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John W
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« on: 02:11:37, 08-06-2008 » |
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Maybe I'm being silly but having casually studied music to some extent for three decades, I think 'dance music', as enjoyed by joe public in UK, listening to and enjoying recorded music, started around 1900-1910, Edwardian times, and there are centuries of dance music before that, enjoyed by most everyone at the time. After those Edwardian times we had parlour dance music and then fox-trot dance bands, and then jazz and then rock'n'roll' and then pop/disco but...... apparently it all actually started in 1988, according to the BBC......... The Guardian isn't impressed....... quite right!!!!! http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jun/07/radio.bbc :wink: Seriously though, yes seriously, modern dance music in the UK needs to define itself a bit better; dance music in the geographical area now known as UK, has actually been around for about 80,000 years and paleantologists might say 800,000 years. I'm welcome to correction on my chronology.... and my grammar/spelling, as i'm rather pissed at this momen...... |
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Kittybriton
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« Reply #1 on: 16:15:21, 08-06-2008 » |
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Since at the moment, I am working on a blog entry about Will Kemp and his Nine Daies Wonder, I would like to join you, in taking umbrage at the suggestion that dance music in the UK began  in 1988. Not least, since my late Father published his " Little Boy Dances" after the arrival of my kid bro (1964). For nutcases like me, there is a wealth of material which has nothing to do with anything that might have happened in 1988. I suppose it is just another sign of the dumb and dumberer times of the BBC. n.b. the sound you can hear in the back of Listen Live and Listen Again broadcasts is Lord Reith spinning in his grave  |
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« Last Edit: 16:19:54, 08-06-2008 by Kittybriton »
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Click me -> About meor me -> my handmade storeNo, I'm not a complete idiot. I'm only a halfwit. In fact I'm actually a catfish. |
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #2 on: 17:56:38, 08-06-2008 » |
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I think you might consider moving the date back to 1651, John - John Playford's The English Dancing Master came out that year (containing a sort of "busker's book" of the best dance tunes available, cheerfully pillaged by Playford with little regard to copyright, or even attribution in most cases). The book went through a large number of editions and remained in print for half a century - its purchasers were ordinary people, in the main.
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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John W
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« Reply #3 on: 00:11:28, 09-06-2008 » |
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Thank you for that Reiner. I've done a bit of googling and I'm fascinated to see that someone has scanned an edition of the dances Sample page: http://www.izaak.unh.edu/nhltmd/indexes/dancingmaster/ah, you have to click Browse Title Index and then select any of the Play... linksI wonder what instrument might have played these or were they just sung? John W |
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« Last Edit: 09:26:01, 09-06-2008 by John W »
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Kittybriton
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« Reply #4 on: 01:52:42, 09-06-2008 » |
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I believe the flagelet (sic) was one instrument among several that would have been used. cf. Thomas Greeting: The Pleasant Companion (Printed for J.Playford, and are to be sold at his shop near the Temple-Church, 1680). |
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Click me -> About meor me -> my handmade storeNo, I'm not a complete idiot. I'm only a halfwit. In fact I'm actually a catfish. |
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #5 on: 11:08:34, 09-06-2008 » |
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The "flagelet" was one, and the fiddle was another. The favoured instrument of dancing-masters themselves was the "kit" or "pochette" - a violin with a body greatly reduced in size for easy transportation:  It fingers and bows exactly like a conventional violin, only it takes up less space - as a result it's a bit quieter of course, but this must have been thought a reasonable compromise at the time? |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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John W
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« Reply #6 on: 11:45:00, 09-06-2008 » |
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Thaanks Kitty, Reiner.
I have not seen/heard of the 'kit' before, yes it looks like an easily portable sturdy violin. If it's about the same length then I expect the strings could be tuned as a modern violin.
Would it have rested on the chest rather than the shoulder?
John W
(I'm going to read up about old instruments, the city library beckons)
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Ruby2
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« Reply #7 on: 12:34:52, 09-06-2008 » |
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Maybe I'm being silly but having casually studied music to some extent for three decades, I think 'dance music', as enjoyed by joe public in UK, listening to and enjoying recorded music, started around 1900-1910, Edwardian times, and there are centuries of dance music before that, enjoyed by most everyone at the time. After those Edwardian times we had parlour dance music and then fox-trot dance bands, and then jazz and then rock'n'roll' and then pop/disco but...... apparently it all actually started in 1988, according to the BBC......... The Guardian isn't impressed....... quite right!!!!! http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jun/07/radio.bbc :wink: Seriously though, yes seriously, modern dance music in the UK needs to define itself a bit better; dance music in the geographical area now known as UK, has actually been around for about 80,000 years and paleantologists might say 800,000 years. I take your point that dance music has been around for centuries, but I do think they're arguing that acid house kicked off in about 1988 rather than dance. I don't think they're suggesting that dance music was invented in 1988. I suppose for any documentary you've got to decide a cut-off point. I actually find that there's a rather bewildering array of genres, sub-genres and sub-sub-genre to the point where I'm not sure how anybody can keep up without being a full time journalist for a very specialist magazine. I know what trip-hop is, for instance, I've got a fair idea about dub (dub-step anyone?), but I'm not sure about garage, less sure about speed garage and when you get into deep, dub deep and happy hardcore it might as well be in another language - it's an absolute minefield. Every time I pick up a copy of Q I wish they'd define it a bit less thoroughly!  |
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"Two wrongs don't make a right. But three rights do make a left." - Rohan Candappa
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martle
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« Reply #8 on: 12:41:25, 09-06-2008 » |
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I've been meaning to make a similar point, Ruby. It was 1988, or thereabouts, that the fashion for raves kicked in, and the emergence of ecstasy as the drug du jour of that generation. Those things, coupled with the related explosion of sub-genres you mention just somehow came to be called 'dance music', as much as a way of defining its social function (er, to be danced to, mostly instrumental/ electronica etc.) as anything else. It's not the most useful or clear term, admittedly...
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Green. Always green.
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Ruby2
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« Reply #9 on: 12:48:12, 09-06-2008 » |
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I've been meaning to make a similar point, Ruby. It was 1988, or thereabouts, that the fashion for raves kicked in, and the emergence of ecstasy as the drug du jour of that generation. Those things, coupled with the related explosion of sub-genres you mention just somehow came to be called 'dance music', as much as a way of defining its social function (er, to be danced to, mostly instrumental/ electronica etc.) as anything else. It's not the most useful or clear term, admittedly...
True. I suppose you could call it modern dance but that sounds even more old fashioned, and even that would need a cut-off point. I suppose it faces the same problems in definition as using a term like "classical". |
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"Two wrongs don't make a right. But three rights do make a left." - Rohan Candappa
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John W
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« Reply #10 on: 13:05:03, 09-06-2008 » |
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Ruby, Martle, Yes by 1988 they are referring to the acid explosion, so why call the programme Don't Start Me Talking About... Dance Music and then refer to a three-part series on the evolution of the genre, The Definitive History of UK Dance Music, tracing its origins from the early days of Northern Soul to the present day. As I started the thread with maybe I'm being silly, maybe I am, but since Malcolm Laycock has a long-running show (Alan Dell started it in 1972) whose first half is subtitled the Dance Band Days about the bands of the 1920s-30s, it's all a bit untidy over there at R2. I have to admit to enjoying some current dance music, I remember listening to my daughter's garage albums by Artful Dodger (where are they now?) and Craig David, and I am forced to listen to 3 or 4 hours of trance music every week as I tread the tread mill and pump the weights at the local gym.  They mention a poll on greatest dance tune, that's been done so often and is usually won by either I Feel Love by Donna Summeror You Make Me Feel Unreal (Mighty Unreal) by Sylvesterboth of which are from the late 1970s - my 'disco' era  I wonder if Rob Cowans would ever dare play one of those at 8.57am  - he still does his jazz spot and today we had Duke Ellington's beautiful Portrait of Mahalia JacksonI still like those hot fox-trots from the 1920s like Up Jumped The Devil ignore the film and just listen John W |
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...trj...
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« Reply #11 on: 13:08:12, 09-06-2008 » |
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I actually find that there's a rather bewildering array of genres, sub-genres and sub-sub-genre to the point where I'm not sure how anybody can keep up without being a full time journalist for a very specialist magazine. I know what trip-hop is, for instance, I've got a fair idea about dub (dub-step anyone?), but I'm not sure about garage, less sure about speed garage and when you get into deep, dub deep and happy hardcore it might as well be in another language - it's an absolute minefield. Every time I pick up a copy of Q I wish they'd define it a bit less thoroughly! Hey Ruby - you might enjoy a play around with Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music, which is a pretty comprehensive and light-hearted primer on most sub genres up to the early 00s (no dubstep though), with lots of samples. He's pretty clueless on pioneering stuff like musique concrete and minimalism, but the rest seems like a half-decent guide to me. |
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« Last Edit: 13:13:22, 09-06-2008 by ...trj... »
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Ruby2
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« Reply #12 on: 13:13:08, 09-06-2008 » |
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Oh don't get me started on those polls. I always fail to see the point, and they inevitably come up with something fairly recent, purely because of the generation creating (or voting on) the poll. What is the point anyway?? I might have to move over to the Grumpy Old Rant thread at this rate. Polls - what's the point ?? I'm going to conduct the definitive, most pointless poll of all time. The winners will be: 1. Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody 2. It's a wonderful life 3. That episode of Only Fools and Horses where the chandelier falls down. |
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"Two wrongs don't make a right. But three rights do make a left." - Rohan Candappa
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...trj...
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« Reply #13 on: 13:13:55, 09-06-2008 » |
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4. Winston Churchill.
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Ruby2
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« Reply #14 on: 13:15:44, 09-06-2008 » |
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4. Winston Churchill. 5. Elvis. Yes indeed. Thanks for that link - I'll have to have a look at the weekend when I've got access to a machine that doesn't get scared at any vaguely interesting website and immediately block it. The other half will be interested too no doubt. In fact that might be the entire weekend taken up already. |
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"Two wrongs don't make a right. But three rights do make a left." - Rohan Candappa
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