Article

Interventional Enculturation: Increasing and Diversifying Participation in the Folk Scene in England

Fay Hield

Published in: Ethnomusicology Ireland 9 (2024)

Pages: 24-35 | Published Online: June 2024

https://doi.org/10.64208/EUFF8394

Abstract

Folk music in England has enjoyed increased popularity over the past decade, demonstrated by charting artists and increasingly diverse festival audiences. Participatory folk singing, however, has not followed suit. The folk club movement’s 1960s founders remain its core participants, and they are dwindling. Although folk music consumers may benefit from participating, they are deterred by the complex ideological, behavioural and musical conventions (Hield, 2013).Soundpost, a community music organization in Sheffield, addresses these issues through interventional enculturation, a process which acclimatises newcomers to contextual norms within a supportive environment. Reflection from Soundpost staff and participant feedback critique the effectiveness of the approach. Interventional enculturation enables interested newcomers to incrementally gain exposure to complex performance practices and provides a route into folk singing. While this has proved successful, there remains a bias towards white, middle-class participants. This suggests that knowledge is not the sole barrier and that factors within existing practice also need to be considered to make folk singing accessible to more diverse populations.

Keywords: Interventional enculturation, folk singing, music education, folk pedagogy

Author: Fay Hield | ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9819-1420