Will 2014 be the Year of the Third Dutch Folk-Revival?

Happy new year.

I have taken a sort of semi-sabbatical those past few months, I now realize. I wrote less regularly than I used to do, I simply did not find the time, the energy, or the right topic. But I'll get back to the normal once-a-week rhythm in 2014, I hope.

Let me start with an intriguing question: will 2014 become the year of the third Dutch folk revival in the guise of a revival of the shanty - the seafaring songs of our nautical forefathers? I ask this question because a group called Ancora (meaning 'anchor' in Latin) is - in certain circles - hugely successful. They released a CD plus DVD called "Vrij als de wind" ('Free as the wind') last September, which immediately became the number 1 in the Dutch-language CD album charts. I saw the documentary of the DVD just two days ago on the regional TV station TV Oost, and it has also been broadcast on national TV. There is a definite link to the Volendam music scene, Jan Keizer (from BZN) acting as a a sort of Godfather for the group - whose members were well-known in a previous musical life as "De Piratentoppers" (pirates not referring to sea pirates but to illegal radio stations playing Dutch-language music called 'pirate stations' in the Netherlands).

Who is your musical 'idealized other'?

I am singing in a shanty choir these days. When talking with some of the members, they assure me that shanty is not too popular in the Netherlands (despite the vast amount of shanty choirs over here - but these choirs don't attract much audience, my choir mates tell me), but in Germany that's completely different.

And indeed. Yesterday we sang in a restaurant in Germany, and it was filled with about 200 people, who had a great evening. They sang along, they swayed from left to right and back again on the music's metre, some of them danced, and they stayed till the end of the concert. Very German - "You don't find that in the Netherlands", one would think.

The funny thing: on the way back in the bus we estimated that about 80 percent of the audience was Dutch.

It may well be the case that my choir mates are right, and that shanty indeed is more popular in Germany than in the Netherlands. Or it may be just an image they have. But for me, the 'truth' of the contention is less important than the contention itself. Because the contention may be an example of the fact that we need musical 'idealized others' - a place to long for, people whose behavior we see as a model for the ideal world. And then we try to become them, and behave like them. Hence the Dutch audience crossing the border and becoming a German audience; or what they believe a German audience is.

Which makes me think of all those people doing the same in other contexts - dressing up for an opera and becoming their personal idealized opera-lover; dressing up as a death-metal fan and becoming their personal idealized metal-head; me dressing up in jeans and a lumberjack shirt, playing the fiddle and mandolin and becoming my personal idealized bluegrass musician.

Music is performance in many ways.

Who is your musical 'idealized other'?

The Mushroom Argument; or: Music is So Much More than Creativity

The football match of my oldest daughter (6) is canceled, so early in the morning I am sitting at the table, writing this blog, while my oldest daughter, her football friend, and my youngest daughter are busy making drawings, and my son is at the computer working at his Minecraft world. In the background Bach's Motets play, in the performance of Herreweghe's Collegium Vocale. My youngest daughter is enthusiastic because actually this is the music used in the Peter Pan Disney-movie she just saw, she tells me.

Embodied Cognition

I was sitting in the car with my kids. Johnny Cash' "Southern Accents" was playing.

Daughter: "This is a sad song."
I (hoping, as a proud father, for intricately verbalized brilliance): "How do you know?"
Daughter: "I feel it in my body".

What Music Does for People

I finished writing my dissertation, had the exam, and then of course: party.

With our research group we found ourselves on the island of Schiermonnikoog, in the renowned Hotel Van der Werff, enabling me to spend some days of work and reflection amongst colleagues who are all, in some way, connected to studying the power of music.

One evening, my colleagues had decided to organize a little party for me. Speeches, presents, and music. Two of my colleagues played Fauré's "Les Berceaux". I will try to explain what went through my head - or rather: through my body, including my head - while listening. An incomplete story, because moments like those (or any moment, if you observe yourself carefully) are so incredibly filled with links to yourself and the rest of the world that it takes at least a work similar in size to one of the books of Proust's "A la recherche du temps perdu" to explore the full meaningfulness of the moment.

(Dirty) Maggie May

I was a bit secretive some time ago about my new research project. I'll be more open now: it's the phenomenon of the shanty choir. A phenomenon hugely popular in the Netherlands and Germany, as this little map of the membership of the International  Shanty and Seasong Association shows:

Basically the phenomenon consists of male singers gathering once a week, singing shanties and seasongs, and occasionally performing, mostly in some kind of uniform. The main question in my research is, as usual, Clifford Geertz' question: "What the hell is going on here?" I want to figure out why shanty choirs are so abundant, what it brings their members, their audiences, and eventually what this might learn me, the conservatoire where I work, and the professional musicians trained there, about what music does with people.

I was listening to a shanty CD, and heard a German shanty choir perform the famous song 'Maggie May'. No no, not Rod Stewart's song, but this one. For some explanation I of course first consulted Wikipedia; then realizing that the story of the song reminds me of many other songs, including New York Girls.

But on hearing the song I was of course also reminded of the Beatles' version of the song, beginning with Lennon singing in his most Liverpudlian voice "Oh, Dirty Maggie Mae, they have taken her away...".

Which reminded me of the tendency of songs to become less and less explicit as they become more known - the 'dirty' is dropped when a German shantychoir sings "Maggie May". Or was it an addition by the Beatles? Something to find out. Let's call sir Paul one of these days.

Which reminded me of the Dutch song "Daar was laatst een meisje loos..." (loads of versions on YouTube, but also check out lots of recordings of people singing this song at the Dutch folksong database "De Nederlandse Liederenbank"), a song which - as so many Dutch folk songs - ended up as a children's song; an innocent school song about a girl who dresses up as a boy to go to sea.  Most school teachers teaching the song to our kids probably don't realise that this actually was rather an explicit song - the girl had to 'climb into the mast' (nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more, know what I mean?) and ends up coming home pregnant and marrying the captain of the boat.

Just that you know how much fun I am having with this new research topic of mine...

The Secret of André Rieu

I hope you know who André Rieu is - if not, just check YouTube. I wrote about him before, because I like to try to understand why other people like other music than I do, and Rieu for me is a good field to examine this. And also I like occasionally to mention his name in the conservatoire where I work, just to check the reactions of my colleagues (horror, concern - "Do you feel alright?", the assumption that I am sarcastic; but also sometimes sheer admiration).

But I am not the only one who is curious. In Maastricht (Rieu comes from that area, I remember being taught by one of his brothers when I studied at the Maastricht Conservatoire, and his father was conductor of the local symphony orchestra and one of the music tycoons there), in Maastricht - as I was starting to say - there is a group of researchers who will study Rieu the coming few years. The project is called"The secret of André Rieu", and they present themselves to the general public as the "Rieu Academy".

They have at least learnt something from Rieu's PR-machine. "This research project will bring together art, science, cultural history and the Rieu-audience", the Rieu Academy writes in an announcement for an afternoon where they will discuss Rieu's work, stating that this, "our first performance" (!), will deepen the experience of Rieu's concert visitors.

So what are they going to research? I quote: how do Rieu, his orchestra, his musical guests and his choice of repertoire contribute to bridging the gap between 'low' and 'high' culture? How does Rieu popularize classical music? What is he doing with it? How does he revive old songs, nearly vanished from our collective memory? What is the contribution of the attire of the orchestra members , how do the special effects work, when does he move the listeners?

Mildly interesting, I would say. I would never start any research based on ideas about a gap between 'low' and 'high' culture. I mean: project those terms in your questions and rest assured that they will boomerang back on you in the conclusions. "Mind the gap", the English say - "Avoid the gap" would, in this case, be more fitting.

Elsewhere I read that one of the questions is whether Rieu's success can be replicated by someone else in the future. Hardly a question, I guess. The answer is "Yes, if that someone else is André Rieu and the future cirumstances are the same as the current circumstances". Annoying, those social scientists who still want to figure out whether history is repeatable or not, and whether or not mankind is a machine.

And in yet another place, about Rieu's waltzes: "The dance is one of the most ancient sources of music. Folk music actually is nothing else then dance music."

I don't think there is much hope for this research project.