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A personal blog. I am an: Award-winning writer. Non-profit entrepreneur. Activist. Religious professional. Foodie. Musician. All around curious soul and Renaissance man.


Saturday, November 22, 2008

Folk Music

One of the least understood terms these days is "folk music."

People play music on acoustic guitars and tambourines and they call it "folk." There is nothing folk about it. That is just acoustic music, no more, no less.

True folk music is just that--music of the people that is part of the collective songbook of everybody. They are songs you sing while playing childhood games, while people gather to shuck corn or pick cotton. People used to do that all the time before TV and radio--they whistled while they worked and hummed tunes and sang. You would, too, if you didn't have TV, radio and ipods constantly turned on around you. Summer camp is about the only place where this kind of music still exists.

I bet we would all be amazed to go back in time to see what life was like when people had to entertain themselves else ways. This is folk music--you don't know who wrote it and every town has their own verses, like campfire songs that just keep getting passed down from generation to generation, and you can improv some verses yourself when you feel like it, like we all do when singing on top of old smokey or "the littlest worm" or other stupid elementary school songs. Now we just turn on the radio or cd player and just hear some heavily produced number, but often it is the same songs over and over with the same arrangements. I love recorded music and electronic media. Love it. But think of the price we have paid: We stopped singing.

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