Folk music is a genre that’s united by its traditional nature and the way it’s passed down through generations, orally or aurally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This music is in all of us; its ancient history is deep and closely tied to the human experience. From the griots of West Africa to the traditional amateur family bands of the Appalachians, people worldwide have kept folk music alive because of the human desire to share songs with others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because international folk music is so broad, this article will hone in on American folk music, colloquially known as \u201cfolk\u201d in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The most prominent American folk music of the 17th and 18th centuries had its roots in the folk traditions of England, Scotland, and Ireland, but was modified to fit the new surroundings of the colonies. Alongside Anglo influences in early colonial music, German, French, and other European traditions contributed their own musical styles and harmonic sensibilities. The music brought over by European settlers was also infused with the musical traditions of African slaves, whose expressive forms blended with and adapted European styles\u2014often as a means of preserving cultural identity under oppression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Folk music has always existed within the DNA of American culture, but experienced a significant revival in the 1960s and has continued to fuse with new emerging styles of music. For most musicologists, the folk revivals of the 1940s and ’50s also represent new chapters in the genre’s evolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Folk music is considered \u201croots music\u201d because it provided the substrate for later genres like rock, jazz,<\/a> and R&B. The multi-ethnic nature of America is what makes its folk music and subsequent genres so distinct, and is the reason why music has remained such a key cultural export.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This era of folk songs took many different forms, but were often dances commonly referred to as “jigs” or “country dances.” This style of music has a direct line of relation to the modern square dancing known in country and Western music. Prime examples of this type of social dance music include \u201cSoftly Good Tummas\u201d and \u201cBoar’s Head Carol.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nTypes of traditional American folk music<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Country dances<\/h3>\n\n\n\n