What makes folk music

In reality, folk music is so much more than that! Folk music can refer to two types of music. The first is traditional types of music that have been around as long as music itself. The second is a modern notion of folk music that arose during the s in the United States.

Traditional folk music is often old music by unknown songwriters. Usually, this folk music has been passed down for generations. Some describe it as the music of the common people. It tells stories in a way anyone can understand. Traditional folk music bonds people together. It has more to do with culture and history than entertainment. The s brought the United States a folk music revival. A new style of folk music developed. This style is sometimes called contemporary folk music.

Contemporary folk music is made by acoustic instruments and meaningful lyrics. Contemporary folk music is a more recent development from the United States.

But traditional folk music can be found all over the world. Just about every society has its own customs and traditions expressed in the form of folk art.

That includes folk music, folk dance, and folk tales. Folk art is passed down through the generations. And it varies widely from country to country. That means folk music from one country might sound completely different from folk music from another country. No all of it sounds the same! Spend some time listening to traditional folk music from a few different cultures. Then, check out contemporary folk music, too. You never know—you may find your new favorite music style!

Ready to keep learning? Find a friend or family member who can help you with the activities below! We're not sure! We use a copyright free website to choose our photos, so we don't know the source for sure. Thanks for being such a great Wonder Friend and letting us know! We've added it to our list of needed updates.

Hi, Kiana! Are you having trouble with a specific part of this Wonder? We're happy to help! This was a really interesting read because I had no idea that folk music had such a rich and deep history. It is just fascinating to me that so many cultures around the world have so many different kinds of folk music.

However, I suppose that that does make sense since one of the best ways for people to vocally record their culture's history is through music and song. Excellent points, Callum! And you're right, music is a great way to record culture and history! Do you like folk music? Thanks for letting us know, j! We updated the video for this Wonder of the Day. We appreciate you keeping Wonderopolis in tip-top shape! Great question, Mckayla!

It sounds like you're talking about American folk music rather than folk music as a whole. Other folk musics would take a book to explain. From an English perspective, 'folk music' has just as much variation as previously stated, but the main sub-genres seen are traditional folk and the American folk described above.

I'll leave the American stuff to these guys who have summed it up quite nicely, but the traditional music can be categorised by a few factors. The main thing about this style of music is that it is designed to be accessible. It thrives and gains exposure through the live music scene, with folk clubs generally being held in pubs. All clubs invite anyone with an instrument to come and join in and the music accommodates this.

Also as a little tip when you are moving to a g chord on the a string try sliding from the 1st fret to the 2nd fret where it is supposed to be for a G chord. Happy hunting for your sound. Most European folk music and diaspora stem from Indo-European pastoral music which is rooted in the natural scale, not the diatonic scale.

The problem is that the two systems have combined which disguises the natural scale. So the major and minor modes and triadic harmony come from the natural scale and are at odds with the original ecclesiastical modes and the Pythagorean-tuned diatonic scale missing the leading tone at the time.

Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. What makes a song sound "folk-y"? Ask Question. Asked 7 years, 3 months ago. Active 2 years, 11 months ago. Viewed 20k times. Improve this question. RogerWang RogerWang 3 3 gold badges 9 9 silver badges 17 17 bronze badges.

Song structure is often based around a repetitive chorus punctuated with changing verses; the chorus is designed so that multiple people might join in, and in the case of workers songs, aids them to get through the repetitive, mechanical aspects of the job. Typical instrumentation for the folk music traditions of the British Isles commonly involves: voice, violin known as the fiddle in the folk setting , acoustic guitar, flute, whistle, pipes, accordion, melodeon, mandolin, harmonica, and tenor banjo.

Folk is often played in groups, though not necessarily as a band. Visit website. Find a session. We hope you find this Making Music resource useful. If you have any comments or suggestions about the guidance please contact us. Whilst every effort is made to ensure that the content of this guidance is accurate and up to date, Making Music do not warrant, nor accept any liability or responsibility for the completeness or accuracy of the content, or for any loss which may arise from reliance on the information contained in it.

Skip to main content. From politics to teaching, traditional music plays a huge role in society. It can be used as a unifying force, a form of protest, propaganda, a teaching tool, and, perhaps most importantly, to express an identity. Traditional music often survives centuries, recording history as well as subtly influencing it. All music is powerful, but folk music is rarely thought of that way.

It can change hearts and minds — and unite them — so it will always be useful politically whether for good or for evil as well as personally. But will it still exist in hundreds of years? Really, really cool. So glad you finally got to post about music! Such a great topic and informative article.

I hope that answers your question! Very nice overview on traditional folk songs and their parameters. This is an interesting article in more ways than one. I love original folk. Some of the best writing to ever occur in my opinion. I hear lots of people writing great songs, simply sung and played, with plenty of variety including social and political content, in clubs and singarounds, on the path MacColl, Lomax, Seeger and those like them envisioned more than half a century ago.

Love the way this turned out! Great work! I especially love that you pointed to the intimacy of the genre. I love true, sincere music so much that I devour it and regurgitate it in my own way. The songs are mostly about me. I record them sometimes with a cassette, but more lately on the computer. I am such a conservative old folkie, I can see no folk music in this current generation. All girl solo singers try to be like Kate Rusby and groups are after a sound particular to themselves, traditional songs, which used to be simple, are swamped with sound.

Thank God John Kirkpatrick and the like are still hanging on!!! Rant over. A reminder to everyeone: Acoustic does not mean folk, it has little to do with folk music in terms of substance. Great work on this one! Also, I loved the history details in this.

If you think about rock music has been the real folk music of the baby boomer generation in that folk is an indigenous form that finds its topic in the concerns of the day, if you look at the evolution of rock over the past 60 years you can pretty much trace the concerns of a couple of generations in what the songwriters of the day wrote about. This is not the case in other folk traditions around the world, where the styles and forms continuously evolve. I certainly see the many times context of Folk music is misunderstood by the general audience, simply for the fact that it is often associated with country or underground roots.

If others understood how laden we are with the history of Folk songs and other historical pieces, they might see how much reflects so much of our cultures. Excuse me, but the internet has killed the music industry. A generation before, Leadbelly was ignored by the industry, and only the great John Hammond — who discovered Bob Dylan unfortunately after being parasitized by Albert Grossman — recognized the greatness of black talent such as Billie Holliday, Count Basie, and Robert Johnson.

Musicians tour to earn a living. Record companies give them little for their recorded work. It failed they begged him back a few years later with terms he dictated. The talentless will always need the talented. Generally, the popularity of mainstream pop music overshadows how folk music exist in our daily lives without us noticing it, as you have rightfully pointed out. Folk music has also been instrumental in writing revisionist history of various localities through interdisciplinary methods, such as oral history.

This was an enjoyable read. Really in-depth! In relation to modern pop music, folk music certainly stands the test of time. I learned a ton from this article! This was a wonderful article. Simple ideas can be the most adaptable and profound depending on the setting.

Thanks for elevating the value of folk music in this great article! Great article! I think there is much to be said for the desire for folk music to resurge in popular culture. As a child of the 60s and 70s,I recall how folk music, and folk music patterns, carried the hopes and dreams of an entire generation.

Shawn Galloway is one such musical artist; Mark Stanton Welch is another. I would love to see more focus on the inherent power of folk music to once again connect with the spirit of people. They are more than just songs of a culture or of a people…they are, in my view, songs of the heart and of the endurability of the human spirit. Absolutely love this! As someone who is constantly listening to various folk playlists on Spotify, learning about the history of the genre is so interesting!

Love this! Fantastic article! Being an avid music lover myself, this article was interesting and informative, when I think of folk music of course Dylan comes to mind, but like in your article, so does Celtic folk singer Loreena McKennit, and all of the Hymns sung at Church that originated from Black spiritual music.