My definition of folk music

[nancylebov]

Folk music is music which shows cultural influence of only one planet.

Comments

[mneme]

Er. As opposed to?

[madfilkentist]

I object! That rules out filk music! :)

hmm, a little history for you

[metawyrd.livejournal.com]

The term "folk music" was originally a class-based folkloric term which referred to the music of the lower classes/working classes (aka "der Volk"). Before the advent of popular music, this type of music was contrasted with other genres such as classical music--folk usually had no notation system, was informal in nature, and was rarely documented except for weirdos like 19th century song collector John Childe (where the term "Childe ballad" came from) or Library of Congress archivist Alan Lomax.

After rock music blew up in the 50s, most popular music across the world became based on folk forms (the blues in particular) so the whole difference between "folk music" and other musics became hard or even impossible to delineate. IMHO, only singer-songwriters who are interested in preserving the original "folk music" or are creating songs in these traditions tend to use the term now.

I used to write abstracts for the International Index for Music Periodicals so I know a few things. :)

[pickledginger.livejournal.com]

How very .. Terracentrist of you. ;-)

[llennhoff.livejournal.com]

So Age of Aquarius is not folk?