hostility to the idea that their own people have a culture, that their ancestors created a distinct way of life. For people en masse to deny such things is just bizarre. It is not natural.
And lest anybody think I am criticizing British people too much, I can say we have more than our share of such brainwashed zombies in our country, sadly. If I am critical of the British in this context, it's only because I feel a strong affinity to them, based on common ancestry and history. All of us in America, even those who have no actual British ancestry, have partaken of a culture which has its origins in Great Britain, most specifically in England, so in a sense we are all a part of the extended family. So all of us should feel some distress over what is happening to Britain and to our cousins there, even though they seem not to want to own us as their kin.
I realize the commenters at that forum may be atypical; the 'folkies' I have known here and on the other side of the Atlantic are often, for some reason, rabid leftists. I posed a question before about why this is true, and I can't explain it fully. It makes no sense, on the face of it, to claim to love the traditional music of your people and country, and to care enough about preserving old songs, dances, and stories if you think that your country has in fact 'no culture of its own'. But leftists and liberals, it seems, are adept at holding many contradictory and nonsensical ideas at the same time.
The original poster is accused repeatedly of promoting a nostalgic view of 'Merrie England', which these cynics say never existed, or perhaps never should have existed. Why are leftists so cynical and hateful when it comes to the past? They seem to have declared all-out war on the past, and on memory, as I've said before. I am sometimes accused too of invoking an America that 'never was', a glamor-lensed view of old America. I realize the past is gone, and that no era or place is ever perfect. But by invoking the old America, I am not simply wallowing in teary nostalgia, but trying to awaken amnesiacs and try to bring them to their senses. Suppose an individual has amnesia (maybe it does happen outside movies sometimes) and has no recollection of who he is, where he comes from, where he belongs, and what he has accomplished? Our memory is a big part of who we are from moment to moment. Our memories define us to a great extent. We can't willfully forego our memories, erase our history, and still fully function as we are meant to be. So it is important to evoke the past in a warped world which denies and distorts that past.
I've quoted the following passage since the earliest days of this blog:
"The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history.
Before long the nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was. The world around it will forget even faster. " - Milan Hubl, quoted by Milan Kundera in 'The Book of Laughter and Forgetting'
English culture -- what is it?
If you read through the thread, (scrolll down the linked page), you will find many exasperating responses which illustrate vividly how far the leftist/globalist/multicult agenda has penetrated into people's thoughts and feelings about their own country and heritage. It ain't pretty.
I have to say, sadly, that if you posed a similar question among a group of American 'folkie' or trad music types, that the responses would be just as dismal. Still, I suppose there is a case to be made, however weak and politically correct, that America has no native culture, but is merely a patchwork of various immigrant cultures. I disagree vehemently, of course, but still there's no denying that for the last 150+ years, America has absorbed a lot of immigrants from various places, and that some melding of cultures has occurred. But the UK, or Great Britain to use an older name, has not been a magnet for exotic immigrants until the latter half of the 20th century. I am aware that various smaller waves of immigrants have come to England, but their effect on the overall way of life there was negligible, unlike the present wave of Third World interlopers.
The media, the government, and the educational establishment in the UK are much more dominated by hard-core leftists and multiculturalists than even our institutions, and they seem to have accomplished their aim of mostly obliterating the sense of a national identity and culture.
The original poster on the thread simply asked a question, and was greeted with an incredibly hostile and venomous group of responses. What a plague on Western society leftism and ''liberalism'' are. They have truly left our Western countries sick unto death with their pernicious and malevolent ideas, and we have to work to find an anti-venom for this societal toxin or it will be the end of us.
A sampling of the comments, for those who don't want to wade through a very long and obnoxious thread:
If you want to "know" about "English" Culture I suggest you join the BNP...
****
What might be marvellous is England as the first culture free nation. Done with our reformation, civil wars, slavery, industrial revolution, class division we free ourseles [sic] of the burden of culture for a voyage of new discovery without a backward glance.
Heady stuff that.
*******
"My prob with the whole kulture game is it assumes there are shared resonances which elicit a unified response"
I'd disagree with that. I think we should celebrate the diversity and eclectic nature of our culture and fight against the uniformity that is creeping in - especialy [sic] the Americanisation and the threat to our wonderful family high street shops and small food-producers posed by the big supermarkets and ludicrous EU regulations.''
A question: why is everybody ready to see the threat from ''Americanisation'' and the EU (which is indeed a threat) but unable to see the threat posed by mass immigration and cultural Marxism? They have been schooled to believe that 'fascism and racism' are the only threats.
Back to the comments - beginning with a post by what seems to be a third-world immigrant:
Is it only English people who can comment on what English Culture is? I should think that, for people living in a sizeable proportion of the globe, "English Culture" is a mess of lies with which Public Schoolboy colonizers tried to replace numerous indigenous cultures.
[posted by a 'Guest with no English connexion']
Followed by a raving multicultist:
"Okay, let's put this in some sort or rational context. There is a vast difference in being interested in one's heritage and wanting to select through rose-tinted spectacles a romantic image of a Merrie Englande. The critical word here is 'select'!
I repeat my first post. In answer to the question the simplest and most accurate response is DIVERSE. In other words every bit of England (and everywhere else) has its own culture that is unique to that area, and the influences on those cultures are manifold and frequently not English in origin. For god's sake let's celebrate the diversity!
And a programmed lefty:
''The BNP are such a load of congenital idiots they can't even get the flag right. If it's British it should be the Union Flag and not the English Flag.
The whole lot are complete arseholes and - yes - I want my flag back please, and I want it to be looked on as a proud symbol for ALL who live in England.
Next, a dedicated multiculturalist:
"English culture as opposed to what other culture?
Do you mean something intrinsically English that doesn't occur anywhere else? You won't find anything, neither will you in any other culture.''
The original poster makes a valiant effort to counter the responses she gets, which are mostly hostile to her personally and to her question. And as you can see, the BNP are special targets of opprobrium. The leftists have done a bang-up job of marginalizing and (to use an obnoxious leftist word) 'demonizing" the BNP, and any kind of national feeling at all.
Sadly, though, she yields to the race-baiting and protests more than once that she is ''not a racist'' and that she, too, loves diversity. Bad mistake. Never give in to their game and never give any credibility to their name-calling and their 'racism' nonsense. That's letting them define the terms and create the rules of the game. They must be somehow put on the defensive. But why are we on our side so lost when it comes to doing this? Too often even the more politically incorrect at some point give in to PC and begin to protest that they are not ''racist'' or ''haters.'' Or worse, they start sniping at others farther to the right as a way of showing that they are not ''fascists'' or ''racists." This needs to stop.
There are a couple of common-sense responses that at least defend the existence of an 'English culture' which is identifiable. One such post seems to come from an American:
I think there is a definitive English folk music culture. I think this maybe the point of this
discussion. Certainly you could define the North Country Border rural music as "English" or areas such as Cornwall. There is an English ballad singing style. A.L. Lloyd or Ewan McColl has popularized it. Louis Killen as well. There seems to be a fiddling style that's unique to England.
I think Elizabethan Pro-Musica defines a tradition of Campion and Dowland which is
definitively English.
There is a Cockney music culture which as analogous to the city music halls of early America such as early Broadway or Second Avenue.
As in any country, there are regional styles that are a composite of the overall "culture".
As an outsider, I find that an English culture tends to be more subdued than the American one which is more bombastic like the German culture. These are gross generalizations, of course.
In the personalities on the stage, eccentricities of comics such as Monty Python,
the Goon Show, Spike Milligan, and even America's Danny Kaye seem to define a different emphasis on humor which tend toward the oddness of the characters. I think that English humor is different than in America which has more of a wise-cracking approach. The English appreciate the role of the clown in comedy. It's no accident that Stan Laurel and Charlie Chaplin instituted a brand of humor that is uniquely English in my opinion. I find the English Brit-coms equally reflective of British humor unlike the stuff from Stateside.
Ralph Vaughan Williams could not have originated in America, I believe. His music has
a distinctly English character as does Percy Grainger.
The tunes of Henry the Eighth typify an English musical approach. "Pastime with Good Company" could not have been written anywhere in the world except England.
Then there's the poets.
I think a strong case can be made for English culture citing these examples for a start.''
To me this is beyond obvious, and it is almost spooky how the British posters are so angry and aggressive in denying their own culture exists.
This behavior is groupthink at its most blatant, and is evidence of brainwashing. It really goes against all common-sense expectations for people to respond with hostility to the idea that their own people have a culture, that their ancestors created a distinct way of life. For people en masse to deny such things is just bizarre. It is not natural.
And lest anybody think I am criticizing British people too much, I can say we have more than our share of such brainwashed zombies in our country, sadly. If I am critical of the British in this context, it's only because I feel a strong affinity to them, based on common ancestry and history. All of us in America, even those who have no actual British ancestry, have partaken of a culture which has its origins in Great Britain, most specifically in England, so in a sense we are all a part of the extended family. So all of us should feel some distress over what is happening to Britain and to our cousins there, even though they seem not to want to own us as their kin.
I realize the commenters at that forum may be atypical; the 'folkies' I have known here and on the other side of the Atlantic are often, for some reason, rabid leftists. I posed a question before about why this is true, and I can't explain it fully. It makes no sense, on the face of it, to claim to love the traditional music of your people and country, and to care enough about preserving old songs, dances, and stories if you think that your country has in fact 'no culture of its own'. But leftists and liberals, it seems, are adept at holding many contradictory and nonsensical ideas at the same time.
The original poster is accused repeatedly of promoting a nostalgic view of 'Merrie England', which these cynics say never existed, or perhaps never should have existed. Why are leftists so cynical and hateful when it comes to the past? They seem to have declared all-out war on the past, and on memory, as I've said before. I am sometimes accused too of invoking an America that 'never was', a glamor-lensed view of old America. I realize the past is gone, and that no era or place is ever perfect. But by invoking the old America, I am not simply wallowing in teary nostalgia, but trying to awaken amnesiacs and try to bring them to their senses. Suppose an individual has amnesia (maybe it does happen outside movies sometimes) and has no recollection of who he is, where he comes from, where he belongs, and what he has accomplished? Our memory is a big part of who we are from moment to moment. Our memories define us to a great extent. We can't willfully forego our memories, erase our history, and still fully function as we are meant to be. So it is important to evoke the past in a warped world which denies and distorts that past.
I've quoted the following passage since the earliest days of this blog:
"The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history.
Before long the nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was. The world around it will forget even faster. " - Milan Hubl, quoted by Milan Kundera in 'The Book of Laughter and Forgetting'
Labels: British Culture, Cultural Marxism, English Culture, Folkways, Gramscianism, Multiculturalism, National Identity, National Memory, Propaganda, Traditional Music
0 comment Friday, July 11, 2014 | admin
From the 'obvious' department, this story from the BBC about how personality and musical tastes are connected.
This seems so self-evident to me that it should not have taken a scientific study to come to this conclusion. But then many scientific studies in the realm of human behavior seem to be establishing what common sense and observation already tell us. The study apparently had quite a large sampling of people from around the world, and according to the article,
The research, which was carried out by Professor Adrian North of Heriot-Watt University, is said to be the largest such study ever undertaken.
It suggested classical music fans were shy, while heavy metal aficionados were gentle and at ease with themselves.
Professor North described the research as "significant" and "surprising".
What does your musical taste say about you?
He said: "We have always suspected a link between music taste and personality. This is the first time that we've been able to look at it in real detail. No-one has ever done this on this scale before."
Prof North said the research could have many uses in marketing, adding: "If you know a person's music preference you can tell what kind of person they are, who to sell to.''
According to one surprising finding, heavy metal fans and classical music fans are similar in that they are ''creative and at ease, but not outgoing.''
Interestingly, to me, those two musical genres, though diametrically opposed in some ways, have the common factor of being styles of music that basically only White people like. Sure, there are classical music fans in Asia and elsewhere, but especially in the West, if you go to a concert of either classical or metal music, the audience is likely to be preponderantly White, if not all white.
In fact I would venture to say that many nonwhites, beyond being simply indifferent to those musical styles, express open antipathy to each of those musical genres, just as they do towards country music.
If you scroll down on the page linked above, you will notice that the genres of blues, rap, jazz, 'chart-pop' and soul all have fans who have ''high self-esteem." But these are all musical genres pioneered by blacks (although some would dispute that, in the case of jazz) and dominated by blacks or black influences now. And although rap is now embraced by the brainwashed young of all races, it is still considered a black musical form. Yet we hear the constant suggestion that blacks have 'low self-esteem' because of racism whereas in fact studies seem to show just the opposite:
Low self-esteem among blacks has been thought by generations of parents, educators and researchers to lie at the root of an assortment of problems from academic underachievement to crime.
But there is mounting evidence to the contrary.
''After reanalyzing data from 261 studies in which a half-million participants had their self-worth assessed, Bernadette Gray-Little, a psychologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, concluded that black youth exhibited self-esteem that was at least as healthy as that of their white counterparts.
"For a long time, I think, the assumption has been made by others, and sometimes blacks themselves, that self-esteem will go along with the way society views you," Gray-Little said. "Our belief is that self-esteem is more personally based than that. You do not believe you are magnificent or miserable because of social status."
This is why many criminals have been found to have high--and often inflated-- self-esteem, while many overachievers are dogged by a sense of worthlessness, she said.''
Interestingly, in the study results cited in the BBC article, the fans with low self-esteem were those who prefer 'indie music', rock, and heavy metal. It doesn't exactly fit the stereotype, does it? And all those styles of music are predominantly White styles.
Not surprisingly to me, country music fans are said to be hardworking and outgoing. No mention is made of 'self-esteem' there.
The study, by the way, does not deal with those people who have eclectic musical tastes, and I think there are many such people, especially as we live in an increasingly blended society. Actually my own tastes are somewhat eclectic, though I have very definite tastes, and very pronounced likes and dislikes. Some genres I like less than others. Still, I think almost everybody has a favorite type of music, the music that you just couldn't do without, or the music that moves or touches you on the deepest level. For me, this is traditional music, old-time music. The rest, I can enjoy on shallower levels, but it does not affect me in the same way.
Also interesting to me is that the study did not deal with the genre of folk music, although there is a considerable group of people who are devoted to folk music in general, or to various types of folk music.
On the subject of folk music and its aficionados, the Mudcat Forum, which is a folk music forum, had a thread discussing the BBC article regarding the study here wherein it was noted that the folk genre was omitted from the study. The original poster of the thread asks what are the defining character traits of folkies?
One response says that most folkies are politically left-leaning, which is certainly the popular image of folk/traditional musicians. It also fits my own personal experience.
Another commenter says:
I think Folk fans have a sense of tradition and a link to the past more than other fans for other forms of music. Most Folk fans know more about history and have an interest in history the other styles. I know that was my first connection with it. Folk musicians have a more indiviualistic [sic] against the grain mentality. I mean c'mon we are not going to be in the top 40. We are against everything mainstream and don't relly care what is going on or what kind of trend is going on in the mainstream. We do what we love and are willing to put up with low crowds, unruly crowds, criticism galore for not even attempting to cater to the general concept of modern popular music. I have said it before and I will say it again. Folk musicians are a rebellious breed. We do what we want and don't really care what the expectations and current musical trends the mainstream music scene is having at the time.''
I agree with the first sentence especially; most folk musicians or fans have a sense of tradition and an interest in the past, and are not likely to be caught up in what is 'trendy' at any given moment.
In that sense, I love folk musicians and fans, although they are unfortunately prone to be dogmatic lefties on subjects political.
I have often wondered, though, how musicians who seem to care about preserving the cultural traditions of their people as many folk musicians and fans do, can also be in favor of political and cultural leftism, which, if given its way, would obliterate all these distinctive traditions in favor of a multicultural, third-worldized stew.
And it is not just American folk or traditional music types who have this attitude.
Recently on this blog I posted a music video in which Alan Stivell and other Breton and Irish musicians performed a song called Borders of Salt. I love the song, and the message, and I admire Stivell's music very much. One would think that his commitment to his Breton identity would mean that he might be something of a Breton nationalist, and apparently he is -- but at the same time, he is quite the leftist multiculturalist, from all appearances.
He spent his childhood in Paris, absorbing the music of the city's many different populations from across France, Algeria, Morocco and elsewhere.
[...]
In the 1990s, he recorded with Bush, as well as French singer Laurent Voulzy, Irish traditional performer Shane MacGowan and Senegalese singer Doudou N'Diaye Rose. The album was Again, and it became very popular in France, the beginning of a Celtic new wave. His records in the late 1990s contained more pronounced rock elements, and he performed at a rock festival called Transmusicales in Rennes. He continued working with a variety of musicians, inviting Paddy Moloney (of The Chieftains), Jim Kerr (of Simple Minds), Khaled and Youssou N'Dour to be in his very international " 1 Douar / 1 Earth " album .''
There you are: 'one earth.' This is the typical political view of many folk/traditional musicians. I wonder what will happen to Breton music and culture in an Islamized France, or under some kind of one-world supranational government? Leftists never seem to think these things through.
Maybe the answer is that most musicians of whatever genre are not thinking, practical types, but feeling, emotion-driven types. And much as folk music fans and musicians like to think themselves 'rebels' and nonconformists, they are very conformist when it comes to the reigning PC orthodoxies of the day.
I don't know why so many people fail to understand that our musical traditions, like the rest of our cultural traditions, are fragile in today's world, which tends to pave over all the more traditional styles with the pop culture trends of the day, which after all are ephemeral and shallow. And which today, are very anti-White in tendency.
And when our people are blended away or dispersed and dispossessed, our musical traditions will go with us into oblivion; all that will be left then is these manufactured musical trends which have no meaning and no roots in our culture, and which these days are not even our own music, arising from our people. They are all alien in origin.
I suppose I sensed the threat to the musical traditions of the West about 18 or so years ago, when one of my favorite Irish/Celtic groups began to introduce some kind of African drumming into their performances. At the time I was still politically liberal but I knew it bothered me; I sensed that something was being lost. I have always been something of a purist where traditional music is concerned; I like my flavors to be pure and true. You can't adulterate things willy-nilly without risking the destruction of the thing you are supposedly 'improving.'
I posted a couple of years ago about the trend toward eclecticism in bluegrass, what with jazz influences and other such intrusions. Once you jazz it up, it ceases to be what it is, and becomes some kind of hybrid with no pedigree.
There's a need for preserving distinctions in all areas of life. And it all ties together: music is not this disembodied thing; it arises from a particular time and place, and is the expression, at least originally, of not only the individual 'personalities' of the people who make it and those who enjoy it, but of the very soul of the people to which they belong. If you sever the music from its origins, it loses all its meaning and authenticity. It becomes a soulless thing.
This seems so self-evident to me that it should not have taken a scientific study to come to this conclusion. But then many scientific studies in the realm of human behavior seem to be establishing what common sense and observation already tell us. The study apparently had quite a large sampling of people from around the world, and according to the article,
The research, which was carried out by Professor Adrian North of Heriot-Watt University, is said to be the largest such study ever undertaken.
It suggested classical music fans were shy, while heavy metal aficionados were gentle and at ease with themselves.
Professor North described the research as "significant" and "surprising".
What does your musical taste say about you?
He said: "We have always suspected a link between music taste and personality. This is the first time that we've been able to look at it in real detail. No-one has ever done this on this scale before."
Prof North said the research could have many uses in marketing, adding: "If you know a person's music preference you can tell what kind of person they are, who to sell to.''
According to one surprising finding, heavy metal fans and classical music fans are similar in that they are ''creative and at ease, but not outgoing.''
Interestingly, to me, those two musical genres, though diametrically opposed in some ways, have the common factor of being styles of music that basically only White people like. Sure, there are classical music fans in Asia and elsewhere, but especially in the West, if you go to a concert of either classical or metal music, the audience is likely to be preponderantly White, if not all white.
In fact I would venture to say that many nonwhites, beyond being simply indifferent to those musical styles, express open antipathy to each of those musical genres, just as they do towards country music.
If you scroll down on the page linked above, you will notice that the genres of blues, rap, jazz, 'chart-pop' and soul all have fans who have ''high self-esteem." But these are all musical genres pioneered by blacks (although some would dispute that, in the case of jazz) and dominated by blacks or black influences now. And although rap is now embraced by the brainwashed young of all races, it is still considered a black musical form. Yet we hear the constant suggestion that blacks have 'low self-esteem' because of racism whereas in fact studies seem to show just the opposite:
Low self-esteem among blacks has been thought by generations of parents, educators and researchers to lie at the root of an assortment of problems from academic underachievement to crime.
But there is mounting evidence to the contrary.
''After reanalyzing data from 261 studies in which a half-million participants had their self-worth assessed, Bernadette Gray-Little, a psychologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, concluded that black youth exhibited self-esteem that was at least as healthy as that of their white counterparts.
"For a long time, I think, the assumption has been made by others, and sometimes blacks themselves, that self-esteem will go along with the way society views you," Gray-Little said. "Our belief is that self-esteem is more personally based than that. You do not believe you are magnificent or miserable because of social status."
This is why many criminals have been found to have high--and often inflated-- self-esteem, while many overachievers are dogged by a sense of worthlessness, she said.''
Interestingly, in the study results cited in the BBC article, the fans with low self-esteem were those who prefer 'indie music', rock, and heavy metal. It doesn't exactly fit the stereotype, does it? And all those styles of music are predominantly White styles.
Not surprisingly to me, country music fans are said to be hardworking and outgoing. No mention is made of 'self-esteem' there.
The study, by the way, does not deal with those people who have eclectic musical tastes, and I think there are many such people, especially as we live in an increasingly blended society. Actually my own tastes are somewhat eclectic, though I have very definite tastes, and very pronounced likes and dislikes. Some genres I like less than others. Still, I think almost everybody has a favorite type of music, the music that you just couldn't do without, or the music that moves or touches you on the deepest level. For me, this is traditional music, old-time music. The rest, I can enjoy on shallower levels, but it does not affect me in the same way.
Also interesting to me is that the study did not deal with the genre of folk music, although there is a considerable group of people who are devoted to folk music in general, or to various types of folk music.
On the subject of folk music and its aficionados, the Mudcat Forum, which is a folk music forum, had a thread discussing the BBC article regarding the study here wherein it was noted that the folk genre was omitted from the study. The original poster of the thread asks what are the defining character traits of folkies?
One response says that most folkies are politically left-leaning, which is certainly the popular image of folk/traditional musicians. It also fits my own personal experience.
Another commenter says:
I think Folk fans have a sense of tradition and a link to the past more than other fans for other forms of music. Most Folk fans know more about history and have an interest in history the other styles. I know that was my first connection with it. Folk musicians have a more indiviualistic [sic] against the grain mentality. I mean c'mon we are not going to be in the top 40. We are against everything mainstream and don't relly care what is going on or what kind of trend is going on in the mainstream. We do what we love and are willing to put up with low crowds, unruly crowds, criticism galore for not even attempting to cater to the general concept of modern popular music. I have said it before and I will say it again. Folk musicians are a rebellious breed. We do what we want and don't really care what the expectations and current musical trends the mainstream music scene is having at the time.''
I agree with the first sentence especially; most folk musicians or fans have a sense of tradition and an interest in the past, and are not likely to be caught up in what is 'trendy' at any given moment.
In that sense, I love folk musicians and fans, although they are unfortunately prone to be dogmatic lefties on subjects political.
I have often wondered, though, how musicians who seem to care about preserving the cultural traditions of their people as many folk musicians and fans do, can also be in favor of political and cultural leftism, which, if given its way, would obliterate all these distinctive traditions in favor of a multicultural, third-worldized stew.
And it is not just American folk or traditional music types who have this attitude.
Recently on this blog I posted a music video in which Alan Stivell and other Breton and Irish musicians performed a song called Borders of Salt. I love the song, and the message, and I admire Stivell's music very much. One would think that his commitment to his Breton identity would mean that he might be something of a Breton nationalist, and apparently he is -- but at the same time, he is quite the leftist multiculturalist, from all appearances.
He spent his childhood in Paris, absorbing the music of the city's many different populations from across France, Algeria, Morocco and elsewhere.
[...]
In the 1990s, he recorded with Bush, as well as French singer Laurent Voulzy, Irish traditional performer Shane MacGowan and Senegalese singer Doudou N'Diaye Rose. The album was Again, and it became very popular in France, the beginning of a Celtic new wave. His records in the late 1990s contained more pronounced rock elements, and he performed at a rock festival called Transmusicales in Rennes. He continued working with a variety of musicians, inviting Paddy Moloney (of The Chieftains), Jim Kerr (of Simple Minds), Khaled and Youssou N'Dour to be in his very international " 1 Douar / 1 Earth " album .''
There you are: 'one earth.' This is the typical political view of many folk/traditional musicians. I wonder what will happen to Breton music and culture in an Islamized France, or under some kind of one-world supranational government? Leftists never seem to think these things through.
Maybe the answer is that most musicians of whatever genre are not thinking, practical types, but feeling, emotion-driven types. And much as folk music fans and musicians like to think themselves 'rebels' and nonconformists, they are very conformist when it comes to the reigning PC orthodoxies of the day.
I don't know why so many people fail to understand that our musical traditions, like the rest of our cultural traditions, are fragile in today's world, which tends to pave over all the more traditional styles with the pop culture trends of the day, which after all are ephemeral and shallow. And which today, are very anti-White in tendency.
And when our people are blended away or dispersed and dispossessed, our musical traditions will go with us into oblivion; all that will be left then is these manufactured musical trends which have no meaning and no roots in our culture, and which these days are not even our own music, arising from our people. They are all alien in origin.
I suppose I sensed the threat to the musical traditions of the West about 18 or so years ago, when one of my favorite Irish/Celtic groups began to introduce some kind of African drumming into their performances. At the time I was still politically liberal but I knew it bothered me; I sensed that something was being lost. I have always been something of a purist where traditional music is concerned; I like my flavors to be pure and true. You can't adulterate things willy-nilly without risking the destruction of the thing you are supposedly 'improving.'
I posted a couple of years ago about the trend toward eclecticism in bluegrass, what with jazz influences and other such intrusions. Once you jazz it up, it ceases to be what it is, and becomes some kind of hybrid with no pedigree.
There's a need for preserving distinctions in all areas of life. And it all ties together: music is not this disembodied thing; it arises from a particular time and place, and is the expression, at least originally, of not only the individual 'personalities' of the people who make it and those who enjoy it, but of the very soul of the people to which they belong. If you sever the music from its origins, it loses all its meaning and authenticity. It becomes a soulless thing.
Labels: Folkways, Multiculturalism, Traditional Music, Western Civilization, Western Culture