folk music

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Traditional music, especially from rural areas, which is passed on by listening and repeating, and is usually performed by amateurs. The term is used to distinguish it from the classical music of a country, and from urban popular or commercial music. Most folk music exists in the form of songs, or instrumental music to accompany folk dancing, and is usually melodic and rhythmic rather than harmonic in style.

Each country has its own styles of folk music, based on distinctive scales and modes, and often played on instruments associated with that culture alone, such as the Scottish bagpipes, the Russian balalaika, or the Australian didjeridu. A number of composers of classical music have used folk music in their own pieces to give them a particular national character, and in the late 19th century the use of folk tunes was a prominent feature of nationalism in music.

In the 20th century a number of people, such as the composers Zoltán Kodály and Béla Bartók (who recorded over 1,000 East European folk songs in the early 20th century) and the musicologists Cecil Sharp and Alan Lomax, transcribed (wrote down) and recorded folk music to preserve it for the future. Since World War II, a renewed interest, especially among young people, led to a ‘folk revival’. Traditional folk music was performed to a much wider audience, and songwriters such as Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, and Bob Dylan composed popular songs in a folk style.

Elements of folk music have also been combined with rock and pop music, and form an important part of world music.

Black and white reflect the black and white communities and the harmony between them. Yellow represents the golden beaches. Blue stands for the sea. Effective date: 22 February 1979. >>