Skotsko II

We got safely home Sunday, with various degrees of tiredness and hangover – not just from the whiskey and cider and copious quantities of “Best” brew, but also from the experience of travel and performance. Our last show in Greenock (former sugar capital of Europe in the 18th century – where all the British West Indies molasses came to be processed into sugar) had 11 attendees; even if the theater had been packed, though, it would have been tough. I was having trouble mustering the energy and attention to simply keep on playing.

It was a lovely trip, and was very interesting to see the Scottish bluegrass scene. They’re a country about half the size of Czech Republic…and apparently have about 3 bands who play on a reasonable level.  But there is a lot of activity – part of which is the annual visits of top euro and US bands.  So the small community  bluegrassers isn’t getting much younger, but at least they’re enjoying some fine concerts along the way.  Brings up interesting questions of sustainability.

for more photos, see:    www.flickr.com/photos/blidgood

Many thanks to the community there, especially John Sheldon (tireless organizer and expediter) and Alec Rennie, who hosted Vita and I in his home, and fed us spectacular breakfasts and tea.

Disambiguation post

2008-1-14  -  I’m slogging away at Chapter 1.  Toying with the idea of a glossary…some way of getting some terms explained outside of the running text.  I figure it will be a useful exercise whether or not I end up using it.  Here’s my list so far:

Country (the initial “C” keeps its a hard “k” sound, but the vowels sound Czech)- a large part of the repertory is US country songs translated into Czech language, including a lot of “bluegrass” pieces.  Adding Česky (Czech) as a modifier to the term localizes it  more; “Czech country” almost by definition refers to a lot of the music played on Prague’s “Country Radio” station, a specific sort of “oldies” nostalgia linked to current middle-aged and older Czechs and traditions of tramping, etc.
bluegrass – mostly means the same as a Czech category as it does in the US – but in Czech Republic “bluegrass” can be sung in English or Czech, depending on who is playing.  This term is usually used by insiders.  Many Czechs are familiar with some part of the bluegrass “sound” (the signature banjo style, instrumental and vocal configuration, etc.) from Czech ,edia and performance, but might call it “country” or not be sure where to place it in terms of genre.
tramp songs – an older popular style which dates to the 1910s as part of the “tramp” movement based on American transcendentalism, writing about the American wild / west (Jack London, Karl May), scouting and woodcraft, and images from American westerns and popular music.  In the early twentieth century tramp music was mixed with tango and other cosmopolitan popular dance rhythms, barbershop-style choruses, and a performative manner linked to stage performances and other media.  Through the twentieth century, tramp songs have persisted, and tramping has often mixed with country, bluegrass, folk, and other similar and compatible lifestyle practices in Czech Republic.
folk – in its most specific usage, “folk” refers singer-songwriter or “písnikař” repertory and style, and is based in key performer/authors such as Karel Kryl, Jaromir Nohavica, etc.  The term grew out of the 1960s, and was inspired by / grew with the “folk movement” of Dylan, Baez, et al.  While Czech “folk” is based in part on American sound and styles (instrumentation of guitars, vocal qualities, lyrical content, political (dis)involvement) it is now a distinct Czech category.  When used in Czech “folk” often includes country or tramp sorts of things – as in the title of “Folk a Country,”  a magazine and organization that is significant as a community hub, a place for advertisements, concert listings, shared experiences for fans and musicians involved in music that fits in all of the above-listed categories.
folklor – Sometimes called “village” or “cimbal” music, this repertory and practice is prevalent in the present in Moravia (eastern part of Czech Republic).  Bohemia, the region around Prague, has some comparable traditions (such as Strakonice area bagpiping) but is less rich in this sort of activity.  [citation!]  A Czech musicologist (Zuzana Jurkova) was amused when I cited Michael Beckerman’s short piece on Czechoslovak “folk,” in which he illustrates an alienation of Czech people from folkloric expressions co-opted by an oppressive and folk-obsessed regime.  It may be true in Moravia–where Beckerman’s field experiences and his quotations Kundera are located–but in Bohemia, the area around Prague, this wasn’t an issue.  Bluegrass may function as a stand-in for “folklor,” but as she said, it didn’t replace it, much less destroy it – “there was nothing here to replace,” Jurkova insisted.   A folkloric hole in the heart of Europe.

Thanks to the Slovaks … and their researchers

I found my way eventually to Baracnicka Rychta, a lovely little pub in Mala Strana, relieved a bit that Joe had only beat me by a few minutes.  Shoot.  We’d both been a bit lost on the way.  Note to self – choose spots you know as meeting places.  The tasty Svijany brew was some consolation.

Joe wrote me the other day to renew the contact we had at the CZ – SK Fulbright conference in 2003.  He is a US phd student in anthropology who is working in Slovakia on l’udova (folklore / folkloric) as well as”folk” musicking.  As in Czech, “folk” means…well, “folk” as in Baez, Dylan, Van Zandt…something more popular than “folklore”….and as with these folks, sometimes a bit of an Americanist spin.  He’s looking at all sorts of interesting things, including a seeming rebirth of this sort of thing, a convergence of urban/cosmopolitan efforts and marginal/rural activity, etc.  (he wrote his master’s thesis on tramping…by the way)

Along the way, he confirmed, a bit, my thoughts and accumulated observations about bluegrass and country amongst Slovak folks – there aren’t as many bluegrass folks, and perhaps more “country.”  He added an interesting thought, one that hadn’t occurred to me:  that Slovaks often think of bluegrass/country (the constellation of musicking I like to lump as US string band sort of stuff) as CZECH.  I’m not sure how the “American” designation or identification fits in there, but it does make sense that Czech performativity on American(ist) themes would impart some degree of distinctive identification…and that it would contain this resonance to the Slovaks, the neighbors just down the road.

This reminded me of a recent conversation with a Slovak who has lived in Prague for years.  He recalled that there were never a lot of Slovaks playing bluegrass and that sort of thing, but there were always great audiences when CZ bands came over to SK to play.   (In the music scene in general, he also talked a bit about how “za totalita” (during totalitarianism…i.e. communism)  bands that weren’t allowed to play in Prague would get shunted farther out from the center of the nation, to Brno, Bratislava, or, if they were really controversial, out to Kosice or something.)

I came across another Slovak item today, reading some articles on Czech national and ethnic identity.  It’s all pretty sociological so far, and I’m not sure how to use a lot of the information.  But one study’s discussion pointed out the narrowing of Czechness, the dwindling plurality of ethnic/national diversity in the sphere of things with the “Czech” label attached to them.  The expulsion of Germans, the holocaust, and…this is the part that was new for me…the division of Czechoslovakia in 1992-3 all were steps that each eliminated another major and distinctive group that increased the cultural diversity  in the world that Czechs live in.

These sociologists’ quantifications help me talk more constructively about Czech national and ethnic identification, and consider performances the intersect with such constructions.  While Czechs are to different degrees responsible for creating the state they live in, it is also….well, a very complicated world out there.

I’m so grateful for these perspective-expanding moments lately.  It’s encouraging to be working with ideas that are coming together.  This last week has seen me working on consolidating and organizing my backlog of audio and video recordings.  Besides being simply a bit of a drudgery, it’s a sort of overwhelming experience to handle all hese records of culture.  There are so many (and in a strange mirror-way so few) directions for my work tied up in all those files.

Running into, and having good conversations with, some old-new and new-old colleagues lately has also been a great encouragement.  It’s good to know that others are working along similar paths.

Ok.  Back to it.  At the suggestion of a professor here, I’m putting an abstract together for the ICTM “music and minorities” study group meeting that will happen here next May.  I have to find a way to encapsulate my thoughts about bluegrass as it plays in Czech ethnic/group identity.  hmm.