INTRODUCTION

In 1981, the International Folk Music Council (IFMC) adopted a new name, the International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM). Professional societies do such things, of course, usually to signal that they are about to redefine their fields of study with greater precision. We can surely imagine that, by 1981, the IFMC might have honed its theoretical acumen sufficiently during its almost thirty-five years of existence to suggest the need for reconsideration of its name and the object of its study. But traditional music hardly seems more precise than folk music. Yes, folk music forms traditions, but so do other genres of music. One can speak about traditions of Italian opera or traditions of South Indian classical music without provoking battles over the use and abuse of terminology. No one could deny that the diverse musics and musical cultures studied by the members of the IFMC constituted many types of tradition; accordingly, to dub them traditional music in the concerted voice lent by a scholarly journal, international meetings, and myriad national committees was not to force musical repertories into molds that few thought would fit. Indeed, the change was not so much a result of believing in traditional music as of losing faith in folk music.

The symbolic repudiation of folk music by the ICTM was hardly an isolated instance of a momentary fall from grace. By the 1980s, folk music had fallen on hard times in the academic world. It still succored a coterie of ardent believers, and it continued to designate panels at scholarly meetings or courses in college catalogues. Closer scrutiny of this folk music study, however, would reveal an increasingly conservative undertow. Several sacred repertories—the Child ballads, for example—always managed to spawn their share of publications, whether to proclaim yet another system for modal classification or to announce yet another version of “Edward” in a community where Anglo-American influences were previously undocumented. Ironically, it was this conservative voice that insisted most vigorously on the need for precision, or at least an imagined precision, that could guard true folk music from the sullying inflections of other genres or the mass media. Precision thus meant concentrating on the precious while situating folk music in the past.

The conservative voice of folk music scholarship, however, exemplified only one approach to the panoply of musics that musicologists of Western art music did not include in their purview. Popular music, non-Western music, country music—all of these and their complex components were attracting increasing interest from different disciplines; if the generic categories were somewhat blurred and constantly undergoing change, there was a consensus that interdisciplinary approaches were the most valuable way of understanding the new subgenres of folk music. A few scholars began recognizing folk music in new contexts: bluegrass, urban revivals, mass-mediated traditions. There was no particular insistence that these contexts were folk music, only that folk music was a part of them. Thus, an alternative voice for folk music scholarship emerged. Rather than expressing concern over the disappearance of folk music, it preferred to see change as normative and creative; rather than subscribing to restrictive categories that limited folk music to rural venues, it ascribed importance to place on the basis of community, the aggregate of individuals that interacts with its physical and cultural environment. The concerns of this alternative voice, however, drifted farther and farther away from its conservative counterpart, and it seemed that the voices had very different visions of what folk music really was.

Since its inception in 1947, the International Folk Music Council had provided a forum for conflicting views of folk music. In the editorial that inaugurated the first issue of the IFMC’s journal in 1949, conservative and progressive issues both appear, if, in fact, the conservative are not a bit more pressing. Whereas there is recognition that the “fashions and amusements of the city are all-pervasive,” urgency is not to be underestimated because “we have to face the fact that folk music is disappearing as a traditional art” (Editorial 1949:1). The founders of the IFMC were not remiss when it came to facing-the-fact and therefore took as their first objective—stated in their constitution and reiterated for years inside the title page of their journal—”to assist in the preservation, dissemination and practice of folk music of all countries” (The International Folk Music Council: Its Formation and Progress 1949:4). This was an activist agenda, aimed at stemming disappearance by changing those conditions disadvantageous to folk music’s survival. If that meant staging revivals, so be it; if it meant actively soliciting government agencies and the mass media, that too must be. One cannot ignore an overt consciousness of the past in this agenda, but equally overt is the injunction that folk music must not be relegated to the past. Staking out a place for folk music in the modern world quickly became a raison d’être for the IFMC.

If folk music was to be delivered from its projected demise, the IFMC was certainly a likely candidate for rescuer. It had cast its theoretical nets as widely as possible while still identifying folk music as the explicit object of its study. The broad international base of the IFMC encouraged many perspectives and produced a literature that discussed folk music throughout the world, thereby maintaining a theoretical framework that stressed comparison. Throughout its early years the pronouncements of the IFMC, though often forged through fiery debate, nonetheless reflected considerable latitude and willingness to make concessions on what was or was not to fit under the folk music aegis. Even the most conservative stalwarts of the IFMC, such as Maud Karpeles, long one of the council’s most powerful voices, wrote periodically in a vein that could sound positively liberal.

Eventually, however, the position of folk music was not secure. Those who engaged in the internecine squabbles that effected its ouster from the official name of the professional society seemed unable to agree on what was wrong with the term, only that something was not quite right. One position held that folk music was too specific; another that it was too general. One side contended that tradition rather than folk constituted the real focus; another countered that tradition was nothing if not animated by the folk. In the end, little ballyhoo accompanied the actual transformation from one name to the other. No editorial in the yearbook of the council mentions the change, justifies it, or even issues an apologia; outsiders note the change only because of the yearbook’s new title. Few members have objected strenuously in subsequent years, and the ambiguous nature of traditional music seems not the least bit contentious. One might think that folk music has quietly slipped into the past and peacefully become a relic of a less complicated age. One might imagine that folk music has confronted and been confronted by the modern world, but that the resulting impasse meted out no terrain appropriate for survival. This book argues otherwise and proposes an alternative interpretation of folk music in the modern world.

Recent years have witnessed considerable criticism of the most fundamental concepts of folk music. In its most extreme form, this criticism has questioned the basic validity of recognizing any genre of music and folklore that could rightfully be called folk music. Less vehement but equally ideological in thrust, another form of criticism has taken a strictly historicist stance, recognizing the existence of folk music but only under conditions that obtained in a simpler era, which by definition would not be possible today. Much of this criticism asserts that folk music as a concept of aesthetic and cultural expression has outlived its usefulness. Like the ICTM, critics seem less concerned that the realm of study is wrong than that those who undertake it as a livelihood are wrongheaded. Hence, one observes a certain thrashing about in search of surrogate names. Most consistent and specific among the suggestions is “workingclass” music or the like (Harker 1985 and Keil 1982; cf. also Greenway 1953). As attractive as the working-class-cum-folk seems at first glance, its advocates always advance their claims tentatively—that is to say, unconvincingly—and not uncommonly with an appendix of other surrogate terms (Keil 1978:264). The most important point that this criticism should drive home, however, is that the concept “folk music” is in need of considerable overhaul and that we need to wrench its moorings from a cultural setting that no longer exists, if it ever did.

The cultural setting with which I am primarily concerned in this book is the modern world. This setting is responsive to both dramatic change and the stability afforded by tradition. It is a setting in which folk music thrives, albeit with only occasional resemblance to the pristine models advocated by conservative scholarship. This book is therefore less an account of folk music itself than an appraisal of the study of folk music. It takes as a fundamental premise that folk music surrounds us in abundance and that the study of folk music helps us understand the diverse panoply of aesthetic and cultural meanings that such abundance bespeaks. The study of folk music must address such musical abundance in all its diversity or become increasingly parochial and moribund, a field devoted wistfully to a rosy past that might have been.

That this book takes a stance of broadening the field is obvious from the title, which states the subject of the field as folk music, not folk song. This distinction is far more than simply adding a dash of instrumental music to the disciplinary broth. It multiplies the ways one can define a folk music community; it allows for new processes of change; it acknowledges many canons rather than one whose hypothetical centrality is prescribed by language; it draws the core and boundaries of a musical culture closer together and admits that their interaction is very complex. The ramifications of stating the field as “the study of folk music” are many. Not only does one encounter more music, but more theories come to bear upon that music; not only does one broaden the social basis of music, but it becomes readily apparent that comparable social bases exist throughout the world. Redesignating the object of the field as folk music ipso facto poses new questions about change and modernism, about the different ways music functions in non-Western cultures.

The study of folk music necessarily entails more than much of the literature devoted to folk song would indicate. Folk music from this disciplinary perspective is not limited to Europe or North America; nor need it be rural and particularly old; nor does it circulate solely through oral transmission. These are the restrictive caveats of an earlier scholarship that the study of folk music intentionally supersedes. In so doing, it is able to muster new perspectives from other fields, with whose goals and methods the study of folk music intersects. The anthropological and sociological examination of community, the folkloristic study of expressive behavior, the ethnomusicological concern for music throughout the world—these theoretical thrusts and more contribute to the study of folk music for which this book argues. Thus, whatever the new issues and directions this book might advance, it is not advocating a start from scratch. Its call, rather, is for a reassessment of how we think about the folk music we encounter in the world, which in turn will free us from thinking only about what folk music is. Accordingly, as this book forges a more inclusive understanding of folk music’s diversity in the modern world, the study of folk music will broaden its position considerably among the humanistic and social sciences.

Given the somewhat revisionist tone that I have set forth, what theoretical perspectives remain open to us? Two general perspectives suggest themselves. First, sufficient collections and research facilities exist to enable us to do purely historical and descriptive studies of musical cultures that contained musical activity approximating many of the criteria accepted as folk music. This approach is conservative and safe, and it still has much to offer to folk music scholarship. Second, folk music research might begin assuming a more inductive approach, based on observations of musical activity that continues to display many aspects of folk music, even against the backdrop of a modernized and urbanized world. Not so safe as the first approach, this one requires forays far beyond the borders of the traditional definitions of folk music. It will soon be evident that, for the most part, this book takes the second approach. In doing so, the book argues not for a complete redress of conservative approaches but for a substantial addition to them. Thus, it posits that the subgenres of folk music today are quite different from those described when folk music scholarship first began to develop in the nineteenth century. Again, I do not necessarily claim that the older subgenres no longer exist—many of them do—but that relentless preoccupation with them has blinded many scholars to the emergence of new subgenres developing from the old and benefiting from the changing social bases of folk music.

This book incorporates two large cultural contexts for folk music that have previously been tangential, if not anathema, to much folk music scholarship: non-Western cultures and modern society. The extension to non-Western settings has always been part of a claim to universality that many have wished on folk music. My reasoning here is somewhat different, for I am less concerned with universality than with particularity, that is, locating folk music in social structures that are unlike those in Europe and North America. I believe it essential also to understand how folk music appears in the modern world if we are to avoid demoting it to the status of an archaic genre. That this unequivocal association of folk music with urban environments and technological means of dissemination will challenge long-held notions about what folk music should be is an inevitable and fitting outcome of this approach.

Defining folk music has always been a tempting and dangerous undertaking for the scholars of the field (cf. Elbourne 1975). The IFMC wrangled over definitions for years, admitting, on one hand, the impossibility of an all-purpose definition but arguing, on the other, that “provisional declarations” must stipulate certain elements (General Report 1953:12). In this study I avoid offering a single definition of folk music. There are two reasons for this, which I hope will prevent some detractors from accusing me of simply bowing out of a responsibility. First, the different contexts of folk music that I investigate here yield very different definitions. To apply many of the most common definitions of folk music in European and North American society to the Middle East would be a pointless and thankless undertaking. Second, because I regard change as ineluctably bound to folk music tradition, I also assert that the dynamic nature of folk music belies the stasis of definition. Thus, whereas it is safe to say that many of the characteristic definitions of folk music were once widely applicable to rural society, they are less so today; quite the contrary, it becomes increasingly evident that folk music is not eschewed by the city, thereby requiring any attempt at definition to take the urban context into consideration.

Rather than employing strict definitions, this study addresses the components of folk music by seeking to understand the interaction in dual or binary structures. I choose binary structures and most often couch them as dialectics for several reasons fundamental to the approaches urged by this book. Dialectic has an essentially dynamic quality, and I mean it here to serve as a metaphor for ongoing and continuous change. Thus, change ensues from the contraposition in dialectics of such elements as text and context, product and process, oral tradition and written tradition, synchrony and diachrony, and cultural core and boundary. The consistency with which I employ dialectical reasoning is intended as a leitmotif, lending a certain unity and comparability to the overall theoretical approach. Different dialectical approaches render this unity multidimensional, showing it to be a metaphor for yet another concern central to this study, modernism. If dialectical concepts sometimes act as ersatz definitions, they nevertheless draw attention to the more specific components of folk music. I address the question of community, for example, as a dialectic between cultural core and boundary; the boundary through its contact with the outside admits change to the folk music tradition of a community, while the core undergirds the centrality of certain cultural activities and musical repertories. Canon, though often construed as static, is here considered to be dynamic because of its dialectical bridging of text and context.

Folk music scholarship inherited its conservative tone from the earliest stages of its history, at least from the mid-eighteenth century and Johann Gottfried Herder’s vision of a folk whose aesthetic creativity sprang from nature. Exceptional has been the perspective that did not turn toward the past, idealizing and revering a community of folk music that was just out of reach and then fretting over the best ways to rescue folk music before it disappeared. Many of the fundamental endeavors of folk music scholarship are steeped in this conservatism and the ideological stances it engenders: collection, classification, revival, canonization. Even seemingly liberal and radical ideologies frequently turn up a conservative side when applied to folk music; for example, transforming folk music into working-class music requires a faith in the ability of the working class to cohere as a community not unlike the faith that imagines a coherent folk community.

There can be no question that folk music scholarship rarely lacks ideological leanings; if these often sanction its conservative portrayal of the past, they also quicken a tendency toward particularity and diverse viewpoints. For this book to claim a perspective purified of ideology would therefore fail to address folk music on the preferred turf of its chief scholars. This I would not pretend to do. But I do not undertake this text as an ideological position in itself; rather, I attempt to design for it a range of alternative ideological strategies that touch on as many issues central to the study of folk music as possible. Instead of looking at the past and idealizing it, instead of fussing about saving folk music before it discharges its last gasp, I call for the study of folk music in the modern world and in the incredibly diverse contexts that folk music now freely admits. I challenge conservative ideologies from several angles in relation to both the objects on which such ideologies focus and the ways in which they formulate theory. For example, I persistently call attention to the importance of the individual folk musician as an agent of change and creativity. Similarly, I insist on the need to accept external influences and their inseparability from internal change. Thus, folk musicians may be exceptional individuals more often than homogenized versions of everyman. And I place great importance on investigating folk music in new settings—cities, the mass media, popular genres—and on accepting folk music as the product of new cultural processes, especially modernization and urbanization.

It would be unmitigated delusion to deny that conservative ideological stances have generated a pall of doom that has afflicted much folk music scholarship in the past and continues to suppress the development of new approaches. It is perhaps comforting to some that a conservative ideology prods them to yearn for the past and a simpler life. In contrast, it will make the more skeptical wonder whether there really no longer is a genre appropriately called folk music and whether, after all, it might be better just to capitulate to a more neutral terminology, say, traditional music. But folk music, by the very nature of its capacity for change, asks us to consider alternative strategies as well. Rather than contenting ourselves with an ideology of conservatism, why not look instead at the proliferation of changing contexts for creativity in the modern world? And why not reformulate our canons of folk music in recognition of the new texts that change has yielded to folk music?