This may explain why Bob Dylan raised such a uproar when he came on stage sporting an electric guitar. But I once worked with a guitarist who warned, “Beware the folk Nazis!” These, he explained, were the people in the audience who insisted that if it had to be plugged in, it wasn’t folk. True, folk musicians nearly always choose to play acoustic guitars, with a microphone in front at most. Newer folksingers often find themselves unfairly constrained, especially the guitarists who want to amp things up a bit. Other genres use guitars, but folk music may be the only genre in which you often find a lone singer with a lone guitar. Wherever you see a folk singer you’re sure to see at least one guitar. The good news for us is that the guitar is by far the most common instrument in folk music new and old. The newer folksingers tended to go in one of two directions either they continued being a voice for the voiceless, singing against injustice, like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Buffy Sainte-Marie, or they turned inward, exploring the meanings of their own inner landscapes, like Joni Mitchel, Leonard Cohen, or Neil Young.īut most did both, either because the cruelty of the world drove them inward or because their reflections compelled them to make a compassionate response to suffering.įolksingers of today carry on this tradition in a myriad of forms, startling in their innovation and in their ability to remain true to the essence of the folk tradition while being relevant to today’s social concerns. Even then these songwriters continued to be inspired by tradition and occasionally reinterpreted the old songs. Some of the greatest singer-songwriters of the twentieth century started out as folk singers before moving on to musical innovation and writing all their own songs. The second subgenre of folk music is very much inspired by the old traditions and often includes the old songs in its repertoire.
Folk Present: Acoustic Introspection, Rousers, and Protest Songs We even find this in the United States in some Native American music and in the blues of Northern Mississippi. In folk music from cultures in the Middle East and Africa we often encounter modes, which don’t quite fit the western trio sonata form of (four sets of eight bars) but rather using a short musical phrase, repeating it an undetermined number of times with variations before playing a bridge with a different rhythm and melody.
Northern Mississippi folk blues guitarists like R.L.Burnside played in a modal style, using short, repeated chord progressions with variations. But even when this progression is used there are some very interesting variations, for example, the II, III, VI, and VII chords are crammed into the basic progression wherever they can fit. Examples include “House of the Rising Sun,” “On Top of Old Smokey,” and “Darlin’ Corey.” There’s something so raw, pure, and human about these songs that they keep coming back to haunt us.Ī folksinger in this tradition is not so much a songwriter as a song carrier, interpreting the old songs in his or her own unique style and maybe even adding a verse or two before passing on the song’s essence to the next generation.Īlthough there’s no typical chord progression in these old songs they often follow the simple I-IV-V-I progression common to most of the western music.
You’ll often hear old traditional songs reinterpreted by new players again and again even long after everyone has forgotten who wrote the song. This stream has long been a source of inspiration for “higher,” more sophisticated genres like classical and jazz as well as for rock, reggae, and country music. In its pure form, it’s nearly always played on acoustic instruments, and most of the songs are written by the venerable A. It’s on par with folk art because of its musical simplicity, childlike innocence, authentic emotions, and depiction of humble subjects. This category comprises those musical traditions, stretching back as far as anyone can remember, created and kept going by poor rural folk who lacked access to higher education. It’s commonly acknowledged that the term “folk music” is used to define two separate musical streams, folk past and folk present: 1) Folk Past: An Ancient Stream of Inspiration