Always find it kinda sad that our folk/trad scene is so small and diminished compared to Ireland, Scotland and even many parts of England.

Hope we can turn it around. I don't know about anyone else but I definitely feel like it should be prioritised as a part of music education.

by nothing_verntured_

8 comments

  1. Can you recommend any good Welsh folk songs?

    *Yma o Hyd* is basically the only one I know. I don’t understand most of the lyrics, but it fills me with a desire to wage war against the English so anything else with a similar feel would be great.

  2. Sing some songs in English, and it’ll stay alive. Stop this ridiculous obsession that folk music needs to be in Welsh. Look at The Dubliners, for God’s sake.

    I love Welsh language folk music, before anyone starts slinging mud, but Max Boyce (who was also fluent in Welsh) proved there’s a huge market for English language songs about life in Wales – especially industrial South Wales.

  3. 1. There’s barely any funding for it, and what little funding there is, is mainly spent in the south.
    2. The Welsh folk scene is **incredibly** inaccessible for anyone who doesn’t speak Welsh. While I would definitely like to see the Welsh language grow, at present it is a minority language, and by extension this makes it even *harder* for the Welsh folk scene to thrive. Teaching people Welsh language folk songs would be a great way of introducing them to the Welsh language too! But first of all you need to welcome them into the fold. Make it less of a cultural clique. Run your youth events in a bilingual manner. Advertise them in a bilingual manner. If 99% of attendees at your event speak Welsh, ask yourself “how did we fail to get through to the non-Welsh speaking population?”, because a failure it is.

    Edit because I’m tired of replying to people who get angry before they’ve bothered reading carefully: I am **not** saying that Welsh songs are inaccessible because they’re in Welsh, nor am I saying they should be translated. I don’t actually agree with either of those points. When I said the Welsh folk scene is inaccessible, I meant that literally. The **scene** is inaccessible – that is, the cultural events, the youth courses, the sessions, the projects, and so on.

  4. I feel like anything that’s the Welsh language is only on S4C which English speakers don’t watch so it’s like we’re two different worlds. Be great to see Welsh folk songs in Welsh on other platforms. I like it but probably don’t listen as often as I’d like.

  5. Honestly, a lot of it is related to pub culture, which isn’t the same as Ireland or Scotland..

    A lot if it is related to depravation, where most of the “pubs” have been workingmens halls with *now* carling and sky sports signs.

    Many of the pubs in Ireland were smaller, less industrialised, and mostly farming. Scotland I can’t speak for, but I imagine the rural aspect translates. Compare Edinburgh and temple bar, they’re not real.

    Welsh towns lost the industry and the pubs became mainly places for vices, instead of places to share in community.

  6. I mean there are loads of modern Welsh artists who would fit under the folk umbrella: The Gentle Good, Sweet Baboo, John Mouse, Lleuwen, H.Hawkline, Alun Tan Lan. Richard James’ album Seven Sleepers Den is very folky.

  8. Based on my experience, it’s been very popular lately. Glasto has some amazing welsh folk artists lined up right as I write this

Comments are closed.