Folk Music Introduction

A consistent definition of traditional folk music is elusive. The terms folk music,folk song and folk dance are comparatively  recent expressions.They are extensions of the term folklore,which was coined in 1846 by the English antiquarian William Thoms to describe the traditions,customs and superstitions of the uncultured classes.The term further derives from the German expression Volk, in  the sense of the people as a whole as applied to popular and national music by Johann Gottfried Herder and the German Romantics over half  a century earlier. Traditional folk music also includes most indigenous music.

The post-World War II folk revival in America and Britain started a new genre, contemporary folk music, and brought an additional meaning to the term "folk music": newly composed songs,fixed in form and by known authors,which imitated some form of traditional music.

Folk song-a song originating among the people of a country or area, passed by oral tradition from one singer or generation to the next, often existing in several versions, and marked generally by simple, modal melody and stanzaic, narrative verse: a song of similar character written by a known composer.