Folk Music

Folk music isn’t as old as you think!

As our class was getting to the end of our Folk Music unit, we considered many different definitions of  “folk”. To help us determine the definition we read, An Introduction to Folk Music in the United States by Bruno Nettl. He discussed many opinions about the definition of “folk music”. Some of these opinions/arguments include:

Folk music vs. Cultivated music

Folk music vs. Primitive music

Simple vs. Complex

All of these opinions posed questions about where folk music really originated. The answer is unknown but what we do know is that folk music is always changing. This fact is inevitable because folk music is transferred orally. Each artist who sings a folk song will change the style of the song to fit him/herself. This brings me to my definition of folk music:

~Folk music is orally transferred from generation to generation. It is the foundation of all genres of music and can be created and performed by anyone and everyone.

I think Nettl successfully informs the reader about folk music but the tone of his writing implies he is writing to scholars. He uses the words “primitive” and “cultivated” which suggests folk music is old and not sophisticated. Folk music is the opposite of old, folk music changes everyday. Some of the reasons why folk music changes are failure of memory and the desire to make changes. This creates different versions of songs.

Nettl describes folk music as “simple” because it doesn’t have the depth that classical music contains.  Folk music also has a repeating form that makes it easy for people to learn and sing along but it doesn’t mean the music is simple to play. From my own personal experience, as a guitar player, folk music has different, complex characteristics to it that sometimes makes it a little difficult to learn.

Nettl talks about how folk music is created for activities but I disagree. Folk music tells a story and listeners enjoy the energetic feel to the music that can be played at any moment, not just for an activity.  Every lyric to every song tells a story for any genre of music. I believe that folk music is the foundation to all genres of music because of the story telling tradition and how any song can be orally transferred to other people. An example of that would be singers on YouTube.

I think if Nettl were writing to folk musicians he would need to change up some of his words so that it would make sense and apply to the folk. He explains things from a scientific point of view and not a musician’s point of view, which changes the context of his writing. I agree with Nettl’s topics and points of view about folk music because what he describes contains all the descriptions that our class has discussed about folk music: it's orally passed from person to person, created by the people for the people, it tells a story and it changes throughout the years.

I believe that folk music isn’t old and it isn’t just for the “folk”; it’s for everyone’s ears. It’s enjoyable to listen to and fun to dance to which makes it easy to be passed from generation to generation. This unit has made me realize that folk isn’t a genre, it’s a style, and you see this style in all genres of music.