What are the Musical Features and Cultural Contexts of Folk Music?
Folk music is the oldest, richest, and most varied genre in the world – Inuit Throat Singing and songs about the construction of railroads in Canada can be ranked together, all because of the origins. Folk music brings together cultures, social classes, and generations.
However, it changes between them – the term of folk music means many things to many groups, and no two meanings are the same. Only some defining characteristics can be applied to all its types, and these are related to their themes and methods of performance, rather than their musical features.
Folk music was, unarguably, the first type of music to exist. It is characterised as music of the people (“folk”); peasants and commoners (the lower socioeconomic classes) devised it in order to pass the time, to tell stories, to celebrate meaningful events at ceremonies, or for useful reasons, such as singing a child to sleep, or keeping a steady rhythm during manual labour. For this reason, its style differentiates across its functions. Moreover, themes with which folk music is identifiable will generally relate to everyday life in some way; many told folkloric stories (ballads, where short stories are related, with several lines repeated frequently for effect) and epic narratives, as well as moral tales. These would be based upon the culture of the location, including superstitions and historical events. More conventional topics were also engulfed in folk music: romantic and familial love, as well as work and achievements (as used for ceremonies, such as harvest festivals), were common. The songs effectively represented the people, their concerns, beliefs, jobs, and motivations.
For many centuries, similarly to storytelling, folk music was shared through the oral tradition: people learned it by ear, as opposed to from notation. This would generally take place in informal settings, among friends and family, and be used to bring people together, rather than a performance, in many instances. As more people learned songs, only to share them with others, a chain reaction of learning music and sharing would occur, until songs and pieces could be considered mainstream in particular regions. Until the 20th Century, these pieces were generally played and sung by amateurs; it is only recently that professionals have dominated that field. This is mainly because of the style of living – for many centuries, people lived in tribes and clans (such as the Celts, who were known for their folk music and epic stories), then in small villages, particularly in Europe. Some countries in Africa and Asia still exist in this way. Tightly-knit communities were forged, where everyone knew and trusted each other, so large groups of friends would gather for amusement. However, in the eighteenth century, industrialisation and urbanisation began, expanding communities and effectively eradicating the oral tradition; at this point, professional performance of folk music became imperative to its survival. The 1800s saw notation of folk songs beginning, and as this occurred, they were modified, making them more conventional. Equally, new folk songs, relaying crimes (broadside and murder ballads), were published and subjected to the oral tradition in impoverished circles. Folk revivals have since taken place, both in bids to increase nationalism and imperialism in the 19th and 20th centuries in Europe (in the events of the expansion of Empires in the 1800s, as well as the interwar period), and in the 1960s, as part of mainstream musical culture. Because these songs were spread so easily, and modified at every turn, as well as due to their age, no author can be found for many of them, though those which have been composed since the 1800s are more easy to attribute to particular people due to the popularisation of formal notation.
Because of its ear-to-ear style, in which people were able to modify songs both for reasons of taste, and through lack of memory, traditional folk music evolved constantly. Melodies and lyrics changed over time as different aspects of society grew in importance over others. For example, stylistic norms would have lead to changed structures, singing styles, instrumentation, and even rhythm and melody. The length of pieces would have increased or decreased; religious songs – such as hymns – would have been vastly altered, or discarded and the tunes used for new topics altogether, with the various different religious changes in society (the first conversion from Celtic mythology to Christianity, the rise of Protestantism, etc). Structures may change from binary to ternary, then to forms such as EFAB. Current affairs and changes in the world would also have influenced the genre to change, and cultural integration, such as colonisation and migration, would have changed regional folk by adding characteristics of another culture. Expansion and urbanisation were also be large factors in the modification of folk music, as they led small communities to separate, spreading their songs over a wider area, exposing them to more different cultures, so that they were subject to stylistic changes based on cultural exposure, as well as more people in the chain of the oral tradition. Because of any changes to a land being largely regional, as communities expanded and split apart over time, songs would have been spread across different directions, but changed in different ways, until one song could be heard as multiple, separate variants. Indeed, terms have developed to describe songs which differ across separate sources: versions of a song tend to be sung by one artist, with minor modifications, variants are sung by different singers and harbour a higher level of alteration than versions, and forms can be variants which have been highly modified, but still retain some similarities with the original piece. Another point when folk music was took a large step forward in terms of evolution, was when notation became mainstream. From the 1800s, notable musicians, such as Cecil Sharp and Thomas Percy, would write sheet music for folk songs based on performances they had seen, editing it in order to make it more modern and relatable to contemporary music. This sheet music would then be made available to the public, allowing other people to re-compose it to piano-accompaniments, and yet more to establish them in music halls, concerts, etc. In the era of revival folk music (from the 1960s onwards), most traditional folk music has been left untouched, as this has been the age to compose new music, based on the traditional conventions of the genre. However, some artists have re-invigorated old folk songs, such as Scarborough Fair (made famous by Simon and Garfunkel, though it was a traditional folk song for a long time before this). An interesting style of folk music, which generally takes traditional folk music and modifies it, is Fusion Folk (see below).
As mentioned, folk music differs constantly, depending on location, dividing into styles. One interesting type is Canadian Folk Music – folk which has developed specifically in Canada, with specific guidelines relating to the elements of music. It originally evolved from folk songs brought across the Atlantic by settlers from Britain and France in the 1500s and 1600s; their styles mixed, and their own culture developed, leading to the imminent modification of this music. This integration was further brought about by fur traders and other such travellers, who spread the music into Central Canada. Pioneering agricultural societies lead to widespread sharing of broadside ballads and Anglo-Canadian folk songs; the large number of cultures who migrated to Canada in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries helped add to this melting pot, and folk music quickly became a main source of escapism in the rural communities. Indigenous folk songs are mainly sourced in Newfoundland. Within the music, Gaelic and pagan tones can be heard, and highly traditional (somewhat obscure) themes, such as wedding cycles, religious topics (including the sub-genre of Christmas carols), love, heroes, war, disaster, revenge, anger, revenge, sailors and the sea, fishermen, disasters at sea, sealing, whaling, railroading, mining, being a cowboy, etc. Love ballads, in particular, are known for their consonance, both melodically and poetically. Canadian folk boasts lullabies, mouth music (worldless sounds which can accompany dances), drinking songs, nursery rhymes, and music sung in multiple languages (macaronic music). Some songs demonstrated patriotic tones, displaying typical North American pride of heritage and culture. These songs also speak of an immigrant’s transition from their much-loved home country, to the Canadian frontier. Instrumentation is a large factor in characterising Canadian folk; the fiddle, for example, is a highly prevalent instrument in many Anglo and Franco-Canadian folk songs, as well as Gaelic-influenced pieces. Many of these fiddles had different features from normal violins – the Norwegian Hardinger fiddle, described by many as the most beautiful of its kind, had eight strings. Many other instruments are associated with the sub-genres, particularly with Anglo-Canadian and Franco-Canadian folk music: guitars (sometimes twelve-strings), button accordions (where, instead of using piano-keys on the side in order to produce melodies, there are buttons), harmonicas, whistle, Jew’s-harp (a one-pitch reed instrument which functions similarly to a whistle), and bones and spoons (idiophonic instruments, usually made out of animal bones and spoons, which are beaten together to make a resonating sound). Other instruments which were brought over by other minority cultures, such as the (once) Yugoslavian gusle, and the Lithuanian skuduciai, a form of bagpipes, with one tone and several lengths. The forms of many Canadian folk songs are strophic, with heavily Irish influences in locations such as Newfoundland and Ontario – these are locations in which Anglo-Canadian folk music took a particular hold. Most songs were performed without other instrumentation for centuries after the first settlers arrived in Canada; accompaniment in the country’s folk scene is only a recent convention. Traditional songs often incorporated mouth music, as well as heavily abbreviated (to the point of nonsense) words, in order to enhance the lyrics. Consonant, often lively melodies (which are rarely set over common scales), and rousing rhythms, are common. TO BE REVIEWED
Sea Shanties are another type of folk music. These are songs developed and sung by sailors performing manual labour (such as hauling on lines) on ships, mainly between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries inclusive – after this, new machinery was developed which eliminated this line of work. They were used to pass the time while working, or during recreational moments, but also to coordinate movements through rhythm during strenuous work. Short haul shanties were used during short-span work which involved short, sharp pulls on the lines; halyard shanties were sung during more strenuous, heavy work with longer intervals between each pull on the line; capstan shanties were sung during repetitive manual labour which didn’t involve pulling on lines, but which did require a steady rhythm (however, any folk ballad would be adaptable to this purpose, provided that the tempo was suitable for the work, and the sailors were able to stay focused throughout the work). Short haul and halyard shanties, however, required strophic form due to the repetitive manual labour excluding all variation. They also involved low-pitched harmonies (the groups would have been all-male), with simple melodies going up and down by step, and very basic rhythms. Some vocal techniques, such as scoops, may have been used occasionally. The words were also repeated frequently, if they didn’t remain constant throughout shanties. There would be no instrumental accompaniment due to their situations (polyphony would have tampered with the steady rhythm, indeed, sea shanties were entirely monophonic in order to maintain concentration, as well as the steady repetition of the labour). There would also be minimal dynamic contrast.
Hymns are yet another style of folk music; very traditional songs which revolve around religion, and are associated with Christianity, though not specific to it. Perhaps the epitome of music which has been passed down and influenced by the oral tradition, hymns were originally learnt by church-goers at a young age; centuries later, they were printed in books (initially too expensive for the peasantry to own). They speak of faith, religious figures, and the glory of God. Consequentially, words are the most important feature of hymns; the musical features are subdued by this importance. Words are often poetry which has been set to traditional, or newly-composed pieces of music (such as ‘In the Bleak Midwinter,’ which was written by Christina Rossetti, and set against two different compositions, by Gustav Holst and Harold Darke, in the Edwardian era). They are simple, but tackle large and meaningful issues within religion; speaking “Mighty things in homely language” (McConnell, 2007). Many have been constructed from hymns, though the seventeenth century saw the beginning of more wondrous, happy hymns, as opposed to the war and brutality of many psalms. Hymns generally involve the public singing the main tune, which would have a simple, consonant melody with varying melodic shape, while a trained choir sings the harmony. Vocal techniques such as melismata wouldn’t be incorporated, as they are an extravagance, and undermine the celebration of God by showing off. The only other instrumentation is that of organs, which provide homophony to the pieces. Hymns can sound meek and timid, or glorious, depending on the subject matter, and tonalities vary, as sad topics warrant minor keys, while happy pieces warrant major ones. Rhythms would also be simple, following the lead of the words, with plain metres. Structures are usually either strophic or
I will use this knowledge to inform my piece in several ways: primarily, my theme is based on familial love, a common theme in traditional, and sometimes contemporary folk, as well as hymns – a good example of this is A’ phiuthrag sa phiuthar, most recently recorded by Julie Fowlis, which speaks of reliance on siblings for help (although it does dabble with the fantastical, as the sibling asking for help is trapped in a fairy mound).