Folk Music

1
Folk Music

• The History and Sounds

2
Defining Folk Music

• Music by and of the people
• Performed within communities
• Born in places not yet commercialized
• Oral tradition
• Telling a story
• Epic of Gilgamesh

3
Defining Folk Music

• 20th and 21st Century
• Popular music culturally descended from tradition
• Performed by experts
• Becomes known as traditional music

4
History of Folk Tradition

• Folk- 18th century term referring to peasants or
  non-literate peoples
• Historical responsibility
• Continuity
• Tradition
• Oral transmission

5
Folk Subjects

• Most folk music is vocal
• Narrative verse
• Merging of epic poetry into one song
• Recalling major battles or natural disasters
• It brings the past back to life!

6
Folk Subjects

• Work songs
• Call and response
• Gives workers a sense of rhythm to carry on into
  their work
• Jody calls during war
• Sea shanties

7
Folk Subjects

• Nursery Rhymes
• Itsy Bitsy Spider
• There was an old woman who swallowed a fly
• Old MacDonald

8
Variation in Folk Music

• Oral transmission cannot produce exact replicas
• Many singers intentionally modify the material

9
Variation in Folk Music

• Cecil Sharp- Biological natural selection
• only variants that were most appealing would be
  carried on by others
• Can make folk songs sloppy

10
America and Folk Music

• The Star Spangled Banner
• Dixie
• When Johnny Comes Marching Home
• Battle Hymn of the Republic
• Oh My Darling, Clementine

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Folk Instruments

• Voice
• Guitar
• Banjo
• Mandolin
• Harmonica
• Dulcimer
• Fiddle

• Tin whistles
• Washtub bass
• Kazoo
• Jugs
• Autoharp

12
Early Folk Musicians

• Burl Ives
• Git Along Little Doggie
• There Was an Old Woman who Swallowed a Fly

13
Early Folk Musicians

• Bill Monroe
• Blue Moon Of Kentucky

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Early Folk Musicians

• Hank Williams
• Im So Lonesome
• Paper Boy

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Early Folk Musicians

• Woody Guthrie
• Big Rock Candy Mountain

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Early Folk Musicians

• Pete Seeger
• Little Boxes

17
Early Folk Musicians

• Stephen Foster
• Oh Susana

18
Influences
19
Legacy

• Oral tradition continues every time a story is
  told