Folk music during the pandemic
As for every other part of the performing arts the Covid lockdown has been little short of catastrophic with festivals, tours, gigs and recording sessions cancelled, affecting not only performers but promoters, agents, administrators, sound engineers, producers and more. Our own household’s plans were disrupted, as so many others’ have been, when gigs and a major festival appearance in Canada, and a tour of New Zealand were summarily cancelled.
On the teaching and learning side the impact has been significant as face-to-face lessons have been suspended, and peripatetic teaching work in schools stopped. One of the things which distinguishes traditional music teaching and learning in Scotland is the large number of group teaching opportunities for young people and adults, largely run by volunteers contracting professional musicians. Three of our main urban centres, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen have trad music ‘schools’ running weekly, each with rolls of around 500 students. Throughout the Highlands and in other parts of Scotland the Fèis movement provides weekly classes and weekend and holiday events for young people. The upcoming Easter break is a prime time for these. Other learning environments, such as strathspey and reel societies and pipe bands are also suspended.
Another significant activity for many musicians, professional and amateur, is the pub session, the informal sharing of tunes and songs in the convivial atmosphere which is a part and parcel of folk music. This brings us to the main response to the disruption brought about by the lockdown, the extensive use of digital platforms. Although the pub session is dependent on the presence of bodies in the room for the full experience this hasn’t stopped many musicians from attempting to join others online either live or recorded for later consumption.
It may seem a contradiction, but many trad musicians are extremely tech-savvy and Facebook pages have sprung up giving advice and social media has been buzzing with arcane discussions about latency, microphone positioning, appropriate software and other considerations.
The digital offering looks to have settled into three different aspects: morale-raising performances, substitutes for live gigs, and online lessons. The latter two are monetised either voluntarily or through a paywall. The morale-raising offerings often take the form of an individual musician playing a single piece, something started by Highland fiddler, Duncan Chisholm using the hashtag #CovidCeilidh. This was quickly adopted by other musicians, a way of generating that sense of community that would be otherwise lacking. Other hashtags have appeared, such as #tunesinthehoose. Blazin Fiddles front-man and bar owner, Bruce MacGregor has used his broadcasting experience to create a daily performance #liveatfive, which digitally plumbs in contributions from other musicians.
The musicians have created a wealth of ‘content’ in a relatively short space of time. Some are responding to the need to generate some income in the long weeks before the Government’s support scheme for the self-employed kicks in. Many others are responding creatively to a situation not of their own making, and simply making the best of it.