Folk Music

I

Introduction

Folk Music, the music with which the people of a nation or an ethnic group most specifically identify themselves. It consists of song or pieces taught through performance rather than notation (written musical notes), and learned by hearing. The original composers of folk music are anonymous or forgotten. A folk song does not have a standardized form. Instead, its words as well as its music exist in more than one and sometimes a great many variants, or in slightly different versions. Folk music is most commonly the music of the socially and economically lower classes and of rural populations. Although many folk musicians are accomplished artists who have fine technique and mastery of many pieces, folk music is generally simpler and more compact in style than classical, or art, music. Folk music exists in many different forms and under a variety of social and cultural conditions. Folk music—or some music that conforms to the definition just given—is found in most of the world’s societies. The characterization given in this article applies best to the musical cultures of Western nations. Even so, the variety of folk music is so great that the statements made here can only outline characteristics rather than define the features of folk music.

II

Relation to the Community

Traditionally, folk performers have been amateurs within rural communities rather than professionally trained musicians, and their music is closely associated with everyday activities such as ritual, work, and child rearing. Different than the music of tribal societies, folk music is the music of small towns or villages, the music of people without a higher education in societies that have a more educated class. This economically and politically elite layer of society maintains the so-called classical or art music culture. Because folk music includes such great variety, the definition given here most accurately characterizes folk music of the 19th and early 20th centuries in Western Europe.

Although folk music has existed for centuries, it emerged as a distinctly defined form of music only in the 19th century. At this time European ethnic groups such as Germans and Italians began to unify the dozens of principalities in which they were living into the nation-states that became the countries of Europe. At the same time, downtrodden minorities in European empires, including Czechs, Romanians, and Finns, began to agitate for political and cultural independence. Nations on the outskirts of Europe such as Norway, Spain, and Hungary began to develop individual musical identities. In the context of these political and cultural developments, folk music emerged as an expression of national identity in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century in Europe.

The different words for folk music in various European languages illustrate the differences in attitudes toward folk music. The German word Volk, as in Volksmusik (folk music) or Volkslied (folk song), describes music that the German people have in common. The term for folk music used in Czech, národní písni (national songs), derives from Narod (nation) and thus emphasizes the importance of these songs not only to the Czech people’s ethnic, or national, identity but also to their struggles for national liberation. The English word folk implies the rural origins of the music. The French term musique populaire associates the music with the common people as opposed to a particular group.

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In one sense it is ironic that folk music should have played a part in establishing national identity. Unlike art music that is written down, a folk song is passed from singer to singer and tends to undergo change. Variants arise from creative impulses, faulty memory, the artistic values of those who learn and teach the song, and the influence of other styles of music known to the singers. A folk song sometimes changes beyond recognition and exists in many forms. New words may be attached or adapted to a different set of lyrics. Because many people participate in the shaping of a folk song, this process is called communal re-creation. Folk music also changes because it is affected by the art music of nearby cultural centers (for example, cities, courts of the nobility, and monasteries). In fact, it frequently functions as a kind of cultural backwater that retains characteristics of art music which has lost its popularity. However, folk music can also be used to resist change. Folk music flourishes among immigrants (such as Hungarian Americans or Swedish Americans), for example, who often maintain songs and pieces in particularly archaic variants as a way of preserving ties to their original homeland.

The characteristics of folk music, popular music, and classical music often overlap, and the boundaries between these categories can become blurred. For one thing, the folk culture sometimes adapts songs from classical and popular music. For another, popular music, even though it develops in urban cultures and is transmitted through the mass media, bears some characteristics of folk music. Folk music varies so greatly in its composition and transmission that it sometimes takes on traits of the other two categories. For example, folk cultures often do develop musical specialists, particularly instrumentalists and singers. Moreover, the words of folk songs may be passed on through written tradition as well as being transmitted orally. Folk music is not necessarily more functional than other kinds of music; it is as much a form of entertainment as it is a functional art form. In contrast, art music was first conceived as accompaniment to religious and courtly ritual rather than for the sake of art alone.

Although something like folk music exists in many cultures that also possess a learned musical tradition, including those of India, China, and the Middle East, its place in society and in relation to other kinds of music varies. Traditional Indian culture drew a sharper line between classical and folk genres than did Western cultures. In the Middle East, classically trained musicians are likely to perform both classical and folk music. In Iran, the word for folk music translates as “regional music.” Iranians recognize each region’s style of music as distinct, and the country’s folk musicians often specialize in one genre or type of music.

III

Musical Structure

Although the folk musics of European cultures are extremely diverse, they share some general characteristics. The music is relatively simple, usually consisting of songs with a strophic form—that is, the music repeats in short stanzas with different words. The most common stanza type has four lines, sometimes with different words (abcd), but more frequently with some repetition (aaba, abba, and so on). The use of antiphony, or alternation between a leader and a chorus, each singing one line or stanza, is common throughout Europe. Much instrumental folk music presents successions of lines in which each line is repeated or varied once (aabbccdd or aa’bb’, and so on). Epic songs that tell a complex story may repeat a single musical line many times. The ways of relating musical materials are often sophisticated. For example, in a typical Hungarian form, the second half repeats the first a fifth lower (a5a5aa). This technique of transposition (repeating a line at different pitch levels) is widespread in Eastern Europe.

The melodic material of European folk music is closely related to that of art music. Seven-tone scales, sometimes using tonalities and modes like those of medieval church music, were widely adopted. The Dorian and Mixolydian modes are common in English folk songs, and the Phrygian is common in Spanish folk songs. Especially common throughout Europe are pentatonic scales—scales with five tones. Simpler scales with three or four tones are found in children's ditties, counting-out rhymes, and songs of pre-Christian rituals. 

Rhythm in folk songs is sometimes related to the metric structure of poetry (see Versification). English folk song texts frequently use lines of four iambic feet, and the accompanying melodies are often set in one of three rhythmic patterns:

In Eastern Europe, complex rhythms such as 2+2+2+3 beats, as well as measures of 5, 7, 11, and 13 beats, may be found, particularly in the Balkan countries. Instrumental folk music tends to be rhythmically repetitive, a characteristic that may also be found in Western Europe, where complex structures are used. An example is the irregular alternation of four and three beats in Bavarian dances.

Most folk music is monophonic—that is, it consists of a single, unaccompanied melody. Instrumental accompaniment may provide simple chords or a drone (a single note or chord repeated under a melody). Polyphonic singing, with two or three voices pursuing independent melodies, is particularly prevalent in Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, and the Balkans and other Eastern European countries. Most frequently, singers relate their voices to one another by singing the same tune at different intervals or pitch levels—in thirds or sixths (Germany, Italy, Spain, the Western Slavic countries), fourths or fifths (Russia, Ukraine), or seconds (the Balkans). Drones (Italy), rounds or canons (universal), and more complex relationships (Russia, the Balkans) are also used. Polyphonic folk music is rare in Asia. In some countries such as Iran and Afghanistan, however, polyphony is more common in folk music than in classical music.

Folk and art music contrast strikingly in their use of the voice and the tone color of instruments. The trained opera singer’s bel canto, or virtuousity of vocal technique, is rarely used. Each culture or area has developed a characteristic vocal sound that it favors. Folk music in areas of Spain, Italy, and the Balkans uses a tense, nasal sound and highly ornamented melodies. In Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and Russia, a more open-throated, clear sound and unembellished melodies are preferred. A mixed style lying between the two occurs in industrialized areas, including parts of Britain, and in France. In American folk music, singing style is the primary element that distinguishes among eastern, western, southern, and African American traditions. The singing styles that reflect cultural identity have an instrumental parallel in the playing style of folk fiddlers who give each note a fresh stroke of the bow, in contrast to the concert violinist’s vibrato or slurred method of bowing.

IV

The Songs

The style traits described above characterize regions and countries. Most folk tunes themselves, while spreading as variants, remain in their homelands. Occasionally, however, they pass from one country to another, their style changing in the process. For example, singers may perform a song solo in one country, but in a chorus in another. A tune may use a pentatonic (five-tone) scale in one country and a diatonic major scale (scale with no sharps or flats) in another. Indeed, very similar tunes are found in nations as far apart as Spain and Hungary, the variations reflecting the local style of each country. This relationship of similar tunes in distant communities is difficult to trace. The similarities may be the result of the tunes migrating from region to region, or they may occur simply because musicians composing folk music are bound to produce similar tunes sometimes.

Within a single country, however, it is often possible to identify those tunes that appear to be related. They all seem to have come from a single parent tune passed on by oral tradition in community get-togethers. A group of such related tunes is called a tune family. Comparisons of folk song variations can reveal how a tune family may have developed. Tunes may be shortened, for example. When the four-line 'Pretty Mohea' of Anglo-American tradition became 'On Top of Old Smoky,' it seems to have lost its first two lines. A shortened version may then have new lines added. Or, in the interior of a musical line, the second of two contrasting bits of melody may be forgotten and replaced by a repetition of the first. A tune may also borrow a line from a completely unrelated family. For example, in Czech folk songs, which often use the form aaba, the line b may move to other tunes as an independent unit.

The number of tune families in a given body of folk music ranges widely. Hungarian folk music seems to have hundreds. In Iran, however, each genre of text, such as songs about heroic warlords, seems to be associated with one type of melody and thus the total number of families is very small. American scholar Samuel Bayard has claimed that some 40 or 50 families dominate Anglo-American folk music, and that 7 of these families account for the vast majority of songs.

A ballad, with an established story, may be sung consistently with one tune and its variants. Typically, however, it will also be sung to other, unrelated tunes from several families. Because these texts, such as ballad stories, disperse broadly, they are held in common by a number of countries in Europe and the Americas. The same dispersal is true of members of a tune family—they are sung with a variety of texts. However, texts and tunes do not usually move together. For example, the text to the ballad 'Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight,' common in English folk music, is found all over Europe, but in each country it is sung to a distinct group of tunes.

The large number of tunes in a typical folk music repertory is the basis for various systems of tune classification. Because oral tradition is so unpredictable, however, what remains constant when a tune changes differs markedly from culture to culture. In English folk song, for example, contour (the general outline of melodic movement) remains constant, whereas in Hungarian folk music, the consistent elements are the rhythm and the configuration of final notes of the several (usually four) phrases. Because of such differences, there is no satisfactory way to classify all the tunes that are related members of one family.

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