The Folk Music genre is usually thought to be made up from melodies that the common people wrote. Usually a folk song is about normal people's lives and follows certain rhymes. There's evidence that for decades normal men or women have sung tunes and played instruments, but because most people couldn't note anything down the origins of lots of early folk songs are extremely uncertain.
The majority of early folk songs are about important events in the day to day life of ordinary people. Those events include birth, love, weddings, deaths and harvesting. A lot of folk songs were sung whilst working so they are often about common place activities such as planting, weeding, reaping, milling, harvesting and weaving. Some of the rhythms in this music follow the rhythm of the work, for example those songs about weaving follow a similar rhythm to that of a loom.
Surprisingly songs that are a couple of hundreds of years old are still being sung in these days. At one stage folk music in Europe slid out of fashion, but conveniently it experienced a rebirth in the 1960s at which point it reached a bigger audience.
Many folk songs tell the history of the people who sang the songs; they mark special events such as wars, natural disasters, epidemics and coronations.
The term folk music is a comparatively modern expression. It comes from the expression folklore that was first utilized in 1846 by the author William Thoms to explain "the customs and legends of the common classes."
Lots of early folk music was handed down from generation to generation by word of mouth because it could not be written down. This is one of the key reasons that it is difficult to find the origins of any particular song. Every nation and community within that nation has its own kind of folk music and the folk music genre continues to develop in modern times. In Europe, over the past fifty years, electric folk, Celtic folk, punk folk and folk rock have all appeared. Folk music's long term future is secure because it is now once again evolving and reflecting day to day life.
The majority of early folk songs are about important events in the day to day life of ordinary people. Those events include birth, love, weddings, deaths and harvesting. A lot of folk songs were sung whilst working so they are often about common place activities such as planting, weeding, reaping, milling, harvesting and weaving. Some of the rhythms in this music follow the rhythm of the work, for example those songs about weaving follow a similar rhythm to that of a loom.
Surprisingly songs that are a couple of hundreds of years old are still being sung in these days. At one stage folk music in Europe slid out of fashion, but conveniently it experienced a rebirth in the 1960s at which point it reached a bigger audience.
Many folk songs tell the history of the people who sang the songs; they mark special events such as wars, natural disasters, epidemics and coronations.
The term folk music is a comparatively modern expression. It comes from the expression folklore that was first utilized in 1846 by the author William Thoms to explain "the customs and legends of the common classes."
Lots of early folk music was handed down from generation to generation by word of mouth because it could not be written down. This is one of the key reasons that it is difficult to find the origins of any particular song. Every nation and community within that nation has its own kind of folk music and the folk music genre continues to develop in modern times. In Europe, over the past fifty years, electric folk, Celtic folk, punk folk and folk rock have all appeared. Folk music's long term future is secure because it is now once again evolving and reflecting day to day life.
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