Anyone who has ever studied folk music knows it is both a vast and ambiguous genre of music-- in fact, "genre" may be too narrow a narrow of a term to describe folk music. It's really more of a category, and a massive one at that.
When most people think about Folk Music, the first thing usually comes to mind is usually acoustic guitar, blended with vocals and other instruments such as a banjo or violin. However, upon further investigation, it is so much more than that.
For one thing, it is far more diverse than the instrumentation described above. In fact, the instrumentation and characteristics of the folk music tends to vary based on where it was created in the world.
The word folk is an alternate word for "People," (usually in the plural sense). In this way, I think it is the easiest to define folk music-- music by people, for people.
Of course, that definition could apply to nearly any genre of music, but there are other differentiating factors that render folk music unique. For one, all folk music is storytelling. Whether through the lyrics of Bob Dylan or an instrumental banjo number, hell-- even through a hip hop street performance; all folk music is sending some time of message and telling some kind of story. In fact, for the most part at least, most most folk music tends to put lyrics (or the content thereof) at the forefront of the arrangement. An instrumental folk song, on the contrary, while not technically able to do so, may have a story that inspired the song OR, simply tells the story of the composer based merely on the textures of the piece.
The second factor that makes up folk music is the impact of the culture in which it was created, and how that impacts the story being told. Many stories have great significance to the culture and time that it was made, while in others the culture plays a major role in the sound which the music has.
With these two factors, the potential for what folk music is and could be is as wide open as ever. There is really no specific sound that is uniquely folk music-- rather, it could be anything from a street rapper in Chicago, to a violin and guitar duo in Nashville. As long the artists are writing music influenced by their culture that tells a story then any possible type of music could be folk music.
In a 1962 essay on folk music, Bruno Netti compared and contrasted folk music with that of 'art music"-- classical arrangements performed by orchestras and symphonic ensembles. He calls that music "cultivated," referring to folk music as a"simple." Netti also considers folk music to be narratives, while calling art music "functional."
These words could be considered insulting and demeaning to folk music, and even the word "art music" as the title for the music that ISN'T folk music is an insult to the art and craft that is a folk song itself. And so while there is no denying that folk music is an art in and of itself, Some of Netti's categorizations are somewhat accurate.
For example, while folk music may certainly have complex musical elements and themes, in essence it truly is a simple genre. It is music for the people, by the people, telling stories influenced by the people who live where it was made. Also, it isn't created for any other purpose besides self expression or the expression of an idea, thought or emotion. It is not created without it's individual significance readily known by it's creator.
The so-called "Cultivated" term also used by Netti to describe art music gives the impression that Folk music is some sort of loose, unstructured hiccup of unintended sound. This is absolutely false, yet a shred of truth does lie in the fact that Folk music is often created at the spur of the moment and without planning and be completed without slaving away in the studio. This is due to the nature of folk music itself.
In that way, then it is agreeable that most folk music is not "cultivated," instead, folk music is dynamic, human, and real. It brings people together, and allows people to express themselves however they please. Despite the social expectation for folk music to contain an acoustic guitar, harmonica and violin, it really could sound like anything.
Any song created to communicate or share a story in the style of the culture it was created in is a folk song, and that song is just as significant and artful as one of Beethoven's symphonies as far as I'm concerned.
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Modern Day Folk Song:
"Heart is a Drum" -Beck (2014)
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