The power of the folk process | firekid [Dillon Hodges & Heidi Feek] | TEDxWilsonPark

Intro foreign [Applause] in 1940 Woody Guthrie released a beloved American folk song This Land Is Your Land This land is my land this land was made for you and me Little Darling Pal of Mine apart from its place in history as a second national anthem it can also serve as an example of the primary and Universal nature of Melody I grew up going to Bluegrass festivals where I would bring my guitar and play songs with strangers from our common repertoire it was in one of these jam sessions that I heard something I thought was strange [Music] did Woody steal the song uh little darling pal of mine was written by The Carter family in 1924. it was a song I'd never heard before but already knew because the melody was exactly the same as this land one of the old-timers when I remarked would he steal the song said well have you heard when the world's on fire oh my loving brother when the world's on fire don't you want God's bosom to be your pillow I'll be over in the Rock of Ages Rock of Ages clef for me Oh My Loving Brother Woody uh may have taken his Melody from The Carter family but it turns out the Carter family took their Melody from an even older song a black spiritual called oh my loving brother also known as when the world's on fire traditional folk music is able to serve as the musical mirror of the world as Nietzsche puts it through its diffusion among all peoples as its Melodies Inspire New Creations out of itself in lyric and in poetry though it might not seem like it this primordial melodic phenomenon is an issue that touches art appropriation ownership and human psychology though it's seen today perfectly presented in a surprising Place hip-hop music folk music is built on oral Traditions as songs are passed down through generations between communities and across cultures lyrics get altered to accurately reflect specific tastes in Mythos of each group though The Melodies often remain the same in our particular technological era of sound recordings it would be easy to assume that this folk process would disappear as oral Traditions have disappeared but that would be incorrect it's 1972 at a house party in the Bronx New York a DJ by the name of coolhirk is The Folk Process showing off his Merry-Go-Round technique on his turntable by what must have seemed like magic herc would find sections on Funk and soul records where all the instruments would drop out except for the drums he would take these sections called Break beats and loop them over and over again to get the crowd moving how do you give an example now Burke was doing this his MC cochlear Rock will give shout outs to people in the audience often in rhyming verse this was the birth of sampling a new way forward in the folk process because he was in essence creating new compositions over the existing audio recordings while hip-hop music might have been invented on turntables as music technology began to advance producers and creators began to experiment the MPC similar to the one Heidi is using here is able to record sections of songs scramble them and layer them on top of one another creating what Adrian young has referred to as a mosaic of sound a bunch of tiles of different songs piece together to create something often even more beautiful let's give an example now we have used recordings from the aturi province of the Congo so you'll hear some singing an Appalachian public domain recording of a Pianist and a recording of a chain gang in Tennessee you'll hear the hammer sound as the percussion [Music] and then I added some banjo of my own for good measure [Music] in my youth I amassed a large collection of board games but over time my parents began to complain about missing pieces playing cards and occasionally an entire game board what they soon realized is that I've been taking bits of dozens of games and combining them with my Legos my GI Joes and parts of our nativity scene to create new games where does this phenomena originate and what is it in us that carries it Forward even into a technological era I believe it is a natural function of the human psyche it manifests in our mythologies by way of our greatest artists as such a mythology is to serve four functions the first function gives a scientific image of the world the second gives laws to a society and the third teaches how to live a life under any circumstance these first three vary greatly over time and between cultures but the fourth is more Universal it refers to a realm or a reality beyond the senses that transcends language or knowledge examples of this include the Dao Brahma and Buddhism but also includes elements of quantum theory The Silkworm the eminent Irwin Schrodinger likened it to a silkworm I'll quote giving expression to thought through the observable medium of words is like the work of a silkworm and being made into silk the material achieves its value but in the light of day it stiffens it becomes something alien no longer malleable Quantum physicist lyric is able to image matters of cosmology sociology and pedagogy but what can we say about what we can't express with words lyric and melody or lyric and metaphor can come close but it's a matter that music and Melody can handle with ease according to Heinrich Zimmer the best things can't be told and the second best are misunderstood the second best referring of course to Lyric and poetry reaching out beyond the world of information available to the senses seeking to name what can't be named as music has become a commodity the idea of building on the musical motifs of the past has become a legal issue and even if it's not strictly a legal issue there are also ethical issues related to things like cultural appropriation now appropriation occurs when minority culture is used and exploited for profit by the majority ideally its effects can be blunted by simply crediting and lifting up the musical pioneers and innovators who deserve it modern music will occasionally take this approach as a long list of credited songwriters on many popular songs can attest but I do see a growing list of particularly litigious parties that I think could spell disaster for the full process this list includes the notorious Fogerty versus fantasy case where John Fogerty was accused of stealing a musical idea from himself run through the jungle was written by John Fogerty but owned by his old record label fantasy who asserted that Fogerty's new song the old man down the road was just run through the jungle with different words Fogerty ultimately prevailed in the end but other more recent defendants have been less fortunate and a process that by its own nature is meant to connect us has become more of an issue of capital and private property I'd like to tell you all a myth of the aturi province of the Congo to illustrate my feelings on the subject a young boy was walking through the forest when he heard a song so beautiful that he followed the sound to see who was singing and he discovered a bird the bird of the most beautiful song in the forest he asked the bird to come home with him and when he got home he asked his father to allow the bird to join them at their meal now the father was annoyed to have to give food to a mere bird but reluctantly agreed and the bird was fed sent on its way the next day as the boy was walking through the forest again he heard the song but this time when he brought the bird home his father was more annoyed than before their food was too precious to share he thought so he sent the boy off on an errand and while the boy was gone the father took the bird out into the forest and killed it and with the death of the bird the song of the forest died as well and with the death of the song the man died how can we avoid killing the song and thus killing Who We Are this is my greatest passion I'm the music producer for a show on PBS called reconnecting roots the show examines art and Technology to the lens of American history and I get to rewrite old songs in the American Canon to tell stories of today my playground for the show is the vast repository of the public domain it's a treasure Trove of free use Oddities and beauty that includes everything from the films of Buster Keaton that went on to inspire Orson Welles and Wes Anderson all the way to the likeness and illustrations of Winnie the Pooh himself Winnie the Pooh and I think a fantastic example of the power of the public domain is the recent horror adaptation of Winnie the Pooh called Blood and Honey this is a real thing Winnie the Pooh is now in the public domain I'll quote Wendell Berry Conclusion we clasp the hands of those who go before us and the hands of those who come after us we enter the little circle of each other's arms and the larger circle of lovers whose hands are joined in a dance in the larger circle of All Creatures passing in and out of life who move also in a dance to a music so vast and subtle that no ear hears it except in fragments art thrives through rebirths and cross-pollinations the fault process itself allows us to build on the ideas of the past and add another mask to the existing Melodies of the world music when not seen as a means to profit or conserve but as an intentional heresy of collaboration and Innovation can present itself as the great Psalm about the Brotherhood of suffering between everything alive I would like to close now uh with one of the so-called lost verses of Woody Guthrie's this land is your land with a small lyrical change of Our Own [Music] ready there was [Music] painted that said private property but on the back side it didn't say nothing this land was made for you and me this land is your name this land is [Music] this land was made for you and me thank you all