There have been two different kinds of traditional ballads, one coming from a remote past with an anonymous author, and the other coming from published broadsides, printed sheets with words but no music, beginning in the sixteenth century, often with known authors who were commenting on contemporary events and individuals. The former were preserved through oral transmission over a long period of time, and can be associated with vernacular (or common) culture, while most of the latter had a short public life and did not necessarily enter into common usage, but some did. In the nineteenth century there also developed the blues ballad among African Americans in the American South, usually based on personal relationships or local events. The other general type of folk song has had no story line, but a series of lyrics that were often catchy, and perhaps included rhyming lyrics. Some might relate to work experiences, personal relationships, life and death, patriotic feelings, or children’s games context. Folk songs traditionally have not had a commercial origin, although such songs composed for a popular audience, could have, and often did, eventually enter into a folk consciousness within a few generations. We can also make a distinction between performers whose family roots were in traditional music, and those outsiders who have picked up and carried on traditional songs and styles. Born into an upper-class family, Pete Seeger, for example, has emphasized the distinction, noting that he is not a folk singer, but a singer of folk songs.
In the twentieth century, folk music took on a much wider meaning, and the traditional definitions had to be reconsidered. Traditional ballads, either narrative, blues, or broadside, as well as lyric songs continued, but were joined by nineteenth-century popular songs and then an increasing number of singer/songwriters, gospel songs, and much more that became part of the expanding, flexible understanding of folk music. Instrumental accompaniment also broadened, from acoustic guitar, banjo, fiddle, harmonica, and mandolin, to eventually include electric guitars, brass, and percussion instruments, and just about anything else. Moreover, while music from the British Isles and Africa have appeared to be the basic sources of folk music in the United States, peoples from various European countries and other parts of the world transported their music to the New World, where it has mixed with the dominant styles. An understanding of folk music in both the British Isles and the United States from the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries, therefore, will have to include a flexible, expanding definition that leads to a narrowing of the gaps between folk, popular music, and what is now labeled as world music. This understanding will become clearer as this fascinating story unfolds.
Greek Mythological Religion, Polytheism and Natural Perspective of Life
