November (Guro & Will): Transforming Tradition

Guro Kvifte Nesheim and Will Pound in conversation

From the 1,000-year-old Abbot’s Bromley Horn Dance to the latest digital recordings, Norwegian fiddle player Guro and British harmonica and melodeon folk music Will trace how folk music lives, evolves, and wrestles with nostalgia in a rapidly changing world.

What Is a Tradition?

“A tradition is something that happens more than once,” says Will. “When something repeats, it becomes part of a pattern — a shared history.”

But even the oldest traditions aren’t fixed. The Abbot’s Bromley Horn Dance, for example, has been performed for nearly a millennium — yet its music and rituals have inevitably shifted through time.

Tradition, then, isn’t about freezing the past. It’s about carrying it forward.

The “Folk Police” 

“You can’t play that chord,” some insist. “That’s not traditional.”

Will laughs when he recalls such encounters.

“If I can play it, then it’s music.”

For both Will and Guro, strict notions of authenticity often get in the way of creativity.

“If you stop the music from evolving,” Will says, “eventually it just dies.”

Tradition as Personal Voice

Guro’s philosophy turns the idea of “purism” inside out:

“To make it traditional is to make it my version.”

In other words, every musician contributes their own accent to the language of folk.

Her old Hardanger fiddle teacher used to say, “Every bird has its own song.”

That personal voice is part of tradition — not an act of rebellion against it. Before the age of recordings and genre labels, people simply played music, learning by ear, sharing tunes, and adapting them to their own communities. 

Technology: Frozen in Time

“Now, when you write a tune, it’s on a computer,” Will says. “It’s documented — fixed. It can’t drift the way it used to.”

The irony of preservation, both musicians note, is that it often halts evolution. Once a tune is notated or recorded, it becomes canonized. 

Guro connects this to the 19th-century national romantic movement, when European collectors began branding local music as “the soul” of their nations.

“Before that,” she says, “people didn’t play ‘folk music’ — they just played music.”

What we now call tradition was once simply the sound of everyday life.

Nostalgia

Nostalgia can be beautiful — but also misleading.

“People love reliving moments in history,” says Will. “But often through rose-tinted glasses.”

Guro agrees, though for her, nostalgia can also feel joyful.

“When I meet up with my old folk school classmates, we play the same tunes we loved years ago — and it feels amazing. It’s nostalgic, but also alive.”

Both agree that what matters most is intention: whether nostalgia serves as a way of reconnecting, or as an excuse for not moving forward.

Identity and Belonging

The talk turns to how tradition shapes national identity — and vice versa.

“In Ireland or Scotland,” Will observes, “even people who don’t play can recognise their traditional music. But in England, it’s different.”

He argues that English folk music deserves a greater presence in schools, but alongside music from around the world. “Otherwise,” he says, “you risk turning pride into isolation.”

Guro agrees:

“The problem isn’t being proud of your tradition — it’s forgetting that every tradition is multicultural if you trace it back far enough.”

When Music Was Just Music

Before genres existed, Norwegian fiddlers, English Morris dancers, and countless village musicians across Europe didn’t see themselves as “folk artists.” They were simply players — borrowing from one another freely.

Guro explains how only in the last century did folk traditions become rigidly regionalized:

“A hundred years ago, players from different valleys learned tunes from each other all the time. But later, people began saying, ‘You can’t play that — it’s not from here.’”

Will sees the same pattern in English Morris music. The Morris Book, compiled by Cecil Sharp and Lionel Bacon, lists 27 different versions of the same tune, The Princess Royal — each with its own key, mode, and rhythm.

“Every village had its own version,” he says. “And that’s the point.”

Roots and Renewal

Ultimately, nostalgia and innovation aren’t opposites. They’re partners in keeping tradition alive.

“Tradition isn’t about copying,” says Guro. “It’s about conversation.”

Every time a musician learns a tune, alters a rhythm, or adds a new ornament, they join a dialogue that stretches back centuries.

As Will puts it:

“If you stop it changing, it stops being music. Traditional music doesn’t endure because it’s ancient. It endures because people keep making it new.”