UK "culture"

[MrGongGong]

But an awful lot of music fans of one or the other genre ( don't like that word really) wouldn't really see the other music as both being part of "their" culture.

I think there is much significance in the way that some folks are able to embrace multiple "genres".
(don't start me off ranting about how "genre based" music education isn't such a good idea )

[Dave2002]

I read that she always provided a limo for him when he needed to be taken to hospital, as he frequently did in his later years.

I think she may have also paid some of his bills.

I never met him, but my brother did on the Scilly Isles. He had no recollection of ever having been PM, but thought that he'd been a teacher in Huyton, which was for a while his constituency. His wife had to correct his memories - and tell him he'd not been a teacher. A shame, as whatever one might have thought of his politics, he had been very bright when much younger. Old age creeps up on most of us, though sometimes in different ways.

[Lat-Literal]

We may try and/or manage to defend and preserve what we value as UK’s or whoever’s culture but does it not all depend on what those who come after us think and value? Things can be preserved but not often to be used for what they are meant to be used. The same can be said about a lot of ‘traditions’. Stately homes and grand parks are highly valued as ‘cultural heritage’ but very conveniently without what they stood for.

But I suppose if we make effort to defend and preserve what we value, at least those who come after us will be able to choose. So there is that to it. I think Marmite will survive.

I like this post!

I mean wider culture
BUT that has a lot to do with people seeming to feel more "at home" with their own culture.
So the teenagers I worked with on Shetland had no problem with playing in Death Metal bands AND playing fiddle music. Likewise when I've been and worked in other places.
I think Steve Knightley talks about this stuff a bit in relation to English folk music etc ?

It's interesting that your impression ( correct I'm sure) is that this better education applies to wider culture. I am absolutely convinced that the English have a lot of work to do (and too late some might say) to try to come to terms with their own identity and culture ( folk/popular/high art/ whatever else) , because until we make some strides in that direction, we will be a people very ill at ease with ourselves. So your point about feeling at home in ones own culture is very important.

As you say, people like Steve Knightly and other prominent English folk musicians ( Eliza Carthy , Seth Lakeman etc) have worked hard, from a background of great respect for other British , Irish and other roots music, to find a healthy place for encouragement of English tradition in their work. Well that's how I perceive it anyway. Respect for ones own traditions and those of others ( and ,importantly, allowing them to develop together) must surely go hand in hand.

Knightley and Beer (Show of Hands) do, I suppose, reach out a bit to other cultures. The Galway Farmer etc. I saw them at Womad where they were in a small tent. That was close to a large tent in which there was a fusion thing taking place at high volume. They were rather mocking of it on account of almost being drowned out. Something along the lines that the other act was making itself felt so "if anyone wants to go over there". It was partly humour. It was partly serious. I could understand their frustrations but I also sensed there was an uneasiness. I especially like the titles of their music which refer to the English South Coast. Mostly, I feel they are less about the interconnectedness point and more in line with the point about being at ease with your own culture. For those who don't know, Wikipedia here explains "Roots" which went the wrong way round for a while. In that way, it was not dissimilar to Springsteen's "Born in the USA", although it is about a hundred times less well known, which started life as cynicism and became a rousing anthem of patriotism for the working man.

"Controversy :

Featured on Witness, Show of Hands’ anthemic song Roots, was released as a single in 2008 (Hands On Music). A rousing riposte to Kim Howell’s 2001 remark “the idea of listening to three Somerset folk singers sounds like hell”(when Under Secretary of State for Culture and Sport), the song calls for a celebration of British culture in its diversity. However, it was misappropriated by the BNP. Beer and Knightley forced the BNP to stop using the track and helped to launch ‘’Folk Against Facism’’, giving ‘’Roots’’ to the movement’s eponymous 2010 double album. "Roots" also appeared on the compilation album "The Best of British Folk" and was the title of their 2007 double album, the tracks on which were voted for by their fans".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5h4PFBuzvw

[Conchis]

I think she may have also paid some of his bills.

I never met him, but my brother did on the Scilly Isles. He had no recollection of ever having been PM, but thought that he'd been a teacher in Huyton, which was for a while his constituency. His wife had to correct his memories - and tell him he'd not been a teacher. A shame, as whatever one might have thought of his politics, he had been very bright when much younger. Old age creeps up on most of us, though sometimes in different ways.

That's so sad.

I was actually born in Huyton, while it was HW's constituency. He held it from 1950 to 1983.

Mary would certainly have preferred him to have been a teacher, or - preferably - a don.

I think the vicissitudes of his premierships damaged his health in significant ways. The amount of internecine strife and loathing in his 1964-70 cabinet was quite extraordinary, by all accounts. Although known for his calmness, Wilson was once asked why he didn't 'socialise' more with his colleagues. 'Why should I spend more time with those horrible people than I have to??!' was his surprisingly vociferous response.

[Conchis]

We may try and/or manage to defend and preserve what we value as UK’s or whoever’s culture but does it not all depend on what those who come after us think and value? Things can be preserved but not often to be used for what they are meant to be used. The same can be said about a lot of ‘traditions’. Stately homes and grand parks are highly valued as ‘cultural heritage’ but very conveniently without what they stood for.

But I suppose if we make effort to defend and preserve what we value, at least those who come after us will be able to choose. So there is that to it. I think Marmite will survive.

It probably says a lot about me, but the first thing I though of when I read that was BBC apparatchiks destroying all those Hartnell and Troughton episodes of Doctor Who from the sixties!

[cloughie]

That's so sad.

I was actually born in Huyton, while it was HW's constituency. He held it from 1950 to 1983.

Mary would certainly have preferred him to have been a teacher, or - preferably - a don.

I think the vicissitudes of his premierships damaged his health in significant ways. The amount of internecine strife and loathing in his 1964-70 cabinet was quite extraordinary, by all accounts. Although known for his calmness, Wilson was once asked why he didn't 'socialise' more with his colleagues. 'Why should I spend more time with those horrible people than I have to??!' was his surprisingly vociferous response.

Seems that John Major was not the only one then! But at least HW was fairly good at unifying a party which at one time had a majority of three! Our current PM would probably welcome those skills right now!

[Lat-Literal]

Over the past year, I have watched a TV programme - would be BBC (don't think it was a segment such as in Newsnight) where it played a clip of Enoch Powell predicting the UK would at some future date leave the EU - IIRC, the context being the roots of the EEC/EU leave campaign go back a long way and their campaign has been sustained over decades. (Whether that is a correct conclusion I don't know - it will be corrected by the experts on this thread if not).
Quite a blast from the past. (The Jeremy Thorpe docu-drama was a more amusing blast from the past.....).

This from You Gov appears to provide the answer. An interview with Robin Day in which EP claimed that things can always change because the composition of Parliament changes and Parliament also changes its mind. He alluded to the period just before WW2 in which Parliament would have voted not to go to war in one year before voting to go to war the next year.

Day: You’re saying that this is a kind of Munich? Powell: Yes I am. Day: I see. Powell: You seem surprised! Day: And when do you see our 1940 coming, when we stand alone? Powell: Well, let’s have our 1939 first, when we decide we have to fight. YouGov adds that in other parts of the interview, Powell claims that Heath had said the EEC was always intended to be ultimately a political project as well as a Common Market. This, in its opinion, supports the argument that voters in the 1975 referendum were not misled on the long term implications.

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2015/06/15/eu-vote-enoch-powells-warning-beyond-grave

I am still not convinced that there is a link between the English not comprehending the overseas origins of Morris Dancing and stained glass and teenagers in Shetland being able to enjoy both fiddle music and death metal. Furthermore, Shetland was one of only two places in Britain which voted in 1975 by a majority to leave the EEC - the other was the Western Isles - which it, somehow, managed to balance, along with its Orkney neighbour, with a consistent support for the Liberal Party since 1950. A support which has continued to this day.

[Serial_Apologist]

I mean wider culture
BUT that has a lot to do with people seeming to feel more "at home" with their own culture.
So the teenagers I worked with on Shetland had no problem with playing in Death Metal bands AND playing fiddle music. Likewise when I've been and worked in other places.
I think Steve Knightley talks about this stuff a bit in relation to English folk music etc ?

Such an attitude fits in rather nicely with the old Green slogan "Think globally, act locally". Ewan MacColl was another who did, erm, sterling work in investigating the foreign provenance of various supposely British homegrown folk tunes - and, before him, Bartok, who discovered a number of tunes of supposed Magyar origins, but which could be traced back to regions far away to the east around present-day Afghanistan, to be in existence in Scottish musical folklore. I believe Bartok conducted a correspondence (in English) with a Scottish composer in the 1930s (whose name presently eludes me) with whom he stayed on a visit.

[teamsaint]

Such an attitude fits in rather nicely with the old Green slogan "Think globally, act locally". Ewan MacColl was another who did, erm, sterling work in investigating the foreign provenance of various supposely British homegrown folk tunes - and, before him, Bartok, who discovered a number of tunes of supposed Magyar origins, but which could be traced back to regions far away to the east around present-day Afghanistan, to be in existence in Scottish musical folklore. I believe Bartok conducted a correspondence (in English) with a Scottish composer in the 1930s (whose name presently eludes me) with whom he stayed on a visit.

Erik Chisholm ?

http://www.erikchisholm.com/writings3.php

[Serial_Apologist]

[/B]
Erik Chisholm ?
http://www.erikchisholm.com/writings3.php

Oh thanks ever so much, teamsaint!

[french frank]

I think there is much significance in the way that some folks are able to embrace multiple "genres".
(don't start me off ranting about how "genre based" music education isn't such a good idea )

BUT. I think that there is a difference between "genres" and "cultures". People can certainly embrace different cultures - what else is 'multi-culturalism'? Most people think of themselves as being "from somewhere" and they embrace that culture - local, national - and when they move around they can adopt new cultures, while not abandoning home. There has also been teenage culture through the decades, which some remain in touch with, others do 'abandon'. There is 'popular culture' - entertainment embraced by 'the populace' and which is recognised because it attracts mass (and diverse) audiences. There is also - and here we have a difficulty, because we're dealing with smaller audiences and which is sniffily dismissed as 'elitist' - or 'museum culture'. What does one call it? Perhaps 'classical culture', but one which includes any number of cultures - theatre, literature, the visual arts, music …

It doesn't help the situation to lump all 'classical music' together and call it a 'genre': it is a subculture of 'classical culture' or 'art culture', and as such it ought to be possible for anyone to 'embrace' it. For some reason it's rejected by some - and the blame falls on that 'culture', or the audiences for that 'culture'. 'Dumbing down' is the term applied (by some) for the process by which administrators or managers seek to persuade those who reject it that it's really very entertaining, and you don't need to know anything at all - there will be leaders to help you through it with undemanding material, much of it quite familiar …

[eighthobstruction]

....I couldn't find a OP that suited this brief piece of info I found while trawling....About Paul Mason ex BBC /C4 Economics/Political Reporter now very pro Corbyn and Momentum....<<"Mason was educated at St Joseph's RC Primary School in Leigh and Thornleigh Salesian College in Bolton, which was a Grammar School when Mason attended in the 1970s. He graduated from the University of Sheffield[4] with a degree in music and politics in 1981 and trained to be a music teacher at London University Institute of Education, after which he undertook postgraduate research into the music of the Second Viennese School at the University of Sheffield until 1984.[6]

Mason lived in Leicester from 1982 to 1988, working as a music teacher and lecturer in music at Loughborough University.[4] ">>

[MrGongGong]

Mason lived in Leicester from 1982 to 1988, working as a music teacher and lecturer in music at Loughborough University.[4] ">>

Which doesn't have (and not sure that it ever did?) have, a music department ?