Talk:Song
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"Folk songs are songs of anonymous origin that are transmitted orally. They are frequently a major aspect of national or cultural identity. Art songs often become folk songs when people forget who the author was. Folk songs are also frequently transmitted nonorally, especially in the modern era."
This whole area of the evolution and communication of popular music is interesting to memetics theorists, BTW.
I'm not sure about this art song/folk song business. Isn't it more usual to distinguish between art song/popular song? I know that in the broadest sense a "folk song" can mean something by the Sex Pistols as well as an anonymous Hungarian dirge, but the term is used in a more specific way also (the way we have definied in this article: anonymous, orally transmitted), which seems to make this distinction rather shaky, because it appears to leave out a whole wodge of songs. I'd just change it, but I'm not much of a singer... --Camembert
- Thinking about it a bit more, I'm not sure if the problem is really with treating "art" and "folk" as opposites (as opposed to "art" and "popular") - after all, "popular" can be used in a specific as well as a general sense. So maybe the problem is more to do with the definition of "folk" here not fitting in with what the rest of the page says. I'll think about it and see if anything comes to me... --Camembert
I think the best thing to do would be to simply create a third category: "art", "folk", and "popular" songs. Also, we would then include non-western songs in "folk". Currently, the only mention that people with vocal chords, and songs to sing, exist outside of Europe is at the end of the "Song forms" section, where they are described as "ethnic", "indigenous" or "aboriginal". Jeez. Its nearing 5AM though, so I'll sleep on it. - Hyacinth 11:28, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Or....I won't sleep on it.Hyacinth
I'd like to weigh in for the three-way taxblahonomy Art/Folk/Popular, as Hyacinth suggested. The current articles on Classical music helps clarify the Art/Popular distinction, and the articles on Folk music and Popular music discuss the Popular/Folk distinction. I think it would also help if Folk music is augmented to clarify the Art/Folk distinction.
Pretty much everything can be fitted into these three, I think, though of course there are many blends (Art/Folk: Sacred Harp music; Art/Popular: Philip Glass; Folk/Popular: Joan Baez).
"Commercium", though interesting, is a much nablahrrower category, so I've moved it to be a link. Opus33 23:24, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC)
"Song" leaves me flat. What makes a song important? Not that it is Art, Folk, or Popular. But how it blends music and lyric. So this should be about the things in songs that make them important and how songs are incorporated into life. There should be discussion about the form of the lyrics, rhyming schemes, the music (verses, chorus, bridge, etc...), the uses (religion, festival, theatre, commerce...), etc... Just think about a great song like "Summertime" by Gershwin. Is it important if it is an Art song, a Folk song or a Popular one? I think it fits into all three categories quite well, but who cares! That is not what makes it sing. (and BTW, where is musical theatre in the lists?) --Samuel Wantman 11:04, 30 May 2004 (UTC)
- Yes, the article needs all those things you mention as well as the (slightly boring, I admit) stuff about the way people divide songs into different categories. Feel free to add all that other good stuff yourself! --Camembert
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[edit] Words
Why can't The Great Gig in the Sky be a song? It isn't fair. --Yath 11:11, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)
[edit] External links
I'd removed all external links and added recommendation found in Lyrics article (to add only comprehensive and scholar sites). The article started to look as link farm. If any of the deleted websites did not belong to spam category, please move it back. Thanks. Pavel Vozenilek 22:38, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
[edit] For the human voice?
- I would like to know when a song became only things that were created by voice. I am slightly confused about this. --Driken 05:03, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Song structure
In the song structure section, the order of elements to a song is shown in bullet point form. Surely, it needs to be clarified as to which order they appear in songs. This is because in most other Wikipedia articles, bullet points are used to list, but not necessarilarly in any particular order. As we are trying to show the order in which each part of a song occurs, bullet points alone do not accomplish this. It would be better if a numbering system were to be used, or that a sentence in the preceeding paragraph was included to underline that the correct order is from the top down.
[edit] Popular Songs
I have my usual attempt to be objective that becomes a flip flop thing to say. First off, I think people are right that in essence, popular music is folk music. In many ways folk music in the Renaissance wasn't any different than today, celebrities, complex rhythms and devices, virtuouso instrumental playing and all of the usual frauds as well. I do however, think that it is useful for this article to separate them, largely because most people that come here aren't looking for what is "folk music" in common parlance, you know field recordings or acoustic guitar, but information on how the Shins and Radiohead or whatever they like write a song. So I think it's a useful separation.
As for art music's contempt for folk music, I think you'll find a great deal of that at the conservatory. The sad part is that many of the best composers went and scouted out folk music that was popular, or even what you might call "roots music" the origins of their own art music, to make better art music for people, and even in many cases to study it, and even just because they liked it. Art music has gotten so stuffy, Horowitz played Haydn better at 62 than any 20 year old in the world and they called him a doddering fool that was past his prime. I dropped out of music school largely because of that kind of snobbery. I could never be the "perfect artist" and so I was a reject. Keep your Shins CD's.
I may come back here again, or I might not, but I just wanted to drop a note. It's actually a very good article.
Tim.
69.223.66.52 19:50, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] deletion of inappropriate text
Have deleted the following
music is horriable dont listen to it.
from the section Art songs as it would seem to be inappropriate for a Wikipedia article. I came across it by accident, having no interest whatsoever in the definiton of Art songs as such, and am dismayed at finding my first case of what I suppose would be termed either trolling or vandalism (still haven't got round to reading about that yet - I never thought it would be necessary). --Technopat 00:22, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] deleted text
Have deleted the following: ... for instance by an entire band, though the lyrics are usually written by one person, usually the lead singer ... for being too much of a generalization. --Technopat 14:11, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
